One Fatal Mistake

by Tom Hunt

  Shane started shooting. The gunshots were right behind Joshua, like cannon blasts. He fell to the ground, hands over his head, ears ringing, every muscle in his body clenched.

  The officers yelled some more. There was a barrage of gunshots from Shane. Joshua curled into a ball on the ground and closed his eyes as gunshots continued to ring out.

  “Joshua . . .”

  He opened his eyes. His dad was only a few feet away, on his knees. Right in front of the dealership entrance door . . . which was open, keys dangling from the keyhole.

  He reached out and grabbed Joshua’s arm. They stood up and sprinted past the open door, into the dealership.

  Behind them, more gunshots. Then a yell: “Shit!” It didn’t sound like Shane, but it was impossible to tell. Too much was happening.

  Joshua kept running, right beside his dad, into the lobby. It was so dark Joshua could barely see a few feet in front of him.

  Another yell from behind them: “Dammit!” That one vaguely sounded like Shane.

  They reached the middle of the lobby, one hallway leading off to the left, one off to the right. He followed his dad down the one to the left. They ran down the darkened hallway, closed doors on either side of them.

  From behind them, Joshua heard loud panting, heavy breathing. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a thick, bulky silhouette lumbering down the hallway, heading straight toward them.

  Shane.

  Then came the flash of a muzzle and the crack of a gunshot, the noise echoing in the empty hallway.

  A gunshot. Then another one.

  Beside Joshua, his dad yelled out and collapsed to the ground, grabbing his thigh. Even in the near total darkness of the hallway, Joshua could see the blood on the leg of his dad’s pants.

  “Are you shot?” Joshua asked.

  His dad nodded. He tried to stand up but his leg buckled under him and he fell back down to the ground.

  Behind them, Shane’s shadowy figure made its way down the hallway, closer and closer.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Karen arrived at the dealership and pulled into the parking lot. Heart racing, she drove across the parking lot, heading toward the red and blue flashing lights near the building.

  When she was closer, she saw a police cruiser. Two officers were right outside of it, one lying on the ground, one huddled over him. The one on the ground held a bloody hand to his shoulder. Next to the cruiser was a dusty Dodge Ram pickup. The driver’s door was open, interior light on.

  No Teddy in sight. No Joshua. No Shane.

  As she neared the building, three cruisers with their sirens blaring pulled into the parking lot from a side entrance. The cars parked next to the scene and officers jumped out. They ran over to the two officers on the ground. There was some yelling. A few of the officers ran toward the dealership, guns drawn.

  She parked her car fifty feet from the pickup. Jumped out. An officer yelled at her to get back in her car.

  “I called this in,” she said. “I’m the one who called nine-one-one. My son. Where is he?”

  “Back in your car!” he yelled. He turned and ran toward the entrance.

  Police officers ran around. More yelling. Sirens wailed. Lights flashed. Two more police cruisers roared across the parking lot toward them.

  Chaos. Everything was chaos.

  * * *

  Joshua leaned over his dad in the hallway. The leg of his pants was soaked in blood. Blood continued to gush from his thigh.

  “Run!” his dad said. “Get out of here.”

  “No.”

  He draped his arm around his dad’s shoulders. Attempted to help him stand up. He lifted and—

  “Don’t move, kid.”

  He turned around. Shane was directly behind him, chest rising and falling. His shoulder was bloody, his shirt soaked in red—he must’ve been hit during the shoot-out. He squeezed the shoulder with one hand and held the gun in his other hand. He pointed it at Joshua.

  Outside the building, a group of police cruisers arrived at the scene, sirens blaring.

  “Fuck!” Shane mumbled, staring out at them. “Fuck!”

  Shane looked at the closed hallway doors on their left, on their right. He ran over to the closest door and tried to open it. Locked. He raised his leg and smashed his foot against the door. The door splintered around the handle and flew open.

  “Over there. Go!”

  Shane ran back over to Joshua. He grabbed Joshua and dragged him over to the door, one hand gripping his arm like a vise, the other pressing the gun into his back. Before they entered, Joshua looked back and saw a final image of his dad on the ground, holding his leg, the white tile around him covered in blood.

  Through the door was a garage. A white car was in the middle of the room; it was too dark to see what model it was. Power tools and other items lined the wall. The garage door was pulled down behind the car.

  In the hallway, there were footsteps, yelling. Sounded like an army storming the scene.

  “Shit,” Shane said. “Shit.”

  Shane frantically looked around the room. Right past the door was a board with at least ten different sets of keys dangling from pegs. Shane swiped them all off the board and started pounding the remote unlock button on each, throwing the keys to the side when they didn’t unlock the car.

  In the hallway, the yelling was getting louder, closer.

  Shane hit the button on a set of keys and threw them to the side. Another. Another—and the car in front of them honked once. The headlights flashed and the interior lights turned on.

  Shane grabbed Joshua’s arm again and dragged him over to the passenger door, the gun pushing into his back. He threw open the passenger door and shoved Joshua into the car.

