Winds of Fate Page 6

  Since then all of her efforts went toward forgetting that any of her past had happened. She had worked valiantly at beginning. She tried living her new life as though it was truly her first day on earth. But obviously, some part of her subconscious was unwilling to let it stay buried.

  Jodie was acutely aware that she was still trembling inside and sweat ran from the back of her neck into the open collar of her green scrubs. Then suddenly a chill raced through her body when she remembered the call from the girl in the desert. Had the police found her?

  Why hadn’t someone contacted her with some kind of information? And where in hell was Mel? He was supposed to have returned to the shelter over two weeks ago. She hadn’t even gotten a call from him. Had he finally decided to begin a new life far away from her? Was leaving her behind the only way that he could hope for a new beginning for himself?

  Jodie’s sturdy frame gave an involuntary shudder at the thought of moving on without Mel, with her work or even her life. She could do it, but it would be the most difficult thing she had done in seven years.

  Jodie sat back at her desk and called the police department about the girl she had reported earlier. She had to know what was happening with the girl in the desert.

  “Yes, Miss MacLean, one of our deputies picked her up late yesterday evening and took her to the local hospital. She is in pretty bad shape. He picked her up on a country road about thirty-five miles north of here. An APB was sent out to all local and county workers to be on the lookout for her. If the deputy had been five minutes later, he might never have found her. Fortunately, he just happened to see her stumbling along about fifty feet off old county road number twelve on his way back into town. If she had passed out, it is not likely he would have spotted her. As dehydrated as she was it’s possible she would have never regained consciousness on her own.”

  “Is she going to be all right?” Jodie asked, not at all sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  “I really couldn’t answer that question, Miss MacLean. But you might wait a while and then call the hospital. I know she’s being properly cared for, and is being prepped for additional test and treatment as we speak.”

  “Thanks. I’ll check with the hospital,” she told the dispatch and hung up.

  It was too soon to contact the hospital if the girl was being tested for possible internal injuries. She would wait a while and then call back.

  Jodie set up the coffee pot, and while it perked, she went to the washroom and tired to freshen up. She was still in the scrubs she had worn the day before, but didn’t look quite as bad as she felt. She pulled a travel toothbrush from her purse and quickly ran it over her teeth. She finger combed her hair, and instead of going to her apartment to shower and change clothes, she did a quick sponge job from her bathroom sink and added deodorant and a touch of body spray, and told herself she would do for a few more hours.

  Returning to her desk, Jodie reminded herself again that she was not taking care of herself as she should. She just didn’t have the time. Jodie knew she was an attractive woman. She could not help but know it, every male that came within ogling distance never failed to exercise that manly trait. Mel had told her that she was the most gorgeous female he had ever met, and that her looks were the least of her charm. Mel knew her as no other human on Earth did, and still found her worthy... or so he said.

  Admittedly, she often wondered if he might be having second thoughts about her worthiness. After all, she had a background that no man would write home about: Whore, acidhead, killer…

  Had the past seven years truly erased the first eighteen?

  Jodie understood herself well enough now to know that she was no longer the stupid, acidhead that had gone into a skinhead camp to peddle her ass for drugs. She was also convinced that she had killed those murdering scumbags in defense of herself, and that of a young girl who was incapable of protecting herself. She did not believe for a holy minute that she had done anything wrong.

  Being involved with the law and the lawless, almost on a daily basis, she also knew it was illegal to dole out justice outside of the legal system. However, the things that had turned her life and that of others into a bloodbath seven years ago was a different story. There was little choice; those freaks would have killed her even if she had attempted to leave the desert peacefully.

  Those idiots were determined to kill her. Mel had intended to do exactly what she had done. He believed that ridding the world of those murdering freaks had to be a priority. But now that he’d had some time and space to rethink the whole situation, Jodie thought that he was having a problem with it.

  Maybe nobody would ever know Mel well enough to know what he was thinking. However, in this world where a large percentage of humanity was skimming the edge of insanity, Mel was the kindest, most logical human that she had ever known. On that fateful day seven years ago, Mel had gotten the sixteen-year-old girl out of the skinhead camp and then took her to the hospital for treatment. He had also looked for Jodie and found her. He insisted on Jodie completing her education and after learning about her hopes for a future career, established the small clinic and busted his ass to insure that it was going to work. They had proof it was working; almost two thousand young people on their list now lived useful lives because she and Mel had had made it happen.

  Where in hell was Mel, now?

  Midnight: Lightening flashed, and thunder rolled with a jarring effect. Jodie was expecting to lose her electricity any minute. As a rule her phone was knocked out when a storm of this magnitude hit the area. She was feeling lucky that her small clinic didn’t have sick patients or temporary boarders waiting to be moved. She had transported the last one to a foster home before dark and sent her aides home. Now if she could just make it to her own bed before the streets flooded, that would give her five hours sleep before reopening the clinic. She was hanging up the office phone when suddenly the front door burst open and then quickly slammed shut.

