In the Heart of the Wind Book 1 in the WindTorn Trilogy (12 page)

“Is he out?” the pilot heard O’Callahan snap.

“Like a baby,” was the reply from Mike Cronin.

On the gurney on which he lay, James Gabriel Tremayne slept on, oblivious to the plane’s landing, the sudden throttling back of the mighty engine, the roar of the jet’s tires on the tarmac, the faint bounce, the strain of whining engines as the jet taxied down the runway.

Mike Cronin looked up at the IV bottle, followed the tubing down to Tremayne’s arm, checked the pet cock to make sure the flow of D5W was correct. His eyes swept up to the bandages wrapped completely around Gabe’s head obscuring his face and hiding the color of his eyes and hair. He glanced at the bandages that encased the young man’s hands. For all the world to see, if they cared to, the patient lying so still on the gurney must have been burned very badly and was heavily sedated, or unconscious, because of the pain.

When the plane came to a stop and the door hissed open on its pneumatic hinge, Mike stood, waiting for the ambulance attendants who would come to get James Gabriel Tremayne. As soon as the patient was safely inside the ambulance and away from the airport, the Lear would once again leap skyward.

“Dublin, here we come,” Johnny O’Callahan said as the ambulance attendants boarded the plane.

“I’ll meet you
in Albany,” Andrew told his sister. “Pat’s flying up from Orlando and should be there by the time the plane lands.”

“What about Dad? Is he coming to New Orleans?” Bridget asked.

“In a few days. Mom doesn’t know anything about this yet. I seriously doubt he’ll be inclined to tell her.”

“And Kristen?”

“She’s already at the clinic.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “Do you know how he is, Drew?”

“Dad?”

“Yes.”

“As well as can be expected. He’s not happy about all this.”

“I wouldn’t want to be in James’ shoes,” Bridget remarked.

“We have to be tough, Bridie,” Andrew warned. “We have to put up a united front.”

“I know that,” his sister snapped. “I don’t have any more love for James than you do. All I’m saying is, I wouldn’t wish what’s going to happen to him on my worst enemy.”

“He
is
our worst enemy, Bridie,” Andrew reminded her.

Patrick Sean
Tremayne glanced at the city spread out below him as the jet banked for its landing. There was a heavy frown on his handsome face; a worried look in his green eyes. He barely heard his pilot telling him they were cleared for landing. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the port window and stared at the cluttered scenery passing below the silver gleam of his jet.

He hated the city into which he was flying. He’d once had a patient from here—an ex-baseball player whose face had been almost totally destroyed in a car crash several years earlier. The reconstructive surgery had been done in Patrick’s private clinic in Orlando, but the ballplayer had insisted on recuperating in his hometown in one of the two understaffed, totally inadequate hospitals of which the town was so proud.

Patrick had found the doctors on staff incompetent; the nurses slovenly and complaisant; the facilities years behind in technology; and the town an eyesore. He had loathed every minute of the time he had had to spend here checking up on his patient’s progress. Had it not been for the large sum of money the ballplayer’s insurance company paid him to make the man once more presentable, Patrick would have washed his hands of the entire situation. But at that moment in time, Patrick had desperately needed the money to open a clinic in Paraguay. And he had endured Albany, Georgia.

“Dr. Tremayne?”

Patrick jumped, quickly glancing around to see the cabin steward watching him with carefully polite eyes.

“We’ve landed, sir.”

Patrick nodded and returned his attention to the bleak concrete wasteland and outdated building the locals called an airport. His frown turned to a look of disgust as he saw several rubbernecks pointing to his plane, no doubt wondering who was inside the sleek jet. He looked around at the steward.

“Fix me a martini, Bill. A double.”

The steward nodded and headed for the well-stocked bar. He looked up as the jet’s hatch opened and the doctor’s shapely sister stepped onto the plane. She was wearing a sleek, form-fitting emerald green silk dress, slit high up the right thigh, her long, tanned legs enveloped in apple-green stockings. She handed the steward her brown-leather medical bag.

