Last Breath (18 page)

That close. He was
that
close.

My throat tightened. All the childhood dreams of a long-lost father who loved me paraded mockingly through my mind. Every one of them ended here. In the next minute.

I felt like throwing up.

“Okay.” I pointed for Officer Tripton, mouthing
around the corner—in a room
.

On legs I couldn't even feel, I moved forward. Turned up the corridor. Officer Tripton stayed by me. The first door on my right read 358. The room in which my father hid would be on my left.

My father
.

Not far from that room a stairwell door opened. Four officers crept out of it, crouched low and soundless, guns drawn.

My right hand fisted against my stomach. Maybe they wouldn't shoot him here, in a hospital.

Of course they would. They'd be in a room away from other patients. Besides, if they threw open that door, and he drew a gun …

What would I tell Mom? After seventeen years, her Gary had been here,
right here
, and I'd led the police to him, let them take him away.

Or worse, kill him.

Would she hate me?

Blood whooshed through my ears. Somehow my feet kept walking. I passed room 362.

“Where are you?” Franklin asked.

“Almost there.”

“Any policemen around?”

“No.”

Room 364 slid by. The four policemen drew near. One of them gestured to me—
where
?

My fingers cramped around the phone. I shot the officer a meaningful look. “Franklin. You said three sixty-seven?”

At the cue, Officer Tripton caught my arm. He slashed a hand through the air, waving me back.

“Yes,” my father said.

I melted away from the policemen, back far enough that I'd be well out of the line of fire.

They advanced toward the door, guns ready. Five against one.

My trembling finger clicked off the call.

I couldn't breathe, couldn't move. Could only watch with the terrified eyes of a child who'd desperately longed to see her father face-to-face—and had now betrayed him.

43

T
ime spun out. In those final minutes a fireball of thoughts burned through my mind. I pictured Franklin Borden waiting on the other side of that door—for me. How stupid he was. Did he really think with one phone call, after I'd seen Jerry Brand kill two of my friends and try to kidnap me, I'd just walk past the men guarding me and put my life in his hands?

But he hadn't sounded stupid on the phone. And the Gary Donovon Mom had loved hadn't either.

The lead policeman reached the door. He checked over his shoulder to make sure that the other officers were ready.

And in that split second it hit me. My father wasn't stupid in his head. He
knew
better. He was just foolish in his heart. Because he so wanted to believe.

Like me. After all the years, even after seeing Tom and Bruce dead, after hearing Mom's story, right up to now—I still wanted to
believe
.

Gun ready, the officer planted his legs apart and reached for the door handle.

You didn't believe in someone like that, you didn't hold on to a dream that hard, when you wanted to hurt that person.

He
just wants to see me
. That was the truth. He meant it.

And I'd betrayed him. He was going to die.

The policeman threw open the door.

“No!” The scream tore from me, and I leapt forward, running, running. Knowing I wouldn't make it in time. Everything happened so fast. The first two officers rushed in, shouting, “On the ground, on the ground!” My father yelled. I screamed louder, barreling toward the door. The officer closest to me pivoted and jumped in my path. He held his gun low, away from me, and shoved me back.

More shouts from the room, all at once:

“On the ground!”

“He's got something in his hand!”

“Throw it down! Throw it
down
!”

I darted around the policeman. He scrambled to holster his gun so he could catch me. Too late. I rammed into the door jamb and ricocheted into the room.

“Stop! Don't kill him!”

My father struggled on the floor. Four officers crowded over him, capturing his legs, pulling out handcuffs. Everyone was shouting.

“
Stop!
”

“Be still!”

“Give me your hands!”

The last officer caught up with me and yanked me back. “Get
out
of here.”

I burst into sobs. “Please, please, don't hurt him.”

My father stilled. One officer snapped cuffs on his wrists. They hauled him to his feet.

He gazed at me.

Through blurry eyes I drank in the sight of him. He looked just like my mother had described. Still handsome. But his face had a hardness, as if life had worn him down. On that face I saw shock and betrayal. I also saw something else. Desperate hope.

