Stranded

down onto his knees, letting the gun drag in the sand.
    “Not right,” he mumbled. “Just not right.”
    Maggie got to the sandbar as one of the men began to stir. The sand beneath them was red with blood. Maggie kept moving. She heard a moan and there was more movement. The dog raced toward the men, sniffing and poking. That’s when she saw that it was Creed pushing his way out from under Jack’s dead body. The dog had Jack’s shirttail in his teeth and was helping to pull the obstacle off his master.
    Somewhere in the distance Maggie heard the helicopter.
    Relief swept too quickly. She wanted to help Creed but she needed to focus on Otis. He hadn’t moved from where he had gone down in the sand. Now sitting, legs tucked under him, the man looked spent. But the revolver was still too close.
    “I just wanna go home,” Otis said, glancing toward Jack. Almost as if he were telling the dead man.
    Creed rolled onto his side, pushing the rest of Jack’s body off him.
    “Bolo, stay.”
    The dog immediately let go of the mouthful of Jack’s shirt. Bolo sat facing his master, anxiously waiting for his next command. Creed sat back in the sand and tapped his right palm against his heart. The dog bounded to his master, tail wagging. Immediately Creed’s hands were examining where blood streaked the side of the dog’s tan coat.
    Maggie stepped around Jack’s body. She could see the back of his head had been blasted away. She kept moving, slowly, not wanting to set off Otis. As she eased her way toward Otis, she came around Creed. She was close enough to touch him, and she dragged her fingertips gently across his back. He looked up and she caught his eyes. They were a blue so deep she couldn’t imaginethem lifeless. She pointed at Otis, giving Creed a warning look. And she continued her slow movement toward the sitting giant.
    “I just wanna go home,” Otis was saying, the lopsided grin almost a grimace. “Three meals a day, TV …”
    She stood off to his side, her shadow casting over him, and he looked up at her.
    “Miss Helen’s was a real nice place, you know.” His tongue darted out to lick his lips and he squinted his eyes. His head tilted like he was thinking about it. “I was calm there. She was good to me and Jack. She was real good to me. Just like Miss Gwen.”
    “Miss Helen sounds like a very special lady,” Maggie said.
    Then the smile lifted one side of his mouth as if he had tasted something bad. “She wouldn’t like what Jack was doing.”
    Maggie was sure he had forgotten about the gun, discarded in the sand right next to him. If she picked it up right now, would he even notice? But just as she reached down for it, Otis’s hand snatched it up.
    And Maggie’s heart stopped.
    His eyes met hers again, forehead furrowed, anxious but still grinning.
    “I just wanna go home,” he told her. Then he held out the gun to her, grip first.
    “We’ll do that, Otis. We’ll all go home,” she said.

CHAPTER 74

    SACRED HEART HOSPITAL
    PENSACOLA, FLORIDA
    Maggie didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until she felt the tap on her shoulder. She was startled to find Gwen in front of her and for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was.
    “Sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you.”
    Not only had Maggie fallen asleep, but she had managed to curl up into the waiting room’s double-set chairs outside of the trauma center.
    “When did you get here?”
    “Just a few minutes ago. Thunderstorms delayed the flight in.”
    And now Maggie could see the flashes of lightning out the windows down the hall. Without warning, she smelled firewood and the musty cabin. She rubbed her eyes, pretending to wipe at the exhaustion when she really wanted to erase the image of Jack’s smile and his wolflike black eyes. One look at the concern and fatigue on Gwen’s face and Maggie shoved aside Jack and Otis.
    “They said he’s still in surgery.”
    “Yes,” Maggie said, and she patted the seat beside her for Gwen to sit. “But the bullet went clean through.”
    She saw her friend wince.
    “ ‘Bullet’ and ‘clean’ in the same sentence sounds like an oxymoron. How are you?” Gwen asked as she reached up and touched Maggie’s face.
    A nurse in the ER had cleaned her scrapes and cuts, but Maggie knew she probably looked like hell.
    “I’m okay.”
    “I have to warn you. AD Kunze is here, too.”
    “In Pensacola?”
    “He’s with the Florida Highway Patrol and Otis.” Gwen noticed the look on