by Lisa Ladew
All he knew was at this point, he had to regain his strength. And he needed to do it somewhere that no one would be looking for him. He had vague notions of taking care of the bitch, once and for all, and a faraway dream of crossing a border somewhere and living a free life where he didn’t have to look over his shoulder all day, but all of that was in the future. For now, survival was the only plan he could make.
Norman looked around his bus and thought he’d done a pretty good job surviving. He still wasn’t at 100%, and in fact, he’d since realized he didn’t think he ever would be. His reflexes were way slower than they used to be, his right hand wouldn’t close all the way - when he tried it closed partially and then just relaxed at a certain point, the fingers refusing to curl any farther - and his body didn’t always do exactly what he wanted it to. He was getting stronger, but these things weren’t changing. No matter. It wasn’t like he was ever going to be a cop again. He did have one thing to do though, that was going to require a lot of strength and quickness, and the ability to close his hand. Or the ability to shoot a gun with his left hand.
Now that he was no longer in danger of falling down on his feet Norman had some decisions to make. He couldn’t stay here forever. He didn’t want to live in a bus forever for sure. He didn’t want to stay in Westwood Harbor any longer either, but he didn’t want to go far. He needed to find a place to survive close by, but far enough away that he didn’t have to look over his shoulder so much if he ventured out into public. It was time to start making his real plans.
The first plan involved taking care of the bitch, Emma. There were times, at night especially, when he thought about what she had the gall to do to him, and he couldn’t believe. Couldn’t believe that a woman had shot him. Couldn’t believe that a woman had dared run from him, fight him, stand up to him, and finally shoot him cold in the dessert. She’d bested him, his divided mind would argue. But no, she hadn’t, because it wasn’t over. And if she didn’t know that yet she would, soon.
There was no way he was going to let what she had done to him slide. She would pay. Pay hard. He thought about it every night, and had decided that he couldn’t watch her, stalk her, surveil her. It was too dangerous. And if he couldn’t do that, the only time he could guarantee she wouldn’t be with that FBI agent was when she was at work. So that’s when he planned to take her. But still, he had a problem. Because of her partner, Jerry. Jerry was smart, strong, and devoted to Emma, as much as the fucking FBI dick, so Norman would have to take him out first. It was the only way. Norman smiled. Sure Jerry would fight, but no matter what, he was less dangerous than the FBI agent. Norman was sure he could take him.
Norman walked down the steps of his bus and out to the hole in the fence. He hadn’t been to get food or water for 4 days, and he was totally out. He was starting to get a bad feeling about the neighborhood he’d been hitting though. It was time to find a new one. Luckily, he felt like he could walk for miles today. He set out on the sidewalk, ratty hood from his sweatshirt covering his face. The morning coolness would fade soon, and he’d have to lose the hood, or be marked as suspicious, but that was OK. He looked very different these days. His hair was long, his beard was full, and both were gray, thanks to gray hair dye. His body was skinnier than it had ever been but he wore loose, too-large clothes, and a roll of cloth around his middle, giving him the illusion of being much heavier than he was or ever had been. He looked soft, slow. It was a good disguise and had served him well so far.
As he walked he contemplated his second plan. Mexico? Or Canada? Or just down South or the East Coast? They might be watching for him on the Mexican border, but since he’d be alone he didn’t have to take a car. He could walk over in one of the same places the Mexicans crossed illegally every day to get to the U.S. But then what? He walked and thought hard for 45 minutes.
Eventually, he found a likely neighborhood and assessed the houses as he walked by them on the sidewalk. The road dumped him into a park so he decided to sit on a bench and rest, enjoying the feeling of the sun on his face. A large recycle bin squatted in the corner of the parking lot. He trotted over and pulled out a handful of newspapers from the week, returning to the bench to read.
One with large block letters spread across the front, taking up the entire top fold of the newspaper caught his eye.
