The last of my sniffles was drawing away when my phone rang, startling me. Reaching into my bag, I nearly dropped it into the toilet when I saw it was from Cam. Stabbing the call button with my finger, I held it to my ear. "Cam?"
"Oh Melina, thank God you answered,” Cam said, relief evident in his voice. "When I got your message, I couldn't be sure."
"It's me, babe. It's me," I said, fresh tears starting to trickle down my face. "Cam, I was so worried."
"I know," he said soothingly. "Me too. Melina, are you okay?”
"I am," I said. "I grabbed the laptop and hightailed it out of town. I didn't know what else to do. Where are you?" "I'm still at school," Cam said. "The gunshot to my arm wasn't serious, and I got someone who came by to help out to clean and stitch the thing up."
I nodded to myself, sealing that part of my emotions off. Cam was safe, that was what was important at the moment. “Should I come to you?"
"No, I'm leaving the school in a few minutes," he said. "The cops have my initial statement, and they're letting us go for now. I'll come to you. Where?"
"I'm at a truck stop just off the Interstate in Belen," I said. "Think you could meet me here?"
"Yeah," Cam said. "That sounds just fine. Melina . . . I love you."
"I love you too, Cam. I'll see you in a bit."
* * *
The waitress was giving me strange looks when I saw Cam's Dodge pull into the truck stop and I set my second cup of coffee down with a rattle. "Here, keep the change," I said, tossing a ten dollar bill on the counter. "Thanks for the booth."
"No problem," the waitress said to my back as I burst out of the truck stop. Cam barely had a chance to get his door open before I grabbed him in an embrace, fresh sobs racking my body.
"Ow, ow, owowowowowowowow...." Cam groaned, pushing me away. I stepped back, confused until I saw the bright white bandage wrapped around his left arm. "You're crushing the stitches."
I backed away, horrified at the idea I'd caused him pain. Taking me by the shoulders, he hugged me this time, giving his arm safe clearance. "Melina," he whispered, holding me close while I cried again. It seemed to be the only way I could communicate my feelings. "It's okay. We'll deal with this."
I finally was able to find words again, although I wasn't too sure if I was all that intelligible. "Cam, when I saw the cop car . . .”
"You did the right thing," he said, kissing my forehead. He pushed me away gently, giving me a chance to step back. "Come on, let's go inside and talk, then we can figure out our next steps."
"Do you mind if we go somewhere else? I think the waitress in there has seen enough of me for the day."
"Sure," he said, thinking. "There's a rest stop, just a few miles south of here along the Interstate. It'll be quiet and we can have privacy. Does that sound okay to you, or do you want to get some food?"
“I can’t even think about eating anything right now,” I said. It must have been having Cam with me, but I felt more in control of myself and was pretty sure I could drive. "But something to drink would be good."
"Let me get them, you wait by the car," he said. "Is that Albertine in the backpack?"
I nodded, unslinging it from my back and trying to hold it out to him. Cam held up his hand. "No, you keep it for now. We'll talk what to do with it at the rest stop. In the meantime, let me get us something to drink.”
I waited in the warm sun, the wind slightly abrasive in that way I'd come to expect from New Mexico in the summer. I saw Cam grab two drinks and pay for them, and I realized that despite the emotions, I was very thirsty, and just a little bit hungry. I guess stress does that to you.
I went inside, grabbing a Snickers bar to add to Cam's pile. He paid without a word, handing it to me as we headed outside. "Okay, so which do you want, the cherry Coke or the root beer?"
"Root beer," I said automatically. "Goes better with the chocolate."
He handed it to me and I got in my car, following Cam to the rest stop. Getting off the interstate, I was glad to see there was at least a bit of grass around the covered picnic table area.
I took a seat on the bench, Cam joining me a minute later. "So tell me your thoughts," he said as he took a seat. "I know what I'm thinking, but to be honest, the thoughts are really dark right now. I need to know that I'm not just being vengeful."
