Joe (30 page)

Chapter
Ninety-Two

Claire

The
first thing that registered with Claire when she came to was the pain. The
second thing was the stiff, uncomfortable position her body was in. Opening her
eyes, she found that the light in the room was harsh and glaring, and she
squinted until her vision was clear. She felt cold too, and found her mobility
was limited. It hurt more to move.

Her sister’s face was the first thing
she saw, but it took Claire a moment to realize it was Nikki. She had never
seen Nikki’s face look the way it did now. Nikki’s eyes were bloodshot and
watery, her cheeks streaked with tear tracks and her golden-brown hair hung
sloppily on her head. When she saw that Claire had opened her eyes, an almost
agonized look of relief flooded her features, and bits and pieces of memories
started flooding back to Claire.

Hair like a raven, eyes silver-blue,
pills, the pills, the blood on the pills, I was shot, I was shot…I’m in the
hospital…I’m alive…the baby!

No words at all came to Claire. She was
afraid if she opened her mouth to let them out, the words would catch in her
throat like thorns and force the tears out of her. She began to cry
nonetheless, sobs wracking her body so hard that her stomach ached and her
chest burned and the pain in her left shoulder and right leg flared red and hot
and ugly. Her sister cried, too. Nikki hugged Claire tightly, and Claire gave
the pain this caused no mind. Her sister was here. Nikki was here, and Claire
was alive. Everything was awful, yes, but everything was going to be all right.

At some point, the crying ceased and
Nikki pulled herself from Claire’s arms. Claire opened her mouth to speak,
unsure as to just what she was going to say, but her sister beat her to the
punch.

Nikki held up a hand. “First, I love
you,” she said, her voice scratchy and uneven. “I love you more than anything
else on this earth. Thank God someone else killed that sonofabitch that put you
here because Claire, I swear to
God
if he had killed you, I would have
hunted him down and skinned him and…well, never mind, the point is, I almost
lost you today, Claire. And just what the fuck would I have done then?
Seriously, what the
fuck
would I have done?”

Nikki broke into tears again, and her
voice hitched and hiccupped and cracked. She took a few deep breaths and
clenched her teeth together to get her words out. “You’re here now and you’re
okay and that’s all that matters. I was the first person listed on your
emergency contacts, and Mom is on her way here now.” Nikki held up a bottle of
pills, and Claire’s physical pain was overshadowed by the aching in her heart.

“They gave me
these,
Claire, when
they gave me your personal belongings,” Nikki said, and she shook the pill
bottle to make a point. “Just what the fuck are these for? I checked what was inside,
and the mixture in this bottle is deadly.” Nikki gave her sister a hard, hurt
look. “Don’t lie to me, because I’m only gonna ask you once. You were planning
on committing suicide, weren’t you?”

Claire nodded. Nikki looked very much as
though she wanted to punch her in face and hug her again at the same time.
Claire felt a smile pull up her lips and more warm tears run down her cheeks.
She loved Nikki more than anything in the world, too. She was almost
overwhelmingly grateful to get to see Nikki’s face. Claire was grateful for the
air she was breathing. She had come so very close to death. So very close. And
despite all the issues that still needed addressing in her life, she was
genuinely happy to be alive.

Nikki grabbed some tissues and tossed a
couple at Claire. “Is it because you’re pregnant and you didn’t want to have to
tell Mom about it?” she asked.

Claire’s heart sank a little. Her voice
was small and weak when she spoke. “That was part of it.”

Nikki sat down next to Claire on the
hospital bed. She sighed and brushed some of Claire’s hair off her forehead.
“Okay,” she said, “So I’m going to take that ‘was’ as past-tense, as in, you
are no longer on planning to kill yourself.” Nikki paused, raising her eyebrows
at Claire.

Claire shook her head.

“You’re damn right you’re not, ya
fucking asshole…sorry, that slipped out. Here’s the deal, I’m not going to tell
Mom about the pills. Really, I blame myself anyhow, because I knew something
was wrong with you and I chose not to push you too hard. Anyway, as long as you
agree to therapy, and give me your
word
that you will never, ever
consider no shit like that
ever
again. Deal?”

