No Gun Intended (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

Mickey and I were sitting in Claudia's hospital room, with the dividing curtain drawn so that we couldn't be seen from the doorway. Luis was hanging out in the hospital entrance lobby. None of us knew what Wesley Young looked like, but Luis was going to text us if he saw anyone coming in that could be him. Both Mickey and Luis had gotten on the good side of Dawson and Monroe, apparently. They got the go-ahead to stake out Claudia's room.

Mickey had his gun in his shoulder holster. I assumed Luis was carrying, too. “Mickey, about my gun.”

“Mmm. What about it?”

“You know I don't like it.”

“You shot pretty well for your first time at the range.”

“I'm pretty sure that will be my only time at the range.”

“I'm not going to pressure you about this, babe. But I do think we should discuss it some more. Once we're back in New York.”

“Okay.” I found the remote for the TV and turned it on with the sound muted. “Aha!
Overboard
is on, with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. Ever see it?”

“No. Good?”

“For a light comedy, yup. Goldie Hawn falls off her yacht and has amnesia, and Kurt Russell convinces her that she's his wife and the mother of his four sons. Then she wakes up, but they've fallen in love, so she gives up her upper-crust lifestyle for him and the boys.”

“Sorry, it sounds stupid.”

“It's good stupid.”

“Did you just call me stupid?”

I laughed. “No, I mean it's a good kind of stupid.”

Mickey's phone buzzed. He read the text.

“Our Wesley might be entering the building right now.”

We both stood up and positioned ourselves toward the head of Claudia's bed and waited.

Sure enough, the door opened and footsteps approached the curtain. A young man in a hoodie pulled it away and bolted out the door as soon as he saw us.

We took off after him. I yelled, “Stop! We just want to talk to you!” but he kept running, and we kept following.

Wesley, assuming it was Wesley, was clearly an athlete. He tore down the hall to the stairwell and flew down the stairs. I tried to keep up, but my body was still recovering from my last run through the woods in stocking feet, so I wasn't up to my usual pace.

Mickey was a step or two behind me, and I figured I was in his way, so I moved over and he raced by me. I continued down, round and round the staircases, ten steps each, then a landing, then ten steps, then a landing.

“Wesley! We want to help!” I yelled. I could hear him still running. Finally I heard a door slam, then open and slam again. I was at the door ready to open it when I heard the shot.

“MICKEY!” I screamed and ran out the door.

Immediately I was tackled to the ground.

“Stay down, Annabelle!” Mickey warned, his body covering mine.

“Are you shot?”

“No. Wesley. He's lying on the ground over there. I don't know where the shooter is. Just stay down.” He twisted his body a little to look around, but it was mostly dark; the outside lights of the hospital didn't reach a very far. He reached up to jiggle the door handle, but it had automatically locked when it closed. “Damn it. Babe, we need to get away from the light here and into some dark spot so that we can't be seen.”

I nodded, trying to breathe normally.

“Can you crawl?”

“Yup.”

“Okay.” He pointed. “The corner of the building is just up there. Head straight for it and roll down that little embankment. See it?”

I raised my head to look. “I see it.”

“I'm going to run, while you crawl, in case the shooter's there. I'll get his attention.”

“Mickey, that doesn't sound like a good idea…”

“No discussion, babe. Ready? On three. One, two, three.” Mickey leaped off of me and ran while I crawled. My knees and elbows were not happy, scraping along the cement walkway, but I got to the edge where there was a grassy decline, and I propelled myself over it, rolling down into Mickey's arms.

There were no shots.

Mickey pulled out his phone and speed-dialed Luis. “Side of the building, Luis. Wesley was shot. Can you get to us?” He hung up and moved to squat in front of me. “Stay low, babe. We're okay.” Then he called 911 and gave them our location.

Luis came around the building in a crouch. I could make out his silhouette and saw that his gun was drawn. Mickey loud-whispered his name, and Luis scurried down the hill to us. “Are you both all right?”

