Message in the Grave Read online

  The shout and the sudden light startle the figure and he spins to face me. In the beam of my flashlight, I can see his gun clearly.

  “Drop the gun. Drop the gun,” I shout, fighting adrenaline.

  The man doesn’t drop the gun. “You don’t want to do this, Dustin,” he says.

  The face in the beam of my flashlight is familiar. I recognize the voice, the way he says my name.

  “Dad? What the hell?” My hand shakes so badly, the circle of flashlight bounces off his face and around his body.

  “Just back away and leave, son.” Nathan McAllister says calmly. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  “You shot Lane and Vee, this has everything to do with me.” The flashlight beam stops bouncing and I focus it on his face. The eyes I used to know, the eyes so similar to mine, stare directly into the beam. The warmth I remember seeing there is replaced with cold calculation. “Where have you been? How are you here?” I sound like a scared boy, eager for his father. I struggle for professional calm, reach for the emotional detachment I learned at academy.

  They don’t prepare you for this situation in academy.

  He takes a step towards me, his gun trained on me as my gun’s pointed at him. “This isn’t the place for this conversation.” His calm grates my frayed nerves.

  "Fourteen years ago would have been a good time for this conversation." My mind reels to make connections, looks for a way this makes sense. It finds nothing. "All the blood in our kitchen when you were killed? I don't understand."

  He shrugs, "We did a good job, didn't we?" He's so smug, my stomach turns.

  “But mom?” My shock and confusion morph into anger. “You let her sit in prison all this time?” My voice high and strained. The sick feeling in my stomach grows. I never believed mom when she said she didn’t kill him. I’d cut her out of my life completely. I’d deserted her.

  She was innocent.

  Saliva floods my mouth, a precursor to vomiting.

  Keep it together.

  "Business decisions can be hard," he replies with the same sickly-smug expression. "You have a decision to make right now. Forget you ever saw me and leave or I can fix this another way.” He takes another step towards me.

  I want to run from him, want to run from the pain and betrayal from a man I’ve spent my whole life idolizing.

  I press my heels into the tile floor and hold my ground.

  “Drop the gun and put your hands behind your back,” I say desperately. He takes another step, less than ten feet away from me now. “Drop the gun, damn it,” I plead, my finger on the trigger.

  He keeps his gun pointed at me, “I really don’t want to do this,” he says. “Last chance.”

  I hold my position, but the light beam begins swaying wildly from my shaking hands

  “I warned you,” he says then springs forward.

  His shot rings in my ears and I pull my trigger in response.

  Pain engulfs my shoulder. The impact spins me sideways, throws me into the wall. Shock and terror cause my legs to buckle. I slide down the wall, grappling for my gun that has tumbled from my now numb fingers.

  He kicks the gun down the hall and it skitters across the tile. I try to reach for it, but only manage to lay full out on the floor.

  He stands over me, grasping his arm. Blood oozes between his fingers and drips on my chest.

  I’m sickly satisfied to see the blood, but I only grazed him.

  No points to me for that mistake.

  I lay on my back, gasping for air against the heavy protective vest that offered no protection to my shoulder.

  He drops to his knees and holds the gun against my temple. The hot mouth of the barrel singes against my skin. I flinch away from the heat.

  “Stupid boy, I didn’t want to shoot you,” he growls. “Now we have a mess to clean up.”

  That calm, detached voice singes my heart.

  “Why did you do it?” I gasp for answers. “We thought you were dead.”

  “You’re sister didn’t.”

  Through my terror and pain, I fear for Gabby. “Leave her alone,” I try to scream. It comes out as a hoarse gurgle. A detached part of my mind wonders why I can't scream, why I can't talk.

  "I don't want to hurt her. I want her to join us. We can use someone with her special skills."

  An overwhelming need to cough overcomes me.

  Hit my lung. Good God, this is bad.

  I gag up phlegm and blood and spit it in his face.

