Maybe he did take Sarah.
The thought welled up in her mind despite her insistence that it stay away from her. When the possibility first occurred to her, she’d prayed for it to be so, hoped to God that Jack had come in and taken Sarah away. Even delusional, she could never have imagined that Jack would ever hurt their little girl. But now, with hour after empty hour to contemplate Jack’s bizarre behavior, she couldn’t be sure. Maybe Jack was capable of hurting their baby. She hated herself for thinking it, but how could she not wonder? What mother wouldn’t at least wonder?
The many police scanners spread throughout the room suddenly erupted in bursts of voices and static. Lauren couldn’t understand the tinny radio voices but the police and deputies in the room reacted immediately to what was being said. They surged out of their chairs and headed toward the entrance of the emergency room. The ones with their wits about them hung back with their guns drawn.
“What is it?” Lauren shouted to a deputy passing her. “What’s going on?”
“Someone’s shooting outside,” the deputy said. “One of our guys is hit.”
“Who’s shooting?” Lauren called out.
But the deputy was already moving toward a window on the far side of the room. He braced himself in position and knocked out the window with the handle of his gun. Just as the last shards of glass hit the floor, Janney strode into the room.
“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted at the deputy. “What is this, a shoot out in the Wild West for shit’s sake? That window doesn’t even look out over the parking lot, you moron!” He grabbed the deputy by the collar and pushed him toward the emergency door. “Get out there and see what’s going on.”
The voices on the scanner lost their edge of panic and Lauren started to get a feel for what was happening. A gunman, maybe more than one, was taking shots at the patrol cars in the parking lot. No one could tell where the shots were coming from.
Janney grabbed the scanner, “Sorenson? Are you hit?”
Static, then Sorenson’s voice came over, “It’s just glass. I thought I was hit, but the son-of-a-bitch blew out the windshield and the glass nicked me in a few places.”
“Nicked me in a few places,” Janney mumbled under his breath, his rising temper evident to everyone in the room. He pressed a button on his walkie-talkie. “Find out who it is and take him out. Copy that? Lethal force is authorized.” Janney marched toward the exit, striding past Lauren on the way out.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Lauren called out. “But you’re wrong. Jack’s never fired a gun in his life. There’s no way that’s him.”
To Lauren’s surprise, her words stopped the sheriff in mid-step. He stood with his back to her for a few seconds and then spun on his heel to face her. She was surprised to see a smile on his face. Janney walked up to her. “You know what, Dr. Tremont? I think you’re right. Come this way please.” Ignoring her demands to be released, Janney grabbed her by the arm and pushed her past the open-mouthed hospital staff as they marched together toward the elevator.
SIXTY-SIX
Getting onto the fire escape had been a challenge. Only after four attempts and two banged up knees was Jack able to use the wall for leverage to reach the lowest metal rung. Lonetree made enough noise for a small army in front of the hospital. The gunshots echoed through the valley until it sounded like the forest around Midland General Hospital was reprising its role as a Civil War battlefield. One hundred and thirty six Union and Confederate dead, proclaimed the granite monument in the town square. Jack just hoped Lonetree was making sure the body count was slightly lower than that tonight.
He also hoped Lonetree was right, and that the guard on the third floor had left his post when the shots started. He tried to not think about what he would do if some young cop pulled a gun on him. Instead, he focused on not falling and killing himself on the fire escape.
The old metal walkways groaned under his weight and shifted uncomfortably as he pulled himself up. The window that opened onto the second floor was framed by the weathered painted words, “ESCAPE ROUTE. DO NOT BLOCK.” He tried the window. Locked.
Not a good sign. Lonetree said that both the first and second story windows were unlocked last time. If the third floor was locked too, he would have to break the glass and attract unwanted attention to himself.
Deciding to deal with it when he got there, Jack climbed the ladder to the next landing. The metal was rough and flaky, the whole apparatus a giant piece of rust, likely to collapse at any minute and send him crashing to the ground in a twisting tangle of metal shards.
He shook his head to clear the image. The ladder did sway slightly under his weight but it felt secure enough. He kept climbing and reached the third floor landing.
The window was open.
Not just unlocked, but wide open.
Jack ducked into the shadows. There was no reason for the window to be open. It was a freezing night and the hospital controlled its temperature precisely. He twisted back and forth to look into each dark shadow on the fire escape, sure that he would find someone lying in wait for him. There was no sign of the deputy.
Wanting to be sure, Jack craned his neck to look up to the roofline. Nothing. Maybe the cop had opened the window when he heard the first gunshots, trying to gauge where they were coming from. Then, realizing he was out of the action, had gone downstairs so he wouldn’t miss out. After all, as a deputy in Midland, what were the chances of another shootout? Jack figured the scenario seemed plausible enough. He prayed it was true.
Jack tentatively stuck his head through the window and looked down the hall. Every muscle in his body was tense. If a cop or a nurse saw him, he would have only a few seconds to jump back down the fire escape — and lose his chance to kill Huckley — or climb through the window and somehow subdue whoever he saw.
Subdue. It was the word Lonetree had used. Jack wasn’t sure if a nurse on her rounds would be someone he could bring himself to subdue or not. Pushing the doubts out of his mind, he climbed through the window and into the third floor hallway.
There was no question what room he was looking for. The number had been burned in his mind the day Sarah wrote it a thousand times with her crayons. The thought of Huckley taking control of Sarah’s little body, of imposing his will on her, strengthened Jack’s resolve to take action.
He jogged down the hall, his eyes darting back and forth looking for any movement. His hand slid under his shirt and pulled out Lonetree’s .357 Magnum. Anything smaller might just make him angry, was Lonetree’s explanation for the large caliber gun.
“Oh my God!” a woman called out from behind him. “Is that you, Mr. Tremont?”
Jack stopped breathing. He recognized the voice. He could picture the nurse’s face but couldn’t remember her name. He turned, careful to move the gun behind his back as he did so.
The nurse closed the door to the patient’s room she had been in “Thank God you’re here. Dr. Tremont has been so worried. She..she…” The nurse’s voice trailed off and a puzzled expression replaced her joy of discovering him. Jack noticed her eyes darting down to where he held his hand behind his back. He was trying to stash the gun in his beltline but it kept getting snagged on his sweater.
“Yes, yes,” he stammered, “I got here as fast I could. I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
The nurse didn’t move forward, her uncertainty was clear as she shuffled her feet in place. “Lucy Brookes. We’ve only met a couple of times,” she said.
“That’s right. I’m sorry. I’m terrible with names. I—” He lost his grip on the gun and it fell onto the linoleum floor with a dull thud. Both he and the nurse stared at the gun. And then at each other. The color drained out of the nurse’s face and she started to shuffle back down the hall. There was more gunfire outside and the nurse looked down the hall as if just then recognizing what the sounds meant. Jack reached down, grabbed the gun and walked toward her with open arms, the gun pointing down at the floor.