UNEASY PREY

by Annette Dashofy

  “Any others?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. I’m on my way. I have Janie’s number on my phone. I’m going to call and find out what’s going on in there. Then I’ll call you back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Driving one handed while dialing a phone was something Pete would have arrested a civilian for doing. Especially with the current road conditions. The quote “do as I say, not as I do” ran through his head as he located Janie Baker’s number and pressed send. The phone rang in his ear. And rang. And rang. Not good. Had the old man gunned down his so-called lady friend’s granddaughter?

  Just when Pete expected the call to go to voicemail, it connected. “Hello?”

  Not the voice he’d anticipated. “Zoe?”

  The lively ringtone seemed wildly out of place with the other sounds in the room.

  Until now, Zoe’s concussion hadn’t created hallucinations, but the scene before her was too bizarre to be real. Janie, Zoe’s childhood friend, had taken justice into her own hands and shot Trout as he lay helpless on the floor. A pool of sticky crimson immediately appeared at the site of the wound—the upper right quadrant of his abdomen. The ear-splitting blast from the revolver sent Zoe’s headache pain to a whole new level of excruciating.

  As soon as Janie fired the gun, she’d screamed. Slapped her left hand over her mouth.

  But kept a tight grip on the revolver with her right.

  The moments that followed were a blur, and not only because Zoe’s vision was fogged and her ears were ringing. She stood frozen. Torn between her instinct to jump to Trout’s aid and the sight of the gun still aimed at him.

  “What on earth did you do that for?” Zoe breathed.

  The look of shock and terror on Janie’s face didn’t mesh with what she’d done and, with her finger against the trigger, appeared ready to do again. A high-pitched keen that sounded like an injured cat rose above the dull bass-drum throb behind Zoe’s eyes. She realized the cry was coming from Janie.

  “Why did you do that?” Zoe asked once more, louder.

  Janie didn’t answer but continued the piercing wail.

  Trout let out a low moan. “Help me.”

  Zoe’s gaze darted from Janie and the gun to the old man.

  She had to stop the bleeding.

  Zoe swallowed hard and moved toward Trout.

  The crying ceased. “No.” Janie’s voice was pitched higher than usual.

  Zoe paused a moment. Then continued to inch toward him. “If I don’t treat him, he’s going to die. You don’t want that on your conscience, do you?”

  Janie caught her lower lip in her teeth and started with the high-pitched squeal again.

  Which was the moment the ringtone went off.

  Not Zoe’s phone. Wrong tone, plus hers was still being held as evidence. The sound was coming from Janie’s pocket.

  “That’s your phone.” Zoe fought to keep her voice calm and matter-of-fact.

  Janie didn’t budge. She seemed to have been turned to granite. A mewing statue with a ringing cell phone in her pocket and a very real gun in her hand.

  “It could be important.” Zoe extended a hand, palm open, to her. “If you don’t want to answer, give it to me.” What she really wanted was the gun, but she sensed Janie was more likely to give up the phone.

  Still no movement.

  Trout pressed a hand to his bloody abdomen. “Help me.”

  The whining stopped long enough for Janie to say, “No.”

  Zoe wasn’t sure if she was replying to the old man’s plea or to her request for the phone. She inched closer.

  Janie must have noticed the movement. The keening stopped, and she swung around, bringing the gun with her. Zoe stared at the muzzle and stepped back.

  The phone continued to ring. Any moment now it would stop. Voicemail would snatch the call that could be Zoe’s only hope to get Trout and her out of here. Alive. “Please, Janie. Let me have your phone.” A thought popped into her throbbing head. “It might be Marcus.”

  Janie blinked. Her eyes shifted. But the gun remained steady.

  Zoe reached her open palm toward Janie.

  She pivoted back toward Trout, leveling the revolver at him once again. He moaned and closed his eyes.

  “Janie, don’t,” Zoe said as forcefully as she dared.

  Janie plunged her left hand into her pocket, came up with the ringing phone. “Here.” She tossed it to Zoe.

