Bodily Harm (11 page)

They rolled him onto his side. Fingers touched the back of his thigh and shoulder. “Exit wounds in upper thigh and right scapula.”

“Can you move your foot? Can you move your foot?”

Sloane wiggled his toes.

“Possible neurological damage. Likely pneumothorax. I’ll need a chest tube.”

“What about an air-evac to Harborview?”

“He won’t last that long.”

CHAPTER
FIVE

MADISON PARK

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Malcolm Fitzgerald nodded to the security guard in the brick booth, and the crossbar raised, allowing his Bentley access into the gated community. Located just a few miles east of downtown Seattle, the homes in the development started at just over $2 million, even in the still depressed housing market. For that price you received gated entrances with security guards at two locations, a private golf course, pristine streets swept regularly, manicured lawns and yards, and a whole host of regulations about what you could and could not do with your property. No basketball hoops at the end of driveways or mounted over garage doors. No bikes left forgotten on front lawns. No cars parked in the street. Garden lights were to be subtle, like the light from the streetlamps, evenly spaced to account for safety, and tempered so as not to destroy the ambiance.

Despite the turbulence at work, Fitzgerald had left the office early, which for him meant while it was still light out. He turned into the driveway of his two-story brick house. With white wood trim, dormers on the roof, and a burgundy-red front door, he
thought it looked like a fraternity house on Greek Row. It was certainly big enough to house a fraternity. Their real estate agent had told them not to concern themselves with the front of the houses she showed them, rationalizing that they would only see it coming and going. Fitzgerald thought the woman had a valid point, but his wife had not been so easily placated.

He parked in the garage and listened to the automatic door rattle closed, the noise probably a violation of some homeowner regulation. The short porte cochere led to the mud- room, where he replaced one of his daughter’s stray shoes next to the match on the built-in cubbyhole professionally labeled
ADRIENNE’S SCHOOL SHOES
. Fitzgerald couldn’t decide what was worse, the fact that his wife was anal enough to separate the shoes into categories, or had enough free time to make the labels. Then again, time was a luxury he could afford for her, along with the three-million-dollar home and the $55,000 Mercedes station wagon she needed to cart the girls to and from private school, piano lessons, ballet, and the seemingly never-ending soccer practices.

Footsteps sounded in the kitchen. Fitzgerald hid behind the doorjamb. As Sarah slid around the corner, her socks gliding over the freshly waxed floor, he surprised her from behind.

“Boo!”

She screamed and jumped.

Adrienne followed a split second behind her sister, yelling. “You cheated.”

“No I didn’t.”

“You didn’t say ‘go.’”

“I said three.”

“You still have to say go.”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Fitzgerald stepped between them, hugging them both. “Why don’t we just call it a tie?”

“No way,” Sarah said. “She always cries when I win.”

“That’s because you cheat.”

“All right,” Fitzgerald said, “no more calling anyone a cheater.”

He hugged them again, and they followed him through the kitchen into the living room, where Adrienne sat quickly at the piano bench.

“Want to hear my recital piece?”

Before he could answer she began to play. Growling like a monster, Fitzgerald chased Sarah from the room and down the hall where she ran past her mother, who stood outside the master bedroom and stepped into his path. “Hold it, Frankenstein.” She pointed to her lips. “Plant one.”

Fitzgerald did, and she followed him into a bedroom as big as a hotel suite.

“It’s after nine,” Erin said to Sarah, who had hidden beneath the bed covers. “You should be in your own bed with lights out.”

The covers muffled her response. “I heard the garage door.”

“I’ll call someone to get it fixed. I’m afraid it might disturb the neighbors,” Erin said.

Fitzgerald shook his head. “It’s a garage door. Garage doors make noise, just like kids make noise. Are they going to outlaw kids too?”

“Don’t start again.” She pulled down the covers on the bed, exposing Sarah. “To bed,” she said, leaving the room. Fitzgerald heard her issue the same orders to Adrienne. He carried Sarah to her room and tucked her in, then returned and pulled off his tie. He threw his shirt in the basket labeled
DRY CLEANING
, kicked off his shoes, and left them there, a tempered protest against the cubby in his walk-in closet labeled
WORK SHOES
.

