Redemption, page 22
Once everyone was out of their vehicles, Jason took point at Wyatt’s behest.
“Listen up, people. Here’s what we know.” He went over what Aiden had told them about Tom, the barn, everything pertinent to the reason they were there. “We’re splitting into three groups. Ethan will lead the group from the west. Wyatt will come up the back. Heston, Russ, and I will take the front.” He nodded at Russell DeHart, the state trooper who’d be assisting. “Stacy’s leading the group at Mick Helton’s house, and we’ll give her the green light right before we move here.”
“Helton’s been in prison,” Wyatt added. “According to our source, he’s not going to want to go back, which isn’t surprising. He went in before for assault and burglary, so there’s a history of violence there that we have to consider.”
Once all the questions were answered, they observed a moment of silence. It was a ritual Wyatt had instituted a few years back, an opportunity for everyone to focus their minds on the task at hand. Some people used the time to pray, others to just get their game on. Jason took the time to send a heartfelt prayer out to anyone who might be listening, asking for safety and security for everyone involved.
After a good minute, he broke the silence with a sigh. “Let’s do this, gentlemen. Godspeed.”
As planned, they executed their roles flawlessly. Sure enough, Tom was inside the barn, and he wasn’t alone. His father was with him. Mick decided not to fight and gave up without much of a protest. Ethan whisked him safely away, then cuffed him and put him in the back of a cruiser.
“Tom, come on out,” Jason called. “Your dad’s okay. This doesn’t have to be hard.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” came the angry response. “I’m not going back to jail.”
“We can talk about it, but you have to come out.” Jason felt a bead of sweat roll from his shoulders down his back, but he ignored the itch. All his focus had to remain on that barn.
“I’m not going. Tell Dad I’m sorry.” Multiple gunshots followed in rapid succession.
Everyone ducked for cover as they tried to figure out what direction Tom was firing in. Before they could gauge his shots, however, one last shot sounded, and then there was silence. The quiet echoed loudly around the clearing, louder than the shots had been.
Jason didn’t realize he was hit until warm liquid rushed down to blur his vision on the left side, and he swiped the back of his hand across his forehead only to have it come away bloody.
“Shit.”
He stared at his hand as everyone else stormed the barn, with shouts of “get on the ground,” and requests for the ambulance they’d had on standby were called out.
“Jason?” Heston’s voice was weak. “I think I have a problem here.”
When Jason turned to assess the situation, his heart stopped, then stuttered into a rapid flutter. Heston, crouched beside him behind Jason’s cruiser, was holding a hand to his abdomen. A dark red stain was spreading behind his hand.
“Oh, God. Officer down! Officer down!” Jason screamed, holstering his weapon out of habit before jumping into action to help Heston. He didn’t know how badly he was injured himself, but aside from the blood dripping off his face and partially obscuring his vision, he felt fine.
“You’ve got a gash,” Heston told him. “You better get that looked at. Maybe find some pretty nurse or doctor to stitch you up.”
“Never mind me,” Jason told him frantically as he worked to get Heston out of his shirt and vest as Wyatt, Ethan, and an EMT ran over. “Where are you hit?”
“Right side. I got hit twice. I think one bounced off me and hit you. I swear I saw it fly by me after it hit.” He gasped as Jason lifted the Velcro straps that held his vest closed on the sides. “Easy.”
“Let them have him, Jason,” Ethan said, grabbing Jason’s arm. “Come on. You need checked out, too.”
Jason shrugged him off angrily, but he stood. Terrified, he looked at Ethan as a wave of dizziness washed over him. “You’re pale.”
Ethan was as white as a ghost. “Yeah, well, I’d talk. For fuck’s sake, would you please sit down? You’re bleeding like a damned stuck pig.”
