In Sickness And In Death Part 14

The back door of my car flew open. Danny dropped onto the seat, his head bowed.

"Hi, Danny. How was school?"

He dug in his backpack and pulled out a yellow slip of paper. "Here."

His head lifted. I got a good look. "What happened to you?"

He had a shiner on his right eye, a dark, purple-red one, and a touch of dried blood under his nose. "I got in a fight. You have to meet with the princ.i.p.al in the morning. I think I'm going to be suspended."

I read the yellow slip. It was a request from Princ.i.p.al Travis for Ray or me, preferably both, to bring Danny to her office at eight o'clock in the morning. "Oh, Danny. What were you thinking?"

"I don't know."

I could hear the frustration in his voice. It matched mine. "What was the fight about?"

"Nothin'."

I twisted around farther in my seat. "It was not about nothing. Did someone say something to you about your dad?"

Danny's eyes grew frightened. "What about my dad?"

Once again I'd led myself into a trap. "Nothing. I just thought ...

never mind. What was the fight about? You might as well tell me now, because you're sure going to have to tell Ray later."

Danny's eyes filled with tears. "This kid, he kept making these snorting noises every time he walked by my desk. At lunch, he got right in my face. I asked him, 'What's your problem, dude?' He said, "'Your foster father's a pig, and pigs stink.'"

The fight was about Ray? I couldn't believe it. Ray talked to the kids at this school every year about the D.A.R.E. program. It wasn't quite that time of year yet, but he'd never said that any of them had been anything other than respectful in prior years. And I was shocked that the old "pig" label had come up. I'd never heard anyone refer to any police officer or sheriff disrespectfully in this town, especially in that ridiculous way.

I wanted to ask if the other kid had gotten the worst of it, but I settled for a different question. "What's this kid's name?"

"I don't know." Danny pressed his head against the window. "Can we go home now?"

I sighed, partly delighted that he thought of our house as "home" but also a little distressed because I had to stop at the grocery store first. All I wanted to do was go home, too.

Danny refused to come in the store with me, which didn't matter. Everyone would just stare at his eye, then at the two of us, wondering. A few would even be bold enough to ask what had happened to Danny, if they knew me. In this town, sometimes they had the nerve to ask even when they didn't know you. I wouldn't miss the attention.

The store wasn't busy this time of day. I wheeled the cart around the store as quickly as I could, grabbing anything that looked good to me.

As I grabbed a package of spaghetti off the shelf, a flash of red from the end of the aisle caught my eye. It was Leslie, carrying a shopping basket and looking right at me.

"Hey, Leslie." I waved and started toward her.

Her eyes widened. She darted around the corner.

I chased after her in time to see her climb into a Ford pick-up truck in front of the store. Seconds later, she pulled out of the parking lot and disappeared.

Then I realized she hadn't been wearing her new wig. In fact, it probably wasn't Leslie at all. It must have been her brother. Funny he'd run away. People must get them confused all the time. Maybe he wasn't a people person? I shrugged it off.

My bill came to over two hundred dollars. I handed over my credit card and pushed the cart laden with grocery bags out the door.

I unlocked the trunk of the Lexus and deposited all my bags inside. Then I started toward the cart corral.

As I shoved my empty cart into the ma.s.s of other carts, a shot rang out. Something whizzed past my ear and pinged against the back end of the stainless steel corral frame. Seconds later, I heard another shot and another ping, this time against the car parked next to the corral.

I looked at the round hole in the trunk of that car. It could have been in my torso instead.

I hit the deck between the car and the corral and fumbled for my cell phone in my purse.

As my shaking fingers pressed 9-1-1, another bullet zipped past my ear. I scrambled toward the front end of the car, away from the shooter.

The 911 operator answered.

"I'm in the parking lot of the Wachobe P&C. Someone is shooting at me."

"Ma'am, are you in your car?"

"No, I'm on the ground between a car and the cart corral." An awful thought hit me. "But Danny ... my boy ... is in my car on the other side of the parking lot."

"All right, ma'am. An officer is on his way. Stay low to the ground and seek cover until he gives you the all clear."

"But my boy-"

"Stay where you are, ma'am. The officer is coming. I'll stay on the line with you."

I eased my head up to peek over the hood of the Acura I'd taken cover behind, trying to spot Danny. Another shot whizzed past me and cracked the windshield of the truck behind me as I dropped back to the pavement.

"Ma'am, are you taking cover?"

"Yes, yes! Where's the officer? Can you call my husband Ray Parker? He's a sheriff deputy."

"I'll contact him now. Stay down, ma'am."

I heard a car turn over. It sounded familiar. The driver accelerated and squealed out of a parking s.p.a.ce.

Another shot connected with the back end of the Acura. Was the shooter trying to hit the gas tank?

I dug in my heels and crab-walked closer to the truck behind me. If the Acura blew, the truck and I would go with it, not to mention the cart corral.