Erin walked back in. “You get them riled up and I’m the one who has to settle them down again. Did you eat? I saved you a plate.”

“I grabbed something.”

“I heard about Galaxy on the six o’clock news. How bad is the
fallout?”

He shrugged. “Tepid. There’s still some shareholders pushing for my head, but the board isn’t too concerned, with the stock climbing.”

“Anyone pushing to take the offer?”

Fitzgerald shook his head. “Nobody wants to be the next Larry Reiner.”

Everyone in the toy business knew the story of Larry Reiner, the twenty-nine-year-old inventor of G.I. Joe, who had rejected a one percent royalty payment on every sale of the toy and taken his agent’s recommendation to split a $100,000 one-time payment. Over the next forty years Reiner had lost an estimated $40 million in income.

Erin sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you really think Metamorphis could be like that?”

Fitzgerald shrugged. “It’s always a gamble, but yeah, I do.”

The tone of her voice changed. “Do you think it’s worth it?”

“What?”

“The gamble.”

Thirty-five-million dollars’ worth of worry lines creased her forehead, which was the amount Fitzgerald stood to make if he sold his stock when it was riding high. Fitzgerald couldn’t do that to Sebastian Kendall, or to himself. His ego wouldn’t allow him to concede defeat.

“Bolelli has a track record for purging the fat from companies she acquires. She’ll fire all of Kendall’s executives, consolidate manufacturing, and lay off a majority of Kendall’s workforce.”

And then what would he do, stare at the front of his house all day?

“I’m just saying nobody wants to be the next Edward John Smith either,” she said, referring to the captain of the
Titanic
.

HIGHLINE COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
BURIEN, WASHINGTON

CHARLES JENKINS HAD taken the first flight home after Sloane’s secretary, Carolyn, called to deliver the news. When his plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, Jenkins and Alex had driven straight to the hospital and he had maintained a vigil there ever since. For the first four days Sloane had lain in a drug-induced coma intended to limit his pain and prevent him from thrashing about in bed, possibly pulling out the myriad of tubes stuck in his body. Still, Jenkins had refused to leave. When visiting hours ended he took a blanket to the waiting room. The hospital staff gave him a hard time; hospital rules only allowed relatives to spend the night. Jenkins told them he and Sloane were brothers. Since he was black he didn’t expect to convince them, but he hoped to emphasize the strength of the bond between the two men, as well as his conviction to stay. The staff relented. Alex had brought him clothes, food, and reading material, unable to convince him to leave even to take a walk.

“I need to be the one,” he had told her. “I don’t want him to hear it from anyone else.”

When the doctor finally removed the breathing tube, Sloane choked uttering his first word.

“Tina?”

Jenkins shut his eyes, unable to hold back the tears that spilled down his face. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

The words had hit Sloane like the blows of a jackhammer. His chest shuddered, then his back arched, his body becoming rigid as a plank. The doctors and nurses fought to keep him from tearing the IVs from his arms and rupturing the bandages covering his shoulder and leg wounds, but they could not
prevent the primal scream of agony and despair that ripped from his soul and rumbled down the hallways. Only a sedative silenced him.

For the next three weeks, Jenkins remained in the chair beside the bed; Tina’s parents had flown to Seattle and taken Jake back to San Francisco with them, along with their daughter’s ashes for burial. Jenkins didn’t try to talk to Sloane, who spent most of his time staring out the window in his own induced coma, numb to the world and everyone in it. When the doctors and nurses asked Sloane questions, he did not answer them. When they put food in front of him, he did not touch it.

According to the doctors, the gunshot wound to Sloane’s thigh had broken his femur and caused soft tissue damage to his muscles, but it had missed his femoral vessel. Had it not, Sloane would likely have bled to death, or lost his leg. Surgery on the leg indicated some neurological loss in his foot that the doctors said could cause him to walk with a limp the rest of his life. The bullet to his shoulder had fractured his clavicle, but as with the shot to his leg, the doctor explained that it had missed the subclavian artery, which could have killed him. It had nicked a lung, collapsing it, and the doctors were concerned about pneumonia, particularly if Sloane did not get up and start walking soon.

