Save Her Soul (Detective Josie Quinn #9)(53)
“We’re pinned down,” she shouted into her phone, trying to be heard over the roar of the river. “Someone is shooting at us.”
“What? What the hell?”
“You need to call in extra units right now, and we need an ambulance right away. Do not approach alone and make sure you’ve got your vests on,” Josie told him. “We’re on the interstate. On the eastbound side behind the concrete barriers before the overpass. Vera—Alice—is wounded. Gunshot to the abdomen. She’s alive but I don’t know for how long.”
“Jesus, Josie—”
“Listen to me. Gretchen thinks the shooter is up near the bowling alley. Either inside the building or near it. I’m going to hang up. Call in extra units and approach with caution.”
As she put Gretchen’s phone into her pocket, she heard a siren in the distance. Her heart leapt at the thought that backup was so close, but then she realized it was just the fire company’s emergency siren. The river was about to ravage the city again, and Josie and Gretchen were in its maw, being shot at while trying to keep a wounded woman alive.
Twenty-Six
Gretchen retreated and pressed her back against the barrier, gun still at the ready. “There’s nowhere for us to go,” she said. Water now lifted Vera from her place on the ground. Josie slipped an arm beneath her head to keep her from dropping beneath the surface. “We’re about to go downriver whether we like it or not,” she warned.
“We can’t leave this position,” Gretchen said. “If we come out from behind the barriers, we’re sitting ducks. We can’t do it.”
Vera’s face was deathly white now, her mouth closed and her eyelids hooded. “I don’t think we can move her,” Josie said. Water swirled powerfully around her shins. “But we’re about to get swept away.”
She tried to keep pressure on the wound and keep Vera’s head out of the water, but it was a losing battle. Blood trickled from beneath her raincoat. “I haven’t heard a shot for a while,” Josie said. “Maybe they left. We should move her to the other side. Onto the highway, away from the water.”
Gretchen shook her head. “We can’t. If you’re wrong—”
Another shot boomed. They felt it slice the air just over their heads. Josie threw herself down over Vera, hugging the woman to her. She felt Gretchen’s hand on her shoulder. Her voice trembled when she said, “Boss, look.”
Josie turned her head, looking upriver to see the water level rising rapidly. They had only moments before a rush of churning, brown river swept them away. Noah and the rest of the cavalry would never make it in time to stop the shooter and come for them. It took a split second for Josie to make the decision. “Hold her,” she told Gretchen, lifting Vera toward her. Gretchen kept her gun pointed skyward and slipped her other arm under Vera’s lolling head. Josie stood, keeping her upper body bent so she couldn’t be seen over the top of the barrier, and pulled off her boots, tossing them into the water. Then she unzipped her jeans, peeling them off. Gretchen looked at her with wide eyes. “Boss, I don’t think this is the time—”
“Watch,” Josie shouted at her. The water was knee level now. She tied the pant-legs together. Holding the waist of the jeans, she flapped them, trapping air inside the legs. As fast as she could, she bunched and tied off the waist area. The pant-legs were fat with air. Josie said, “Help me,” as she tried to slip Vera’s head between them. Gretchen helped work Vera’s head through the inflated pant-legs so that the jeans acted as a flotation device. Then she let herself fall back into the rising water. A moment later, her boots bobbed to the surface and floated away. Then came her jeans. Josie kept one hand on Vera while Gretchen tied her own pant-legs together. She couldn’t get the air into the top, so she took hold of Vera while Josie did it.
The water lifted them, carrying them away. Gretchen slipped her head through her floating pants and reached for Josie’s hand. But Josie and Vera were already on the current, rocketing downriver. Josie struggled to keep proper hold on Vera. The woman’s body was completely limp. Water surged over Josie’s head, and she spluttered as her mouth broke the surface. Again, she felt a squeezing in her chest. Calm, said a voice. Stay calm. But there was no staying calm. A scream ripped from her throat as she turned onto her back and pulled Vera onto her stomach. The makeshift flotation device wasn’t enough for them both. Josie’s head kept sinking below the surface. Her lungs burned.
She concentrated on trying to keep her arms wrapped around Vera. Water poured over her head, into her lungs. Flailing, she broke the surface again, and her body hacked so hard trying to expel the water that pain pierced her upper back. Then the water surged over her again. Her eyes were open but all she saw was darkness. The black abyss of the angry, voracious river. It was swallowing her whole. She couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t stop anything. Not the river. Not Vera’s death. Not her demons or the tears that came even now in her last moments as she sank.
The darkness can’t hurt you, Jo.
It was Ray’s voice, one of the last things he had said to her. She heard it as clearly as if he were talking into her ear. But that was impossible because she was underwater, clinging to a dying woman who was still bobbing along the surface of the river only by virtue of Josie’s pants. There was some kind of shift in the current, as though they’d passed through an eddy or something. Their bodies spun sideways and Josie’s head broke water again. She coughed, trying to get the water out of her lungs. Vera’s head flopped against Josie’s shoulder. Josie willed her legs to work, to paddle, to keep herself afloat. In her periphery, she saw a large branch shoot past them. Trees. She had to get to the shore or close enough to any trees overtaken in the flooding to grab onto them. They’d never make it following the current. Emergency responders wouldn’t find them before Josie tired out and drowned.