“Yes,” Mickey answered.

“What about Wesley? Is he alive?”

“Don't know. He doesn't seem to be moving.” Mickey indicated Wesley's prone body with a nod. “Not even sure it's him, though it's a good bet. We should wait for the police.”

“I agree with you. We do not want to be the next targets.”

So we sat and waited the few minutes for the police to arrive.

Three squad cars pulled up to the side of the hospital, their headlights blazing across the back expanse. Wesley's body was in full view, stretched out on his stomach like he was ready for a massage.

Mickey and Luis put their guns on the ground and shouted out to the police. One officer came over to us and told us to stay put until it was safe.

I watched two officers approach Wesley. One of them knelt beside him and checked his pulse on the side of his neck. The other cops were fanning out across the parking lot.

Still no shots.

A couple of guys in scrubs brought a gurney. Once the police gave them an all-clear signal, they rolled it up to Wesley and opened up a box that I figured was an EMT's kit.

They bent over Wesley.

Mickey and Luis and I were silent, watching.

They pulled a backboard off the top of the gurney and laid it next to Wesley, quickly sliding it under him. They picked him up and placed him on the gurney and hustled it back into the hospital.

“He's not dead, right? They wouldn't have handled him that way if he was dead, right, Mickey?”

“Right.”

I was so relieved I stood up without thinking, and that's when another cop turned his gun on me and yelled “Freeze!”

I threw my hands up in the air, lost my balance, and fell backward down the hill, flashing on Goldie Hawn when she took a tumbler off that yacht.

At least I wasn't going to wake up to mothering four boys. Ever.

Chapter Twenty-two

It was another excruciatingly long night. A million questions, asked and answered, over and over again. At least Dawson and Monroe stood up for us—well, for Mickey and Luis. There was some kind of guy-magic going on there. Monroe still bugged the hell out of me. He had kept sizing me up, trying to stare me down. Little did he know that I was the champion of staring contests. I might be freaking out inside, but I'm not going to look away first, nosiree bob. What did I have to do to stop being regarded as a loose cannon criminal girl from the big city, all about guns and backpacks and putting girls in comas and getting kidnapped by thugs who probably just wanted me to teach them my trick pool shots anyway, and…?

“Babe.”

“Huh?”

“You're muttering to yourself.”

“Sorry. It's Monroe. He's so irritating.” We were alone in the hallway, waiting for Luis.

“He's okay. Just not your style.”

“Hmm. I forgot to ask you, Mickey. Did you find out from Monroe and Dawson about us getting stopped twice, and that cop knowing my name?”

“Yeah. The police had your dad's license plate number with your name, just as a if-you-see-this,-keep-an-eye-out sort of thing. Not an APB.”

“Oh, that makes me feel SO much better.” I rolled my eyes.

Mickey put his arm around me. “Like it or not, you're connected with a murder, and now with Wesley Young getting shot…In fact, I'm reconsidering spending so much time with you myself. Seems very dangerous.”

I elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

“Ow! See? You can't be trusted!”

I rolled my eyes again.

Luis walked down the hall toward us and we stood up. “All finished?”

“
Sí, amiga
. These are good police. They are doing a good job.”

It was three o'clock in the morning, again, by the time we got back to the house. We came in the front door to find Dusty greeting us and Dad lying on the couch, reading a book. I hadn't called, not wanting to wake him and Mom up. He didn't look happy.

“Dad, we're all okay. I'm sorry I didn't call. There was an, um, incident at the hospital, and we ended up at the police station for the last couple of hours, and…”

“An incident?”

“A shooting, Jeff,” Mickey answered. “We were chasing Wesley and someone shot him outside the building. We're fine.”

Dad took this in, then stood up and pointed at my face. “You're bleeding?”

“No, Dad. Just scraped. Took a tumble. But I'm great, really!” I hugged him. “Thanks for staying up, though I wish you hadn't. I feel bad that you're not asleep.” I let him go.