  She didn’t take the time to check the ID, but quickly hit the green button, hoping it wasn’t too late. “Hello?”

  “Zoe?”

  Hearing Pete’s voice on the other end, she exhaled. “Yeah.”

  “What the hell’s going on there?”

  She longed to blurt the whole thing out. But how would Janie react? “We need an ambulance,” Zoe said quietly.

  She heard Pete’s sharp intake of breath. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  Janie started with the wailing again.

  “Good lord, what is that?” Pete asked.

  “Janie.”

  “Trout shot her? Is he holding the gun on you?”

  “No.” Zoe lowered her voice as much as she could. “Janie thinks Trout killed Oriole so she shot him. I think she’s having some kind of psychotic break, and she still has the gun. I need to convince her to let me stop his bleeding. Send the ambulance.” She moved to end the call before Janie decided to squeeze off another shot, but Pete’s voice calling her name made her bring the phone back to her ear. “Yeah?”

  “Seth is right outside. I’m on my way along with backup.”

  Tears burned her eyes. She could only pray Trout would be alive when they arrived. “Tell Seth Janie’s armed and isn’t thinking clearly.” She wanted to say she’s out of her mind, but didn’t dare. “Pete?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.” She thumbed the red button, ending the call.

  Janie didn’t react to any of the information Zoe had given over the phone. Zoe wondered if she’d even heard any of it. She acted almost catatonic.

  Except she still kept the gun trained on Trout.

  The old man had stopped moaning. His eyes remained open and focused on the gun. His skin had grown paler while his blood drenched his shirt and pooled on the floor under him.

  Zoe slid the phone into her coat pocket and slowly reached her open hand toward her friend again. “Janie, give me the gun.”

  “No,” she said, not taking her eyes off Trout.

  “Please. Give me the gun so we can sort this mess out.”

  “No. It’s too late.”

  “Okay then.” Zoe kept her arm extended but swung it to point at the old man. “I’m going over to him. I need to stop the bleeding.”

  “No.”

  She took one step toward him anyway. “If I don’t stop the bleeding, he’s gonna die. You don’t want that.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Zoe took another slow, gliding step. “Of course it matters. You don’t wanna be responsible for his death.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Janie said, forcefully this time.

  “It matters to me.” Another step. Two, maybe three more, and she’d be at his side. “You know me. I’m a paramedic.” Another step. “I have to help him. It’s who I am.” Another. “Please. Janie, let me help him.”

  Zoe looked from Trout to Janie, hoping to judge whether her friend intended to fire the gun again. Janie met her gaze, sighed, and lowered the revolver.

  Zoe spotted a winter coat—probably Trout’s—draped over the back of one of the dining room chairs. She snatched it and dropped to her knees beside him. Balled the coat up and pressed it against the wound. “Hey, Mr. Troutman.” She gave him a practiced smile. “How’re you doing?”

 
Pain filled his damp eyes. “Not so good.”

  “Stay with me. Help’s on the way.” She looked up at Janie. “I need some first-aid supplies. Didn’t your grandmother have some in the bathroom?” A few Band-Aids weren’t going to help, but if she could get Janie—and that gun—out of the way for minute or two…

  “I don’t think so.” Janie sounded exhausted. She took an unsteady step back, but that was as far as she moved.

  Zoe rested her fingers on Trout’s wrist. “Could you go look?” She stretched her left arm, freeing her watch from her coat sleeve and eyed the sweep second hand.

  Janie didn’t budge.

  The lonesome pulsating wail of sirens from far off seeped through the old house’s walls and into the periphery of Zoe’s consciousness. “Please?”

  “There’s nothing left up there. I took everything home so I could go through it.” Janie lifted the gun again. Not aiming it this time, but cradling it in her hands and looking at it as if she’d never seen the thing before.

  Trout’s pulse was rapid and faint. His skin, pale and clammy. The ambulance would be there in another minute or so, but until the scene was secure, the crew wouldn’t enter. “Janie, you need to give me the gun.”

  “No.”