When he raised a hand to touch his forehead, he realized how much he was shaking. “I think I’m gonna puke.” Before he could do or say anything else, he was bending over the back of his cruiser, throwing up. He was dimly aware of Wyatt calling for a second and third ambulance, of Ethan swearing at him with panic in his voice, of the frantic activity around them as the EMTs worked to get Heston on the gurney and to the waiting ambulance. But time had slowed down, dimmed, and Jason felt like he was swimming in syrup.
Glancing down at his shirt and vest, he saw that he was covered in blood. Heston’s and his own, he realized.
“Don’t let Paulo see me like this,” he told Ethan as he sank down into the grass beside the car. He needed to close his eyes for a moment, only long enough to get his head to stop spinning like he was on a damned merry-go-round.
“I’ll do my best,” Ethan promised. He crouched beside Jason as the second ambulance arrived, and EMTs hurried to where they were. “Damn you, Jason, don’t you die on me.”
“Too stubborn. Besides, I have a date with Desi I can’t miss,” Jason told him with a smile as they checked his pupils’ response. “Did I tell you that?”
“How bad is it?” Ethan asked Farik, the senior EMT.
“It looks like a really bad flesh wound,” he said, inspecting Jason’s forehead. “Gunshot?”
“Had to be,” Ethan said. “Heston said one bounced off his vest.”
Jason swore ripely as Farik probed the area. “That hurts, damn it.”
“Good. Means you’re still alive. Are you dizzy? Throwing up?” Farik held a gauze pad firmly to the wound
“Both.”
“That’s probably blood loss and a concussion if I had to guess. We need to get you to the hospital and checked out. You up for a ride?” he asked as his partner came back with a gurney.
“I can walk.”
“No, sir. Not with a head wound. You even get a collar for this trip.” Farik fitted the thick foam and plastic device around Jason’s neck. “Tell me if you have any trouble breathing, okay?”
Jason didn’t protest as they got him on the gurney. “How’s Heston?” When he realized he hadn’t even been aware of whether or not Heston was still beside him in the grass, he felt a jolt of pure panic. Maybe he was injured more seriously than he’d thought.
“They’re getting him loaded now,” Ethan said. “I’m riding with you.”
“’Kay.” Jason’s breath shuddered in and out as he fought back another wave of nausea.
The ride into town was rough, but by the time they reached the city limits, his head was clearing. It was throbbing like a son of a bitch, but at least he could think.
“What about Tom?” he asked Ethan.
“Still hanging on, believe it or not. I’d make a rude remark about him missing his chicken-shit-sized brain when he shot himself, but that’d be inappropriate.”
Jason gave a quick laugh that caused him to wince from the pain that echoed through his head with the movement. “Good thing you didn’t say it, then. You calling the family?” he asked as Ethan pulled his phone out.
“Yeah. Where’s Paulo?”
“Should be with Pops. Start with Mom and Dad.”
Ethan leveled a look on him. “I know.”
“How’d Stacy’s end of things go?” he asked as they pulled up at the ER.
“Uneventfully, thank God.”
As they unloaded him, Jason gave a quick thought to whether or not to have someone call Desi, then discarded it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her there but that he was afraid she wouldn’t come. And he wasn’t strong enough at the moment to have that knowledge bouncing around inside, the knowledge that she wasn’t interested in being involved with a cop or able to handle the results of his having a dangerous calling.
“Who’s getting Heston’s wife?” he asked Ethan as they went inside. The other ambulance had passed them on the way to town, and it was sitting under the covered entrance to the ER, empty, Heston already inside.
“Wyatt.”
The emergency room was a hive of frenetic activity as the third ambulance, the one carrying Tom, pulled up. Jason, his EMTs, and Ethan were shoved aside as a team of doctors rushed out to meet it.
“He’s in bad shape,” Farik’s partner who’d driven them in told them quietly. “He stopped breathing about three minutes ago.”
“Bastard can go straight to Hell and rot there for all I care,” Jason said as they came through with Tom, the doctor riding the gurney, doing chest compressions. The thought of Heston, who had a brand-new baby not even six months old at home, being wounded and possibly fatally, broke Jason’s heart.
