by Sharon Sala
The trucker climbed in, then pulled her up. He was tearing off his pants and climbing into the sleep cab as she slid into the seat. Mona took one look at the limp flesh hanging between his legs, yanked the keys from the ignition, and jumped out of the truck.
She hit the ground with a thump, felt the heel of one pump give as she landed, but was too full of adrenaline to care. She hauled back her arm and flung the ring full of keys as far out into the grassy pasture as they would go. She had one glimpse of the sunlight on metal as they spiraled out of sight, and then she began to run.
The trucker was pulling up his pants and cursing as he practically fell out of the truck, uncertain what to follow, the bitch or the path of his keys. But she was already in the car and driving away before he had his pants zipped, which left his keys. He headed for the pasture, cursing with every step.
Mona vaguely remembered his warning about not driving too fast, but she didn’t have the time to waste. She stomped the accelerator to the floor once again and held on for a very rough ride, unaware of the fate that awaited her in Dallas.
Hours later, as she hit the city limits, she realized she had come back too late. The radio stations were full of the news. Dallas’s favorite son had withdrawn from the presidential race. Her despair was cut short by the horror of the news that followed.
There was a warrant out for her arrest. According to the news, her own son had been the one to turn her in. Hurt beyond belief, an instinct for self-preservation led her to the cabin on Lake Texoma. She hadn’t been there in years, but it would be a good place to hide while she figured out what to do next. She wasn’t going into hiding as much as she was retreating to lick her wounds.
All the way through the city, she kept imagining everyone who passed her would know who she was. Fear kept her moving, even though the car was low on gas. She’d missed the turn to the cabin and had to retrace her steps. By the time she pulled up, the gauge was registering Empty.
She got out, her legs shaking, her stomach rumbling from hunger. But it couldn’t matter. She would think about that later on. All she wanted was a bed and a shower, and if the utilities weren’t on, she’d bathe in the lake.
It didn’t occur to her until she turned the knob that the door would be locked. She started to cry, pounding on the door in frustration. It was the last straw. As she pounded, something fell from the ledge above her head, landing at her feet with a clink. A key. Of course! The spare key.
She opened the door and slipped inside, expecting almost anything except what she found. Instead of furniture covered in drop cloths and a layer of dust, everything was spotless, and if her eyes didn’t deceive her, it was new, certainly newer than when she’d been there last.
She turned on a light and then walked through the rooms, looking in closets and poking through drawers. They were full, as if someone were living here. At the thought, she spun and raced toward the door, locking it firmly and then sliding the dead bolt, just in case. It seemed obvious that Bobby Lee had rented the thing out and hadn’t told her. This was a fine mess. Someone could come back at any time, and then she would be found out. This wouldn’t do.
But she was so tired and so filthy. The least she could do was shower and maybe find a change of clothes. She could eat, leave some money behind for the food that she took, and then get to the lake bait shop for gas before it closed. She was too tired to drive, but it didn’t look as if she would have a choice.
Frantic, she raced into the bath and stripped off her clothes. Minutes later, she came out of the shower, dripping water and heading for the bedroom in search of something clean.
The first bedroom had furniture, but the closets were empty. But when she went into the other, she knew she’d hit the jackpot. Makeup was on the dresser, as if the woman who lived here had just laid it down and walked out of the house. The closet was full of dresses. Mona shuffled through them in haste, searching for something comfortable, but to her surprise, she couldn’t find anything but lingerie and evening gowns. It didn’t make sense. These weren’t the types of clothes she would have expected a lake dweller to wear. She closed the door and headed for the armoire, hoping she might find some jeans or slacks inside.
She flung back the doors and then screamed before she realized what she was seeing. At first glance it appeared she’d uncovered a stash of decapitated heads, and then she cursed herself for panicking when she looked again and saw it was nothing more than some long blond wigs on hair stylist’s dummies.
“Heavens,” she muttered, as she fingered several strands. “Talk about trashy. All these wigs, and not one of them of good quality.”
She continued to search and was about to go back to the closet for another look when she found a pair of jeans and a shirt in the last drawer down.
“Thank goodness,” she muttered, and yanked them out, then began to put them on. To her surprise, they actually fit. The waist of the jeans was a little large, but the leg length was almost perfect. The shirtsleeves came all the way to her wrists, which was uncommon, considering her height.
It wasn’t until she crammed her hands in the pockets and pulled out a handful of receipts that she realized her surprises weren’t quite over. Curious, she sat on the edge of the bed and began to unfold them. One after the other, she read in silence. But the longer she sat there, the greater her understanding grew.
She looked up, her gaze centering on the clothes hanging in the closet, the wigs sitting in the armoire on faceless plastic heads, then back down at the receipts in her hand. She thought of the gun in the trunk of her car. The police were looking for her for murder because her son had turned her in. She thought back to the vacation he’d sent her on and the makeover he’d insisted she have. Her stomach turned. She needed to throw up, but there was nothing in her stomach to regurgitate. She dropped her head between her knees and remembered the day he was born. All that blood. All that pain. All those sleepless days and nights of his childhood—and it had come to this.
