Benson ended our interview, “I bid you farewell. I’m sorry, Warner. I lied about giving you Gwen’s location—but don’t worry, she won’t die alone, like your brother. Your enabler Jeff Carter will die with her.”
“You’re a sick bastard.”
“History will be the judge of that. And since you will be the one writing the final story, it will be up to you how I’m portrayed. My only hope is that you mention that Noah was the most satisfying, because his crime was not against a stranger, but against someone he claimed to love—someone who trusted him, yet he betrayed that trust.”
Benson shut off his radio. The silence on the other end was the worst sound I’d ever heard.
Samerauk Bridge was now in my sights. As I sped toward it, I pictured Noah falling on the rocks below. I was tempted to let Benson go over with Maloney.
Benson’s police car entered my radar, speeding in the opposite direction, and careening for the guardrail. I thought of my mother telling me it was just a matter of time for me. I thought of the bedroom she kept the same, knowing her son would certainly die a premature death. I thought of Gwen, and was glad we got one last chance to make things right.
But most of all, I couldn’t believe I was about to sacrifice my life to try to save Bobby Maloney’s sorry ass. I turned my headlights off and shot toward the bridge.
I heard Agent Johnson screaming into the cell phone, “He’s really going to do it, JP—he’s going over the side!
I made a mad dash across the bridge and beat Benson to the spot like a player taking a charge in a basketball game. Metal smashed on high-speed metal. I had spent a career avoiding gunfire and car bombs, but as Carter always said, the last one always hits you.
My luck had run out.
Chapter 91
When Benson’s car hit mine, it took off like a plane and shot over my vehicle, flipping in the air. My car hit the road with a thud, skidded over the bridge, and shooting sparks everywhere. It came to a stop about two hundred feet down the road, sounding like a train wreck. Maybe looking worse than one.
My car was crushed like an accordion. I checked myself to make sure I was still of the living. It was inconclusive. But if I was dead, death sure was painful. I pushed the airbag out of the way and climbed out of a hole that was ripped in the side of the car.
My adrenaline pulled me toward Benson, but my body was not cooperating. I fell to the ground, unable to put weight on my leg. It wouldn’t stop me—I was going to get to Benson or die trying. If I had two minutes left on the planet, I would use every remaining second to find Gwen.
The Martinez Painting van showed up seconds later. They looked stunned to see me still alive, and trying to crawl across the bridge. I was just as shocked.
Clarisse Johnson met me. The other agents ran guns blazing toward what was left of Benson’s squad car.
“Lie still,” she instructed.
Taking orders wasn’t really my thing. I tried to get to my feet again, before falling down and coughing up blood. I was not a pretty sight.
“JP, I need you to remain still so I can check you out.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other agents surrounding Benson’s demolished car. He was now out of the mangled steel and holding a gun at the head of his hostage—Bobby Maloney. We were right back where we started, except for a few additional broken bones and hurt feelings.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“That’s what Noah’s girlfriend thought,” Agent Johnson tried to sober me. It worked, but didn’t stop me.
The whole thing was happening in slow motion. “Help me to him. Hawkins will get Maloney killed,” I said. And more importantly … Gwen.
I must have been really convincing, because she agreed to assist my insanity. I draped one arm around her shoulders and hopped on my one remaining good leg.
“Get him out of here,” Hawkins yelled at the first sight of me.
“Warner stays or Maloney dies,” Benson shouted out, and we momentarily became teammates. Benson looked even more surprised to be alive than I was. But unlike myself, he looked like he didn’t want to be.
I knew Benson wasn’t stupid enough to think holding Maloney would keep him from an onslaught of FBI bullets. I had to get to Benson before he killed himself, or got himself killed … whichever came first.
Rich Tolland met me with concern. “Are you okay, JP?”
I repaid him by stealing his gun away from him. Before he could try to regain it, I was aiming at Benson’s face, ready to fire. “Where is Gwen!?”
“Put the gun down or I kill Maloney,” Benson fired back.
“Shoot him and get it over with. This is between you and me, Benson, and he’s getting in the way!”
