“Cat hardly ever drinks,” Gabe said. “She has two bottles of wine, red and white, in case a friend who likes wine visits. And she has that bottle of brandy that she likes to drizzle over desserts, but she keeps that in a locked cabinet, which is where she keeps her medicine for PTSD, too. I don’t know why you found a bottle on her bathroom counter. She’s always careful, even though she knows I’d never touch it.” She scanned the menu. “You’ve got a lot of liquor in that unlocked cabinet. Julie and Ricky pointed that out last week when they came by and you were still at work. They said you’d never miss just one bottle if we took it.”
“They’re probably right. I have no idea what all’s in there. Did they take any?”
Gabe shook her head. “I thought about letting them because I was so mad at you. But I didn’t because, if Cat found out, she’d be disappointed in me.” Gabe looked away at first, then bravely turned back to let Autumn see the tears. “I don’t want to ever disappoint her. I want to be like her.”
“I miss her so much.” Autumn’s choked admission broke the last barrier, and she cried for the child she’d lost and for everyone she’d thrown away.
“Then you need…you need to fix this,” Gabe said, sobbing along with her.
“I’ll need help. I used to think I could do everything myself, but I can’t. I don’t want to try anymore.”
***
“Are you sure, Cat?” Roscoe zipped his leather flight jacket against the cold front pouring into the Atlanta metro area ahead of a storm front coming up from the Gulf. The two fronts were forecast to meet and create a snowstorm that would hang around for several days. “I can go with you and wait outside.”
“No. I’ll be fine.” Catherine eyed the snow clouds gathering overhead. “Looks like this storm is rolling in faster than they thought. You don’t want to get trapped down here. You’ve still got time to get out ahead of it. Go home to your wife and kids. Elvis will watch out for me.” Elvis looked up from where he stood by her side and woofed.
“When my son gets a little older, we’re going down to the shelter and get a dog just like Elvis. He’s spooky smart.” He looked up at the clouds, and she could see he was worried.
“You don’t find dogs like Elvis. They find you.” She smiled at Roscoe. “Go. Thanks for getting me this far.” A cab pulled up to the hanger where Roscoe’s plane was refueling. “See, there’s our ride.” He waved as she walked away, then headed for his plane.
She focused on her cab when the whup-whup of a helicopter approached overhead. She was not in the desert. She was relieved to see her driver was a black woman, not a Middle Eastern man. The more triggers avoided, the better.
The driver stared down at Elvis, who offered his paw. The woman broke into a smile and bent to give his paw a gentle shake. “Aren’t you a handsome guy.”
“I called ahead. They said there wouldn’t be any problem letting him ride with me.” Legally, the driver couldn’t refuse service since he was wearing his official service-dog vest and Catherine had his certification papers in his pocket. But she found being polite and prepared usually stopped any confrontations before they started.
“No problem at all. Looks like he washes his hair regularly. Some of my customers don’t. Then you have to worry about lice in your back seat. That’s why I won’t drive cabs with cloth seats. You can never get those completely clean.”
Inside the cab, the music was low, but the rhythmic chant of the rap song and the whup-whup of the chopper circling overhead ate at her. They were on the interstate loop now, and the desert flashed in front of her when the whine of a motorcycle whipping past them made her duck. “Incoming,” she muttered. Her chest was growing tight, and she couldn’t seem to draw in a full breath. Elvis whimpered and sat up to huddle against her side. She hit the window control to lower it and let the wind rush onto her face.
“Is it too warm back there?” her driver asked. “I can turn the heat down.” She pointed to a sign on the back of the seat in front of Catherine. “Better let me know if I need to pull over. It’s a hundred-dollar cleanup fee if you puke in the cab.”
“Yeah. It’s a little warm.” Catherine raised the window, but the rap chant was louder with the window closed. “Could you turn off the music or change it to blues or classical? Something instrumental and soothing?”
The woman eyed her in the review mirror but turned the music off. “You okay?”