“Good afternoon, William,” she said, smiling vaguely in the young man’s direction. “Nothing for us, thank you.”

“Dr. Casey,” the steward acknowledged. He saw the elder of the Tremayne siblings enter the jet and nodded his greeting, respectfully, and somewhat fearfully. He didn’t expect a return greeting, neither did he get one. He heard Andrew Tremayne’s querulous voice speaking and tuned out the man.

“The ambulance should be here any moment now. They called us about twenty minutes ago from Leesburg.”

Andrew Tremayne sat in a seat across from his brother. “You look like hell, Paddy.”

Patrick Tremayne grimaced. “I really didn’t want to come.” He glanced at his sister. “And I would imagine you didn’t either, Bridie.”

Bridget Tremayne-Casey shrugged. “I can think of better places to be than this burg.” She looked out the window. “This town gets uglier every year.”

“And more crowded with jiggaboos,” Andrew scowled. “They’re taking over the damned town.”

“Papa calls it the Detroit of the South,” Bridget said with a laugh. She opened her purse and took out a silver cigarette case, opened it and withdrew a cigarette.

Patrick made a face. “I wish you wouldn’t smoke in here, Bridie.”

Bridget arched a delicate strawberry-blond brow and withdrew her silver lighter. Flicking the flame, she lit the cigarette and blew a long stream of noxious smoke toward her brother. She smiled.

“If Papa knew you smoked,” Andrew commented, waving the air to rid his nostrils of the pungent scent, “you’d get one of his infamous lectures on polluting your body with chemicals.”

Bridget flicked the ash from her smoke onto the clean gray carpet. “I think Papa has more on his mind right now than my harmless habit.”

“It’s not a harmless habit,” Patrick reminded her. “And second-hand smoke is—”

“Shut up, Paddy,” she commanded, her eyes narrowing. She held his gaze until the younger man looked away.

“Here they come, Mr. Tremayne,” the steward informed Andrew.

Andrew let out a long breath. He pushed himself up, walked to the jet’s open hatchway and stared at the white-and-orange ambulance pulling onto the tarmac. He looked at his brother and sister. “Family reunion time, kids,” he sneered.

Bridget joined her brother in the hatchway.

Andrew returned his attention to the ambulance as a third man climbed out of the back, spoke to the driver and his assistant, glanced at the plane, then stepped back for the other two men to offload the gurney.

“That’s Roger MacGregor,” Andrew announced to his sister. “He’s married and he won’t be interested in what you’ve got to offer.”

Bridget shrugged. “You never know, now, do you?”

“You’re disgusting,” Andrew hissed at her.

Bridget smiled. “I might as well make the most of this little trip, Drew.”

Patrick still sat in his seat, his eyes glued to the hatchway. When Andrew and Bridget stepped back to make way for the men carrying James on board, Patrick looked away. He felt the blood pounding in his head; felt the sweat running down his armpits, his temples; felt his groin tighten in fear. He clenched his hands in his lap and stared blindly out the window.

“Take him back there,” Andrew ordered.

Patrick heard the gurney rolling by him; smelled the aromatic scent of disinfectant from the hospital sheets; and sensed the presence of his youngest brother as the gurney passed. His breath caught and held in his throat as he heard a low moan, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“He’s coming around,” the ambulance driver said.

“I’ll give him another injection,” Bridget commented.

Patrick heard her opening her medical bag. He heard her unwrapping a disposable syringe. He heard the faint whoosh as the syringe’s needle jabbed into the rubber membrane covering the vial of thorazine; heard the plink as his sister thumped the air from the syringe; heard the jingle of the IV tubing as Bridget introduced the thorazine into their brother’s vein.

“Nighty-night,” he heard her say with a chuckle.

His eyes squeezed closed even harder as another low moan—helpless and desperate; pitiful and somehow obscene—drifted back to his ears.

“The other drivers are here for the ambulance and we’ve been cleared for takeoff, Dr. Tremayne.”