PRESIDENT-ELECT HOPEFUL SUICIDE LEADS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT POSSIBLE CRIMINAL ACTIVITY
Norman read that over 4 times, knowing exactly who it was talking about. Oberlin? Suicide? Norman had briefly considered going to the Senator for help when he first escaped, but he didn’t, some small part of him knowing the Senator probably just wanted him dead now that he was nothing but a liability. (In fact he’d occasionally wondered about the attempted hit in the prison hospital.) Now he congratulated himself on making a good choice by not going to him.
He turned the paper over and saw a smiling picture of Oberlin on the campaign trail, and then next to it a picture of the front of Oberlin’s house, door wide open, police and FBI cars scattered in front.
He read the story carefully, looking for clues into exactly what had happened, but the reporters were chasing their own tails in frustration. They’d been told absolutely nothing so far and all they could do was guess.
Norman sat on the bench and thought. Thought for a long time. Was this a sign to him? Everything he had been involved in for the last 10 years had fallen apart about as much as possible. Maybe he should make a clean break now. Forget this revenge. Maybe it would turn out as badly as everything else had. He’d been bested by the bitch once already. The only way he should even consider going through with this was if there were no way in the world he could fail this time. But was he willing to give up his tenuous freedom just to get back at her?
Freedom. It was a funny thing. His body might be free, but he knew his mind was chained to Emma Hill and what she’d succeeded in doing to him. Was there a way out of that jail that didn’t involve killing her? He didn’t know.
Chapter 32
Emma sat in the driver’s seat of the ambulance, stewing. It was 2 months ago already since Oberlin shot himself, so that meant it was almost 2 and a half months since Norman escaped. And she’d only just now discovered Jerry’s little secret!
She thought back to the call they’d just come from, damning Jerry for his temerity. Damning both Jerry and Craig for their gall. Right under her nose! And never said a word to her!
It had been a chest pain call in a small bathroom. The patient, a 66 year old man taking a shower, had experienced chest pain bad enough that he’d stumbled out of the shower and fallen on the floor. His wife called 911. When Emma and Jerry showed up, he was still wet and on the floor, but his wife had managed to struggle a pair of shorts onto him. Thank goodness for small favors.
The bathroom was tiny, and very hard for three grown adults to be in at the same time. Emma and Jerry had gotten the heart monitor on him, seen he was in stable ventricular tachycardia, and went to work right there on the floor, the firefighters only able to peek in and watch from the doorway. Jerry had started an IV and Emma prepared the Lidocaine. Once they got the Lidocaine in and his heart rhythm had smoothed out, Jerry felt good enough about his condition to try to move him. The board wouldn’t fit in the bathroom though and neither would the gurney, so Emma and Jerry had to just pick him up and carry him out of the bathroom. While they were trying to figure the best way to do it in the cramped bathroom, Emma had passed behind Jerry and lost her balance, pressing a hand into the small of his back. And that’s when she felt it. The gun. Jerry was carrying. And Emma could think of only one reason why Jerry would be carrying. Craig had put him up to it. What she wouldn’t do, he talked Jerry into doing, regardless of all the reasons she had given for not doing it. Emma’s blood got hotter just thinking about it. It was a good thing she hadn’t noticed the gun until the patient was stable, because once she had she had lost the ability to think rationally. She was just pissed. And Jerry knew it.
Emma watch
ed the hospital exit, waiting for Jerry to come out. She hadn’t said a word to him as they drove to the hospital or while she helped him wheel his patient inside. Then she’d bailed once they had him in a room. She needed privacy to give him a piece of her mind.
The doors opened and he stepped out. She’d expected him to come out like a whipped puppy, tail between his legs, head sagging. But his head was held high, and he was smiling, like he hadn’t done a damn thing wrong.
He walked in front of the ambulance and Emma burned holes through him the whole time, until he pulled his door open and climbed in. Then she didn’t want to look at him any longer.
He climbed in and buckled his seatbelt. And didn’t speak.
