Money to Burn

57

THE SIGHT OF IVY GOING DOWN HIT ME LIKE HOT SHRAPNEL.

One moment we were running at full speed, and the next it was a war zone. The noise was like firecrackers in a campfire. We were beyond the glass doors, but the exploding pellets of shattered glass caught up with us. The rest happened in a split second, but the image and sounds unfolded like slow motion. Several bullets slammed into Ivy’s back. Her body jerked forward, as if someone were knocking her to the ground with a hammer. I could actually hear the bullets pelting her-which struck me as odd. The jerking body was odd, too. Papa had told me that when people got shot, they dropped. Period. He’d seen it happen in World War II. Bodies weren’t knocked back, held up, or slammed against the wall like in the movies.

Her Kevlar had changed everything.

Ivy’s trench coat looked ordinary, but the lining was body armor. She’d worn it every spring for the past four years, and when the threat level went from orange to red, she practically lived in it. She’d removed it only for our embrace. Thank God she’d put it back on before Burn had burst into the waiting room and started shooting.

“Roll!” she shouted.

I dived to the ground and did exactly as told, landing on the grass at full speed and rolling like a log down a hill. I heard more shots from Burn and noticed two or three miniature explosions of dirt as we rolled toward a tree. We were safely behind the massive oak’s trunk when Ivy pulled a gun from her jacket and fired two quick shots back toward the emergency room.

“There are people in there!” I said.

“I’m hitting the roof, but Burn doesn’t know that. Now run!”

She pivoted and fired two more shots from the other side of the tree trunk. I’d never seen her with a handgun, but she had obviously gotten serious training.

“Run!” she told me.

“Where?”

“Get with Eric. He’ll keep you safe.”

“I’m not leaving you here.”

I heard sirens in the distance. The police were on the way.

“If we’re still here when the cops arrive,” said Ivy, “they’ll arrest both of us. We’re sitting ducks in jail.”

I didn’t have an answer to that.

She grabbed the back of my neck and pulled my face toward hers. “I’ll run to the left,” she said. “You run right. I’ll find you. I promise.”

I was thinking of that trip in the Bahamas four years earlier, when she’d promised I would never regret our decision to ditch the Saxton Silvers crowd and charter a sailboat.

“I can’t-”

She silenced me with a kiss-and I hoped it wasn’t good-bye for good.

“Take my cell,” she said, pressing it into my hand. “McVee’s techies haven’t compromised it yet with their spyware. Speed-dial number one is my mother. Call her, and hook up with her and Eric. Then keep it on. I will call you. I promise.”

There was that word again-promise.

Then she turned, ran, and fired two more diversion shots toward the hospital as she disappeared into the dark shadows beneath the canopy of sprawling oaks. Burn returned fire in her direction. I ran the opposite way, clutching Ivy’s cell.

I knew that Ivy wanted me to clear the area as quickly as possible, and the sirens told me that the police were getting close. But I needed to check on Nick. I zigzagged between parked cars until I came upon the Chevy. The driver’s-side door was unlocked, and when I opened it, Nick’s slumped body fell out of the front seat and onto the pavement.

I couldn’t help but gasp at the sight of such a horrible, bloody mess at the base of his skull. There was another gaping hole in his forehead-a through-and-through bullet wound was what my years of watching CSI on television had taught me. No doubt about it, Nick was gone.

With blood splatter everywhere-the seat, the steering wheel, the dash, the cracked windshield-I couldn’t have taken the car even if the thought had come to me. The truth is, it never even crossed my mind. Adrenaline took over, and I didn’t even slam the door shut. I turned and ran like an Olympian, crossing the parking lot in seconds, determined not to be chased down by Burn, the police, or anyone else who might be in pursuit. Block after block, I just kept going, heading away from River Road and major thoroughfares. Dusk had turned to night by the time I found a pay phone-I didn’t want the call traced to the cell Ivy had given me-and I stopped on the sidewalk outside a deli to dial 911.

“A man’s been shot,” I said, breathless, “in the parking lot at Palisades Medical Center. The shooter’s name is Ian Burn. Six feet tall, dark complexion-maybe Indian decent-a bad scar on his right ear from a burn.” I continued to rattle off every distinguishing characteristic I could recall, and then wondered if the scar was on his left ear and not his right. The more I spoke, the more my thoughts scattered, and I shuddered to think what the recording of this call would sound like. I finished with a flurry: “He is an extremely dangerous professional killer. You have to find him!”

I hung up and sprinted away. I was on Park Avenue, which bore as much resemblance to the Park Avenue as Rome, Georgia, did to its namesake. Just beyond Gunther’s Bargain Corner and directly across the street from a used-furniture store called the Tickled Pink Petunia was a twenty-four-hour Laundromat. I ducked inside and grabbed a chair in the corner away from the noisy machines where I could catch my breath. I was still recovering when I hit speed-dial number one on the cell Ivy had given me.

“Hey, girlfriend,” said Olivia.

She’d clearly assumed from the incoming number that the call was from her daughter.

“It’s Michael,” I said, and then I told her about the string of mishaps that had landed Ivy’s cell with me. I was still processing the whole shoot-out myself, and the full impact of Nick’s death didn’t even hit me until I spoke of it.

“Burn shot my driver dead,” I said, my voice quaking. “Nick’s got two little kids, for God’s sake.”

She sighed so loudly that her voice crackled on the line. “Where is Burn now?”

“I’m sure he ran. I guess someone dialed nine-one-one. Police were on their way. I called, too, just a minute ago.”

“You what?”

“Don’t worry. I used a pay phone. They now have Ian Burn’s name and a pretty good description of him.”

“Michael, don’t take risks like that. I’m sure Ivy has already given all that information to her FBI contact.”

“It doesn’t hurt for them to hear it twice.”

“There’s an arrest warrant out for you,” she said. “For the tenth time: If the police haul you in, you’re dead. And now that you’ve called nine-one-one, patrol cars are probably in the neighborhood looking for you as we speak.”

“I didn’t leave my name.”

“Good. Just don’t make any more calls. We’re coming to get you.”

“You and Ivy?”

“No. Eric and me. Where are you?”

I told her.

“That’s in Guttenberg,” said Olivia. “Give us five minutes and we’ll pick you up in Eric’s car. Just stay right there.”

Across the Laundromat was a young mother folding sheets while her two boys ran wild up and down the aisle. I thought of Nick’s widow, her two kids, and their college fund filled with worthless Saxton Silvers stock.

“Don’t worry,” I said into the phone. “I’m not going anywhere.”