A/N: Ok, so, I'm no police procedure/EMT procedure/911 center or hospital procedure expert, so if anything seems ridiculous, just suspend your disbelief, will ya?
The police asked her and the nice older couple who were nearly run over by the pickup what they'd seen, what they knew. She explained what she could, about the little girl asking for help, about Priestly asking for the box cutter. No, she didn't know why he'd asked for it. She saw him move like he was cutting at something but she hadn't been able to make out just what it was past the door of the truck. She was too far away, on the other side of the car. She gave the cops the limited description she had of the little girl: dirty, messy blonde hair. Dusty, tear stained face. Pale complexion. Not sure about the clothes. Something sleeveless. Maybe a sundress or maybe just a tank top. She hadn't been close enough to see the bottom part of her outfit. The absolute, all consuming terror as the little girl screamed that "he" was coming back.
"No," she denied. "I didn't see much. I saw a man from far away. He sort of paused for a second, and that's when I knew…when I knew he knew something was wrong. He was just a blur of a male figure hurrying to the pickup, and then the shadow of a guy leaping inside behind the wheel. White. Dark hair. Sunglasses. Could be any random guy from the street. Dark shirt."
"Any other distinguishing features?" the officer asked, just letting her ramble, his pen rushing to keep up on the report.
"No, I don't remember. It was too fast. I don't remember if he had anything to distinguish him. And then Priestly threw the keys at me, told me to call 9-1-1 and jumped into the bed of the truck to try to stop him."
Jude heard the radio in the squad car at the same time as the officers did. The dispatcher's voice was mechanical, without emotion: All units respond for a young male caller reporting being in the bed of a truck, possible kidnapping in progress. BOLO for a dirty black pickup on Water Street heading east southeast, weaving in and out of traffic. Assume the driver to be armed.
"Holy God. He must be on his cell phone with 9-1-1." She realized from somewhere distant that those were her words.
No, no…I'm sorry, the elderly man was saying. It happened too fast. I just saw a black blur and jumped out of the way with my wife… Ma'am? You okay? Do you need an ambulance? At first Jude thought they were asking her, but no. They were asking the man's visibly shaken, frail looking wife.
Jude looked at the faces of all the curious people passing by, thought vaguely how she and Priestly tried to make it a point not to look when they passed car crashes or cop cars or fire trucks. Mind your own business! was the furious scream uttered only in her head. Instead, she stood helplessly, wondering what on earth to do as one of the officers ducked into the patrol car and the other one continued taking notes, asking for the old couple's names. She answered dully when he asked her her own. She thought fleetingly of the groceries in the trunk, wondering if she should actually go back to their converted garage apartment at Leo's and put them away. And then equally randomly thought they should probably find a place of their own soon. Though it had been expanded into the downstairs part of the garage, also, it sometimes struck them both as absurd to still be living there, in what used to be an efficient one bedroom apartment. Even though there was now room for Mikey and Lily, they just thought they should find their own home and stop living within shouting distance of Priestly's mother and stepfather. Just move away from people who loved them, which suddenly seemed so completely ridiculous she almost laughed. There was plenty of room. Mikey loved having Nana and Papa nearby. Why? Why had it seemed like such a big deal?
"Ma'am?"
Jude looked up into the officer's face.
"Are you alright? Do you need an ambulance?"
She shook her head, hugging herself, suddenly freezing in the mild late afternoon sun. Disconnected thoughts drifted through her head as she tried to force the rising panic down.
Groceries not getting any fresher in the trunk. Her in-laws taking a trip to Hawaii to celebrate their fourth anniversary. Priestly's crew holding down the fort at the grill so they could have their first date night in five months. A date night Priestly wanted to spend in the same garage apartment they couldn't decide whether or not to leave, cooking her a dinner that would, he insisted, curl her toes. And then he'd curl her toes. And then he'd curl them again and again and again since there'd be no chance of a little voice outside the door asking for water or another little voice wailing from her crib next door. Hell, the anticipation alone nearly made them curl up. Trucker at BCG the Sequel, as Priestly liked to jokingly call it, just another day at work. Mikey probably driving Tish and Rick nuts already, asking every two seconds if they were "there yet". Lily probably napping right now as per her usual. So ridiculously absurd to be standing in the Trader Joe's parking lot, groceries spoiling because her idiot husband, her wonderful, big-hearted, sweet, goofy, silly, crazy husband was never able to just watch someone suffer if he thought he could help.