Claire nodded fervently.

“As far as the baby goes, that’s your
choice, too. If you want to…to take care of it and don’t want to tell Mom, I’m
fine with that. I’ll keep your secret. If you want to keep it and you want me
to tell Mom, I’ll do that, too. I don’t have any problems with telling her
where to shove it. None at all.”

Laughing and crying at the same time,
Claire held her good arm out to her sister, and Nikki came forward to give her
another hug. When they released each other, Claire said, “Thank you, Nikki. I
swear to God you don’t have to worry about me trying to kill myself. I came
real close…
too
close today.” Claire shuddered. “Never again. I’ll go to
therapy. Hell, I bet I’m going to need it, but…”

“But what?” Nikki asked.

Taking a deep breath, Claire said, “I’ll
tell Mom about the baby.”

Nikki gave Claire a small smile and
nodded. “Okay, you tell Mom and I’ll jump in and punch her if she tries to make
you feel like shit about it.”

They both laughed at that.

Not long after, a detective entered
Claire’s hospital room and asked Claire if she felt well enough to answer a few
questions. Nikki glared at the man as if he had just stepped on her rose
garden, but Claire assured her she would be fine. After another daggered look
at the detective, Nikki left the two of them and waited out in the hallway.

The detective, a tall, skinny man with a
thick head of hair, sat in the chair beside Claire’s bed and pulled out a
notepad and pen.

“Can you tell me happened?” he asked.

“I was shot,” Claire said.

The detective nodded slowly. “Did you
see who shot you?”

“Yes. A white guy wearing all black. He
had two guns, one in each hand. I was sitting on a bench and I heard, like, a
BANG!
BANG!
and I thought, what the hell was that? And then I saw the guy on the
sidewalk with the guns…He just…just started firing, and then I heard two more
shots, and felt something hit me.”

The detective was scribbling frantically
in his notebook. He looked up at Claire. “Then what happened?”

Claire thought about this for just a
small moment. Should she say something about the girl with the raven hair and
silver-blue eyes? An unexplained, resounding
no!
sounded off in her
head. She decided she would think about that later.

She shook her head. “Then I passed out,”
she said.

The detective gave her a look that was
sympathetic, but underlined with a little disbelief. “You passed out?”

Claire nodded.

“Are you aware that there were
two
gunman
at the University at the time of the shooting?”

Not gun
man
, Claire thought. Gun
woman,
and if they’re looking for her, she probably doesn’t want to be found.
Well, I won’t be the one to give her up. Fuck that. I owe her my life.
A lot
of people owe her their life. This may be the only way I ever get to thank her.

“I only saw one,” Claire said. “The one
that shot me.”

Chapter
Ninety-Three

Ruby

In
a nursing home across town, an orderly entered a room where an old, frail woman
sat in a chair by the window. Pillows were propped all around her small body;
behind her back and head, under her legs, on her lap. Her hair sat in a silver,
wispy cloud above her gray, glassy eyes. She stared out the window, watching
the world beyond.

The orderly had just seen the old
woman’s daughter on the news. Her daughter, Merion Gellar, had been shot dead
today at the college university where she had been a professor. Upon walking in
the room the orderly had planned on informing the old woman about her loss. He
felt she had a right to know. But as he stood watching the old woman, he
thought the information could do her no good. He left without saying a word.

At bedtime, the old woman was moved from
her chair to her bed. No one in her family had thought to come and give her the
news. They need not have, anyway. She already knew. She had known since
Thursday. That night she lay staring at the white ceiling of her room, and tears
rolled down the sides of her face and pooled in her ears. She thought about
drunks and fools and copperheads and Mondays and Meri. Mostly, she thought
about her Meri. In the morning, another orderly found that she had passed away
in her sleep, and made a comment about how it must have been a good way to go.
The old woman had a small smile stuck on her withered lips.