  “Look, I understand,” Zoe lied. “Trout killed your grandmother.”

  He made a sound deep in his throat and wrapped his bloody fingers around Zoe’s wrist.

  She ignored his protest, pressing the coat against his belly to slow the blood loss. “He’s been lurking around ever since. And today he confronted you alone here in your grandmother’s house. Pulled a gun on you. You had no choice but to defend yourself. No one will hold you accountable. But look at him. He can’t hurt you or anyone else anymore.” She swallowed, her mouth dry. “Give me the gun so we can all get out of here.”

  “No,” Trout said, his raspy voice weak. “I didn’t.”

  The sirens were louder now. Right out front. Janie’s phone in Zoe’s pocket rang. That would be Pete. She kept pressure on the wound with one hand, reached toward Janie with the other. “Give. Me. The gun.”

  Janie continued staring at the revolver, her eyes glistening. She closed her fingers around it and clasped it to her chest. “No.”

  Trout grasped Zoe’s arm. “You’ve got it wrong.” He wheezed. “That’s her gun. I took it off her right before you got here.” Another ragged inhalation. “I didn’t kill Oriole.” He released his grip to point at Janie. “She did.”

  For a long moment, the only sound was the muffled but persistent ringtone from Zoe’s pocket. Inside her head was another matter as the old man’s words replayed and echoed. She looked from him to her friend, expecting an indignant denial. “Janie?”

  Deep creases furrowed her brow as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I never meant for any of it to happen. I was angry, but I didn’t mean to kill her.”

  The space behind Zoe’s eyes cooled. The chill seized the muscles in her neck and squeezed.

  The phone in her pocket fell silent.

  She tried to form words. Questions. But only one managed to reach her lips. “Why?”

  Janie’s laugh bordered on demented. “Money. Stupid, huh?” The anguish on her face turned to anger. “I gave up everything to care for her. I have no life. No husband. No time or energy to date. I couldn’t hold down a real job because I had to be at her beck and call. And I didn’t mind. At first. I always knew she kept money stashed in this house. But she wouldn’t tell me where. And she wouldn’t give me any of it.” She shot a glance at the table with the covered mound on top then brought her gaze back to Zoe. “I live in a dump I can’t fix up. I can’t afford new clothes. I have a son who’ll be going to college in a few years. Except he won’t, because I can’t afford tuition. I begged her to give me some of her money. I earned it. But she insisted she didn’t have any.” Janie gave the hysterical laugh again and tipped her head toward the table. “I finally found it today. Hidden in that little space where you access the plumbing for the bathtub.” She looked at Trout. “Your precious necklace was there too.”

  He closed his eyes and muttered something Zoe couldn’t make out.

  The phone started ringing again.

  Janie waved the gun toward her. “Shut that damn thing off.”

  Still keeping one hand applying pressure to Trout’s wound, Zoe raised the other as if surrendering. “I will. Don’t shoot.”

  Janie’s face relaxed. Instead of again clutching the gun to her chest though, she aimed it at Trout.

  Moving slowly, Zoe reached into her pocket to retrieve the phone. She glanced at it. Similar to her own, but slightly different. She hoped Janie would assume she was trying to find the location of the button to turn it off. In a way, she was. She held it up so Janie could watch. Gripped the phone as if powering it down. But angled it to disguise what she was really doing—swiping the answer button.

  “Pick up the damn phone,” Pete growled. His previous attempt had gone to voicemail. He stood outside his vehicle, his eyes on the house. Around him, county police were making plans to set up a perimeter. The county SERT team was on its way with their heavy equipment and snipers. Pete needed intel from Zoe and he needed it now.

  The ringback tone in his ear stopped, replaced by muffled scraping sounds.

  “Zoe?”

  “I can’t stop the bleeding.” It was Zoe’s voice, but distant. “Janie, please give me the gun so we can get him some help.”

  “No.” Janie’s voice. Even more distant. “It’s too late.”

  “It’s not. You didn’t mean to kill your grandmother. I know you didn’t. We can get help for you too.”

