clutches.
Benson screamed out in agony. He attempted to fire back, but his gun feebly dropped to the pavement.
“Wrong answer, where is she? I know she’s alive.”
“You’re crazy,” Benson said to me, clutching his wounded shoulder.
I didn’t have time to ponder the irony of the statement. I broke away from Agent Johnson, but my legs couldn’t support my weight. I screamed out in pain and dropped to my knees. Before anyone could figure out what I was about to do, I slithered to Benson and stuck my gun in his mouth.
“Where is she?”
The FBI shouted for me to back off, and I could feel their weapons pointed at me.
“Don’t do it, JP,” Agent Johnson exclaimed.
“Put the gun down, Warner,” Hawkins shouted, with gun drawn.
“He killed my brother. He wants justice and now he’s gonna get it, old-school style, unless he tells me where Gwen is!”
I shoved the gun to the back of his throat and he began to gag.
Rich Tolland spoke up, “JP, if you shoot him then you become as bad as he is.”
“Why should I let him live? So he can have a trial where he would try to garner support for his sick acts?”
“Drop the gun or I’ll shoot you, Warner,” yelled Hawkins. I didn’t doubt him. In fact, I thought he might enjoy it.
Benson turned a shade of purple as my gun tickled his tonsils. I shoved deeper.
But when I looked deep into his bulging, psychotic eyes, I realized that Rich was right-I didn’t want to be like him. And more importantly, I knew that a dead Benson equaled a dead Gwen. I tossed the gun on the pavement. I raised my hands in the air as the agents moved in on me like I was the mass murderer.
Benson shouted, “Either let me go or you never see Gwen again. Do you understand!?” It was the last card he had to play.
The ringing of a phone temporarily froze everyone. The agents instinctively checked their pockets, but the phone didn’t belong to any of them. Agent Johnson and I simultaneously located it-on the ground beside Benson’s mangled police car. It was
I tried to speed-crawl for it, but had no chance to beat Agent Johnson to it. She answered it with the casual greeting of “hello” like it was her home phone. She listened intently while nodding. She then walked toward Benson and tossed it toward him. “It’s for you.”
He reached up to catch it, but couldn’t raise his bullet-punctured shoulder. The phone fell to the ground in front of him.
With an arsenal of FBI firepower still pointed at him, Benson picked up the phone with his left arm. When he listened to the caller, the life ran out of his face. He tossed it on the ground in my direction.
I picked up the phone and I got my answer. I smiled as wide as I ever had.
“Are you causing trouble, JP Warner?”
“Are you calling your boyfriend?”
“I would have called yours, but being absentminded like you are, you left it with Lamar Thompson.”
I was full of questions. The journalist in me had returned. Gwen answered my rambling questions with a simple, “Long story.” Then I felt another huge relief shoot through my body. The voice of Jeff Carter boomed into the phone, “I thought retirement was supposed to be less dangerous. What’s all this commotion about?”
I kept smiling as I watched the FBI take Grady Benson, aka Officer Jones, away in handcuffs.
“I guess it’s just who I am,” I said with a shrug.
Epilogue
Chapter 92
Gwen reached into the backseat of what was once the
She reached back into a sea of bagged newspapers and grabbed one. When the driveway came into sight, she whipped her arm and sent the paper flying. It bounced onto the driveway.
I looked up from the copy of today’s paper that I’d been skimming in the passenger seat. I was again struck by the volatility Gwen had shown all morning, but wrote it off as one of those womanly things I wasn’t evolved enough to understand. I went back to trying to decide what was more beautiful-the multicolored fall foliage of the New England countryside or Gwen Delaney. Even in her Sunday morning look of Columbia sweatshirt, no make up, hair in a ponytail, and scowl on her face, Gwen won by a first round knockout. No contest. But for some reason, she didn’t seem to be sharing my poetic view of our relationship this morning.
“Are you okay?” I bravely asked again. It was exactly an hour since the last time I attempted such foolery and almost got my head bitten off. Miraculously, the collision with Benson hadn’t led to further broken bones, but I wasn’t as confident I’d survive this Sunday drive.
“I’m fine-what makes you think something’s wrong?” she snapped back at me.
I took it as a cue to return to the paper, focusing on the front page. It was the exclusive interview Gwen had done with my brother before his death. One particular section drew my attention as I read Noah’s words.
I looked up, tears blurring my vision. “This is an amazing article, Gwen.”
She flicked another paper. “I’m glad Noah’s story could be told. But he’s the one who told it-I just wrote it down.”
“Stop being so modest, you brought his story to life.”
“I said it was nothing,” she snarled at me. I shrugged, returning to the safety of the sports page, as Gwen whipped another paper.
The awkward silence was broken by the ring of my phone, which had been returned by Lamar Thompson. I gave him my Humvee for his help in saving Gwen and Carter. Seemed like a fair trade to me. It was Lauren Bowden, so I let it go to voice mail.
Gwen pulled the van safely into home base-it was five minutes past seven. We’d started at four. It was hard enough to get up at that hour, but my father couldn’t resist the urge to wake me even earlier, to inform me that the school board voted to rescind Ethan’s suspension. The wake-up was not necessary, since this was not news to either of us-my father was the one who twisted the necessary arms to make the deal happen.
We entered the creaky colonial that housed the
Murray was already present, in his formal church attire, including his trademark bow tie. He’d brewed a pot of coffee and brought an assortment of doughnuts.
Earlier in the week, following the arrest, I lamented the attention being given nationally to the man who’d
