One Fatal Mistake

by Tom Hunt

  Maybe this was for the best. She’d given it a shot. Had they stayed with Shane, it was only a matter of time before Ross’s life would’ve ended, anyway. The drugs would’ve claimed him, or he and Shane would’ve continued on a path that would’ve led only to self-destruction. At least this way, she’d tried to save him. She’d failed—but she’d given it a shot.

  Beside her, Ross continued fumbling around on the floor, searching for the shotgun shells.

  She loved him. Even more than that, she loved the man she knew he could be. And she owed it to herself—more important, owed it to him—to try to help him become that person. But it just wasn’t going to happen. It was over. He wasn’t going to go down without a fight, but she wasn’t going to let him go down with a fight and harm anyone else. It was time to end it.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered.

  Her hand trembling, she moved the gun so it was only inches away from the top of his head. She mustered every ounce of strength she had left to clench her fist and pull the trigger. There was a gunshot, loud but still drowned out by the alarm, then an explosion of red that spurted out of his head, splattering onto the truck’s dashboard. The recoil of the gunshot sent her arm flailing to the side. Ross’s body slumped down to the seat, then fell to the ground outside the truck. He lay there, motionless, blood pouring from the gunshot wound and covering the floor of the gun shop.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Amber felt like she was having an out-of-body experience as she sat in the truck and stared out at the gun shop, her head floating, her mind detached. Nothing seemed real. She didn’t seem alive.

  Ross was dead. She’d killed him. She couldn’t believe it had happened.

  In the rearview mirror, she saw more police cars arriving. A few officers crept up to the destroyed shop entrance, their guns drawn. They approached her. Another group of officers walked up to Ross’s body on the ground and looked at it.

  The officers near her started yelling. She loosened her grip on the gun and it clattered to the floor. She weakly raised her hands in the air.

  The next few minutes passed in a blur. Two of the officers lifted her from the front seat and carried her outside the shop. They set her on her back on the concrete. She stared up at the dark night sky as more police cars arrived. The officers leaned over and started talking to her, but she couldn’t understand what they were saying. Their lips were moving but she could barely even hear their voices.

  The next thing she knew, she was lying in the back of an ambulance. A technician was huddled over her, looking at her stomach wound. Two uniformed police officers stood next to him.

  They were talking. First to her. Then to each other. Jumbled words, incoherent phrases.

  Then she recognized a word. A name, actually: Shane.

  One of the officers had spoken his name. The officer was looking down at her. She concentrated on his words. She understood another one: Joshua. The kid from the house.

  She was slowly able to understand what he was saying. Shane was missing. He had Joshua with him. They were asking her if she knew where they were.

  Her mind was a mess, but there was something in there. A thought. An idea. A bit of information.

  She tried to speak. A sound like a gurgle came out. The officers looked down at her.

  “I-I know.”

  The officer on her left spoke. “What was that?”

  “Shane. I know . . . where he is.” At least, she thought she might. And if nothing else, she could help them find him. Do something good. Prevent Shane from causing any more tragedy.

  “Where?” the officer asked her.

  In a low voice, she forced out a few words and told him.

  * * *

  Joshua slowly opened his eyes and blinked a few times to attempt to clear his clouded vision. His head ached. Nose throbbed. Throat was on fire. As his eyesight cleared, he looked at his surroundings. He was in a room. Looked like a cabin or something. The floors were made up of long wooden planks. An unlit fireplace in the corner. A mirror, scuffed with dirt and grime, on one wall. Under that was a small table with a plastic Walmart bag resting on top. There was a single window in the room, closed blinds covering it.

  He was seated on the ground in the corner of the room, hands tied behind him, identical to the pose he’d been in all day at the house. There was no chair now, just the cold, hard floor. He pulled against the restraints with what little strength he could muster. The restraints held.

  He thought back to the scene at the car dealership. His dad—was he all right? He could only hope the gunshot wasn’t serious.

  He remembered hardly anything after Shane punched him and knocked him out. He’d drifted awake in the car a few times but had lasted only a few seconds before slipping back to sleep. He had no idea how long Shane had driven, no idea which direction he’d headed in.

  Now he was here. Wherever here was.

  He heard movement, sounded like it was coming from just outside the only door in the room. He thought about calling out. Decided not to.

  Instead, he sat there. Continued pulling against his restraints, trying to break free. He knew it was pointless, but he kept doing it, anyway.

  The floor creaked with the sound of heavy footsteps approaching the room. A moment later, Shane appeared in the doorway. His shirt was off—not a pretty sight. Flabby chest, hair everywhere, enormous gut. There was dried blood covering his left arm, a deep maroon. A small bullet hole was ripped in his shoulder.

  He looked at Joshua and walked over to the table with the plastic Walmart sack on top. Pulled out a box of Lucky Charms and tore it open. He dug his hand inside and grabbed a handful. Threw them into his mouth. He pulled a Mountain Dew bottle from the bag and took a swig to wash them down.

