Vicious Carousel (23 page)

“You know,” Betsy said, “I think maybe tonight when the guys come over I’m going to have a talk with them.”

“Yeah?” June asked. “And?”

“Maybe it would be better to face the trial with them than without them. I mean,
living
with them. I know they’re going to be there with me for the actual trial.”

“I think that’s a very smart idea, lady.”

They pulled into the small parking area for Stump Pass Beach State Park at the far southern end of the key. Somewhere to the north, they heard several sirens blaring as deputies or fire trucks or something blasted from the mainland, over the Tom Adams bridge and onto the causeway, heading toward the key. In the still, early morning air, the sound traveled for miles. They could also clearly hear outboard motors of boats in the Intracoastal making their way toward open water.

“Holy shit,” June muttered, listening. “Something’s happened.”

“Are we going to walk or stand here?” Betsy swatted at a noseeum. “We stand still too long, we’ll get carried away.”

“It’ll be better by the water,” June said as she led the way after locking the car and tucking the keys into her pocket.

They were on the trail when Betsy
tsked
. “I should have brought my phone and taken pictures for Tilly.”

“You want to go back and get it?”

“No, that’s okay. I don’t want to walk back. Let’s keep going.”

They headed south along the trails. There were a few people, but most of them walked along the shoreline, heads down and looking for shells.

“Thank you for this,” Betsy told her. “I needed to clear my head.”

“Duh.” June smiled at her. “You’d sort of gotten yourself stuck in a different kind of rut,” she said. “You needed to be shaken out of your routine again.”

“I don’t know what the hell I’d do without you guys,” Betsy said. “I love you.”

“Love you, too. We all do. That’s why we’ve been so heavily vested in not just you, but the guys, as well. The three of you are perfect together. You have to be the one to make the call, though.”

“Yeah. I got scared again.”

“Afraid to take another chance.”

“Isn’t that stupid?” Betsy paused to take a deep breath. “I was stuck in Hell, then I ended up in Heaven, and then I stuck myself in Purgatory.”

“I wouldn’t look at it like that. You needed to decompress for a while. The guys were your safety net when you crashed. You needed to recalibrate your wings, or some pilot shit like that. You have. Now you can go fly again.”

“Some pilot shit like that?”

“I don’t know. I’m a gymnast, not a pilot.” They started walking again. “In training, you get these peaks and valleys. Sometimes, you hit plateaus. You might have something nailed and then, suddenly, something stops working, and you couldn’t nail that flip or stick that landing to save your life. That’s when a good coach will make you stop and do something different. Either try it from the other side of the bar than you’re used to, or reversing your routine direction on the mats, something drastically different, even if it’s technically wrong to do it that way, to see if that makes any changes to what’s not working.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“You try something else. But the point is, once you
do
get your mojo back, you go back to doing it the way you’re supposed to.” June shrugged. “I think the way you’re
supposed
to be doing things is living with Nolan and Kenny. If they were two guys I didn’t know from Cheech and Chong, obviously my advice would differ greatly. But we all know them and trust them.”

“Aaannd they’re terrified of Tilly,” Betsy joked.

“No, they’re just intimidated by Tilly. They’re terrified of
me
.”

“You?” Betsy laughed. “Why?”

“Because I’m one mean fucking momma bear. I raised two girls and taught kids’ gymnastics for too many damn years, dealing with helicopter parents who couldn’t butt out.”

They cut back from the beach into the trails again, losing sight of most people as they did. The path curved through scrubby land and into some trees.

“I certainly wouldn’t want to go up against you,” Betsy joked. She didn’t honestly see how the tiny, petite woman could possibly be scary.

Betsy first thought maybe it was a large dog that had jumped out onto the trail behind her. The blur of movement caught her eye and she spun around as June let out a scream.

“Fucking cunt,” Jack said.