Dad put his book down on the coffee table. “Bea, Mickey, Luis, this has got to stop. I know that none of this is your fault or your doing, but I can't have Sylvia in danger, and I need to feel confident that Annabelle is as safe as she can be.”

“Jeff, I can only say…”

Dad held up his hand to stop Mickey from continuing. “I also know that you will be in other dangerous situations in the future, given your, er, current livelihoods.

“Jeff, I understand that you're worried….”

Dad stopped him again. “My problem is that this young woman here is my extraordinary daughter, my only child. It wasn't that long ago that she had a job as a publicist for a publishing company in San Francisco, and now she's chasing bad guys, getting kidnapped, and being harmed. I don't like it.”

None of us said anything.

“But how she leads her life, and how the two of you lead yours, is all up to you. I ask for only one thing.”

“Name it, please, Dad. You're freaking me out with all of this serious father talk. I feel like it's 1999 when I was seventeen and stayed out on New Year's Eve partying like it was 1999, remember that song?, and I came home at two, and you were so pissed off at me I thought I would be grounded in solitary confinement until George Clooney actually got married, which would have been right around now, come to think of it, and that would make it, like, fifteen years in solitary, and…”

“Beatrice Annabelle Starkey, please shut up.”

I did.

“Here are my conditions. You must give me all the details, all the time. I cannot sit here and wonder if you are in trouble. You must figure out ways to call if something goes wrong. And you must let me and Sylvia help, however we can. We're in this, too, now.”

This was not what I was expecting to hear. I thought Dad was going to ask Mickey to take me back to New York. “Oh, Dad, jeez, of course. We won't put you through this again, I promise.” I kissed his cheek. “Let's all go to bed.”

“Mickey? Luis?”

“I hear you loud and clear, sir,” said Luis.

“Jeff, again, I can't apologize enough, and yes, we will keep you posted on all the details while we're here.”

“Fair enough.” Dad picked up his book. “I'm going to bed. Sleep well.” He left us.

Mickey and I said goodnight to Luis, walked into the guest room, and shut the door. “Your old man,” Mickey said, “is not like anyone I've ever met.”

“Solid, through and through. We can't worry him anymore. I'm glad Mom went to bed, anyway.” I kicked off my shoes. “I wonder if we'll ever have a normal visit with them?”

Mickey flopped on the bed. “We will. We'll invite them to New York, sometime when we don't have any cases, and we'll do touristy things.”

“Until then, Mickey…will we find out anything about Wesley tomorrow, do you think?”

“Hope so. Maybe they'll even have found the shooter by now. They had a lot of officers combing the area after we left.”

“Maybe you and I will solve this mystery without the police. Like Luther and Alice Morgan, only you're not a cop any longer and I'm not a psychopath.”

Mickey yawned. “What in God's name are you talking about?”

I planted my palms on the sides of my face. “Luther? You never watched
Luther
? BBC series starring Idris Elba? Jeez, Mickey. As soon as I think you're a highly educated man, you stun me with something like this. I'll have to have to reconsider our entire relationship.”

He pulled me onto the bed and gave me a long kiss. “Enough reconsidering?” he mumbled.

“Yup.”

We went to sleep.

Chapter Twenty-three

Just when we thought things were getting clearer, the case got muddier than a pig sty. While we didn't know what the hell Loren Scranton was up to, we saw no connection between him and Claudia. We assumed that Wesley Young was recovering in the hospital from a gunshot wound, while whoever shot him would soon be arrested. We assumed Claudia would eventually wake up (well, I assumed that anyway, putting on my best Pollyanna mindset), and we assumed that Greta and Julius were connected to all of it, theorizing that the gun that killed Hank Howard or Howard Hanks came from them, or else why would they have kidnapped me?

But, like I said, things got as crystal clear as a brick wall.

The first wrong assumption had to do with Wesley Young. It turned out that the guy we chased out of the hospital wasn't Wesley Young at all. He had no ID on him, but once he started talking to the police, he said he was a friend of Wesley's and was looking in on Claudia for him.