"If you're thinking that you want to unleash Albertine on whoever did this, you and I are on similar tracks," I said, opening my bottle.
I didn't know if I was thinking with my heart or with my head, but I knew the answer. "I want to find whoever authorized this and tear them a new asshole," I said after a few moments. "There's no justification for what happened today. You even warned them off, and they still came."
It was the first time since seeing Cam get out of his truck that he smiled. This wasn't the warm smile he often gave me when he was amused or the lover's smile he would give me in bed. This was predatory, chilling. It was the smile of a wolf that has sighted its prey and was eager for the kill. I couldn't help it, I shivered, but at the same time, I knew I was grinning, too.
"Then let's do some work," he said, taking a deep swig. "We've got a lot to do, and not as much time as I'd like to do it in. There's going to be administrative stuff, dealings with the police, all of that eating into our time as well. But first, let's get home. I need to send Senpai a message."
"What's that?" I asked.
"That hell is coming, and he better pray to whatever gods he believes in that he wasn't actually involved with Pinzetti."
Chapter 31
Melina
The next day, I stayed home with Albertine while Cam went to the police station to talk to the cops. So far, none of the students had talked about his heroics, and he wanted things to stay that way. Therefore, while he knew there were pictures and sworn statements from the cop who had shot him to take into consideration, he wanted it made clear that he wasn't going to become the public face of a major tragedy.
"If they want a public face, how about Tawny Shaw? She died holding one of her students so that she wasn't riddled with bullets. Give it to the cop who shot me, who had the guts to try and do something, and then the smarts to not blow me away. Doctor the fucking coroner's report so that Pinzetti died from .40 caliber S&W rounds and not a snatched up AK-47."
For my part, I gave Jay Winters a call at the pharmacy on his office line. He picked up on the second ring. "Winters' Drugs."
"Hey Jay, it's Melina," I greeted him. "I just wanted to let you know that Cam and I are okay."
"That's good news,” Jay said. "I heard from someone he got banged up?"
"Just something on his arm, but he'll be fine. In fact, in three or four days the docs said I can take the stitches out myself. I thought that might be cool."
Jay chuckled on his end of the line. "I bet. If you want, stop by and pick up some surgical scissors if you need them." His voice grew somber, and he paused before continuing. "Melina, I hate to go demanding more of you, I'm sure you're trying to be supportive to Cam and all, but is there any way you might be able to come in tonight for a closing shift? The girl I have on, her cousin was Tawny Shaw.”
"I'll be there," I said immediately. “I’m just so thankful Cam made it out of there okay. I can’t imagine what she must be going through."
"Thank you," Jay said. "As for pay, I'll pay you time and a half for it, is that okay?"
“Whatever you think is right. I’m not doing it for the money, Jay.”
"Whatever you need, any time Melina, you just ask," he finally said. "Thank you."
"See you tonight at six," I said, not sure if I could say more without getting emotional. Hanging up the phone, I tried to call Cam, but his phone went to voicemail, so I sent him a text message telling him about the shift.
With nothing other than waiting on Albertine to do its job, I decided to get a workout in. Changing clothes, I went into the spare bedroom, where my old laptop already waited sitting on a small table. I pulled up a television
show I'd been hoping to catch up on, and climbed onto my bike, losing myself in the show. It was fun and easy to lose myself in the silly comedy, and provided a needed distraction, both from the depression of the day and the pain of the workout.
By the end of forty minutes, the length of the show minus commercials, my legs were burning and sweat dripped off my chin and nose. Congratulating myself, I took a quick shower and dressed for work.
Cam came home at just after five, which made me glad. I wanted to see him before going into the pharmacy. "Hey babe, how'd it go with the police?"
"So far, they're willing to go along with my ideas," he said. "They have agreed to not let my name out to the press, and to make the reports look like everything was done by the cops themselves. The coroner doesn't really care, as the dead bodies don't have families coming forward to claim them so far. But I know it’ll only take one of the students who saw me at the scene of Pinzetti's death for stories to start going out."