The others strapped themselves in and the jet’s engines revved, the high-pitched whine grating on Patrick’s already-frayed nerves. It pulled gently and expertly away from the terminal and began to taxi.

As the jet sped skyward, its wings dipping in farewell to the city, Patrick stared out the window, refusing to look around to the spot where James’ body lay strapped to the gurney. He ignored the idle chit-chat between his sister and brother and shook his head at Bill’s offer of another drink. His mind was in New Orleans, at his clinic there, one of many he had established over the years. His thoughts were on what would happen tomorrow morning and he began to pray he could do what his father wanted.

“God help you, Jamie,” he whispered. “God help you, because I can’t.”

Virgil Kramer
belched and his face took on the sour look that mirrored the taste in his mouth. He put down the burrito he had been eating, wadded it up in its wrapper, and dropped it into the trash can beside his desk. The hollow plink as the burrito hit the can’s metal bottom seemed to make the hot taste in Virgil’s mouth worsen and he reached for the cup of pop on his desk.

“I don’t know why you buy those things when you know you can’t eat ‘em,” Dean remarked around a mouthful of hamburger with extra pickles and extra ketchup.

“I like the taste,” Virgil said with a grimace. Wiping his mouth on his napkin, he sat back in his chair and went over what had transpired before Dean had reported in to work. “He wasn’t all that bad for a Fed.”

Dean nodded. “I met him once.” At Virgil’s look of interest, Dean nodded. “Remember when I had to go over to Des Moines to bring back the Koontz boy? Sadler was in there waiting to interview some lady who had kidnapped her son away from her husband.” He took a large bite out of the hamburger. “He seemed okay.”

Virgil nodded. “Knows his stuff, I hear. Gets called in on most kidnapping cases in the midwest.”

“Sure is a tough-looking character,” Milo commented. He’d come in to get his paycheck and had stayed upon learning the FBI had sent an agent to talk with Virgil. “Don’t rightly look like no Fed, does he?”

“How’s a Fed supposed to look?” Dean inquired.

“You know,” Milo said and shrugged. “Like one of them ferrets you see in the zoo. All narrow-faced and shifty-eyed. Can’t trust them critters, I don’t reckon.” He sniffed. “Can’t trust them Feds neither.”

“If he can help find Gabe James, I suppose we can overlook how he looks,” Virgil said with a grin.

“It’s been over forty-eight hours, Virgil,” Dean complained. “You’d think there’d be some word on that van Paul Oliver saw.”

“And Annie saw,” Milo added. “Wish one of ‘em had thought to get the license plate number.” He shifted the wad of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other. “It’s like Gabe done went and vanished off the face of the planet.”

“He’s out there,” Virgil said, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up on the desk. “His family’s got him. I don’t doubt that for a minute.”

“What did Agent Sadler say about the Bureau investigating the Tremaynes in this?” Dean asked as he slurped his pop.

“Well, so far they’ve only interviewed the old man. It seems the two brothers and sister are ‘out of town on business.’” Virgil’s eyes narrowed. “I figure wherever the hell they are, Gabe is, too.” He folded his arms over his chest. “The Feds won’t leave no bale unturned on this since who they’re looking for is Liam Tremayne’s son.”

“And just what in the brown, blazing hell are
you
doing about it, Virgil Earl Kramer?” came an angry snap from the doorway.

Virgil’s feet came off the desk with a thud and the men turned to face the diminutive hurricane that blew into Virgil’s office.

“Howdy, Miss Edna,” Virgil croaked, coming to his feet as the old woman advanced on him with a face pinched tight with fury. “How you doing to—”

“Don’t waste your breath on niceties with me, Virgil Earl,” the old woman groused. She stomped to the sheriff’s desk and glared at him with hot, unblinking eyes. “I want to know what you’re doing to find Gabriel!”

“Now, Miss Edna,” Virgil began, “we’re doing all we can. I’ve got men out trying to find the van he was last seen—”

“What’s this I hear about his family being responsible?” Her watery eyes snapped brown fire. “Why haven’t you sent someone down to Florida to bring that boy back?”