by Jonas Saul
The sound of a car’s engine moved closer than Keele Street. Together they turned and watched as a four-door Jaguar drove by, its windows down. The driver didn’t appear to look their way, and the vehicle didn’t slow. After it passed, and continued along the road, no longer posing any threat, Sarah looked back at Parkman.
“I’m quitting,” she said.
There, it was out. When she told Darwin and Rosina back in Italy, they were very happy. In their experience, only luck stood between the great divide of living or dying in such a violent life, and eventually luck ran out. Aaron had seemed happy with her decision, too.
But she was concerned with how Parkman would take it.
“Sarah,” he said. “I’m surprised.”
“And …”
“And cautiously happy. I would have never guessed you would quit.”
“When I was missing for two months in Italy, everyone assumed I was dead and buried in an unmarked grave. Even you and Aaron thought I was gone.”
Parkman nodded.
“Since I’ve been back in Canada, I can count on one hand how many people know I’m alive and well. There couldn’t be a better time for me to walk away and leave that life behind. I can see how helpful I was in the past and even convinced myself that nothing would stop me. I’ve still got that tenacious streak. I’m just going to use it on Aaron and you.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “You’ve been with me throughout most of it and I wanted to thank you for that.”
Parkman looked down at the paper in his hand and met her eyes again.
“Sarah, I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Parkman, I’m still the same Sarah. I can handle it whatever it is. Just spill the beans.”
“Violeta knows you’re alive.”
“The woman who hired you? How and why does that matter to me?”
“That crazy woman had my phone tapped. When you called and then I called back to tell you I was coming up to Toronto this week, she heard everything.”
“Wow, she’s quite the handful.”
“That’s not all.”
“I’m listening,” Sarah said, her stomach twisting at the anticipation at what she was about to hear, concerned that it would pull her back in against her will.
“Four days ago, I was jumped two blocks from my house. They wrapped a bag over my head and dragged me into a van where they drove me out of the city.”
“Parkman, what happened?”
He looked down at his shoes. “They stripped my clothes off and tied my legs open wide, then they …” His voice caught on phlegm. He coughed, swallowed, looked up, and started again. “They warned me. Because I didn’t help locate a hit man for Violeta to deal with her husband, the fact that I know about it is enough to hurt her. So I was warned that someone close to me would pay the price if I didn’t come through for her.”
“Who did they mean? Me?”
“Since they had been listening in on my calls, they only know of you, Aaron and your parents.”
“And you feel this is a credible threat? Do you really think this woman would go after my parents?”
Parkman shook his head. “No, I think she wants me.”
“So why the games, the threats?”
“To intimidate me into working for her.”
“Parkman, is there something you’re not telling me?” She studied his face. “What did they do to you in the van?”
“Sarah, you don’t want to know.”
“Whatever it was, I’ve never seen you this rattled before.” Then Sarah thought about Vivian’s note. “What’s Violeta’s last name?”
“Payne. Her name is Violeta Payne.”
“Okay, because I received a note from Vivian warning me not to meet with you.”
Parkman frowned. “What? Why me? I’m safe. If anything, you needed to hear what I have to say. This woman has threatened you and your family.”
“Be clear about something, Parkman. Vivian knows I’m quitting. She told me to stay away tonight if I wanted to quit. You bringing me in on this Violeta thing only makes me want to find her and make sure she knows who she’s dealing with. This kind of shit could pull me back in.”
Parkman blew air out of his mouth. “I don’t want to be your enemy. I’m here as a friend—”
“Parkman, stop it. We’ve been close too long.” She sized him up. “Shit, what did they do to you? You’re rattling around like a broken-winged bird in a cage. I’m so sorry, Parkman. I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“It’s okay. Just—”
“I asked you about the name because Vivian told me to go meet a girl named Tam Rood. I thought maybe that was connected somehow.”
Parkman’s eyes widened. “No, no … It’s not possible.”
The Jaguar was coming back up the road, heading toward Keele Street.
“Relax, it’s the same car.” Sarah turned back to Parkman. “They probably forgot something at the office and now they’re heading home.”
Parkman moved two steps back from her, watching the Jag.
“What’s with the paper? Did Violeta write you a note, a threat?”
Parkman looked down at the paper in his hands, then back at Sarah. His eyes had glazed over.
She glanced behind her as the Jag came even with them, its windows down as before.
“Sarah!” Parkman yelled.
He screamed so loud, she let out a small startled scream herself, and twirled to face him.
