Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(69)

“Oh, Sidney,” she said, “you have no idea how worried I’ve been.”

“Worried?” he repeated quizzically.

She nodded. “I thought you might never wake up. I thought—”

Still not fully comprehending the situation, Sidney said, “I was asleep.”

Carmella leaned over and allowed the full weight of her bosom to settle on his chest. For several minutes she remained in that position, her body blending with his, her finger tracing the edge of his face, her lips whispering how terrified she’d been at the thought of losing him. When a spasm grabbed hold of her lower back, she stood and lifted his hand into hers.

One by one she kissed his fingertips; then she held his hand to her chest and placed it in a spot where he could feel her heartbeat. “I love you, Sidney,” she said. “Love you more than life itself. If you were to die, I’d surely follow you to the grave.”

Sidney wrinkled his brow and asked, “How long was I asleep?”

“Asleep? You weren’t asleep, you were in a coma.”

“Coma?”

“Yes. After they removed the bullets—”

“What bullets?”

“You were shot. Don’t you remember?”

Her question went without an answer, and with each new revelation Sidney appeared more and more confused.

Carmella began at the beginning. She talked of how it had been a perfectly normal Wednesday morning; they’d had breakfast together and he’d gone off to open the store.

“An hour later,” she said, “I got a call saying you’d been shot.” She told him of the horror she’d felt as the ambulance sped crosstown toward the hospital. “I didn’t know if you’d live or die.”

Sidney gave a slight smile. “I’m too ornery to die,” he said. “Seems you’d know that.”

As she continued to tell the story, bits and pieces became familiar to Sidney. Not the whole picture, just tiny snippets. He remembered Martha Tillinger walking into the store and asking where the cake mixes were but little beyond that.

Before Carmella got to the part about Sidney shooting one of the would-be robbers, Barbara Walsh, who’d been in and out of the room numerous times, pulled her aside and suggested she switch to another subject. “When a person’s been through such a trauma, it’s not a good thing to keep reminding them of it.”

Carmella, who wanted nothing more than her husband’s return to health, did as suggested. She began talking about how she couldn’t wait for Sidney to come home.

“We’ll take a vacation,” she said. “Maybe drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains, or maybe spend a few weeks in Ocean City. Agnes Shapiro went there and she said it’s wonderful. Lots to do…”

As the minutes of the day ticked by, Carmella rambled on. She spoke of vacations, planting spring flowers, Crystal Otto’s new baby, and dozens of other things. From time to time Sidney smiled, but most of the time he just listened, his face expressionless. When he dozed off, Carmella kept watch over him. She waited for each rise and fall of his chest to make certain his breath was steady and even. Long after the final visitor’s bell had chimed, Carmella was still sitting beside Sidney.





The Final Shot



Tom Wilson was the newest detective on the Pittsburgh police force. He was full of energy and enthusiasm, and after spending five years as a beat cop he knew what life on the street was like. He didn’t just know what it was like; he was determined to make it better. While Charlie, his partner and a twenty-year veteran on the squad, was ready to write off Butch Wheeler’s murder as something that was justified anyway, Tom was not. He spent two weeks gathering evidence, pulling together the ballistic reports, and talking to everyone who’d ever known Butch. When the finger of guilt pointed to Hurt McAdams, Tom began interviewing everyone who had ever known Hurt, including the elderly Kubick who lived next door to the house where Hurt grew up.

“Sure I seen him,” Kubick said. “He came looking for his daddy.”

“How long ago?” Tom asked.

“A week, two maybe.”

Kubick explained that George McAdams had moved off to some place in Florida, but by now he had no notion of where that someplace might be.

“You tell that to Hurt?” Tom asked.

Kubick nodded.

Tom’s next visit was to the Camp Hill Correctional Institute. After that Tom knew his hunch was right. There was no longer any question about it. Hurt McAdams was the one who put a bullet in Butch Wheeler’s head.

That evening an All-Points Bulletin went out. It said Hurt McAdams was armed and dangerous. The bulletin said McAdams was most likely seeking shelter in Florida with his father. The whereabouts of the father were unknown.

When the bulletin arrived in Miami Beach, it sat buried beneath a stack of other killers, kidnappers, and wife-beaters, all supposedly headed south.





For five days straight Hurt had gone to the Tropical Park Racetrack looking for his daddy, and for five days he’d returned to the sparsely-furnished room disappointed. During those five days, he’d not showered or changed his clothes. At night he removed the sticky leather jacket and draped it across the back of the straight chair beside the bed. Before he hung the jacket, he removed his gun from the pocket and held it in his hands throughout the night. That gun was the one thing Hurt trusted. It was the one thing that could right the wrongs he’d suffered.