The FBI agents all looked at each other—not sure what to do. They didn’t teach JP Warner at Quantico.
Maloney met the statement by throwing up. It was always harder to die the second time in a night.
“Where is Gwen?” I asked again.
Benson just smiled, which worried me.
Time was running out. I had to do something, so I fired the gun. The blast echoed off the river below, and also pierced Benson’s right shoulder. The surprising shot caused mass confusion, allowing Maloney to get out of his clutches.
Benson screamed out in agony. He attempted to fire back, but his gun feebly dropped to the pavement.
“Wrong answer, where is she? I know she’s alive.”
“You’re crazy,” Benson said to me, clutching his wounded shoulder.
I didn’t have time to ponder the irony of the statement. I broke away from Agent Johnson, but my legs couldn’t support my weight. I screamed out in pain and dropped to my knees. Before anyone could figure out what I was about to do, I slithered to Benson and stuck my gun in his mouth.
“Where is she?”
The FBI shouted for me to back off, and I could feel their weapons pointed at me.
“Don’t do it, JP,” Agent Johnson exclaimed.
“Put the gun down, Warner,” Hawkins shouted, with gun drawn.
“He killed my brother. He wants justice and now he’s gonna get it, old-school style, unless he tells me where Gwen is!”
I shoved the gun to the back of his throat and he began to gag.
Rich Tolland spoke up, “JP, if you shoot him then you become as bad as he is.”
“Why should I let him live? So he can have a trial where he would try to garner support for his sick acts?”
“Drop the gun or I’ll shoot you, Warner,” yelled Hawkins. I didn’t doubt him. In fact, I thought he might enjoy it.
Benson turned a shade of purple as my gun tickled his tonsils. I shoved deeper.
But when I looked deep into his bulging, psychotic eyes, I realized that Rich was right—I didn’t want to be like him. And more importantly, I knew that a dead Benson equaled a dead Gwen. I tossed the gun on the pavement. I raised my hands in the air as the agents moved in on me like I was the mass murderer.
Benson shouted, “Either let me go or you never see Gwen again. Do you understand!?” It was the last card he had to play.
The ringing of a phone temporarily froze everyone. The agents instinctively checked their pockets, but the phone didn’t belong to any of them. Agent Johnson and I simultaneously located it—on the ground beside Benson’s mangled police car. It was
his
phone.
I tried to speed-crawl for it, but had no chance to beat Agent Johnson to it. She answered it with the casual greeting of “hello” like it was her home phone. She listened intently while nodding. She then walked toward Benson and tossed it toward him. “It’s for you.”
He reached up to catch it, but couldn’t raise his bullet-punctured shoulder. The phone fell to the ground in front of him.
With an arsenal of FBI firepower still pointed at him, Benson picked up the phone with his left arm. When he listened to the caller, the life ran out of his face. He tossed it on the ground in my direction.
I picked up the phone and I got my answer. I smiled as wide as I ever had.
“Are you causing trouble, JP Warner?”
“Are you calling your boyfriend?”
“I would have called yours, but being absentminded like you are, you left it with Lamar Thompson.”
I was full of questions. The journalist in me had returned. Gwen answered my rambling questions with a simple, “Long story.” Then I felt another huge relief shoot through my body. The voice of Jeff Carter boomed into the phone, “I thought retirement was supposed to be less dangerous. What’s all this commotion about?”
I kept smiling as I watched the FBI take Grady Benson, aka Officer Jones, away in handcuffs.
“I guess it’s just who I am,” I said with a shrug.
_______________________________________________________
Epilogue -
Sunday Bloody Sunday
_______________________________________________________
Chapter 92
Rockfield
Sunday October 16
Gwen reached into the backseat of what was once the
Rockfield Gazette
van. Anyone who thought the FBI would gladly pick up the bill to fix their paint job has never worked with the FBI.
She reached back into a sea of bagged newspapers and grabbed one. When the driveway came into sight, she whipped her arm and sent the paper flying. It bounced onto the driveway.