Parkman had his gun out. In the brief second she stared at his face, she saw the look in his eyes, the determination to pull the trigger.
She had seen it countless times in the past. The decision was made. The gun would go off and anyone in the path of the bullet wouldn’t have to worry about guns anymore.
Sarah lunged sideways, but didn’t get out of the way in time.
Simultaneously, as Parkman’s weapon deafened her with its report, her head jerked as a bullet entered her skull.
She hit the ground, her body still.
Isn’t that ironic … what a way to bow out, her eyes locked open, watching stars above … shot by my best friend. Her eyes shut slowly, the stars blinking out.
She floated off, her consciousness stolen by a tiny piece of lead.
Parkman screamed in fury, ran around Sarah’s unmoving body and chased after the Jaguar, firing every bullet in his clip.
In his demented charge, running, his gun hand bouncing, Parkman missed vital parts of the car, only hitting the trunk and a corner of the back window, breaking it out. The Jaguar’s engine roared as it raced away and disappeared up the road where it fishtailed onto Keele Street, narrowly missing another car, the driver of that car leaning on his horn.
Distraught, Parkman ran back to Sarah and untwisted her body so she lay flat out on her back. The wound looked terrible.
Head wound. Lots of blood. Her breathing labored.
He yanked his cell phone out in a panic and almost dropped it. After dialing 911, he waited precious seconds, not breathing, staring at the blank expression on Sarah’s face.
“Come on, come on,” he said as he rocked back and forth over her inert body.
Someone answered. “911 Emergency. Do you require police, fire or ambulance?”
“Ambulance,” Parkman shouted. “Now!”
The line had already clicked away.
A man came on and asked what had happened.
“Gunshot wound to the head,” Parkman gasped. “Adult female. Bleeding out. Need assistance now!” He gave the man on the line his location and set the phone down.
He had almost blurted officer down from his years on the police force. Sarah acted like a cop. She had been tougher than most cops he’d known, and had done more for people than most cops ever had.
He slipped out of his suit jacket and laid it gently under her head, using one of the sides of the jacket to apply pressure to the wound.
Then he held Sarah’s head as he monitored her weakening chest as it rose and fell.
He cried, tears streaming down his cheeks, taking all the responsibility for Sarah’s wound. Because she came to meet him …
“No, no, no, no, no, no …” he whispered over and over. “Please Sarah, stay with me, stay with me. I can’t live in a world without my Sarah. I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
Her chest stopped moving.
He stared at it for a breath. Panic charged the blood in his veins to boiling.
Her head safely on his jacket, Parkman set his hands on her chest and began to pump, spittle and tears mixing on his face as he shouted.
“Come on, Sarah!” He pushed on her ribcage. “You can’t leave me here like this. Come on, Sarah, don’t you dare die on me!”
He added more weight, pressing down on her chest in a fit of anxiety. He looked up at the sky and wailed like a wounded animal, all the pent-up aggression, fear and anger mixed in one scream.
A siren broke through the still night around him. They were coming up Keele. Multiple sirens.
The ambulance dispatcher would’ve notified the police because of the gunshot victim call.
He stopped pumping her chest, leaned down to listen for breathing, then started pumping again.
“Sarah Roberts! Do not leave us!”
Tires screeched behind him. He didn’t turn around. If it was the Jaguar again, then he deserved a bullet in the head for this. If it was the ambulance, then he would be shoved out of the way any second.
He bent to listen for breathing again, then got down and said directly into her ear, “You are not allowed to die. Do you hear me, woman? You’re not authorized to go. I will fucking kill you if you die on me.”
Rough hands eased him aside.
Two paramedics dropped down and started to work on her. Two uniformed officers were walking toward him. Another cruiser pulled up and turned off its flashing lights.
Parkman covered his eyes with his hands and cried.
Why hadn’t Vivian warned Sarah? Then he remembered what Sarah had said. Vivian had warned her to not meet Parkman tonight. But Parkman was a friend. What could go wrong? Of course, Sarah would come.
He would hunt down the people responsible for this and when they were all dead, he would eat a bullet for Sarah.
No one hurt his Sarah and got away with it.
Not even him.
Chapter 4
“Excuse me, sir.”
Parkman opened his eyes, but didn’t move. With his back against the wall of the building, legs drawn up, arms draped across his knees, he rested his forehead on his crossed arms.
One of the two paramedics whispered something to an officer close to him. Parkman assumed the worst. It had to be about Sarah and they didn’t want to tell him.
He wasn’t ready to look up yet and face her dead body. He had no idea what a world without Sarah looked like.
