“We both go, darlin’. It’s cold. Dress warm and hurry.”
Within minutes, they were out the door and running toward the truck, then speeding away from the ranch.
Chapter 4
Pearl could hear the dispatcher still talking, and she kept answering the same question over and over, saying yes, he was still breathing, but when she finally began to hear the distant sound of sirens coming from both directions, she knew help was actually on the way.
The chopper would be coming by air, so the sirens had to be the law. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but Jacob hadn’t twitched a muscle, and she was scared to death he was going to die. Her arms were trembling from the pressure she was exerting. Her fingers were aching. She’d already replaced the blood-soaked pad with a fresh one and was almost as bloody as him.
“Hang on, Jacob. I hear sirens. Help is on the way. Don’t give up. Stay with me. You can have free lunch forever if you promise you won’t die.”
She was angry this had happened, and fiercely determined this wasn’t going to be the way he died. She kept thinking of his sons. What they would think. How they would feel, having their father murdered, to add to their mother’s suicide.
The sirens were a steady scream now, and then they were in the parking lot, red and blue lights flashing, and right behind them, two cruisers from the Briscoe County Sheriff’s office.
She could hear shouting, and then patrol cars moving out onto the highway, blocking off both lanes of traffic coming and going to make a landing spot for the inbound chopper.
“It’s happening, Jacob! They’re here! The LIFESTAR chopper is arriving. I can hear it now. Hang on. Hang on.”
Moments later, she heard footsteps on the porch and then people coming inside on the run.
“Here! Behind the bar!” she shouted, and looked up just as Sheriff Reddick appeared.
He grimaced at the sight of them, both covered in blood. “Oh my God, Pearl. What happened?”
“I was asleep at the Rose when I heard a gunshot. I bailed out of bed and ran to the window just as a black truck turned off the highway and made a U-turn in the Tumbleweed parking lot like all the locals do, and then it drove back into town. But moments later, an older model white sports car suddenly shot out of the parking lot, spinning out in the gravel, and headed west, too. I tried to call Jacob, and when I didn’t get an answer, I came running.”
He saw the shotgun on the floor beside her.
“Is that your shotgun?”
“Yes, I brought it with me from the Rose.”
Reddick glanced up. “The chopper is landing. Be right back.”
After that, everything became a blur.
Pearl was moved out of the way as paramedics began to work on Jacob, but time was not on their side. They stayed long enough to get an IV started, then began moving him away. There was no time to try and stabilize him first. He was already too close to death.
Pearl was sitting out on the steps of the Tumbleweed when they loaded him into the chopper. After their presence was no longer needed, the highway patrol cars departed, leaving the witness and the crime scene to the sheriff’s office.
Between the sirens and the inbound chopper, and the crime scene tape being rolled out, the entire town ofCrossroads was now aware that something dire had happened. When word began to spread that Jacob Kingston had been shot, and Pearl had been the one to find him, it was inevitable that someone would call the Sunset Ranch to notify Magnolia. They didn’t know she and Sonny were already on the way.
Nora Borden had heard the sirens and was already out on her porch when she saw the inbound chopper. She grabbed her coat and started running, cutting through the alleys to get to the Yellow Rose, only to find it locked up and dark. Then she saw all the police vehicles at the bar and thought,Jacob!and took off running again, but this time down the side of the highway.
The first person she saw was Pearl, sitting on the porch with a shotgun beside her, and the chopper lifting off and turning northbound.
“What happened? What happened?” Nora cried as she ran up to where Pearl was sitting. She was wrapped in a blanket one of the paramedics had put around her, shaking both from the shock and the cold.
“Somebody broke into the bar and shot Jacob. I don’t know if he’s going to make it,” Pearl said.
Nora’s first thoughts were for Asher and his brothers. “Oh, my God. Oh honey,” she said, then scooted down beside her, wrapped her in her arms and pulled her close.
Moments later, a big red truck turned off the highway and pulled up in the parking lot. When Pearl saw Maggie and Sonny running toward her, she started crying.
Nora looked up. “Who are they?”
“My girl, Magnolia, and her husband, Sonny.”