She barely noticed as the officer locked up Gossamer, unaware of their date night groceries in the trunk, and guided her into the back of the squad car, carefully placing his palm on her head so that she didn't hit it on the door frame as she dutifully sat down. And then he stood there, not closing the door, as she tried to make herself tell him about the groceries. She tried to figure out what to do. She always knew what to do, what should be done. Priestly sometimes got annoyed by that fact…by the fact that she always knew what should be done and insisted he follow along with her plans. But right now she couldn't reconcile what should be done with the fact that what would logically come next was completely impossible. She couldn't just go home with the groceries and put them away.
When she looked up, realizing the officer was speaking to her, the radio squawked again.
Any available units… Black pickup truck overturned at the Morrisey Boulevard on ramp and Cabrillo Highway. Suspected kidnapping in progress. Approach the vehicle with caution. Look for a white male driver, brown hair, dark shirt, sunglasses, possibly armed. BOLO for a possible blonde female minor passenger. There was a short pause and then the same voice, robotic in its detachment, added a phrase that had her sobbing wildly even as the officer ducked into the front seat of the squad car:
Any available ladder… Emergency medical response needed for a white male ejected from the bed of a black pickup overturned at Morrisey Boulevard on ramp and Cabrillo Highway. Unconscious. Assistance also needed for two passengers of the black pickup, conditions unknown. Police response required for possible kidnapping in progress.
She heard the officer call in for confirmation that the medical response would be to Dominican Hospital. When it was confirmed that it would be, she slammed her hand on the partition and screamed, "Go! Go!"
*%*
The officer wanted her to tell him who to call, but she just kept screaming at him. "GO!" she screamed wildly over the calm voices of the officer and his partner as they tried to tell her they would take her to Dominican, but they wanted her to have someone there to meet her. Who can we call, hon? They asked over and over as she went from screaming to sobbing to pleading softly and back again. Finally they just did as she asked, though they refused to use the sirens for an accelerated response. By the time they wheeled into the emergency bay at Dominican, she was silent and numb, hugging herself and shivering as she wondered what condition Priestly was in.
She let the officer gently take her elbow and guide her out of the car. He and his partner walked with her sandwiched between them, all the way up to the intake desk where they asked to use the phone. They supervised her call, the one they insisted upon. Now, having the walls of the ER around her, she was able to understand they were right. Sitting here alone…impossible. She took the offered phone and dialed first Leo's home and then his and Joyce's cell phones, a fresh wave of tears building as she didn't reach them anywhere. She hated to leave messages, but she did, simply saying to call her cell as soon as possible. The officers waited as she dialed the grill's boardwalk location, both relieved and horrified as Trucker's voice came over the line.
*%*
It was tough to rattle Trucker Hancock.
Jude had heard only a few very brief stories about his time in Vietnam, but she understood that it was a large part of what made him so laid back and easy going. That and his surfing family. Of course, he'd also once admitted to her that there was a lot more going on under the surface that people didn't see. Still, she could see it. When it came to Priestly, she could always see it. There was just something different about the way Trucker held every aspect of himself whenever Priestly was involved. And now, holding her hands in his, Jude plainly saw that aspect even if she couldn't explain to anyone what it was. But the result was that Trucker was gob smacked, shocked into silence by the story she'd just told him.
Jude recalled the little blonde girl's face. She may not know the color of the girl's eyes or the entirety of her outfit, but she'd never forget that little girl's stark, naked fear. Still, she couldn't quite suppress the ghost of a smile as Trucker told someone he'd dialed on her cell phone where to find the spare keys to Priestly's car and asked whoever it was to get the car over to Leo's and put the groceries away if they still seemed okay. That was Trucker. Keeping everything running as the world crashed down around them.
