Unspeakable

by Sandra Brown

  Despite his own pain, Jack reached for David and tried to quiet him. But even though he was speaking to David and stroking his head, he was looking at her. She’d never seen a smile so sweet or so sad. It was as though Jack’s entire life had come down to this moment, as though he were resigned to this being the last few moments before the end of his life, and that it was no better than he had expected it to be. The futility suggested by his smile broke her heart.

  She wished that she could tell him everything would be all right. She wished that she believed everything would be all right. Instead she laid her fingertips against his lips and he mouthed “I love you” against them as he had this morning—in what seemed another lifetime.

  Carl knocked her hand away from Jack and roughly hauled her to her feet. “I hate to break up this touching scene, truly I do. But I came here for one purpose and one purpose only, and that was to get revenge on my old stepdaddy.”

  “You’re too late,” Jack said.

  “To kill him, yeah. But that doesn’t mean I can’t get some satisfaction. Since I can’t snuff Delray, guess I’ll have to settle for those he left behind.”

  “If you came here to kill us, why haven’t you already done it?”

  “Are you that anxious to die, hired hand?”

  “Just curious.”

  Carl shrugged. “That’s fair, I guess. Fact is, I don’t want to spoil my fun. I waited over twenty fucking years in prison for this day. I want to prolong the pleasure, same way I did with Cecil. He deserved a slow, painful death for being such a goddamn coward, and that’s what he got. Damn shame I didn’t get to kill Delray, too. I would’ve liked to make him suffer for all the years he cost me. The good news is, he’s dead.” He leveled the pistol on Jack. “The bad news is that—”

  “The bad news is that your partner seems to have run into some trouble.”

  Following Jack’s nod toward the open front door, Anna turned at the same time Carl did.

  The pale man smiled through the blood running down his face. “Hi, Carl.”

  “Jesus Christ, Myron!”

  * * *

  Carl grabbed the front of Myron’s bloody shirt and yanked him across the threshold. He looked through the door but saw only a beat-up orange pickup and a shiny Jaguar that must’ve belonged to the stiff.

  “Where’s the car, Myron?” he screamed.

  “The car?”

  Carl slammed the door shut and bore down on Myron. “What happened? Why’d you leave the car? Where’s the money?”

  Myron’s idiotic grin collapsed. “The money?”

  “The money from the bank, Myron. Jesus! What were you thinking to go off and leave it?”

  Agitated, Myron dragged his sleeve across his face, smearing the blood and sweat. “I shot the man like you told me to.”

  Carl wanted to kill him. The need to kill him pulsed through his veins. He envisioned wrapping his hands around Myron’s long, skinny neck and squeezing until his strange eyes bulged out of their sockets. He saw himself shooting him in the face again and again, until that stupid expression was reduced to pink mush and the ugliness was pulverized.

  But until he knew about the money, he had to keep Myron alive. He forced himself to take several deep breaths. Eventually the blood vessels in his head no longer felt ready to burst. More calmly he asked, “Where’s the money, Myron? What did you do with it?”

  “It’s still in the trunk.”

  “Where’s the car?”

  “You know where it’s at, Carl.”

  “Same place I left it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’re your guns?”

  Myron replied only with a blank stare.

  “Your guns, your guns!” Carl shrieked.

  Myron was near tears. “I must’ve left ’em.”

  Again Carl had an almost uncontrollable impulse to kill him with his bare hands. He had left all the weapons save his pistol with Myron, not wishing to be weighted down with hardware should a nosy passerby stop to offer him a ride. Even his shank was beneath the driver’s seat of the car. He was down to one lousy pistol and a few extra bullets, and it was all Myron’s fault.

  Quaking with rage, he stifled it enough to ask what had happened. “Tell me what happened, Myron.”

  Myron’s smile returned. “I shot the—”

  “What man?”

  “A cop. He came up close to the car. You said for me to shoot anybody who came close to the car.”

  “Good job, Myron.”

  “I blowed his head off with the shotgun.”