“Shaley—”

“I'm sorry,” I cried. “I didn't want to do it.”

A red-faced and puffing officer clutched my father's arm. “When you went for that box you almost got yourself killed, man.”

A
gun
. He
did
have a gun.

A flash went off behind me, and I jumped. Feet pounded away. I swung around to look out the door. Cat was running down the hall.

Stunned, I swiveled back toward my father. I didn't want to leave him. Then I thought of Cat and the photo—and what he'd do with it. Everyone in the world would see my father in handcuffs, surrounded by police.

“It's the photographer!” I tore out after Cat.

My feet sprinted down the hall, breath chugging from my open mouth. Cat veered around a corner.

“Shaley, stop!” a man behind me cried. A second later two policemen passed me. They sped around the corner, and I started to follow. Someone caught me from behind and pulled me back. I jerked my head around to see Officer Tripton. “Let me go, I have to catch him!”

“They'll get him, Shaley.”

“Let me go!”

Shouts and scuffles sounded from around the corner. I yanked my arm away from Officer Tripton and rushed around. Three feet away, Cat struggled with the policemen on the floor. His camera lay on the ground. I couldn't stop in time. My foot caught one of Cat's flailing arms, and I went down on top of him.

All the fury I'd felt at Cat and all the anger and disappointment and hurt churning against my father poured out of me. I pounded Cat's head and face with both fists, screaming. “That's what you get for chasing me! For trying to blackmail me! That's what you get for hurting my mom! Stop it, just
stop
it!”

Strong arms pulled me off Cat and to my feet. Still my fists swung. Somebody pinned them to my sides. “It's okay, Shaley, we got him.”

My chin dropped low, my chest heaving. I wanted to burst into tears but held them back.

Out the corner of my eye I saw Cat's camera by my feet. I kicked it as hard as I could. It skidded across the floor and smashed into the wall.

One of the policemen handcuffed Cat and yanked him to his feet. His eyes met mine, and he sneered. Hatred rolled off me in waves.

The policeman holding Cat's arm pulled him away. “Come on, buddy, let's go.” He guided Cat toward the elevators some distance away.

Multiple footsteps filtered from around the corner. My father and the two other officers appeared. They were leading him away too. One of the officers held something in his hand, but I barely registered it. I could only stare at my father.

I'd done this. I'd sent him back to prison. Even though he deserved it, I just couldn't …

My vengeance against Cat melted. In its place all I could feel was deep, terrible sadness. I focused on the floor, tears flooding my eyes.

“Shaley.” My father's voice shook. “It'll be okay.”

I looked up at him in surprise. How could he say that?

He gestured with his chin toward the policeman's hand. “I brought something for you and your mom.”

My gaze dropped to see a long, white box.

With a tight smile, the policeman held it out toward me.

For the longest time I could only stare at it, remembering Mom's story. Remembering Gary Donovon as she knew him. I thought of French class, and their first date. The day she sneaked over to his house. The night he got beat up. The gifts he'd sent her every month for the next eight years.

As if in a dream I reached out my hand and took the box. It felt smooth. Inviting. My throat choked up.

Blurry-eyed, I held the box in one hand and lifted off the lid.

Inside lay two white roses, each wrapped in green cellophane and tied with a red ribbon.

Part 14

Tuesday 2009

44

O
n Tuesday morning, my father visited Mom in her hospital room.

Seeing each other after all the years, the two of them deserved some privacy. I took a chair into the hall and sat with Wendell. On the outside I looked calm. But my insides jittered. So many unknowns. What would happen now? Could Mom and my father be friends? Would we ever see him again?

And what about the things we still didn't know? That night his house burned, why had he fled all the way out of state where she could never see him? Why didn't he ever call?

I'd been on the phone with Brittany for hours about it all. We hadn't been able to figure it out.