* * * *

While Kenny drove, on the phone with Scrye and getting the description and license plate for June’s car, he was relaying information to Nolan, who was still on the phone with Gabe, who was relaying information to and from Bill, who was on the phone with Charlotte County dispatchers, who were also on the phone to Sarasota County dispatchers. The damn key was split right across the middle at the county line. The northern two parks lay in Sarasota, but a patrolman who’d been on the key swung through each of them and didn’t see June’s car or a tai chi group.

So Bill now had deputies scouring the much larger Englewood Beach park, and others heading to Stump Pass Beach State Park. Gabe and Bill were in their car and heading there as well to help with the search.

Kenny had another call coming in and had to put Scrye on hold. “Yeah?”

“Did you find her?” Ed asked.

“Not yet. We’ve got deputies in two counties looking. She’s with June. I’ll call you back.” He switched back to Scrye, who was now laughing.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“I owe my good girl a reward later,” Scrye said. “Wherever they are, she’s packing.”

“What?”

“Carrying,” Scrye said. “She usually doesn’t take a weapon to the beach with her. For starters, depending on where you are, that’s sometimes illegal, depending on county or state park rules. And she hates getting sand in—”

“She’s armed?”

“Yes. That’s what I’ve been saying. Take comfort in the knowledge that my little tiny Tasmanian Devil of a wife has 9mm hollow points on her person, yes.”

“Thank god!”

“What?” Nolan asked.

“June has a gun,” Kenny said to Nolan, who immediately passed the info on to Gabe and Bill.

“You weren’t supposed to tell
them
that,” Kenny said. “I was telling
you
that.”

“Oh, sorry. I thought they needed to know that.”

“She gets in trouble for having it in a park,
you
get to deal with her,” Kenny warned.

“Gee, thanks,” Nolan muttered. Then, after a moment, he said, “Son of a bitch!”

“What?”

“Bill said several reports are getting called in to Charlotte County 911, of multiple shots fired in Stump Pass Beach State Park.”

“I think we just found your wife,” Kenny told Scrye. “You’d better get in the car and head this way. And I think you’d better get Ross and Loren on the phone. She might need an attorney.”

Betsy didn’t have time to think, her reactions welling instinctively from deep within. It was as if time slowed, her focus narrowed, and then all the training she’d had in the classes with Eliza kicked in.

If she’d ever been allowed a little “alone” time with Jack, she thought rage would be the first, primary emotion she felt.

Hatred.

Anger, at the very least.

Instead, it was like cool, calm dispassion kicked in. She spotted the large knife in his hand, which he’d raised as he lunged toward her. Instead of running from him she twisted, her arms coming up to block him and kicking as hard as she could at his knee from the side.

He didn’t go all the way down, but he stumbled with an enraged cry.

She heard June screaming her name, but Betsy didn’t take her eyes off Jack. Instead, she dipped at the knees and scooped up a handful of coarse beach sand from the trail, so that when he turned toward her again she rose and flung it in his face in one smooth, fluid movement.

He screamed at her, something unintelligible, flailing blindly at her with the knife.

And still she wanted a piece of him.

June shoved her hard, knocking her off the path and away from Jack and breaking the spell.

And that was when six gunshots exploded, deafening, ripping Betsy out of that cool, calm dispassion and dropping her into the here and now.

When Betsy sat up and looked, June stood between her and Jack’s still body on the ground. The small woman, nearly two feet shorter than Jack, was breathing heavily. Betsy could see her chest rising and falling, but not hear it over the sound of the gunshots still ringing in her ears.

Guess that’s why we wear shooter’s muffs at the range.

Then June stepped forward and kicked at one of his hands, knocking the knife free even as she kept the gun trained on him. She grabbed it with her left hand, picked it up by the tip, and tossed it closer to Betsy.

She stepped away from him and toward her, yelling at Betsy.

Betsy couldn’t make out all the words, and June wasn’t turning to face her. Finally, June slowly backed up, keeping her focus on Jack, and blindly reached out behind her, feeling for Betsy.

Betsy caught her hand and June hauled her up and to her feet with a strength she didn’t think the woman could possess.

“Are you okay?” June screamed.

Betsy nodded, trembling as adrenaline flooded into her system, a little late for the party, but, oh well, better late than never.

