“He said that it’s an ongoing investigation and that he could not share that information with me. He also said to tell you to fuck off. You really pissed that guy off, didn’t you?”
“You have no idea. I said some things...I didn’t know he was dead, either of them, until...I told her it was her fault that Meggie had been taken. I told her that she and her family were going to pay if anything happened to Meggie. I told her to go and get my daughter. Tucker...he showed me the bodies. Paddy took nine shots trying to protect Meggie, and Dee three more. When I came up to the scene, O’Malley was sitting in the ambulance being looked at. She was...they told me later that she had been shot several times and that her wounds on her chest were bleeding again. She had a bullet go through her leg and he thought she had been shot in the head and arm as well. Christ, Devin, what am I going to do? How will I ever make this up to her?”
He sat down now. He had realized riding over here just how very much he was in love with O’Malley. And that he would do anything to get her back, but he was afraid he would never get the chance. If she lived through this, he was very much afraid that she would never want anything to do with him. And he couldn’t think of one reason why she should.
~CHAPTER 20~
Cait sat in the front seat of the nearly empty bus. It wasn’t all that late, but it was a holiday and most places were closed. She waited until they were on the road a goodly way before she sat up and put her gun into the gut of the driver.
He stiffened and would have pulled over, but she stopped him.
“Don’t. I won’t hurt you, but I want you to know that what I’m about to tell you is serious. I’m a homicide detective and I’m on an assignment. I’m going to show you my badge and pull my gun away. Please, give me a minute to explain.”
She slowly pulled her badge from under her shirt and put it in his lap. He picked it up and glanced at it several times before he dropped it back in his lap.
Cait pulled it back to her by the ball chain that held it around her neck.
“Okay, for now I’ll believe you. There’s a camera over my head, but from the way you’re sitting and the way you pointed the gun at me, I’m assuming you know that. So, Detective, tell me a story.”
“There was a shootout at my family home this morning and a little girl was kidnapped. Her family wants her back.”
“News didn’t mention a kid, but I saw the story. Thought I recognized the name. I’m sorry about your parents.”
“Thank you. Yes, they would keep something like that under cover until she is let go. A drug lord has her and I’m going to confront him. We’re being followed by a cruiser, can you see it? What I need is for you to have bus trouble.
Nothing major, but something that will make you need to pull over. I’m hoping that the cop will stop and you’ll be able to suddenly get it going again, but if he doesn’t, then I’m getting off. I have a ride coming to get me. Can you do that?”
“Okay, sure, I can do that. How much trouble are you talking? I mean, this thing has power steering and without power, there ain’t no steering.” He grinned at her in the mirror.
“Whatever it takes. I leave that up to you. But you need to...I don’t want you to lose your job and I promise I’ll make sure that the police tell them you were aiding an officer. Are you sure you want to help out, knowing all this?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do. Just tell me when we are going to have this break down and I’ll heave ho the bus for us.”
Cait pulled out her clean cell and called Tucker. He answered on the first ring. He was only about three miles back and yes, he could see the car following.
The officer, Samuel Weekly, was a State boy and, according to the dispatcher, he was off duty until Thursday—family issues.
“If he stops you, just drive by. I’m sure he won’t confront me on the bus.
They won’t want that many witnesses. I’m going to call Hunter when we stop and tell him about the bus problems. I’ll leave his phone on the bus and he’ll note the time I start moving again and send out someone else to follow”
“You think he’s going to pass you, don’t you? Why would he do that? I mean, if you’re standing there, why not take you out then?”
“With the bus trouble, he’ll know I’m being delayed. They can switch out the person following without raising suspicion. And with this unexpected extra time, they’ll think they have more time to ready for me and hopefully get a little more lax.”
“When this is over, I want you to come work for me. I need someone like you on my team. You’re a hell of a good detective.” She hung up and looked out the window. If things went the way she thought they would, she would not be working for anyone anymore.