The intake clerk came back apologetic. She couldn't tell them much except that Priestly was being examined and he was conscious and responsive. The doctor had been made aware of their presence, however, and would follow up with them as soon as he possibly could. Though it did little to quash her fear and anxiety, there was some measure of relief in the fact that Priestly was conscious.
Oddly, Jude and Trucker learned more about the events by watching the television monitors in the ER as the afternoon's events hit the news station that was playing. She began sobbing again as she watched the scene from the bird's eye view of news helicopter cameras. Looking down at the wreckage of the black pickup, she remembered Priestly's scramble in the bed as it tore away, remembered him grasping frantically at anything and everything as he nearly pitched headfirst over the side. Clearly he was no longer there amongst the scattered metal and glass, but she shivered at the crumpled condition of the truck.
The headline on the screen asked, MISSING SANTA CRUZ GIRL FOUND? Together, they strained to hear the low, tinny voice of the newscaster over the hospital bustle.
"Police are saying the flipping of a black Ford F-150 at Cabrillo Highway's Morrisey Boulevard on ramp resulted in the discovery of a young girl apparently held captive as a passenger. Police are hoping to confirm whether the girl is in fact Missy Leon, the Santa Cruz first grader reported missing late yesterday afternoon. Missy was last seen leaving Bay View Elementary School and was reported missing by her parents after failing to arrive home. The driver of the vehicle, her suspected captor, has yet to be positively identified. Police are also still working to confirm the identity and involvement of a young man who witnesses say was thrown from the bed of the truck. All three have been transported to Santa Cruz's Dominican Hospital. More on this story as it develops…"
Jude rose angrily. "Confirming the identity and involvement?!"
Trucker tugged her back down. Jude looked at him. Except for the tiniest twitch of his eyelid, you wouldn't know he, too, was annoyed by the way the media's vague reporting suggested that Priestly might be involved in the kidnapping. They both knew that with his tattoos and piercings, he'd be stereotyped and pigeonholed as some kind of criminal. The only good thing about how furious it made her was that for a few brief moments, she was able to just be mad instead of frantically worried. Trucker, still holding her cell phone, answered it as it rang.
"Hey, Leo," he said with a heavy sigh, dropping his forehead into his free hand, his elbow propped up on the arm of the chair.
Absently, Jude listened to Trucker calmly tell her father-in-law the situation. She saw a young couple race in through the doors and over to the intake desk and saw them promptly whisked away into the back, into the bowels of the ER. Her anger, fear, and impatience grew. It was terribly unfair. They came in and got escorted right back to the one they loved! She realized in the somewhat more rational parts of her mind that this wasn't a restaurant. They weren't waltzing in the door, ignoring the wait list at the seating hostess' desk. It was possible, likely even, that someone had called them and summoned them here. She tried to take comfort in the fact that she and Trucker hadn't been so summoned and that the intake clerk had said he was conscious. Conscious is good, she repeated firmly to herself. Conscious is good.
She tried not to think about Mikey and Lily, but of course, that was entirely impossible. The enormity of all the people she should be calling just now was boggling. Tish. His crew at the grill. Her mother, who was watching Lily. The old grill gang…Jen and Piper and their husbands. Sally and Scooter, who'd want to know even if they were across the country in Florida. Patrick and Kelly and all of the other various friends they'd made through the grill. Zo. But they would all have to wait. Just wait. Just let me see him again, she silently begged.
The next news flash reported that the little girl's identity had been confirmed to be Missy Leon and that she had been reunited with her parents and was in stable condition at Dominican Hospital. Jude wondered suddenly if the young couple she'd seen rushing in had been her parents. And then she wondered if it was too much of a coincidence. Even as she wondered it, the two uniformed officers who'd brought her into the ER suddenly appeared. She hadn't realized they were still in the building.
"Ma'am?" the officer who'd done most of the talking nodded down at her and then at Trucker.
"What?" she asked fearfully, rising along with Trucker.
"Given the circumstances, we'd like to ask you to follow us into a special room set aside for high profile events."
"To get you away from any journalists that may stop in to the ER," the other officer clarified.