That Jason had been the one to call him in when he’d been safely at home with that baby… Well, that was something he was going to have to live with for a long time to come. He hoped to God Heston wasn’t as seriously wounded as he feared, but he’d seen the blood pooling underneath the deputy. He wasn’t naïve. He’d seen gunshot wounds to the abdomen before, and he was a doctor’s son to boot. They’d need a minor miracle for Heston to be okay.
“If that’s what it takes,” he muttered as they wheeled his gurney inside the emergency department. The alternative didn’t bear contemplation.
Chapter 37
Desi had just taken possession of two scoops of chocolate turtle ice cream when her phone rang. Juggling the cone, her change purse, and her phone, she thanked the girl behind the counter at the Widow’s Walk ice cream shop and moved out of line as quickly as she could.
By the time she got enough fingers free to answer it, the call had gone to voice mail. When she saw that it had been Annie, she frowned. “Okay. That’s unexpected.”
She’d walked down to the ice cream shop via the Riverwalk, the scenic path that ran alongside the Ohio River, and as she started back home, she listened to the message Annie had left.
“Hey, Desi, I wanted to let you know that Jason’s at the hospital. He was involved in a shooting this evening. We think he’s okay, but they’re doing a CT scan right now just to make sure. Anyhow, I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else. We’re all here in the surgical waiting room, third floor, if you want to come over. Call me back.”
She didn’t feel the ice cream cone slip from her fingers or hear the man who’d seen her drop it ask if she was okay. Her ears were ringing, her heart was pounding, and she knew she was going to shatter into a million pieces right there in the middle of Leroy.
Jason had been shot… CT scan… Surgery.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no!” And she started to run.
By the time she made it to her car back at the apartment, she was a sobbing, sweaty mess. But she was also starting to think, to breathe, and with shaking hands, she got her SUV unlocked and sat down behind the wheel, then replayed Annie’s message while she caught her breath. After hearing it a second and then a third time, she felt a little calmer.
“Her voice wasn’t terribly stressed. She didn’t say he’d been shot. They think he’s okay. Desiree, pull yourself together.” She reached into the backseat and grabbed a handful of tissues to use to mop her face. “Okay, calm down.”
She thought about calling Annie back, but if she’d misunderstood and Jason wasn’t okay, she didn’t know if she could handle hearing that or not. On the other hand, she hated to rush to the hospital like she was important to him only to find out he’d just needed a Band-Aid. After all, they’d not even had their official first date as adults.
Closing her eyes, she let her head fall forward as she gripped the steering wheel. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve not been out with him yet and you know it, Desi. You care for him. You always have. And you care about his family. Get yourself over there and find out what’s going on. Do what you can to help now. Worry about the rest later.”
So that’s what she did.
Jason was finally discharged from the ER after being given six stitches and orders to take it easy. He’d gotten a clean bill of health with the exception of having a mild concussion.
He was also feeling a little naked, as he’d been stripped down to his underwear in the ER. Ethan had taken his equipment belt back to the department, exchanging it for the go-bag Jason had in his locker, which contained a clean T-shirt and pants. The clothes he’d been wearing would have to be thrown away, and he had doubts as to whether or not his vest could be cleaned.
“Any word on Heston?” he asked his mother, who’d stayed with him in the ER, as they rode the elevator up to the surgical waiting room on the third floor to meet up with everyone else.
“He’s in surgery, and we’ll know more soon with any luck.” Jackie slipped her arm around his waist and hugged him tight. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
He kissed the top of her head and hugged her back. “So am I. Is Alyssa here?” Alyssa was Heston’s wife.
“She is, and so is the baby. Her parents are with her, and Lori Sterling. I didn’t know they were cousins.”
“I didn’t either.” If he got the opportunity, he’d pull her aside and ask her about Aiden. “How’s she taking it?”
“Stoically. Listen, you need to eat. Everyone else went to the cafeteria while you were getting scanned. You can go there, or I have some minestrone at the office in the fridge.” She sent him a questioning look when he smiled.
