Emergency Reunion

by Sandra Orchard

  Visibly shaking, she massaged her chafed wrist, and Cole had to summon every ounce of self-control not to drag her into his arms as firefighters descended on the area. He clasped Sherri’s arm and steered her through the maze of tables.

  “We’ve got to get them out of here,” he said to Zeke, who was demanding answers from their sputtering suspect. Sherri’s partner snatched up the ransacked trauma bag and hurried after them.

  “There was a girl, about fifteen, and at least three teen boys,” Sherri relayed breathlessly, one hand swiping at the sprinkler water dousing her face, the other clutching her side. “I can describe two of them. Identify them if the mall’s security cameras picked them up.”

  “First let’s worry about getting you safely outside.” After the horrors she’d just escaped, he couldn’t believe she was thinking straight, let alone capable of identifying their suspects.

  “Those punks knew what they were doing,” Dan groused, stalking alongside them toward the exit. “The one kid almost killed me with an ether-saturated cloth or something. I was out before I knew what hit me.”

  “Between the surveillance tapes and your testimony and any prints they left on that bag of yours, we’ll nail these guys.”

  “You won’t get any prints,” Dan said. “They were wearing surgical gloves. That’s what tipped me off. That and the fact the kid who’d supposedly had the allergic reaction was clearly getting enough air.”

  The sheriff met them at the exit. “Get them in the ambulance and pull it to the edge of the cordoned-off area.”

  Crowds lined the yellow tape, morbidly watching them make their way to the ambulance. Cole scanned the faces, wondering if Sherri’s stalker was among them, or if Ted had been behind today’s attack.

  The sheriff’s gaze skittered over Sherri’s bloodied face. “The sooner you and your partner can ID your assailants on the security footage, the sooner we can lock them up. Do you think you can—” he motioned awkwardly at her nose “—treat that on site?”

  “I can take care of her.” Dan pressed a key ring into Cole’s hand. “You drive us where you need us.”

  Cole helped Sherri into the back of their rig and reluctantly relinquished her to Dan’s care.

  Zeke secured Ted to the gurney of a second ambulance and flagged Cole. “We need to talk.”

  Cole yanked open the driver’s door to move the ambulance closer to the command station. “Can you get another deputy to accompany our suspect to the hospital? We need to stick around to review surveillance tapes.”

  “I think I’d better accompany him. Ted says he took pics of the suspects on his phone. I radioed the deputies inside to look for it.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Maybe.” Zeke’s voice dropped. “He says he has other photos at home that we might want Sherri to look at.”

  A disturbing feeling slithered through Cole’s chest at the memory of the guy’s too intense interest in the inside of Sherri’s apartment. “What kind of photos?”

  “He says he’s been ‘watching out for her’—” Zeke air-quoted “—for a while and started taking photos after your kid brother assaulted her.”

  Cole gritted his teeth at how much pleasure Zeke clearly took in bringing up that connection. Cole jammed the keys into the ignition, ticked with himself for not pressing Ted harder about what he’d been doing outside Sherri’s apartment building. “Okay. After we’re done here, we’ll check in with you at the hospital.”

  “Yeah, sounds like Ted could be there awhile. He suffered a few nasty blows to the head and kidneys.”

  Cole parked the ambulance next to the command post. He hoped by now they had tapped into the surveillance cameras. They hadn’t all been blacked out, so one of the cameras at the exits should’ve caught the kids running. “How are you doing?” he called back to Sherri, glancing in the rearview mirror.

  She held an icepack against her nose. “Dan doesn’t think it’s broken.”

  “That’s a relief.” Cole climbed into the back with them.

  “I’m more concerned about internals.” Serious concern shadowed Dan’s eyes. “The girl in the group was vicious, stomped on her abdomen.”

  Cole’s blood pressure rocketed back through the roof. “Should we go straight to the hospital?” He searched Sherri’s eyes. “I don’t want to jeopardize your health.”

