Chapter 27
Josie spent Thursday on the same dirty sofa, watching more reruns of Law and Order, and eating leftover pizza.
She’d tried to engage her brother in conversation, but Spider’s looming presence allowed for only a few tense words.
Kevin’s demeanor grew more and more erratic, and Josie suspected he desperately needed a fix of whatever drug he was addicted to.
Chinese takeout featured as the evening meal, and afterward, Josie found herself locked in the same bedroom, contemplating a stain on the ceiling.
When Spider pounded on the door early Friday morning, Josie was already awake.
As she wandered to the bathroom, her belly churned with anxiety.
Stiff and sore from a fitful night, she stared at herself in the mirror.
Bluish circles rimmed her eyes, and her hair hung over her shoulders in a dull, matted mess.
Her clothes stuck uncomfortably to her body, she smelled like a gym locker, and she’d kill for a toothbrush.
When Josie emerged, after splashing cold water on her face and finger combing her hair, Kevin stood pacing around the small living room. Spider leaned against the kitchen wall with a menacing look on his sharp, angular face.
Josie’s eyes caught on the pair of handcuffs dangling from Spider’s fingers. She stiffened when the man strode toward her, and before she could react, he’d gripped her wrist and snapped one of the cuffs in place.
“What are you doing?” she asked, panic lacing her voice.
Spider didn’t answer. Instead, he gripped Josie’s upper arm so hard she knew there’d be bruises, and dragged her out the door. Kevin slammed the door shut behind them and they stepped into the hallway.
The faint scent of toast and coffee tickling Josie’s nose was the only sign of life in the otherwise silent building. Chill morning air and a gray misting sky met the small group as they hurried outside.
Spider manhandled Josie into the back seat of a newer pickup truck with darkly tinted windows, and cuffed her to the grab handle above the window.
The position was awkward, but Josie was able to grip the handle as Spider turned aggressively onto the street.
Not like Kevin’s car, Josie noted as they accelerated onto the highway.
Since Josie had been shoved into the trunk on the way to the apartment, she appreciated at least being able to sit upright and see out the windows now, even if no one could see her.
When she tried to get a sense of where they were, she quickly recognized they were in East Boston, heading toward the docks.
“Make sure you get eyes on the money. I’m not letting her out until you do,” Spider said.
“I’m not an idiot,” Kevin snapped.
The uncomfortable silence that followed told Josie Spider might disagree.
Her pulse raced as the truck turned into a warehouse parking lot. Beside the cinderblock building, Josie spotted Adam’s SUV. Spider barely pulled into the lot before stopping the vehicle.
“Walk out halfway to meet him. Check the bag for the cash. Bring it back here,” Spider ordered. “I’m not getting out of the truck, and she’s not going anywhere until the exchange is complete.”
Spider’s wariness seemed to agitate Kevin even more.
Josie’s half-brother shoved open his door and stalked out.
Josie held her breath as Adam opened his door, stepped out of the SUV, and tugged a duffel bag out with him.
Even from a distance, he looked tense. With his eyes on Kevin, Adam walked slowly forward.
Kevin put a hand up, and when Adam stopped, he closed the distance between them. Josie could tell they were speaking, but she couldn’t hear them.
Josie watched the scene in front of her unfold as if she were watching a movie. Cautiously, Adam placed the duffel on the ground, unzipped it, and took a step back. Kevin bent to look inside. After inspecting the contents, he nodded at Adam and shouldered the bag.
As Kevin turned and took a step back toward the truck, Spider swore. Josie startled at his rough tone.
“I told that stupid mother fucker there’d be cops. Son of a bitch!” Spider shouted.
Josie craned her neck and caught a glimmer of something on the roof of the warehouse. Before she could make sense of what was happening, Spider gunned the engine and accelerated straight toward Kevin and Adam.
“Stop!” Josie cried.
With a sickening thud, the truck impacted a body. Two bodies.
“Adam!” she screamed.