  Joshua watched him eat. Thought about asking a few questions but remained silent.

  Shane took a final handful of cereal and threw down the box. It landed on its side and some of the cereal spilled out onto the floor. He looked at the shoulder bullet wound in the mirror and uttered a curse word.

  He pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He pounded away at the screen.

  “Shit,” he grumbled after a while.

  He walked over to Joshua and turned the screen toward him.

  “Looks like we’re famous.”

  Displayed was an Internet browser showing a news article.

  The headline: SHOOT-OUT AT CAR DEALERSHIP, GUNMAN STILL AT LARGE.

  Right under the headline was an article with a variety of pictures.

  A group of police cars outside the dealership, their lights on.

  A picture of the white car Shane had stolen from the dealership. Under the picture was a graphic with the car’s license plate.

  A mug shot of Shane.

  A school picture of Joshua.

  Joshua scanned the article and caught two words that stuck with him: no fatalities.

  The significance of that phrase sank in. No fatalities.

  His dad wasn’t dead.

  Shane put the phone away and walked across the room. Pulled back the blind and stared out the window. It was dark outside. All Joshua could see were bare tree branches and ground covered with dead grass and a light sprinkling of snow.

  Looking out the window, he tried to figure out where they were. The frozen ground and trees were the only clue, but they weren’t much help. They weren’t too far south; that was about all he knew.

  They could be anywhere.

  * * *

  Shane stared out the window for a long moment, then turned to Joshua.

  “I’m in one hell of a pickle, kid,” he said. “No money. Cops after me. My damn picture’s on the news. I got two plans right now. Two ways I might get out of this. Plan A and Plan B.”

  He pulled his phone from his pocket.

  “I’m hoping like hell that Plan A works. You
should be, too.”

  He tapped the phone screen a few times. Set it on the table in front of him and put the phone on speaker. He sat down, the chair creaking under his weight, and buried his head in his hands.

  The phone rang a few times; then an answer. A thick Southern voice: “Shane?”

  “Yo, Smitty.”

  “I just saw your ugly mug on the Internet. The fuck, man? What’s going on?”

  “Some shit went down.”

  “I’ll say. A shoot-out. A manhunt. And you got a kid with you? A hostage?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, things got a little crazy. Listen, I’m coming back to Saint Louis. Need to stay with you for a few more days while I figure some shit out. Lay low.”

  “Hell of an ask,” the voice said. “But we might be able to work something out. It’ll cost you, though.”

  “Cost me?”

  “Yeah. Before you left here, you said you were getting some money from your brother. Money from a bank robbery. Forty grand, you said. Gimme a nice cut of that—say, ten grand or so—and we can work something out. Happy to let you lay low for a bit.”

  “Turns out he didn’t have the cash. The money’s gone. The dumbass got it taken by the cops.”

  “Then I’m not helping. Stay the hell away from me.”

  Shane clenched his jaw.

  “Shit, come on, man. You let me stay with you earlier.”

  “Your picture wasn’t all over the news then. It is now. Big risk, taking you in now. If there was serious money involved, I’d consider it. But if there ain’t, you’re on your own.”

  Shane balled his hand into a fist.

  “Listen, I’ll—”

  “Drop it. Don’t waste your breath. I’m not letting you stay with me. Want my advice? Turn yourself in. On the run like this, you don’t stand a chance.”

  “Shove your advice up your ass.”

  A hearty laugh from the other end of the line. “Take it or leave it. Just trying to help you out. Only a matter of time before they find you.”

  The call ended. Shane banged his fist down on the table a few times.

  “Fuck!”

  He closed his eyes. Breathed deeply and slowly. He put his phone in his pocket and looked at Joshua.

  “So much for that,” he said. “Guess it’s time for Plan B.”

  * * *

  Karen sat in the interrogation room and waited for Franny to return. The wait felt like a year. She prayed that he’d have good news when he came back. She wanted to pace around the room just to do something but didn’t think she’d be able to stand up, let alone walk, without falling to the ground.

  The more time passed, the more certain she became that there would be no good news. Something had happened to Joshua. He was harmed, injured, something even worse. This winding, nonstop nightmare would finally end in the worst way possible.

  Finally, the door opened and Franny walked back into the room.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Has something happened?”

  He nodded. Told her to calm down. Then slowly relayed everything he’d just learned.

  A gun shop had been broken into. Two officers patrolling in the area arrived at the scene and found a truck crashed into the entrance.

  It was Mr. Chamberlain’s truck. The truck Ross and Amber had stolen.

  There’d been a shoot-out that ended with Ross dead and Amber being rushed to the hospital.

  “On the way to the hospital, she mentioned something,” Franny said. “There was someone Shane was staying with before he showed up to your house. A friend of his. A guy named Smitty. He met up with this guy after he was left behind at the bank robbery.”