“You’re carrying,” Emma accused, her tone damning.
“Yep, Craig asked me to and got me set up with the permit and the class, plus he talked to the brass.” Jerry sounded typically happy, upbeat. Not phased at all by Emma’s anger.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Craig said you’d probably be angry so he left it up to me if I wanted to tell you or not. I decided it would be easier if I didn’t. Besides, I hoped Norman would be caught quickly and I would be able to give it up.”
“Without me ever knowing.” Emma fired off the words, not sure in her own heart what she was most upset about. Was it the fact that Craig had ignored her list of reasons why paramedics shouldn’t carry guns? Was it the fact that he went behind her back? Or because Jerry went behind her back? Or because Jerry didn’t have the same problem with carrying a gun on duty? She didn’t know, but she did know that anger ran hot through her veins still.
Jerry sighed and turned to her. “Look Emma, I know you think this is an ethics breach and maybe even dangerous, Craig told me. But it doesn’t change the fact that there is a madman loose somewhere who already tried to kidnap and maybe kill you once. He could be watching us right now. It bothers me to carry this gun, and it’s a pain in the ass to strap it on every morning, but you know what? It would bother me a hell of a lot more if Norman showed up and ripped you out of the ambulance in front of me and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it except watch him go. Do you know what that would do to me? It would kill me. It would destroy me. If carrying a gun means I have more of an opportunity to stop him from doing that I’ll do it from now until the day I die, gladly, regardless of how mad you get at me or how much the stinking holster makes my back itch.”
His eyes flashed but his face was soft, his gaze hopeful. “Please Emma, I don’t want to fight with you, and neither does Craig. We just want you to be safe.”
“I can take care of myself,” Emma said, but the fire had gone out of her words.
Jerry boomed a laugh. Emma almost snarled at him.
He held his hands up. “No, no, I’m not laughing because I don’t think you can take care of yourself. I’m laughing because it’s too damn obvious that you can take care of yourself, we all know it. We all see it every day. You are the strongest woman I know. But just because you can take care of yourself doesn’t mean your friends will stop trying to take care of you too.”
He reached across the gap and took Emma’s hand. “I love you Emma. Craig loves you. We just want to make sure you are safe. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. Pine away and die an unhappy old man, probably. You’re my best friend.” He smiled gently at her.
Emma felt her eyes fill with tears and her anger disappear. “Thanks Jerry, you’re my best friend too. Ok.”
“Ok? You’re not mad?”
“No.”
“How about at Craig? Are you mad at him.”
Jerry saw steel come back into Emma’s face and he laughed again. “Uh oh, I shouldn’t have asked.” He took out his phone.
“What are you doing?” Emma asked.
Jerry raised an eyebrow at her.
“Don’t text him!”
“Too late,” Jerry said. Sorry Em, but he needs to know if you’re going to come home pissed off. Have you guys even had a fight yet?”
“No,” Emma grumped, not sure what that had to do with anything.
“I didn’t think so. That’s why I’m warning him. You go in there guns blazing and he’s not even going to know what hit him. When you’re mad you can get a little mean.”
Emma sulked at this. Mean? She wasn’t mean. Besides, he was a fricking FBI agent, shouldn’t he be able to handle it?
Jerry grabbed the radio and put them back in service. “Come on sweetheart, let’s go save some lives.”
Emma grinned at Jerry’s favorite line. She took a deep breath and rolled the tension out of her shoulders, then put the ambulance in drive.
She’d try not to be mean, but Craig still needed to know it wasn’t OK to go behind her back.
Chapter 33
Emma pulled up in front of her house after a long, demanding shift, happy to see Craig’s truck home. She wanted to get this over with. The more she thought about being angry at Craig, the more she felt sick to her stomach. What Jerry said had really gotten to her, softening her, but she still didn’t want to let it go completely. But she did want to get it over with. They had dinner plans and she didn’t want to spoil them with animosity or unsaid issues.