  Jodie’s breath caught somewhere between her lungs and her throat when Mel’s bloody body stumbled through the front door. She jumped to her feet and tried to catch him before he collapsed, but her attempt had failed. She grabbed a cushion from a chair, pushed it under his head, and then felt for a pulse. He was conscious, and had a strong enough pulse, but he had obviously lost too much blood to be on the safe side.

  Mel tried to raise himself up, pleading for Jodie to listen to him. She gently pushed him back, telling him to lie still while she called for an ambulance. She then contacted the emergency room so they would be prepared for his arrival.

  Mel grabbed her arm and said in a strained voice, “No, you can’t call anybody, Jodie, they’ll find me... find us... I can’t go to a public place, and I can’t stay here, but you can help me, you have to help me, you have to come with me!”

  “Mel, you’re not making sense, now stay there while I call...”

  “No! I have a place... a safe place... and it’s only twenty minutes from here. Nobody knows about it. But we have to leave... now! The only reason I’m alive is because they wanted me to lead them to you!”

  Jodie heard the desperation in Mel’s voice and felt a sudden chill. Mel didn’t panic without a good reason. She settled quickly back beside him, looking suddenly pale.

  “Jodie, I’m not as badly hurt as it looks. I have just lost a lot of blood from three non-fatal bullet wounds, and I won’t be able to drive, but we have to get out of here, now! They wanted me to believe their plan was to kill me, but then they allowed me to escape, making it was obvious they wanted to find you. Knowing that, I managed to give them the slip, but they will find both of us if we stay here. They couldn’t have been that far behind me.”

  “Who are you talking about, Mel? You’re still not making a lot of sense!”

  “Jodie, we don’t have time to discuss this, but apparently you destroyed more than you thought when you set their camp on fire. It’s no longer a mystery why Jake was so determined to get you. He knew that his own life was sc
rewed, and there was nothing he could do that would make his case any better. His insane desire for revenge got him killed before he could carry out his plans to murder you and the remainder of his crew, and then go into hiding.”

  “Okay, Mel. Can you stand if I help you?”

  “I can because I have to. And we can’t screw around here trying to make like Florence Nightingale. So let’s move!”

  After getting Mel into his car, she loaded the medical supplies she would need, within five minutes the two of them were headed north on a back road.”

  “Do you have any weapons in this car in case we need them?” Jodie asked.

  “Only a handgun, but I doubt we’ll need it as long as we’re on this road, and I have an arsenal at the cabin, which is also well stocked with food.”

  “That’s encouraging, and if we can get you patched up enough to help me stand off this war party, then maybe we will be able to survive for a while longer. Are we going to get the law involved in this?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  Because one of the men trying to kill us is a deputy sheriff. I am certain that on a personal level, he couldn’t care less if we live or die, but he is owned by the head of the snake-pit party. Therefore, he will do whatever he is told. Fortunately he never saw my face while they had me chained to a pipe in their basement, but I saw him.”

  “What put them onto you, Mel, I thought we pretty much cleaned out that rat nest before we abandoned the place?”

  “After finding evidence that both of us had been there, they found nothing to indicate that either of us had been killed, so they naturally concluded that we had split. The only thing they learned about you came from a recorded conversation that took place inside one of the trucks. It looks as if Jake didn’t trust any of the men he ruled, so he bugged their trucks and recorded their conversations. The recorder was found in the truck by this crew that’s after us. You were referred to as an ugly, skinny-assed crack whore that the skinheads were trying to find and kill. The truck driver was bragging about what he would do to you when he found you. He had said enough to put together what had happened at the camp, and why the skinheads were so bent on finding you. There wasn’t enough information on the tape to put it all together, but enough to know two people were missing from the party.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why they zeroed in on you, Mel.”

  “I don’t think they just suddenly decided to put a gun in my back in a men’s room and invite me to their party. They had been putting bits of information together for a long time, years in fact. They pretty much had the puzzle put together except for one piece, and suddenly they ran across something that led them to me, they were sure that finding me filled the empty spot in the jigsaw puzzle.”

  “So do they think you’re the one who took their loot?”

  “They think the two of us planned the whole thing. Now they want you, but don’t have a clue as to who you are or where to find you. And the description they heard on the tape... well, I am sure you have figured it out, they could never connect you with that person. But they don’t believe for a holy second that blast was an accident, or that the female who blew up the camp didn’t know about the ammo or the safes in the basement.

  Strangely enough, I don’t believe Jake knew there was anything more valuable than a stockpile of weapons and heroin in that hole, frankly, I wasn’t sure either. But tonight I was given good reason to believe there might have been something more. I also know our lives are not worth a plug nickel unless something changes very soon. This crew will never stop looking until they find us. They will try their damnedest to recover their property, whatever it is. If they fail, they will level the field with a vendetta that would have made Bonnie and Clyde set up and take notice.

