B00CCYP714 EBOK (8 page)

Marty hesitated. “This is a public street. You can’t make me leave.”

Gunny grinned. “Did you miss that part about me being a Marine? That ‘Oorah’ means I can kick your ass, and very publicly on this public street, if that’s what you’re into.”

Rainey chuckled. “I’ve sparred with her, Marty. I’d just leave, if I were you.”

Marty was the pale one now. His smug smile replaced by a grimace of fear. “You can’t be serious. There are cops everywhere.”

Gunny looked up at Rainey. “Did you hear him threaten me? I’m beginning to fear for my safety.”

Rainey nodded in agreement. “Yep, you may have to resort to physical violence in order to separate yourself from the threat.”

“Wow, you really are nuts,” Marty said, backing away.

“You said it yourself,” Rainey called after him, “I’m capable of anything, under the right circumstances.”

Martin Douglas Cross walked away, but Rainey was sure she would see him again. She looked over at Bobo, who was still standing where she told him to stay. Reaching into her jacket pocket, Rainey pulled out her wallet. She called Bobo to her.

“I was going to fire you tonight, ban all my runners from ever taking another tip from you. We pay you well for good information and you led my guys into a shit-storm tonight.”

“I’m sorry, Rainey. They came in the back way. The neighbor said Maybelline had called the girls over there, after she got home. I didn’t know. I’m sorry, man.”

Rainey pulled a hundred dollars out of her wallet. She handed it to Bobo, saying, “Don’t talk to that guy anymore. He’ll get you in trouble. Take this and go home. Junior will find you later, after he calms down.”

“Thank you, Rainey.” Bobo bowed and started backing away, smiling, calling to her, “I got your back, Rainey Bell. You know that.” He laughed and ran toward the corner.

Rainey looked down at Gunny. “You know, this evening started out so well.”

Gunny laughed. “When did it go bad, about the time that baby food got stuck in your hair?”

Rainey’s hand shot to her head. She could feel the dried peas still clinging to her thick chestnut curls. “Damn, I was going to wash this out when Katie distracted me and then Junior called.”

“I don’t think it will take away too much from your interview with that Kutter woman. They’ll probably remember you threatening to stick that microphone up her ass and not the green slime in your hair,” Gunny said, barely able to contain her amusement.

Rainey started laughing. “Well, it’ll give Cookie something to talk about. She’ll be asking viewers about the ‘strange substance’ in Rainey Bell’s hair.”

 Gunny giggled, which was a strange sound coming from the hard-nosed sergeant. “Maybe I’ll call in and say I think you’re an alien.”

“She’d probably run with that,” Rainey said, and then remembered her Glock. “Did you find my weapon?”

“Captain Trainer said Detective King went to the hospital to get a statement from Mackie. He didn’t look to happy about it either.”

“Come on then,” Rainey said, starting toward the car. “We better get to the hospital, before Mackie ends up in cuffs. He can’t tolerate Rex anymore than I can.”

“This night just keeps going. Is it always like this when you’re involved?” Gunny asked, trying to conceal a grin. “Most of the time, we just scoop the fugitive up and go. With you, it’s news reporters, dick detectives, and asshole writers.”

Rainey sighed. “Welcome to Rainey’s world, where there is a storm around every corner.”

Gunny slapped her on the back. “Oorah.”

Rainey chuckled. “Oorah, Gunny.”

#

The emergency room doors had just swished shut behind them, when Rainey spotted Rex King coming straight for her. He started in on her before she could take a step further. Evidently, his conversation with Mackie did not go very well. Rex was flushed and looking for a fight.

“You people don’t think the law applies to you.”

Rainey was not in the mood for more of his accusations. “Just give me my weapon and give it a rest for one night, Rex.”

That only made him angrier, emboldening him to cross the line with Rainey. “The only thing that would make this night worse, after dealing with you two, is if your son-of-a-bitch father were still around.”

Rainey felt Gunny’s hand on her elbow, just as she was about to launch into Rex King once and for all. Gunny positioned herself between Rainey and Rex, and to Rainey’s surprise, was not the least bit confrontational. Her transformation from tough as nails to polite peacemaker startled Rainey out of wanting to throttle King Squared into King Cubed.

