The EMT looked up. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely certain. Mine is O positive. His is O negative. Unless he’s changed his habit, there will be a card in his wallet attesting to that fact.”
Trey dug through Mack’s hip pocket, pulled out his wallet and then found the card.
“She’s right,” he said, and laid the wallet on Mack’s belly as they slid him onto a gurney and strapped him down. “Insurance cards and other info are in the wallet, too,” he told the other EMT. “Don’t lose it.”
They covered Mack with a waterproof blanket and then moved him out through the rain to the ambulance.
“I’ll stay here while you go change,” Trey said to Lissa, indicating her bloodstained clothing. Then he took out his phone to call the county sheriff for help. He needed this scene processed and didn’t want to call any of his deputies off the search to do it.
Lissa didn’t hesitate. She could only imagine what she looked like, but it didn’t matter. She just needed Mack to be okay. She needed to tell him something—something she’d just realized when she’d thought for one awful moment that he was dead.
She bolted down the hall toward her room, turning on lights as she went, but the moment she reached her door, she stopped and screamed.
Trey was just about to make the call when he heard her and ran through the house, fearing the perp had doubled back and waited for her. The relief of finding her in one piece was dimmed by what he saw.
“He destroyed it,” Lissa whispered.
Trey put a hand on her shoulder. “Close the window. It’s raining in.”
She walked across the room and pulled the window down, then locked it, although the effort was moot. The devil had already come and gone.
“Can you find enough clothes to get dressed?” Trey asked.
Lissa was shaking as she looked at the chaos. The starfish night-light, the last link to her childhood, was on the floor in pieces. The closet door was open, and clothes were strewn all over, and everything that had been in the dresser was now on the floor.
“I think so.”
“Well, find enough to last you for several days, because you’re not coming back here until this man is behind bars. What he did to this room is a sign of what he would have done to you when he was through. This isn’t just some Peeping Tom. This man is dangerous, and I would bet my retirement you aren’t the first to catch his eye.”
* * *
The pain in Reece’s jaw was making his whole head throb, and his eye was swelling. He was rattled by how quickly his simple plan had gone awry. By the time he got home he knew he had two options—either get out of town before daylight, or stay hidden here until all his bruising had faded. He didn’t know whether he’d killed the guy and didn’t much care. What pissed him off most was that Melissa Sherman had outsmarted him and gotten away.
He glanced at the clock. It was already tomorrow. Since their mother was due here later in the afternoon and the only vehicle belonged to Louis, if he took it and left town he wouldn’t put it past Louis to claim it was stolen, which would make the mess he was in that much worse.
His best bet was to just stay here and stay out of sight. No one in Mystic knew him. He’d made sure of that. And since he didn’t work for anyone but himself, it wasn’t like he would be missed at any job.
Bobo came trotting into the kitchen and yipped once.
Reece groaned.
“I suppose you want to go out, but you’re not getting any farther than the backyard. It’s raining cats and dogs out there.” And then he laughed. “Cats and dogs, Bobo. You’re a dog. Get it?”
But all the dog had heard was the word out, and he was already headed for the door at a trot.
Reece let him out, then turned on the back porch light as he closed the door and headed for the utility room and the bathroom beyond to tend to his injuries.
Nothing was bleeding, which was good. But the swelling was severe. He hadn’t had time to get a good look at the man and wouldn’t know him again if he saw him, which was daunting. It was always best to know what your enemies looked like. He wondered if the man had gotten a clean look at him and then sighed. It was all up in the air until he found out if the guy was still alive.
He cleaned himself up and then went back to the kitchen to make an ice pack. Bobo was at the back door whining to come in. He opened it enough to let him in and then watched him trot across the floor, leaving water and muddy footprints behind. He thought about their mother’s imminent arrival and yelled, “Heel, Bobo!”
Bobo stopped, trotted back across the floor to where Reece was standing and stopped in position.
“Now I have twice as much to clean up,” Reece muttered.
He grabbed a towel from the back bathroom and began drying Bobo’s feet and fur, then grunted as he bent down to clean up the drips and footprints.
Too many nights of eating and going back to bed were catching up with him. He’d begun buying and selling for himself out of boredom, just for something to do, and everyone, including his mother and Louis, had been surprised at his gift for picking good companies in which to invest. Making money on the computer was so easy that he didn’t see the need for breaking a sweat, but he didn’t like the idea of being a fat slob, either. Women didn’t like a big ass or a sagging belly on a man, and Reece liked women too much to fuck that up.
When he was finished, he tossed the towel in the washing machine, grabbed the ice pack and headed for his bedroom, hoping the swelling would be down by morning.
* * *
Mack was already in surgery before Lissa reached the hospital. She sat alone in the waiting room, trying to come to terms with the fact that another member of the Jackson family had been hurt trying to help her. It was beginning to feel like a curse.
One hour passed into the second, and then the third, as she sat with a cup of coffee going cold in her hands and tears drying on her face.
Then Trey Jakes walked in.
She stood immediately, praying for good news.
“Did you catch him?” she asked.
Trey shook his head. “Sorry, the rain destroyed any trail he might have left. The county crime-scene crew is at your house dusting for prints. Unless he was wearing gloves, we should get something, since he handled pretty much everything in your room. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
She sat back down with a thump, too dejected to comment.
Trey sat down beside her, struggling with how he was going to get across the seriousness of what he needed to tell her, but when she inadvertently gave him an opening, he jumped on it.
“I shudder to think what he’ll try next,” she muttered.
“That’s something we need to talk about,” he said.
Lissa looked up. “What do you mean?”
“I think you need to take a leave of absence from your job until we have this man in custody.”
The idea appalled her. She’d worked so hard to develop a rapport with her students. She started to panic, thinking of all the reasons that couldn’t happen.
“No! I have a contract to fulfill. I can’t just walk out.”
“I didn’t say quit. I mean step away until he’s caught.”
“But why?” she asked.
“Because you thwarted him, Lissa. At this point I couldn’t predict how far he would go to get you and make you pay. What if he tried to take you out of your classroom? Are you willing to risk a child’s life that it won’t happen?”
The skin crawled on the back of her neck as she thought of what he’d done to her bedroom.
She began to cry, overwhelmed by the hopelessness of her situation.
“I didn’t think. Of course I need to keep them safe. I’ll call my principal and hope he understands.”
“If he doubts the decision, have him call me,” Trey said. “I’ll make sure he understands the danger it could create if you stayed.”
“I will,” she said, swiping away the tears as she pulled out her phone.
“Is there anything you need? Anything we can do for you?” Trey asked.
She slumped. “Just catch him.”
“I’ll do my best. Call if you need us,” he added, as he left the room.
She sat quietly, gathering her thoughts and trying to get her emotions under control before she called her principal. As she was sitting there, she heard footsteps coming down the hall and looked toward the doorway. When the surgeon walked in, she froze.
“Are you here for Mack Jackson?” he asked.
She curled her fingers into fists, bracing herself for the verdict, and nodded.
He smiled and sat down beside her. “Everything went well. He’ll be in recovery for the next forty-five minutes or so and then we’ll move him to a room. You’ll be able to see him then, but he’ll be sedated, so don’t expect much. The wound on his arm was shallow enough that we didn’t have any muscle repair to do, but he has staples, a good number of them. The wound on his back was fairly deep but didn’t hit anything vital. He has internal and external stitches, but short of something unexpected, he should regain full range of motion.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you so much,” Lissa said.
“You’re welcome. I’ll check on him tomorrow when I make rounds and we’ll go from there, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. As soon as he left the room she walked to the window that overlooked the parking lot and burst into tears.