If only that had calmed Flynne’s jitters. Morgan gave her a look—one Erika translated to mean, “Give us a minute.”
“I’m just going to run and use the restroom before we go. We should hurry, though.”
The guest bathroom, with its Carrara marble and automatic faucets, still did little to keep her wanting to hang around. You can only drool over stuff you’ll never own while your friends drool over themselves for so— That thought stopped her short. Friends. Odd that the person who had shot her in the butt—twice, even—could ever be called a friend.
A grin stared back at her in the mirror. “I’m gonna claim Stockholm and get her all messed up. It’s what friends do.”
“Are you done in there? We’ve got to go! I just saw him pass again. Now’s the time!”
The irony of her complaining about Flynne delaying departure and Flynne telling her to get a move on didn’t escape Erika’s notice. She presented herself at the front door and shook her head at the zip ties. “I know how to get out of duct tape better. Those videos we watched should be easy enough if we both have to run. Let’s go with that—but we’ll do it when we get me in the car. Easier.”
“Ooooh! Supes smarticle.”
Oh, please.
Morgan led her to the new car, opened the door for her, and pointed for her to lie down. As planned, she slipped out the other side when he made a show of putting duffel bags inside. Erika wove through bushes and behind a small tree and came around to the side-yard entrance where Flynne waited with Morgan’s car already running. “Let’s get this taping done and this show on the road. I’m about to get fired, and life is oh, so good!”
That’s the most normal thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.
Flynne settled into her seat, snapped the seatbelt in place, blasted the AC, cracked windows for “fresh air”—an exercise in how to make an AC less effective—and checked every mirror. “We’re good for take offs!”
By the third turn, Erika was lost already. Flynne spent every second muttering in Flynne-speak about the “obvies” way Brent would do this, or the “supes stupes” thing she just did. Had Erika’s mouth not been stuffed with a clean sock, she would have screamed and begged for it all to stop. Instead, she squeezed her eyes as tight as possible and tried to make her ears plug.
Fifteen minutes passed before Flynne spoke directly to her. “I see the Eads Bridge! We’re almost there. I think we did it!”
Half a minute passed before she added, “It’s supes congestie down here! The hour got all rushed.”
Did you really just—?
A scream—Flynne’s scream—killed that question. “What?” It came out, “Wwmmwph” but Erika tried again.
“Hang on! He’s coming for us!”
Who?
The car swerved and jolted as it hit something. Erika tried to sit up, but Flynne floored it, and the backseat seemed to take on a mind of its own as it bounced her around like a rubber ball before landing her on the floor. What is going on?
“He’s here!”
Who?
“Brace yourself!”
Instead of impact from the rear, Erika felt the front of the car jolt a bit as it shot forward. Did you just hit—?
“Noooooooo!”
Another jolt. A shudder. Silence.
Impact came hard and jarring. Erika landed on the inside roof of the car, battered, disoriented, confused. Her body refused to do anything. Panic welled up in her throat, her eyes, her pounding chest. But Erika only stared out in horror as water trickled in through the cracks in the window.
The water stared back at her—challenging her. Panic held Flynne captive. Tears blurred her vision, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the image of muddy water pushing its way in. God, I’ll be one of your peeps if you just make it all go away.
She pried one eye open, and water still streamed over the crack in the window. I’m not speaking to you again.
A noise behind her reminded Flynne that she wasn’t alone. Erika! She’s, like, all tied up and stuffs.
Flynne fumbled for the seatbelt and managed to disengage. Her head connected with the soggy roof the moment she realized she should have held out her hand to soften impact. “Ooof!”
Instinct said to try to roll the windows down before the electronic mechanism short-circuited. Panic said she’d electrocute them both. Kick out the window. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Kick it. Break it.
Kicking, however, didn’t work. She tried again… and again. Hands shaking, heart racing, Flynne grabbed the keys and tried stabbing at the window with them. Failure.
