Presumption of Guilt (32 page)
T
here was a moment of shocked silence just after the two mangled cars ground to a halt. Then the inside of the Buick erupted in frightened screams. But the loudest was Jimmy'sâbecause he had seen, behind the wheel of the rusty old car that had passed them and then pulled spinning in front of them, the face of his mother.
With no regard for Bill or any further danger, Jimmy bolted from the Buick and ran to the other car, which now lay on its side. But there was no one in that car. He looked up then, franticâand saw his mother, several yards ahead, lying motionless on the concrete like a discarded rag doll. “Mom!” he yelled through his tears. “Mom!” He fell down beside her, wailing at the sight of the blood oozing from her nose and mouth.
But she opened her eyes slowly and looked up at him. “Run!”she whispered. “Take your sister and run!”
Jimmy was crying so hard he could barely speak. “Why did you do it?” he asked. “Why?”
“Because I . . . love you,” she whispered. “Run, Jimmy! Please run . . .” Her voice trailed off, and Jimmy watched her eyes go dead and empty.
He wanted to stay with her, but her words echoed in his mind:
Take your sister and run.
He looked back toward the car. Lisa and Brad had gotten out, too. Bill had hit his head, and was holding it with one hand as he tried to crank the car with the other. Jimmy couldn't see Beth.
Jimmy ran to his sister and took her hand. “Come on, Brad,”he whispered. “Let's hide in the woods.”
He pulled Lisa after him, and Brad followed in a painful, stumbling run. Then he heard a yell. Looking back over his shoulder, Jimmy felt a surge of panic as he saw Bill throw open the car door and leap out. But with Bill's first step toward them, Beth dove from the car, landing on Bill's back, and wrestled him to the ground.
“Come on!” Jimmy urged, and pulled Lisa toward the safety of the trees.
I
t only took Bill a moment to regain his equilibrium, throw Beth off of him, and get the upper hand, but by then, the children were gone.
He grabbed her by the throat and lifted her to her feet. “Back in the car,” he said through gritted teeth.
He threw her in on the driver's side, then pushed her across to the passenger seat. She gasped in pain as she moved, and he saw blood seeping onto her blouse from some wound he couldn't see on her chest. He jumped in beside her, cranked the car, and it started. He'd noticed some significant damage to the front of the car, but it looked driveable.
“Are you just going to leave her on the road?” Beth screamed.
“Shut up!” he shouted, bringing his fist hard across her jaw. “Don't say another word or it'll be the last thing you'll say!”
Furious, he drove around the wrecked car and the body lying in the street, and flew as fast as he could out of the area.
J
immy urged Lisa and Brad through the woods at a run, trying to make it to the road on the other side where they might find help. Maybe a police car would come by, and they could flag it down.
Not long ago, Jimmy realized suddenly, a policeman J would have been the last person he would have turned to when he was in trouble. For that matter, he wouldn't have trusted any other adults, either. But since then, he'd learned something: Adults weren't all bad. Beth had come here tonight, despite her fears of Bill, for the sole purpose of rescuing the children. And then there was his mother. A lump rose in his throat again, and he swallowed it down.
He still didn't understand why she had done it. She had already proven she didn't care about them. She had let the state take them and dump them somewhere. Why come back now, sick and weak, and risk her life to stop Bill from taking them away?
It didn't make sense. But it changed things, somehow.
“Why are you crying?” Lisa asked him breathlessly as they fought the vines and bushes in their way. “Aren't you happy we got away?”
Jimmy wiped his face. “Yeah, I'm happy. I was just thinking about the cop and that lady in the street.” He couldn't tell her the lady had been her mother. Not yet. Maybe someday.
Brad was panting and wheezing, and Jimmy wondered if he was going to make it through the woods. He needed to get Brad to a hospital; they couldn't just hide someplace. Somehow, he needed to find help. Besides, they had to get help for Beth. They were the only ones who knew that Bill had taken her.
And he had to get help for all those children back at the home, who wouldn't know what to do or what was going to happen to them next.