“Detective King, I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure. Marine Gunnery Sergeant Naomi Pierce, retired,” she said, extending her hand in greeting. “I don’t think anyone will be served well by cursing the dead, do you? Now, why don’t you and I go collect Rainey’s weapon, while she sees to her friend, and if you want to talk later, I’m sure she has plenty to say to you.”

Gunny so shocked Rex, he lost the ability to speak, and before he knew what was happening, she had escorted him out the emergency room doors. Rainey was still standing there with her mouth open, when Junior slid to a stop next to her. He looked frightened, spoke breathlessly, and began dragging Rainey down the hall with him.

“Rainey, Mackie’s heart stopped. Come quick.”

Rainey felt her face go ashen. She started running beside Junior, toward the doors that barred the public from the exam rooms. A nurse saw them coming, recognized Junior, and hit a button behind the desk. They passed through the doors without breaking stride.

“I thought he was stable. What happened?”

Junior choked back tears with his answer. “I don’t know.”

When they rounded the corner, Rainey saw Thelma leaning against the wall, in tears. That’s when she heard the high-pitched whine of a defibrillator charging and the shout of, “Again!” coming from the trauma room. The flat-line alarm on the heart monitor droned in the background, eeeeeeeeee— Rainey passed Thelma and pushed her way into the trauma room, where her guardian angel lay dying.

“Zzzzchuunk!” The defibrillator sounded, as the doctor sent an electrical pulse into Mackie’s body, causing it to convulse, but the flat-line returned immediately on the heart monitor screen.

“No pulse,” a nurse said, as he prepared another shot of adrenaline and another resumed chest compressions.

Rainey wanted there to be no doubt about the man on the table. “Don’t give up on him,” she said from the doorway. “He walked out of a jungle with five bullets in him, carrying my father. Don’t you give up on him.”

A nurse turned toward her, to force her back out of the room. Rainey stepped back, but not before shouting, “Don’t you give up, Mackie! You fight, goddammit!”

“Again,” the doctor shouted. “Push the next epi.”

“Charging,” another voice said.

The defibrillator whine built to a crescendo for the next shock it was to deliver, when someone shouted, “Wait! He has a pulse.”

Rainey slid down the hallway wall to her knees and thanked God for another blessing in her life. When she finished, she had one more person to address. She whispered, “I promise to keep him safe, Dad. Thanks for knowing I needed him with me more than you do.”

She felt hands on her shoulders. A familiar voice whispered close to her ear, “Come on, let them do their work.”

Rainey looked up to see Ernie smiling down at her.

“You all know it’ll take more than a shot through a ballistics vest to stop that big man in there, don’t you? I’ve known him longer than any of you, and I know damn well he isn’t going to die today. So, let’s all go get some coffee and they’ll come get us when we can see him.”

A nurse came out of Mackie’s room, just as Ernie finished. “She’s right. His heart is beating normally again and we have him closely monitored. Y’all go on down to the waiting area. The doctor will come out to talk to you.”

“Thank you, we’ll do that,” Ernie said, acting as spokesperson for the group.

Rainey was happy to have someone else take charge for the moment. Ernie was never one to wallow in misery and she wouldn’t allow those around her to do so either. She held out her hand to help Rainey from the floor.

“I’m glad you’re here, Ernie,” Rainey said, standing up.

“Well, somebody had to come down here and straighten you all out. Nothing worse than a bunch of negative energy around sick people. A little positive attitude goes a long way.” She paused and tilted her head, a puzzled look crossing her face as she gazed at Rainey. “You know, when I saw you on TV, I was trying to figure out what that was in your hair.”

Rainey’s hand went to the green slime embedded in her curls. “Weather likes to throw strained peas and anything else she can get her hands on.”

Ernie looped her arm through Rainey’s, as they started down the hall, following Thelma and Junior. “Well, I know she doesn’t have your DNA, but that child is the spittin’ image of your personality, and to that I say—you are in for a hell of a ride to adulthood.”

It crossed Rainey’s mind that maybe this was it, the other shoe dropping. If so, it was working out okay. Mackie might be down, but she felt sure he would pull through this. If he was going to die, she reasoned with herself, a few minutes ago would have been the time. She hung onto that hope, telling herself maybe this would inspire Mackie to get into better shape, start watching what he ate, and live to be one hundred. By then, maybe Rainey would be ready to let him go.

