Torn Apart (17 page)

“No, sir. Last Sunday our town was hit by a tornado. Among other things, it took out the back of the jail, and as far as we can tell, the prisoners went with it. We don’t know if they were taken by the tornado or if they’re on the run. I had search parties scouring the area for days, and they found nothing to lead me to believe they were still alive. We called off the search a couple of days ago.”

“Damn it,” Babcock said. “Look, I want to send a team down to help you search.”

“You can send whoever you want, but they’ll be on their own. I can’t afford the manpower to go back out again, because we’re working the case of a kidnapped child.”

“Tough,” Babcock said. “What’s the ransom?”

“There never was a request for ransom. We’re leaning toward the theory that it’s either the father or a child molester.”

There was a long moment of silence, and then Babcock cleared his throat.

“That’s a tough one,” he said. “As for the missing prisoners, if you do find them, you need to let me know immediately. Nick Aroyo is one of us. He’s been undercover with that drug ring for months.”

“The hell you say!” Hershel said, thinking back to the dark-eyed man who’d been so quiet during booking.

“Yes,” Babcock said. “So be on the lookout for my men. I’ll have them check in with you to get them started.”

“Glad to help out,” Hershel said, and they disconnected.

He was scratching his head as he headed back up the hall, surprised by the news. Still, he had bigger fish to fry.

When he walked into dispatch, Vera was on another call. Before he could give Lee directions, Vera hung up the phone and sent everything spinning.

“Chief! There’s a four-car pileup on the Abalone Road west of town. The road is blocked. There are multiple injuries, with one man pinned in his car. I’m dispatching emergency services now.”

“Crap,” Hershel said. “Where’s Carter?”

“Outside putting oil in the cruiser,” Lee said.

“Go tell him what’s happening, then both of you proceed to the scene ASAP. You know what to do.”

“Where are you going, Chief?”

“I’ll already be there,” Hershel said, and headed out the front door as Lee took off through the back, his plan to start a search for Bobby Earle sidelined by a blowout.

Dr. Luke peeled off his surgical gloves and tossed them in the trash as the lab tech left with the specimen he’d just collected from the festering sore on Newt Collins’s belly.

“You can get dressed now,” the doctor said.

Newt swung his legs off the side of the examining table and sat up.

“So, am I gonna live?” he asked.

“I’m still reserving judgment,” Luke said, as he sat down to write a prescription. “Get this filled and use it as directed. I want to see you back in here on Monday. If this infection isn’t beginning to clear up by then, I
will
admit you to the hospital. And if you go against my orders again, I will be forced to withdraw as your physician.”

Newt panicked. “But I—”

Luke held up his hand.

“No buts. What the hell is the matter with you, anyway? Don’t you understand the seriousness of your situation? You’re a walking invitation to MRSA infection, staph infection…any number of infections, all of which could kill you! For all I know, you already have one of them, although we won’t know until I get the lab results back.”

Newt frowned. He didn’t want to hear this.

“What’s MRSA?”

“Ever hear of flesh-eating bacteria?”

Newt’s lips went slack. Shit. “Yeah, I heard of that.” He looked down at the festering sores on his belly. “Is that what that is? Is it going to eat all the flesh off my belly?”

“MRSA will eat more than your belly. If you get it, or staph, or any invasive infection in these burns, you can lose limbs, internal organs—”

“What about my dick?” Newt asked.

Luke stared in disbelief. “You lose limbs and internal organs, you won’t be needing that dick,” he snapped.

Newt shuddered involuntarily. Maybe he had been too casual about all this.

“So what’s your best guess?
Is
…this staph? Or…that MRSA?”

The doctor sighed. “I don’t know what it is. But look at yourself, man! This isn’t good. You’re beginning to heal in places, but some of these blisters are a festering mess. Wounds like those need to be cleaned and dressed daily. This is just as serious an injury as if you’d been burned by fire…maybe more so, because the chemicals not only burned your skin, you absorbed some of them through the open wounds, as well.”

Newt’s eyes widened in shock. “What’s that mean?”

“Basically, it means you poisoned yourself and are acting like you don’t give a damn. Aren’t you in pain?”

