Susan hung up the phone and turned to A. K. “We might be sitting here all night for nothing, but that would be a wonderful thing.”
A tap on the window caught Susan totally off guard. Adrenalin shot through her body.
“Oh no,” she squealed and grabbed for A. K.
“You okay?” a man asked, sticking his face close to the window.
Rivulets of water on the passenger glass distorted his features. With her over-active imagination in high gear, Susan saw him as a zombie in
Dawn of the Dead
.
“You need any help?” he asked.
On second glance, she saw him for what he really was, a guy dressed in warm ups and holding a white garbage bag.
“Uh…no…we’re fine, just waiting on someone.”
The man shrugged, tossed his bag into the dumpster, and walked toward the back of the complex.
“I never saw him coming,” A. K. said.
“That tells me we’re not cut out for this job. I’m sure glad Wesley’s here.”
A. K. rotated her shoulders back and forth then rubbed her hands down her back. “Oh what I’d give to stretch out. You’re going to owe me big time.”
“There’s nothing glamorous about a stakeout. It’s definitely not my thing. In a way, it’s strange. Wesley and I are not more than a hundred yards apart, yet it might as well be a million miles. The other night, I was at his place sitting in front of a blazing fire. In his arms, I feel safe. Nothing else in the world matters.”
“Girl, you got it bad.”
“You think?” Susan laughed. That little bit of humor seemed to take the edge off the night.
“Well, what do you know,” A. K. said. “The rain has stopped.”
Susan’s mind was still on Wesley, but this time, she was thinking about his job. “I could never be a cop. Every day they put their lives in danger and take down the scum of the earth, and sometimes they’re accosted for no reason by total strangers who appear to be in danger. Often they’re just strung out on drugs. I’d hate to face those possibilities every day.
“I thought about getting a gun for protection but never did. Right now, I kind of wish we had a weapon,” A. K. said.
“If you had to, could you shoot someone?”
“I…I don’t know. Maybe that’s why I never bought one. What about you?”
Susan thought for a while before answering. “If I were scared enough, or if someone I loved was in danger, I think I would.”
Neither said anything after that. Susan imagined they were both thinking about the same thing—how does anyone ever get over taking someone’s life?
Considering the number of units in the complex, the parking lot was fairly empty. Perhaps many of the residents had left for the weekend. Around two in the morning, the music stopped, and the revelers stumbled out of the apartment. Some exited the front door, and others emerged from around the back of the building. Through a blurry windshield, Susan watched several cars leave the complex. She didn’t notice anyone approach or exit Jack’s apartment.
As the hours dragged on, darkness and silence made it hard to keep her eyes open. Fighting to stay awake, she leaned closer to A. K. and in a growl of a whisper said, “You’re fired.”
“Uh…what?”
“You’re sleeping on the job, and it’s all I can do not to join you. I need help here. Talk to me, sing, do something.”
“What time is it?”
Susan opened her phone. “It’s five o’clock. We have another hour before daybreak. For the first time in a long time, Susan was anxious for Valentine’s Day to dawn. She felt sure they had stopped a terrible thing from happening.
At first light, Susan stretched her cramped legs against the floorboard and massaged her aching neck. Thank goodness the rain had finally stopped, and the sky was beginning to clear. She could imagine her sleepless eyes would pass as road maps.
She nudged A. K., who once again was dozing. “Wake up. Wesley’s heading toward Jack’s apartment. He probably wants to make sure he’s okay. We did it! We really prevented a murder.”
A shiver of joy coursed through her body.
Wesley knocked and waited for a response. He knocked again. This time, Susan and A. K. stared at one another.
“I do not like this,” Susan said. “Why doesn’t Jack answer the door?”
When Wesley pulled out his cell, Susan glanced at hers, but it didn’t ring.
“Who’s he calling?” Susan asked, talking more to herself than to A. K.
That happy feeling of a few minutes ago gave way to a nauseous feeling.
“I didn’t see anyone go near his place. Did you?” Susan asked.
A. K. shook her head. “Maybe he’s a sound sleeper, or he’s in the shower…or something.”
Wesley closed his phone and slipped it into his pocket. A few moments later, a woman came from the back of the complex and hurried over to meet with him. While they talked, she opened the door. Wesley entered the apartment first.