  What? Did Zoe just say Janie killed Oriole?

  He knew immediately what was going on. Zoe had answered the phone, but not to speak with him. To let him eavesdrop on what was transpiring inside the house. He plugged his other ear, straining to hear. But the approaching sirens drowned out the faint conversation. He ducked inside his vehicle and closed the door against the extraneous noises.

  “I don’t know,” Janie was saying when he could hear again. “Maybe I did mean it. I was so angry that night. I pleaded with her to give me some cash. I had bills. Marcus needed new clothes for school. You know what she said? She told me I needed to learn to budget better. Budget! What a joke. You need money coming in to have a budget. More money than what I make doing odd jobs and selling stuff online. But she never wanted me to get a real job. She needed me to take care of her. To drive her to the doctor and to the store.”

  There was some other noise on the line. Another voice. Male. Too weak for Pete to understand. Trout.

  “Hang on, Mr. Troutman.” Zoe’s voice. “Help is on its way.” More background sounds. “Janie, please let me get him out of here.”

  But Janie apparently ignored Zoe’s plea. “I was so fed up with her. With her demands on my time. With her insistence that I just needed to take responsibility and act like a grownup. How the hell was I supposed to act like a grownup when she treated me like a child? No. Not like a child. More like her personal slave. That’s what I told her that night. We argued.”

  The phone fell silent for a moment, and Pete looked at the screen, fearing the call had been dropped. But the screen remained active. Then another sound came through the speaker. The high-pitched whine he’d heard when he called the first time.

  After a moment, it stopped. “We were in the hallway by the basement door.” Janie’s voice again, but more anguished than angry. “I was going through that chest of drawers, hoping to find the stash. Gram caught me. Called me a spoiled, money-hungry brat. Can you imagine? I got so mad, I grabbed her. We struggled. But—I don’t remember her falling. I guess I shoved her. Or she tried to pull away from me. I don’t know. I just remember a scream. And then she was at the bottom of the steps. Dead. I thought.”

  “Mr. Troutman? Mr. Troutman?” Z
oe’s voice had that urgent tone Pete had heard before. The old man was going to die if they didn’t act. Now.

  Pete muted the phone and stepped out of his vehicle. Baronick had arrived and was huddled with Seth, Nate, and the county officers. Pete caught his attention and waved him over. “Nate. Seth. You too,” he called.

  “SERT’s five minutes out,” Baronick said.

  Pete glanced toward the house. “We don’t have five minutes.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Zoe felt for a pulse. It was there, but getting fainter and faster by the moment. “Stay with me, Mr. Troutman.” His eyes had closed. She looked up at Janie, who had started pacing, the gun no longer aimed, but still firmly clenched in her hand. “You need to put the gun down so we can get help in here.” Zoe wasn’t coaxing or pleading anymore. That hadn’t worked, and the old man was paying the price.

  Janie stopped and eyed the weapon as if she didn’t realize she still held it.

  But she didn’t put it down. “No. They’re gonna want to send me to the electric chair for killing my grandmother.”

  Zoe didn’t think now was the time to point out that Pennsylvania used lethal injection. “No, they won’t. There’re extenuating circumstances. A good lawyer will make a case for temporary insanity. But you have to put the gun down. Now.”

  Janie continued to stare at the revolver in her hands, appearing to consider her options.

  From the corner of her eye, Zoe spotted movement in the entryway. Janie didn’t seem to notice Pete and Seth steal up to the dining-room door—until a floorboard creaked.

  She spun toward them, gun in hand. Pete and Seth both raised their sidearms.

  “No,” Zoe cried.

  Everyone froze as if time stopped for a moment. Pete met Zoe’s gaze, and she noticed his eyes shift to take in the situation. She could only imagine what he was seeing and thinking. She had blood up to her elbows. Trout’s blood. The old man’s color had grown gray, his respirations shallow.

  Then Janie moved. She lifted the muzzle of the revolver to under her chin.

  “No,” Zoe said again. “Janie, don’t.”