Jack lay on the ground, his eyes open, staring at her.

Still alive.

Blood bubbled from between his lips and he looked like he was gasping for air.

June kept her left hand painfully clamped around Betsy’s right wrist, holding her there in place and slightly behind her, keeping herself and her gun between Jack’s dying form and Betsy.

Several men ran up, and that was when Betsy checked out. Her knees gave out and she sat down, hard, dragging June down into a seated position with her as she stared at Jack and cried.

* * * *

Nolan hoped the scary little former gymnast had finally gotten her wish, but that the women were all right. By the time they reached the park entrance, county deputies and state wildlife officers had shut down the parking area. Kenny and Nolan risked parking in front of someone’s house and ran down to where yellow police tape had been strung across the entrance.

When they tried begging the officer to let them in, they heard a man yelling their name and waving at them.

Bill.

The officer let them through, and they charged across the unpaved parking area, toward where Bill stood next to an ambulance and was talking to another deputy. He was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, his badge holder hanging from a chain around his neck and the print of a sidearm visible under his shirt at his waist.

Betsy sat on the back of the ambulance, sobbing against her friend, while a stony-faced June sat next to her, arm around her shoulders. EMTs stood helplessly by and watched.

“June wouldn’t let anyone touch her,” Bill said to them as they slid to a stop. “Betsy screamed bloody murder anytime anyone tried to touch her, so June took over.”

“Is he…”

Bill nodded.

Two uniformed county deputies, and another uniformed state wildlife officer, stood close by and kept their eyes on June. “They’re going to need to talk to June and get her detailed statement,” Bill said, “but I kind of stepped in to stall things, figuring you’d be here soon.”

Kenny and Nolan slowly approached the back of the ambulance. June didn’t even acknowledge their presence, staring past them.

“Bets,” Kenny said. “Sweetie?”

She looked up at them, then at June. “Can I?” she softly asked.

That was when June finally moved. She kissed Betsy’s forehead and whispered something into her ear. Then June removed her arm from around Betsy’s shoulders and she slid to the far end of the bumper, but still stayed within arm’s reach of her friend.

Kenny and Nolan gathered around Betsy. “Are you okay?” Nolan asked.

“No, she’s
not
fucking okay,” June said in that same flat, scary voice she’d used that day in the driveway when Nolan had talked with her. “The fucker tried to kill us.”

He turned to look at her. She met his gaze, unflinching, unblinking, her jaw tight and every muscle in her face and neck starkly visible.

They heard more shouting by the gate, a familiar voice, and Bill waved someone else through. The vehicles and angle blocked their view of who it was.

Then Scrye came pounding up, panting, his T-shirt and shorts soaked with sweat.

Nolan would testify in court if asked that June’s feet didn’t even touch the ground as she flung herself off the ambulance bumper at her husband. He caught her as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, buried her face against his chest, and started sobbing as he held her and stroked her back. He walked over, turning to sit on the bumper next to them.

“May I?” he asked.

Nolan suppressed a nervous laugh. “Our bumper is your bumper.”

Nolan returned his focus to Betsy and tuned out the soft whispers Scrye spoke to June, her sobs now nearly as loud as Betsy’s had been.

It did seem the tiny, terrifying gymnast had a two-hundred-pound-plus weak spot.

Kenny’s phone rang, but he ignored it. Then Nolan’s rang, and he answered it. It was Ed.

“You fucking find them yet?”

“Yeah. They’re okay.”

“Jack?”

“Not so much.”

“Good. I’m getting a shower and some sleep. I’ll call you when I wake up. Ross has Amanda’s weekend number. He’ll take care of whatever needs to be taken care of until I get back.”

“Thanks.”

Two crime scene deputies wheeled a gurney with a body bag on it out toward the Medical Examiner’s van. Nolan shifted position, in case Betsy looked up, so she couldn’t see it. He glanced over and saw Scrye lift one of his hands and press June’s face against his far shoulder, keeping it there and keeping her in place as he continued whispering to her.