“Shhh.” Jessica admonished her husband to keep his voice down. “Don’t tell Phoebe and Sonny. They’ll freak out.”
Hank asked, “Can you work with the sheriff to keep him off the checkpoints?”
“I can try, but Lindsey has him wrapped around her finger. The whole department is talking about the change he’s undergone. Prior to the last several days, there was never any love lost between them. Now they’re thick as thieves.”
Hank laughed. “Maybe that’s it. To the victors go the spoils.”
“Whadya mean?” asked Jessica.
“What I mean is this happens all the time when political leaders get too much power. They make sure they get theirs and their families are taken care of. The rest of us have to go along with this shared sacrifice notion, but the same rules don’t apply to them.”
Mike stopped pacing. “Rules for thee but not for me.”
“Pretty much,” mumbled Hank.
Jessica asked, “After we send them Jimmy, weakening our own defenses, then what? They want food, too?”
“Yes, but I don’t plan on giving it to them,” replied Hank. “I’ve gotta talk with Sonny and Phoebe about cutting back our production to feed just us.”
“Patrick, too?” asked Jessica.
“Squirrely scumbag,” said Mike, who was in a testy mood. “The more I interact with that guy, the more I’m ready to send him packin’.”
“I can’t disagree, Mike,” said Hank. “I’m still not sure why he wasn’t ready to go to the hospital after he was up and moving around. And his story seems to be changing.”
“I’m getting the same vibe,” said Jessica. “He tells me one thing about his recollection of that night, but it’s different than what he’s told Sonny or Phoebe.”
“He doesn’t tell me anything,” said Mike.
“Sit down, Mike. Please,” said Hank, urging his brother to stop pacing. The detective slid into his Adirondack chair and listened as Hank relayed his thoughts. “He seems capable of speaking freely with everyone but you and me. He won’t respond to you at all, feigning amnesia or some such. When he talks to me and the subject comes up, he acts like he’s on his last dying breath and needs rest. Yet Jimmy tells me that Patrick turns into some kind of Chatty Cathy when he’s around.”
“Like I said, squirrely,” said Mike.
“What do we do?” asked Jessica.
“Let’s work on easing him out,” replied Hank. “He’s become more mobile, even finding his way onto the porch of his bungalow. I’m gonna get Sonny and Phoebe on board with helping him build up his strength with the ultimate goal of sending him to his own house.”
Mike added, “I don’t like the thought of him wandering around the inn. Nobody has seen our resources.”
Hank added, “Even Lindsey, whose view was obscured by palm trees and plants.”
“We’ll keep tabs on Patrick,” said Jessica.
Hank closed out the Patrick topic. “The other thing that concerns me about him being here is if word gets back to Lindsey. She’ll counter my refusal to feed all of Marathon with an alternative.”
“Like what?” asked Jessica.
Hank frowned as he made eye contact with the others. “Like moving the displaced and homeless into the inn.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sunday, November 3
Motel Jesup
Jesup, Georgia
Out of nowhere, two men came racing from behind the motel’s office, screaming like banshees. One was waving a tire iron over his head while the other pointed toward Greyhound with an aluminum baseball bat. The attack caught Mr. Uber and his son off guard. The two men closed on them in a matter of seconds, and the initial blows sustained were near fatal.
The man with the tire iron did the most damage. He embedded the hooked end into the back of Mr. Uber, who immediately crashed to the asphalt pavement. Greyhound tried to shield his body from the vicious swing taken by the man with the aluminum baseball bat. From inside the motel room, Peter could hear the bones in his forearm shatter over the cries of pain.
The other man slammed a foot on Mr. Uber’s back and tried to wrestle the tire iron free. He pushed it forward and back, then side to side until it came loose along with bone, tissue and blood. He released an evil laugh and reached back for another blow. Only one was necessary, but multiple were dealt. Like a deranged lunatic, the man pummeled Mr. Uber’s neck and the back of his head until it was unrecognizable. It was a gruesome, gory display of anger and horror.
Inspired by his accomplice’s acts, the second man took another swing at Greyhound with the aluminum bat, striking the defenseless man’s ribs. The audible crack caused chills to run through Peter’s body. Chills that forced him into action.
He’d been frozen in place by the display of murderous brutality. Somehow, the beatdown administered by the two men was barbaric compared to the more humane method of a bullet to the skull that Peter had planned for them. Nonetheless, he had to act as he observed the tire-iron killer retrieve the cargo truck’s keys from Mr. Uber’s pockets. Now he had to defend his group’s greatest asset, the truck.
Peter ran out of the motel room with his gun pointed at the men, who were now rushing toward the cargo truck. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”
It was a phrase that came to mind, and one he immediately regretted saying. It only served to warn the men, who rushed around the back side of the truck for safety. The sound of the driver’s side door creaking gave Peter a new sense of urgency.
Rafael emerged from his room, and he ran toward the truck with his weapon drawn. He was forty feet away when shots rang out. Bullets skipped along the pavement, splitting the distance between Peter and Rafael. One of the men had retrieved a weapon from inside the truck and was now firing bullets toward them from underneath.
Rafael peeled off to the left to encircle the back of the truck.