  The kid had started to whine, and it was an aggravating distraction. Carl wanted to scare him into shutting up, but first he had to find out how Myron had come to have what looked like a bullet wound in his shoulder and another long stripe of open flesh along the side of his scalp above his right ear. But if he pressured Myron for answers, he would become even more confused and, God knew, Myron didn’t need to become more confused.

  “Who shot you, Myron?”

  “The cop.”

  “The one you shot?”

  “The other one.”

  Carl swallowed. “There were two?”

  “Yeah, Carl. One stayed in the car. When I shot the first one, the one in the car got out and started shooting at me.” He turned his head to look at his wounded shoulder. “It hurts real bad.”

  “We’ll get some medicine for it later. What happened to the other cop? Is he dead, too?”

  “I guess so. I shot him.”

  “You shot him but you don’t know if he’s dead? You didn’t check? You left without making certain that both of them were dead?”

  Myron’s face worked with indecision. “He was screaming.”

  “Screaming,” Carl said, plowing his fingers through his hair and expelling a long breath. “And you left the money.”

  “I was scared, Carl. My arm hurts. I came to find you. I’m sorry I forgot the money. Are you mad at me, Carl?”

  “Shut up!” Carl shouted. “Just shut the hell up and let me think!”

  This was serious. What should he do?

  He could forget his revenge, leave now, and return to the car, the money, the key to his future. But what if someone had come along and discovered the slain cops? Or cop, singular. One might still be alive. With only one revolver, in a shoot-out of any magnitude, he could wind up dead or recaptured. Not an option.

  Besides, he wasn’t sure he could trust Myron to hold down the fort here even long enough for him to make a clean getaway. Myron was a total shitbrain. As soon as Carl left, this guy, this ranch hand, whoever he was, would make hash of Myron. The guy was smart. Cecil had said he had an “edge,” and on that point he agreed with his brother. In no time flat he could outfox Myron. Then he would be coming after Carl, calling the cops, or otherwise fucking up his plan.

  If they shot everybody here and got it over with, he and Myron could return to the car together, but he would still be faced with whatever uncertainty awaited them there, and only one of them would be armed.

  And if they killed everybody here they’d have no hostages to bargain with.

  Christ, what to do?

  He had to think. Had to keep his head and reason it out. That’s what he was good at, thinking it out. Planning. But this was the worst jam he’d ever been in. Maybe Cecil would have an idea. But Cecil was dead. He had killed Cecil.

  Best not to think about that because it only gummed up his brain.

  But who the hell could think of anything with that kid carrying on? It was enough to drive a man crazy. With a burst of temper, he spun around and pointed the pistol at the squalling child.

  * * *

  “Officer down!”

  Ezzy had been so lost in thought that the frantic words coming through the police radio didn’t register at first. When they did, he jerked erect in his seat and turned up the volume.

  “Officer down!”

  Ezzy reached for the transmitter. “This is BC-Four. Who’s this?”

&nb
sp; The county had started using UHF radios a few years ago. Although the ten-code system was still used for some transmissions, most were voice communications. Units were identified by letter-and-number sequences.

  Ezzy was answered only by a low moan, so he repeated his transmission in a louder, more urgent voice. “Can you hear me?”

  “I think Jim’s dead.”

  Ezzy reached several hasty deductions. Jim Clark was the only Jim in the department. His partner was a relatively new man, practically a kid, named Steve Jones. He was in obvious distress, probably wounded, very scared.

  Calmly Ezzy asked, “Steve, that you?”

  A moan, but an affirmative one.

  “Ezzy?” His name crackled through the speaker. “Ezzy Hardge?”

  “Get off the goddamn radio so I can talk to this kid,” he yelled to the dispatcher who had cut in.

  “Where you at?”

  “County road Fourteen-Twenty,” he replied impatiently. “Headed east. Clear the radio.”

  Another voice. “Jim called in a few minutes ago, Ezzy. Said there was a forty-six on Road Fourteen-Twenty south of River Road. They were stopping to check it out, see what the trouble was. Late-model gray Honda Civic. Texas plates Harry Gary Roger five five three.”