  She smiled her appreciation. “I’m tender and bruised, but I think that’s the extent of it. I’ll feel better if I can take care of the IDs now.”

  “Okay.” Cole didn’t hesitate to wrap an arm around her waist to help her out of the back of the ambulance and into the massive truck they used as a mobile command post.

  She leaned into his side and whispered, “Thank you for finding us. I knew you would.” At her unreserved confidence, his heart swelled. He wasn’t sure he deserved it, but it felt amazing.

  The technician sat in front of a blank security monitor “Afraid we have no video record of the attack. But...” The technician pressed the rewind button for the blacked-out screen of the food court camera and hit pause when an image appeared. “We got a pic of the perpetrator.”

  The image of a kid holding up a spray can, his face obscured by a ball cap, filled the screen.

  “His timing couldn’t have been better,” the technician observed. “Security officers were too busy responding to the emergency to pay attention to the monitors.”

  “You’ve got nothing on him before this? Walking toward the camera?” Cole asked.

  “Nope.” The technician rewound the feed in slow motion. “The kid knew what he was doing. See that? He ducked in from underneath the camera.”

  “I don’t recognize the ball cap,” Sherri said. “Have you looked at the feed on the north entrance? They ran that way after everyone else had evacuated.”

  The tech pulled up that camera’s feed and slowly rewound it.

  “There!” Sherri pointed to a group of kids on the screen. “That’s got to be them. Three guys and a girl and another kid with a backpack. I forgot about him. He was yelling at them to hurry up.”

  “He looks like he could be our spray painter.” The tech backed up the feed to where the group first appeared mere seconds after the last of the crowd of shoppers disappeared out the exit. “They never look at the camera. It’s going to be next to impossible to get an ID on them. If they’re all minors we won’t be able to televise this on the evening news.”

  “Is there a camera between this view and the food court?”

  “No. That’s all we got.”

  Cole hated the deflated look that crossed Sherri’s face. “Don’t worry. There are lots more here than it seems. Three of the guys are wearing high tops and the girl’s shoes look unique. I want you to pull every detail you can off these tapes and get deputies on the pavement checking news cameras and anyone else who might’ve filmed people pouring out of that entrance. Someone had to get a picture of their faces.”

  Sherri began to describe one of the kids in minute detail, right down to his pug nose and icy-blue eyes.

  The sheriff stepped into the command post. “We just got word that a couple of teens cleaned out shelves of painkillers and cold medicine in the pharmacy in the confusion.”

  “Any narcotics taken?”

  “No. Thankfully, the pharmacist caged the good drugs before evacuating.” The sheriff ran his finger down the list of cameras mall security provided. “Pull up camera twelve.”

  The tech brought it up on the screen and paused the rewinding feed when the looters appeared.

  “You recognize those two?” the sheriff asked Sherri.

  “No. I never saw them.”

  The sheriff clucked. “Okay, the two incidents might not be connected. These boys could just be opportunists. The others obviously had put a lot of planning into the attack.”

  “Seems like overkill for what few narcotics they’d have pulled out of our trauma bag,” Dan spoke up. “Even the morphine vials probably don’t have a street value of muc
h more than ten bucks each.”

  The sheriff nodded and focused on Sherri. “That’s why we’re assuming you were the target.”

  Sherri blanched as if the idea hadn’t occurred to her. She spun toward Dan, apology filling her eyes. “This is my fault.”

  Cole wrapped an arm around her shoulder, curling it until she was snug against his chest. He ignored the sheriff’s narrowed gaze. If he fired him for inappropriate conduct, it was a price he’d willingly pay if it meant making this day a fraction easier on Sherri.

  “This isn’t your fault,” he said softly.

  But there was no doubt she had been the target.