  He wipes it off his face and onto my chest. “That wasn’t nice,” he hisses. “I didn’t have to hit your shoulder, you know. I could easily have got you in the head.”

  I moan in pain and betrayal. I’ve spent years missing the man I thought was my father. This monster only resembles the man I knew by his eyes. Everything else about him is a stranger.

  "Promise not to get in my way, and I'll do you a favor," he says suddenly.

  I don't want anything from this man except justice for my family.

  With the gun pressed to my head, I’m in no position to argue.

  “I promise,” I manage to croak. My chest aching with the effort.

  "We have a deal coming up and it won't do for you to be snooping around. Be a good boy and mind your own business. Can you do that?”

  A spasm of coughing won’t let me speak, so I nod.

  "That's my smart boy." He pushes the gun tight against my skull, then removes it. He fumbles on my chest until he finds my radio. “Officer down. Kingston Winery. Officer down.”

  He drops the radio back on my chest, stands, and kicks my gun further down the hallway.

  “You never knew it, but I was at all your basketball games,” he says, the moonlight from the sliding door behind him. "You were a talented kid and grew into an amazing man. I was even at your graduation from academy."

  Words I would have died to hear before. Now I might die hearing them.

  But he keeps talking and ruins it. “That Alexis is amazing, her and baby Walker. It would be a pity if something happened to them."

  Stark terror courses through me, "Stay away from them," I choke out against another build-up of blood in my throat.

  He doesn’t answer. He’s disappeared out the sliding door and into the night.

  I lay in the silent house, my blood soaking my shirt and spreading on the tile beneath me. I strain to hear anything from upstairs. A cry in the dark, a shuffle of movement to let me know Vee and Lane might still be alive.

  For several minutes, only my rasping breath and the occasional crackle of my radio fills the silent hall.

  I focus on the radio transmissions from my fellow officers. Their many voices comfort me as my blood spreads on the tile, seeps into the waist of my pants.

  Too much blood, too much blood.

  Dad is alive and he shot me.

  One voice crackles louder than the others.

  “Dustin, if you can hear me, hold on.” Lucas. My best friend in the world. I don’t have the strength to reach the radio to respond.

  Lucas is on the way.

  I’ll hold on for him.

  I need to see Alexis again, need to pull her close to me at night in bed.

  I’ll hold on for her.

  I need Walker. I must see him grow up. I must be the father I never had.

  I’ll hold on for him.

  The darkness of the hall grows more complete and it gets harder to keep my eyes open. The safety vest pushes against my chest, each breath a battle.

  I’ll hold on. I’ll hold on.

  The hall fills with red and blue lights. I barely register their swirling pattern against the walls. The whooshing of my blood in my ears blocks out the sirens.

  Voices shout to me as my fellows storm the house.

  They’re here.

  I held on.

  Chapter 25

  Lucas

  The acres of stretching vineyards can’t pass quickly enough as I speed down the back road to Kingston Winery. My hands shake o
n the steering wheel and my eyes fuzz. I wipe the moisture away with impatient strikes at my eyes. Let him be okay. Let him be okay.

  Overwhelming guilt swamps me. I should have been with him. He’s my partner, my friend.

  I wanted to make a little extra money to send to Olivia, so I picked up the extra patrol shift. Thinking of my young daughter increases my agitation. I want to call and hear her sweet voice, want to assure myself she’s okay.

  "Get your crap together, man," I yell in the car. "She's fine. Everyone's fine."

  Except for Dustin.

  He should have been fine.

  I should have been with him.

  I did deep for calm detachment as the house looms, the lights in the sky growing larger as I push on the gas pedal.

  Gravel from the driveway skids from my tires as I slam on the brakes next to the two cruisers that arrived before me. The pounding of my feet matches the pounding in my heart as I run to the house.

  Let him be okay. Let him be okay.

  Officer Patterson kneels next to Dustin’s still body, pressing on his shoulder. The tile floor jams painfully into my knees as I land next to him.

  “He’s still alive?” I ask.

