Shadow of Eden (30 page)

“Steve!” Anne shrieked.

Johnnie, pinned beneath both his parents, screamed. Anne twisted around so she could look at Steve. His glazed, unfocused eyes frightened her. How was it she could see in the pitch-blackness of the bathroom? The room was lit by a flickering light. How . . .?

She looked through the shattered bathroom wall saw that the house was on fire!

“Steve!” Anne screamed, struggling to keep her and Steve’s weight off Johnnie. The screech of many smoke alarms pierced the air.

Steve moaned and looked around with heavy lidded eyes. “Anne?” His speech was slurred.

“Steve, get up! The house is on fire!” Smoke began filling the small bathroom causing Anne to gasp and cough.

“What?” Steve said in a stronger voice, looking around. “Oh shit!” He rolled off Anne onto the tile floor. It was still cool, but the air was heating up quickly. He heard Anne coughing. His dazed mind struggled to form a plan.

Anne tugged Johnnie’s shoulders forward urging him to sit up. Johnnie, wide-eyed and in shock from the explosion, was too terrified to move. “Come on, Sweetie,” Anne encouraged, “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Steve snatched three towels from under the sink and shoved one under the faucet to wet it. He coughed from the harsh smoke stinging his nose and trachea. He threw the first one at Anne. “Wrap this around your nose and mouth.”

Anne pulled the coolness of the towel around her nose and mouth wrapping it around her neck. She caught the second one for Johnnie and covered his face too.

“Keep low,” Steve shouted through his own towel. His head pounded, but he was thinking clearly. The options were not good. The fire began to consume the doorframe and through the shattered wall he could see only a sheet of fire. It was becoming a struggle to breathe.

There were no windows in the bathroom. The only way out was through the fire in the doorway. And Steve only had his jeans on.

“Let’s go.” Steve shouted. “Into Johnnie’s room.” He scooped up Johnnie and stooping over, ran through the doorway, half expecting to run into a wall of fire. Anne grabbed the cell phone from the floor and followed.

What was left of Johnnie’s room was filling with heavy smoke, but Johnnie’s bed by the window was not burning. The window had shattered, leaving shards protruding from the frame. Anne jumped onto the bed to open the window when suddenly a shadowy figure of man carrying a rifle appeared just outside. Anne screamed, jumping back. Steve instinctively fell to the floor over Johnnie.

“Steve!” Rich’s voice called out. “Anne!”

“Rich!” Anne yelled. “We’re in here!”

The rifle butt cleared the remaining window shards. “Come on, Anne.” Rich’s powerful hands gripped Anne under her shoulders and pulled her through to safety.

Rich appeared back at the window and Steve thrust Johnnie through to his waiting arms.

Coughing from the thickening smoke, Steve looked around at his son’s room and thought of the wonderful times they had all had playing together, right on this bed. All the bedtime stories he had told his son and all the laughing and tickles they had shared. It would be gone forever. A burning chunk of ceiling material fell next to Steve.

“Come on, now,” Rich commanded.

Steve tumbled out head first, landing on the bougainvillea, which tore at his bare chest and stomach. Rich pulled him to his feet and helped him walk away from the house.

“Thanks,” Steve said in gasping breaths, triggering a coughing spell.

Rich asked, “Who were those guys?”

Steve ignored the question and hugged Anne and Johnnie tightly. “Are you okay?” He walked them even further away from the burning house.

“We’re fine.” Anne held Johnnie’s trembling body in both arms. “Scared, that’s all.”

“Kerry!” Steve exclaimed, remembering. He ran, ignoring the sharp rocks on his feet and the spiny bougainvillea that clawed his bare chest. There was no structure left on this side, the yard covered with chunks of debris, many of which were still burning briskly. He stepped carefully in his unshod feet. Kerry must be buried underneath.

Rich joined him to kick away hot, smoking chunks of drywall and framing with his shoes. Moments later, Steve found his dog. He knelt down beside the motionless form. “Kerry! C’mon, boy, it’s me,” he said. His heart sank. Kerry’s warm neck was limp as he lay on the blood-soaked ground.

Anne and Johnnie knelt next to Steve, who cradled the lifeless dog that had died protecting his house and family.

Anne clutched Johnnie and began to cry as the shock wore off.

Steve put Kerry down and held Anne and Johnnie tightly. He had been lucky tonight—twice. He had been granted a miraculous third chance to protect his family. A swell of anger rose in his chest, deep and ugly as it was naked and unforgiving. He vowed his family would never be put in harm’s way again. And the bastards who did this would pay—somehow.

Chapter 64

T
he gate attendant looked at her watch as Steve held Anne in a long embrace.

“Call me everyday. Promise?” she said as she tore herself away from his embrace.

“Promise.”

“I’m going to worry horribly about you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Promise?” She searched his face with her eyes, as if she would never see him again.