“Hell, yeah…but at home I don’t wear any clothes and it’s not so bad. Besides, when it gets too bad I just take a pill and—”

“You can’t depend on pain pills to heal you. All they’re doing is masking the pain. Are you taking the antibiotics like I instructed?”

“Took one yesterday morning, but the rest spilled down the sink and—”

Luke’s voice rose in anger. “Those are more important than the pain pills. They’re meant to keep down infection. Get this prescription filled today, and don’t miss a dose. If things get worse, you come back to the hospital immediately or I won’t be responsible for the outcome. Look…let’s be honest here. What’s so important that you refuse to be admitted? Is it about money, a lack of insurance? Because if it is, we can always work out a payment plan.”

Truth wasn’t an option, so Newt blurted out the first thing he could think of.

“I’m afraid of hospitals. Sorry. Can I go now?”

Dr. Luke shrugged. “If you’re asking if I’m finished with your treatment and exam, then the answer is yes, but don’t expect me to condone your choices.”

“I’ll be better. You’ll see,” Newt said, and started dressing.

By the time he finished, he was in misery. His hands were still tender and raw, and the waistband of his pants was rubbing against his skin. It was all he could do to walk to the lobby.

Sam saw him coming and stood. “That didn’t take so long,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”

Newt handed him the prescription. “Gotta get this filled before you take me back, but these clothes are killing me. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to walk in the pharmacy and wait.”

“I’ll do it,” Sam said, and held the door open for him as they went out.

About a half hour later they were pulling into the trailer park. Sam stopped in front of Newt’s trailer, eyeing the jumble of uprooted trees around Newt’s pickup, and sighed.

“Real sorry about those trees. We’ll be getting to them come Saturday, for sure.”

Newt was in so much pain that, at that moment, he couldn’t care.

“Yeah, right. Thanks for the ride,” he said, and headed for the front door with the bag holding his new prescription and a softball he just bought as a bribe for the kids, desperate to get out of his clothes.

The moment he turned the lock, he began stripping and didn’t stop until he was naked again. Relief was instantaneous. He groaned softly, then popped both an antibiotic and a pain pill into his mouth at the same time, and chased them with water straight from the tap.

It was just after two. The kid should still sleep for a couple hours—maybe more. That would give the pain pill he’d just taken time to kick in and let him get some rest.

He kicked at an empty pizza box as he walked past his favorite chair, sending cockroaches scrambling in a dozen directions at once.

“Dirty bastards,” he muttered, but kept on walking, without realizing the irony of his remark.

He paused in the doorway to his bedroom, eyeing the sleeping child and thinking about what they were going to do when he got well. He looked at his dick, willing it to an erection, if for no other reason than to assure himself it still worked.

Nothing.

He sighed. If he had this to do over again, he wouldn’t have snatched the kid, but it was too late to rectify the error.

The doctor had made a believer of him. He didn’t want to lose a limb, and he damn sure didn’t want his dick to rot off.

He lay down on the bed, scooting the kid’s leg over to his own side of the bed, and then closed his eyes. The last thing he remembered thinking before he drifted off to sleep was that he needed to wash these sheets.

J.R. glanced down as the chopper entered New Orleans airspace. Even though several years had passed since Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, it was still easy to spot the hardest-hit areas. Very little had been done toward reclamation, which made that part of the city look like a war zone. As for the mighty Mississippi, it might look like a lazy snake from up high, but he knew all too well how fast that could change.

When they flew over the area where Katie’s parents had been found floating in their own attic, he said a silent prayer, then looked away. After all the overtime he’d put in, he was due for some downtime. Whatever was waiting for him at the office could go on waiting. He was going to Bordelaise.

As the pilot began descending, J.R. looked down at the helipad behind the home office and saw Brent Macklan waiting near the back door.

J.R. was the first to get out. He retrieved his bag, and then ducked as he ran out from under the spinning rotors and headed toward his boss. Blalock and his three buddies followed more slowly, and while none of them were happy about having to face Macklan, they wanted their severance checks.

Brent grinned wryly as he shook J.R.’s hand.

“That little trip I sent you on sure backfired, didn’t it?”