The cement under him was dirty. The remnants of a broken leaf half concealed a discarded cigarette butt.
If he raised his eyes, that meant he would have to see Sarah as they worked on her. He refused to allow the last image he would ever see of her to be a white blanket covering her face. That was something he couldn’t live with.
“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you a few questions. Would you mind coming with us?”
Parkman had to look up. He had worked with Sarah for years. When they weren’t together, Sarah had kept in touch. She was the sister he never had, the daughter he wished for. One day she would’ve married, had children. He had secretly wondered if she would pass her gift down to her children, but had never talked to her about it.
He slapped his face. The officers stepped back and looked at each other, unsure what he would do next.
Sarah is a fighter. She would make it out of this. He had to stop thinking like she was dead already. The paramedics wouldn’t be hooking her up and preparing her for the ambulance if she were dead.
“Sir, are you okay to stand?” the other cop asked, his voice deeper, more demanding.
Parkman nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
“You’re going to have to come with us. We will need to hear what happened. Are you armed?”
“Yes. I’m licensed.” Parkman touched the butt of his weapon and both cops reached for their holsters. “Relax, it’s empty and I’m pulling it out to offer it to one of you. You’ll need it for testing.”
The men attending to Sarah counted to three and then hoisted her onto a stretcher. The wheels came out from under it and they pushed Sarah toward the back maw of the ambulance.
“She gonna make it?” Parkman yelled after them.
Neither one responded.
“The gun,” the cop nearest Parkman said, his gloved hand held out for it.
Parkman dropped the weapon in the cop’s hand and got to his feet.
“Hey,” he yelled at the paramedics. “What hospital are you taking her to?”
“Humber River Regional on Keele South,” the cop answered. “Now come with us.”
After the ambulance took off, its sirens going again, the cops put Parkman in the back of their cruiser. The other officers rolled tape out to block off the crime scene for further investigation. A whole slew of people would trample through the area in the next twelve hours investigating what happened here, adding homicide detectives to the equation if Sarah died.
“Take me to the hospital,” Parkman said. “I have to be there when she wakes up.”
“Just hold your horses, sir. We’ll get you there in good time. She’ll be on pain meds or in surgery for a few hours. There’s nothing you can do for her there. First thing we need to know is what happened here.”
The cop in the driver’s seat had thinning hair and was balding. Parkman knew the type. That kind that had been on the force for twenty plus years, ate take-out most of the time, which accounted for his large paunch, and was probably hanging on for retirement.
The passenger cop was younger, in his early twenties, just starting out, learning the ropes. He hadn’t said much after the veteran officer took control.
Parkman identified himself as an ex-cop, now turned private detective. He had been working a case where he had been threatened and came to Toronto to warn Sarah. He told them about the Jaguar and how he fired at it.
“Tell other cars on the street,” Parkman continued, “to look for a newer model Jag, probably green, but it was hard to tell in the darkness. The back window is blown out. There’ll be bullet holes in the trunk, too.”
“Didn’t you get a plate number?”
Parkman shook his head. “If I had, I would’ve told you that already.”
“Hey, I was just asking because you used to be a cop and you were trained as one. That is one of the first things you look for and memorize.”
“True, but Sarah was on the ground bleeding from a head wound. I thought emptying my clip into the vehicle would’ve stopped it. I guess I wasn’t thinking I would need a plate number.”
“I’m just trying to do my job.” The officer turned in the front seat and met Parkman’s gaze. Parkman wondered how he could turn so well with that hefty paunch. “Now, I know you’ve gone through something terrible tonight, but we have to do this, and you of all people know we have to. There’s the hard way, or the friendly way. So keep it friendly.”
Parkman nodded. “Fine. But let’s do this on the way to the hospital. If Sarah wakes up, I need to be there.”
The men in the front seat looked at each, a gesture passing between them.
“What was that all about?” Parkman asked.
“The only way you get to go to the hospital to check in on the girl is if you go with us.”
“That’s what I was asking.”
“What I’m saying is, when we showed up, you were armed. Your weapon is empty and there are bullet casings behind the girl on the cement. The paramedics told me the bullet entered from the back of the girl’s skull. How do we know you didn’t shoot her and then emptied your weapon to make it look like you were trying to hit a shooter in
the street?”
Parkman clenched his jaw. Heat rose to his forehead. Cops or not, if the wire mesh wasn’t separating them from him he would probably take a shot at the overweight asshole.
“Let me out of this cruiser,” Parkman ordered. He needed a toothpick to calm down. Something flavored.