“Sorry.” Catherine massaged her temples. “Traumatic head injury when I was in the service. I don’t have any prejudice against rap music, but the repetitive rhythm of some music can trigger a migraine. I know it’s pretty frigid outside, but the cold helps if you can stand it.”
“No problem. I guess that’s why you have the handsome guy with you.” She pressed the controls on her door to roll Catherine’s window down for her. “I’m down with it. My brother played football in college, and he had so many concussions, he can’t listen to some songs either.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate it.” Catherine turned her face to the icy wind and concentrated on what she’d say if Autumn would open the door. She’d talked herself out of hoping she and Autumn could ever have a future. The best she could hope for was a truce for Gabe’s sake. But she was forcing herself to brave the city, because during her nightly chats, she could sense Gabe’s anxiety growing as Christmas neared. Autumn had said her building allowed pets, and she was bringing Elvis for Gabe. She didn’t know how she’d make it out of the city without him, but Gabe needed Elvis more than she did.
Catherine was relieved when her driver finally pulled over next to a small park surrounded by tall apartment buildings.
“I can’t turn right at the corner because it’s one-way, but the building you want is that second one on your left.”
Snow had begun to fall, forcing Catherine to close the window for the last ten minutes of the ride, and the cab was beginning to close in on her.
“That’s 68.75, plus tax.” The driver tapped a few icons on her tablet. “Hold on. It’s figuring the total. The city’s got to get its due, you know.”
Anxious to get out of the car, Catherine handed over two hundred-dollar bills and opened her door. “Just keep the change. You might need it to buy cold medicine after riding with me.” She stepped out into the winter landscape, and Elvis followed. The snow was coming down in large, fluffy flakes.
The driver looked at the bills. “Hey, thanks. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.”
The cab disappeared around the corner, and an eerie quiet settled around them. Catherine was used to the way snow seemed to silence the landscape. But she wasn’t used to shadowy figures moving cautiously between the cars parked on an adjacent lot and sneaking between buildings. She closed her eyes. Just people trying to get inside before the snow got too bad.
The poor visibility bothered her. Neon lights from restaurants and stores on the next blocks were fuzzy behind the screen of snowfall. Blues, reds, and orange reflected and refracted, blinking like the glow of mortars hitting distant targets. Elvis pressed against her leg, and she shook her head to clear it. She started across the snow-covered lawn toward the building the cab driver had pointed out.
There were several trees in the park, and Elvis tugged her toward one to relieve himself. Then a muffled thud like an IED exploding under a Humvee and the screech of metal on metal turned her blood cold. Down the street to her left, a car was turned on its side, and a shadowy figure ran from it. Ran toward her. Where was her rifle? She clawed at her ankle. That gun was gone, too. Two vehicles skidded to a stop where the taxi had let her out. Lights flashed all around her. Elvis growled, then barked at the figures coming toward her, guns held out in front of them, pointing at her. Shouting at her. She was surrounded.
Catherine threw her backpack onto the ground and dug into it frantically. “Where is my gun?” she muttered. “Where is my gun? Where is my gun?” Her volume increased with her frustration. Elvis moved in front of her, snarling and b
arking, but the figures still advanced.
Their shouts mixed with Elvis’s barks, and she couldn’t understand what they were saying.
***
Autumn checked the refrigerator one more time for anything that could spoil, then yelled so she could be heard in the next room. “Are you all packed?” Her question got a muffled response.
“Where are my wool socks? The blue ones?”
She glanced over at the laundry closet. The doors were wide open with a pile of laundered but not folded underwear and socks covering the top of the dryer. “Check the laundry closet.”
She couldn’t decide what was worse—them yelling at each other from different rooms or texting each other from different rooms. They planned to stop for breakfast as soon as they cleared the Atlanta-metro-area traffic, but Gabe would probably eat these leftovers, too, at some point during their six-hour drive.
Yesterday’s teary afternoon had been a beginning for them, and tomorrow they planned to drive to Elijah in time for Christmas and hope that Catherine would forgive Autumn. None of them had chosen to be a family last spring. Becki’s death had thrust it upon them. Next year, they hoped to be together because it was what they all wanted.