Susan wanted to jump out and run after him, but she knew Wesley was in control and that she shouldn’t interfere. But something was wrong…terribly wrong.
“He can’t be dead. He just can’t,” Susan wailed. “How? What did we do wrong? How could anyone have gotten past us and Wesley?”
A. K. sat shaking her head and mumbling, “Not good, not good.”
Both jumped when Susan’s phone rang.
“It’s over, Susan.”
“What do you mean it’s over?”
“I’ll explain, but not on the phone. As soon as I can, I’m coming to your place.”
“No need. I’m here.”
Susan and A. K. sprang from the car. As Wesley looked up, they were crossing the parking lot.
He met them at the curb. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Is he…?”
“He’s alive, but unconscious and wounded. The bullet raked his skull. He’s breathing okay, and I put a clean hand towel over the wound. I started applying pressure. The manager is with him now, continuing to apply pressure. EMS is on the way. How in the hell did someone manage to get past me?”
“And past us, too.” Tears streamed down Susan’s cheeks. “It happened…just the way he told me, only this time, the shooter missed. Gary couldn’t have done it. He left town this afternoon, and Clarissa is still at her place. So who did this?”
Wesley gave her a questioning look. “How do you know about Gary and Clarissa?”
Police cars arrived, their sirens blaring. As deputies hurried to cordon off the area with yellow tape, the EMS unit also arrived.
Susan looked past Wesley, not wanting to answer him at this time.
“I want to see him,” she said, and started toward his apartment.
Wesley grabbed her. “You can’t. This is a crime scene. Stay here and let me find out about his condition.” He hurried into the apartment.
“I know I was meant to warn him, to try and stop him from getting killed,” Susan said. “All the prying and chasing around, the all-night vigil can’t be for naught. He just has to survive.”
“He’s alive,” A. K. said. “That’s the main thing.”
Residents emerged from their apartments and gathered outside the restricted area.
When Wesley exited the apartment, he stayed for quite some time talking to officers. Then he approached her and A. K., took them by their arms, and led them a little closer to the on-lookers, but far enough away that they could talk without being overheard. “Standing alone, you two draw attention. If you don’t want to get questioned you’d do well to blend with the crowd. The medic said Jack’s wound was serious but not life threatening.”
“I sure hope not,” A. K. responded.
Susan stared at her friends. “When I met Jack at the funeral home, he wasn’t so lucky. It’s a great relief to hear he’ll make it.” Susan rubbed her arms and shivered, more from nervousness than from the cold.
Wesley was quick to notice her discomfort and suggested they go sit in his truck. “You look plumb frozen. I’ll crank up the heater.”
“I vote for that,” A. K. said, blowing into her hands.
Once in the truck, the warm air whirled through the vents and fogged up the windows. “Okay, let’s have it,” Wesley said. “What have you two been keeping from me?”
A. K. stared at Susan. “You tell him.”
“Okay,” she said, looking at Wesley, “just promise not to be too angry. Ever since the night Gary’s money…uh…disappeared, Herman has tailed Gary, and a friend of Herman’s has kept an eye on Clarissa. Vera has also helped by watching Gary’s place next door.
“Herman called this evening to say Gary boarded a plane for Atlanta in New Orleans, and that Clarissa had not left her apartment all day. I was relieved to know that you wouldn’t have to confront either of them tonight. With no money involved, it looked like Jack’s life would be spared. I was feeling really good about everything until you didn’t get a response this morning and had to enter his apartment.” She paused and took a deep breath. “With Gary and Clarissa out of the way, who could have done this?”
Wesley crossed his arms and glared at Susan. “I’ve learned it’s when you think you have something figured out, the unexpected happens, and someone sure pulled one over on us. Angry? I’m not angry. I’m furious! Do you realize if the murderer had spotted you, you could have been killed? Dammit, I don’t want to lose you again.”
“We parked a long ways away,” A. K. said. “Blame it on me. I’m hard headed and impulsive.”
“Nice try, A. K., but it was my idea to come here,” Susan said. “What did you tell the police?”