“Oh, God… oh, dear God, what have I done?”
After a while, she crawled on top of the covers and rolled herself up in a ball. Whatever happened to her was going to have to wait until tomorrow. She was too tired to do anything but sleep.
***
It was all over the national news. A warrant had been issued for the arrest of Mona Wakefield, Senator Bobby Lee Wakefield’s mother.
Ariel Simmons was sitting in a Motel 6 when she heard the news and started to laugh. Thank God it was over. But the longer she laughed, the worse she felt. Before long, she was crying. It wasn’t over. It would never be over. Her reputation was ruined, despite no longer being a murder suspect. The people who came to hear her preach were few and far between, old people with little to no money to donate to her ministry. It didn’t pay to preach when the only people who came just wanted to hear the Word of God. It was the ones who thought they could buy their way into heaven who had been paying her bills.
With their absence, she was reduced to places like this, rather than the opulence to which she’d been accustomed. Finally, she wiped her eyes and went to the bathroom to wash her face. This was the last stop on her tour, not that it mattered. When tonight was over, she’d been giving some thought to moving south—maybe Florida—someplace where she could get lost in the crowds and create a new world, even a new identity for herself. If she sold her home in Dallas and the rest of her holdings, she would have enough to live on comfortably for the rest of her life.
The more she considered it, the better it sounded. After all, as long as there was life, anything was possible.
***
It was dark when the shot came through the window near the chair where China was sitting. One second she was screaming and the next thing she knew she was on the floor and Ben was on top of her, telling her to stop. She sucked in a breath and clung to him in horror as he ran his hands across her body in frantic sweeps.
“Tell me you’re all right. Tell me it missed you.”
“I’m fi
ne,” China said, and stifled the need to shriek.
“God,” Ben groaned, and then pushed her up between the sofa and the wall. “No matter what you hear, don’t move, do you hear me?”
“Ben! Bennie! Are you all right?”
Ben could hear his mother’s footsteps as she started down the hall.
“Mother! Get back! Get down on the floor and stay there until I tell you it’s okay.”
He could hear her starting to cry, but she did what she was told, although her need to know her loved ones were all right outweighed the prudence of keeping silent.
“Bennie, are you and China all right? What about Dave? He’s outside, isn’t he? Oh, dear God, what if he’s—”
“Don’t either of you move. I’ve got to go.”
Seconds later, China watched him crawling belly-fashion across the floor and then into the kitchen, where the lights were out. She knew he was going out to danger. All she could do was pray.
***
It was impossible for the shooter to know if the shot had connected. One second the girl had been right in the sights and the next she was gone. One thing was certain, he needed to finish the job.
He started running in a crouch, circling the ranch house, searching for a way to enter, when all the lights in the house went out. A silent curse slid through his mind. This raid was a bust. He’d taken a shot at the woman. Maybe he’d gotten lucky.
Something rustled in the grass off to his left. He pictured the cop inside the house and thought of the one he’d left unconscious out near the barn. What if there were more? He couldn’t afford to take a chance.
Within minutes, he was gone.
Ben found Dave’s limp body just as he heard the sound of a motorcycle starting somewhere toward the highway. The shooter was getting away.
Dave moaned, and it was the prettiest sound Ben could have heard.
“Dave, buddy, where do you hurt?”
“My head. I think I hurt my head. What happened?”
“I’ll explain later, but I need to get you in the house.”
Within the hour, the ranch was crawling with the police, from Christopher Scott, the Navarro County Sheriff and every deputy he could raise, to part of the homicide division of the Dallas P.D. Everyone knew why it had happened, but the shooter was gone. The good news was that China Brown was still alive.
Sheriff Scott was waiting for Ben as he came up from the barn.
“Your shooter is gone, Ben. We found tracks, also where he stashed his bike, but we need daylight for anything else.”
“I know, Chris, and thanks for coming out,” Ben said.
“Just doing my job,” he said. “Although I don’t relish something this ugly happening on my watch, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’ll leave a man on guard up around the highway, although I don’t expect another attempt tonight.”
“Thanks. And thanks for getting an ambulance out here so quick for Dave.”
“He’s probably got a concussion, but he’ll be all right,” Scott said. “Did Mattie go with him?”
Ben nodded, thinking of China alone in the house. “I’d better go check on China. The last few months have been pretty hard on her. This didn’t help.”
“Anything I can do, don’t hesitate to call,” Scott said, and then he was gone.
A few minutes later, there was nothing left to indicate the turmoil they’d just been through but a few drops of Dave’s blood on the front porch and a yard full of tracks. A couple of the deputies had tacked a piece of plywood over the broken window. Something that would be dealt with tomorrow. For now, Ben needed to hold China in his arms and reassure himself she was still in one piece. He couldn’t get past the image of her smiling at him as she sat down in her chair, and then the glass shattering all around her as she started to scream.