Gabe slid around the corner in her socks, changing direction at the last second to stop next to the pile of clothes on the dryer. “Here they are,” she said, holding up blue wool hiking socks. She looked out the window. “Hey, it’s snowing.”
“That whole pile belongs to you. Take it to your bedroom, please, and put them away.”
“You are such a neat freak,” Gabe said. But her complaint held a playful tone.
Autumn bent over the deep drawer that held her plastic containers, searching for something to hold the lo mien leftover from the dinner the night before. Lo mien was good, even if it was cold. “Did you roll your eyes at me? I’m sure I heard eyes rolling,” she teased back.
Gabe frowned as she peered out the window.
“Don’t worry. A couple inches of snow won’t stop us from leaving. I had the snow tires put on last week. What are you staring at?” She joined Gabe at the window. “Holy crap.” She tried to turn Gabe away from the window. “Don’t look. They might shoot that person or the dog, or both.”
“That looks just like Elvis,” Gabe said.
Autumn turned back to the window. It was hard to see with the snow falling. A third police officer holding a big flashlight joined the first two. When his light beam flicked across the dog, Autumn saw the service vest. She ran to her bedroom and grabbed the mint tin.
“Stay here,” she yelled as she bolted for the door, praying she wouldn’t be too late.
***
Two new figures ran toward her from one of the buildings, yelling and waving their arms.
“Cat! Elvis!”
Elvis stopped barking and listened, and then he began to yip and twirl, but he didn’t leave Catherine’s side.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot. She doesn’t have a gun.”
Catherine squinted at them. She was dreaming. That happened in the desert. If you stared across that vast wasteland long enough, you started to see things in the thermal waves that seemed to rise from the sand. She was imagining Gabe and Autumn, because that was who she wanted to see more than anyone in the world.
The men shouted at the newcomers, who shouted back. Nobody was listening. Everybody was shouting. Elvis was yipping and dancing. Their shouts became barked orders, the sharp yips the twang of bullets flying past her ears.
What was she looking for? She couldn’t remember. She pulled something from her pocket. Her phone. It slipped from her hand and fell to the ground.
“Damn it. Stop shouting.”
Did she say that? Or was it somebody else.
She knelt in the snow…not sand.
“Hands up, hands up. Don’t reach for that gun.”
“Stop them. Shoot the dog. He’s going after them.”
Catherine searched the two inches of snow around her knees, finally closing her hand around the phone. When she raised her hand to make sure it was her phone, something slammed into her, and then everything went black.
Chapter Eighteen
The gunshot cracked the night a split second before Autumn slammed into Catherine, taking her to the ground. Then everything stopped—people running, the shouts, the barking, the squeak of shoes on the packed snow—and the next long moment was silent except for the gunshot’s echo ricocheting between the tall buildings.
“Cat. Autumn. No.” Gabe’s plaintive cry seemed to restart the action. The young police officer pointed his gun at Elvis when he ran over to Catherine and Autumn lying in the snow.
“Give me that weapon, you stupid rookie.” The cop with the flashlight snatched it from him and ejected the chambered bullet. “You don’t shoot a service dog.”
“How was I supposed to know he was a service dog, Sarge?”
“Did you think that was a raincoat he’s wearing?”
“I didn’t get close enough to see.”
The sergeant gave the young officer a shove. “Did you just hear yourself? You weren’t close enough to see a fuckin’ orange vest but thought it’d be okay to shoot anyway. I’ve been on the force for thirty years. Do you know how many times I’ve fired my weapon outside the gun range?”
“No, sir.” Every time the rookie backed up a step, his sergeant advanced two. He was up in the rookie’s face shouting.
“Zero. I have never fired my weapon in the line of duty, and I’ve worked the worst neighborhoods in Atlanta. This isn’t the OK Corral. Go sit in my squad car. You’re not going back on patrol tonight.”
