“9-1-1 dispatcher. What’s your emergency?”
“Send ambulances and police to Camp Brotherhood. Suspects are armed and dangerous.”
I hung up and shoved the phone in my pocket before reaching down to touch Heath’s neck. There was no pulse that I could find, and guilt immediately washed over me. It was my fault that my cousin was dead.
“I promise this won’t go unpunished. Thank you for always being there for me. I love you, Heath.”
The door flung open and Art Judge skidded to a stop. “What the fuck—!”
Suddenly, he had a gun and cracked me in the head with it. I heard the sirens in the distance before everything went black.
“Young man, can you hear me?”
My left eye was pulled open and a bright light flashed into my line of sight. When the light moved away, a woman in blue gloves was kneeling next to me. She shone a light in my right eye before whisking it away quickly. “Pupils are reactive. Trooper Riley, he’s awake.”
I tried to reach up and bat that damn light away. My brain was pounding as if someone was beating it like a drum.
When I lifted my right hand to shield the glare, there was the clatter of metal and a flash of silver around my wrist making me realize my hands were cuffed together. I was in handcuffs.The police thought I’d shot my cousin, Martin Dale, and Owen Seifert.
The paramedic helped me sit up, and the trooper squatted. “What’s your name, son?” I noticed little yellow plastic things with numbers scattered around the space, and a gun on the ground next to my knee. That didn’t look good at all.
This had to be the longest fucking day of my life.
Chapter Nineteen
Sean
“You have a minor concussion, which isn’t really a surprise considering what happened. The bullet glanced off the side of your skull but didn’t penetrate it. The force of the shot rattled your brain, as I’m sure you realize. There’s no swelling, so you should be good as new in a couple of days. The police have some questions for you. Are you up to it? I can put them off until tomorrow if you’d prefer,” Dr. Latham said.
Concussion aside, my head was spinning from the disaster that had occurred earlier in the day. Everything happened so fast.
Jericho had used his boot that covered his prosthetic foot to hold the door open so it didn’t make a sound when I came down the stairs. I’d only been wearing socks since I didn’t want to give away that I was in the stairwell.
At Jeri’s direction, I crouched and hurried over to him. Slapping sounds came from below, so he sent me back to the stairwell to call the police. I did as he asked without question.
When the gunshots started, I went down a set of steps, covering my ears because of the frightening sounds outside the door, and I actually prayed. “Please, God. Please let both of us live. Please don’t force that wonderful man out there to endure anything more than he already has.”
Time seemed to stop, but when Jeri wrapped me in his arms, I was able to breathe. When that woman pointed the gun at me and Jeri tried to divert her attention, I thought, “This is it. This is where we both die.”
“Mr. Fitzpatrick?” I opened my eyes to see the doctor standing in front of me, waiting for an answer.
“Where’s Jericho?” I needed to see him and touch him. When the police and paramedics arrived, I was taken to an ambulance and driven to George Washington University Hospital because there was a lot of blood. In the process, I lost track of Jeri.
“Uh, who’s Jericho? Is he a relative?” the doctor asked.
“No, he’s... Where’s my cell phone?”
“You went into shock before you were put in the ambulance, Mr. Fitzpatrick, which isn’t uncommon under these circumstances. The police have your belongings. I’ll get the detective.” Dr. Latham left, so I sat up and swung my legs over the side. I needed to find Jeri.
I glanced at my feet, finally registering that I hadn’t put on shoes when I left the condo to go downstairs. A pair of slippers was on a chair in the corner, along with a set of scrubs. My T-shirt was soaked with blood because head wounds bled a lot, so I really needed to change.
I glanced in the mirror by the sink to see a bandage. They’d shaved a strip of hair where the wound was located, and I got nine stitches to close the cut. It was going to be a mess for my barber to fix, but that was future Sean’s problem. Right now, I was too fucking happy to be alive.
I was pulling the scrub top over my head when the curtain was whisked back and Detective Compton stepped inside with Officer Mathers at his heel. I pulled down the shirt, slid on the slippers, and sat in the chair, bracing myself to retell the story, but first... “Where’s Jericho Hess?”
“He’s at the station giving his statement. We wanted to get both of your statements before you talked to each other. How’s the head?” Compton asked.
“Have you ever been shot in the head?”