Jude nodded along with Trucker, remembering the crowd that had gathered in the Trader Joe's parking lot. As they followed the officers, the less talkative one explained they'd stayed behind to collaborate with the first responders, still trying to build a complete picture of the events. Jude was questioned again, and then suddenly the young couple appeared, led into the room by another set of officers. Introductions began and Missy's young mother, Lisa, grabbed Jude in an emotional hug.
"Oh, God, thank you!" the woman cried. "Thank you for helping my daughter!"
Jude nodded helplessly, unable to open her mouth to explain that it wasn't really her. It was her idiot husband. Her idiot, special, wonderful, crazy, beautiful husband whose condition she still didn't know. She couldn't say these things to a near stranger, though she could barely contain herself.
Over the next few tense hours, the full picture formed, aided by the officers, the 9-1-1 transcripts, the witness statements, and the medical staff's reports. Missy hadn't shown up at home, which was less than three blocks from school. The neighborhood was a good one, and a lot of parents let their kids walk the short distance alone. Or they had until yesterday. Today, the small elementary school and the surrounding neighborhoods were flooded with parents on foot and in cars, escorting their children to class and home again.
The only man with a black pickup truck that anyone knew of was Greg Clarkson, a handyman for a family living down the block from the Leons. A quick license plate check later revealed that Greg's plate did indeed begin AR9. He'd been laid off from his construction job over a year ago, was recently divorced, and currently lived in his parents' basement. His parents hadn't seen him for the last week, however, and suspected he was doing drugs again. He had a meth habit. He was angry and sullen a lot of the time over his circumstances.
Police had found Missy bound up by cable ties looped all around the passenger seatbelt, three of them cleanly cut, which was assumed to be the work of Priestly and his box cutter. He hadn't had time to free Missy completely. Oddly, that fact may have saved her life as it kept her from experiencing much movement as the vehicle rolled. She suffered only a broken arm and wrenched shoulder and a couple of minor cuts in the rollover and was being held for observation until morning.
Jude didn't realize she was holding Lisa's hand until Lisa squeezed hers.
Based on the paraphrased report on the 9-1-1 recording's contents, Priestly, who had indeed called from his cell phone, was also heard pounding on the cab's back window and yelling at the driver to pull over. The officers were grim as they explained the recordings would show that Priestly tried to convince the guy that he had no options left other than surrendering himself to the police. And then he'd screamed into the phone that the guy was choking her. There were sounds of glass breaking, sounds of a struggle, and then a squealing of tires followed by a few muffled sounds and then nothing at all, which was most likely the moment the vehicle spun out of control and flipped.
The officers found Clarkson bleeding out in the overturned truck, a box cutter jammed into his arm and pieces of his own vehicle embedded in his torso. There were some marks on Missy's neck consistent with strangling. The police believed Priestly had smashed the back window of the cab to stop Clarkson from choking Missy to death, stabbing him in the arm with the box cutter to get him to release his hold. Clarkson was declared dead while still on the highway, before he could be moved to the hospital.
Priestly's ejection from the vehicle was reported to 9-1-1 by several motorists. Everything went down as Clarkson was just gaining speed to merge with the freeway traffic. The truck suddenly swerved hard to the left, collided with a car in the right hand lane, and Priestly was thrown from the bed of the truck just as it began to roll. He was thrown onto the shoulder, which dropped downward slightly into a shallow ravine. He regained consciousness in the ambulance and though in a fair amount of pain, he asked after "the girl" and after Jude and was able to coherently answer the EMT's questions.
Just after arrival at the hospital, however, his condition rapidly deteriorated. His blood pressure took a sharp dive downward and he complained of increasing pain on the left side of his abdomen. Suspecting a complicated rib fracture with internal injuries, the surgeon on call rushed him into emergency exploratory surgery.
Jude wiped at tears as Lisa squeezed her hand again. Trucker squeezed her shoulder, his arm having been around them since they'd settled into the private waiting area. Lisa's soft voice was firm as she said,
"I can't wait to meet him, Jude. I'm going to set eyes on my hero and thank him for saving my baby's life. Just you wait and see."
God, she hoped so. She really, really hoped so.