LOVING HER SOUL MATE (24 page)

The left side door of the duplex was kicked open
and John and Yannick entered the smelly apartment.
 
John had wanted to follow the ambulance to
the hospital, and Yannick, in the Porsche with John, was surprised when he
attempted to.
 
But then John came to
himself, realized what little good he could do at the hospital, took a U-turn,
and then headed to arrest their suspect.
 

The suspect was in bed when his door, without
warning, was kicked down.
 
He attempted
to get out of bed, his heart pounding, but the movement up front was too
swift.
 
Before he could even stand, John
Malone had hurried in and was already upon him, grabbing him and slinging him
to his feet.

“You motherfucker!”
John yelled
so loud Yannick was afraid the neighbors would hear.

“What did I do?”
 
Ronnie was yelling.
 
“What did I
do?”

John slung him against the wall, the impact causing
Ronnie to grimace.
 
“How
could you do that to her, you bastard!
 
How could you do something like that to an innocent like her?”

“People are coming outside of their houses now,
John,” Yannick nervously warned his superior.
 
“Settle down!”

I’ll settle down all right, John thought, staring
at Ronnie. “Get out and close the door,” he ordered Yannick.
 
“
Me
and Burk here
have a little business to attend to.”

“Don’t you do it,” Ronnie yelled at Yannick.
 
“Don’t you dare go and leave me with this
crazy man!
 
I didn’t do anything!
 
I don’t know what he’s talking about!”

“Get out and close the door,” John again ordered
Yannick, attempting to cool down.

“But sir---,” Yannick started.

“Get the hell out and close the
got
damn door
now, Yannick!” John now yelled, his cool gone.

Yannick knew it was wrong, he knew he should refuse
the order, but what could he do?
 
McNamara was gone.
 
John was the
head honcho right now.
 
He therefore
reluctantly did as he was told.

As soon as the door slammed shut, John released his
grip on Ronnie.
 
And
stepped back.
 
“What’s your
problem?” he asked him.
 
“You like
beating on defenseless women?
 
Is that
how you get off?
 
Is that your thing?”

“I didn’t beat on her.
 
We were horsing around and it got out of
hand, Captain!
 
That’s all that happened.
  
That’s the truth.”

John could not believe it.
 
“Horsing around?” he asked, amazed that he
would think him that stupid.

“Yes!
 
You
know, we were having a few sex games.
 
Just like she had with you.
 
And everything got out of hand.
 
She wanted it as badly as I did.”

John shook his head.
 
What a pathetic piece of shit, he
thought.
 
“Well guess what?” he
said.
 
“I want it even worse.”
 
And then he grabbed Ronnie by the catch of
his collar and horsed around with him.
 

He beat him mercilessly.
 
He kicked him and stomped him and beat him
until he was on his knees coughing up blood.
 
He saw Shay’s swollen face, her eyes, and he beat the shit out of Ronnie
Burk that night.
 
It took all he had not
to kill that man.

When it was all over, and Ronnie’s face was as
swollen as Shay’s, John stopped.
 
He just
stood there, fighting to catch his breath, as Ronnie moaned like a drowning man
on the floor. Then John stepped out of the bedroom, spatters of Ronnie’s blood
all over his light brown shirt.
 
Yannick,
who was nervously standing in the hall, stood erect.

“Cuff him, frisk him, and run his ass downtown,”
John ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Yannick said, staring at his boss, as
he hurried into the bedroom.
 

When he saw the condition of the suspect, he
stopped in his tracks.
 

By the time John arrived at the hospital, Shay had
lapsed into unconsciousness.
 
She was
hooked up to IVs and heart monitors from her chest to her arms and hands.
 
John’s heart dropped just seeing how
different she looked from that young woman who was so vibrant and full of life
when they were together earlier, laughing and talking and making the kind of
love he used to dream about.
  
He just
stood there, staring at her, completely oblivious to the fact that two other
people were also in her room.

Aunt Rae was seated beside her bed, and Ed
Barrington was standing on the opposite side.
 

“Hello, John,” Ed said when it was apparent he
hadn’t even noticed them, although they were in plain sight.
 
John stood at the foot of the bed staring at
Shay.
 

“Hey,” John said, his eyes stayed on her.
 

“I couldn’t believe it when I got the news,” Ed
said.
 
“Shay, I asked.
 
You’ve got to be kidding me.
 
Who would want to hurt a sweet kid like
her?”
 
Then he looked at John.
 
“Is it true?” he asked him.

There was a hesitation, as it took John longer than
normal to realize that a question had actually been directed at him.
 
“Is what true?” he asked.

“I heard Shay identified Ronnie Burk as her
attacker.
 
Please tell me it’s not true.”

“Is that why you’re here, Ed?” John finally looked
at him.
 
“To cover your
ass?”

Ed took umbrage.
 
“That’s not fair, John, and you know it.
 
I’m here because Shay is my employee and I care about my employee.
 
That’s why I’m here!”

John rubbed his forehead.
 
“Sorry,” he said.
 
“I’m just. . .”
 
He stared once again at Shay.
 
Ed stared at the blood spatters still on his
shirt.
 