Glove compartment. Breathing became nearly impossible as she fought to work the latch on the compartment from a listing upside down. That’s when Flynne noticed that the car had shifted to its right. Starboard? I don’t know.
Water poured in, more and more with each second, it seemed. She swept everything out of the glove compartment in one swift movement and pounced on the satisfying thunk… of something. The muddy water obscured what it was, but the moment Flynne’s fingers wrapped around it, she nearly sobbed in relief. “Got a tire gauge! Gonna bust some moves and get us out. Hang on, Erika!”
Her first whacks at the side window failed. Didn’t even cause a spiderweb of a crack. An upward thrust to the corner, however, got her first hope.
And the water was up to her chest. “I’m trying!”
From beside her, all she could hear were Erika’s muffled pleas for help. Flynne worked double-time to crack open that window. The car listed backward, and Erika half-tumbled, half-bobbed out of sight. Noooo! Stay where I can see that you’re okay! Taking the time to check to see that Erika’s head remained above water would kill precious seconds. She couldn’t allow herself that luxury.
Flynne pounded harder. With each jab of the gauge, she grunted and huffed. “I’d—” Splink! “Better get…” Splink! “Stock—” Splink! “In. The. Bur. Berry—” Splink! Splink! Splink! “Company. After. This.”
The window gave way. A kick knocked half of it out and sliced her leg. The cold water sent a shock to her system as it filled the car. She kicked, fought, pushed until it was free. The car filled so fast, Flynne became disoriented as she fumbled for Erika.
Erika’s eyes were wide, and she fought to say something. Flynne ripped the sock from her mouth and sobbed out an apology. “I tried—”
“No time. Help me break the duct tape. I can’t do it in here and under water.”
At that moment, the water hit Flynne’s chin. A glance up showed the entire interior almost full. With a huge gulp of air, she dove down, ripped the duct tape off Erika’s feet and fumbled to find the girl’s hands.
Floating. Every movement felt as though she floated through it. With what was left of her air, Flynne shoved Erika toward the front window and pushed until the girl got free. An attempt to grab another gulp of air failed. There wasn’t any left. The car had fully submerged.
Can I do take backs? I’ll talk to you again. I’m sorry. Not gonna make it. Can’t see. Can’t swim… Can’t breathe.
Erika broke the surface of the water and gulped in almost as much of the nasty stuff as she did air. Coughing, sputtering, she scanned the surface for Flynne. Nothing. The current tugged her further and further away from the car, but she kicked toward it.
The memory of ships sinking and sucking people down with it demanded she should get away. Not seeing Flynne meant she had to try to get back. Against the current. Of course.
Two steps forward and one step back never held truer than swimming against the river current and the constant assault on her by some kind of Kamikaze fish. Her arms ached and burned almost immediately. And she’d only advanced a few yards.
By the time she got close, Erika was ready to give up—on both of them. Twice she lunged for the car and got swept back away. The third time proved to work, however. She dove under and fumbled for the window.
Flynne floated at the top by the roof. That kicked some sense of self a
nd other preservation into gear. Oh, no you don’t!
It took more tries than she could count, but Erika finally managed to grab a shock of Flynne’s hair. She tugged and pulled until she managed to hook an arm under Flynne’s neck. Dark streaks followed as she jerked the girl through the window. Blood, I guess.
At the surface, déjà vu took over as Erika gasped, sputtered, and fought for a lungful of air that didn’t include muddy Mississippi water.
Flynne hung limp.
Attempting to keep her above water—almost impossible.
That’s when it occurred to Erika that this might be a good time for prayer. If only her brain would cooperate. Instead, a rather ineloquent and redundant stream of, Oh, God. Help! repeated on auto-loop.
And her grip on Flynne slipped with each bump of what felt like torpedo-like fish.
A voice bellowed at her, telling her to hold on. God?
Closer… The voice drew closer… Erika looked behind her to find a motorboat headed her way. I couldn’t have heard him!
Then he did it—pulled out a megaphone and told her again. “Hang on!”