Deciding not to share her thoughts with Ernie, Rainey smiled down at the small gray-bunned woman on her arm, replying to the prediction of future parental woes with Weather, “Let’s just see if we can stop her from throwing food first. We’ll worry about the storms to come, after she’s out of diapers.”

“Oh, throwing food will be the least of your worries with that one.” Ernie said with a chuckle. “There will be rainy weather in your future, you can count on that.”

Rainey laughed. “Clever word play there. Probably should have given that weather theme a bit more thought when we named her.”

Rainey’s attention was unexpectedly drawn back to the trauma room, where Mackie’s heart was now beating again. The sudden sense of approaching doom returned in a rush. Immediately, her father’s voice was inside her head, whispering, “Watch your back, Rainey. There’s trouble.” She stopped walking and stared back at the door of the room.

Ernie stopped with her. She knew Rainey well enough to recognize when something wasn’t right. She also knew to respect Rainey’s intuition. “What is it, Rainey?”

“Dad,” she whispered. “He’s trying to tell me something.”

Rainey did not feel strange admitting to Ernie that she heard her father’s voice at times, and with good reason.

Ernie squeezed Rainey’s arm. “I’ve heard him lately, too. There’s trouble.”

Rainey knew Ernie talked to her dead father, often hearing her carry on whole conversations with him in the office. They were very close friends, more like brother and sister than employee and employer. Rainey was not sure to what extent her father’s spirit participated in Ernie’s conversations with him, but Ernie did credit Billy with finding lost objects on occasion. This was new. Ernie had never passed along a warning from the beyond before. Rainey attributed the messages from her father to her own mind associating him with her instinctual knowledge. Because Billy Bell spent so much time telling his daughter to listen to her inner voice, she was not at all surprised it sounded like him. But for her and Ernie to receive the same message, now that was freaky weird.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Rainey asked.

Junior turned back to look for Rainey. She saw him and motioned him to go ahead.

Ernie was usually very direct, but she was a little hesitant to speak. She finally said, “Well, you were so happy, not moping, not paranoid, not looking over your shoulder all the time. I didn’t want to threaten that with just a feeling. I don’t know if it’s Billy talking to me, or just the memory of his voice, but it’s been strong lately. Something is just not right and I cannot put my finger on it.”

“How long have you had this feeling?”

Ernie thought about it and answered, “About four months now.”

Rainey nodded her head. “I’ve had it too. I thought it was all the talk of you retiring, Mackie getting older, me being so busy and tired all the time. There’s also my track record. Things were going too well. Something was bound to go wrong. Then tonight happened and I thought maybe this was the bad thing, and we made it through it, but –”

“But you still have that feeling in your gut,” Ernie finished for her, and then added, “I think your instincts are awake now. Mackie going down woke them up. That voice is telling you to watch your back.”

“Funny, but that’s exactly what Dad said.”

“Then listen to him,” Ernie pleaded.

“Always.”

#

An hour later, Dr. John Herndon sat across from Rainey and the rest of Mackie’s friends and family gathered in the waiting room. John was Rainey’s stepfather and a highly respected heart surgeon. Though they were not close for most of Rainey’s adult life, she liked him. When the triplets were born, John was instrumental in repairing Rainey’s relationship with her mother, and they both became doting grandparents. After the trauma physician came out to tell them Mackie’s problems were multiplying due to heart complications, Rainey called Katie to tell her what was happening. It was at her suggestion that Rainey then called John. He came without hesitation. John Herndon loved his stepdaughter and knew Mackie personally, but he came because he was a great doctor and a better man.

Silver-haired and handsome, John patted Rainey’s knee and gave them the news. He addressed Thelma first. “Mackie is in stable condition, so you can relax for the time being. That said, he has a long recovery ahead. It was actually opportune that he was shot this evening. The trauma impact caused a hemothorax—bleeding between the chest wall and the lung. The bleeding depressed his breathing and put pressure on his heart. He was stabilized here in the ER by the removal of some of the fluids through needle aspiration and later a tube was placed to remove the rest. The two broken ribs and the soft tissue injuries from the impact, though painful, are not a worry at this time. That’s the good news.”