“You’re a fire girl, what about the shooting at the hospital?” he asked, trying to buy them some time to figure out how to escape. Or possibly get some sort of sign from someone outside about what they should do.
But his attention returned to Jesse when he saw the startled look on her face at the question. She’d known a blue SUV had been spotted, but she’d been so caught up in James’s abduction that she probably hadn’t put the two together yet.
“Oh, that,” Stacey said and then made a face. “I hate guns. But I needed to get her out of the hospital if I was going to be able to arrange a little meeting.” Stacey gestured to Jesse with her head as she spoke.
“I don’t get it. Obviously, you had some sort of plan, but I’m not seeing it,” he coaxed as he moved into the room a bit more. Stacey’s body turned as she followed him and, from the window, he caught a glimpse of a flash of light. He didn’t know for certain, but he hoped that meant Caleb or someone else was up in the hills he could see through the windows.
He hadn’t talked to Caleb or Ian about it, but David would bet that between the three or four men out there, there was probably a sharpshooter or two between them. Hopefully, by now, Caleb knew if there was a gas leak or not and whether someone could take a shot or not. And the only way for him to find out was to try and maneuver Stacey toward a window. If no one took a shot, then he would know they had other problems, likely a gas leak. In which case, he would need to come up with another plan.
“I said I needed her out of the hospital. There were too many security cameras there, too many security guards.” David brought his attention back to the room and, as Stacey spoke, he inched sideways. She followed him with her own movements.
“If there was a shooting in the hospital, maybe she’d be put on probation or maybe, as it turned out, it would be a friend and she would take a couple of days away from that place,” Stacey continued. “God, I hate hospitals. How can anyone stand the smell?” she added, following a train of thought that was obvious only in her own mind.
David took a few more steps to his right and she followed. Her back was to Jesse, but she was standing between them.
“So how did you manage it?” he asked.
Her personality seemed to shift again, and she shrugged casually. “You hang out in hospitals enough, you hear things. I heard the nurse talking about her brother and how worried she was about him and his care. The daytime help she hired wasn’t there all the time so I took the opportunity to meet him myself. Turns out she should have been worried. He was very malleable. I had him convinced after a week that his sister was screwing with him. That all the things he wanted—a house of his own, a girlfriend, a life—he could have. But that his sister stood in the way.”
Again, he saw the flash up on the hill through the window. She followed his gaze this time and as she looked away from him, he spared a glance at Jesse. She had her hand firmly on James’s shoulder, keeping her son silent, but she gave him another nod just as Stacey turned back.
“So you gave him a gun?” he asked, hoping to distract Stacey from whatever she might have seen through the window.
“I did. I hate guns, but I know how to use them. My dad was a cop and he taught us young. It didn’t take much to convince that guy that if he took care of his sister, he could have it all,” she paused and seemed to give something some thought. He didn’t like the little smile that played on her lips. “You know, that’s who he was supposed to find, his sister. But I think it actually worked out better for me the way it happened, you know, with that woman he shot being one of her friends and all,” she said with an offhand gesture toward Jesse.
David heard Jesse suck in a quick breath and James shift in his chair. Forcing himself not to look at them, he kept talking.
“You must have known he wouldn’t make it out,” he said. If he’d let himself think about what she was saying, her callousness would have rendered him speechless, so he kept a tight rein and focused only on keeping her talking. And getting everyone out alive. Although, come to think of it, he wasn’t sure how she planned to get out alive.
That thought raised a whole set of new questions. Had she planned to tie Jesse up, leave the bomb, then trigger it? That seemed too haphazard, even for someone as crazy as Stacey. She had to have known that Jesse wouldn’t come alone. He glanced around again, looking at all the spots other devices could have been placed, a second bomb could give her leverage to get herself out of there alive. Assuming she intended to get out alive.
Stacey shrugged again and responded to his comment about Gabby’s brother. “Sure, I knew he wouldn’t make it out. But it didn’t really matter to me. I just needed him to get to her,” she said, using the device to gesture toward Jesse.
But her arm only made it halfway through the motion when he heard the sound of glass breaking and the report of a rifle. A look of shock crossed Stacey’s face, then she pitched forward.
David saw Jesse pull James out of the chair in his peripheral vision as he lunged forward, hoping against hope that he could catch the canister. He knew it was on a trigger, but he had no idea what kind.
“Get out!” he yelled even as he dove for the floor.
He was vaguely aware of Jesse yelling for him, Stacey screaming in the background, and the sound of boots crashing against the wood floor. And then he hit the ground.
CHAPTER 26
“DO YOU HAVE IT?” Caleb demanded as he rushed the room. David lay panting on the floor, his arm outstretched, the device cradled in his hand.
“I do but it’s got a trigger and I don’t know what kind,” was all he got out before Ian stepped in and slowly removed it from his hand. He wasn’t hurt, not yet, but the air had been knocked out of him when he’d hit the floor.
“No one come in,” Ian ordered. “You,” he said to David. “Unless you know how to defuse a bomb, get out.” David let the words sink in, and judging by Ian’s tone, while they weren’t out of the woods yet, death wasn’t imminent.