J.R. smiled. “Yes, sir, that it did.”

Brent nodded. “Anyway, it was much appreciated, and we’re glad to have you back. I think I can promise it won’t happen again. The new troubleshooter is already on the job.”

“That’s good news,” J.R. said, then glanced back toward the chopper. “There are your bad boys. I’ll leave you to put the fear of God into them in private.”

Brent frowned. “No need. They blackballed themselves, especially Blalock. The word is already out that he’s a user. No oil company is going to touch him with a ten-foot pole. His days on the rigs are over. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

“That’s good. He was an accident just waiting to happen.”

As J.R. started to walk off, Brent called him back.

“Hey! I almost forgot to tell you—you missed a lot of excitement on Monday.”

“I don’t know,” J.R. said. “There was a lot of excitement out on the rig Monday. Hurricane Bonnie gave us hell for hours.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll bet no one gave birth out there,” Brent said.

J.R.’s eyes widened. “Angela? She had her baby?”

Brent grinned. “In the office. In the middle of the storm. They transported mother and baby girl Bonnie to the hospital after the worst of the storm had passed.”

“Oh, man,” J.R. said. “Who delivered?”

“Me and the UPS guy,” Brent said.

J.R. laughed out loud. “Poor Angela.”

“Hey. We did all right.”

“I’m sure you did,” J.R. said. “And speaking of mothers and babies, I haven’t been able to get through to Katie and Bobby, although I’ve tried several times since the storm. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about how things are going down there? All their power out or something?”

Brent’s smile slipped. “To my knowledge there aren’t any more power outages in the state, but I could be wrong.”

J.R. frowned. “So it was out down there? For how long?”

“At least a couple of days.” Then Brent added. “You
have
talked to her since Sunday, right?”

“No, why?”

Brent hesitated, then pointed at the four men who were heading their way.

“Wait there!” he ordered.

The quartet stopped. They weren’t about to argue with the man holding their money.

“What?” J.R. asked. “What about Sunday?”

“Man…I thought you knew.”

J.R.’s heart hit a beat so hard it hurt his chest.

“Knew what? Damn it, Brent! What happened to my family?”

Brent held up his hand. “Whoa, whoa…I’m not saying anything did, but they are still down in Bordelaise, right?”

“Yes, damn it. Talk!”

“It was hit by a tornado. Went right down the middle of town—even took out part of the jail. I remember hearing something about some missing prisoners and three or four deaths, but no names.”

J.R. staggered, then turned his back to the men and covered his face.

God, no, please no.

Brent put a hand on J.R.’s back. “Are you all right? Is there anything I can do?”

J.R. spun, his face twisted with pain. “Why didn’t someone say something to me? Has anyone from Bordelaise called the office wanting to talk to me?”

Brent frowned. “I couldn’t say. We have a temp working the office while Angela is on maternity leave. Her name is Charlotte. You could go check with her. She probably forwarded any messages to your cell.” Then he sighed. “Although I will admit she’s not the brightest bulb in the lamp.”

J.R. was already heading for the back door. He strode through the hallways, past the offices and conference room, then past his own office to the front desk.

The young woman sitting in Angela’s chair was on the phone.

He strode up to her desk, yanked her headset off and then leaned down until they were eye to eye.

She screamed.

It was actually more like a squeak, but on the spur of the moment, it was all she could muster.

“I need to ask you a question,” he said quietly.

Charlotte bit her lip and nodded rapidly.

“I’m J. R. Earle. Have there been any messages for me from Bordelaise?”

Her eyes widened, then she nodded.

“Who from?” he asked.

“Um, one from a hospital and, uh, two from a Chief Porter…I think.”

J.R. groaned as his legs went weak. “Woman…what have you done?”

Charlotte started to cry. “I don’t understand. What was I supposed to do?”

He pulled a handful of tissues from a box on her desk and handed them to her.

“Why didn’t you forward the calls to my cell?”

She took the tissues but continued to bawl. “I tried, but they wouldn’t go through. I thought it was because of the weather.”

J.R. straightened, then shoved a hand through his hair in disbelief. This was a nightmare. Damn this job and damn the storm.