He entered the house calling her name.
She came out of the kitchen, carrying a knife. Shock still lingered in the nervousness of her expression. Ben locked the door behind him and then took away the knife.
“Here, honey, let me have that, okay?”
She handed it over without a word.
Ben smoothed the hair away from her face, wishing he could make that look in her eyes disappear as easily.
“The sheriff left a deputy on guard, but the shooter is long gone.”
“It’s not over. It will never be over until I’m dead.”
“Don’t say that,” he said, and then picked her up and held her close. “Don’t ever say that again.”
She sighed. It seemed inevitable. No matter how hard the good guys tried, the bad boys would win in the end.
“I don’t want to die,” she said. “Not anymore. I haven’t wanted to for a long, long time.”
“And I don’t want you to, either, honey. I won’t let that happen. I promised. Remember?”
She cried herself to sleep in his arms, and then Ben held her while she slept, with her head stretched across his lap and one hand clutching the fabric of his jeans. He sat propped against the headboard with one hand on the middle of her back and the other beside his gun. Tears ran freely down the middle of his cheeks as he waited for dawn. He was scared. As scared as he’d ever been in his life. If something didn’t happen soon in their favor, it was going to be damned hard keeping that promise he’d made.
***
It was midmorning by the time Ben and China got to Commerce Street. Ben’s stomach was in knots as he pulled into the parking lot of the Dallas P.D. He needed to check in with his captain, apprise him of everything that had happened last night and try to figure out where to go from there.
“Come on, honey. Maybe this won’t take too long, and then we’ll go check on Dave. Mother said he was okay, but I want to see for myself.”
China hated herself for the gut-wrenching fear of getting out of Ben’s car, but she was so tired of hiding that she could almost wish it was over, regardless of the outcome. She clung to Ben’s hand as he hurried her inside. Once there, she began to relax. Everywhere she looked she saw uniforms and badges and officers with guns. Safe. In here, she was safe.
He introduced her to Captain Floyd, who promptly decided she was too thin and needed to eat. He set her in his own office with a Coke and a box of doughnut holes.
“The chocolate-covered ones are the best,” he said, and handed her the remote to his TV. “Why don’t you kick back, watch a little TV, have yourself a snack? If you get tired, stretch out on my couch. We’ll take our meeting to the room across the hall.”
“Thank you for being so kind,” she said, and then smiled.
At that point Floyd was lost. He cleared his throat gruffly and then frowned.
“Yes… well, come on, English. Let’s get this show on the road. I want to know everything that happened last night, and I want a full report from the Navarro Sheriff’s office ASAP.”
Ben winked at China and then followed his boss across the hall, where the task force had assembled for an update. The main focus was on Mona Wakefield. She was still missing, and China had been shot at last night. The nails were getting tighter in Mona’s coffin.
China set the pastry aside, but she kept her drink, occasionally sipping as she flipped through the channels for something to watch.
Time passed and she dozed. The program changed, and a replay of Senator Wakefield’s press conference began to air. In the back of her mind, she heard what was happening but couldn’t bring herself to care until she heard a reporter shout over the background noise, trying to be heard.
“Bobby Lee… Bobby Lee… are you going to—”
She came up on her feet, her eyes wide and filled with fear, her heart pounding so hard she could scarcely breathe. Instinctively, she took a step backward and splayed her hands over her belly, just as she had that night on the South Side of Dallas.
“No!” she screamed. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
She might as well have screamed “Fire,” because every cop
on the floor, including Ben, was in the office with their guns drawn before she woke all the way up.
It was obvious to them all that no one was in sight, and they were ready to attribute it to a bad dream when she started to cry.
“Oh, my God, oh, my God.” She covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t remember until now. Oh Lord, all this time and I didn’t remember.”
“What?” Ben said, and took her hands away from her face. “What didn’t you remember?”
“The photographer. He yelled out at that woman. When she heard him, she turned. The flash started going off on his camera. She was in such a rage. She pulled a gun and started shooting. Then she shot me. But I didn’t remember until just now that Finelli called her by name.”
“What, honey? You mean you actually heard him call her Mona?”
“No,” she moaned. “He yelled, ‘Bobby Lee.’ Three times and real loud. That’s when the woman got mad. That’s when she pulled the gun.”
A moment of stunned silence passed over them, and then everyone started talking at once. China dropped back onto the sofa, and Ben followed her. He took her by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eye.
“Are you telling us that Finelli called that woman Bobby Lee?”
“Yes.”
He looked up at his captain. “Well?”
Floyd stared, struggling with the implications of what she’d just said, and then he yelled, “Avery! Somebody get Matt Avery.”
When a young officer appeared, China recognized him as the one who’d helped her compile the composite of the killer’s face.
“Avery, if you have a picture of someone, can you scan it into your program and then make the changes you normally do?”
“Yes, sir.”
Floyd yelled again. “Somebody get him a head shot of our beloved senator. I want to see what comes out of this pot.”