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Jeff’s gaze drilled into me. “Dad?”
“I’m sure everything’s fine,” I said. “Waylon’s just being careful. That’s what he’s here for.”
I was about to add, “He’ll be back any second,” when I was interrupted by scuffling sounds coming from the backyard. We turned toward the kitchen, all of us, and stared, frozen, as if by looking hard enough, we might be able to see through the walls and out into the night, where grunts and thuds and snarls hinted at a desperate struggle in the dark.
“Y’all stay together,” I said. “Jenny, call 911. Jeff, do you have a gun?” He nodded. “Get it, right now. Everybody go together. Stay together. In a room without windows. The laundry room, or a walk-in closet. You hear anybody at the door, you start shooting.”
“You’re coming with us,” said Jenny.
“No, I’m not. Now go. Hurry!” Turning from them, I ran to the front door, and outside, hurtling down the steps and running to the street, where the FBI sedan idled at the curb, dark and imposing. And empty.
Except that it wasn’t. When I leaned against the driver’s window, cupping my hands around my face to block the streetlight’s glare, I saw a man slumped across the front seat, his starched white shirt slowly going crimson as blood oozed over the collar and seeped downward.
Yanking open the door, I held a palm in front of the agent’s face and waited, but I felt no breath. Grabbing his left wrist, I sought a pulse, but felt none. Reaching under his arm, I clutched the pocket of his shoulder holster, but felt no gun.
What to do, what to do? Standing in the glare of a suburban streetlight, beside the dead FBI agent in his idling car, I heard the wail of a siren—no, of multiple sirens—in the distance, headed my direction. Hurry. Hurry. Help was coming—but help would be too late.
I turned toward the house, its front windows brimming with cozy amber light. Behind it, the dark tops of pines and oaks. “Waylon!” I ran, sprinting up the driveway and around the end of the house. “Waylon! He’s here! Watch out!”
But I knew that my warning, like the police, was too late. Suddenly, somewhere in the darkness behind the house, I heard a loud grunt and a sharp gasp, followed by a groan of great pain. I froze, and in the stillness that followed, a shot rang out, and then another. Another cry of pain—this one sharper, higher in pitch—and the sound of footsteps, staggering and uneven, across the back of the yard and around the far end of the house, toward the front yard and the street. For an instant I hesitated, then I set off in pursuit.
I rounded the corner just in time to see the FBI sedan rocket down the street, tires squealing and rear end fishtailing. Too late, I cursed myself. Too late.
Filled with dread, I turned back toward the darkness. “Waylon? It’s Bill. Are you there? Waylon? Can you hear me?”
Just beyond the tree line, I heard it: a deep guttural noise, somewhere between a grunt, a groan, and a growl—the sort of sound a bear or buffalo might make if it were gravely wounded. I froze, gripped by a reflexive rush of alertness and primal fear. The sound seemed to be coming from my left—from deep in the trees, near the distant corner of the lot. Get the hell out of here, I thought. Wait for the police. But something in the sound was familiar: a bass note whose frequency resonated in my memory. Oh, shit, I thought, my feet moving now, taking me toward the darkness. “Waylon? Hey, Waylon, where are you?” Halfway across the yard, I stopped again to listen. A wet, rasping sound emanated from somewhere just beyond me. I hurried toward it, but could not find the source. “Waylon?” I heard a fainter groan, a softer rasp.
Easing into the woods, holding my own breath to listen, I caught the sound of labored breathing. I unholstered my phone and touched the menu button to wake it up and illuminate the screen, which I used as a makeshift flashlight. “Waylon! Oh Jesus.” The big man was lying faceup on the ground, blood bubbling and burbling from a hole in his chest. “God. Waylon, hang on, man. I’m calling 911.” Fingers shaking, I punched the numbers, and when a woman answered in a flat, bored voice—“911, what’s the nature of your emergency?”—I found it hard to force out audible words. “I . . . need . . . an ambulance,” I finally managed.
“Speak up, sir. I can barely hear you.”
“I need an ambulance,” I said again, louder this time. “A man has been shot. Or stabbed. He’s bleeding—a lot—from his chest.”
“What’s the location, sir?”
“My son’s house. In Farragut.”
“I need a street address, sir.”
Address? My mind was blank. What’s Jeff’s address? What the bloody hell is Jeff’s address? “Uh . . . Fox Den Drive. . . . 9125 Fox Den Drive.”
A pause. “Sir, is that East Fox Den Drive, West Fox Den Drive, or North Fox Den Drive?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Sir, I can’t sent an ambulance if I don’t know which street.”
“Christ. It’s . . . West. West! The same place police cars are heading right now. Send the fucking ambulance!”
“Sir—”
I hung up, then dropped the phone to the ground and leaned closer.
Waylon’s rasping sounded different now—urgent, with an undertone of grim determination. As if he was trying to summon up strength for a last stand, or last words. I knelt beside the gasping, burbling being. “Waylon? Waylon, it’s Bill Brockton. I’m right here with you, Waylon.” Groping in the darkness, I found one of his huge hands, slick with blood and God-knows-what, and took it in one of mine. With my other hand, I tried to cover and seal the gurgling hole in Waylon’s chest. “Help’s coming, Waylon,” I said. “You hear the sirens? They’re almost here. Hang on, big man.” Waylon gave another bestial groan—from the pain of his shredded insides, or the pain of my pressing palm? God, what do I do? I thought, then—in an absurd echo from my college fantasies of medical school—I thought, First, do no harm. I felt a wave of grim despair. What does that even mean, ‘Do no harm’? We do harm just by breathing. I did harm—terrible harm—by asking Waylon to guard my family.
I felt a hand encirclin
g and clutching my arm—a painful, powerful grip, coming as it did from a man sliding through death’s door. I saw, or sensed, Waylon’s lips moving, so I leaned closer. “You trying to tell me something, Waylon?”
“Gracie.” It was scarcely a whisper, more like a feather of air fluttering against my eardrum. Almost the way he might have whispered her name in her ear, as her boys slept in the next room.
Out in the street, I heard sirens. Screeching tires. Slamming doors. Thundering feet. “They’re here. Hang on, Waylon.” I turned my head toward the house, toward help. “Here!” I shouted. “In the backyard. Hurry!” Then, to Waylon, “They’re coming. Hang on, buddy.”
The big man shook his head slightly, then grunted, as if he’d just taken a punch to the gut, a knife to the ribs. “Can’t. Tell . . . Gracie.”
“Tell Gracie what, Waylon?”
“I wanted . . . marry her. . . . Adopt . . . boys.”
“You tell her, Waylon. Hang on, so you can tell her yourself. Please.”
Waylon made a sound that started as a growl, then became a primal, guttural groan. “Uhhhnnn.”
“Help! Hurry!” I called.
I heard voices shouting, and gradually I realized they were shouting my name. “Dr. Brockton? Are you here? Are you hurt? Dr. Brockton?”
Do no harm, a voice was shrieking in my head, louder than any siren. No harm! No harm! No harm!
Another voice, soft and sinister, responded with a hiss: Too late. Too late. Too late.
CHAPTER 35
THE TSA SUPERVISOR AT THE KNOXVILLE AIRPORT nodded, then motioned me through the checkpoint, allowing me to walk to the gate with Jeff and his family. The plane was almost finished boarding; the phalanx of FBI agents had held us back until the last minute.
“Please change your mind,” Jenny pleaded. “Get on the plane; we’ll pay for the ticket when we land. Come to Toronto with us. We’ll buy you some more clothes there.” She tried a smile, but her tears gave her away.
