The Burnt Orange Sunrise (37 page)

Yolie hadn’t quite disappeared from view when they heard another gunshot off in the distance. Just one.

And then there was only silence.

“D
ON’T MAKE ME DO
this to you,” Mitch pleaded with Jase Hearn as he crouched there pointing Des’s gun right at him, the SIG feeling so unfamiliar and wrong in his hand. “Don’t make me shoot you.”

“You have to,” Jase argued, his own gun trained right back on Mitch. “Or I have to shoot you. I won’t come with you. I won’t be locked up. I can’t be.”

“This is no good, Jase,” Mitch said, seeing his breath before him in the rail barn’s frigid air. Even though he could barely breathe. His heart was pounding faster than it ever had. And the only other time his knees had trembled this badly was that night he’d gone for his first open-mouthed kiss from Emily Rosenzweig in the doorway of her apartment building on Stuyvesant Oval. How old had he been, fifteen? Emily was married to a periodontist now, had two kids, still lived on the Oval, and
why
was he thinking about her at a time like this? “Jase, the law is already here. Can’t you hear them?”

The sound of SP-One’s whirring blades had built to a thundering crescendo as the chopper had touched down in the castle’s parking lot. Gradually, the sound was beginning to taper off. They’d definitely landed.

“Jase, state troopers will be all over this place in a minute. They’ll follow our footsteps directly here.”

“They’ll never find me,” Jase promised, sticking out his furry chin. “I’ll be gone before they get here.”

“You’ll be dead is what you’ll be—if you don’t drop your gun.”

Jase shook his head at him. “You’re too nice a guy, Mitch. Can’t pull the trigger.”

“Sure, I can,” said Mitch, who had absolutely no doubt. Not after everything he’d been through over the past eighteen hours. He was
not the same person who’d driven up here for dinner last evening. He’d seen too much death. And now he was staring it right in the face. And it was staring right back at him. And he was not going to blink. No, he was not. Because he wanted too much to stay alive. It was simple, really. Sometimes, the truth is.

“Maybe you can,” Jase allowed, reading the cold certainty in Mitch’s eyes. “But that just means we both die. What good does that do?”

“You don’t get away, that’s what. I won’t lie to you, Jase. I’d really rather not die just yet. But if that’s what it takes to stop you, so be it.”

“Well, okay then,” Jase said easily. As if by magic, all of the panic and desperation began to seep right out of him. He became very relaxed. Even seemed at peace with himself, if such a thing was possible. He lowered the .38 into his lap, holding it there loosely. “It’s the best thing all around, you know.”

“What is?”

“Shoot me,” Jase said, incredibly calmly. “Just go ahead and do it, man. You’ll be doing me a favor. I haven’t got a single damned thing to live for. Go ahead and shoot me. I want you to.”

“Jase, this is not going to happen. I won’t be your judge, jury and executioner.” Mitch edged closer, almost close enough to touch him. He held his left hand out to him. “So why don’t you let me have your gun, okay?”

Jase hung his head in defeat, studying the gun in his lap. “If that’s how it has to be.” He sighed.

“That’s how it has to be.”

Jase smiled at him fondly now. “You were nice to me from the moment we met. Didn’t treat me like some low-class cretin.”

“Because you’re not one.” Mitch was still holding his hand out to him.

“I wouldn’t do this for just anyone,” he said, hefting the .38 in his hand. “I hope you get that.”

“I do, Jase. And I appreciate it. Now please just hand it—”

“You shouldn’t
have
to shoot me, you know. If you do something
like that, man, you’ll be seeing me in your dreams for the rest of your life. And that’s not fair to you, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Mitch, I’m really glad we agree on this.”

And with that, Jase Hearn took a deep breath and put a bullet directly through his own right ear.

He did it so fast that Mitch did not have time to react. All he could do was watch it happen, stunned.

Jase toppled over against the wall, the gun falling from his hand. But he didn’t die instantly. He was still there with Mitch for a few seconds, reaching out to him as if he wanted to shake hands. Mitch took his hand and squeezed it. For one brief, weird moment, they were like a pair of civilized gentlemen there on the floor of the barn together, saying, “I was pleased to make your acquaintance, kind sir.” Then, Jase’s hand quivered and jumped in Mitch’s, like a live fish, and then, with a quick spasm, it was not a live anything.