The truck spun a hundred and eighty degrees and tore away from the warehouse. Josie twisted in her seat, hindered by the handcuffs. As the SUV tore around a corner, she caught a glimpse of both men sprawled on the pavement.
***
While his reflexes were better than most, A.J. still couldn’t move fast enough to totally avoid the speeding truck. He heard Josie’s muffled scream. Time slowed, but his thoughts raced. He couldn’t orphan his kids. He had to get to Josie. This was going to fucking hurt.
He felt the impact on his left side, then he was flying through the air. When he hit the ground, his head ricocheted off the pavement. For a few seconds, he lay in stunned silence, until the world suddenly became too loud, too bright.
The sound of thundering footsteps and shouting voices echoed around him.
When he tried to push himself off the ground, a sharp, stabbing pain in his left shoulder had him flat on his back again.
“Fuck,” he groaned.
“Mathison!” Detective Morgan dropped to her knees beside him. “Don’t move,” she ordered.
Apparently, he couldn’t move even if he wanted to. A fleeting moment of panic hit, but when he forced his hands into fists and then flexed his feet, he breathed a sigh of relief. His shoulder screamed at him, and the throbbing in his head made him want to puke, but he seemed mostly in one piece.
He carefully turned his head toward Morgan. “Josie?”
“We’re in pursuit,” she answered.
“Is Kevin alive?”
Morgan shouted to the SWAT officer crouched at Kevin’s side.
“I’ve got a thready pulse,” came the reply.
Blaring sirens grew closer. More urgent voices approached.
Morgan moved out of the way to let the paramedics work, and A.J.
couldn’t help the string of curses that flew from his mouth when they immobilized his shoulder, put a collar on his neck, and then secured him to the backboard.
Every jostle and jolt sent waves of white-hot pain shooting through him.
He broke out in a cold sweat and had to swallow back the bile in his throat.
“I can give you some morphine for the pain,” the medic offered once they were on route to the hospital.
“No,” A.J. said, wincing.
He wanted the painkiller, but he needed a clear head until he knew what had gone wrong at the exchange.
As soon as the ambulance pulled up to the hospital, and the medics wheeled his stretcher toward the emergency entrance, Cam Taylor appeared at his side.
“Jesus Christ, are you okay? What the fuck happened?”
A.J. heard the emotion behind his friend’s abrupt words.
“How are you here so fast?” A.J. asked.
“We were monitoring the police channel, so we knew things went to shit, and we heard them call for the ambulance.”
Cam jogged beside the stretcher as the medics hustled A.J. into the ER.
“Kevin has an accomplice, and I think he got spooked at the drop. He ran us down and took off. He has Josie,” A.J. hurried to explain.
“Sir, you need to wait outside,” a nurse ordered Cam.
Cam ignored her, following A.J. right into the trauma room.
“It’s all right, Sandy, I’ve got this. Just stay out of the way, Cam, and let me check him out first.”
A.J. recognized Lissa’s voice, and then she was hovering over him.
“The kids are with Fiona,” she said, and then began issuing instructions to the trauma team while shining a pen light in each of A.J.’s eyes.
Someone cut off his clothes, while someone else hooked him up to a heart monitor, and yet another person started an IV line in his right arm.
Liss carefully removed the bandage from his head that the medics had applied in the ambulance and felt around, catching his wince when she hit the sizeable lump.
“Liss, I’m okay,” he said.
A set of determined blue eyes stared him down. “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled.
“Let’s image his cervical spine,” Liss said to someone in the room he couldn’t see.
Once the X-ray showed no injury, Liss carefully removed the collar.
“Better?”
“Yeah, thanks,” he said.
Now that he could turn his head, he caught sight of Cam lurking in the corner of the room, arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face.
“We need to ID the driver,” A.J. said.
“Jake’s already working on it,” Cam answered. “He’s running the license plate, and he’s accessing the feed from your doorbell camera, in case the guy was there the night Josie got taken.”