  “Don’t move.”

  Shane ran around the car and jumped into the driver’s seat. He fired up the engine.

  A police officer appeared at the door.

  Shane shifted the car into reverse and floored it.

  The officer fired a shot at the car.

  The rear of the car smashed into the garage door and ripped a hole in it. One hand holding the steering wheel, the other on the armrest pointing the gun at Joshua, Shane kept the accelerator floored. They were in a parking lot, smaller and not crowded with cars—the rear of the dealership. On the opposite side of the building, Joshua could see red and blue police lights flashing into the night sky.

  Shane slammed on the brakes. Joshua rocked forward in his seat. Shane shifted the car into drive and sped forward. Behind them, an officer appeared in the hole in the garage door. He yelled something at the car and fired his gun in the air.

  Ahead of them, the parking lot stretched out for a couple of hundred yards. Beside the dealership was a flat grassy field with a LOT FOR SALE billboard at the edge. Shane drove over and jumped the curb that divided the parking lot from the field, the car rocking forward. They started driving through the field, the car tires kicking up grass and dirt.

  * * *

  More cop cars arrived, their lights flashing, sirens blaring. A few more officers sprinted into the dealership. An ambulance arrived and paramedics ran over to the injured officer, loaded him onto a stretcher. A few cars on the highway had pulled to the side of the road to let the emergency vehicles pass, bottlenecking the traffic. Car horns were honking. Noise and commotion were everywhere.

  Karen wanted to scream. Yell out. Do something, anything. She felt so helpless; she needed answers. Where was Joshua? Teddy? Were they in the dealership? Had they escaped somewhere else? She recognized the pickup from her driveway—they must’ve taken it here . . . so they had to be here somewhere, didn’t they?

  A uniformed officer walked over and stood next to her. The radio clipped to his shoulder was broadcasting a jumble of noises and voices. He turned the volume down low. “You’re the one who called in the em
ergency?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yes. . . . My son . . .”

  The word trailed off.

  “Everything will be fine,” he said. “We’ve got over twenty officers in there. We’ll find him. We—”

  At the dealership entrance, two officers stumbled out of the building, their arms draped around a man, helping him walk.

  It was Teddy.

  She watched them move from the entrance across the parking lot. Once they were close enough, she could see that Teddy’s leg was covered in blood. She ran over. She looked at his bloody pants, looked at the officers on either side.

  “My God, my God,” she said.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  A paramedic with a gurney appeared and helped Teddy onto it.

  “Joshua,” she said. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. He shot me, took Joshua.”

  The paramedics rolled the gurney toward an ambulance. Karen watched as they loaded Teddy inside. Her mind was swimming. An officer appeared and stood beside her. He might’ve been the same officer she’d just spoken to, might’ve been a different one. She couldn’t remember.

  “We’ll find your son,” he said to her. “If they are in there, we will find them. And we will make sure he’s safe.”

  He kept talking to her, the words not even registering, until he was interrupted by a loud crashing noise from behind the dealership. Like a wall falling down. Tires squealed. There was a popping noise: a gunshot. The dealership building blocked Karen’s view and prevented her from seeing what was going on. She ran over to the side of the building and saw a white car reversing through an open lot behind the dealership. It came to an abrupt stop and started moving forward. The car sped through the lot, jumped a curb, and drove across a large empty field next to the dealership. A few officers standing beside her ran over to their cars and jumped inside. They drove in the direction of the car, pursuing it; the white car had at least a half-mile head start.

  Karen watched the car disappear across the field—was Joshua inside? All around her was a scene of total madness—police cruisers speeding toward the white car, officers running around. The ambulance carrying Teddy pulled away, lights flashing, just as two more ambulances arrived on the scene.

  It was all too much. She couldn’t hold back. She lowered her head and started crying.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The car moved across the empty field, rocking up and down. Joshua was frozen in the passenger seat. Shane still had the gun resting on the center console, pointed at him. Every time the car rocked, Joshua flinched, bracing himself, certain the bumping would cause Shane to inadvertently pull the trigger.

  He glanced over at the passenger door. Right there. The door handle inches away.

  “Don’t open that door, kid,” Shane said. “Don’t even think about it. You move an inch and I’ll blow you away.”

  Shane sped across the open grassy lot. In the rearview mirror, Joshua saw a few police cruisers pulling away from the dealership and trailing them. But they were so far back there, not even close.

  Ahead of them, a residential neighborhood bordered the park. Shane sped toward it. The car rocked forward as they drove over another curb, onto a residential street. Most of the houses in the neighborhood still had lights on. They sped down a street. Down another. Ran a stop sign. Houses flew past. It felt like they were going a million miles an hour.

  They turned and the tires squealed. The group of police cars was still behind them but barely even visible.

  They took another turn. Sped down a few blocks. Another turn. A few more blocks.

  Right in front of them was an on-ramp for a highway. Shane pulled up to it and slammed on the brakes.

  “Hey, kid, look at me.”