Mitch knelt there, holding him in his arms, feeling so unbelievably sorry for him. He could not direct any anger at Jase. That emotion he reserved for Jory. No, Jase had shown him only kindness. In fact, Jase had probably just done Mitch the biggest favor anyone would ever do for him in his entire life. And so he felt grateful. And he knew that in the weeks to come, when he strolled past Jase’s headstone at Duck River Cemetery, he would pause to leave him a smooth, polished stone and say, “Hey, Jase, just came by to say thanks again.”

But right now, Mitch had to let go of Jase and leave him there on the cold ground. Mitch staggered back out of the rail barn into the snow and retraced their footsteps up the railroad tracks toward the castle. His ears were still ringing from the gunshot. His nose had stopped bleeding, but he couldn’t breathe through it at all. He found himself gasping for breath as he plowed his way back up the hill. It was rugged going, and he was tired. He had never been so tired.

As he came around the big bend near where Jase had jumped him, he spotted someone charging down the tracks in a black ski parka. Someone of color. As they drew nearer to each other, he realized it was Yolie Snipes, Soave’s half-black, half-Cuban sergeant.

Yolie had her gun drawn. She was pointing it right at him. “Drop your weapon!”

“It’s okay, Yolie, it’s me!” Mitch called out. He hadn’t even realized he was still holding it.

“Mitch, I still want you to drop the weapon!”

And so he did.

She approached him with a guarded look on her face. Snatched Des’s SIG up out of the snow and sniffed at it. “This hasn’t been fired.”

“That wasn’t necessary.”

She shoved it in her pocket and checked him over, her brown eyes gleaming at him warmly. “How you doing, big fella? You okay?”

“I think my nose is broken, but I’ll live.”

“What about our shooter?”

“Jase made other arrangements.”

“He made what?”

“You’ll find him on the floor of the rail barn, behind Choo-Choo Cholly.”

“Choo-Choo
who?”
Yolie shook her head at him. “Damn, what kind of place is this anyhow?”

“A real happy place, Yolie. People come from all over the country just to be here. They watch the eagles soar. They hike the trails. And they ride Choo-Choo Cholly up and down the hill, up and down, up and …” Mitch smiled at her. “It’s nice to see you again, by the way.”

“Back at you,” she said, reaching her hand around and pressing it against the back of his head. She came away with blood. “You sure you’re okay?”

“That’s just from this morning, when I had a small concussion. I blacked out twice, but I’m fine. Why, don’t I look fine?”

“You look great.” Yolie grinned at him hugely. “And I know me a hurting baby girl who’s about to get real happy. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

She took him by the arm and helped him back up the hill to the clearing where Cholly’s little crunched depot was. From there, he
could see the helicopter idling in the parking lot, its blades whirring slowly. Several people were standing near it.

One of them started running toward him right away. It was Des, and she ran very strangely. It was partly the deep snow, partly the homemade sling she was wearing on her wounded arm. As she got closer to him, he saw that she was also sobbing uncontrollably, the tears streaming down her face, which was totally not like her. Des absolutely detested girlie-girls.

When she got to him his girlie-girl slammed into him so hard that they both pitched right over into the snow, Des flush on top of him, covering his face with wet, cold kisses. “Baby, I thought you were dead,” she blubbered. “I … I heard those shots and I thought you were dead!”

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay. You didn’t have to worry about me. I’m inflatable. You punch me, I bounce right back up again.”

She drew back, studying him with her shiny pale green eyes. “Why does it sound like you have a clothespin on your nose?”

“It’s nothing. But tell me about you. How’s your wing?”

“Broken,” she replied, making a face. “They’re talking some fool stuff about airlifting me to the hospital.”

“Well, you’d better go, you big doofus.”

“Your big doofus wouldn’t leave until she found out how you were,” Yolie said, helping both of them back onto their feet.

“Well, how about now?” Mitch asked her. “Will you go now?”

“I guess,” she grumbled. “If you’ll come with me.”

“You mean like on a date?”

“Don’t make fun of me,” she pleaded, starting to sob all over again. It had to be the bullet wound. She was in shock or something.

“Girlfriend, I’m not making fun,” he promised, hugging her tightly, kissing her smooth cheek. “Honest, I’m not.”