Chapter
Ninety-Four

Mina

Mina
and her two boys waited at the hospital for Russell to get out of his surgery.
Other detectives and police officers that worked with him had come and gone all
day. They asked her about what had happened, and she told them about the
shooter, about how Russell had taken a bullet for her son. She hugged her boys
tight and cried about how close she had come to losing one of them. She prayed
for Russell and thanked God for him and her boys and their lives. Davis cried,
too. Dominic just sat with wide eyes, asking every ten minutes or so if Russell
was going to be all right.

“He’s going to be fine,” she assured
him. “The doctor said he would be fine. They just have to do surgery on his
shoulder, that’s all. Don’t worry, sweetheart.” 

It made her heart ache to see Dominic’s
little face so scrunched up with concern. She could not bring herself to think
about what would have happened if Russell hadn’t been there.

But he hadn’t been the only one. That
girl, that girl with the black hair and strange eyes. She saved us, too. She
saved all of us. Who knows how many people that madman would have killed if she
hadn’t…what was she doing with a gun at school? Is it possible she somehow
knew
that guy was going to go crazy
and start shooting people? Maybe she knew him. Maybe not. Hell, the reason I
decided to go out with Russell was because I felt like I…well, I
knew
I
was going to need him, and he took a bullet to save my son’s life. Maybe she
brought a gun because she just felt like she was going to need it. Doesn’t
matter. She’s a hero. She helped save my baby. She’s a hero either way.

And the police had asked her about the
second shooter. You bet they had.

Her line of thinking on this matter
paralleled a young woman’s named Claire.

Her response to the detective was, “I
only saw one. He was the one aiming his guns at my son. Then Detective
Remington tackled us to the ground to save my son’s life. I was too terrified
to notice much else,” and she broke out into tears.

The detectives let her be after that,
giving her sympathetic pats on the shoulder and appearing just slightly
dubious.

Later, when he was out of surgery, and
visitors were allowed into his room, Mina found out that Detective Remmington
had told his buddies just about the same thing.

Chapter
Ninety-Five

Lost
Girl

In
a hotel room near the Kansas City Airport, a woman in a canary-yellow dress sat
on the edge of a bed. In her hand was the remote to the television. Her
suitcase and purse sat on the floor beside the bed, her high heels discarded
near them. The local news station was broadcasting a story about a shooting
that had taken place earlier in the day.

Her carefully applied makeup ran down
her cheeks, and her lipstick had been wiped away with tissues and salt water.
She clutched herself around the mid-section and bent forward and cried. The
lost-girl named Jodie cried.

Chapter
Ninety-Six

Jenny

When
Jenny got home that afternoon, she was seriously pissed off at her baby’s
daddy. That loser had fussed and hollered about getting visitation with Ava,
and he hadn’t even bothered to show up when he actually got it. She thanked God
she hadn’t told Ava the truth about who he was. She hadn’t even told her where
they had been going. Jenny had told her they had an appointment, because she
had just
known
that Eric would pull some shit like this. Some people
just never changed.

It wasn’t until later that evening that
she got the news.

Eric’s mother called her and told her.

Then Jenny took her daughter into her
arms and cried. And little Ava couldn’t understand why her mommy was so upset.

Chapter
Ninety-Seven

Michael

He
had tried calling her, but Joe would not answer his calls. Michael wished so
bad that she would just answer, so he could at least thank her for saving his
life. He thought a lot about all the events of the past few days, and had come
to some outlandish conclusions. Somehow, Joe had known that that guy Daniel was
going to shoot up the school.
How
she had known was the question.

But in truth, none of that mattered. If
he got the chance to talk to her, Michael would not bombard her with questions
or accusations. He wouldn’t ask a single thing. He would thank her and…kiss
her, if she let him. However, after a few days passed by without her returning
his calls, he realized the chances of that happening were slim to none.

On Friday, he decided he would go see
her the next day. Michael knew where she lived, and there was some place he
thought he should take her.

And the police had questioned him, as
well. His story had been just about the same as all the others.