I looked up from the copy of today’s paper that I’d been skimming in the passenger seat. I was again struck by the volatility Gwen had shown all morning, but wrote it off as one of those womanly things I wasn’t evolved enough to understand. I went back to trying to decide what was more beautiful—the multicolored fall foliage of the New England countryside or Gwen Delaney. Even in her Sunday morning look of Columbia sweatshirt, no make up, hair in a ponytail, and scowl on her face, Gwen won by a first round knockout. No contest. But for some reason, she didn’t seem to be sharing my poetic view of our relationship this morning.
“Are you okay?” I bravely asked again. It was exactly an hour since the last time I attempted such foolery and almost got my head bitten off. Miraculously, the collision with Benson hadn’t led to further broken bones, but I wasn’t as confident I’d survive this Sunday drive.
“I’m fine—what makes you think something’s wrong?” she snapped back at me.
I took it as a cue to return to the paper, focusing on the front page. It was the exclusive interview Gwen had done with my brother before his death. One particular section drew my attention as I read Noah’s words.
Nothing good ever comes from looking back they tell me, but looking back is the only way for me to see Lisa. The first year after the accident I didn’t want to do anything but kill myself. Then, for the first time in a year, I heard her voice in my head. I used to always hear her voice, especially when I was about to do something stupid, but after the accident I only heard her scream. On the one-year anniversary I was on top of Samerauk Bridge ready to end it and I heard her voice again. It told me to live.
I looked up, tears blurring my vision. “This is an amazing article, Gwen.”
She flicked another paper. “I’m glad Noah’s story could be told. But he’s the one who told it—I just wrote it down.”
“Stop being so modest, you brought his story to life.”
“I said it was nothing,” she snarled at me. I shrugged, returning to the safety of the sports page, as Gwen whipped another paper.
The awkward silence was broken by the ring of my phone, which had been returned by Lamar Thompson. I gave him my Humvee for his help in saving Gwen and Carter. Seemed like a fair trade to me. It was Lauren Bowden, so I let it go to voice mail.
Gwen pulled the van safely into home base—it was five minutes past seven. We’d started at four. It was hard enough to get up at that hour, but my father couldn’t resist the urge to wake me even earlier, to inform me that the school board voted to rescind Ethan’s suspension. The wake-up was not necessary, since this was not news to either of us—my father was the one who twisted the necessary arms to make the deal happen.
We entered the creaky colonial that housed the
Gazette
. In the three hours of newspaper delivery, I tallied Gwen’s words to me as less than fifteen.
Murray was already present, in his formal church attire, including his trademark bow tie. He’d brewed a pot of coffee and brought an assortment of doughnuts.
Earlier in the week, following the arrest, I lamented the attention being given nationally to the man who’d killed my brother, with his media-savvy lawyer feeding the flame. I believed that Benson was going to get his wish to have his story told after all, and part of me regretted not shooting him on the spot.
But Murray set me straight. “John Pierpont, the news moves at such a rapid pace these days that Grady Benson will be in the battle of his life to remain relevant beyond this week. I’d stake my reputation upon it.”
That was a big reputation, and as usual, he was right. On Wednesday, Benson became old news locally when Maloney stepped down as First Selectman, claiming that the hostage incident had sparked a re-evaluation of his life, and he wanted to spend more time with his family. Peter Warner would serve in the interim, until a full time replacement was in place.
On Thursday, Grady Benson became old news nationally. Peace talks broke down between the US and North Korea. Tensions were at an all-time high, and two-hundred-thousand US troops had landed in Seoul on Friday morning.
After our arrival, the old teacher critiqued the Sunday writings of the current issue. He called Gwen’s interview with Noah “compelling” and “a perfect mixture of fact and emotion.” She seemed to be saving her unpleasant demeanor for me, as she smiled at Murray and cheerily replied, “Thank you, Murray. Coming from you it means a lot.”
Murray described my article about Ethan’s suspension being lifted as “improved” and “coming along.” Not exactly beaming praise, but I took what I could get at this point.