His name was Ricky Martin, and I'm not kidding.

When the police asked him who he thought might have shot him, he said he didn't have a clue.

Dawson told Mickey he didn't believe anything Ricky said.

The shooter seemed to have gotten away from the police as fast as a pop-up fly ball.

The next assumption that was wholly mistaken was that Loren Scranton was a separate matter. We were astonished to hear that he had visited Claudia in the hospital, according to a nurse—who wasn't Tiffany.

“
Huh
?” I wondered aloud, when Mickey was giving us the recap he got from Dawson on the phone. We crowded around the dining room table, drinking coffee and eating cheesy scrambies, prepared by Mickey. “Scranton
is
involved in this mess after all? Are you serious?”

Mickey sighed. “He might have gone to the hospital as part of his stalking routine. Maybe he followed you and Sylvia there, but didn't get to Claudia's room until you had left.”

Mom took a swig of coffee. “That's possible. We weren't in the room very long, and then we went to the cafeteria. That prickbrain.”

“Well,” said Dad, “if he shows up again we'll put a restraining order on him. I wonder how long he'll be in Portland?”

No one answered, since no one knew.

“Okay, so what are we doing today?” Dad continued.

“I still think we should try to find Wesley Young. He could be the answer to many questions,” replied Luis.

“I agree,” said Mickey, “even though the police are probably conducting their own search. Annabelle, when were the Bigelows going to be back in town?”

“Mr. B was going to Miami. Mrs. B should be back today. Let's go see her.”

Mom stood up. “Sounds like a plan. I'll do the dishes while you all get showered and dressed.”

Mickey, Luis, and I traded glances. “Um, Mom, I don't think all five of us should go. I think you and Dad should stay here.”

Dad regarded me over the top of his glasses. “Nancy Bigelow might open up to your mother, a doctor and a mother herself.”

I couldn't believe that Dad was suggesting that Mom play detective, given everything that had transpired over the last couple of days, even given the previous night's conversation. “I don't want to overwhelm her, is all,” I sputtered.

Luis stood up. “I do not have to go, Annabelle. Your mother could be an asset. I think you are right, Jeff. I will see if I can dig up any information on Greta and her friend Julius. Perhaps there will be some lead as to who was with Julius when he kidnapped you.”

I was about to protest again when Mickey stopped me. “It's fine for Sylvia to come, and thank you, Sylvia, for helping. You, too, Jeff.”

Dad turned his attention to the newspaper. “You see Scranton, you know what to do.”

“Are you talking to me, dear, because I know exactly what I'm going to do to that sleazy snake if he shows up.” Mom turned on the faucet in the sink.

“I wasn't talking to you, Syl.”

“We just want you to talk to Nancy Bigelow, Mom, okay? No shenanigans.”

Mom laughed. “Yes, boss.”

But we didn't end up going to see Nancy Bigelow, because one of my assumptions was correct: Claudia Bigelow woke up.

***

We were back at the hospital—Mom, Mickey, and me. We heard the news about Claudia because when I called Nancy on her cell phone, she was already at Claudia's bedside. Claudia had woken up in the very wee hours of the morning, and Nancy had raced down from Seattle. I asked her if it would be okay for us to stop by. She told me the police had come and gone, and that Claudia was very tired, but that she already told Nancy that she wanted to see me. She remembered that she had set up a meeting, and that she was attacked.

When we walked into the room, Claudia was propped up in bed, sipping through a straw. Nancy was seated by the window, casually leafing through a
People
magazine. It was a really old one, with Jennifer Lopez and her kids on the cover. She was so good in that 1990s movie with George Clooney,
Out of Sight.
Since then, well, no comment.

Anyway, Nancy greeted us, then pointed at her daughter. “She's back!”

Claudia put her cup down and smoothed out the sheets in front of her. She looked exhausted.

Mom walked around to the far side of the bed and took Claudia's hand. “How are you feeling, dear? I'm the doctor who found you at the Japanese Garden.”