Soave made his way over to them now, looking Mitch up and down with keen-eyed disapproval. The stumpy lieutenant resented Mitch as a presence in Des’s life. Regarded him as an unworthy interloper. Mitch had always detected a whiff of smoldering jealousy
on him, too. “We heard a single shot, Berger,” he said to him rather stiffly. “You took him out?”

Mitch couldn’t bring himself to say the words yet. He could feel Des’s eyes on him, studying him anxiously.

“Talk to me, Berger,” Soave persisted. “What was it, kill or be killed?”

“Yes, it was, Lieutenant.”

“And…?”

“And I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to pay Jase back.”

Yolie held Des’s gun out to her. “Go ahead, girl. It hasn’t been fired.”

“What, he shot himself?” Des asked him, pocketing her SIG.

“He did. Then he shook my hand. And then he died.”

Soave took all of this in, tugging thoughtfully at his upper lip with a gloved thumb and forefinger. “Jeez, Berger, this is like a whole new world for you, hunh?”

“I sure hope not, Lieutenant. I was still trying to figure out the old one.”

He rode along with her in the chopper, which airlifted her directly to Middlesex Hospital up in Middletown, where they had a helipad and fully restored electrical power.

He was by her side when they took her into the emergency room. He was by her side when they wheeled her into surgery. It was only then that Mitch let them perform an X ray and cat scan on his own bean. He was okay—no skull fracture. A nurse tidied his scalp wound for him and dressed it rather elaborately. She also cleaned up his bloodied, swollen nose and gave him a couple of Advil for his headache.

He reached out to Bella on Des’s cell phone to let her know what had happened to her roommate. Bella was very upset by the news. For some strange reason, she was also really abrupt with him on the phone, Mitch felt.

Then he sat and waited. They wheeled her out of the operating
room four hours later. He was with her when they moved her from the recovery room to a private room, an IV in her good arm, her broken, bandaged arm secured within an external titanium frame. He stayed with her all night, dozing in a chair next to her bed. She finally began stirring at about four in the morning. She came out of her drugged haze slowly, gazing around at her surroundings uncomprehendingly.

“Hey, tiger,” he exclaimed, grinning at her. “How are you feeling?”

“All depends …” she responded hoarsely, blinking at him. There was hallway light coming through the open door. “You … wearing a turban?”

“That’s how they dress head wounds. The nurse said I could take it off tomorrow.”

“What am
I
wearing?” she wondered, peering at her titanium frame in bewilderment.

“It’s the latest thing. All of the chic New York women swear by them.”

“Wha…?”

“You actually want a straight answer, don’t you? They can’t use a plaster cast in a case like yours, where you have deep flesh wounds. No way to tell if they’re healing right if your arm’s stuffed inside a cast. That’s what the nurse told me, anyway.”

“Incredibly glad …”

“Glad?” He frowned at her. “How come?”

“We’re not in that damned castle anymore.”

“I’m with you there, Master Sergeant.”

The attending physician was an alert young Asian woman. As the sky outside the hospital room window began to fade from black to the purple of pre-dawn, she told Des that the bullet from Jase Hearn’s .38 had not only shattered a bone in her right forearm but had torn through the muscles, ligaments and nerves to her hand. The good news was that the orthopedic surgeon and neurosurgeon believed they had successfully put her back together again. Screws had been inserted in the bone, the damaged nerves repaired. She would have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days, hooked up to
intravenous antibiotics and painkillers. Once she was sent home, her arm would have to be immobilized for at least ten weeks. Then there would be extensive rehab. But she should fully recover in time, the young doctor said confidently.

“Still can’t wiggle my fingers,” Des said, the worry showing in her eyes.

“You’ve sustained serious nerve trauma, Trooper. It takes time for the feeling to come back.” The doctor took a safety pin out of her pocket and opened it. “Tell me if you feel anything when I do this …”

“Nothing,” Des said glumly when she’d been poked in the pinky finger with the pin. “Still nothing,” she reported after the doctor tried her ring finger.

“How about this finger …?”

“A tingle, maybe.”

“And this one …?”

“Ow!”

“You’re doing fine,” she assured Des with a brilliant smile.

Relieved, Des immediately fell back to sleep.

Mitch took a cab home—his truck was still up at the castle. The roads from Middletown to Dorset were well plowed and sanded. The driver had heard on the radio that most of the electricity in the state had come back on in the night. A warm front was moving in. It was supposed to be a sunny, balmy forty-five degrees today.