See No Evil (15 page)

“Where are you hit?” I was proud that my voice was as calm as it was since I was shaking inside like a California bridge in an earthquake.

He raised his head a couple of inches, and my hand slid from the back of his head to his cheek with the move. My fingers were slick with blood, and my insides tight with apprehension. He gave me a crooked smile.

Then without another word, his head hit my shoulder again. This time he was unconscious.

D
ar screeched around the corner in his black Jeep and dropped his new pistol on the passenger seat. He headed for the Ninth Street Causeway. It was definitely time to get out of Dodge.

He seethed with resentment and fury. He felt like a volcano pulsing with gases and fire, ready to explode at any minute. He had to go somewhere and cool off before he did something fatal based on emotions instead of cool, logical thought.

What was she doing here in Seaside anyway? She was supposed to be in Amhearst, scared out of her mind, quaking as she waited for him to come finish her off.

Instead she was here on vacation, walking the boardwalk like a normal person.

What an insult.

Thursday when he'd left Freedom's Chase after the aborted attempt on Volente's life, he'd assumed that the snippy redhead had gotten a picture of his Taurus. He understood immediately that the days of that car were severely numbered. The phony papers and tags were for just such a contingency. That's when he decided that before he left Amhearst, he would take care of her. For good.

Instead he met that beast and lost his SIG Sauer. He decided he didn't care if someone found it. It wasn't like his identity
was a secret any more. It was just a matter of time until they learned about Dar Jones, aka Jerry Como, aka Johnny Parson, aka Ronald Reegan, aka Bruce Springstern. By then he'd be someone else. Maybe Dom Cruise. Or Chad Pitt. Or Tony Blare.

The only good thing that came from that fiasco at Anna's house Thursday was knowing that the cops were busy at her house. He would have time to deal with the car problem and win himself time to get to Tuckahoe. Then the car could rot along with the old lady and her garage for all he cared.

He cruised the area, looking for another black Taurus. He found one parked under a large oak tree on Sterling Street. He pulled into a slot three cars down and waited, senses alert for any sound or movement. There were none. It was, after all, almost two in the morning. The neighborhood was asleep, the houses black, and the glow from the corner streetlight didn't penetrate the heavy canopy of leaves above the car.

He disconnected his car's interior light and climbed quietly out. He moved to the back, knelt by the trunk, and using a penlight held in his teeth for illumination, removed his license plate with a few deft turns of a screwdriver. He stayed crouched there in spite of the pain that tore through his leg and the sweat that coated his body, listening again for any noise.

Satisfied that he was alone, he pulled himself upright, then limped to the other Taurus. He smiled sourly at the Pennsylvania license with its blue top band, yellow bottom band, and dark letters and numbers on a white background. It was the standard plate, not a special like his warships. In less than a minute he had the screws loose, the plate removed and his plate attached instead.

He hobbled back to his car, blood flowing down his left calf and into his shoe as his movements tore the coagulating
wound open again. Stifling a groan and the desire to be sick to his stomach, he knelt and attached the stolen plate. When he climbed back into the car, he rested his head on the steering wheel until the urge to vomit was gone. The four Tylenol he swallowed dry barely took the edge off.

When he finally headed for Tuckahoe and the nutty lady's garage, his leg throbbed in time with his heartbeat. He was buoyed by the thought of the other Taurus being stopped, the driver perhaps arrested as a murderer. Granted whoever it was wouldn't be held long, but he had to laugh at the picture of the indignant driver and the chagrined police.

In Tuckahoe he traded the Taurus for his black Jeep and headed home to Seaside for a good night's sleep. On the way he stopped at the hospital in Atlantic City to get the beast's bite treated.

“You were just standing there?” asked the young doctor who sewed the wound shut. “In your own yard?”

“Just standing there,” Dar assured him. “In my own yard.”

“You need to report it to the police. A dog like that can't be allowed to run loose. They may even decide he should be put down.”

“It probably didn't recognize me in the dark, you know? It really has a bad case of protect-the-neighborhood.”

“Still, it should be chained or fenced or something, not running free.”

Dar agreed, flinching at the shot of antibiotics. At least his leg was blessedly numb for the moment. The bite had taken ten stitches. “I'll report the incident first thing in the morning.”

“Check with your neighbor to be sure the animal had his rabies shots,” the doctor said as he handed Dar the paperwork about follow-up care.

“Don't you worry,” Dar assured him. “I don't want this to happen to anyone else. What if it's a kid next time?”

The young doctor flinched at the thought.

Dar drove straight home and poured himself a tall whiskey. After a day like today, he needed something badly. He sat on his deck in the dark and drank and brooded.

Anna Volente. Granted she was a pretty woman with her hair the color of a Sugar Daddy and her big brown eyes all wide and frightened, but she had to die. He sighed. Not that he minded killing her. He just hated that there would be no compensation for it.

