Chapter 23 #3
She shook her head. “No, but I’m not so sure my bed will survive.”
He immediately looked over at the bed, where it had obviously been shot several times, with feathers sticking out of pillows and damage elsewhere. He looked back at her, his eyebrows raised.
She added, “If you know Detective Richard Martin, this all has to do with a current case of his.”
“I can check with him,” the officer replied, and he turned to Jaxon. “Step back, please, and you may want to put some clothes on,” he added, as he pointed at Jaxon’s naked body.
“I’d be happy to,” he muttered, with a smile, “but I would feel much better if you would secure him first.”
“I can do that. Do I need to call Detective Martin, or is he on his way?”
“He’s on his way,” she added.
“Actually I’m right here,” Richard said, from the doorway. He surveyed the mess and shook his head. “I’m really glad to see this guy is alive and still kicking,” he noted, with a nod. He looked over at the cops. “Secure him, please, so we can get Jaxon up on his feet again.”
And, with that, she turned to see the policeman quickly helping the gunman to his feet. He wasn’t putting up much of a fight, his arm hanging at an odd angle and his face white.
Jaxon now stood awkwardly on his prosthetic, still not a stitch on his body, revealing a few others scars she was seeing for the very first time, now that a light was on. She walked over to her bathroom and grabbed a large bath towel for him.
He wrapped it around his body, then looked at the gunman. “That piece of shit came right up the stairs, walked straight through to the master bedroom, opened the door, and started firing into the bed.”
Richard nodded. “Obviously you heard him coming, I presume.” He looked from one to the other.
She smiled. “My father intentionally left a few squeaky stairs, something my mother was always on him to fix. He never would do it, and it wasn’t until I was a teenager and got caught sneaking home late that I realized why. And now I find myself forever grateful for his foresight.”
“Of course,” Richard agreed, “that’s a smart dad.” He grinned and added, “With two daughters, a very smart dad.”
She rolled her eyes at that. “Oh, please, I highly doubt that sons are any better.”
“No, but dads don’t seem to care about them as much,” he explained, with a laugh.
He looked over at Jaxon and pointed. “You need to get that prosthetic off and put it on properly or it’ll be sore as hell tomorrow.
The last thing you need is an infection, and you’ve probably already got bruising.
Get yourselves dressed, and I’ll talk to you downstairs. ”
“What will you do now?” she asked.
“We’ll get forensics in here. They will retrieve the bullets and take a bunch of photos, not to mention anything else they might find, like fingerprints.”
“He’s got gloves on,” she noted, “so I don’t think fingerprints will be an issue.”
“Maybe not,” he conceded, “but we’ll do the full workup, including printing the inside of those gloves.”
She nodded, and, as soon as he disappeared, Jaxon made his way over to the bed and managed to get his prosthetic off.
She could see that it hurt him to do it, but then he proceeded to put it on properly.
She grabbed some jeans and quickly dressed, and, by the time they were ready to go downstairs, she grabbed up leashes, brought the dogs out from the bathroom and they headed straight to the kitchen and put on coffee.
Then opened the back kitchen door and let the dogs out into the fenced yard.
It was a lot of excitement for them too.
She checked her watch. It was three in the morning, but she also knew that this would go on for several more hours now. She groaned as she walked back into the living room. “Does that mean the harassment is over now?”
“I would think so, though I wasn’t expecting this part of it,” Richard admitted, turning to look at her. “And I don’t think you were either.”
“No, not at all,” she admitted, with a shiver. “I was really hoping that we were done when my sister confessed about whatever the hell she was involved in.”
“Now we’ll have another talk with Kelly,” Richard declared.
Keisha grimaced, then nodded. “I have no desire to be there for that one.”
“No, and you don’t have to,” he confirmed, with a nod. “But you might want to consider that, if she did tell them about the house and about where you were sleeping, she did not tell them about the squeaky steps.”
She stopped at that and looked over at him, feeling something settle in her heart. “Thank you for that reminder,” she muttered. “I’ll just wait until I hear what she has to say.”
He nodded approvingly. “Good idea.”
A few minutes later she sat down cups of coffee for everybody. She looked over at Jaxon and muttered, “I’m really hoping I can get back to sleep tonight.”
He laughed. “Depends on how much coffee you have.”
As it was, it didn’t take very long to go over the events, and, when Richard was finally done, he said, “Do not contact Kelly right now, please. I want to talk to her first.”
“Of course,” Keisha agreed. “What are you looking for?”
“I’m hoping that something in here proves she’s not involved.
I don’t know whether the gunman came here tonight because we’re working to shut down that group or what.
Maybe somebody figured out the info on the group came from Kelly.
Again, I don’t know. But you talking to her won’t help and could possibly hinder my investigation, so I want to speak to her first.”
“In that case,” she noted, looking shocked, “somebody needs to confirm she’s okay at the hospital.”
“That is a consideration, and I’m heading over there right now,” Richard confirmed. “I don’t think that will be a concern, since you were the ones who were threatened, not her.”
“No, not her, not here, but, if she gave something away about the Chat group, maybe revenge is just how they operate.”
“Maybe,” Richard muttered, then he stood up. “I’ll let you know, but please don’t contact her.” And, with that, he and the cops were gone.
She looked over at Jaxon. “Do you think Kelly’s safe there?”
“I would think so, especially since she’s under constant suicide watch. Still, it’s good that Richard’s headed over there too. It could be that our gunman had a partner, but I don’t think so. As far as the police are concerned, one man is behind this.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t getting other people to do his crap. As we already know, they want to get others involved.”
“That’s true, but we will wait and see. Richard’s driving to the hospital right now.”
She sat here, finished her coffee, which was surprisingly good considering the hour, and then she muttered, “I don’t even know if I can sleep again.”
“It’s almost four now,” he pointed out, “and you probably need more sleep. You didn’t sleep that much, especially considering the fact that we didn’t exactly make good use of the sleep time that we had earlier.”
She snickered. “I think we made the best use possible,” she countered, with a grin on her face. “I’m certainly not regretting it.”
“Good, but by this afternoon you might be feeling differently.”
“I’ll have a nap, remember?”
“And what about the llamas?”
She looked at him and laughed, then added, “I could always go lie down on a hay bale and have a nap there. Who knows? … It could be fun.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he agreed, with a grin. As he tossed back the last of his coffee, he added, “I still suggest we at least try to get some sleep.”
And, with that, he let the dogs back in and led all of them back upstairs—but to the spare bedroom this time.