Strength left her, despite every effort to do just that. Hang on. Sorry, Flynne.
A steady, mechanical, rumbling whine and a steady, yet irregular thrumming in her head pulled Erika into semi-consciousness. A moment later, she vomited up the contents of her stomach onto the bottom of a boat.
Consciousness regained.
Pushing up and away from the mess, she scanned the area and saw Flynne lying on her side against the side of the boat. Erika scrambled, slipped, and scrambled again to reach her. A muffled voice from behind her called, “She hasn’t moved.”
CPR. It probably wouldn’t work, but she’d want someone to do it for her. Taking a deep breath, Erika pleaded for forgiveness and offered the first five rescue breaths. Compressions. Breaths. Compressions. Breaths.
Her body wouldn’t cooperate. Erika collapsed against the bottom of the boat, struggling. It slowed and she heard sirens in the distance. Too late.
Tears fell.
Coughing, sputtering—vomited river water spewed over the side of her head and face. Erika sat bolt upright and almost didn’t mind as she watched Flynne struggle to draw in air. “Breathe!” A few choice words followed, and somewhere in recesses of her mind, Erika knew she’d have to repent of those.
Is it a sin if I don’t care?
Twenty-Four
The call came through just as Keith neared Eads Bridge. Only the fact that no one should know his number made him answer. “Yeah?”
“It’s Tyler. Go south of the Eads down by the Poplar Street Bridge. Follow the sirens and emergency vehicles.”
His gut twisted. “Why?”
“I think Erika and Flynne are in the water. Dispatch has called out for emergency teams. A 9-1-1 came through from a bass boat saying he was picking up two passengers—one might be dead.”
Lord, please no…
“Keith?”
He’d just reached Eads and saw it blocked off by police cars. “Trying to get turned around, but congestion…”
“If you weren’t hurt, I’d say run it, but…”
As he irritated every other driver on the road, showing them exactly what he’d do to reach his team—his girl—Keith barked out questions. “How’d you find out? What makes you think it’s them? Is it the car she bought?”
“Not sure. Can’t tell. I was following St. Louis news and dispatch when I saw your tweet. A couple of drivers blocked off another car and wrestled the driver to the ground. Someone called in a license plate.”
It’s gonna be Knupp.
“It’s Knupp’s. They got him, though. He’s already been arrested.” Silence. When Keith asked if the call had dropped, Tyler snapped at him to shut up. A moment later, he spoke again. “Sorry. Was listening in on the ambulance frequency. I think it’s our girls for sure.” The kid’s voice broke. “Sounds like Flynne is unresponsive. EMT ‘Noah’ is working on her. If he saves her, hug him for me.”
That ain’t gonna happen.
“How far are you?
“Maybe halfway.” Keith shot over the double yellow and passed a car. An oncoming line forced him back in, but not without a few dozen horn blares.
“It’s less than a mile!”
“And there are five hundred cars being rerouted away from Eads!” His yelling-through-enforced-clenched teeth skills had obviously wavered. It took three more tries for Tyler to understand him.
“Still, hurry!”
Keith swerved to miss a car trying to pull into his lane and briefly reconsidered his stance on foul language. Instead, he barked, “Give me a break!”
One squeaked word ripped at his heart. “Flynne!”
“I’ll get her. I’ll get there. I can’t help them if I die or kill a bunch of people on the way, so just gimme—oh, I see it. Um…”
It would get him in more trouble than Mark probably wanted to deal with, and it wasn’t fair asking Tyler to make the call, but he did it anyway. “I can abandon the van and get there—”
“Go!”
Keith slammed on the brakes, threw the van in park, and jumped from it. Horns blared, fingers gestured, and the poisoned darts of obscenities flew at his back, but Keith jogged as far and fast as he could. A cordoned-off section just south of Poplar Street told him where to go.
A line from a movie struck him as one officer tried to push him back. “That girl—” It wasn’t fair how easy it was to conjure tears at a moment like that. “I was going to marry her.”