  “Barely. The ambulance will be here any minute," Patterson says, his face pale and his eyes wide.

  Patterson joined the force last summer and this is his first shooting victim.

  “Keep the pressure on,” I say gently. “Any other injuries you can see?” I scan Dustin’s body, avoiding his face to keep my composure. The pool of blood surrounding the uniform is jarring enough.

  "Looks like the blood's all from here, but I didn't want to move him until the medics arrive,” Patterson answers.

  “Less than an inch from his vest,” I muse. “Luck or talent?”

  I swim in helplessness, watch Dustin's chest rise and fall with labored breaths.

  Keep breathing. Just keep breathing.

  Activity from upstairs draws my attention from the tiny circle of Dustin, Patterson, and I. "What happened?"

  “Two victims upstairs,” Patterson tells me. “The homeowners, shot in the bedroom. Lane and Vee Markle. McAllister must have startled the shooter and got hit himself.”

  Holding Dustin’s rough hand, I run the radio transmissions through my mind. “Dustin called shots fired. Then a few minutes later, officer down.” Something niggles at my mind. “Did you know Dustin well?”

  “Not really,” Patterson says.

  “Well enough to recognize his voice on the radio, though, right?” I look at Dustin’s face, thinking how much I want to hear that voice right now.

  Another officer shouts into the house, “Ambulance is here.”

  “Did the officer down transmission sound like Dustin to you?” I ask Patterson.

  Patterson has his eyes locked on the doorway, waiting anxiously for the medics. "I didn't pay much attention. Maybe it was a different voice," he says vaguely.

  The rattle of a gurney being lowered from the ambulance and directions being called out almost drowns out the rattling word from Dustin.

  I lean forward, my ear nearly touching his lips. “Dad,” Dustin says.

  Dropping his hand, I back into the front room, allow the medics to do their work in the hall.

  I want to scream to the medics, “You have to save him, he’s one of ours.”

  I don’t have to say it out loud, each one of us is already thinking it. All the officers on-scene gather on the front lawn as the medics wheel Dustin out of the house. As a solid group, we watch in solemn silence as our fellow is loaded.

  Lights and sirens flare into life and the ambulance speeds away. We watch until it turns onto the road. Someone breaks the silence with a shout of, “Good luck, McAllister.”

  Our group breaks ups. A few men pat me on the shoulder with words of encouragement. “He’s tough, he’ll make it,” and “We’ll get this bastard,” float around the front yard.

  “He said it was his dad,” I mumble to one of my friends in blue.

  “His dead dad? He must be hallucinating.”

  “Maybe,” I reply vaguely. “Maybe not.” If Nathan McAllister shot his own son, what else might he do before I catch him?

  How do I catch a ghost?

  Chapter 26

  Alexis

  Walker crawls to the open tub of Christmas decorations and pulls to his chubby legs. My heart swells with pride at the accomplishment.

  “Good job, buddy,” I tell my son. “Won’t Daddy be surprised to see you do that when he gets home.”

  Walker reaches into the tub and grabs a fragile glass ornament. I quickly put the lid on the tub and distract him with his favorite cop car toy. “You have to wait,” I tell him.

  We both have to wait. Dustin was going to be home earlier so we could decorate the tree together. “Just have to make a quick stop and follow up on something,” he’d said.

  I fight my usual battle with impatience. Dustin’s quick stops usually take longer than he expects. In our four years of marriage, I’ve come to terms with his erratic schedule and unexpected calls away from us. I knew what I was getting into when I took my vows, and decided sharing Dustin with his job was better than not having him at all.

  The empty tree bothers me tonight. The dark branches, bare of lights and glittering ornaments looks sad and lonely.

  I feel sad and lonely.

  Flipping through Facebook on my phone fills the emptiness for a while. Several friends have posted pictures of their decorations already. I imagine the pictures I can post tomorrow.

  The phone rings in my hand and Lucas’ number replaces Facebook on the screen.

