“Thank you,” I answer, my voice raspy.
He shakes Mike’s and Joss’s hands as well. “If you gentlemen will come over as well, we’ll take a look at what’s going to happen.”
We all follow him.
“Mr. Clark, you have a pretty important role in all of this. Are you feeling okay about it?”
I remind myself to unclench my fist that’s hanging at my side. “I’m ready to do whatever it takes to get my son back,” I grit.
“Good. Then let’s go get him.”
The instructions given to me for making the money drop were pretty standard kidnapper crap according to Agent Warner. I’m supposed to come alone, place the duffel bag with the money in a trash can outside an empty storefront in downtown Bittersweet, then go directly to another location a few blocks away, where Pax will be waiting. I was, of course, cautioned not to contact the authorities, et cetera, et cetera. I guess the bastard who has Pax isn’t terribly imaginative.
The team splits up—Jason goes with me, and Ethan heads to the location where we’re supposed to get Pax. Mike and Joss go with Ethan, along with two local police officers and one FBI agent. Warner, several more local police, and the chief come with me. The hope is that they can keep the money and make a couple of arrests.
I drive to the drop spot. Warner is in the car with me, but he sits in back where the windows are heavily tinted and stays as low as he can. When I pull up across the street from the storefront, I turn the ignition off and take a deep breath.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah. I think so.”
“Just remember: our guys are on that roof across the street. They can see everything you’re doing as well as a bunch of stuff around that you can’t. They’ll keep you safe, and once you drop that bag, they’ll wait and watch for the pickup. They’re here to make sure these guys don’t get away. You ready?”
I nod once and then climb out of the car, taking the duffel bag from the passenger’s seat with me as I go. My heart is racing and there is so much adrenaline pumping through my system that I have to quell the urge to flat-out run to the trashcan across the pavement. But I work to look as casual at possible, keeping my sunglasses on and waiting at the curb for a couple of cars to pass before I slowly walk across to the opposite sidewalk.
My skin is tingling, and I flex my free hand, trying to remember that I’m in public, in broad daylight. That, before the next hour is up, I’m going to have Pax back.
I step onto the concrete in front of the storefront and can’t help but glance in the windows. It’s dark inside, odds and ends scattered around, but I see what might be a flash of movement and freeze, my breath stopping in my chest.
I wait for five, ten, fifteen seconds, but nothing else moves, and I expel the air from my lungs, my head spinning from the lack of oxygen. I look around the street. There are a few people walking a block down where there’s a coffee shop and FedEx station, but on this block, it’s nearly empty, the occasional car speeding by. No one’s paying any attention to the rock star with over a million dollars in a gym bag on the sidewalk. I turn and drop the bag into the garbage can that is next to the door under the shop’s awning. I admit it’s a smart drop spot, hidden in the shadows of the building.
I am taking a step away from the building, ready to cross the street and drive like hell to get to Pax, when I hear it. A cell phone playing Sweet Home Alabama. A cough. Then another one—from inside the store. A low moan follows a split second after, and something deep inside me breaks loose. It’s undoubtedly the most foolish thing I’ve ever done in my life, and considering I spent a decade as a drunk rock drummer, that’s saying a lot, but I don’t stop to check the impulse or second-guess the gut reaction. All that goes through my mind is, Pax. I know my boy when I hear him, and he’s in that building.
My hand is on the door before Warner can leap from the car across the street. I hear him shouting, “He’s going in. Repeat: he’s going in. Cover!” as I swing the glass door wide and charge into the room, expecting gunshots to ring out, glass to shatter, all hell to erupt. Instead, I’m greeted by carnage. One man lies on the floor, a pool of blood surrounding him. His face is gray, his body motionless, and even in those few seconds I stare at him, I’d guess that he’s far beyond help.
At his feet, partially slumped against the wall, his legs bent at an odd angle, is my son.
“Pax!” I yell as I bolt across the small space, stepping over the other man’s body as if he were a piece of trash in my way.
