All I've Ever Wanted (9 page)

“I
s that who I think it is?” Dossman said, peering through the binoculars and then handing them over to Max.

“Where?” Max asked.

“Over there.” Dossman pointed him in the right direction.

“I don't recognize anyone. Who am I looking for?”

Dossman grabbed the binoculars back. “Let me see those.” He looked again but the man he'd spotted was gone. “I could have sworn—”

“Who did you see?” Max asked as he turned his gaze back to where Kennedy and Tommy had been sitting. They were gone.

“Lawrence,” Dossman finally answered. “I could have sworn I saw Keenan Lawrence.”

“What?” Max rose from his seat. The combination of Dossman's sighting and Kennedy's sudden disappearance frightened him. “Come on, we've got to go. Kennedy's gone.”

“Go where? I thought you were watching her.”

“Will you just come on?” Max pushed into the throng marching toward the concession stands. He
had
been watching. He'd only looked away from her for a moment.

Once they reached the concession area, Max's hopes for finding Kennedy dipped. There were hundreds of people milling about. It would be next to impossible to find one particular mother and child.

“Any ideas?” Dossman asked, craning his neck as he searched through the crowd.

“Let's split up. If you find either Kennedy or Keenan, stick to them like white on rice. Something is definitely about to go down.”

 

Kennedy pushed through the crowd, stepping around everyone who got in her way and keeping Tommy's hand in an unbreakable grip. Just when she thought she'd never reach her destination, she caught sight of it just in front of her.

She glanced down and smiled encouragingly at her son. She wanted to go into a big spiel about how
good he should be at his grandmother's, and how soon they'd be together again. The problem was that, if she did start such a speech, she would quickly burst into tears.

Tommy looked up at her then. In his gaze, she saw all the things she was feeling, love, uncertainty and fear.

She knelt before him and pretended to tie his shoelaces. “I'll call you tomorrow at grandma's,” she told him, then leaned forward and kissed his round cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mommy,” he said, returning a tentative smile.

Kennedy blinked several times and willed her tears not to fall. She stood and glanced back toward the men's room to see if she could see any sign of Reverend Warner.

“I can go in by myself,” Tommy assured her.

“No, wait right here with me. I'm sure the reverend will be here at any moment.”

He frowned, obviously hurt that he wasn't being given the opportunity to prove that he was a big boy.

Kennedy pinched his cheek, but right now even that kind gesture seemed to embarrass him.

“Mom,” he whined. “Not in front of all these people.”

She laughed. “All right. How about we get a soda while we wait?”

He nodded and smiled again. All the while they
stood in line at the concession stand, Kennedy kept the door to the men's room in her view. Her mental list of “what-ifs” began replaying and anxiety churned in her stomach.

“Well, what do you know?”

Kennedy pivoted at the unexpected sound of a familiar baritone voice.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Det. Collier said with a wide smile.

Kennedy frowned. “Go away.”

He laughed and rested a hand on her shoulder.

Her entire body tensed. It was then that she noticed that his laugh rang differently in her ears. Instead of meeting her eyes, she noticed that his gaze skittered through the crowd around them.

“What's wrong?” She turned and tried to figure out what he was seeking in the crowd.

“You're being followed,” he whispered from behind her.

“You mean, by someone other than yourself?” She glanced again toward the bathrooms. With her suspicions confirmed, her worry escalated to full-blown fear.

Danger hung in the air, thick and heavy. Something was about to happen—she could feel it.

Before she could do anything, her arm suddenly erupted with an unexpected surge of pain. Her eyes widened with shock.

“Get down!” Collier looped his strong arm around her waist.

They stumbled together toward the ground, as she heard something whiz past her injured ear.

A woman screamed.

The initial impact with the cement floor knocked the wind out of both Kennedy and Collier.

Then all hell broke loose.

 

The crowd's screams reached Dossman's ears. He pivoted on his heel, his weapon drawn. He rounded a corner where he'd last seen his partner and was momentarily blocked by a stampede of people.