  “Ten four,” said Ezzy. “I’m practically there.”

  “Ezzy, you ain’t—”

  “Steve Jones?” Ezzy said, interrupting. “Listen, son, I’m on my way. Hang in there, you hear?”

  There was no answer. Ezzy cursed and floored the accelerator. He sped through the stop sign at the state highway’s intersection with River Road. Moments later, he spotted the sheriff’s unit parked on the shoulder behind a gray Honda. Both doors of the patrol car were standing open. There was no other sign of trouble except for the body sprawled in the road. Buzzards were already circling.

  Ezzy screeched to a halt behind the sheriff’s unit. He opened his door, crouched behind it, and drew his pistol. He looked at the body in the road. It was Jim, all right. His own mama couldn’t have identified him by what was left of his face, but he was recognizable by his boots. High-dollar Lucchese boots. Which he always wore and always kept polished to a high gloss. The pointed toes, now turned up to the sky, were spattered with blood.

  He crept from behind his cover and ran in a crouch to the rear of the other patrol car. He moved to the right side and poked his head around to look up the passenger side. Wedged in the open door he saw the younger deputy.

  Ezzy rushed to him. The radio transmitter rested in his outstretched hand. There was a godawful lot of blood beneath him, coming from his knee, which appeared to have been shattered by a shotgun blast. He was barely conscious. Ezzy slapped him lightly on each cheek. “Steve, it’s Ezzy. Help’s on the way, son. Which way’d he go?”

  In all his days of law enforcement, Ezzy had never known someone to shoot a cop or two then leave his car behind and set off on foot. Even assuming the perp’s car was somehow disabled, why hadn’t he taken the patrol car, at least for a few miles? It was a puzzling set of circumstances.

  Young Jones appeared to be in shock. His face was chalk white and beaded with sweat. He kept his teeth clenched to keep them from chattering. “Did he get Jim?”

  “ ’Fraid so, son.”

  “That freak. Like a… a ghost.”

  Ezzy’s heart thumped solidly against his ribs, once, then seemed to stop for several beats before resuming. “Big, gawky guy?”

  Jones nodded. “My leg gone?”

  “Naw, you’ll be all right,” Ezzy told him with more confidence than he felt. “Was this guy alone?”

  “Yeah. Get him, Ezzy.”

  Ezzy was hoping that was what the young deputy would say. “Sure you don’t want me to wait till—”

  “No. Get him. He went… yonder.” He pointed with his chin.

  “On foot?”

  “Bleedin’. I think I hit him.”

  Ezzy patted him on the shoulder. “You did good, son.”

  Tears came to his eyes. “I let Jim down.”

  “Nothing you could’ve done different.”

  After assuring the officer again that medical help would be there soon, Ezzy jogged back to his car, his arthritis making ice picks of his kneecaps. But at least he still had both knees.

  Over the radio, he informed other units of the exact location of the shooting. “Ambulance is on the way,” he was told.

  “You’ll need the coroner, too. Proceed with extreme caution. The suspects must still be in the area, on foot, but armed and dangerous. Could be escaped convicts Myron Hutts and Carl Herbold.”

  “Ezzy, this is Sheriff Foster,” he said in his most formidable paramilitary voice. “Are you still at the scene?”

  Ezzy didn’t respond, not even when the sheriff repeated his question. He turned off the radio and sped away, steering around Jim Clark’s body. He was afraid to drive too fast at the risk of missing a trail. He was afraid to drive too slow and risk their getting away.

  He swiveled his head from side to side, hoping to catch sight of Myron Hutts. And hoping just as earnestly that he spotted the convict before the convict spotted him. Killing one more cop would hardly matter to either him or Carl Herbold now.

  Wouldn’t it be something if Carl Herbold succeeded in carrying out his death threats? What a coup it would be for the whole criminal population if Carl got the lawman that first put him in jail. Carl would become the prisoners’ poster child.

  Ezzy laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. If he let Carl kill him, Cora would never forgive him.

