CHAPTER 27

 

Jo realized she was clutching her middle, holding her arms wrapped tightly against her stomach. Was it because of what she pictured about Randy? Was she mentally trying to keep his blood from spilling out by holding her own in? She tried to relax, but found it impossible.

The ambulance arrived, and she waved the paramedics into the house, rushing through an explanation of what she thought had happened. Then she backed away to give them room to work, hearing their shouted commands back and forth, their radios crackling, and hoping against hope they had come in time.

“Come on, guy, stay with me,” she finally heard one say, and she collapsed into the chair Randy had so recently occupied. He was alive. At least there was that. But alive for how long? And for what? What was Randy’s fate after that?

A stretcher was brought in and soon wheeled out with Randy bundled onto it, hooked up to an IV as well as other instruments Jo could not identify. As the team took him out to the ambulance, one paramedic, a burly man with a kind face, approached Jo.

“What about you? Are you all right? Do you want to go to the hospital?”

Jo shook her head. “I’m okay.”

“How about calling someone? The cops will be here any minute, but you should have someone with you.”

Jo looked up at him. Before she could respond, a deep voice at her open front door answered for her.

“She’ll have someone with her.”

Russ Morgan came in, flashing his badge and dismissing the paramedic. As he approached, Jo stood up, feeling suddenly unsteady. She took a step toward him, then wavered and fell against his chest. He wrapped his arms about her, and she could feel his head shaking back and forth.

“When,” he asked, “are you going to start trusting us to do our job?”

“Right now,” she said into the wool of his jacket. “I’m putting this whole thing in your hands as of this moment.”

“About time.”

<><><>

“The coffee will be ready in half a sec’,” Carrie said to the small group gathered in her family room

Jo looked around at the four who had shown up on the Brenner doorstep one by one, wanting to assure themselves that Jo was in fact all right: Ina Mae, Loralee, Javonne, and Vernon. An hour or so earlier, Carrie, horrified to learn what happened, had instantly closed up shop and rushed to Jo’s place. Jo, by that time, had given her full account of the ordeal to Russ Morgan, who then relinquished her to Carrie to take to her home, after first exacting a promise from Jo that she would stay put and allow herself to be fussed over. It wasn’t a difficult promise to make.

“Take a seat, Jo,” Ina Mae said, patting the sofa cushion next to her. “You shouldn’t be on your feet. You’ve gone through an extremely stressful time.”

“Yes indeed,” Loralee agreed. “I still think they should have taken you right to the hospital.”

“The hospital staff,” Jo said, “had more important things to attend to besides patting my hand.”

Ina Mae nodded. “Randy Truitt. He did do some terrible things, but I can’t help feeling badly for him.”

Loralee grew teary-eyed. “If we’d only known what he was going through. Here we all thought Randy had brought his problems on himself. If we’d only realized what Parker Holt was doing to him from the beginning.”

“From what Jo’s told us, Randy wasn’t exactly guilt-free back when it all started,” Javonne pointed out. “He did cause that boy’s death by his reckless driving.”

“But from what I understand,” Ina Mae said, “he wouldn’t have been driving that way at all if it weren’t for Parker. Which just goes to show how important it is to choose ones companions wisely when in your teen years.” Ina Mae looked over her glasses toward Charlie as she said this. Charlie, who had wandered to the doorway from the kitchen, did a rapid backpedal, bringing the first, small smile of the evening to Jo’s lips.

“I could kick myself,” Vernon said, “for not stopping in at your Craft Shop this afternoon. I had parked in your lot and thought of doing just that since Evelyn asked if I’d make her another set of earrings for a wedding that’s coming up. But I put it off, thinking there was no hurry, and I was eager to pick up a book that Jim Wald ordered for me. A how-to-do-it on making wine at home.

“Anyway,” he continued, “if I’d gone into your shop, Carrie would have said something about you not being there and I could have told her I’d seen your car in the lot.”

“If I’d only stepped outside myself,” Carrie said, “I’d have seen Jo’s car myself and known something was wrong. Especially with the lunches you bought for us, Jo, sitting right there on the seat.”

“Who steps outside for a breath of air in the middle of January?” Javonne asked reasonably.

“Indeed,” Ina Mae agreed. “It was all most unfortunate that Randy managed to pirate you away, Jo, when everyone around was preoccupied with their everyday doings.”

“You got that right,” Dan said, carrying a steaming mug into the room. He had obviously helped himself to the first of his wife’s fresh brew, and Carrie popped up with a mildly exasperated look at her husband.

“Let me get the rest of you some coffee,” she said.

Javonne followed Carrie into the kitchen to help.

Dan stepped aside to give them room, seemingly oblivious to his faux pas, and finished his thought. “People might as well have blinders on when they’re busy running errands. My own huge mistake was letting that Truitt guy overhear the alarm code for Parker Holt’s house.”

Jo reassured him. “Nobody would expect that someone would be listening to them on the other side of the bushes. Besides, if he hadn’t chanced to hear that, I suspect Randy would have come up with some other plan. Attack Parker in his driveway, perhaps.”

“Maybe,” Dan acknowledged. “But then it might not have looked so bad for Xavier.”

“Xavier!” Loralee cried. “Does he know what happened? Is he aware he’s off the hook?”

“We’ve called him,” Carrie said, bringing in a tray of filled coffee mugs and setting it down on the low table. Javonne followed, carrying cream and sugar, napkins and spoons. “He was so relieved! I could hear tears in his voice. Did you hear that too, Jo?”

Jo nodded. “I did. I spoke to Sylvia too. She’s on bed-rest, you know, which must be awful, but her only complaint was that she couldn’t rush over to give me a great big hug.”

“What a dear person,” Loralee said. “I’ll have to stop in and see her. I’ll take a nice big cake that they can celebrate with.”

“I want to see them too,” Jo said. “I still have something to talk about with Xavier.”

Carrie gave Jo a look that said she understood what she meant, but said nothing as she began passing out the coffee to the group.