and the way his legs were twisted, it was a hopeless effort. “Oh, my God, Travis,” she cried. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. Oh, my baby, my baby.”
Jake planted his feet on the cushions of the backseat and tried to lift the boy, but with little success. Somewhere along the line, his son had gained some weight, and without a shirt to grab hold of, there just wasn’t enough room in the cramped quarters of the seat to get the leverage he needed. In some dark corner of his mind, Jake suspected Travis was dead; totally limp, totally unresponsive. Yet he refused to let the thought come fully to the surface. His son was breathing, dammit. And as long as he was breathing, there was hope.
Jake was dimly aware of the sound of running feet, and then the driver’s-side rear door flew open. He jerked his head to see two people-a man and a woman-standing there in matching white-and-green uniforms. He was a mountain; six-four, with a blond Santa Claus beard and matching gut. She stood maybe five-two if she stretched, and bore the concerned face of a schoolteacher.
The man spoke first. “Hi,” he said jovially, even as he leaned in to take a look. “We’re paramedics. I’m Bob Faylon, and this is my wife, Barbara. What seems to be the problem here?”
“It’s our son!” Carolyn blurted. “He’s only thirteen and I think he’s dying. He inhaled some chemical residue and-”
Jake touched her shoulder gently and she cut her words off, but the damage was already done. He saw the recognition in Bob’s eyes and realized that the big man had all the advantage on him. Recognition quickly transformed to fear, and that was the emotion Jake worried about most.
Jake answered the question before it was asked. “Yes, we are,” he said softly. “And you’re in no danger. We just need you to help our son.”
Bob eyed the gun on Jake’s hip and nodded toward it. “Then why don’t you get rid of that?”
Jake looked down at his weapon and then back again. “Because you’ve got a half foot on me and about a hundred pounds,” he said, making an effort to be completely honest. “But if you don’t do anything aggressive, neither will I.”
Bob backed out of the car and turned to his wife. “Barbara, go inside and call Communications. Tell them we’ve got the Donovans here. We need P.D., ASAP.”
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t do that!” Jake called past Bob to his tiny wife. She froze, clearly not knowing what to do next. She looked to Bob for guidance, but his eyes never left Jake. This was a man who had been in his share of fights and clearly had confidence in his ability to win them.
“Are you going to stop her… Jake, isn’t it?”
Travis barked out a horrid cough, distracting everyone for just the briefest of moments.
“Do something!” Carolyn cried.
Jake looked from his son to Carolyn and back to Bob. “No,” he said at length. “I won’t try and stop anything. I just want you to help my son.”
Bob’s eyes softened at the sound of the cough, and he nodded abruptly, his decision made. “Give me a hand here, Barbara,” he instructed. He edged Jake out of the way as he climbed further inside the car. “We need to get him out onto the ground.”
With Bob at Travis’s shoulders and Barbara at his feet, they made it look easy, lifting the boy right out of the vehicle.
“Be careful,” Carolyn admonished, worried that the sag in Travis’s back might injure him. The enormous pants slipped a little as they moved him, and Carolyn told them to stop while she pulled them back up to cover his backside. Travis would have wanted it that way.
Jake and Carolyn huddled together in the chilly night air as they watched the paramedics work on their son. They said nothing. They just hugged each other and stared.
Bob was definitely the one in charge, and his face showed grave concern as he ordered Barbara to go inside and bring the ambulance out onto the front ramp. She wasn’t three steps into her journey before he called to her again. “Call Communications,” he instructed. “Have them cut numbers on this incident and tell ’em we need the state police chopper out here. We’re gonna lose this kid if we don’t fly him out.”
Barbara disappeared at a fast jog.
Bob turned back to Carolyn. “What kind of chemicals?” he asked.
Carolyn shrugged. “I don’t know. Old burned-up military stuff. You must have heard the story.”
Bob nodded gravely as he produced a stethoscope out of his back pocket, and he pressed the diaphragm onto Travis’s bare chest. He listened in one spot for a moment, then moved the instrument to another. And another. After about fifteen seconds, he pulled the bows out of his ears, then draped the stethoscope over the back of his neck. “You’ve got one sick little boy here, ma’am,” he said. “His lungs are full of liquid, and judging from the bleeding, he’s got some tissue damage down there as well.”
Carolyn shook all over. “Is he… Will he…” She couldn’t bring herself to ask the question.
Bob looked away. “I hope so, ma’am,” he said gravely. “We’re gonna do everything we can.” He seemed relieved when the overhead door to the ambulance bay rumbled upward, and the engine turned over. “There’s some stuff I can do for him here, but we’re gonna medevac him out to St. Luke’s in Little Rock, where they can do a more permanent patching job.”
The ambulance pulled up even with the Cadillac, and suddenly, the darkness erupted in brilliant white light, fueled by the halogen floods on the side of the vehicle. The brightness only emphasized the pallor of Travis’s skin, whiter still in contrast to the redness of his blood.
As Jake and Carolyn watched in silence, Nick moved up quietly behind them. “Excuse me, guys,” he said as gently and as lightly as he could, “but we need to get moving. A whole world of cops is gonna be here soon, and I don’t want anything to do with them.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Carolyn said firmly. Her tone left no room for negotiation.
Jake’s breath caught in his throat. This was it, he realized. This was the end of it all. After fourteen years on the run, it all came to a crashing halt out in front of a building they’d never seen, in a town they’d never heard of. No shooting or shouting; they’d just allow themselves to be taken. Curiously, the very notion that had seemed so horrifying just hours before seemed inconsequential next to the loss of his son.
“I’m staying, too,” he said.
Nick’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”
Jake turned on Nick like a snapping dog. “He’s my son, Nick! What would you have me do, leave him?”
Nick took a step back, startled by the attack. He didn’t have an answer for that question, but he sure as hell hadn’t come all the way to Podunk, Arkansas, just to be taken away in a police chopper. He’d done this as a favor, not as a sacrifice. He had his own family to worry about.
“You go with him, Jake.” It was Carolyn. She’d found her voice again, and it was strong, unequivocal.
“Carolyn, I can’t…” Jake felt himself losing control.
“You have to. There’s no other way.” She grasped his face in both hands and dropped her voice nearly to a whisper. “If you stay, we’ll never see each other again. You know that. Giving up accomplishes nothing.”
He looked suddenly like a little boy himself. His features knotted and he shook his head. “But what about you? What about Trav?”
To see her husband start to cry melted Carolyn’s heart. “I’ll be with him,” she whispered, “for as long as they’ll let me.”
“But you’ll go to jail…”
“… and you’ll get me out.” She smiled, even as her lower lip trembled. “You’re the only one, Jake. You and Nick-” She stopped herself and shot a glance over to Nick.
Nick waved off the sentimentality and turned away.
Jake looked at Carolyn for a long, long moment. They’d shared everything. Good times and bad. It couldn’t end like this. They’d always been together. That’s how any of this was able to work. How could he watch Travis be sent off to a hospital somewhere while Carolyn was shipped off to prison? He didn’t think he could make a go of it alone. What would happen if he failed? He realized in a rush of emotion that he’d never see either of them again. Never hear his wife’s throaty laugh; never rumple his son’s hair. He pulled Carolyn close, overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. There’d always been options; there’d always been plans. Now there was nothing. Now he was alone. He couldn’t…
“Jake, we’ve got to go,” Nick said.
Carolyn pushed Jake away and reached up to wipe the tears from his face, ignoring her own. “He’s right,” she