As soon as she was dead and Dar Jones disappeared, he had to get a nose job. The thought made him shudder because he abhorred the thought of being unconscious and at the mercy of someone else. Still his beak was too identifiable. The pictures Anna had done for the police proved that. He limped inside as the sun rose and looked at himself in the mirror over the bathroom sink, studying its size and the bump where his father had broken it in one of his rages and then refused to let him go to a doctor to get it treated.

He finally went to bed and slept until midafternoon Friday. He sat on his deck in the sun the rest of the day, his bad leg elevated. He went on a DVD marathon of
Seinfeld
until midnight. He slept in on Saturday, then sat on his deck reading or napping all day, enjoying his house for one of the last times. When he left to kill her, he wouldn't be returning. He sighed. He had gotten addicted to the sea and sand. He felt free here, not hemmed in like when he was growing up in the Chicago projects.

Maybe the Florida panhandle should be his next address. Plenty of sea and sand there. Of course there were hurricanes too, more than New Jersey got. But he was a risk-taker. He nodded to himself, satisfied that he'd made a
decision. The Florida panhandle it was, maybe somewhere around Destin.

He smiled as a warm ocean breeze flowed over his sun-heated body. He was only forty. He had lots of good years in him yet. His bank account was plush and would grow by a million or so when he sold this place.

Around seven he grilled the steak he'd bought a few days ago and ate it on his deck in the early twilight. It was a lovely evening, and he decided to go to the boardwalk. Normally he avoided the Saturday crowds, but he didn't have a choice if he wanted to wallow in the Jersey-shore thing one last time. His leg wasn't throbbing as much, and if he didn't walk too far, he could manage. He parked along Ocean at Thirteenth, pleased to get a spot so close to the boardwalk.

He hated that he limped. It called too much attention to him, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. He swallowed four more Tylenol with a soda he bought and decided he would get a cone for dessert. When he turned, cone in hand, and saw Anna Volente staring at him, he was so floored that he dropped his cone.

He'd automatically gone for his new pistol only to realize he couldn't draw it here. Then the weird redhead started toward him, yelling about a gun. The other friend and some guy joined her. After a frozen moment of shock watching them advance on him, he turned, took up the cry, and chased a nonexistent gunman off the boardwalk.

Running hurt so bad! He hadn't any choice, so he swallowed the pain and gimped along as best he could. He was on Ocean, nearly to the car, when that blasted redhead spotted him.

“There he is!”

He stopped, turned, and fired, knowing there was no accuracy from this distance. If he hit her, he wouldn't mind
at all. Maybe he'd just take care of her after Anna for the pleasure of it.

Then he heard the gasp and spotted the white shirt crouched behind all the bicycles. He also spotted the silver pickup that belonged to the guy who'd made himself her bodyguard. He kept on going, knowing he'd have a much better chance of getting to her if she thought she was safe.

When he came roaring around the block, there she was, the perfect target. Too bad the boyfriend knocked her down.

So now he was going to have to ditch his Jeep. He began counting all that she had cost him: his beloved house, his well-established life, his cars, and most galling, his perfect record as a hit man.

One thing was crystal-clear to him amid all the havoc: he wasn't finished with her yet.

“G
ray!”

He didn't move. I couldn't move.

“Gray!” I began to cry, tears streaming all over the pickup's carpet. I gasped for air as I sobbed, his dead weight making it difficult for me to draw breath.

Oh, Lord, please don't let him be dead!

It was all my fault. If I hadn't gasped….

I felt light-headed as I struggled to inhale. “Gray! Please answer me!”

Through the ringing in my ears I heard running footfalls. My heart turned over. Was the man in black back? If that was the case and Gray wasn't already dead, he soon would be—and so would I!

“Anna! Anna! Are you all right?”

Relief washed over me. It was Lucy, Meg and James.

“Call 911!” I tried to shout, but tears and lack of breath clogged my throat. “Gray's been shot. He's bleeding badly.”

The driver's door was wrenched open and Meg appeared. I recognized her by the initials on the buckle of her belt. I couldn't raise my head to see higher. She dropped down.

“Are you all right? Did he shoot you, too?”

“Not me,” I managed. “Just G-Gray. He saved my l-life by p-pushing me out of danger.” I was blubbering so hard I could barely talk. “Get him out of here. We've got to st-staunch the bleeding.”

Even as I talked, I could feel Gray's weight shifting. I drew a deep breath and felt the dizziness recede.

“I've got him.” It was James. Slowly he pulled Gray from the truck. As soon as the weight was lifted, I pulled myself onto my knees, bumping my head on the steering column in the process. I grabbed Meg's extended hand and climbed out the driver's door just as James half walked, half carried the semi-coherent Gray to the sidewalk.