  * * *

  “I don’t know, Cole.” She crawled into the back of the ambulance and hugged her knees. “I thought being a paramedic was what God wanted me to do. Why He let me live. Why Luke made me promise not to quit.” She rocked herself back and forth, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I...I forced myself to shut out the fears. To shrug off the pranks to prove I wouldn’t let them stop me from helping people the way God wanted.” She swiped at her running nose, blinked back the sting of tears. “Only now other people are getting hurt and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  Cole hunkered down beside her on the floor of the ambulance and wrapped her in his arms. “Oh, sweetheart, it seems to me the gift Luke saw in you was being yourself, a person who cares deeply for others. A person who is more concerned about allaying the fears of a frightened child than being hit by sparks from the firefighters working to free her legs. Your empathy is your gift.” He lifted her chin and looked at her as though he really believed what he was saying. As though he really believed in her. “I never forgot how sweetly you treated my hand and listened to my woes the day I learned my parents were divorcing.”

  “But I can’t let myself feel, and do my job. It’s too overwhelming.” She shook her head. “Not that it’ll matter anymore. They’ll probably never let me come back to work.”

  “Why? Because a stalker is targeting you?”

  “Because...” The tears started to fall. She swiped at her eyes, blinked to try and stop them. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. “Because I can’t pretend I’m not falling apart anymore!”

  He tucked her head under his chin, and his husky voice rumbled through her. “No matter how noble your reasons for hiding your emotions, I don’t think that’s what God ever intended. Remember what He told the Apostle Paul? His power is made perfect in weakness.” Cole laid his cheek against the top of her head, but his comforting touch, his sweet words made her cry all the more.

  “Shh,” Cole soothed. “You’ve been afraid to show your weakness, but God wants to be your strength.” He tightened his hold. “Sometimes the greatest gift you can give to someone is to let them see your vulnerability.”

  She drew in a ragged breath.

  Cole stroked her back comfortingly. “Your family, your friends, your colleagues would all want to help you...if you’d let them in.”

  She shook her head. “People shy away from messed-up people. They don’t want to be burdened. My parents would just coddle me and wrap me in cotton batting if they could, but the rest of the family wouldn’t understand. They’re all cops and firefighters, and none of them have trouble coping with the job. I’d be a disappointment to the Steele name.”

  Cole actually had the nerve to chuckle. Here she was baring her soul to him and he was laughing at her! She tried to pull out of his arms, but he refused to give ground. “Trust me, Sherri. We don’t cope as well as you think. That’s why too many officers drink too much or end up divorced. The ones who talk about whatever’s eating at them and get support fare much better. I suspect your relatives fall into that category, because they have each other. Have you ever asked your cousin Jake if he had nightmares after losing his wife?”

  “I couldn’t do that.” She pushed away from him. “Dredge up old grief. He has a new wife now.”

  “Yeah, and she’s pregnant, and he lost his first wife soon after childbirth. Don’t you think that might be preying on his mind?”

  She gulped. “Okay, I get it. I know I’m not the only one with problems. But Jake certainly doesn’t need to worry about my problems on top of his own.”

  “But don’t you see?” Her heart melted at the earnestness in his gaze, the tenderness in his voice. “He does anyway. Because that’s what families do—share each other’s burdens. It’s what God wants us to do.”

  His I’m making it my problem declaration his first day on the job, whispered through her mind. Did he consider her family?

  The sheriff appeared at the back of the truck and held up a baggie containing a key ring. “These belong to you?”

  “Yes.” Sherri stepped away from Cole and stuffed the keys in her pocket. “They must have fallen out when that creep searched me for drugs. Thank goodness he didn’t take them.” She shivered at the thought of her attackers waiting for her in her apartment.

  “We haven’t found any more bombs,” the sheriff told Cole, his tone short. “But we found fingerprints on the one that didn’t detonate that might give us a lead. I’ve sent a deputy over to Joe Martello’s to bring him in for questioning.”

  “What?” Dan stepped up beside the sheriff and turned a disgusted glare her way. “You think Joe did this to you?”

  Sherri slanted a panicked glance at Cole. She’d specifically begged him to make sure Joe wouldn’t know.

  “No, I think he did,” Cole said. “He’s the only suspect with substantial motive.”