"So what should we do?" I asked. Cam came into the living room and sat down. In the time I had before going in, I decided to make sure his sutures were clean. Taking a pair of bandage scissors, I sliced off the gauze around his left arm, unwinding it carefully. There wasn't a lot of seepage, just a little bit of scabbing, and taking a look at the gauze itself, there was none of the yellowish or whitish discharge that said Cam might have picked up an infection. Still, he hadn't gone into the hospital, and the wound was ugly, with hasty stitching that would leave a scar even nastier than what I'd told Jay about. "Jesus Cam, you really should have this taken care of at the hospital. I'm sure someone will be able to do a better job than this."
"Carl did a good enough job," Cam said. "It's fine."
I blinked, surprised. "Carl? You don't mean Carl Washington?"
"Yeah," Cam said. I shook my head in exasperation. Carl Washington wasn't a doctor, he wasn't even a physician's assistant or nurse. He was a veterinarian. "He worked as a medic when he was in the Marines long ago, but the State Police wouldn't let him help out since he's not a medical professional. So when I asked if he could look me over, he was more than happy to do so."
"And probably gave you a dose of antibiotics big enough for a damn horse," I said. Carl was one both one of the pharmacy's clients and people with prescription rights. In a weird system that I still didn't understand, he could call in prescriptions for his animal patients, their owners picking them up just like normal scripts. "Cam, he stitched you about the same way he'd stitch a cow."
"It holds, and I don't care about the scar," Cam said simply.
I sighed and nodded in agreement. "I understand. Well, it isn't infected, I guess that’s one thing he did right. But at least let me put some Neosporin on it and rewrap it, that should minimize some of the scarring."
"That's fine," Cam said, holding still on the couch while I went into the back. In the medicine cabinet, I found the tube of Neosporin. I took it back out and smeared the messy goop over the stitches before rewrapping it. I used a safety pin to hold the bandage in place and gave it a once over. "It looks good."
We kissed at the door, and he gave me a smile, this one both happy and sad. I tilted my head, confused and concerned. "What is it?"
"I'm glad that I found someone so noble," he said gently, stroking my hair. "It just saddens me that I have to find it out this way." He shook his head and kissed me on the temple. "Go on, go do the right thing, and I'll be here when you get home."
I gave Cam a kiss on the cheek, thinking about his last words as I drove to the pharmacy. Was I really being noble by doing this? I mean, just a day before I was wanting to unleash the power of the most dangerous weapon outside of perhaps nuclear bombs on someone over the shooting. That didn't seem very noble to me.
Then again, why did I want to do it? Was it merely for revenge? I didn't think so. If it was just for simple revenge, my feelings would have subsided with time, or I would have been angry. Instead, I felt just as saddened and horrified as I did the day before, but because of that, I was more resolved than ever to see that Albertine was unleashed on those who had set Pinzetti on his path.
There's a time and a place for violence. Some people, with the noblest of intentions, seem to screw that up, thinking that violence is never the answer. Sadly, while that may have been the case at some point, it didn’t seem to make sense to me now. That said, there are those who just engage in violence willy-nilly. Both sides are wrong, I thought as I drove. There is a time and a place for violence. If there was anything that lent an air of nobility to that fact, it was that I was willing to unleash violence not for myself, but in the defense and with the intention of the long term good of others.
That was good enough for me, I thought, as I parked my car. Getting out, I smoothed my shirt over my chest and walked in. It was good enough for me.
Chapter 32
Cam
Two days later was the memorial service for Tawny Shaw. It was raw, being just two days after the actual incident. The students and the community needed to purge the grief and horror inside of them. While it was clear that Pinzetti had set out primarily to draw me out, an innocent bystander had lost her life.
