Ignore the damned gun! Pump, pump, pump.
The sirens grew louder and louder.Nearly here. Thank God. Her shoulders and wrists were tired, aching.Keep pumping!
The friend started backing away. “I’m out of here. I’m not going to jail.”
A police cruiser skidded to a stop on the other side of the taxi and the lowlife driver took off.
“He’s running!” the taxi guy bellowed to anyone listening. “The driver is running. Stop him!”
Pump, pump, pump.
“Drop your weapon!”Cop.
The unloading paramedics were shouting questions at CJ. “Full arrest,” she called back. “Deep penetrating entrance wound mid-torso. Exit wound left scapula. Massive blood loss.”Get that advanced life support unit over here!
A few feet away the cop repeated, “Drop your weapon!”
“He’s only nine years old,” the brother pleaded, his words directed at CJ and barely audible amid all the shouting. “You can’t let him die.”
CJ couldn’t help herself. She lifted her gaze to his. No matter that the gun was still pointed at her, there was nothing reassuring she could say. The resignation that claimed the brother’s posture and his eyes warned of his intent a split second before he acted.
There was no time to react.
The explosion from the gun shattered the night.
Chapter Three
Sunday, August 1; 12:48 a.m.
CJ swiped at her damp cheeks with the backs of her hands. She stared at her fingers ... her palms. Blood. So much blood. Her hands trembled.
The man had turned the gun on himself and fired.
Right in front of her.
She pushed away from the closed bathroom door and dared to look in the mirror hanging over the sink.
Dark circles underscored her eyes. Her hair was a wreck. Probably full of tissue fragments. Blood splatter from the older brother had trickled and soaked into her scrub top, leaving a trail of crimson tears to join the swath of the younger brother’s blood across the hem of her top.
She ripped off the top, flung it to the floor. The legs of her scrub pants ... her knees ... she was covered in blood.
Desperation rising in her throat, she rinsed her hands, pumped frantically at the soap dispenser, then scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed.
Over and over she washed her face, hands, and arms until her skin felt raw.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror.
Her lips quivered. “Hold it together.” Her body shuddered as if to defy her command.
The image of the boy lying on the pavement, his older brother crumpled in a motionless heap next to him, would not be erased.She squeezed her eyes shut again and again. The picture just kept reappearing.
The runaway driver had been captured scarcely a block away. He’d spilled his guts. He and his deceased friend had been drinking heavily all evening when they were supposed to be babysitting. A beer run had left the older brother’s new toy, a Beretta 9 millimeter, unattended at the house with the kid, who was supposed to be asleep.
Now the mother had two dead sons.
She didn’t even know yet. The cops hadn’t been able to track down her place of employment.
CJ swayed, sagged against the wall, and slowly slid down to the floor.