His surgeon told Sloane he was lucky to be alive.

Jenkins knew Sloane didn’t feel that way.

“DO YOU NEED anything for the pain?”

Sloane opened his eyes and looked to his friend, who remained in the chair by the bed. He shook his head. There was no point; his physical pain paled in comparison to the ache in his heart. Sloane had never felt such anguish—a sharp pain that caused him to double over in agony with each recollection, each memory.

• • •

THE REAL ESTATE
agent had called early on a Saturday morning.

“I have the house for you,” she had said.

Sloane was pessimistic. He had told the woman he wanted to live on the water, as he had in Pacifica, where he found the sound of the waves comforting. The agent had interpreted that desire to mean Sloane wanted one of the luxurious homes on Lake Washington, along with their matching price tags and her commission. But that was not what he and Tina had been looking for, though neither could express exactly what it was they sought.

“The owner just passed away,” the agent explained as they descended the winding road into Three Tree Point. “He and his wife raised their family here. They lived in the home for fifty-two years.”

When they turned the corner she stopped the car so they could gaze at the back of the white clapboard home. It had not been spruced up to sell. It needed a paint job and a new roof. Sloane looked to Tina and could tell she too had a good feeling. That feeling increased when the agent unlocked the door and they stepped inside. This was not a house that came ready made. It was not a monument to wealth and success. It had been functional, serving a purpose, a home for a family that had watched television together and ate meals at the dining room table. The children had slept in the rooms upstairs and bounded down the stairs in their socks and pajamas. They had fought and played and left nicks and scars on the hardwood floors and walls. One of the windows in the kitchen had been pierced by an errant BB, and several tiles on the counter had cracked.

Sloane knew instantly this was what he wanted and why the others had not been suitable. He didn’t want a house. He wanted a home.

Tina stood on the enclosed porch, looking out the plate glass windows at the Puget Sound. Jake had already rushed to the water’s edge, skipping stones across the surface.

When Sloane joined her she rested her head on his shoulder.

“I think we’re home,” she had said.

SLOANE HAD NOT seen or spoken with Jake since the night of the shootings. When he tried to call, Bill Larsen told him Jake was seeing a child psychiatrist to deal with his trauma and that the psychiatrist had recommended against Sloane and Jake speaking. Then he hung up. Subsequent attempts by Sloane had been no less productive, and the Larsens had stopped answering the phone. Sloane was in no condition, physically or geographically, to force the issue. He missed Jake terribly, but that battle would come soon enough. He could only imagine what the Larsens had told Jake.

Jenkins walked into the room carrying a white bag and a cup of coffee in one hand and a stack of cards in the other. “How’re you feeling?”

Sloane shrugged.

“I brought you a bagel.” He held out the bag, but when Sloane did not take it Jenkins set it on the tray beside the bed.

“What did the doctor say?”

Sloane had asked Jenkins to find out when he could leave the hospital. His leg was no longer in a cast and they had him up doing physical therapy. He suffered through it because he knew it was the only way they would consent to release him.

“A few more days.” Jenkins sat and sipped his coffee. “People are asking about a service.”

“I’ll hold a service when I get my son back. I’m not doing it without Jake. Did you call the cemetery?”

Jenkins nodded. “It takes about six weeks.”

Tina had wanted to redo the kitchen countertops in a blue marble, but that would never happen. Sloane had been given
no say in the Larsens holding his wife’s funeral and burying her ashes, but he would not allow them to choose her headstone. He wanted something that would stand out from the traditional gray and black, as Tina had stood out in life. He wanted her to have her blue marble. Jenkins had handled the arrangements.

Jenkins handed him the stack of sympathy cards. Sloane put them on the windowsill with the other unopened envelopes. “There’s one more card,” he said. Sloane looked, but Jenkins’s hands were empty. “He wanted to deliver it in person.”