Carry Me Home (30 page)

CALL IN THE NIGHT

Cal woke to the sound of his phone.

Zoe
. Calling to . . . what? Apologize? Talk? He’d take the call, he knew he would. Call him a fool.

But when he rolled over and picked it up, it wasn’t her name he saw.

“Jim?” His voice, his brain were still fuzzy with sleep. He sat up, switched on the lamp, blinked against the glare. “What? What time is it?”

His cousin didn’t answer that. “Do you know that the city cops are headed over to Zoe’s house?”

“
What?
” He was already climbing out of bed, grabbing his Levi’s out of the closet.

“Isn’t she 247 Jackson?”

“Yes. What?” he demanded. “
What?
”

“Our mutt, I’m assuming,” his cousin said, his voice so maddeningly calm. “Broke in. Just heard it on the scanner.”

Cal’s hand was frozen on his jeans. “Zoe,” he said, his throat so dry he could barely get the word out.

“Don’t know,” Jim said, understanding him perfectly. “Ten-seventy-one. Shots fired. That’s all I’ve got.”

“I’m headed over there now.” He had his jeans buttoned, had grabbed his wallet and his keys, was out the door and down the stairs. Junior was off his bed already, standing by the door waiting for him. “Call me.”

“Will do,” Jim said. “But you’ll know before I will. Probably.”

Probably.
Probably, if there weren’t more news on the scanner first. More bad news.

The drive into town took forever, and it was agony. Junior sat beside him in the cab, perched high, looking out the window, and Cal drove just as fast as he dared, took the curves at the screaming limit of the truck’s capability.

Shots fired
. The guy had never used a gun before, but nobody’d been on his track before, and what if that had gotten back to him?

Was
it actually Greg? Cal hadn’t believed it, not really. It had been a way-out idea. Could his own cousin really do something like this, be this kind of monster?

However quiet the investigation had been, Greg could have caught on, sniffed it out. Or somebody could have told him. Somebody who thought that the brotherhood of law enforcement came before everything, even before this.
The thin blue line.

And Cal had left her alone, where the bastard could get at her. He’d done that. Him.

Why hadn’t he checked with Rochelle? Why hadn’t he made sure she was safe?

Because he’d been mad, that was why. He’d been picturing her over at Rochelle’s drinking wine, talking about him. He’d assumed she was sitting on the couch telling Rochelle that it wasn’t her fault, when it was actually
all
her fault. Both of them talking about what jerks guys were. He’d thought about it all night, had run through it again and again in his mind until he’d made it true.

Because his pride had been hurt. That was the real reason. His heart had been aching, but his heart would have made sure she was safe, if not for his stubborn pride. His pride had been stronger than his heart. And now . . .
shots fired.

“Come on, baby,” he found himself muttering. “Please. Please have shot him. Please.”

He saw the pulsing reflections of red and blue flashing against the snow even before he turned into the street. Three cars, the lights in their bars revolving, parked on the street outside the house. Neighbors on front porches despite the hour, despite the storm. But no ambulance. No ambulance.

He pulled up next to one of the cop cars. “Stay,” he told Junior, and slammed the door.

He was up the walk, around the side, but a figure was blocking his way. “Stop right there,” the voice said.

“It’s Cal Jackson,” Cal said, his voice coming out too tight. “That’s my girlfriend. Zoe Santangelo. That’s her place. Is she all right?”

A flashlight scanned him, then lowered, a hand coming off the barrel of a gun. “Hey, Cal. Jesse Hartung.”

“Zoe,” he said again.

“She’s okay,” Jesse said, and Cal’s knees buckled a little.

“Okay how?” he insisted.

“All the way okay. Well, shook up,” Jesse amended. “She chased him off. Let off a shotgun doing it.”

“What about the guy?”

“We’re checking with the neighbors, doing a search, but he’ll be long gone.”

“She in there?”

“Yeah. Hang on a minute.” Jesse was raising his radio to his lips, but Cal was already moving around him.

The door was unlocked, and the two men standing in front of Zoe’s couch turned at his entrance, opened their mouths to say something. What, he never found out, because he was already past them.

She was wrapped in a blanket, sitting dry-eyed and straight, but shaking. She started to stand up at the sight of him, but he grabbed her, pulled her back down onto the couch, and held her, fighting the emotions back.

She hung on. He could feel her trembling, and he was smoothing her hair, kissing her forehead. “It’s okay, baby,” he told her, even though it wasn’t. “It’s okay. You’re all right.”

She nodded jerkily against him, and he could feel the struggle for control as if he were inside her body, maybe because he was fighting the same fight. She took a few deep breaths, and he did the same, and then she pulled away and sat back.

He kept his arm around her, because he couldn’t let her go. “What happened?” he asked.

“We’re just getting her statement now,” the guy in charge said, somebody Cal didn’t know. He said it pretty pointedly.

“And you can wait about two minutes until she tells me what happened,” Cal said, because his rage had to go somewhere. “She might have told you that I was around the last time this scumbag went after her.”

“And when was that?”

“Check with the sheriff’s office,” Cal said. “Jim Lawson. It’s all on report. For that matter, check with the university cops, too. Maybe if you guys worked together, you could actually catch the guy.”

“Sir,” the cop said with a sigh, “that’s what we’re trying to do. If you’ll calm down, maybe we can get the lady’s statement and make some progress.”

“Two minutes. What happened?” he asked Zoe again.

“He cut the window glass,” she said, jerking her head toward the corner of the room, and Cal realized for the first time that it was freezing in here and the cops still had their jackets on.

