Chapter Forty-Two Joe Carter
Chapter Forty-Two
Joe Carter
Carter was dying.
He’d left the woods unsure if Miller was dead, but he knew the bullet in his own gut was bad. Fatal.
He couldn’t go to a hospital. He couldn’t go to Sal’s. He would die in his own home, under his own terms.
The drive back from Flagstaff was a blur. Two hours lost to adrenaline and blood loss. He remembered pulling over once, wrapping
his wound with a torn shirt, splashing cold water on his face. It helped. Still, he was lucky he hadn’t driven off a cliff.
Or maybe that would’ve been smarter.
But he loved his house with the pretty art on the walls and the quiet view of Paradise Valley. If he was going to die, he’d
do it there, surrounded by beauty, with music playing and whiskey in hand.
He rolled into the garage just after three. His vision was blurring, his world collapsing all around him. He was still alive.
For now.
Inside, the lights hit him like a flash-bang. His head swam. He stumbled to the bar and found the bottle he’d been saving. Macallan 18, double cask. Sal had given it to him years ago, and Carter had never opened it. Too special, he’d told himself.
Now it would be the last thing he ever tasted.
He sank into his favorite leather chair, breath ragged, chest heavy with congealing blood. Gut shot. A couple of hours, maybe
less. He might be able to watch the sunrise as he died. That would be okay. A fitting ending.
He opened the bottle, spilling only a little, and poured a glass. The burn of the first sip was heaven.
Using his phone, he dimmed the lights, turned on the pool lamps. Through the glass, the water shimmered in the cool desert
night. Maybe he should go outside, sink into the hot tub, and let the heat draw out his blood and his last breath. The idea
had a kind of peace to it. But when he tried to stand, his knees gave, and he collapsed back into the chair.
At least the chair was comfortable.
His thoughts drifted. His mother. The lovely, beautiful fool. How he’d saved her, but she died anyway because of her need
to have a man in her bed, any man, bad men. Sal, who’d believed in him more than anyone should have. His mentor, the man he
wished was his father. But Carter barely knew his father. The women who passed through his life. He hadn’t loved them, not
really, but he’d cared in his own way. Vanessa. He could have loved her, he thought. If he’d been a better man.
Please, don’t.
The nurse’s voice came back to him, a ghost in the dark. He saw her bright blue eyes, terrified, full of the life he’d stolen
from her.
He didn’t deserve to live. Yes, it was better to die this way.
He finished the glass and poured another. He shouldn’t have waited until death to open it. He would have enjoyed it more.
Pain pulsed in waves now, distant and dull. He welcomed it. Maybe he wanted it to hurt more. He didn’t deserve an easy death. Not after the nurse.
“Carter? Carter!”
A voice cut through the haze. Vanessa? An angel? He laughed, but it came out a moan. He wasn’t going to Heaven. More likely
the devil had come to collect his soul.
“I need an ambulance! Hurry!”
No.
He tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Or maybe they did, and no one heard.
“No ambulance,” he whispered.
“Carter, you’ve been shot!”
No. Shit.
But he couldn’t speak.
The glass slipped from his hand and shattered on the tile floor.