“What girl?”
“Erika.” At the cop’s suspicious look, he repeated himself with slow, deliberate enunciation. “Over there on the gurney.” Keith milked it for everything he could and ignored the fact that both women were on gurneys. “The other one that the guy is working on is Flynne—Flynne Dortmann. Please!” A bald-faced lie he’d have to repent of came next. “She’s allergic to penicillin—all the cillins. They need to know.”
That did it. The officer let him through, and he rushed past Flynne to Erika. One look at him and she bolted off the gurney and into his arms. “Flynne!”
“I know. I know…”
“That guy’s been working on her for so long…”
“I’ll go ask—tell him about her allergy to penicillin.” He winked to hint that it wasn’t true, helped ease her back onto the gurney, and went to talk to the EMT.
One EMT worked at constant CPR while another worked to set up a bag-valve mask, and a third, likely a paramedic, finished up with an IV and went to help get the BVM going. “Noah?”
The one doing chest compressions tossed a look his way. “We’re doing everything we can. I need you to step back, sir.”
Keith started to ask if Flynne would be all right and changed his mind. He didn’t want to have to lie to Erika if… “What hospital?”
Two puffs followed. “Barnes.”
“Can I ride with Erika?”
“Ask Ben.”
Keith didn’t bother to hide his frustration. Still, the man never quit working to keep Flynne’s heart pumping, and Tyler would appreciate knowing it. As Keith started to back away, he said, “By the way. Her boyfriend wanted me to hug you. Consider it done.”
“Considered.”
One of the others called for help pushing Flynne into the ambulance. With two handling the flow of air and Noah racing alongside to keep her heart going inside the ambulance, everything shifted. In less time than he could have imagined, the doors began to close.
Ben, the paramedic for Erika’s ambulance “bus,” started to refuse before Keith could get the question out. Frustrated, he dug into his wallet and produced his own EMT license card and shifted from the concerned, pleading boyfriend to authority mode. “I know what to do. I know to stay out of the way. I’m just not leaving them.”
That’s all it took. Ben pointed to a small corner of the ambulance and told him not to interfere. Keith agreed. It shouldn’t be so easy to manipulate people.
>
The moment the ambulance doors closed, Erika told him to message Morgan on Twitter. “No, wait.” To Ben, she asked, “Did you say they got the guy?”
Ben didn’t have a chance to answer. Keith answered for him. “They got him, Erika. Tyler called me with it.”
“Then we’re good. Message Morgan and tell him where we are—that Flynne needs him.”
Keith’s gut twisted. “Needs him? Morgan?”
“It’s been a long… what? Week? Ten days? I can’t even remember right now.”
What’m I going to tell Tyler?
Before he could try to get more information, Erika vomited everywhere.
Bluebonnets sprinkled the meadow behind the old place. Mark leaned against the back-porch railing, taking in the sight of the sunset over that field. Some verse he’d read—several times, in fact—said something about how the “heavens” proclaimed God’s glory and craftsmanship. He’d asked Claire about it—about what the “heavens” were. He’d been right. She said it was all the things you saw in the sky—in the universe.
If bluebonnets kissed by a dying sun aren’t proof of a magnificent God being a phenomenal painter, then what is?
In that moment, Mark realized that he’d gone from a nebulous acceptance of a “Supreme Being” of sorts, to a defined acknowledgment of an Almighty Creator. A slow inhale, followed by an even slower exhale, calmed his unsettled nerves— for a moment. When it didn’t last, he turned to go inside. Intuition might be a “women’s” thing, but he had it. Something was wrong.
The French press, with its dark nectar, called to him as Mark passed through the kitchen to the basement steps. There was no need to let the caffeinated perfection go to waste. So, with a steaming mug in hand, he descended into his “lair” as he’d begun to refer to it and arrived in time to hear the phone ringing.
“They’ve got him—Brent Knupp. St. Louis police. Keith is there. And Flynne—”
Hashtag Rogue Page 19