I kneel down, smoothing Pax’s hair off his forehead. His eyes are closed, his skin pale as a sheet, and blood is running from his mouth, down his neck, and onto his shirt.
“Oh, God.” I hear my own voice ring out as if it’s not a part of me just before the door to the place slams open, glass flying onto the floor as heavy boots pound and cops pour in. I throw my arms around Pax’s head and turn my back to the room in a misguided attempt at protecting him—from what I don’t know.
There is chaos, bits and pieces of multiple conversations coming at me from all sides.
“All clear!”
“That’s John Lagazo.”
“Anything outside?”
“Where is our vic supposed to be?”
But as I unhunch from around Pax’s body, I feel a hand on my shoulder.
“Mr. Clark?” Warner says quietly. “Is this your son?”
I nod as I lean back so he can see Pax. He immediately puts two fingers to Pax’s throat to check for a pulse, and I wonder in the back of my mind why I didn’t think to do it myself.
“He’s still alive,” Warner says as he pulls a walkie-talkie out. Then he presses the button. “This is Federal Agent Nicholas Warner, badge number 72789. We have a man down. GSW. We need emergency response to 901 East Hampton ASAP.”
He puts the walkie-talkie back in his pocket and then eases Pax the rest of the way onto the floor. I sit and cradle Pax’s head in my lap, looking down at his white countenance.
Warner lifts up Pax’s T-shirt and there’s blood, dried and fresh, covering his right side. Warner takes the shirt and wipes at the area. Pax moans in response.
“It’s okay, kid. I’m here,” I whisper in his ear as I watch Warner’s face for some sort of clue about how serious this is. “Dad’s here, and you’re going to be fine.” I swallow, fear that I’ve just lied crawling through me like a legion of spiders.
“Here’s the wound,” Warner says, pointing to a ragged hole the size of a quarter, torn flesh and blood oozing out of it.
“It’s not bleeding that much. That’s good, right?” I ask, desperation saturating my words.
He darts a glance at me as he puts his ear next to the wound. His brow is drawn down into a scowl. “A lot of the bleeding’s probably internal,” he snaps. “I think it’s punctured his lung.”
As if on cue, Pax coughs, his entire body shaking with the motion. He makes a gagging noise, and Warner quickly flips his to his side. More blood runs from his mouth, covering the leg of my jeans, where his head still rests.
“Shit,” I whisper.
Warner leaps to his feet. “Where the hell is that ambulance?” he yells to the room at large. “We have a vic with a GSW, and we are not losing him after all of this!”
One of the uniformed officers runs out the door, and a few moments later, he comes back, trailed by paramedics with a gurney.
The next twenty minutes are a blur to me. I’m in the back of the ambulance, the siren piercing my ears, machinery bouncing, people shifting from task to task. There are tubes and needles and wires being inserted into nearly every inch of Pax. Lights are blinking, signals are chiming, and the two paramedics working on him are tense, terse, and obviously concerned that he might not make it. I watch, horrified, as they insert a short tube into the right side of his chest and blood comes pouring out onto the floor of the truck. My stomach lurches, and I grab the edge of the gurney I’m seated on as I watch his life force drain away onto the black rubber
mats.
When we reach the hospital, he’s pulled out and rolled through the ER so fast that I barely register that he’s gone. I sprint to catch up until a nurse catches me as I’m about to follow through the swinging doors that have “Surgery” stamped above them.
“I’m sorry. Only staff beyond this point,” she says, gently placing a hand on my shoulder as she stops me.
“That’s my son,” I gasp, my lungs still not taking in enough oxygen to help me speak coherently. “He’s been shot.”
“Okay.” She smiles. “If you’ll come right over here, we’ll get started on admitting him. They’re going to take him into surgery now, and I promise we’ll let you know the minute they have anything to tell.”
I swallow once and nod at her, a sensation of hopelessness taking over me so quickly that I almost collapse from the weight of it. I steady myself against the wall for a moment, which is when she recognizes me.
