Almost Criminal: A Crime In Cascadia Mystery Part 22

There was a catch in the rhythm, and Bullard's eyeball rolled. "You." He lifted the pistol and shot.

I felt a tug in my arm, my left arm, and a sudden flash of pain that snapped me back to alertness. The sirens. I stood and ran, slipping on Bullard's blood, clamping my good hand over the bleeding, to the kitchen and the garage and through the long gra.s.s to the trees. It's how Sammy Jay got in, I thought. And it's how I'll get away.

I leaned, suddenly exhausted, against an ash tree. A row of ambulances and emergency vehicles b.u.mped along the dirt path. Police sirens followed behind. Far across the property, the taxi driver gestured frantically as if it could bring them faster.

I ducked into a thicket and pulled Ivan's phone from my pocket.

Chapter 25.

According to the late news, Norman Bullard died at 7:15 in the emergency ward of Abbotsford Regional Hospital. I watched the report in the same hospital, while I sat on a vinyl couch and waiting for the doctor to sign my release papers.

The screen showed computer renderings of the ranch house, with a glowing X for Murph, one for Bullard, one for each of the dead, and animated arrows tracing the path taken by the unknown invaders. The 3-D images felt sanitized, like instant replays in a football game. These gangland slayings may trigger a wholesale biker war, a reporter intoned over footage of a paramedic and a Mountie running a blue-draped stretcher from an ambulance to a sliding gla.s.s door, its wheeled undercarriage dangling in the air. Bullard was alive under that blue sheet when that footage was taken.

I didn't see any police cars when Bree hustled me through that same emergency entrance. I was fading, pretty far gone, when she found me beside the highway, and worse by the time we arrived here. Blood loss, I guess. I remember her half-carrying me down the gra.s.sy verge to the car, and Rachel's reaction to my smashed face and how she fussed over the holes in my arms. One where the bullet went in and one where it went out again. I was so relieved to see Rachel, that she was untouched by Randle or Bullard or any of it. I was glad Bree had called her: Rachel knew how to apply a tourniquet and to elevate the limb, while Beth tottered along behind like she was the one in shock.

Closing the bullet wounds took st.i.tches, a teta.n.u.s shot and bag after bag of liquid. The doctor made more of a fuss about my nose. If I'd come in earlier, she complained, she could have done more. My nose was going to be wider and flatter from now on, apparently. I couldn't get too upset about it.

As for the arm, I explained I'd been jumping my BMX bike in a construction site, and landed on a metal spike. The face was from the same crash. She wasn't stupid, but she was nice enough not to make a big deal out of the obvious bulls.h.i.t, like that the nose-break was old and the arm wound was fresh. Or that the holes in my arm were pretty small, and not likely to be caused by rebar or whatever might be found on a construction site. It's the country, she probably figured, kids drink too many Extra Old Stocks and get into brawls. She had no reason to connect me, a kid with his mom and sister and someone who may or may not be a girlfriend, with the biker ma.s.sacre or the gangster dying in the OR.

When I saw you, it felt like I was waking from a coma. The hospital surged with activity, doctors and nurses and ordinary people going about their jobs, and I was bandaged up and waiting for Bree to return with the papers to get me out of there. Beth was collecting the Volvo and Rachel was talking to a nurse about how to change my dressing.

Then a trio of cops took a stroll through the emergency lobby, carrying paper cups of cafeteria coffee and laughing loudly about something. Two of them, in blue uniforms, walked right past me, and I paid them no attention. The plainclothes one, six foot six and skinny, slowed his pace and did a half-turn in my direction. I glanced up, idly, and locked onto your eyes. My first thought was that the painkillers were messing with me. Everything about you looked different, your posture, your walk. No Russian accent. You stopped and spun on one heel, with an unreadable half-smirk on your lips, and did that thumb and index finger thing, the hand-pistol, and called your cop buddies to hang on for a minute.

Acknowledgments.

I am deeply grateful for the support, a.s.sistance and encouragement that I received throughout the writing and editing of this, my first novel. Given the book's subject matter, I can't name everyone who helped. For those people: you know who you are, and I thank you.

Special thanks to:.

Lawrence Hill, tireless mentor and first editor; Fred Stenson and the unmatched Banff Wired Writing Studio; Betsy Warland, Caroline Adderson and The Writer's Studio at Simon Fraser University. Early readers Martin Gotfrit, Stella Harvey-Leventoyannis, James Leslie, Jennifer Stanic, Claire Wilkshire, and ElJean Wilson, with a special note of grat.i.tude to Patricia Gruben. My agent, Anne McDermid, for her patience and persistence; and the team at Dundurn, especially Michael Carroll and my supportive editor, Shannon Whibbs.

I can't overstate my appreciation for the support I receive from my family, Nicholas, Caitlin and Andrea; and more than anyone, Cheryl Prophet.

Copyright E.R. Brown, 2013.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief pa.s.sages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Editor: Shannon Whibbs.

Design: Jesse Hooper.

Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication.

Brown, E. R. (Eric R.).

Almost criminal [electronic resource] / by E.R. Brown.

Electronic monograph issued in multiple formats.

Also issued in print format.

ISBN 978-1-4597-0585-2.

I. t.i.tle.

PS8603.R68315A45 2013 C813'.6 C2012-904641-8 We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President.

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end.