The other officer radioed for an ambulance while the rookie got his butt chewed, then squatted next to Catherine.
Autumn ran her hands frantically over Catherine’s body, inside her jacket, searching for a wound or bleeding. “If you’ve hurt her, I’m going to own the city before I’m done with this police department.”
“Autumn.”
“Ma’am, he only shot once. But the sarge saw it coming and pushed his gun up toward the sky. If he hit anything, it was some pigeon flying overhead.”
“Autumn, you need to get off her,” Gabe said.
But Autumn wasn’t listening. “Catherine, honey, wake up.” She felt Catherine’s neck for a pulse. At least she thought that was where you were supposed to feel for it.
“Listen to me. You need to get off her.” Gabe grabbed her arm and pulled. “She won’t know where she is when she regains consciousness. Let Elvis handle it.”
Elvis crowded close and licked Catherine’s hand.
Gabe looked to the cop. “Sir. She was a soldier in Afghanistan. She was just having a flashback. She doesn’t have a gun, but she might be confused when she wakes up.”
“She’d be awake if she wasn’t hurt.” Autumn began to cry as she patted Catherine’s face. “Cat, sweetie, please open your eyes.”
“I’m telling y’all.”
The ambulance driver gave his siren a blast before he drove through the intersection and pulled up next to the overturned car on the next block. Catherine’s eyes popped open at the sound. She grabbed Autumn and threw her at the officer. They went down in a tangle of legs and arms, and Catherine rolled to her knees, swayed when she tried to stand, then dropped to them again. Elvis pressed close, his side against her chest while he licked her hand and cheek.
Autumn accidentally kneed the officer in the groin as she scrambled over him. She crawled the few feet to Catherine on her knees.
“Ma’am.” The officer groaned but tried to stand. “You should back off. She might hurt you.”
“No, she won’t.” Autumn kept her voice calm. “Cat, honey, it’s Autumn. I’ve got your medicine. Dad brought it to me.”
Catherine swayed and wrapped her arms around Elvis to steady herself. He licked her cheek several times, and she gave her head a shake, then groaned.
“Are you hurt, Cat? Tell me where you hurt.”
She didn’t a
nswer but put her hand to the back of her head and groaned again. Her hand came away red with blood. Elvis licked at her bloody fingers.
Autumn motioned for Gabe to come over where Catherine could see her. “Talk to her, Gabe.”
“Cat, it’s Gabe. I tried to call you a couple of hours ago.”
“Gabe?”
“Yeah.” Gabe’s smile was huge. “We were coming to see you tomorrow.”
Autumn moved forward on her knees and took the tin from her pocket. “I’ve got your medicine, sweetie.” She popped the tin open and peeled the wrapper from it, then crept closer. She could tell the minute Catherine’s eyes began to clear.
“Autumn.” It wasn’t a question.
“That’s me, the stupid, pain-in-the-ass city girl who loves you.” Autumn cautiously took Catherine’s hand in hers and placed the soft chewable in her palm. Catherine frowned down at it, and then her eyes shot back up to Autumn’s. “Dad brought it, in case you needed it.” She took it from Catherine’s hand and placed it against her lips. “Open up, and then chew. I’m afraid your head hit a rock when I tackled you. You might have a really bad headache an hour from now.”
Catherine made a face as she chewed. “Got one now. Why’d you tackle me?”
“So the cops wouldn’t shoot you,” Gabe said, her teeth chattering.
Catherine frowned at her. “Where’s your coat?”
Gabe laughed and sidled close when Catherine held her jacket open in an invitation to share the warmth. Then she opened the other side to Autumn. The three of them and Elvis huddled together in the snow for a quiet moment.
“We’re a weird family,” Gabe said, and nobody disagreed.
Epilogue
Catherine stomped the snow from her boots and then stepped inside her kitchen. Their kitchen. She’d fed and watered the few animals currently living on the farm and put some extra bedding down for the goats. The heat lamp was on in the chicken house. Now it was her turn to thaw out.
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