“Oh!” she exclaims.
I look up and give her a weak smile. “Yes,” I say, “I am.”
She grins. “Well, what in the world are you doing in little old Bittersweet, Alabama?”
“My son lives here,” I answer, gazing through the small panes of glass in the swinging doors that barricade me from Pax.
“Well, we have a great surgeon to look after him,” she tells me as she leads the way to the desk. “While you fill out that paperwork, just tell me one thing—is Joss Jamison really all that?”
Joss is all that—and a bag of chips—which he gives to the nurse as a joke with his autograph that reads, All that and a bag of chips. Love, Joss. He and Mike put on the public rock-star faces and sign more autographs for the staff as well as chat up the nurses while I fill out paperwork. When I finish, they use the goodwill to get us into a private waiting room right next to the surgery hall. We step in, shutting the doors, Ethan standing guard outside.
The cheerful public faces disappear, and Joss runs a hand through his hair. “What the hell happened? The cops with us wouldn’t tell us anything.”
I sink into a chair, my hands shaking harder than they were earlier this morning. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take, and I don’t think I have it in me to describe everything twice right now.
“Tammy,” I say. “I’ve got to call Tammy.”
Mike shoots Joss a look. “Yeah, about that.”
I stare at him like, Yeahhh??
“She’ll be here in about an hour.”
I shoot up out of my seat. “What?!”
“She texted me while you were dealing with the paperwork. She was already in the air. Said she couldn’t stand to stay home any longer while all of this was happening and she wanted to be here to greet Pax when you got him released.”
I collapse back into my chair. “Shit.” How do I tell the mother of my children that her firstborn was shot in the chest? That he’s in an operating room in some backwater Alabama town and he might not make it?
“Yeah,” Mike agrees even though I didn’t speak my fears out loud. “We didn’t tell her anything. No point in getting her worked up earlier than necessary.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that. We can get security to meet her at the airport?”
“Yep.”
I watch the clock, thinking about how thousands of hours of life can pass by completely meaningless and then, suddenly, you wake up one day and your entire world changes in just one sixty-minute span. The next few cycles of sixty minutes will determine whether Pax gets more life—and whether Tammy and I do as well.
**
Carly
I’ve never been in the hospital before, and I’ve discovered that it’s boring, boring, boring. Aside from Aunt Beth’s fussing and Vaughn’s lecturing, nothing happens in my room all day. I’ve watched as much TV as one person possibly can, and now, I’m left to stare at the walls. I’m dying to call Pax again, but I don’t want to be “that” girl—the one who’s clingy and needy and won’t leave the guy alone when he’s obviously rejected her.
On the other hand, Vaughn did run him off, so maybe Pax would be happy to hear from me? Maybe he’s just been traveling and that’s why he can’t answer his phone? I’m moments from picking up my phone to dial again when Vaughn comes slamming into my room.
“What’s the matter?” I ask as I see his frantic expression.
Is Lagazo on a rampage in the hospital, looking for me? About ten insane possibilities like that one run through my mind in a split second, and I move to get off the bed, thinking I’ll need to dive out the window or something to escape.
Vaughn jams a hand through his hair and his jaw tightens. “There’s a rumor flying around the hospital that some of the guys from Lush are in the ER because one of their kids is hurt. I heard these nurses at the desk down the hall talking about it.”
“What?” My voice comes out thready and high.
“I’ve tried calling him,” he says, looking at me grimly. “I can’t get him to pick up or respond to texts.”
“We have to go to the ER,” I demand, struggling to get off the bed. My side is screaming in pain, but I don’t care, I have to get to Pax if he’s here.
“You’re not supposed to be up,” Vaughn says, putting a hand on my arm.
“Please.” My voice conveys every bit of how badly I need this. I can’t stand to lie here in a bed if there’s any chance Pax might be hurt.
He sighs and pauses for a minute. “Okay, but let me do this right.” He disappears out the door but is back in a moment with a wheel chair.