“Police,” he shouted as he tore through the crowd, but his shouts went unheard amid the rising cries of hysteria. Whatever progress he thought he'd made getting through the sea of people vanished when reality settled and he soon realized that he was being pushed backward with the flow of traffic.

A stream of curses rumbled from his chest. What he wouldn't give to be able to fire a warning shot. Perhaps that would bring some order to the madness. Instead, he had to struggle to move sideways, to inch along the wall. He returned his gun to his holster, and managed to reach the wall only after receiving his fair amount of elbowing and shoves.

Amid the chaos, he was shocked to catch a glimpse of a familiar face. “Keenan.” Indecision
spiraled up his spine briefly, then Dossman took off in the opposite direction, and thankfully, along with the herd of people.

 

“Are you all right?” Max shouted. His entire body covered Kennedy's in an attempt to protect her from whoever was shooting, and also from being crushed by the rampaging crowd.

She squirmed and clawed as she tried to get up from beneath him.

“Hold still. I can't protect you if you keep trying to get up.”

His reasoning fell on deaf ears, as her struggle grew more desperate. “Please, Kennedy, please. Just lie still.”

Her fist landed sharply against his chin and he was momentarily surprised by her strength. But she would need a lot more than that if she wanted to actually do damage.

She screamed a name and he heard her anguish and desperation as it tore from her throat.

“Tommy.”

Max's eyes darted around. Where was the little boy? Had Tommy been with her when he approached her in line? He searched his memory. He wasn't sure.

“Kennedy, where is he?”

“Don't let them get my son.”

“Where is he?”

She didn't answer, she just continued to flail her arms about, occasionally landing punches. She was ignoring whatever injury she'd sustained from the bullet, despite the growing stain of blood on her sleeve.

He tried to gain control of her hands. When he succeeded, he shook her to get her attention. “Dammit, Kennedy. Pull yourself together and tell me where he is.”

“The men's room,” she finally said. “That's where he was supposed to meet the person who was helping us. I'm sure that's where he'd go when we were separated.”

Max darted a quick glance at the restroom across from the concession stand, then looked around the area. The crowd was thinning, but there was no way to know if their shooter had made his escape yet, or was still waiting to finish the job. There was no way he was leaving Kennedy's side, so they'd need to work together to find Tommy and get to safety.

“Okay, Kennedy. I need you to do what I say.”

She hesitated, obviously not trusting him to share her priorities. She shifted her gaze to the men's room.

“In just a moment, we're going to get up together and make our way to the men's room,” he said.

She nodded, but it didn't stop him from worrying about the sheer terror radiating from her eyes.

“I'm going to try to shield you with my body as we get up.”

She started to get up and he had to restrain her.

“We get up together, understand?” he shouted.

She flinched from the roar of his voice, and then nodded in agreement.

Max retrieved his weapon, kept his head ducked low, and simultaneously swept his gaze around the perimeter.

As they stood, they were pushed and shoved by the screaming crowd.

Kennedy blinked tears from her eyes. When Collier slid his arm securely around her waist, a certain calm fell over her. She felt protected.

Collier jerked her to his left side. She felt the rush of something whiz by and saw it puncture the plastic casing at the concession stand.

Someone was still shooting at them.

Kennedy trembled. It wasn't that she was afraid of dying; she feared that she'd be responsible for Tommy's death, as well. Had the gunman gotten to him? What about Reverend Warner—was he dead, as well?

It took what seemed like an eternity for Collier and Kennedy to reach the bathrooms, but at least there were no more shots. As they reached the door, she bolted from his grasp and entered the men's room, leaving him to stand guard against whoever was shooting at them.

Empty.

Frantic, she searched the stalls. “Tommy? Tommy?”

Again, empty.

“Is he in here?”

Kennedy jumped at the sound of Collier's voice, but she didn't answer. She checked all of the stalls again, praying that she'd missed the one Tommy was hiding in. But he wasn't there.

Collier rushed into the room—a look of panic monopolized his face.

The room seemed to tilt and Kennedy could actually hear the sound of blood rushing through her head. Tommy was gone and Kennedy had no clue as to who had him: Rev. Warner or Keenan Lawrence.

