Elizabeth Goddard - Backfire

“He had an interesting tattoo. I’ve been thinking about getting one...and I asked him about it. Maybe that’s what sent him into a fit. How crazy is that?” He squeezed her hand.

But it was as if he squeezed her heart. Tracy couldn’t breathe. Images of the worst night of her life filled with flames and smoke and death accosted her. Somewhere outside her memories, David asked if she was okay, but she couldn’t escape the images.

“Tattoo?” she finally managed to ask. “What...kind of tattoo?”

Jay closed his eyes. Was he unconscious again?

“Jay, please, I need to know. It could help us identify the man who did this.”

She held her breath, afraid she would never get the answer. Fearing what the answer might be all the same.

The pounding rain slowed to a trickle, giving them a reprieve. In the distance she heard the whir of the rescue helicopter.

The plastic David held shifted. “Tracy,” he said. “I need you to climb back up to give us room to get Jay on the rescue basket and into the helicopter.”

Still reeling over what Jay had said, she couldn’t respond.

“It’s safe, Tracy. Others are up there. The Mountain Cove PD is on the way, too.”

He lowered the plastic. “Tracy? Are you okay?”

“Sure. Give me a sec.” She squeezed Jay’s hand, trying one last time. “What kind of tattoo, Jay? Please, it’s important.”

He looked at her then, the pain in his face almost intolerable. “Numbers and a scorpion with flames on the wrist. I should have known better, but I thought it was cool. Asked what the numbers—”

Tracy didn’t hear more, having already gone into a shock of her own.

No, it couldn’t be...

How had he found her?

THREE

The helicopter hovered above them.

David stood underneath the rescue basket that was used like a medical stretcher, watching as Jay was hoisted up and into the chopper. The rain was beginning to lash them again. Carefully securing Jay in the basket without complicating his injuries had been a difficult task and had required the SAR team and the expertise of the flight paramedics working together. David was also a paramedic, but he was tired and drained and had stepped back to let the fresh crew on duty do their jobs. However, Jay had wanted him there, holding his hand, making it a tight fit on the rocky terraced outcropping.

David said a silent prayer that Jay would fully recover. All things were possible with God. Like Jay being found to begin with. The helicopter swayed unsteadily in the wind, and lightning flashed. This was one of the most hazardous rescues he’d participated in.

And he hadn’t even been on call. He’d just happened upon the situation, or rather, Tracy had happened upon it. Her search-and-rescue dog had been the one to alert her, and David had heard the dog’s bark in the distance. He hadn’t even thought twice before he’d turned around and run back up the trail to find Tracy and Solomon.

Despite his severe and potentially lethal injuries, Jay would live—that much David believed to his core. The guy was a survivor and had a strong will to live. Once he had been lifted and secured, the helicopter carried him away on the flight of his life.

The adrenaline rush that had kept David going bled out of him, and he realized he was chilled to the bone in his rain-soaked running clothes, minus his T-shirt, of course. But there was one more mission David needed to complete. One more person he needed to see to. Tracy had never left his thoughts.

The SAR members that had helped with the extraction—David’s brothers, Cade and Adam, and their brother-in-law, Isaiah—had already climbed back to the trail. David followed them up, making his way slowly and meticulously in the rain, bringing the climbing ropes with him. When he’d come here for a quick run before the storm he could never have imagined this day would turn out this way.

When he finally reached the trail, David discovered Tracy had already gone. But what had he expected? For her to wait in the rain for him? Not to mention there was a would-be killer out there. Unless the police had caught the guy, no one was safe on the trail. Besides, why would she wait for David? It wasn’t as if they had ever been anything beyond acquaintances until today. And even now, David wasn’t sure they’d inched any closer to an actual friendship. That was why his disappointment surprised him. But on the other hand, he was glad she had gone.

The torrent had begun again. David didn’t bother to make conversation with Isaiah, Cade and his younger brother Adam. Instead they trudged their way toward the trailhead.

David tried to process everything they’d just been through, including Tracy’s reactions, which unsettled him in some way he couldn’t quite define. They just didn’t make sense. It was normal that she’d been shaken by the idea of an attempted murder, but there was more to it than that. David hadn’t been able to hear her conversation with Jay over the noise of the rain beating down on the tarp he’d held, but he was sure that whatever it was Jay had said had shaken Tracy. But what could it have been? David shrugged the question off. He wouldn’t be getting any answers to it out here.

Finally the rain let up again. David hoped it would stay that way until he was inside his truck with the heat on.

Isaiah stepped up next to him. “The police showed up and escorted Tracy and Heidi back. They were going to take Tracy’s statement about the fallen jogger and what she’d seen.”

“Are you saying they didn’t search the woods?” David asked. “Just took a statement?”

“I’ll talk to Terry and see what I find out,” Cade said.

Terry served on the Mountain Cove PD. He and Cade had been close since grade school, though Terry was a friend to all the Warren siblings. David would ask Tracy what she’d told the police, as well.

They made the trailhead where their vehicles were parked. Isaiah and Cade scrambled into Cade’s truck, Adam into his own vehicle, and David climbed into his shiny, brand-new, blue Ford Super Duty F-250 FX4 4x4. He loved his truck and was glad he’d special-ordered it, though that had required a wait. But if he’d been trying to fill the empty space inside with material goods, he knew he’d failed. For whatever reason, the incident this morning seemed to drive home his loneliness.

He waved at his brothers then turned on the ignition and the heat. Dripping wet, he shivered and stared out the window, recalling what had happened.

The fear he remembered from Tracy’s expression told him that something was terribly wrong.

Considering the way their brief encounter had affected him the first time he’d met her, David had made it his policy to steer clear, never involve himself with her. He shouldn’t get involved now, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her reaction. Couldn’t stop thinking about her. He wanted her to be safe, but he knew it went much deeper than that.

He was more confused than ever.

* * *

Finally at home, Tracy gave Solomon a much-needed bath and fed him. Then she took a hot shower to wash away the events of the day as well as the chill from her body, then put on a pot of coffee to brew. She needed to stop her shivering limbs. But as she slipped into her comfortable, warm sweats, she was still shaking. The real source of her trembling had nothing at all to do with getting chilled on the mountain.

No. Her trembling had everything to do with the strong possibility that Carlos Santino had somehow found her.

The tattoo that Jay had described was the tattoo worn by Santino and his gang members.

Fear crept over her again as she recalled Jay’s words.

“Numbers and a scorpion with flames on the wrist... I thought it was cool. Asked what the numbers—” Tracy knew what those numbers meant. She knew more about that particular tattoo than she’d ever wanted to. Every kind of gang—ethnic or otherwise, street gangs or prison gangs—had their coded tattoo system and tattoos symbolizing membership.