It was fitting, I guess, that for the first time in two months, the sky was cloudy and threatened rain. Tawny worked at the school for two years more than I had, and from everything I saw, was loved by her students. Teaching special education is damned difficult, because each student has their own challenges and their own unique makeup, even more so than a normal teenager. Yet somehow Tawny handled it all with an insufficient budget and not a lot of thanks, both from the system that only wanted to make sure the students weren't an embarrassment and from families that more often than not saw their children as a burden more than a blessing.
The entire school and a lot of the community turned out for the memorial service, which had been quickly put together at the football stadium. It was the only place in town large enough for everyone to attend. Her husband, a nice guy I'd met at school events and the staff Christmas party the year before, shook hands with as many people as he could before taking his seat.
I was dressed in my most somber suit, a navy blue thing that I'd last worn for my job interview with the school board. I wished I had a black suit, but there just wasn't enough time. Looking at the stands, I saw that I wasn't the only one and that most of the crowd were dressed in a mixed array of colors ranging from browns through the blues to the blacks. Melina was wearing a black skirt and dark blue blouse that she'd picked up the day before. We both felt ragtag and unprepared, and in a lot of ways, we were.
After the invocation by the minister, the speakers began. The first, the mayor of T or C, was pretty standard. He didn't know Tawny, except perhaps as a face when he would come around the schools on visits every once in a while. His speech was heartfelt, but you could tell he had put it together from a file assembled by the School Board's HR department. Thankfully he kept it short.
After the mayor, things warmed up. The other speakers, starting with Principal Bernardino, had all known Tawny. There was a conscious effort by the speakers to avoid tear-jerking commentary and instead focus on the good times. There were glowing recollections of her as both a teacher and a woman, with only one person mentioning the sad way in which she'd died. Her speech was short, but by the end of it there wasn't a dry eye in the entire stadium, and more than a few grown men openly sobbing.
The last speaker was Jeff, Tawny's husband. His eyes were red as well, and he had to blow his nose once before taking the microphone. "Thank you all," he said firstly, clearing his throat before continuing. "Tawny would have been touched to see that she was so well-respected by so many people."
There was some light applause, which I found a bit strange, but it let Jeff pause and gather his thoughts. "As much as Tawny would have appreciated all of this, I don't think she would like it," he said next, struggling to smile. "You see, Tawny believed, and I share in this belief, that we should be remembered for the good we've done. It's not ba
d to feel sad that she's gone, I know I've spent a lot of the past few days crying. In the next few days, this city is going to be doing a lot of that. But Tawny, she wasn't one to cry. She was one who believed in celebration."
I could feel a smile coming to my face, knowing what was coming next. Tawny had been proud of her Irish heritage, and had decorated her room every year for St. Patrick's Day with an almost excessive amount flair, turning it nearly a total emerald green. And of course, I noticed her favorite music as well. I wasn't the only one smiling, either.
"Tawny loved music," Jeff said. "Whenever I would ask, she said it helped her relax, and it helped her students too. Now, I don't know if it did or not, but I do know Tawny's proud of each and every one of you. But, back to music. Of course, as you all know, Tawny's taste in music sometimes got her in trouble with the school board. I guess compared to some of the music out there nowadays it's pretty tame, but still, I'll admit she played stuff in class that wasn't exactly rated PG. She loved it, though, and I think this would have been a song she'd have wanted to be played today. So, babe, this one's for you."
Jeff waved, and someone up in the press box turned on the CD player, a slight hum coming over the speakers. I'm sure there were a few people who were at first surprised at the Dropkick Murphys blaring over the sound system, especially when the lyrics of the refrain became clear. However, I wasn't the only one singing along by the end with the final line, "I don't really give a shit, I'm going out in style!"
It ended the memorial on a high note, and I saw a lot more smiles going out than when I'd come in. Even Melina, who was exhausted after working three and a half extra shifts in the past two days, was smiling and clapping.
In Too Deep: A Romantic Suspense Novel Page 16