The trees thinned, and suddenly they came to the road. Not far away was a gas station with a convenience store attached. Jimmy reached into his pocket for the change that Jake had let him keep when they'd gone for a Coke earlier. He fished out a quarter. “Come on, let's go call for help.”
“Who are we gonna call?” Lisa asked.
He thought about it for a moment. “Jake,” he said. “We'll call Jake.”
L
ynda answered on the first ring. “Lynda Barrett,” she said.
“Lynda, it's me. Jimmy.”
“Jimmy! Where are you? We've been worried sickâ”
Jimmy cleared the emotion from his throat and tried to speak clearly. “I need to speak to Jake,” he said.
“Oh . . . okay.” Lynda gave the phone to Jake.
“Jimmy, are you all right?” he asked.
“I'm okay,” he said. “But Bill's got Beth.”
“What do you mean he's got Beth? Beth's here,” Jake said. “She's asleep in the guest room.”
“No. She came here. Bill's got her in a car, and he's taking her away. I think he's gonna kill her! Jake, you've got to stop him!”
“Jimmy, where are you?”
Jimmy was crying again. He stopped and wiped his eyes. “At the gas station about a mile from the home. I think it's called Quik Stop. It's onâ” He checked the street signs near the phone booth. “The corner of Jefferson and Third Street.”
“Jimmy, we're coming after you. You stay there. We'll be there in ten minutes.”
“No! Don't worry about us! Lisa and Brad and me will be okay. You gotta worry about Beth. He'll kill her. And there's something else.”
“Yeah? What?”
“My . . . my . . .” Jimmy lowered his voice to keep Brad or Lisa from hearing.
“What? I can't hear you.”
“My mâ” He choked on the word, then tried again. “Tracy.She needs an ambulance. And so does that copâLarry, I think it was. He was shot.”
“Shot? Are you sure?”
“Hurry, Jake! They may not be dead yet.”
“But Tracy's in the hospital, Jimmy. You're confusedâ”
“No!” he shouted. “She came here, too. We'd still be in the car with Bill if she hadn't. But first he shot Larry, and then he ran over her, and she's lying in the road . . .” His voice broke off, and he couldn't go on.
“Jimmy, stay right where you are. We'll be there in ten minutes.”
J
ake drove faster than he'd ever driven in his life. In the passenger seat, Lynda was on the cellular phone, trying to locate Tony or Nick.She heard sirens, but they were coming from the opposite direction.
She found Nick in his office. “Nick, it's Lynda.”
“Hi. I've been working on what to do with all the children.
It's not going to be easy, but I thinkâ” “Nick, listen to me,” Lynda said. “Jimmy just called.”
“Oh, that's great! You've found him?”
“Yes. He went to the home, and something went wrong.We're headed to get him. He says that Bill's got Beth.”
She heard something crash on Nick's end. “He can't. She's at your house! She was asleepâ”
“No, she snuck out to go to the home to rescue the children.But apparently it backfired, and he's got her now.”
“Oh, no.”
“Nick, you've got toâ” Her voice stopped as Jake slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt. Lynda dropped the phone and looked through the windshield.
The headlights shone on something in the road, and Jake whispered, “Oh, God, please don't let this be.”
“Tracy,” Lynda whispered.
T
he police radio report of an officer down at the St. Clair Children's Home stunned Tony, but before he could call in to ask for details, his cellular phone rang. He grabbed it as he turned a corner on two wheels, on his way to SCCH. “Larry?” he asked. “No, Tony, it's Lynda!” She was choked and could hardly speak. “I'm sitting on Tenth about a mile from the children's home. Tracy Westin is lying in the middle of the roadâshe was thrown from her car. I checked her pulse, but there isn't oneâshe's dead, Tony. Bill Brandon ran her down. And Jimmy said he shot Larry!”
Tony went cold. “Larry?”
“Yeah. I don't have details, but I hear sirens. They may have gotten to him by now, but they're coming from the other direction and they don't know about Tracy. Jake's gone to get Jimmy. Apparently Bill had him, but Jimmy escaped. Bill's still got Beth, though! Jimmy said he's in the Buick. Tony, he's holding her hostage!”
