But evil had belonged to the earth since Adam and Eve fell, and it would flourish as long as there was the thirst for hatred and war and power and greed. Evil is like the serpent—cunning and deceptive—it lies dormant…until one day it doesn’t. And then everyone is surprised because they don’t know how another person could do something like that. But that root of sin is in all of us—though what we do with it is our choice. Some people choose poorly. And people like Mark Lee and Tatiana Russo pay the price.
The theater was small. The walls and carpets were dark purple, and there were red and pink flowers on the carpet that reminded me of something from Little Shop of Horrors. I scanned the room and counted a dozen people—couples huddled together closely and friends weeping silently. Smith seated down front taking a statement from the blonde girl who’d picked up Doug from our house.
Then there was Doug, leaning against the wall. He saw us and the relief on his face was obvious.
“Boy, am I glad to see you guys,” he said, rushing toward us.
I thought he was going to give me a hug, but he seemed to change his mind at the last minute, as if he wasn’t sure that was something he was supposed to do. I solved the problem for him and pulled him into a hug.
“Are you okay?” I asked, squeezing him tighter than was probably comfortable.
“I’m okay,” he said.
I looked at his face closely, but his eyes were steady and clear. Doug wanted to be a cop, and he’d worked as a consultant on some cases with us before. He’d seen more than the normal teenager, but I wanted to make sure he didn’t become so hardened to scenes like what happened outside that he forgot there were real people and emotions involved.
“Really,” he assured me, and I nodded and backed away so Jack could give his own hug.
“I mean, I was totally freaked out when it happened,” Doug said, looking pleased at the affection from Jack. “I’ve been in some close calls, but I’ve never been shot at. It just happened so fast. Man, I’m starving. We’ve been stuck in here forever and they shut down the snack bar.”
“It’s been an hour since the 911 call came through,” Jack said.
“Well, it feels like forever,” Doug said, giving a lopsided smile that was very like his uncle’s. He looked enough like Carver to be his son instead of his nephew, with the same blond hair and puppy dog eyes.
“We’ll get you fed,” Jack said. “Can you walk us through it?”
“Sure,” Doug said. “I already told Sarge what I saw. He’s talking with Tamara right now. She’s my date. I really was going to be home by curfew. I swear.”
I nodded and said, “I know you were. None of this is your fault.”
“Yeah, well, it feels like it is,” he said. “I opened the door for that couple. The ones that got shot. I opened the door and they went out first, and then Tamara’s shoe got gum on the bottom of it and we kind of moved out of the way so she could scrape it off.
“We were all just kind of standing around under the marquee. It was raining pretty hard and no one wanted to run out to the parking lot. But the guy, the one that got shot, he had an umbrella and I guess they were going to make a run for it because they went out to the curb. And then this yellow car comes barreling through the parking lot, and in my head I’m thinking the guy is an idiot and he’s going to hit someone cause he’s going so fast.
“And I guess the guy with the umbrella and his date thought so too, because they just stopped and waited for him to pass by. But the yellow car slammed on the brakes right in front of them. Then the window rolled down and he shot them. Just like that. No warning or nothing. Everyone started screaming and the car drove away. I couldn’t see the license plate through the rain.”
“We were able to get it from the cameras,” Jack said.
“Oh, good,” Doug said, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “Anyway, Tamara called 911, and me and that lady over there…” He stopped and pointed at a middle-aged woman in jeans and a sweatshirt. Her face was set in hard lines and her eyes were scanning the crowd, and her blond-streaked hair had frizzed around her face as it had dried. She reminded me of a cop.
“She said she’s a nurse,” Doug said. “So we ran over to see if we could help them.” Doug swallowed and his face lost some of its color. “I could tell the guy was dead right off. He turned kind of gray, and his eyes were closed, but I checked for a pulse.
“The nurse went to work right away on the girl. She was still alive, and you could see she was scared. I just talked to her while the nurse put pressure on her shoulder to try and stop the bleeding, but there wasn’t anything she could do. She went fast.”
It was then I noticed the streaks of dried blood on Doug’s hoodie.
“You did the right thing,” Jack assured him.
Doug blew out a shaky breath and he looked away uncomfortably. “We didn’t have to wait on the police for very long. Sarge showed up just a couple of minutes later.”
“What can you tell me about the shooter?” Jack asked.
“He was driving a yellow Ford Fusion,” Doug said automatically. “Looked pretty new. Had temp tags, but like I said, I couldn’t read them.”
“Could you see the shooter?” Jack asked.
“Light skin,” Doug said, his brow furrowed. “Kind of curly dark hair and weird sideburns. Round face. Had on big black sunglasses. He just looked like a guy. Nothing remarkable about him.”
“What hand did he shoot from?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know,” Doug said, his frustration obvious. “I didn’t see a gun. I just heard the shots and then those people dropped to the ground. It could have been any of us. It was just so fast.”
Jack put his hand on Doug’s shoulder and squeezed. “I know. You did good. Did Smith already take your statement?”
“Yeah, I was first since he knew who I was. How long before we can go home?”
“We just need to wrap up a few things and then we’re gone,” Jack said. “Call your uncle.”
Sleep wasn’t on my agenda. My body was exhausted, but my brain hadn’t gotten the memo yet. The EMTs followed us to the funeral home, and we got the two newest residents settled in the cooler so I could start work on them tomorrow. Then we headed home.
I’d grown up in Bloody Mary and knew the roads and houses like the back of my hand. It wasn’t a town of new construction, where different neighborhoods popped up every time you blinked, but the houses had character and had been renovated time and time again as they’d passed hands to new owners.
There were police cruisers with flashing lights at the end of Anne Boleyn as we made our way toward home. Water covered the streets in areas, and I could see blockades where it was no longer safe for cars to travel.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen rain like this,” I said. “I’m wondering if I should’ve stayed the night at the funeral home. We might not be able to make it back into town come morning.”
“Umm…I’m going to pass on that,” Doug said, sticking his head between our seats like a dog. “I mean, maybe it would be cool if I could invite a bunch of friends and we could do a kind of haunted house and freak ourselves out knowing we’re in the same house as dead people. Maybe you could set that up for Halloween or something. But I’m already kind of at my limit because of what happened tonight, so I don’t think I can add more freak-out on top of that without serious consequences. And all my equipment is at the house, and I kind of just want to zone out and play Dragon Wars. I could do with some hot chocolate too.”