A
aliyah Hunter pushed away from her desk in her home office after reading Keenan Lawrence's file. The man had danced into and out of jail his entire life. Fame came the moment he'd risen through the ranks of one of Atlanta's most notorious gangs: The Skulls.

Even after learning all of this, Aaliyah had found nothing that helped her with her investigation of the Underwood murder. Intuition told her that she was on the right track. She moved over to the computer and tried cross-referencing the two names.

Three cases came up that involved both Underwood and Lawrence. The first one she'd read about
yesterday. The second one had occurred in '93, a murder case. Apparently, it was a drug deal that went bad. The arresting officers, Detectives Jaclyn Mason and Kenneth Nelson…

Aaliyah recognized the names and pulled out her notes. Jaclyn Mason had been Underwood's second wife. She flipped through more papers to find out the dates of their marriage. According to her information, the case was tried during their marriage. She frowned and wondered what it all meant…if it meant anything at all.

 

Max watched as Kennedy's face drained of color and she seemed to teeter uncertainly on her legs. He rushed to her and caught her just before her body hit the floor.

“Kennedy.” He gave her a firm shake. He couldn't believe it, she'd passed out.

“Come on, sweetheart. Wake up.” He propped her up, lowered her head between her knees, and spoke firmly and clearly. “Come on. You need to wake up.”

She moaned and managed to sound irritated at the same time.

He looked around and noted that there were two entrances into the bathroom. They couldn't stay here much longer. The gunman could come charging in at any second. He shook her gently. “Kennedy, wake up. We're not out of danger yet.”

“They got my baby,” she said in a choked sob. The pain in her voice jerked his heartstrings. Though it was not an appropriate time for it, he wanted to console her and make the pain go away.

Something moved out of the corner of Max's eye and he dropped with Kennedy and rolled to his right side. The room exploded with the sound of bullets slamming into the concrete.

Kennedy's screams pierced Max's eardrum as her entire body quaked against him. With perfect speed, agility and aim, Max returned fire.

The gunman crashed against the wall. His weapon fell from his hands as a look of surprise was etched into his features.

Max dropped his head back against the floor and stared unblinkingly up at the ceiling. It took several deep breaths to slow his heartbeat and clear the scenes from his thirty-two-year life span that had passed before his eyes.

Only then was he able to remember the woman who still quivered in his arms. Her ragged sobs dissolved, but she clung to him as though her very life depended on it.

Lowering his weapon to his side, he pushed them up into a sitting position. He draped his arms around her. As she rocked back and forth, he whispered words of comfort, while wondering wildly what had happened to Thomas St. James.

 

Keenan strode confidently along with the crowd. By now, C-note had done his job and his troubles were over.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

Keenan reached inside his jacket.

“Unh-unh-unh,” a man warned from behind him.

At the unmistakable feel of a gun pressed against the center of his back, Keenan clenched his jaw. A cop.

The man's free hand fumbled with Keenan's jacket, before he found the removed the Glock that was the gang leader's favorite weapon.

“I hope you didn't think that you were going to get away with that little stunt you pulled back in there.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, officer,” Keenan said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

“I just bet you don't.”

Keenan smiled, his old cockiness returned. “I hope you're not going to try to pin that shooting in there on me.”

“Can't see why not. You went to great pains to sneak a weapon onto the premises.”

“It hasn't been discharged.”

There was a small pause as the cop checked out his claim.

“A small technicality. How many cronies do you have inside working for you?”

Keenan laughed. “You cops are all the same. You all want to be Dirty Harry or something. Can't a man just come and enjoy a baseball game?”

The cop slapped the first circlet on Keenan's left wrist, but, before his second wrist was secured, Keenan spun and kicked.

Dossman had no time to react when his own gun went flying into the air. He reached to retrieve Lawrence's gun from inside his jacket, but his movement took too long and Keenan had already drawn his backup weapon.

The first bullet entered Dossman's shoulder. Despite the intensity of the pain he was obviously feeling, the man still reached for the Glock.

Keenan fired again.

His target jerked into the air, then slammed against the pavement. He didn't move again.