He got up on his knees then, reaching for the wall, pulled himself up. Through the doorway, he could see Jesse outside, straining against someone who was holding her back.
“This is the last time I’ll say it, Hathaway. You’ve done enough today, now get out. We’ve got this,” Ian barked.
He didn’t question how Ian and Caleb would handle it, how they knew whatever it was they needed to know to defuse the bomb, he just gave one last look at Stacey, writhing on the floor with blood oozing from her shoulder, and left. But before he reached the door, he turned back, something niggling on his mind.
“Ian?”
The sheriff looked up.
“She had to have an escape route. I think it might have been that,” David said with a gesture to the bomb Caleb was studying. “At first I thought she meant to use it against Jesse, but now I think she might have planned to use it as her getaway.” Which meant that she’d had another plan for getting to Jesse. And the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that there was another bomb somewhere in the office. But he was going to leave that part up to Ian. Right now, he just wanted to see Jesse. Once Ian nodded in recognition of what he was saying, David turned and left the two men to do what they needed to do.
When David cleared the police line, Jesse launched herself into his arms, sobbing, laughing, thanking him, and chastising him all at once. Ignoring everything she was saying, he gathered her in his arms, buried his face in her hair, closed his eyes, and just held on. Eventually she quieted, but still he held her, unwilling to ever let her go.
“David?” His head came up and his eyes met James’s. For a long moment, they just looked at each other, then David opened an arm and James stepped into the embrace. Her arm came around her son and the three of them breathed in life.
“Mom!”
David didn’t know how long they’d been standing there when Matt’s voice interrupted them. He looked up and both Caleb and Ian were outside, holding pieces of the canister. The bomb squad was starting a
search of the office and property and an EMT was inside with Marcus Brown, working on Stacey. He wanted to tell them not to bother, but when Matt came running up, David decided he had better things to focus on.
Jesse’s older son threw his arms around his mom and brother as David stood and watched. When Matt finally stepped away, everyone’s eyes were red.
“Mom?” James’s voice was quiet as they stood and watched the activity. “Was what she said about Dad true?”
“What who said about Dad?” Matt asked.
David watched Jesse look at both her sons. She had wanted to protect them from this but knew it wasn’t an option now.
She nodded. “Yes, James it was true. Matt, I promise you, we’ll talk about this later.”
He could see Matt wanting to protest, but Joe and Danielle were striding up to them. Without a word, Joe gathered Jesse in an embrace. Then Danielle came forward to do the same.
“You okay?” Joe asked, looking both Jesse and David over.
David nodded.
“Joe, there’s something you should know. Something you and Danielle should both know,” Jesse said. And she proceeded to tell them an abbreviated version of what they learned about the shooting of Abigail. When she was done, Joe turned and looked toward the open door of the barn.
“She still alive?” he asked.
Jesse nodded.
“And she’ll stand trial?”
Again, Jesse nodded. “We have the whole thing recorded,” she said quietly.
For a long moment the man just stood there, watching the barn. Finally, he turned and nodded. “Ian will see to it she gets justice then.”
David thought Joe was more generous than he would have been, but he said nothing, turning instead to catch a glimpse of the EMT loading Stacey onto a stretcher. She was quiet and he wondered if they had sedated her. Out of curiosity he walked back toward the barn. The EMT was pulling the stretcher and Marcus was pushing it from behind. Stacey was wearing an oxygen mask and her hands were cuffed to the sides of the gurney.
David wasn’t the kind of guy who’d ever considered himself bloodthirsty, but looking at Stacey and thinking of all the pain and destruction she had caused, he realized he wouldn’t have cared one way or another if she had died by that bullet.
He glanced at the deputy to see how Marcus was handling the situation, then frowned. Something was wrong. Of its own accord, his head drew back and cocked to the side. Then his gaze landed back on Stacey and his blood ran cold.
She smiled at him.
“Out!” he yelled, his heart in his throat. “Everyone out. Get back, get back,” he shouted chasing everyone away. The EMT looked startled then bolted away from the building. David watched, blood pounding in his ears, as Marcus tried to make it around the gurney and out the door.
“Marcus,” Ian yelled as the officer finally rounded the stretcher and hit the doorway.
Then everything exploded around them.
***
“Jesse!” David yelled, panic clawing at his chest.
“David? Are you okay?” she said, sounding just about how he felt as she came running to his side.
Slowly he rose, dusting the dirt off his hands. He’d hit the ground as soon as he knew what was happening and was now a bit scratched, a bit scraped, and a bit stunned, but otherwise unhurt. Flames were growing greedily, consuming what had once been Mark Baker’s office, and smoke, thick smoke, bellowed out the shattered doors and windows, enveloping the area.
“I’m okay. The boys? Ian? Caleb?” he shouted, frantically looking around. He saw Joe with his arms around all three kids, his body sheltering theirs from the blast. David let out a deep breath when he watched Joe straighten and saw that James, Matt, and Danielle were unharmed.
Turning toward where he’d last seen Caleb and Ian standing, he called to them again.
