Page 58 of Fourth Heartwarmers Trilogy
Speed was a factor… enough to flip the truck.
Chapter Thirty-five
Angie took the call that evening when her nursing friend from the hospital phoned with the news that the ambulance was arriving with Jack at any minute. Frantic, she yelled loud enough for the whole house to come running. Both Mark and Mia arrived from the lower floor with Maisie close behind.
Mark spoke first. “Angie, what’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Unable to speak at first, she reached her hand out to empty space. Then she fainted.
Mia’s heart dropped and fear replaced her usual calm. Something must have happened, and it wasn’t good. She ran to help a reviving Angie sit up, using her arms behind the woman’s back to support her.
“Auntie, can you tell us what’s upset you?”
Angie seemed to take forever to answer and when she looked at Mia, her eyes glowed with a love so strong, it stopped Mia’s next words. Instead, she just hugged her aunt and gave her thetime she seemed to need. The others, sensing a moment, kept quiet also, though they both reached out.
Finally, Angie lifted her head from Mia’s shoulder, patted Maisie’s head now on her lap and whispered, “He’s okay. Jack’s okay.” Tears began falling, drenching her face, and Mia felt her own response to Angie’s words. Her heart stopped while she choked back her own screams.
Chapter Thirty-six
Matt Lotborn paced the carpeted floor in his office. Fury made him continuously move, and bad health kept his steps short. Face red from too many daytime drinks, overprescribed medications and the weight of his personal debts riding his back, he appeared as a man one breath away from a stroke.
“Tell me you made it happen this time. Jesus, when I asked you to take him out of the running, I didn’t imagine you would go after his truck again. The police have already questioned me about the last accident you guys screwed up.”
“They had nothin’ on you. Can’t arrest a man who was out of the city.”
“They can if there’s any link at all between the perpetrators and this office. It’s called accessory to a crime. That’s why I told you to never come here. That I would meet with you at the ranch.”
Rod, a skinny man without a sign of humanity in his dead expression, appeared bored. A cigarette hanging from his mouth, he sat back and let his partner do the talking. And talk he did. In fact, Phil never shut up. Right now, he was soft-soaping the mayor, kissing ass and smoothing ruffled feathers.
Phil looked at his partner, and then back at Lotborn. “We did as you asked. It seemed easiest to mess with his brake line so there’d be no witnesses to any crime. It’s what you wanted, no witnesses, right? Who’s to say the line didn’t come loose during the run-in we had with him before, right?”
“Unless they checked the major parts like tires and brakes before they released the vehicle. Did you ever think of that?”
“Even if they did, they wouldn’t find where we messed with it. It’ll look like a natural disaster. Your man’ll be in the hospital for a long time. No one could survive crashing into a hillside and flipping his ride without a lot of damage. Look, we want our money now, and we’ll be out of your hair for good.”
Matt stared at the yappy bastard and then at his sidekick who scared him silly. When he’d used his don’t-mess-with-me-voice to forbid him smoking in his office, the very same tone that always had his staff and the others on the council jump to do his bidding, the devil blew smoke in his face and stared him down. Gave him the creeps.
Silence reigned, while Matt’s mind flipped from decision to question and back again. Phil began filling it in.
“He should have gone over the railing last time, boss. I still have no idea how he managed to escape with us blocking his way. He must have a good luck charm in his back pocket ‘cause we had the bastard’s ass in a sling.”
“Yet he didn’t go over, did he? I paid you good money, and you let him drive away.” Matt slammed the desk with his hands, showing the anger that hung over the room like a black cloud. “He can’t run for mayor. I need this election. There areoutstanding promises I have to keep, or I’m a dead man. Don’t you two knuckleheads get it?”
Rod stood and sauntered over to Matt, who backed away. Cornered, shrinking into the same boy he’d been when the bullies at his elementary school had terrified him, they stood face to face – Rod serious as sin and Matt sagging with horror.
“You pay us now or we’ll take joy in making you sorry and write off this last job as time wasted.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
The trip to the hospital took forever. In the back seat, Mia cried the whole way, tears of dread pouring over every time she wiped them away. Like a constant over-full pot, they wouldn’t stop.
Thankful that Maisie had been left at home with the girls in the workshop and she didn’t have to force impossible controls, she prayed that Angie had been right. That Jack would be alive.
Angie, sitting up front next to Mark, the only one of them fit to drive, smiled, her expression almost otherworldly. When he reached over and patted her shoulder, asking, “Everything okay, Angie?” she looked his way and then at Mia with that strange light in her eyes and said, “Don’t worry. He’s not too badly hurt. According to the nurse, the fact he’s alive is a miracle.”
Sure enough, when they reached his room, he was giving everyone a hard time, wanting to be released. “I’m fine. There’s no time for me to lay around here, Doc. The election’s in two days. I need to be there, let everyone see me.”
Mia scanned his body with her heart so full of relief to see him sitting, she had to stop or drop. God, she’d never fainted in her life, but right now it was close. Clinging to the doorway, she took in every bit of the man she loved.