A car flew past the rear of the Acura, spun around the end of the line of parked cars and slammed to a stop in the lane behind me. "Get in, Jolene, get in!"

I scrambled to my knees and crawled to the Lexus. Danny opened the rear pa.s.senger door. I dove into the back seat. He hit the gas. We peeled out of the parking lot. He made a hard right onto the road which threw me to the floor. I heard the police siren coming from behind us as Danny raced down the road.

The siren faded.

"Pull over, Danny. Pull over. We're safe now."

He jerked to a stop by the side of the road. I climbed over the console and into the pa.s.senger seat. Then I grabbed him and hugged him tight. "Thank you."

He wiggled his way out of my grasp. "I didn't see the guy, but I heard the shots."

"And you came to save me."

He blushed and refused to meet my eyes. "Yeah."

I looked down at my hands. The cell phone was still clutched in one hand, my purse in the other. "But I have the car keys."

He nodded.

"Danny, did you hotwire this car?"

He didn't respond, but his eyes shifted about as though looking for escape.

"You know how to hotwire cars?"

A tentative nod told me he did.

"What else do you know how to do, Danny?"

He bit his lip and considered for a moment before replying. "I can jimmy a car door and pick a lock."

"Did your dad teach you all that?"

His eyes grew proud. "A man has to have some skills."

I grinned. "Is that what your father says?"

"Yeah."

"Next time you see him, you tell him I'm not sure what he was thinking when he taught you all that, but I'm sure glad he did."

Danny beamed with pride. "Okay, I'll tell him."

"Ma'am? MA'AM?"

I glanced at my cell phone in surprise. The 911 operator was still with us, just as she promised.

I raised the phone to my ear. "Yes?"

"The Wachobe police chief and your husband are now on the scene. They want you to meet them there. It's all clear."

"Did they make an arrest?"

"No, ma'am. The suspect appears to have fled."

"Okay, thank you." I ended the call and flipped my phone shut. "We have to go back."

Danny's hands slid under the wheel column.

I pulled the car keys from my purse. "I think you better let me drive."

____.

Danny and I stood in the sun making our statements to the police chief and Ray while a team from the sheriff's office dug the bullets out of the cars, picked up the others, and plotted trajectories. Whoever it was must have been following me. I hadn't notice a tail, but then, I hadn't looked either. He could have been the worst tail in the world, and I never would have known he was there. They concluded the shooter had been in the trees in front of my Lexus. Unable to get a clear shot with my trunk open, he'd taken a shot as soon as I stopped in front of the cart corral.

Lucky for me, his aim was off.

Danny didn't want to talk when we got in the Lexus to drive home, which was fine with me because all my thoughts ended in, "Oh my G.o.d, someone tried to kill me."

Even though I had a trunk full of groceries, Ray offered to order pizza. He must have figured I couldn't cook since my hands were still shaking.

While we waited for the pizza, I went into the bedroom to change my clothes. My new tan dress pants were ruined with black grease marks and a tear in the knee. It was a small price to pay for my life. Besides, Celeste would be only too happy to sell me another pair, especially if she got to hear about my drama firsthand.

Ray appeared in the closet doorway. "Are you all right?"

"I think I'm still in shock." I studied his face and couldn't read it. "Why? What else happened?"

"That's what I want to know."

I reached for my dirty stretch pants. "I'm not following you."

"I saw your sister's car at The Lincoln House. You didn't tell me it had a dent in it."

Uh, oh. I hadn't told Ray about the damaged cars because I knew he'd be unhappy with Danny and with me for taking him to visit his father when he should have been disciplined for his actions on Thanksgiving night instead.

I pulled on the stretch pants, trying to think of an explanation that wouldn't make Ray angry. Nothing came to me, so I told him the truth about Danny stealing Erica's car and backing into Brennan Rowe's. "Cory can fix both cars. Like you said, Danny's impulsive."

"Let me make sure I have the story straight." He folded his arms. "Danny stole Erica's car to go see his dad, backed out of the driveway, smashed into Brennan's car, then the s...o...b..nk, and you took him to see his dad as a reward."

"Not as a reward. As a stress-reliever. He's twelve. He misses his dad. You can understand that, can't you, Ray?"

Ray's eyelids flickered. He'd lost his dad, a firefighter, when he was a teenager. While his father's death had occurred due to a heroic effort to save a family of four from their burning home, it hadn't lessened the pain for Ray and his family.

He cleared his throat. "At first, when I saw Erica's car, I thought someone might have attacked her, too. You should have told me what happened. We're supposed to be a team when it comes to Danny, Jolene. You can't keep things from me. I have to know what's going on. And we have to discipline him. He can't just steal a car, smash up two, and have no consequences."

"Okay, but today, he really came through for me." Even though I'd told him not to drive any more cars without a license, I would never consent to disciplining him for ignoring my direction now.

Ray's lips twitched. "He did, didn't he?"

I smiled. "He did."