“We’re good.” He heard Ian call back as he saw them both emerge, coughing, through the smoke.
“The deputy. He was right there. Have you seen him? What about everyone else?” David asked going into work mode. The smoke was still thick on the ground but it was also starting to form a column as it rose into the sky.
“Everyone out here is accounted for,” Ian said, still surveying the scene. “But we need to get in and find Marcus. I think he was out when it hit, but I can’t see anything through the smoke.”
“That’s my job,” David said racing to his truck, ignoring Jesse’s pleas to wait for the fire department just coming down her drive. But he knew how important minutes—no seconds—could be to life or death. Grabbing his work coat, a mask, and gloves, he approached the building.
Judging by the blast, he estimated the trajectory of where Marcus would have been thrown and started searching for him in a grid pattern. Without his full gear, the smoke stung his eyes and his throat burned even through the mask. But still he searched.
In less than a minute, he came across a body. Dropping to the ground for a better look, for a moment he lost hope. Marcus lay on his side, his left leg burned and shredded by debris almost to the bone. The gurney that held Stacey Carson was tipped on its side and was lying across the deputy’s knees. Her body lay across his lower legs, one hand still handcuffed to the rail.
Not one to give up, David ripped off his gloves and felt for a pulse. By some grace of god, or whoever was listening, he felt a slow, weak, rhythmic beat under his fingers.
“I’ve got him,” he shouted, and triggered the light that others would use to locate him, even in the smoke. “He’s down and we need backup.” Already he could hear the sound of the fire truck sirens and the crunch of their tires on the driveway.
From experience, he knew less than a minute had passed before someone else reached him, but holding his finger on that pulse, and feeling it weaken with every beat, made time slow down to a surreal pace. There was no saving Stacey, and two of the firefighters unceremoniously shifted the gurney and body off Marcus.
Together the three of them lifted Marcus onto a board and David shouted that they were heading out. Even before they hit the clear air, the EMT was back, beside a different stretcher now, barking orders and helping to load Marcus into the ambulance.
“We need an airlift,” David demanded, taking off the rest of his gear.
“There’s no time. We’ll get him to Riverside and they can airlift to Boston or New York from there,” Jesse said, already calling the hospital to prepare them for Marcus’s arrival and ordering the helicopter.
David wasn’t sure Marcus would make it to Riverside, but Jesse was right. They could have him in care before a chopper was even ready to lift off. Riverside wasn’t equipped to handle the kind of injuries he suspected Marcus had incurred, but he figured that some care was better than no care as he watched them load and pull away, sirens blaring.
He turned to see James, Matt, and Jesse standing there watching the fire with shock on their faces. He didn’t think their shock was for the destroyed property, but rather for Marcus, a man who been a part of helping them.
“David.” Jesse looked to him for some kind of reassurance. He couldn’t give her exactly what she needed, but he could give her something.
“Come here.” He opened his arms and she stepped right back to where she should be.
***
Darkness had descended hours earlier and yet no one seemed able to go to bed. Jesse looked at the three men sitting around her table and gave thanks, yet again, that they were where they were. Everyone was cradling coffee or hot chocolate and the conversation had dimmed.
She had told Matt and James everything she knew about Stacey, and though it was a conversation no parent wanted to have, she answered their questions about their father honestly.
“Did Dad really have an affair with that woman?” James had asked. “And who was Susan?”
Jesse had answered the best she could, telling her boys about their father’s infidelity with Stacey, Susan, and Karen Ross. She told them they had been talking about a divorce once she f
ound out about the second affair. But she assured them she’d had no idea about Stacey until earlier that day.
When asked if there were others, she wasn’t sure what to say to that. Thankfully, David had jumped in and said that it was possible, based on what Naomi had found in Mark’s old laptop, but they had no proof.
The conversation moved on when Ian called with an update on Marcus. They’d airlifted him to New York and he would pull through but it was going to be a long road. One of Marcus’s knees needed to be replaced, the other was shattered but repairable, his hip was crushed, and he’d suffered severe burns on his right leg and lower torso. Ian, Vivi, and Carly were at the hospital with him.
A few hours later, they got another call from Ian. One that made everyone smile. It was a few weeks early but it seemed that Vivi’s body had decided to take advantage of the convenience of already being at the hospital and she was in labor. Everyone was doing fine and the families were already starting to descend. Ian promised to call as soon as the baby arrived.
And now the four of them were sitting quietly, lost in their own thoughts. The house had been swept four times over to check for any surprises Stacey might have left, but after David insisted on bringing the dogs through a second time, Jesse felt comfortable that at least her home hadn’t been invaded again, and with the help of a little whiskey in her coffee, she was finally starting to relax enough to consider going to sleep.
When David’s phone rang, she glanced at the clock. It was late, very late. But it had only been an hour since Ian had called to tell them about Vivi. She watched as David answered.
“Yeah?” A look of surprise crossed his face and he got up and looked out the window. Ian had placed a sheriff’s deputy at the end of her drive, mostly to make sure folks left them alone.
“Yes, of course.” He hung up and she saw headlights sweep the room as a car came up the drive. “Miranda is here,” he said.
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