Disturbance (20 page)

I let it pass. I was suddenly feeling a little light-headed and wondered if I should get something to eat. He glanced at his cell phone and read a screen. He looked at me said, “Oh, sorry—my friend’s not going to join us after all.” He hesitated, then said, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, “just shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach, I guess.”

“Should I order something? An appetizer at least?”

“That might be a good idea.” We settled on bruschetta. He went up to the bar again, spoke to the bartender, and came back with a bowl of pretzels. “He’s going to bring us an order, but maybe this will help in the meantime.”

I thanked him, but my stomach started to feel unsettled, so I let them sit on the table.

“Tell me what happened next,” I said, feeling that the most insensitive thing I could do would be to end the conversation at this point but finding it took real effort to concentrate on anything other than my gut.

He studied me and said, “We could save this for another time.”

I shook my head, a bad idea, but he went on.

“I sent a swab of my own DNA in, and sure enough, it matched Miranda’s.”

“Were you happy about that?”

“Yes—but I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I was also scared.”

“Understandable,” I said.

“I looked for her, but I kept hitting brick walls. I even tried to get the police interested, but they felt convinced that Miranda’s grandmother had disappeared with her voluntarily.”

“You don’t?”

“No.” He hesitated. “Forgive me, but you seem to be feeling unwell. Would you like me to give you a ride home?”

At that point, I was feeling very unwell indeed, and also as if I might pass out. “Thanks,” I murmured, hearing myself slur it.

From there my memories of
that afternoon become less reliable. There are whole periods of time that I can’t remember at all. Some of what I do remember, I wish I could forget.

I recall the sound of a chair scraping on the bar’s wooden floor. I recall reassuring bits of words from Donovan, my face forming a giddy smile as he helped me stand. I remember being guided into an SUV, and a drive that seemed to last for days but could have taken a few minutes or several hours.

At some point we stopped. He guided me out of the vehicle and into a room. I have no clear memory of the room or what happened there, or much of anything before we were traveling again. I remember cold air and the smell of pine trees, and being helped out of the car again, and immediately throwing up.

I remember Donovan saying something about telling me the truth, and that he’d help me, that I must understand he had no choice, but I’m not sure that really happened. I felt confused, especially about one odd thing he said repeatedly: “Try not to let them take your parka.”

I was barely aware of what was happening at that point, in a state not unlike being roused from a deep sleep—much more interested in falling back to sleep than in anything going on around me. Whole patches of time disappeared—I am sure that I saw Nicholas Parrish, and that he spoke to me, but my only response was to throw up again, which angered and disgusted him. At some point, I was indoors with no idea how I got there or any ability to comprehend where I was. I grew dizzy, and I think Donovan picked me up and carried me.

Parrish argued with Donovan and was saying something to me, and then, just as I felt myself sliding back into unconsciousness, there was gunfire.

D
onovan Cotter heard the shots and saw panic cross Nicholas Parrish’s face. Donovan’s arms were full—Irene had passed out again—and while he was tempted to drop her and pull out one of his weapons, instead he set her on her side behind the large couch and took cover there himself.

“Fuck you!” a voice shouted from upstairs.

More rounds blasted before Parrish, who had stood frozen in the middle of the room, belatedly followed Donovan’s example.

“Get up there and stop them!” Parrish said.

Donovan stared at him.

Parrish scowled back. “Do you want her to live or—”

“You know she is little more than a curiosity to me,” Donovan said calmly. “I am far more interested in staying alive myself.” He thought for a moment, then said, “I’ll be right back …”

Parrish grabbed him. “You’re not going anywhere!”

“I have a—let’s call it a first aid kit—in the back of my vehicle. From the sound of things, if anyone survives, we’ll need it.”

“You fail to return, and I’ll—”

“Yes, I know. I’ll be back in a minute.”

When Donovan returned with his
field kit, Parrish eyed it warily, but they were both distracted by screams from upstairs.