  Dread sinks into every inch of my body. Decoration pictures fade into meaningless nonsense.

  I look at my son playing on the floor as the phone continues to ring, praying this call isn’t going to change his life.

  Lucas never calls me, has never had a reason to call me.

  My mind fills with terror at what he might say.

  I push the icon to answer, “Hello?”

  Please, please, please.

  “Alexis?”

  His worried tone makes me want to scream and throw the phone.

  My eyes locked on Walker, I ask, "He's hurt, isn't he?"

  Lucas gets right to the point. “He’s alive, but he’s been shot.”

  The scream inside me claws to be let out. I don’t want to scare Walker. I cling to the first part.

  “He’s alive?”

  “They just took him in the ambulance. Alexis, I’m so sorry. He was shot in the shoulder, but it looks like the bullet may have nicked a lung.” He stops talking suddenly, no doubt wanting to spare me the details.

  I’m flying down the hall to our room, stepping out of my bright holiday pajama pants as I go. “But he’s breathing? He’s still with us?”

  I need to hear it again. I need to hold to that fact.

  “Yes.” One word, full of sorrow and regret.

  That's all I need to hear. I hang up on Lucas and drop the phone on our bed. The bed I sleep in with Dustin. The bed we made Walker in. The bed he will return to.

  Any other option is unthinkable. Dustin is the strongest man I know. He’ll fight with everything in him to return to us.

  I pull on the first clothes I find and tuck my phone into my pocket.

  The scream still claws at my throat.

  I shut the bedroom door and shove my face into a pillow. It smells like Dustin.

  The scream finds its release.

  I give into the terror, to the pain, to the primal need to wail, until my throat hurts and my face burns. When I’m done, I hold Dustin’s pillow to my chest, breathe in his scent for several moments.

  Spent and empty, I drag myself from our bed and wash my face in our bathroom. Dustin’s razor sits near the sink. I finger it, praying he’ll use it again.

  The initial rush of pain over, I jump into action.

  I need to be near him.

  As quickly as possible, I strap Wa
lker into his carrier and toss a few things into his diaper bag. He still holds his cop car in his hand.

  Right now, I hate the sight of it. Being a cop got his daddy shot.

  I take the car from him and throw it across the kitchen. It hits the hard floor and a tire flies off.

  Walker wails.

  No matter how hard I try to stop them, tears stream down my cheeks.

  Walker wails louder, sensing my upset.

  Guiltily, I pick up the car with a missing tire and hand it back. “Sorry, buddy,” I tell him, kissing his damp cheeks. “So sorry, buddy.”

  My tears stream unchecked as I swing the carrier over my arm and head to the door. I turn to grab my keys and see the empty Christmas tree in the living room.

  “We’ll be back,” I tell the tree as I shut the door. “All three of us.”

  Chapter 27

  Gabby

  My mind spins as fast as the tires on my Charger as I drive towards the hospital. The call from Lucas and my call to Grandma Dot has me reeling. The heart-break in both their voices echoes my own emotions.

  Lucas told me Dustin said, “Dad.”

  That breaks me more than anything. Dad must truly be alive.

  And he shot Dustin.

  Rage narrows my vision to slits of determination.

  I make a u-turn and drive out of town towards Kingston Winery.

  If I have any hope of finding Nathan McAllister, I need to see the scene.

  There are so many vehicles at the winery, I have to park near the road. I hug the shadows as best I can and slink towards the house. If I can get close enough, I might be able to sneak into the scene.

  From the far corner of the house, I duck under the yellow tape. Keeping to the bushes, I make my way towards the front porch. Several uniformed officers mill around, their backs to me.

  Thankfully, none of them are Lucas.

  A few feet from the front door, I straighten my back and raise my chin.

  Pretend you have every right to be here and maybe no one will question you.

  With fake confidence, I step out of the bushes and stride up the steps. I bump into an officer leaving the house, but look him in the eye and keep walking.

  He lets me pass.

  The pool of drying blood in the hall stops me cold.