Tony's heart lurched. He longed to check on Larry, but he knew that Beth's safety had to come first. “Lynda, I'm on my way.”
I
t took only a few minutes to put an all-points bulletin out on the Buick, and soon roadblocks had been set up on the outskirts of town, and the policemen in other parts of the county were alerted. Additional ambulances and squad cars were dispatched to the children's home. As soon as the prosecutor had been informed of the circumstances, officers were sent to check out the warehouse. When they tallied over a hundred thousand dollars' worth of stolen goods, the prosecutor issued warrants for the arrest of Judge Wyatt, Sheila Axelrod, and her husbandâin whose names the warehouse was listedâand all of the employees of the children's home, who had fled.
At the home, Nick paced the lawn in front of the cottages as they loaded Larry into an ambulance. He was still alive, thank God; Nick had no idea how badly he was injured. All he knew was that Beth was in danger of the same fate. In a few moments, when he saw Tony's car barreling into the parking lot, he bolted toward him.
Tony got out of the car and met him halfway. “How's Larry?”
“Alive,” Nick said. “But unconscious. He's lost a lot of blood.It doesn't look good.”
Tony fought the panicked rage and the furious despair threatening to smother him, and looked toward the ambulance, on its way off the property with its lights flashing. He was halfway back to his car, intending to follow it, when a cop shouted, “They've spotted Brandon's car! It's heading up Highway 18 toward St. Pete. There's a high-speed chase underway.” Tony hopped behind the wheel and cranked the engine, knowing there was nothing more he could do for Larry, but maybe he could help save Beth.
“He's going to kill her!” Nick shouted. “Please, Tony, let me come with you.”
“Who'll take care of placing these children for the night?”
“My colleagues,” Nick answered. “I've already called in every social worker in the county. They're on their way. They can handle it.”
“Nick, listenâwe just learned that Sheila Axelrod is involved. She's probably being arrested as we speak. That leaves you. You're the only one who can take care of these kids right now.
We're counting on you.”
“
Sheila?”
he asked, then backed away, trying to sort it all out.
He shook the information from his head and decided he could only deal with one thing at a time. “But what about Beth?”
“We'll take care of Beth. That's our job.”
Nick kicked at some invisible wall in the air. “How could she do this? How could she confront him? She's
terrified
of himâand she
knew
he would kill her!”
“She did it for the kids,” Tony said. “And right now she would want you to think of the kids, too.”
Nick hesitated. “All right,” he said. “I'll stay. But call me the minute you hear anything!”
I
n the Buick, Bill cursed as the flashing lights grew closer behind him. He turned off onto a little country road, then slammed his accelerator to the floor, flying around corners and curves. But the police stayed close behind him.
He kept one arm clamped around Beth's neck, with the cold barrel of the gun pressed against her cheek. Beth sat as still as she could, frightened that the slightest provocation might cause him to pull the trigger. He had nothing to lose. Nothing except his hostage.
As he drove, she prayed. Prayed that he wouldn't lose the police. Prayed that they would manage to set up a roadblock ahead of him. Prayed that she would find an opportunity to escape. Tears streamed down her face, born of all the confusing emotions whirling through her heart.
“You've sure caused a lot of trouble,” Bill said through his teeth, clamping his arm tighter. “Unbelievable.”
Beth tried to lift her head enough to see the squad cars in the rearview mirror, but Bill let go of the wheel, grabbed a handful of hair, and jerked her head back against the seat. “Be still,” he said. “I didn't tell you to move. I'm not ready to kill you yet.”
Only then did he notice the tears running down her face. “I've never seen you cry, Beth, darlin',” he mocked, his eyes back on the twisting road again. “Tears become you.”
She stiffened her lips, determined not to shed another tear in front of him.
“Funny how scared you are now,” he said. “You weren't scared at all when you were coming after me with both barrels for that newspaper of yours, hiding Jimmy from me, putting the police on my tail, turning HRS against me. But you know what? It didn't matter. I have friends in high places. Nothing you did could have gotten me. Even now, I'll probably get out of this scot-free.”