They heard more shots, followed by several loud thumps.

Then silence.

Donovan waited.

From upstairs, groaning. Parrish looked increasingly anxious but said nothing more.

They heard another groan.

“Help,” Quinn called weakly. “Help!”

“Drop your weapons,” Donovan called.

He heard two heavy thumps.

“Kick the guns away from you.”

They heard the sound of one gun sliding. “I can’t,” Quinn said.

“Hurry,” Kai moaned.

Donovan strapped his field kit to his back, stood, and made his way cautiously up the stairs, gun drawn. Parrish crept behind him.

He found Kai and Quinn sprawled at opposite ends of the hallway. He glanced between the bleeding men. Kai had a wounded arm. Quinn had a head wound, and his right thigh had been hit. Donovan told Parrish to help Kai. He picked up their loose weapons, holstered his own, quickly gave Parrish a pair of gloves and packet of gauze, and told him to apply pressure to Kai’s wound. He then moved toward Quinn.

The hallway was in shambles. Wood, plaster, and a small table lamp had sustained more hits than either combatant.
What lousy aim
, Donovan thought. He made his way over the debris and knelt beside Quinn, who was lying half out of a bathroom.

“That goddamned crazy son of a bitch shot me!” Quinn said, his right hand pressing down on his right leg, the other hand held to his head.

“Looks like you did the same to him,” Donovan said. He took a pair of gloves out of the field kit and put them on. After a quick look at Quinn’s leg, he decided the bullet hadn’t hit an artery and put a thick gauze pad over the wound. He moved Quinn’s left hand away to look at the head wound. “Use both hands to keep the pressure on your leg,” he told him.

“I feel faint.”

“You’ll be all right. Press hard.” Donovan could see that the head wound was superficial, although he was sure it was painful. He took out another sterile pad and pressed it to the wound, then had Quinn put his hand back on it. He returned his attention to the leg wound, quickly cutting away most of the bloody pant leg.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Quinn asked.

“You’d better hope so,” Donovan answered distractedly. The leg looked like hell, and there was a lot of blood, but Donovan had seen many gunshot wounds and knew Quinn was relatively lucky. He’d need to get to a hospital, but it was survivable.

Quinn screeched in protest as Donovan applied more pressure.

“If you’d rather bleed to death, fine. And if someone heard gunfire and next hears your screams, you’ve bought yourself more trouble.”

Quinn gritted his teeth but stopped crying out.

Donovan took a packet of Celox from the field kit and used it to stop the bleeding. He added a field dressing and turned toward Parrish. He was surprised to see him frozen in place.

“Parrish!”

Parrish looked at him blankly.

“How’s Kai?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Come here!”

Parrish hesitated, then crept forward.

Donovan had done extensive research on his father and his brothers, and on Irene Kelly, Frank Harriman, and Ben Sheridan as well. He knew that Parrish rarely shot his victims but was no stranger to firearms, and certainly the long list of Parrish’s psychopathic behaviors included plenty to make one believe he wasn’t afraid of blood, wounds, or body parts.

But perhaps, in Parrish’s world, he had to be the one who inflicted those wounds if he was to tolerate them.

Donovan regretted that circumstances wouldn’t allow him to toy with Parrish’s reaction to his sons’ mayhem. Instead he sharply ordered him to discard the gloves he had on and put on a new pair, so as not to transfer contamination from Kai to Quinn. Parrish obeyed. “Put your hands where mine are. Apply pressure—steady pressure.”

Donovan quickly headed back to Kai, taking the field kit and changing out his own gloves.

Kai’s eyes were shut tight, and he was moaning softly. He had been shot in the right arm.
Probably trying to hit your eye
, Donovan thought.
Neither one of you can aim.

He shook his head. He should have gone for a gunfight with these two weeks ago, shot them dead in the middle of the park. He despised people who carried guns and didn’t know how to use them.