“Minestrone reminded me of someone I need to call. I think I’ll do that after I check in. I might take a few minutes to sit down and rest, too.”
“That’d be an excellent idea,” Jackie said, patting his chest before opening her purse. “Here’s the key. Make sure you lock up before you leave.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
The quiet hum of conversation reached them before they got to the waiting room. It was packed with law enforcement officers from Olman County and beyond. The tradition of gathering together when one of their own was injured to offer support was one that never failed to humble Jason. When he and Jackie went in, most eyes turned to them. Paulo ran over from where he’d been standing with Beth and Ethan.
“You okay, Dad?” he asked as he hugged Jason.
“Yeah. A few stitches and a headache, just like we thought. I’ll be fine tomorrow after some sleep. I’ll head over to Dad’s office here in a minute and get some food.” He nodded at the rest of the family, who was gathered on the other side of the room around Sampson and Joely, who were sitting down. He’d seen everyone in the ER after they’d brought him in, and he could see the relief on their faces when he gave them a thumbs up.
When a slender blond woman holding a baby stood and came toward him, Jason tensed. He’d been dreading this moment almost since the shooting had happened. “Kiddo, give us a minute?” he asked Paulo.
“Sure.”
She smiled at Paulo as he passed her on his way to Sampson’s side, then turned to Jason.
He cleared his throat. “Alyssa, I’m so sorry.”
Her lips tightened, and tears filled her eyes as she shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault. He was so excited to get called out.”
When the baby, Lilah, babbled and reached for him, Jason took her with something akin to heartache. “Look at you. You’re growing so fast. She’s beautiful.”
“Thank you. We can’t keep her in clothes, she’s such a weed,” Alyssa said, smoothing a hand over the baby’s back with a smile. “Did he… was he hurting? I can’t help thinking he had to be in agony. I didn’t see him. He was in surgery before we got here.”
Jason drew her close with the arm that wasn’t holding the baby. “He wasn’t. He was handling it pretty well, as a matter of fact. Even made a couple of jokes. I promise.”
Everyone turned away while she cried on his shoulder, her tears not noisy but nonetheless devastating. Jackie, who’d gone to stand beside Jason’s father, came back to hand her some tissues, then left them alone. When the baby chortled, Alyssa laughed and straightened, wiping her face.
“She’s so cheerful. I wanted to have her here so that when he wakes up, he can see her. They said it could be a couple more hours before we know anything.”
Jason handed Lilah over with a soft kiss to her forehead and some regret. “The waiting’s the worst part. When Beth was shot, it felt like days passed, but it’s the nature of the surgery. They have to be extra careful that they don’t miss things with the kind of wound Heston has. That pays off in the long run for him, but it plays havoc with the people who love him.”
She nodded. “The ER doctor said that the vest slowed the bullet down, and that’s a good thing.”
“That’s a very good thing. And I know he’s in good hands—Dad said the surgeon who has him is one of the best in the region, that we’re lucky to have him practicing here locally. He’s only been here a year, and he came from a major trauma center up on the east coast.”
She let out a long breath. “He’ll be okay. He has to be.”
“He will be,” Jason said firmly.
“Is that you saying it because you know or because you hope?” she asked.
Jason’s smile was sad. “Both, I guess. I’m so sorry it happened, Alyssa.”
“Did you shoot him?” She lifted an eyebrow as she waited for him to answer.
Stunned, Jason shook his head. “Of course I didn’t.”
“Then stop apologizing. He knows the risks, and he accepts them every time he puts on that uniform. We both do.” She gently jostled the baby on her hip. “I need to feed her. Go sit down, get yourself something to eat. You look like you’re ready to fall over. We can all fall apart once Heston’s in recovery. Until then, we carry on.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As she walked away, Jason marveled at her strength. Oh, he knew she was hurting. Her misery was written all over her face, in the tension she carried in the lines of her shoulders. But like she’d said, now wasn’t the time to break down.