She walked in the front door and headed straight for her bedroom, shedding her uniform and the gun she wore home. She threw it on the bed. Damn thing. She was sick of wearing it and prayed daily that Norman would be caught so she could stop. Trouble was no one even seemed to be looking for him anymore. That thought made her grumpier than ever. What if he was dead or out of the country already and no one ever found him? Was she going to have to wear that damn thing forever?
“You home?” She heard Craig’s voice call through the house.
“Yeah,” she yelled back and slipped a comfy blouse on over her head, then went to find him.
He was in the kitchen. “Hi,” he smiled at her.
“Hi,” she grumped back, no smile.
He gave her a quick, one-armed hug, and went back to putting sodas in the fridge. Emma frowned. This was nothing like his normal full body hugs and long, soul-kisses that frequently turned into stress-relieving and satisfying afternoon sex.
She stood and watched him, waiting for him to say something. He didn’t. When he was done with the sodas, he picked up the sponge out of the sink and began wiping the counters. Emma crossed her arms and leaned against the stove. She would wait him out.
She didn’t last long though. “You went behind my back!”
He nodded, turned away from her, wiping the table. “I did. I’m sorry.”
That caught her by surprise and flagged her argument a little bit. But she wasn’t ready to back down yet. “I told you I didn’t want to carry a gun at work so you got Jerry to do it. You lied to me!”
He turned and looked at her. “I didn’t exactly lie. I just didn’t tell you. I was hoping that Norman would be caught quickly and maybe we never would even have to have this conversation. Your safety was more important to me than your anger, but I still wanted to avoid it if I could. And I am sorry. But I would do it again.”
He looked at her steadily. She blinked her eyes. She didn’t even know if she had anything else to say. He had admitted to everything and apologized, but not backed down a bit. For the second time in a day the wind flew right out of her angry sails.
“I don’t like it when you go behind my back,” she sulked.
“I know, and I won’t do it again. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.” He crossed the room in three quick steps and took her in his arms.
Emma sighed, knowing there hadn’t been a winner or a loser, but thinking that was probably just fine. Maybe this was what good relationships were really like. Mistakes were still made, and disagreements still sprang up, but love and caring were more important.
She looked up at him, hoping he’d kiss her. And he did.
He broke the kiss and told her, “I just want you to remember that Norman is still out there.”
> “I know, but I don’t want to live my life in fear.”
“I don’t think we are living in fear. I think we are just being prepared.”
Emma gazed at his handsome, calm face and realized that this was how cops and agents lived all the time. Never in fear, but always prepared. They walked around all day every day, prepared to protect, prepared to kill, prepared to die, so that ordinary people didn’t have to feel that way and could live normal, mostly-crime-free lives. She snuggled up against his chest and felt deep appreciation run through her for the men and women who did that. She sighed, and kissed her man again.
“Ok.”
“Ok. Get dressed ok? I have a surprise for you.”
The last vestiges of Emma’s anger fled and a smile spread across her face. “What?”
“You’ll see, at dinner.” He looked at his watch. “We have 35 minutes to get there.”
“Ooooh! Ok!” She planted one last kiss on his lips and ran down the hall to get dressed, wondering in her mind what the surprise was. Maybe he bought her something. Maybe they were going to do something fun.
***
Half an hour later, Emma and Craig pulled into Blaine’s drive-in, an American food diner that Emma hadn’t been to yet.
“Is this the surprise? Dinner at Blaine’s?” Emma asked.
“Nope. Your surprise is inside.”
Emma jumped out of the truck quickly, excitement coursing through her. What in the world would be inside for her?
They walked inside and Craig led her to a table in the far back of the restaurant. Emma thought he would steer her towards the empty one, but he walked to the one with a woman sitting in it. She was at least 60 years old, small and bent with age, but with pretty, soft white hair and a sweet smile. She had a large hard-bound book in front of her on the table. Emma liked her at once.