“Pretty professional job,” the cop said, apparently deciding to forgive him. “Didn’t break it. Cut out a semicircle with a glass-cutting tool, probably used some putty to remove it, took it away with him. Quiet. Neat. He’s practiced that.”

“I didn’t hear it,” Zoe told Cal. “I heard the wind chimes. He wasn’t expecting the wind chimes. Thanks.”

“That your idea?” the cop asked.

“Yeah,” Cal said. “I figured it might give her a couple seconds, just in case. Jim said shots fired, though,” he told Zoe. “Who fired? Him?” He tensed even more at the thought. If the guy was willing to shoot her, that cast a whole new light on things.

“No,” she said, and actually looked a little proud. “Me.”

“But you missed? Damn, baby, that’s real disappointing.”

The cop looked startled, but she smiled, because yeah, she was just that tough. “On purpose,” she assured him. “He said I wouldn’t do it. I was just trying to be convincing. I think I was pretty convincing.”

“Buckshot has that effect,” the cop said. “Pretty dangerous letting that off in an inhabited area.”

“Pretty dangerous for me if I hadn’t,” she snapped back before Cal could answer.

“Just keep in mind,” the cop said, “you start carrying concealed or anything, you need a license.”

“She was in danger,” Cal said. “I gave her a pump-action and taught her how to use it, and you can assume we’ve applied for that concealed-carry permit, too. Not her fault that the system takes forever. You didn’t see him applying for a license to rape her. So if arming her was a crime, I guess I’m going to jail.”

The cop chose to ignore that. Probably wise. He could probably tell how close to the edge Cal was.

“I wanted to keep him on the ground,” Zoe said. “I was planning to call 911 so they could catch him. But he ran.”

“Could have shot him then,” Cal said.

“Hey,” the cop protested, and now Cal was the one ignoring
him.

“I could have,” Zoe admitted. “But first, it was shooting him in the back. I don’t think I could have. And second, he was on his way out the window. The Dolans’ house is right there. I couldn’t risk that, could I? They have
kids
. I don’t even know which thing was working harder in my brain, but I couldn’t shoot him. Even though,” she confessed, “I so wish now that I had. I so wish he’d made a move. Another step and I was going to shoot. I wish he’d taken that step.”

“Not more than I do,” Cal said.

“And if you’re all done here with your own investigation,” the cop said, “maybe it would be all right with you if we kept going here so the lady can get this over with, get some sleep tonight.”

Yeah, like that was happening, but Cal made a gesture of acceptance, sat back with Zoe, and waited while she answered. Over and over. Not telling him anything they didn’t already know. Tall, because the guy had hit the wind chimes good and hard, but shorter than Cal, she thought. Big, but not huge. Dark clothes, ski mask, gloves. No zip ties, but that was because he hadn’t
gotten
to the zip ties. Thank God.

“Did he do the flowers?” Cal interjected as the thought struck him.

“Flowers?” the cop asked.

“That’s his calling card,” Cal said. “Ask Jim Lawson. He sends flowers ahead of time. Like it’s a date.”

“No,” Zoe said. “No flowers.”

“Not enough time,” Cal guessed. “He didn’t know you’d be alone until the last minute. Which means he was watching.”

“We’ve checked with the neighbors,” the cop said. “Nobody’s noticed anybody suspicious. Dark Ford F-150, she says? Not that anybody particularly saw, or remembers.”

“How suspicious is a guy driving by in a pickup?” Cal agreed with frustration. “I’m sure he wasn’t circling the block or anything. He’s careful.”

“So he didn’t know she’d be alone,” the cop said. “Why was that? She normally not alone? Why are you so sure he was watching?”

“Zoe and I had a fight today,” Cal said. No point not saying it. “I wasn’t here. I’ve been here until now, or she’s been at my place. She was alone, and he saw it, and he jumped.”

“Uh-huh,” the cop said, making a note. “Targeted, you’re thinking.”

“Absolutely. That’s his pattern. It’s all there in the other reports.”

More questions, more answers, over and over and over the same ground, and Zoe was clearly flagging, the terror headed straight into exhaustion now.

“We about done here?” Cal asked after she’d described what the guy had said, what he’d done, for what seemed like the fourth time. “Because I think you’ve got it.”

“
You
don’t decide if I’ve got it,” the cop said. “
I
decide if I’ve got it.” He closed his notebook, though. “But I’ve pretty much got it. I’ll be coordinating with the other agencies, and we’ll have a report for you to sign tomorrow, ma’am. I can find you at the university? Or here?”

“Not here,” Cal said immediately, before Zoe could answer. “At my parents’ place.” He gave the address.

“I could—I can’t—” Zoe began.

“What?” Cal demanded. “You can’t stay here. Tell me you aren’t thinking that.”

“No,” she said, and she was trembling a little again. “But—”

“But what? Rochelle? You going to put her in the guy’s sights, too?”

“No,” she said, her face stricken. “No. I can’t do that. Not even with the shotgun. Who knows if he’d go after her. I can’t do that.”

“So it’s my parents’,” he said. “Only place where I know you’ll be all right, and where you’ll feel all right.”

“Bossy,” she said, with the hint of a smile.

“Yeah,” he told her, and his heart twisted, because he still wanted her, and what was he going to do about that? Nothing but suffer, because nothing had changed, except that it was even harder now. “Bossy.”

Zoe hesitated a little upon entering her bedroom, and Cal stepped through first, ducking under the wind chimes that had saved her. That, and her own quick action.