  Dan snorted. “You don’t know him at all. He’s turned his life around thanks to Sherri snitching on him. He’s not going to throw that all away. For what? Revenge?” Dan waved off Cole’s attempt to argue. “Forget it. Let’s get Sherri to the hospital, and then I got to get the ambulance restocked for the next shift.”

  Sherri tensed at the thought of what else Dan was likely in a hurry to do—talk to Joe. Whether he was behind the attacks or not, finding out they suspected him would only make him mad and make everything ten times worse.

  TWELVE

  Cole accompanied Sherri to the hospital to ensure whoever was after her didn’t get to her there.

  Two hours later, the ER doc gave her permission to go home, confirming that she’d suffered no serious internal injuries. “But you’ll have someone with you?”

  “Yes,” she conceded, slanting Cole a sheepish glance, since it had taken a bit of arm-twisting to convince her to stay at her parents’. Of course, given her condition, Cole wouldn’t be surprised if her father locked her in for good.

  Cole escorted her to where Zeke was keeping an eye out for the deputy dropping off their cruiser, since they’d both ridden to the hospital in ambulances. “How are you really doing?” he whispered close to her ear. Between doctor exams and tests and his keeping tabs on the investigation status, they hadn’t had another opportunity to talk. He’d noticed the mask slip back into place as soon as Dan had given him an earful about their suspicions of Joe.

  “Better. I’m going to think about what you said. Is Ted okay? I want to thank him for coming to my rescue again.”

  “That will have to wait. They’re keeping him in for observation. But—” Cole produced a key from his pocket “—he was so eager to help us identify your attackers that he handed over his house key so I can peruse the photos he took of you.”

  She jolted to an abrupt stop. “He took pictures of me?”

  Cole grimaced. “That’s what he said. And to be honest, I have no idea how creepy that really is until I see them. He figures we might see some familiar faces in the background.”

  “Then I should come.” She squared her shoulders and jutted her chin, looking ready to argue if he said no.

  Zeke joined them. “Sounds like a good idea. C’mon, our ride’s here.”

  Cole reluctantly conceded that it would be expedient to let her come along.

  Ted’s second-story apartment was only two blocks from Sherri’s, but in a markedly more finan
cially depressed neighborhood. Noisy air conditioners dangled precariously from every third window in the building. There was no front-door security, and the stairwells reeked of stale beer. The arrival of a sheriff’s car wouldn’t surprise anyone here.

  In contrast, the man’s apartment was neat and pleasant smelling.

  “I feel as if we’re invading his privacy coming in without him,” Sherri whispered, not straying far from the front door.

  “Get over it.” Zeke strutted in like he owned the place. “He said we could. Insisted he didn’t think we should wait until he was out of the hospital.” Zeke made a beeline down the hall, glancing in each room as he went. Ted had said his pictures were in the second bedroom, which he used as an office, some printed, some only on his computer.

  “Whoa.” Zeke paused outside the room and shot Cole a maybe-you-don’t-want-to-bring-her-in-here look.

  “What is it?” Sherri asked.

  “Wait here a sec.” Cole hurried to Zeke’s side and all but choked at the hundreds of photographs of Sherri that papered the wall—a whole lot more than ten days’ worth. “The guy’s obsessed with her,” Cole whispered. He’d already known it in his gut, but he hadn’t had a clue just how obsessed.

  “Downright certifiable, I’d say.”

  Cole stepped fully into the room and studied the photos. Ones of her leaving the ambulance base. Ones of her going into the coffee shop. Except they looked like they could date back a couple of years—coming out of the movie theater, out of church, out jogging on the river trail. Then there were time-stamped ones, more recent. Ones of Sherri working calls, others off duty. Each picture captured other people in the background and the odd person who appeared to be watching her. Cole sucked in a sharp breath. Unfortunately, in at least three, that odd person was his brother, Eddie.

  Sherri’s gasp snapped Cole’s attention back to the bedroom door. She stood on the threshold, ashen and trembling.