“I promise.” He embraced her again, and then kissed each of her wet eyes in turn. Johnnie had been hugging his leg as if he would never let go. Steve stooped down to hold his little boy again, the last time, he knew, for a long while. He recalled embracing him in that backyard only hours ago thinking he would never see him again. Now, he craved the touch and presence of his family with a new urgency knowing how much he would miss them. Still, it was the right decision and he steeled himself for their absence.

“Last call, folks.” The gate attendant announced, eyeing the police officer that had accompanied Steve and his family to the gate. Reluctantly, Anne and Johnnie, in donated clothes from the police station, walked hand in hand into the Jetway door. They both turned and waved until the door closed, hiding them from view. Steve stayed and watched Southwest’s earliest flight to Las Vegas push back. There, they would change planes and fly to Portland. He waited until it took off and disappeared from sight before reluctantly turning away from the window. He thanked the policeman and trudged back to the main terminal.

He wanted to call Anne already, hold her and snuggle with Johnnie, the three of them together lying on Johnnie’s bed, the bed that was now a smoking carcass.

Rich had pulled his SUV around to Baggage Claim where he waited for Steve.

“Where to, Steve?” Rich asked.

That question caught Steve by surprise. He had not thought that far ahead having been intent on getting Anne and Johnnie safely out of town.

Steve looked at his neighbor, his bodyguard since the fire, his escort to the airport, the provider of his shoes and shirt, and his anchor when everything had suddenly turned upside down.

The house was a total loss. Anne’s car was burned and buried under rubble in their garage. All their pictures, their keepsakes, baseball caps and tee shirts from their travels, Anne’s jewelry, purse, and clothes, not to mention Johnnie’s school art work were all burned or destroyed in the explosion and fire. At least Steve’s wallet had been in his jeans so he could buy the tickets for Anne and Johnnie to leave town.

“Good Sam,” Steve finally answered, using the old term for his hospital. “There’s an on-call room I can shower in and catch some sleep.”

“Sure you don’t want a hotel? You’d be more comfortable.”

“Nah, I’m used to the hospital.” Steve hoped he was making the right decision; he needed time to think and plan. The hospital was familiar and he had resources there he wouldn’t have in a hotel.

“Okay, your call.”

They reached the large hospital complex in fifteen minutes, maneuvering through the early morning streets. Rich pulled into the second-story emergency room entrance. “Okay, Steve, here you go. Sure you don’t want a piece?”

Steve shook his head wondering where his own pistol had been when he needed it. “I don’t think packing is allowed in the hospital. They have their own armed guards.”

“Ok,” Rich sighed. “Hell of a night. You get some rest, Okay?”

“Thank you, Rich, for everything.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just call if you need anything.”

“Thanks. You’ve done enough already.”

Steve pushed the car door shut and watched Rich drive off. He looked down at himself wearing Rich’s ill-fitting clothes, a plaid flannel shirt and a pair of sneakers, which were respectively too big and too tight, but would have to do. He would change into some surgical scrubs and find something to eat.

The coming Arizona dawn painted a clutch of high cirrus clouds, red, pink, and orange, striking against the deep azure sky. Ordinarily he would watch for a while, and take in the spectacle until the rising sun washed it out. Instead, he turned and walked into the hospital.

A grumbling stomach led him straight to the cafeteria where he ate alone, avoiding the doctor’s lounge and ignoring the stares of the cafeteria staff.

His mind replayed last night’s events.
Goddamn you, James. I’ll kill you.
Someone wanted him dead, but what for? That same voice called him by name in his house.
Pleasant dreams, Dr. James.
It was cold; like a killer’s. No, Rich told him he had seen three men get into a car before they drove off. Three killers. Why were they after him?

He had discussed it at his house with the Scottsdale police detective, Gershon Harmon—the same one from the hospital just that previous evening—at some length. Harmon’s original take after the car chase was an angry patient. But after the fire, the detective concluded it was far more serious than he first thought.

“Dr. James,” he had said, “your scalp has some determined men after it. Here.” He had written a name and number on the back of his card and had given it to Steve. “Call this man. He can help you.”

Steve reached into the right front pocket of his jeans, the pocket where he usually kept his keys, only there were none and no use for them. He pulled out the card Harmon had given him and flipped it over. Anthony Valenti, P.I., it read.

Magnum, P.I.
Steve thought. Only rich people and beautiful widows needed private investigators. He was neither, which would, he was sure, sorely disappoint this Mister Valenti, P.I.

“Ex-FBI,” Harmon had said. “Solid.”

Steve needed something solid right now.

Chapter 65

A
fter his solitary breakfast, Steve walked through the Emergency Room looking for some ibuprofen. His throat, injured by the clothesline, seemed to be the chief source of his misery. It pounded in symphony with the bruise on his head where it had hit the bathroom wall. That, plus his scalp wound, all throbbed in concert. The ibuprofen he had taken before going to bed, only seven hours ago, had completely worn off.

It was a particularly slow morning for the Emergency Department, unusual for a mid-city hospital. The brightly lit rooms and hallways increased Steve’s head pain. He got four ibuprofen tablets from a sympathetic nurse and swallowed them at a water fountain.