“How harmful could it be, getting shot in the arm?” Parrish asked.

“Very. Fatal, in fact. If it had hit an artery, he’d probably be dead. But as it is, it’s not too bad.” A little too deep to be
called a graze, he thought, and undoubtedly painful. Better to make Parrish and Kai worry about it. He could do that and still tell Parrish the truth, in case Parrish knew more about such wounds than he was letting on. “It may keep him from using the arm for a while. He could easily end up with a bad infection. If that happens, he could lose his arm or even die of blood poisoning.”

Parrish watched Donovan for a few moments, then said, “You didn’t tell me you have medical training.”

“Only what I learned in the service. I’m no doctor. You need to get them to a hospital. Soon.”

“No. Too big a risk. You take care of them.”

“Don’t be a fool.”

“You’d fucking better make sure I get to a doctor,” Quinn said between clenched teeth. “You don’t want me to die—I’ve got a little insurance policy.”

Well
, Donovan thought,
give a few points to Quinn.
Under other circumstances, Donovan would have found the stunned expression on Parrish’s face almost laughable. But the coldness that quickly replaced it ended any desire to laugh.

“What do you mean?” Parrish asked.

“I mean, Daddy Dearest, that I’m not so fucking stupid that I’d come up here to spend time around you and your loving sons without putting something in place to protect myself. If I don’t make contact with an associate at arranged times, all sorts of information gets released to the police.”

Parrish struck him hard across his bloodied face.

Quinn hit him back, knocking him to the floor—a move that shocked Donovan nearly as much as it did Parrish.

“Stop it,” Donovan said. “That won’t get us anywhere. Quinn, sit still or you may bleed to death yet.”

Kai opened his eyes and frowned but stayed out of the argument. Donovan continued working and managed to get the
bleeding stopped. He looked back at Parrish, who was holding a swollen cheek and looking malevolent.

“I may just go ahead and kill you,” Parrish said to Quinn.

“You aren’t one to make rash moves,” Quinn said. “And that would be rash. You need my resources.”

“Has it occurred to you,” Parrish said, “that perhaps I haven’t put my future entirely into your hands? Kai’s already a wanted man, and so am I. Therefore, the only thing of importance you could tell the police is where we are. We don’t have to stay here, so don’t press your luck.”

Quinn smiled. “What are you going to do? Finally kill Violet?”

“No …,” Kai said.

“No,” Parrish said. “I don’t think I’ll be discussing my plans with you, Quinn.”

“After all we’ve been through together?”

“There’s no need for the two of you to fight,” Donovan said. “Quinn and Kai need to get to an ER as soon as possible. I’ll load the two of them into my SUV and take them to a hospital. I can manage it without being seen.”

“They’ll both be arrested!”

“Kai probably will be,” Donovan agreed. “But if we could arrange your escape, we can do the same for him. There’s no reason for them to arrest Quinn.”

“Who’s going to take care of Violet?”

Donovan nodded toward the stairs. “Irene. She took care of her father when he was dying of cancer, I’m sure she can manage Violet’s care.”

“No!” Kai protested. “I’m not going. I’m staying here.”

Donovan stared at him for a moment, then looked at Quinn.

“While I appreciate what you’ve done so far,” Quinn said, “I want to get professional care.”

“Take him,” Parrish said. “He thinks he’s got insurance?
Well, it’s mutual destruction. I’ve got more than enough on him to ensure he’d end up on death row.”

“Exactly.” Quinn smiled faintly. “You don’t try to stab me in the back, I don’t try to stab you in yours.”

“They’ll catch you, Donovan,” Parrish fretted. “They’ll know by now.”

“They may know, but they won’t catch me.”

Parrish helped Kai get settled
in bed, something he could do without lifting. It was left to Donovan to carry Quinn downstairs. He placed him on a large leather couch and covered him with a blanket. Quinn looked tired and weakened, but there was no sign of shock setting in.