What next? What to do next? A hospital? No. Can't risk it. He needs a safe place. To heal. To plan.
Fuller hurries back through the kitchen, stepping over the mess left by the dead guy, and pauses briefly in the living room. Jack's mother is lying facedown on the carpet. Dead? Possibly. No time to check. He speeds out the door, down the stairs, and onto the cold, wet streets of Chicago. After a frantic moment of wondering what to do, Fuller hails a taxi and knocks on the driver-side window. The driver rolls it down.
'You need a cab?'
The guy has an accent. Indian, maybe, or somewhere in the Middle East.
Fuller says nothing.
'You okay? You are bleeding.'
'You are too.'
He places the Sig against the man's head and fires, causing quite a mess on the passenger side. Then Fuller opens the door, shoves the guy over, and hits the gas.
He stops the taxi under a bridge, searches the driver's pockets. A cell phone. A wallet, with a few hundred bucks. A set of house keys.
Fuller checks the driver's license. Chaten Patel, of 2160 N. Clybourn.
'Thanks for inviting me over, Mr. Patel. Do you live alone?'
Fuller pulls back into traffic.
'I suppose we'll find out.'
Chapter 46
When I pulled onto my street and saw the flashing lights in front of my apartment, I knew. I threw the car into park, got out, and ran.
'Jack!' I faintly heard Alan call after me.
Herb was standing in the lobby. He saw me, and rushed over to hug.
'Jack, we thought he got you.'
'Fuller?' I managed.
'Killed three cops and a bunch of others, escaping.'
My eyes welled up.
'M-Mom?'
'They're about to bring her down.'
'Dead?'
'No, but she's in bad shape.'
I pulled out of Herb's grasp, raced up the stairs.
Cops, paramedics, a crime scene unit. Pained looks from people I knew. A black body bag, on the floor of my kitchen.
My breath caught. I unzipped the bag.
Mr. Griffin, half of his head missing.
I pushed into the living room, saw the stretcher, watched some horribly beaten body being intubated.
'. . . oh no . . .'
I rushed to her side, unable to reconcile it in my head, unable to believe that this broken, bleeding thing was my mother.
Her hand was cool and limp. The paramedics pushed me away. I wanted to follow, wanted to go with her, but my legs gave out and I collapsed onto the floor.
Something brushed against my leg.
Mr. Friskers.
I grabbed the cat and held him tight and cried and cried and cried until nothing more came out.
Chapter 47
Doctors came and went, talking about Glasgow Scales and Rancho Los Amigos levels of cognitive functioning. I was too numb to pay attention. I only knew that Mom wouldn't wake up.
Two days passed, or maybe it was three. People visited and stayed for a while and left. Alan. Herb. Libby. Captain Bains. Harry. Specialists and nurses and cops.
Guards were posted outside my door. I found this amusing. As if Fuller could possibly hurt me more than he already had.
Benedict kept me updated on the manhunt, but the news was always the same: no sign of Fuller.
'She's probably going to die,' I said to Herb.
'We'll get him.'
'Getting him won't make her better.'
'I know. But what else can we do?'