Relief made my knees weak. He wasn't dead!
Thank You, Lord!

Lights had come back on at the house across the street, and the people on the porch at the other house were running toward us.

“We called 911,” yelled one young man.

I rushed over and took Gray's other arm as James lowered him to the curb. Lucy followed with her phone at her ear.

“Hurry!” she ordered.

When I glanced up, I could see a man at the window of the house across the street, a phone to his ear. Good. The more calls, the faster the response.

“That car just drove by and shot you!” one of the porch-sitters said, appalled and shocked.

“Better than TV,” muttered another in what I thought a terrible show of callousness.

James pulled his T-shirt off and wiped it across Gray's forehead and face.

“There!” I pointed to where blood welled from a long scrape on the left side of his skull. James pressed his shirt against the wound, his other hand holding Gray's head steady.
I sank to the curb beside Gray and told myself to stop crying. I wiped my eyes with the tail of my shirt and sniffed.

Meg stuffed some tissues in my hand, undoubtedly for my use. Instead I gently wiped blood from Gray's face.

“Déjà vu,” he muttered.

“Yeah. How do you feel?” I mopped more blood from his brow.

He just slanted his eyes at me.

“Stupid question. Sorry.”

“I didn't realize it hurt this much to be shot,” Gray groused. “In the movies they just keep on fighting or they ride stoically into the sunset.”

“In the movies the blood isn't real either,” I said.

“Yeah.” He swiped at blood I had missed as it ran down his cheek. “You know, Anna, we've got to stop meeting like this. I can't afford any more blood loss.”

At his humor my eyes filled with tears again, and I dropped my head to his shoulder. “Oh, Gray, I'm sorry. All I've brought you is trouble and pain.”

“True. It's a good thing you're worth it.” He slid an arm around me and squeezed. I began to cry in earnest. What if I had lost him? I couldn't even imagine how much that would hurt.

“Shh,” he whispered. “I'm fine.”

“Liar,” I whispered back and kissed his cheek.

He smiled. Just when I decided I could lean on him forever, he pulled abruptly away. His face twisted in pain and he grabbed at his stomach. With a cry of “Urp,” he lurched forward and was sick, just missing my sandaled feet.

“Concussion,” James said.

I nodded. Poor Gray. Meg handed over another fistful of tissues, and Gray wiped his mouth with a shaking hand.

“Did you see him limping, Anna?” Lucy demanded, dem
onstrating as she paced back and forth between two telephone poles. “Rocky got him good, and he's limping!”

Meg nodded with satisfaction. “I bet having to run like that didn't help any. I bet he's in pain as we speak.”

I hoped so, then felt immediately guilty. In spite of David's psalms where he asks God to take out his enemies, I wasn't sure whether my serves-him-right-and-I-hope-he-really-hurts feelings were something God would like. They sort of clashed with love your enemies; do good to those who persecute you.

Anyone who thought being a Christian was easy had no idea.

In a remarkably short time, the ambulance and the cops arrived, and our porch audience stood beside us as we watched the EMTs load Gray onto a stretcher and start IVs. They wouldn't let me ride with him in the ambulance even though I said please, and the police wouldn't let me take the truck because it was now a crime scene. James drove us all to the hospital in his Acura, right behind the ambulance which didn't have its siren on, a good sign, I thought.

It was several very long hours before we were allowed to see Gray, and the police helped us pass the time by interrogating us one by one about the “incident.”

Finally they let us visit with Gray for a few minutes after he was all finished being scanned, X-rayed, disinfected, stitched and bandaged. He had antibiotic IVs dripping into his arm and an impressive-looking bandage wrapped about his head like a turban.

I started to cry again as soon as I saw him, lying there so pale.

“Don't worry,” he said, sounding remarkably normal. “I'm fine.”

“Your mom's going to kill me. I'm supposed to make sure you have a relaxing weekend.”

“I'm relaxing,” he said and proved it with a yawn.

I hiccupped and wished for a tissue to blow my nose.

“The bandage makes it look worse than it is,” his nurse assured me as she checked the automatic blood pressure cuff on his bicep. “The bullet just grazed him. No penetration of the skull. He's a lucky man. He has a slight concussion, so we're going to keep him for observation overnight. He'll probably be released tomorrow morning. You can call to check on the time.” She smiled reassuringly and urged us all out of the room.

James drove us home, and after a shower to clean off Gray's blood, I climbed into bed. Even though I kept the light on for the rest of the night, I had bad dreams about men in black chasing Gray and me, shooting at us. Every time we tried to call the police, we got a busy signal. Every door or gate we ran through refused to shut behind us, and the shooter kept coming, emptying who knows how many rounds into us. While it didn't hurt, I was furious that my clothes were torn and bloody.