“Did you talk to the doctor?” he asked Ed.
 
“How is she?”

“How do you think?” Aunt Rae answered.
 
John turned in her direction.
 
“She looks like a truck hit her and then a
train sideswiped her and then a plane crashed through her face.”
 
Then Rae frowned.
 
“Poor thing.”

John looked at Ed.
 
“That’s Ramona Baxley,” Ed said.
 
“A friend of Shay’s.”

John looked at the elderly woman with her double
chin and her pocketbook hanging from her chunky arm.
 
“You’re Aunt Rae,” he found himself saying.

Rae looked at him.
 
“That’s right.”

“You’re Shay’s closest friend here in Brady.”

Aunt Rae stared at him.
 
“That’s right.
 
And who are you?”

“That’s John Malone, Aunt Rae,” Ed said.
 
“He’s a policeman.”

“I know who John Malone is,” Aunt Rae snapped.
 
“I read the papers.”
 
She looked John up and down.
 
Saw his thick biceps, his flat stomach,
his
muscular thighs.
 
“Funny you don’t look like John Malone, at least not from how you look
on TV, and those pictures of you in the papers.
 
Of course that sorry Tribune is loaded with grainy pictures nobody can
actually see, but still.
 
You don’t look like
my ideal of what John Malone looked like.”

“And you don’t look like my ideal of what Aunt Rae
looked like,” John said.

Aunt Rae smiled.
 
“Touché,” she said.

But Shay was on John’s mind.
 
He walked over to the head of her bed.
 
He began gently rubbing her forehead.
 
He still couldn’t hide his rage at what
Ronnie did to her.
 
“How’s she doing?” he
asked again.

Aunt Rae
frowned,
looked
at her too.
 
“Not good.
 
The doctor said she’ll be in and out of
consciousness for a while still.
 
Poor thing.”

“Yeah,” John said, his heart breaking at just the
thought of what that asshole Burk put her through.
 
“Poor thing.”

And as John couldn’t stop staring at Shay, and
couldn’t stop rubbing her small forehead and smoothing down her hair, Ed and
Aunt Rae couldn’t stop staring at him.
 
For Ed there was that twinge of jealousy.
 
Before this morning he didn’t even know John
knew Shay Turner like that.
 
For Aunt Rae
it was a ray of hopefulness.
 
If Shay
could wrangle herself a strong, principled man like she always thought John
Malone was, it would be a God-sent.
 
She
didn’t know John Malone personally, but she saw him on TV defending Shay at
that press conference.
 
That should stand
for something, she thought.
 
Shay didn’t
deserve to be alone.
 
Not a good person
like her.
 
She only prayed, however, that
the affection he seemed to be showing for Shay right now could blossom into
something longstanding and real.

Later that night, after Aunt Rae and Ed were long
gone, John was seated in a chair beside Shay’s bed, his legs crossed, her small
hand in his big hand, and his tired blue eyes were closed.
 
He had turned off his always active cell
phone and had refused to leave her bedside.
 
And it was this picture, of a still asleep Shay and a sleeping white man
with a gun holstered on his
hip, that
a middle-aged
black couple walked into.
 

John looked up when he heard the door closed.
 
The male appeared to be in his mid-forties,
around five-eleven, with a slender frame and a handsome, dark-skinned
face.
 
The woman was shorter but not short.
 
John would put her height right around
five–six or seven.
 
And her attractive
oak-brown face reminded him instantly of an older version of Shay.
 
He stood up.

 
The mother’s
hand immediately flew to her mouth as soon as she saw Shay.
 
“Oh, my baby,” she said in anguish, and her
petite body leaned against her husband.
 

“She’ll be okay,” the man said, although his face
was also a mask of concern.
 
“You heard
what the doctors said.
 
They said it’s
going to look worse than it is.”

“But it looks awful,” she said, going to Shay.
 
“It looks just awful.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Turner?”
John asked
them.

The man looked at John.
 
Shay’s mother walked over and touched her
sleeping daughter.

“Yes?” the man said.

John extended his hand.
 
“Hello, sir.
 
I’m John Malone.”
  
They shook
hands.
 
John hesitated, just in case Shay
had mentioned him to them.
 
But by the
puzzled look on the father’s face, she hadn’t.
 
“I’m a captain with the Brady police force.”

“Oh,” the man said, less confused now.
 
Although it still didn’t
explain why this police captain was, when they first entered the room, holding
his daughter’s hand.
 
Nor the
blood stains that were on his white shirt.
 
“I’m Norris Turner, Shay’s father, and she’s Annabelle, my wife.
 
You know who did this to our daughter?”

“Yes, sir,” John replied, and Annabelle looked at
him seemingly for the first time.
 
“We
have him in custody.”

“Thank God,” Norris said.

“Who is it?” Annabelle asked.
 
“And why did he do this brutal thing?”

“The who is Ronnie
Burk.
 
He was her co-worker.
 
We haven’t worked out the why yet.
 
He’s claiming it was a sex game gone
bad
.”

“A sex game?”
Norris
said.
 
“That sadistic
son of a bitch!
 
Where is he?”