  Fortunately, they don’t know who you are, but they will not rest until they find out. Nevertheless, they know who I am, and a bit of investigating will give them the big picture in a nanosecond. Neither of us will be safe at the clinic now.”

  “Shit, Mel, how am I going to run my clinic if I can’t even be there?”

  “It’s going to present a problem, sweetheart... a problem I don’t have an answer for.”

  Jodie glanced sharply at Mel when his voice suddenly began drifting off. She reached over and shook his shoulder, “Mel, stay with me. I don’t even know where we are going. You have to stay awake until we get there, then you can rest. I’ll patch you up and try to find something for you to eat. Are you with me?”

  Mel raised his head for a second, looked around as if in a fog, and then mumbled, “Next right turn, and then keep going ‘til you can’t go any farther.”

  “How far after the turn?”

  “About half a mile. It’ll be dark. Key’s under the doormat...”

  “Stay with me, Mel, we’ll be there in less than four minutes.”

  Jodie saw the turn at the last minute and hardly slowed for it, surprising herself by keeping the car under control. Three minutes later, she was pulling into the yard of a wooden shack. Everything near it was shrouded in thick shadows of a dozen or more huge cottonwood trees.

  “We’re here, Mel! You still with me?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Just having a problem keeping my eyes open.”

  “Think you can stay awake long enough to walk thirty feet if I help you?”

  “I can do it without your help... told you I’m okay... just sleepy...

  He has lost too damn much blood. How in hell can I get him a transfusion out here? I don’t even know his blood type, or a doctor that I could ask to bring blood out here in the middle of the night. But wait a minute! I know my blood type is o-negative. It matches all blood types, and I have the equipment in my bag to give Mel a transfusion.

  With Mel’s arm around her shoulder, Jodi practically carried him into the isolated shack and led him to the first bed she saw, which turned out to be the only one in the house. To her surprise and pleasure she found the water heater was working.

  She stripped Mel’s clothes off and bathed him in warm suds from a pail she would found in the kitchen. She sprinkled a heavy layer of antibiotic powder on the raw holes in his body, and then covered them with large bandages.

  Mel was breathing raggedly but his pulse was still okay. His color had morphed from a great tan five days ago to a faded-denim color, now.

  Jodie decided not to wait to do the transfusion. She dug out the needles and tubes and without hesitation pushed the needles into each of their veins…. at least she had not forgotten how to push needles into veins.

  Within minutes she saw Mel’s color begin to change; it looked near normal now; she knew that it could be wishful thinking or an allusion created by the bad lighting in the room. Nonetheless, her hopes were raised a notch. Jodie wasn’t fooling herself; she knew Mel was still low on blood and in serious condition. But if she poured another pint or two of her own blood into him, she could kiss both their asses’ goodbye; someone in this party had to remain on their feet.

  She pulled the tubes from both Mel’s and her arm, covered the needle punctures with gauze and tape, and then turned off the overhead light, leaving only a dim light by Mel’s bed.

  Jodie was putting her medical supplies away when she heard the automobile. She stopped in her tracks and listened. The wind must have changed directions because sound from the road almost a half mile away was reaching the shack.

  Jodie had remembered to close the blinds and pull the thick curtains across the two front windows. If someone was looking in this direction, it was not likely they would see anything to indicate life at the shack, it was also doubtful that anyone would spot the cabin. I suppose there are other people living out here somewhere. It’s not as though this is a private road. I’ll just gather whatever firearms Mel has stashed in this place and not worry about an automobile on a country road....

  Jodie looked around for a telephone, but didn’t see one. She pulled her cell phone from a shirt pocket, but its battery was dead and she had
forgotten to bring her charger along. Maybe Mel had left his phone in his car, she would go search for it, but first she would search his soiled clothes, maybe it was in a pocket. She cursed under her breath when she didn’t find the phone.

  Jodie found clean clothes for Mel, and went about getting him dressed just in case they had to leave in a hurry... or even if they had to make a stand here in this shack. Granted, clothes never did much toward making a body bulletproof, but they did seem to lend a bit of moral support in combat situations.

  As she replaced a pillow under Mel’s head, she heard the automobile again. This time it sounded as though it was in the front yard. She eased herself up from her bent position, pushed the small flashlight into her pocket, doused the remaining light, and tiptoed to the nearest window. She eased the curtain aside and peeked out. She couldn’t see anything that looked like an automobile, but what she did see curled her hair. Reflecting in the shimmering moonlight was the largest four-legged animal she had ever seen. The beast was sitting beneath one of the huge cottonwood trees, looking toward the road that ran past the shack and snarling at something invisible to her.