Claudia half smiled. “I'm doing all right. I have a headache, and I'm really tired.” She sized up me and Mickey. “Are you the detective?”

Mickey nodded. “Yes, I'm…”

“No, I meant you,” she interrupted, pointing at me.

“I'm Annabelle Starkey, yes, the person you called. You ended up with my backpack. This is Mickey, my partner.”

“Glad to see you awake,” Mickey said.

Claudia kept her eyes on me. “The police told me that you
did
have the backpack with the gun.”

“Yes.”

“You didn't tell me that when I called.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You said you were in trouble. I wanted to see if I could help, and I wanted to find out why I ended up with that gun.” I approached her on the opposite side of the bed from Mom. “Do you still need my help?”

Claudia pulled her hand away from Mom and folded her arms across her chest. “I don't know.”

“Claudia, what about Wesley Young?” asked Mickey. “Were you getting the gun for him, or from him, for some reason?”

Claudia clenched her teeth. “Wesley has nothing to do with this.”

Nancy stood up abruptly. “That's what you keep saying, but we don't believe you. He was never any good for you. He hit you once, remember? My God, Claudia, you can't keep protecting a criminal!” She leaned on the foot of the bed. “Tell these people what you told the police.”

“Wesley didn't hit me and I didn't tell the police anything.”

“Exactly my point! How can we help you if you won't talk to us? You know as soon as you feel better the police will probably arrest you.”

“For what, Mom? For getting mugged? For saying that the backpack was supposed to be for me? I haven't broken any laws.”

Mickey sighed. “She's right. They can hold her for questioning, I suppose, but they have no proof that the gun was supposed to be hers, other than Annabelle telling them so.”

Claudia glared at me. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Hey! We probably saved your life, little missy, so I'd can the Lindsay Lohan whiny act, if I were you! You asked for my help, remember? And police show up when someone gets beaned on a hillside in the middle of the day!”

Mickey put his hand on my arm to stop me.

Claudia started crying. Mom pulled a tissue out of the box by the bed and gave it to her.

Nancy sat back down. “Here we go again. Darling daughter, we all know that you're in some kind of trouble, but we can't help you if you don't tell us what's going on.”

“I don't know who mugged me, okay?!” Claudia shouted. “And I'm not going to talk to you about why I wanted that gun!” She was still shouting.

Mickey and I traded a quick look.
Aha. She at least admitted that the gun was hers.

Nancy gulped, stunned. “What? You have to tell the police.”

“I'll deny I said anything about that if any of you tell them.”

Mom patted the top of her head. “Calm down now. We don't have to go over all of this right now. But I would like to ask you how you know Loren Scranton.”

“Who?”

“Loren Scranton.”

“Don't know him.”

“He came to visit you.”

“Must have been asleep.”

“What about the note, Claudia?” I stepped in.

“What note?”

“The one I found in your drawer. It's gone now. Someone took it. But wait, here's a picture of it.” I pulled out my phone, dialed it up, and held the screen in front of her face.

Now, she didn't look so hot anyway, but when she read that note, her complexion grayed to the hue of Richard Gere's hair. She tried to fake it, though. “I don't know what that is. I have never seen it before.”

I knew she was lying. Her bluff was as transparent as Jennifer Lopez's clothes.

With that, she reached over to the buttons to level the bed and announced that she needed to rest and would everyone please leave. Nancy didn't move, but Claudia said, “You, too, Mom.” Nancy threw the magazine on the floor and huffed out, saying she might as well go back to the hotel and get some rest.

Mom told Claudia to rest and that we were her friends, then Mickey followed Mom out the door. I lingered for a few seconds, waiting for them to be out, and keeping my eyes on Claudia's face.

I wasn't completely surprised when she whispered, “Come back. Alone.”

I nodded and left.

Beatrice Annabelle Starkey, DDS, was about to be hired on her first case as a detective. Not Mickey, not Luis. Nope, me. I'm the one the client wanted.

Holy crap.