Exit Wounds - J. A. Jance [128]
“Nathan!” Joanna shouted. “Stop. Go back. It isn’t safe!”
But Nathan Adams paid no attention. “Mom,” he gasped. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”
Stella, who must not have heard him the first time he spoke, did this time. “Nathan!” she exclaimed forcefully. “Get out of here! Go back to the house! This is none of your business.”
“But it is my business,” Nathan argued.
“Terry,” Joanna ordered. “Ernie will cover you while I try to keep her talking. You and Spike go get that kid and do whatever it takes to get him out of here!”
Crouching low to the ground, Terry set off with Spike at his heels.
“I’m sure you don’t want Nathan to get hurt,” Joanna said. “Throw down your weapon, Stella. Let’s finish this.”
“It is finished,” Stella returned. “It’s over. There isn’t anything more to do.”
“Mom, let me be with you,” Nathan pleaded. “Let me help. Please.”
In the pale moonlight Joanna caught a glimpse of Nathan Adams as he tripped over some obstacle and fell to the ground. He started to rise, then crumpled again as Terry Gregovich and Spike tackled the boy and sent him sprawling. After a fierce but brief scuffle, the clump of milling figures lay still.
“No,” Stella said, oblivious to the fact that her son had just been physically prevented from coming any nearer to her. “I don’t want you here, Nathan. Go away.”
“Mom, please.”
“You’re better off without me. Go!”
“Watch yourself,” Ernie muttered in Joanna’s ear. “Sounds like she’s maybe gonna take herself out.”
Joanna nodded. “I think so, too,” she agreed. “How many people will she try to take with her?”
Suddenly the night was blacker. It took a moment for Joanna to realize that the softball game was over. There was a flicker as if someone had thrown a switch. Then the moonlight gleamed that much brighter. Off to the right she spied movement. As her eyes adjusted to the changed light, she was able to make out three figures—two human and one canine—moving back toward town as Deputy Gregovich and Spike hustled Nathan Adams to safety.
They disappeared from view behind a small rise, leaving the desert in an eerie nighttime silence that was broken only by the muted chatter of distant police radios.
“Stella?” Joanna asked finally.
“What?”
“Are you okay? We know you’re hurt.”
“I’m all right.”
The woman’s voice was definitely changed now, as though the effort of dealing with her son’s unexpected appearance had weakened her somehow and left her exhausted.
“Four people are dead,” Joanna said quietly. “Isn’t that enough bloodshed?”
“No, it’s not enough—not nearly.”
Joanna Brady thought about the officers ranged around the buildings now, awaiting her order to move forward. They were young men and women—dedicated law enforcement officers—with wives and husbands and children at home. She was one of those, too, with a husband and a teenager at home and with an unborn child sheltered inside her body. Joanna and the people who worked for and with her had everything to lose. On the other hand, Stella Adams, far beyond the possibility of hope, had nothing whatsoever left to lose.
Sheriff Brady turned to Ernie. “We’re going to wait,” she said.
“Wait?” he demanded. “For how long?”
“For as long as it takes.”
The next two hours, waiting for a gunshot that never came, were the longest ones Joanna could remember, including the three hours she had spent in the delivery room when Jenny was born. She crouched next to the wall with Ernie Carpenter beside her. Sharp rocks poked into her knees. Occasionally some night-walking creature scrambled across her skin. Meanwhile, the unconcerned desert, oblivious to the human drama playing out nearby, resumed its natural nighttime rhythms. Meandering coyotes sent their mournful songs skyward. An hour into the process, Joanna was startled by a single long-eared jackrabbit who loped past within a few feet of where she was lying.
But throughout that long, long time, there was no response from Stella Adams—no further word. Joanna called out to the woman again and again without receiving any reply.
Eventually