  Joshua looked over at Shane. He saw Shane’s face for a split second, then the blur of his fist. Before he could brace himself, a punch smashed against his nose.

  There was an intense, shooting pain.

  And then Joshua was unconscious.

  * * *

  • • •

  The officer led Karen over to one of the police cruisers and helped her onto the front bumper. She sat there, head buried in her hands, crying. She was close to completely breaking down and turning into a slobbering, blubbering, inconsolable mess.

  Helpless. She felt so helpless.

  Someone draped a blanket over her shoulders. Asked her if she wanted anything to drink. She didn’t even respond, just kept her head lowered, staring at the ground as she cried.

  Time passed. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. She looked at the dealership entrance. She hoped, prayed, that the doors would open and Joshua would walk out, unharmed, safely guarded by police officers.

  Another officer appeared at her side. As before, she had no idea whether he was someone she’d already spoken to. She couldn’t remember anything from earlier.

  “We’re still searching,” he said. “We haven’t found your son inside yet.”

  “They’ve been searching for twenty minutes now,” she said, her voice barely there.

  “There’s a lot of ground to cover. We’ll find him.”

  “That car that disappeared. The one that drove away.”

  “He might’ve been in there. We don’t know. We’re looking for it now.”

  She kept her eyes on the dealership entrance.

  “He was in the car, wasn’t he? He’s not in the dealership. He’s gone.”

  “We’ll find him.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The chaos began to slow down. Police cars stopped arriving. All the ambulances were gone. The bottlenecked traffic on the shoulder of the nearby highway had disappeared.

  A few officers stood, talking, in front of Shane’s black pickup. Yellow crime scene tape had been strung up on the periphery of the parking lot. A few news vans were parked on the other side of the tape.

  At one point, Detective Franny arrived. He came over to Karen, asked if she was all right. She shook her head. Of course she wasn’t all right. She had a million questions but no strength to ask any of them. Maybe the answers to her questions were what she was truly afraid of. Getting the news that they’d found Joshua and he was hurt or shot or even worse. It was all she could think about. Teddy had been shot. What would stop Shane from doing the same to Joshua?

  Time passed. It felt like an hour, but when she glanced at her watch she saw it had been only ten minutes since that white car had disappeared across the nearby lot. She felt her hope slowly fading, fading away.

  And then it happened. An officer walked out of the dealership and approached Franny. He said something. Franny said something back. They both looked over at her. Her heart skipped a beat. The officer said something else to Franny, who nodded and walked over to her, his face completely blank.

  He shook his head. Every muscle in her body froze.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “They’re gone,” he said. “The general manager of the dealership arrived a few minutes ago and gave us access to the security footage. Shane forced Joshua into the car and left with him.”

  Franny placed his hand on her shoulder.

  “We’ll do all we can,” he said. “The pursuing officers lost the trail, but we have the car’s license plate. Every officer in the city is looking for it. They can’t be far. We’ll find them.”

  “He’s gone?” Karen said. Watching the car disappear, she’d been positive that Joshua was in there, but she’d held on to a faint bit of hope that she’d been wrong. No longer. Joshua was gone. Ten minutes didn’t seem like much time, but it was. If they got to the interstate, they could be outside the city already, headed anywhere.

  “Right now, we need to take you in to the station,” Franny said. “Get your story. Learn everything we can from you to help us find them. And we will find them. Trust me o
n that. Is there anything we need to know before we leave?”

  Even with her mind jumbled and barely able to function, she thought of something. A bit of information that might come in handy.

  “There’s someone at my house right now,” she said. “Two people. They’ve been holding us hostage.”

  Franny kept his eyes on her. “Hostage?”

  “Yes. This whole thing . . . It’s complicated. But the people at my house, they’re involved in this, too.”

  “We’ll send a team over right away,” Franny said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Amber walked from the bedroom to the living room, though she wasn’t walking so much as she was being dragged along by Ross. His arm was draped around her shoulders as he helped her move. Her legs were wobbly. Head spinning. Her stomach throbbed. Not as bad as when she’d been lying in bed, but she didn’t know if it was a good thing or not that the pain wasn’t as intense.

  She felt Ross’s arm dig into her back and pull her along.

  “Slower,” she said. “Slow down.”

  “No. Gotta hurry. Gotta get out of here.”

  They walked on. She just couldn’t keep pace with Ross. He was moving so fast. Quick steps, jumpy movements. Earlier, right after the woman had taken her car and driven away, he’d paced around the room and mumbled to himself. He’d asked her a few questions about what to do next. He’d then taken three pills, smashed them into a powder on the table, and snorted them.

  The effect had been instant. Like a switch had been flipped. He’d grabbed a phone from his pocket and looked at a few things. A moment later, he tore a sheet out of a Better Homes & Gardens magazine beside the bed, quickly scrawled something on it, and threw the phone back into his pocket. He helped her out of bed and they walked down the hallway.

  She didn’t know where they were going.

  “Come on, come on,” Ross said, pulling her down the hallway.