A Very Married Christmas: A Silver Bell Falls Holiday Novella(10)
Chapter Four
Later that afternoon, Melanie was sitting at her desk and working on her next book. She had a huge picture window in front of her that gave her a fantastic view of the property and she smiled as she looked up and saw a little bit of snow starting to fall. She shivered slightly and her mind wandered to what she was going to make for dinner tonight. It seemed like the perfect weather for some homemade soup or stew, but she wasn’t sure there was enough time to make one.
Standing, she stretched and walked down the hall to the kitchen to see what kind of ingredients she had on hand. Josiah tended to do the grocery shopping—something he loved but she hated—and every day became a game of “What’s for dinner?” She was about to pull the refrigerator door open when the doorbell began to ring incessantly.
“What in the world?” she murmured, walking quickly toward the door. Pulling open the door, she gasped when she saw her father standing there looking solemn. “Dad? What are you…?”
He stepped inside and gently grasped her shoulders. “Mel, has anyone called you yet?”
She didn’t need to ask why. Her heart simply stopped. This was the moment she always dreaded every time Josiah walked out the door. Her eyes instantly began to sting with tears as she shook her head. “What happened? Where is he?”
“Go get your coat,” he said, his voice a little gruff. “They took him to Silver Bell Memorial.”
Grabbing her purse, she followed her father out of the house and climbed into his car, which was still running. They hadn’t even made it off the property when she began grilling him for information.
“Did someone call you? Why didn’t they call me?” Digging through her purse, she pulled out her phone. “Who do I need to call? Is anyone at the station?”
“Mel, you have to calm down, sweetheart.”
“Calm down? Dad, you tell me something’s happened to Josiah but you haven’t said what. You tell me he’s at the hospital, but you won’t say why! You need to tell me what’s going on!”
“From what I can tell—and mind you, this is largely hearsay because I wasn’t there myself and you know how gossip flies around town and…”
“Dad!” she cried with frustration. “Focus!”
John let out a slow breath. “Okay, I went into town to grab some lunch and a lot of the roads were still blocked off. I thought it was a little odd since Josiah had left right after breakfast. So I was in the diner and everyone was talking about it.” He paused. “Normally you only see a crowd like that at breakfast, but it was wall-to-wall people in there.”
“Dad…” Melanie prompted with annoyance.
“The chase coming through town originated in Albany. The guy being chased is wanted for a double-homicide and had already caused multiple accidents.”
“Oh my gosh…”
“The way law enforcement figured, the guy should have been running out of gas by the time he hit our city limits. There were roadblocks set up all over town—Josiah was at the last one.”
With her stomach in knots, she both needed to know and dreaded what she was about to hear. “What happened?”
“Mel…”
“I need to know, Dad!”
“The driver crashed through the first three and everyone knew he was going to do the same at the last one. They don’t have any major deterrents to stop drivers—at the first three they used construction barrels and several cars but that did little more than slow this guy down momentarily. His car was damaged but he didn’t stop.”
John paused and Melanie wanted to scream with frustration.
“Josiah had less at his disposal because no one expected the driver to get that far so essentially…”
“It was just him,” she said quietly.
“He shot out the front tire and the driver went off the road and hit a tree. Josiah went to confront him and was shot.”
Crying out in horror, Melanie felt like she was going to be sick.
“Where…I mean…what…what happened next?”
“There was already a line of law enforcement on this guy’s tail so they got there just as it happened. They were able to apprehend the guy and get an ambulance to Josiah as fast as they could.”
Her heart was in her throat at the image of Josiah fighting for his life! “Dad, what else do you know? How was he when the paramedics got to him?”
“All I know, Mel, was he was shot and unconscious. Someone said he was shot twice but…I don’t know for sure.” Taking one hand from the steering wheel, John reached over and took his daughter’s hand. “I wish I knew more. I really do.”
Tears were streaming down her face and she cursed the long drive to the hospital. “Should I call the hospital? The station? I…I just don’t know what to do and I feel so helpless!”
“You can try to call the hospital, but we’ll be there soon enough. You do whatever you need to do to put your mind at ease.”
Somehow, Melanie didn’t think anything was going to put her mind to ease except seeing Josiah for herself and hearing that he was going to be all right. But in the meantime, she placed a call to the hospital. After a bit of a runaround, the only information she was given was how he was indeed in the emergency room and the doctors were with him. With a curse, she made her next call to the station and got one of the deputies—Jared O’Neil.