Wesley looked at the officers milling about the grounds. “I said I was running surveillance when I got a tip from a CI there was a possible hit on the doctor. I saw no one enter or leave his apartment, but a bunch of partiers exited the front and back door of the adjacent apartment. If the assailant was already in the doctor’s apartment, he or she could have slipped out and gone unnoticed among the revelers. This morning, I decided to make sure the doctor was all right. When I couldn’t get him to answer his door, I called the manager, and we discovered he’d been shot.
“The investigators will process the scene. I don’t look for any fingerprints or DNA, and there’s no evidence of a struggle. Seems the doctor was caught totally off guard. Let’s hope he got a look at his assailant.”
“So you think whoever did this was already in Jack’s apartment and waiting for him to come home?”
“It looks that way. Did either of you hear or see anything suspicious?”
“The rain made it hard to see much of anything,” Susan said. “A handful of cars entered and left, and there were a lot of partiers coming and going. What about you? Do you remember anything different?”
“Not really, but sometimes things that go unnoticed will surface later.”
“Has anyone contacted Jack’s family?” Susan asked.
“I gave a deputy Ramona’s name. He’s going to call her. I’m sure she could use your support. I have to check in at headquarters, so I’ll catch up with you later.”
Susan and A. K. made their way back to the Mustang amid talk of disbelief from the crowd that continued to huddle outside the apartment.
“There he is,” someone said.
A gurney rolled down the sidewalk and stopped at the ambulance. Jack’s head was bandaged and an oxygen mask was in place.
“At least he’s not dead,” someone in the crowd said.
Susan so wanted to tell him she was here, that even though she had failed to stop the shooter, he was going to be okay.
“Sorry, Jack,” she whispered. “I tried.”
The yellow tape flapped in the wind as if to mock her efforts.
“Why was the shooting revealed to me, if not for me to stop it?” she asked A. K. “Where did I go wrong? Just hours ago, it all looked so promising.”
Her shoulders slumped as if under a heavy weight.
“Hey, he’s alive. That’s what’s important,” A. K. said. “You did everything you could. In fact, you did save him from death at the hands of Gary. How could you possibly know someone else was waiting to kill him?”
As they climbed into the Mustang and drove out the complex, Susan pulled her cell from her pocket. “I’ve got to call Herman and let him know it’s over.”
Herman answered on the first ring. “’Bout time you called. Did anyone show up? Is the doc okay?”
“Jack’s wounded, but alive. The bullet left a nasty crease in his scalp.”
“How—”
“That’s what I’m wondering. I thought we had this all figured out. With Gary out of the picture, I really didn’t expect anyone to show. Boy, was I wrong. Someone outsmarted all of us, and that person wanted Jack dead. All I can say is a higher power must have been looking out for him. Either the shooter wasn’t a very good marksman, or it was too dark to get off a good shot.
“According to the medic, it looks like Jack will make it. Hopefully, he can tell us something. A. K. and I are going to the hospital. If we find out anything, I’ll call you.”
“Okay. I’ll be at Vera’s.”
Susan and A. K. arrived at the emergency room in time to see the doctor and a police officer walking away from Ramona. She leaned against the wall, her eyes swimming in tears. For a moment, Susan’s heart skipped a beat. Then she gave a sigh of relief when she saw Ramona look up at the doctor and whisper, “Thank you.”
Her expression changed from satisfaction to confusion when she eyed Susan. Ramona headed straight for her. “You said he’d be safe. You lied.”
“I’m so sorry. I thought we had everything under control.”
“I bet it was the man you saw with Clarissa.”
Susan shook her head. “It couldn’t have been. That was Gary Bozeman, the exterminator. He boarded a plane for Atlanta earlier in the day.”
“Gary? Oh my gosh, he sprays my house.” With eyes brimming with tears, she said, “Then it was Clarissa. I should have figured as much.”
“No, it wasn’t. Someone was watching her apartment, and she never left.”
“Then who?”
“Right now, we haven’t a clue. Is Jack conscious? Did he see anything?”
“He told the policeman he doesn’t remember anything and didn’t get a good look at the shooter. It was too dark.”
“Can we see him?” A. K. asked.
“The doctor said he doesn’t want anyone questioning him at this time. He wants him to rest. One family member at a time can stay with him. When my parents and brothers arrive, we’ll take turns. I hope you understand. Maybe tomorrow he’ll be in better condition to help you.”