Carl Reese, the bus driver, was perfect in his role as flustered driver. He had started cussing the moment she told him now and tapping the breaks like the bus was lurching. He turned off the engine and struggled to get the heavy, unyielding thing to the side of the road. The cruiser drove by. He didn’t even slow down, but drove by as if he hadn’t seen them.
Carl got out and raised the hood up. Cait slipped out the open door, leaving behind the cell phone and a bloody stain on the seat. She hadn’t meant to leave the latter, but there was no help for it.
Captain Tucker drove up beside them and got out. While he was talking to the driver, Cait slipped into the back seat of the car and lay down. She was hurting and tried to keep her leg off the seat so that she wouldn’t leave a stain, but she didn’t have the strength. A minute or two later, Tucker got into the car and merged into traffic toward the mansion in Delaware.
“Janet? O’Malley, this is my sister-in-law, Janet Tucker. She’s going to have a look at your wounds. She’s a nurse at OSU. Janet, this is the detective I was telling you about.” Tucker looked at her though the rearview mirror as Janet crawled to the middle bench seat to tend her.
“Hi, I’ve got you some extra clothes and Don brought you an extra vest too.
I’m going to have a...sheesh, lady you sew these yourself? Pretty good, but I can make them tighter. I also have some fluids I want you to push, mostly juice. Don said you were bleeding and might need something. I have some food for you too.
It’s just light stuff, but I want you to eat as much as you can before we get there.” Cait was too weak to argue. The pain radiating from her leg was outdistancing the pain in her head by leaps and bounds. She was still very dizzy and every time she sat up, the car tilted in ways that made her belly jump.
Tucker starting talking to her as Janet worked.
“I talked to your lawyer again since I talked to you last. He told me about your uncle’s plans to have only a graveside service. I don’t suppose it’s possible for you to go against his wishes on that? He died doing a cop’s job; he deserves a policeman’s funeral.”
“He made those arrangements after he retired. I’m sure he never thought he would be in...that he would go like he did. As far as changing them, I’m not sure what his will says. But by giving Mr. Grant POA, he can pretty much do what he wants. You should tell him your thoughts and let him decide.” She couldn’t tell Tucker that she was going to be long gone before Uncle Paddy’s funeral. If she made it through tonight, she was going to go to Ireland to bury her aunt before she did anything else. Every time she closed her eyes, she could still see his body lying there and the look of shock in her aunt’s eyes.
Neither of them deserved this and it broke her heart that she had caused so much heartache.
“I’ll do that. Paddy was a good man and I don’t think I’ve ever met a man more proud of anyone as he was of you. The day you got your gold shield, he came into the squad room with pictures and showed them to everybody. I think I probably saw them more than anyone; he liked to hang out in my office all the time. Then when you got shot, I thought the man had aged ten years in the few hours it took us to make arrangements to get him to you.”
“What do you mean? He didn’t drive? I thought he and Aunt Dee drove over themselves. I don’t remember much from the first, but I thought his car was already there.”
“Nah, none of us wanted to think about him driving on his own and your aunt Dee was falling apart. Two of us drove them over in that car of his and then we drove back. He sobbed the whole way over telling us how you were an O’Malley and that you’d better not die.”
“You were with him. I didn’t know. He never...when he brought me here he said that he had good friends and that he didn’t know what he’d do without them. I didn’t know what he meant; I was in so much pain.”
“I was serious about you coming to work for me. I need good detectives and you are top notch. When this is all over—”
“Captain Tucker, when this is all over I’m going to be considered a snitch and we both know how well those kinds of cops do. I’m going into this with seven deaths on my hands, not including the three in Chicago. After today, there will be at least one more. If I’m not up on murder charges, I’m going to be before the board for a long time before they get this sorted out.” Neither of them said anything as the road flew by, both trapped in their own misgivings about what was about to happen. Cait figured she was going to be killed, either by the men in the house or by the cops when she came out. Killing a cop never went over well.
When they were on the street leading up to the house near the river, Cait got out and down to the beach front. She was going to walk to the house from this end using the private property as a cover. It was dark now and would be full dark when she got inside the house. Tucker was taking Janet to a hotel to wait for them.