“Thanks,” I grit out as I lower myself into it. I won’t fight him on this. It hurts too much.
When we reach the ER, it’s complete chaos. The rumors about Lush being on the premises must be true, because there are reporters, gawkers, and half-dressed middle-aged women everywhere.
“Holy shit,” Vaughn breathes out as he stops outside the elevator that brought us to the lobby.
Even without seeing him standing behind my wheelchair, I can feel his tension. We both stare at the mayhem in astonishment. Phones are ringing, the TVs are blaring, people are shouting, and camera flashes are going off right and left. There are half a dozen Bittersweet police officers stationed throughout the room in addition to the hospital security staff members lined up outside the large double doors that lead back to the surgery hall.
I put my hand over my mouth so that I don’t break out in tears, because I know that this can’t all be a false alarm. Someone has seen Pax’s dad here, which means that Pax really has been injured, and my stomach roils at the mere thought.
Vaughn wheels me over near the restrooms, where it’s slightly quieter, and kneels down, facing me so that no one else can see or hear our conversation.
“There’s no way the hospital’s going to tell us anything.”
I nod, knowing he’s right.
“My mom’s in the cafeteria. I bet she has Walsh’s number, so let me see if she can get any more information.”
I nod again, swallowing the lump that’s working its way up my throat.
He reaches out and gently takes my hand in his. “It’s going to be okay, C. Just keep thinking positive, and I’ll get you to him as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” I whisper, but all I can think is, What if it’s already too late?
**
Walsh
My phone buzzes, and I check it only because it’s about time for Tammy’s plane to land. Beth Nelsen’s name pops up and I debate whether I want to deal with this right now or not. Joss leans over and looks at the screen.
“You can find out how the girl is,” he says. “Have some good news to tell him when he wakes up.”
I nod and slide my finger across the screen. “Hello?”
“Walsh?”
“Yeah. Hi, Beth.”
“I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’m here in the Bittersweet hospital and Vaughn is with me. The ER has exploded and everyone’s saying that you’re here, too, with the band? I thought you were all heading straight back
to Portland. What’s going on?”
I pull the phone away from my face and look at Mike and Joss. “They’ve found out we’re here,” I tell them. “Double check that security meeting up with Tammy. I really don’t want her to get mobbed on the way in.”
“I’ll tell Ethan,” Joss says as he strides to the door.
I put the phone back to my ear. “Yeah, I’m here too, Beth. It’s, um…” I clear my throat. “It’s Pax. There’s been an accident. He’s in surgery right now.”
“Oh my God,” she gasps. “I swear we had no idea. Vaughn and Pax spoke just yesterday after Carly was brought in. We all thought you were picking him up to go back to Portland.”
“That was the plan. Unfortunately, the local crime lord didn’t agree. Pax was shot before I could get to him.”
She’s silent and I grit my teeth as my mind flashes back to the blood running out of Pax’s mouth.
“What’s his condition?” she finally asks, her voice sounding small and concerned.
“He’s in surgery. We won’t know anything for a while.”
“Is Tammy with you?”
“No, but she’s on her way. And Joss and Mike are here.”
She pauses, and I can almost hear the wheels in her head grinding.
“My niece, Carly, is still here recovering from her surgery—”
“Oh man. I’m so sorry. I should have asked about her. Is she doing all right?”
“It’s fine, and she’s fine. Or, at least, she will be. I’m not sure how much Pax told you about everything, but they’ve become pretty close—Carly and Pax.”
“I did know that,” I answer, and I can’t help the small smile that ripples across my face when I think about Pax’s voice whenever he talked about Carly.
Beth’s next words are rushed and tense. “I know you’re worried and probably really overwhelmed, but do you think there’s any way you could let Carly know how Pax is doing? She’s kind of fragile right now. I’m not sure what this is going to do to her…” Beth’s voice fades away, and I can feel everything she isn’t saying—how much she’s worried about Carly, how much she loves her.
Bittersweet Chronicles: Pax Page 18