“Good thinking,” A.J. answered.
Liss carefully felt around his injured shoulder, apologizing when she hit a sore spot and he nearly levitated off the gurney.
“It’s dislocated for sure. Let me give you something for the pain, and then I’m going to reduce it.”
“No pain meds, Liss. Josie’s still in trouble. I can’t be out of it right now.”
“All right,” she said. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch when I manipulate it, but afterward it should feel a whole lot better.”
Liss gestured at one of the nurses, and they helped him sit up. While the nurse braced his good side, Liss straightened his arm.
“Breathe in with me,” she coaxed.
He sucked in a deep breath.
“Now a big exhale,” she said in a soothing voice.
A.J. breathed out, and at the same time, Liss lifted his arm, twisted it, and popped his shoulder back into place.
“Fuck!” he shouted.
Sweat beaded on his forehead and his whole body shook, but the relief was instantaneous. Liss and the nurse gently helped him lie back down.
“Doing okay?” Liss asked.
“Yeah, it’s much better.”
“Good. Now, you’re going to get a head CT, because I don’t like the size of that lump on your skull, and then we’ll stitch it up.”
“Liss, I don’t need…”
“Don’t argue with me,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “I know you’re worried about Josie, and I know it’s killing you to be here and not out there doing something, but I have to make sure you don’t walk out and drop dead of a brain bleed.”
He opened his mouth to argue and quickly shut it again. As much as he wanted to leap off the gurney and get back to work, he very much felt like he’d just been hit by a truck. He glanced at Cam, and his friend merely lifted an eyebrow.
When A.J. started shivering in earnest, likely due to the adrenaline crash, Liss covered him with a blanket from the warmer. She checked the monitor, typed something into her notes, and turned to her husband.
“I’ll give you guys a few minutes to talk, and then he needs to go for that scan.”
Cam pulled Liss into a hug, and A.J. heard him whisper a thank you in her ear. She gave him a soft smile and disappeared from his room.
“Any word on Kevin?” A.J. asked.
“He’s unconscious and critical,” Cam answered.
“So, no intel from him.”
“No, but we are going to find Josie.” Cam approached the gurney and put a hand on the metal rail. “It was a bad fucking moment when we heard you’d been hit.”
A.J. heard a rare note of vulnerability in Cam’s voice.
“I’m okay,” he assured his friend.
Cam grunted.
“I’ll let Liss run all her tests,” A.J. conceded.
“Good.”
“Get out of here, and find out who has Josie.”
Cam sighed and ran a hand through his short hair. His reluctance to leave A.J.’s side spoke to years of friendship, both in combat and in life. A.J. was grateful, but he needed Cam on task right now, especially if he couldn’t be.
“Please,” A.J. said. “It’s the only way I won’t go crazy in here.”
“I hear you. I’m on it,” Cam promised.
As Cam walked out, Liss walked back in.
“Time for your CT scan,” she said.
***
When the nurse wheeled A.J. back from having his head scanned, Detective Morgan was prowling the halls of the ER.
“Are you okay?” she asked, a look of genuine concern on her scowling face.
“I’ll live,” he answered. “Did Kevin wake up yet?”
Morgan shook her head. “No. He has a pretty significant brain injury, among other things, so they want to keep him in an induced coma.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah,” Morgan agreed.
“Did you run the plates on the SUV?”
“It’s registered to a shell corporation. We’re digging into it.” Morgan sighed and rubbed her temples. “I’m sorry,” she said, surprising A.J. with the emotion in her voice. “I think the driver spotted my shooter on the roof.”
A.J. felt for her, but he couldn’t force out meaningless platitudes. Josie was in danger, and he’d nearly been killed. Mistakes happened, but this one had cost him. Still, he wasn’t an ass, so he said, “Let me know what you find out, yeah?”
“I’ll keep you in our loop, but I suspect you won’t be keeping me in yours,” she said.
When he didn’t answer, she gave him a tight nod. “I’m glad you’re okay.”