Dreams are so ridiculous.

I woke at seven from a new nightmare about drowning, in which, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get to the surface. I was pulling Gray's inert body with me, and another second without air would kill us both. The man in black circled us in his black scuba suit, air bubbles from his gear floating upwards. He was laughing. I could hear him quite clearly. Distressed as I was, I kept admiring the way my long hair floated so gracefully in the currents. It mattered not that in real life my hair was a chin-length blunt cut.

When I woke with a gasp and a startled movement, Rocky momentarily stopped licking my face. I looked at his lolling tongue dripping slobber. With a happy whine, he resumed his licking. Apparently he liked the taste of the face cream I'd put on when I went to bed. No wonder I'd felt like I was drowning.

“Eeyew!” I pushed him away and climbed groggily to my feet. I looked out my window at the wall of the house next door, then angled my head to peer at the strip of beach I could see between the houses. No bright sun warmed the sand today. I looked up and saw a gray sky but thankfully no rain.

James and I went to get Gray at ten o'clock. When the nurse made him ride to the exit in a wheelchair, he was less than pleased

“With your turban and all,” I said, “just make believe you're a potentate with servants to fulfill your every whim, including transportation.”

The look he gave me showed he didn't think much of my idea. He was barely through the front hospital door before he jumped to his feet and strode to James's car.

Male pride.

We made it home in time for Lucy, Meg and me to leave for church. Gray decided that with his great swathe of white wrapped about his head, he'd be more distracting than was good for a worship service, and James decided that Gray shouldn't be left alone, so the guys stayed home.

I love church. I love the worship songs and the old hymns. I love to hear Scripture read. I love a good sermon, whether it teaches me something new or reminds me of a truth I had forgotten. I always leave in a mellow mood.

“Wouldn't it be wonderful,” Lucy said, “if we went home to a nice lunch the guys had fixed for us?”

Meg and I just looked at her.

“Yeah, you're right. I forgot I was talking about my brother here. He may be pretty much perfect, but even he has limits.”

It was a good thing we hadn't counted on the men coming through. When we got back to James's, they were glued to the television and an Eagles pre-season game. They ate the lunch Lucy fixed while staring at the tube. We girls ate on the
deck in spite of the overcast sky and the steady wind off the water. We read and talked and napped in lounge chairs until the guys joined us, elated that the Eagles had won with a field goal in the last thirty seconds.

“I've got to go to Atlantic City to drop some clothes off at the mission over there,” James announced as he stretched away the kinks of sitting on his leather couch for almost three hours. “Anyone want to ride along?”

Since he seemed to be asking everyone, and since the wind was driving the sand so that it stung like tiny BBs, we all said yes. We climbed back into his car, guys in the front, girls in the back, and drove over the Causeway, through Somer's Point, Longport, Ventnor and into Atlantic City.

“I'll drop you guys at the Boardwalk and be back for you in about an hour if that's okay with you,” James said.

There being no objections, we waved to James as he drove away, turned, and walked up the ramp to join the folks walking the boards or hurrying from casino to casino. It soon became obvious that Gray wasn't yet up to strength.

“This is ridiculous,” he said with all the intolerance for weakness of someone who is rarely if ever ill.

“You were shot, remember?” I pointed out helpfully. “There are consequences when that happens.”

He looked down at me with one eyebrow raised. “Thank you for telling me, Anna. I didn't remember.”

“Mock all you want, but I'm right. There's a bench. Let's sit.”

We did while Luce and Meg continued walking and window-shopping.

An old lady with wispy white hair, black penciled eyebrows and red, red lipstick strolled past, followed by a trio of young teen boys in cammie pants, boots and olive-drab T-shirts. A couple in golf-bright slacks and tops argued their
way down the boards while several high-school girls in bikini tops and board shorts giggled at them.

“I love watching the people,” I said. “They're just wonderful! Take those girls. Are they laughing at the couple for arguing or for their clothes?”

“The clothes, definitely.” Gray looked very Pirates of the Caribbean in his turban with one of James's baseball hats, the back loosened as far as it would go, sitting backwards on top of the bandage. “I didn't grow up with four sisters not to recognize the don't-they-look-ridiculous giggle.”

I looked thoughtfully at him. “I wonder what those girls would say about you with your turban?”

“Handsome dude,” he said smugly.

“Confidence is good, guy. Conceit is deplorable.”

He grinned, but I saw the little lines of pain around his eyes and in the creases of his forehead.

“Headache?” I asked.

He didn't answer.

“I've got some Tylenol if you want a couple.”

“Thanks, but it'll go away.”

I rolled my eyes. “Eventually. In the meantime, there's nothing wrong with easing your discomfort. After all, you were shot last night.”

“It's not that bad. People who get headaches a lot would probably say it was only a two on the one-to-ten scale.”