  He topped a rise and sighted the Corbett ranch up ahead to the right. Parked out front were a pickup truck and a Jaguar he recognized as Emory Lomax’s. The emergency had taken his mind off that problem. He—

  Ezzy braked so hard his car went into a skid and nosed into the ditch on the far side of the driveway. He’d almost missed it—a trail of blood leading out of the tall weeds in the ditch straight up the driveway to the house.

  He got out of the car. Cocking his pistol, he crouched beside the post supporting the wrought-iron arch.

  Then he heard the unmistakable crack of a gunshot.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The next one’s for the kid if he doesn’t stop that infernal bawling.” Carl had fired the pistol into the wall, deliberately missing David but only by a hair.

  That’s when Jack realized a truth.

  Unequivocal. Unarguable. Absolute.

  He would have to kill this man.

  Of course he would try for a nonviolent resolution. He would try to prevent bloodshed. He would exercise all other options first. But from his position on the floor, as he looked up at Carl Herbold, he knew with unshakable certainty that he would be forced to make him stop breathing.

  The certitude made him feel very old. World weary. Defeated. He wanted to shake his fist at God and demand to know why.

  But he wasn’t even allowed the luxury of introspection. There was no time for it. Carl was ranting over David’s crying. Jack tried reasoning. “He’s five years old. He’s scared. He just saw you shoot a man in cold blood. Your friend there isn’t exactly the man-on-the-street. In these circumstances, what do you expect a child to do?”

  “I expect him to shut up!” Carl shouted.

  “You’re making more racket than he is.”

  “Who asked you?”

  “Why don’t you let his mother take him upstairs, put him to bed?”

  “You think I’m stupid? She doesn’t leave my sight.”

  “The phones are out. There’s no electricity. What could she do?”

  “I said no.”

  “Something to drink might help. In the kitchen—”

  “Everybody stays here where I can see them.”

  Jack glanced toward the corner. “Maybe if he had something to play with. His backpack has some toys in it.”

  Out of sheer frustration over Jack’s persistence, Carl mulled it over. Finally he motioned toward the corner, saying
to Myron, “Give the kid his bag.”

  Myron bent down and picked up the backpack, then carried it over to Jack. David gazed at Myron with fear and awe. Jack was glad the boy was momentarily distracted because it seemed more natural when he passed the backpack to Anna instead of handing it to David.

  Her eyes locked with Jack’s for an instant, then she unzipped the bag and slipped her hand inside.

  Carl jabbed his finger for emphasis. “Now, I don’t want to hear another peep out of him.”

  Jack said, “Will terrorizing us make your situation any better?”

  “You don’t know shit about my situation.” Then, “What situation?”

  From the bag Anna removed a loincloth-clad action figure that held a shield in one hand and brandished a sword in the other. She waggled it in front of David. He smiled and reached for it.

  Taking breaths deep enough to form words cost Jack dearly, but he knew that dialogue would buy them precious time. “You’re in a world of hurt, Carl. I can tell what’s going through your mind.”

  Carl gazed back at him belligerently, but he was still listening. “Like hell you can. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know you’d like to kill your partner there.”

  Myron was slumped against the wall, clutching his wounded shoulder and gazing blankly at David as he bounced the Roman warrior along the floor. He seemed not to hear or comprehend Jack’s hypothesis. Nor had he shown any curiosity over Lomax’s body, which he’d had to step over twice in order to deliver the backpack.

  Jack said, “Myron let you down, screwed up your plan, made you furious. But you can’t eliminate him. Even wounded as he is, you might need him to go back for the money.”

  When Carl shifted his eyes toward Myron, Jack knew he was on the right track. “You should have killed us sooner.”

  Carl hefted the pistol. “Of all you’ve said, that makes the most sense.”

  “Because now it’s too late.”

  “Okay, smart-ass. I’ll play. Why’s it too late?”

  “Because if that second cop is still alive—”

  “He’s not.”

  “You think he might be, though, don’t you, Carl? At the very least you know it’s a good possibility.”

  He let Carl ruminate on that for a few seconds. Anna put her hand into the backpack and it came out holding a wad of Silly Putty, which she playfully molded over David’s knee.