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“Do not move the victim! I’ll connect you to an EMT and I’ve already dispatched a unit to your location. Stay on the phone.”
“But there’s a chopper out back and—”
“Do not move the victim. Do you hear me? Help is on the way.”
“Oh, hell.” He hit the speaker dial, then turned to his boss. But he knew it was already too late. Brady’s eyes were fixed, his face drained and white, blood appearing on his lips. His mouth worked like a fish out of water. “Hang in there, Brady, for Christ’s sake!” Santana urged, feeling warm, thick blood through his fingers as he pressed vainly on the man’s chest. “You just hang in there!”
What the hell happened? Did someone come in the house and shoot Long while he was at his desk?
CHOSEN TO DIE
165
The operator was on the phone again, squawking, and he had to pick up and press it to his ears as the rock music was pounding so loudly he couldn’t begin to hear the speakerphone.
“Mr. Santana, are you there?”
“Yes!” He shouted. They were running out of time! All the first aid he’d learned years before wasn’t going to help.
“I’m patching you through to an EMT who’s on the way.”
Long took a gurgling, rattling breath.
“Damn it, they’d better get here fast!” He turned back to his boss. There was so much blood, so damned much blood. And Long’s eyes had lost what little glimmer there had been in them. “Brady!” Santana yelled, trying to shock the dying man back to consciousness. “Brady! Stay with me!”
But already Santana knew it was too late. As the final guitar chords of “Sweet Child o’
Mine” died, so did Brady Long.
“What the fuck is this?” Tyler hissed.
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.” Jeremy was staring through the foggy windshield as McAllister’s Blazer slid over the small bridge that spanned the creek, then nosed into the clearing where Jeremy’s house stood.
In front of the snow-covered cottage was a fourwheel-drive police vehicle, parked right behind Jeremy’s truck.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“No!”
“Hey, man, I’ve got my stash in here.” Tyler was in a panic, worried like hell about being caught 166
Lisa Jackson
with a few ounces of weed or a vial of prescription painkillers he’d swiped from his uncle. “I’m not hanging out. These are cops, for fuck’s sake.”
“Fine. Go.” Jeremy climbed out of the Blazer and slammed the door shut.
McAllister pulled a quick, sliding one-eighty and tore out, the back end of his Chevy fishtailing as he reached the bridge, then shot across.
Jeremy turned toward the house where a path had been beaten in the snow from all of the footand boot prints. A big black dude stood in the doorway, a guy with a weird name who worked for the sheriff’s department.
“You’re Jeremy Strand,” he said, walking off the porch, his breath making a cloud in the air. “Deputy Rule.”
Now he remembered. Kayan Rule. His mom had said good things about the guy. Like he was a smart cop.
“Where’s my mom?”
“Don’t know, son.”