But he'd brought us white roses …

The police guard had gone, no need for him now. Yesterday Detective Myner had questioned my father for hours at the Denver station only to decide they had nothing on the man. He appeared to be telling the truth about wanting to come just to see us. He'd never meant us any harm. He had no idea Jerry would hurt us. Jerry had gone crazy on his own. My father told the police about sharing a cell with Jerry, and they already knew those facts to be accurate.

In the end they let him go with a warning: “Watch yourself. Because we're watching
you
.”

I witnessed the questioning through a one-way window. Detective Myner had been easy to convince about that. Not so with Mom and Ross—whom Mick had phoned as soon as I'd headed down the corridor with Officer Tripton. They finally gave in, and Ross went with me. Turned out to be a good thing. By the time the questioning was over, he believed my father too.

Busy watching my father, I hadn't been able to see Cat's interrogation. Didn't matter. He was in jail, that's what counted. Mom was pressing charges against him for assault, plus he'd be facing charges for the harassment in California and for breaking the restraining order. Mom also intended to sue Cat and
Cashing In
for her injuries. When she won—and she would—she'd put Cat and that rag magazine out of business for good.

The police had taken the film from Cat's smashed camera. He hadn't yet turned in the photo of me and Wendell. Even now as I sat with Wendell outside Mom's room, he didn't know the story that could have gone around the world about the two of us.

“That's really something.” Wendell leaned forward, powerful hands clasped between his knees. His short black hair was perfectly gelled straight up, as usual. “Your dad coming back after all this time.”

“Yeah. I know.”

He glanced at me. “Kinda dumb thing you did, Shaley, running into the middle of all those policemen and guns.”

As if Ross hadn't told me the same thing a million times. I thought of his warning to me yesterday—
don't go running off by yourself, Shaley
. Well, I hadn't been by myself. I'd had five policemen around me.

“I know. I just … lost my head. I was so afraid they'd shoot him.”

Minutes ticked by in silence. I got up and wandered the width of the hall, back and forth, back and forth.

“How do you sit here all day, Wendell? This would drive me
crazy
.”

He grunted. “Not the funnest part of my job. Fortunately, I don't do it for this long very often.”

I waited out there for over two hours.

Finally the door to Mom's room opened. My father stuck his head out. “Shaley, could you come in now?”

Heart in my throat, I followed him inside.

Mom's bed was cranked almost straight up. She wore her own clothes this morning. The pain hadn't lessened much, but knowing my father was coming, she'd forced herself into the bathroom to clean up with a nurse's help. The bump on her head was a dark purple.

In the presence of both my parents, I felt suddenly shy. I didn't know how to be with a mother and father in the same room.

“Shaley.” Mom beckoned me to a chair by her bed. I sat down, my father standing beside me. “We've talked.” Mom smiled at him. “I want you to know that everything's all right.”

I looked questioningly from her to him. “Okay.”

Mom gave me a weary smile. “There are still some things you need to hear.”

Oh, so many things. I nodded.

“Gary, tell her.”

Gary
. She still called him Gary.

“Let me get the other seat.” My father headed for the door. He stepped into the hall and returned, carrying the chair. I watched his every move, unable to speak. He put it down and sat facing me.

“Now I can really look at you.”

I swallowed hard.

He took a deep breath. “Your mom said she's told you about us.”

My chin went up and down the slightest bit. I could feel my heart knocking as I gazed into my father's face.

“I want to tell you the truth about the night my house burned. It's not what you were told, or what I told your mom at the time. The Westrock gang didn't set that fire.
I
did.”

My mouth dropped open.

“They had me, Shaley. Westrock gang members lived all over Southern California, all over the state. There was nowhere I could go to get out from under them except far away. And if I stayed, I'd be their puppet. I'd
have
to do what they said—to keep my grandmother and your mom safe. Until the police caught me. And then I'd have to take the rap all by myself. A snitch in jail would be killed.” He stopped for a moment, as if gathering the strength to go on. “Even if I ran far, Bart would have people looking for me. Because he'd have to save face, you understand? He couldn't let other members see he'd let someone slip from his grasp.”