  “Where?”

  “Saint Louis. Owns a bar down there, apparently. Amber said Shane mentioned it to them earlier. Said that’s where he was hiding. She thinks he might’ve returned.”

  “With Joshua?”

  “Maybe. We don’t know. They wouldn’t have had time to make it to Saint Louis yet, but we alerted the local police department, anyway. They did a search and think they found the guy.”

  He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and looked at it.

  “Ronald Smith is the name,” he said. “Involved in some pretty bad things. Officers are on their way to this guy’s house now to ask him a few questions.”

  She silently stared off. It wasn’t bad news, but it wasn’t really good news, either. Nothing had changed. They still had no idea where Joshua was or if he was harmed.

  “We’re hoping Shane has tried contacting this Smitty,” he said. “Maybe he knows where they are. Right now, just be cautiously optimistic. It might be nothing, or it might be something. We’ll know more soon, once officers have arrived and talked with him.”

  “How soon?”

  “Soon. That’s as much as I can tell you now.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Shane sat at a desk in the corner of the room opposite Joshua. He frantically scribbled onto a sheet of paper. A few crumpled wads of paper littered the floor around the desk.

  His phone was propped up on the desk, an image displayed. His eyes went back and forth from the phone to the paper, back to the phone, as he drew.

  Even though he was on the other side of the room, Joshua had briefly seen what was displayed on the phone screen. It was an image of a bank lobby. Shane was sketching out a crude drawing of the image onto the sheet of paper, adding in stick figures and a squiggly line marking a path around the lobby.

  He was working out a plan to rob the bank. That much was obvious. But there was plenty else that wasn’t obvious.

  Joshua struggled against the restraints behind him. Pulled, yanked, contorted his arms. Nothing. Shane glanced over at him and smirked.

  “Don’t even try getting free, kid,” he said. He spoke quickly. “You ain’t exactly the first person I’ve tied up. You break free from that, you deserve a damn medal.”

  Shane returned to scribbling on the piece of paper. Earlier, he’d grabbed a baggie full of pills from his pants pocket and popped a few. He’d been moving quicker since then. Had a frantic, desperate look in his eyes.

  “What . . . what’s going to happen?” Joshua asked.

  Shane turned from the desk and looked at him.

  “I’m working on a plan over here,” Shane said. “See what I’m drawing?”

  “I think so.”

  “What is it?”

  “A bank.”

  “Yep. A bank. Gonna rob it. You and me both, actually. Your role’ll be a hell of a lot easier than mine, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Shane smirked at him. He gave a brief, mad chuckle.

  “No reason I can’t tell you,” he said. He grabbed another sheet of paper off the desk. “Let’s say the bank I want to rob is right here.”

  He made an X on the right side of the paper.

  “And then, let’s say your dead body is found all the way over here.”

  He made an X on the left side of the paper.

  “Now, if that happens, where do you think every single cop in the area is gonna be?” He tapped the left side of the paper. “Over here. At the body of the kid who was missing. A long-ass ways away from the bank. Which means I’ll have time to grab a lot of money and get the hell out of Dodge before the cops even know what happened.”

  Shane crumpled up the sheet of paper and threw it on the floor.

  “You’re a distraction, kid. That’s your role. And I have a feeling you’ll be damn good at it.”

  Shane chuckled again. He turned back around and continued sketching on the sheet of paper.

  * * *

  Franny had been in the room for only a moment when the mustached officer from earlier appeared at the door again. Same drill as before. Franny left the room to talk with him, leaving Karen alone.

&
nbsp; She sat and waited. She just wanted to hear something. An update. Just wanted to know what was going on.

  There was a small window in the door, and she could see people running by out in the hallway. A commotion outside. Something was going on.

  Franny reentered the room.

  “Okay,” he said. “Officers in Saint Louis went to the house of Ronald Smith. Sure enough, he was the Smitty we’re looking for. He denied everything at first, but they had leverage on him and he spilled the beans. He said he’d just spoken with Shane. Claims that Shane wanted to come down. He said no. And he says that was the extent of their conversation.”

  “Did he say anything about Joshua?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  She felt like she’d been kicked in the gut.

  “We got Shane’s phone number and contacted the cell phone provider,” Franny said. “They traced the cell towers the call was placed through and were able to narrow down an area close to here. A campsite about twenty miles outside of town. Not used in the winter. We’ve got people on their way there right now. The call was placed fifteen, twenty minutes ago. So they could’ve left since then. We’ll know soon.”

  “What if they’re there?” Karen asked. “What will happen?”

  “Saving Joshua, that’s our priority. We won’t put him in danger. We’ll do whatever it takes to bring him home safe.”

  Karen leaned forward in her chair. They needed a miracle. She knew they probably didn’t deserve one, not with the awful things that had happened to bring them to this point. But she prayed for a miracle nonetheless, prayed that a miracle would occur and this would have a happy ending.