~~~
Spencer was sitting at the table with his family, playing with his food, when the house phone rang at nearly nine o’clock. There had been so many calls, people wanting to know if they had heard anything, the police asking if they had heard from Cait. It had been nearly ten hours since the attack on the O’Malley home and there was still no news about Meggie or Cait. When Jamie came in the dining room from the kitchen and said the phone was for him, Spencer didn’t know how to react. He went to the kitchen to see what bad news there was now.
“Doctor Grant? This is Captain Tucker. I wanted you to know that I’ve just left Detective O’Malley. We are closer to getting your daughter back. A lot of things could go wrong, but I think we have the element of surprise on our side.”
“Is O’Malley all right? I know you don’t think I have a right to ask, but I need to know. I...I’m in love with her and I...I can’t tell you how much I hate myself right now.”
“You’re right; you don’t have a right to ask. But I’ll tell you anyway. She has fourteen stitches in her leg, ten of which she put there herself. A head wound she wouldn’t let anyone dress. I don’t know about the bleeding in her chest, she was pretty adamant about letting no one tend to that, but she was moving on her own when I saw her last. If she lives through this, she will need rest and support. I don’t believe you’re the man for the job, but Janet seems to think you might be.
I’ll call you when I know more. Your house is being watched, by the way, and not by my men. Don’t leave to go near the zoo without taking precautions. Could get someone killed that way. Understand? And don’t use your cell; my men are watching that one.”
“Yes, I understand. Thank you. Thank you very much.” Spencer turned around and his entire family was standing in the doorway just inside the kitchen.
“Well, where are we going? He did tell you where she was, didn’t he? And if you think you’re going without us then you aren’t near as smart as I thought you were,” his mother said when no one else said anything.
“Yes, he did, but you can’t go with me. Wait! Listen, he said that I had to take precautions, that the house was being watched by Martinez’s men. He also told me not to use my cell phone, that his people were monitoring it. I have to go to Delaware, near the zoo. I’m assuming that once I get there, I’ll know where to go.”
“I’ll drive. Your car is known all over the place and mine isn’t here. David called this morning and told me to pick it up and with everything going on, I forgot about it. Now we need a distraction. Honey, anything come to mind?” Dan winked at his wife and Spencer flushed.
Dan was his step-father and he was the most reserved man he knew. When he winked at their mother like that, Spence couldn’t help but remember the time he had walked in on them getting...frisky, his mother had called it, on the kitchen table.
The fire truck showed up seven minutes later. His mother had set the kitchen on fire with the promise that Spencer would pay for all the remodeling for her sacrifice. Spencer wasn’t sure what kind of sacrifice she had been making; his mother never cooked when someone else could and if there was not anyone to cook for her, ordering in or going out was just as good. He was still chuckling about it when he and Dan slipped into Dan’s car at the garage where it had been getting serviced.
“Your mom, she’s something else, isn’t she? You don’t worry about the kitchen job. It’ll be my pleasure to set it to rights. I know this is very serious business and I know that that girl will get Meggie back for you, but I gotta tell you, son, I’ve never enjoyed watching a kitchen burn up so much in my life.”
~CHAPTER 21~
Cait only encountered one dog at one of the neighbors’ as she moved along the back. He had been so excited to have someone talk to him; he had nearly knocked her down in his effort to let Cait pet him. She thought for sure he was going to have serious back problems with the way he had wiggled.
The house was lit up like they had stock in the power company. Cait had a few problems getting to the house. There had been three guards and she took care of them quietly. And from them, she picked up another Glock, this one with a modified silencer on it.
The first man had startled her. He had worn his uniform that showed he was with Chicago PD. At first she thought he was there to help her and when he drew his gun and shot at her, she instinctively fired back and killed him. The next one she encountered was dressed in black, but was no less of a cop. Even his vest said “police” on it and she knew him from another shift. When he drew his weapon and leered at her, she shot him as well. The last, a big guy, had come up behind her when she was searching the second vic.