The Last Plea Bargain Read online

  The room stopped spinning, peace overwhelmed me, and the darkness took control.

  87

  Mace James arrived early at the office of Dr. Aaron Gillespie. He waited alone in the shaded parking lot, secluded from Johns Creek Parkway, hoping David Brewster would keep his promise. At 8:00 he started getting nervous. At 8:05 he called Brewster and left a message. At 8:10 he texted Brewster and called Jamie. She didn’t answer either.

  Gillespie pulled up at 8:15 and greeted Mace. “Is your client here?”

  Mace explained that Brewster had promised to show but now wasn’t answering his phone. Gillespie suggested they wait inside. He unlocked the front door, and Mace followed through a lobby area and down a dark hallway.

  “Don’t move,” a voice behind Mace said. “Hands behind your back.” Mace felt something like a gun barrel on the nape of his neck. He tried to glance quickly over his shoulder, but the man pressed the gun harder. “I mean it. I’ll blow you away in a second.”

  Gillespie turned and looked at Mace. “Do as he says,” Gillespie warned.

  Mace tried to size things up, but everything was happening too fast. Gillespie’s in on this? Mace knew he needed to make a move—try to catch the guy behind him with an elbow. If he let the man handcuff him, he would lose his one opportunity. He felt the gun pull back a few inches, no longer touching his skin.

  In the next second, without warning, Mace felt a debilitating pain shoot from the small of his back through his entire body. He tried to jerk away but collapsed to the floor. The electrical current from a Taser had set every nerve ending on fire.

  Stunned, Mace felt two men pull his hands behind his back and slap handcuffs on. He looked up, blinked, and saw Caleb Tate and Rafael Rivera.

  “That was stupid,” Caleb snapped.

  “It won’t leave marks. It went through his clothing.”

  They yanked Mace up by his arms, and Caleb held a gun to the back of Mace’s head. Rivera kept the Taser a few inches from Mace’s side.

  “My car’s out back,” Caleb said to Gillespie. “Have you got the girl?”

  “She’s in the other car.”

  Rivera and Caleb forced Mace out the back door and into the passenger seat of Caleb’s car. Caleb drove, and Rivera sat behind Mace, the Taser touching Mace’s right shoulder.

  “Try something,” Rivera said. “I’d like to see you squirm again.”

  Mace considered his options, none of which were appealing. “You won’t get away with this,” he said. “Too many people know.”

  Caleb scoffed. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, and for the first time since Mace had known him, his hair wasn’t perfectly in place. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he hadn’t shaved that morning.

  “This isn’t TV,” Caleb said. “You can save your clichés.”

  “Masterson knows. Finnegan knows. Plus, three or four of your former clients all know about this.”

  Caleb kept his eyes straight ahead.

  “Shut up,” Rivera said from the backseat.

  “Masterson just got an e-mail thirty minutes ago from Jamie’s computer,” Caleb Tate said smugly. “It tells Masterson to ignore the prior messages. It says that your theories about me were all wrong. That you were just trying to get a deal for Rashad Reed. That Gillespie hypnotized this other client of yours—David Brewster—and found out there was no prior hypnosis. As for Detective Finnegan—nice try, but Jamie doesn’t trust him. He’s out of the loop.”

  “Where’s Jamie?” Mace asked.

  “You don’t get to ask the questions,” Caleb said. He switched on the radio and made a left turn. “Besides, you’ll figure it all out when we get there.”

  It was dark by the time Caleb pulled into the long driveway that looped around to the front of his mansion. Motion detectors flicked on streetlamps, illuminating the scene in a hazy glow. Mace James had spent some time here when Caleb had first retained him. Caleb had escorted Mace through the house, showing him the bedroom where Rikki died, explaining what had happened step by step. Now Caleb was staging yet another drama at the house that murder built, and Mace would have a starring role.

  “Get out,” Rivera said from the backseat.

  Mace made no effort to move. Why cooperate? He realized that whatever plot these men had in mind depended on leaving no Taser marks or bruises from blunt blows. They were probably going to stage some kind of shoot-out.

  When Caleb reached over to unbuckle Mace’s seat belt, Mace decided to make his play. He lunged at Caleb and landed a vicious head butt just above Caleb’s eyebrow. Caleb grunted in pain, but before Mace could land another blow, he felt the Taser dig into his shoulder and the current surge through his body. He convulsed in the front seat for five seconds, ten, while Caleb spouted obscenities and pressed his palm to his forehead to stanch the flow of blood.

  “Get him up the steps! Now!” Caleb demanded.

  Caleb half jogged to the front steps, trying to keep the blood from dripping on the sidewalk. Rivera pulled Mace from the car, but Mace had a hard time getting his muscles to cooperate. He fell once, stood up at Rivera’s prodding, and staggered toward the front steps. Rivera held the Taser inches from Mace’s body and pushed him along with his free hand.

  “Make another move, big man,” Rivera taunted. “You like being a hero?”

  Mace felt like somebody had clawed his insides out. He tried to focus and come up with a plan while he walked. When he reached the front porch, he saw an SUV pull into the driveway. Aaron Gillespie got out, wearing gloves and brandishing a gun. He stopped about twenty yards from the front porch.

  “What happened to you?” he asked Caleb.

  “Our boy wants to be a hero,” Caleb said, his face covered with blood. “We’re going to have to change this up a little. He’s going to have a contusion on his head, so we’ll need to make sure that when he falls, he hits that part of his head on the steps. I’ll twist out of the way and fall against the doorpost or something so I’ve got an explanation for this. Everything else stays the same.”

  Mace still didn’t know the details of this script, but one thing was obvious—his character didn’t make it to the final credits. He suspected that Jamie was already dead. He realized it was her 4Runner that Gillespie had driven. He decided to at least give the medical examiner and cops something to work with.

  He was still on the porch, not far from Caleb Tate, which was apparently where they wanted him to die. Gillespie was facing them, gun in his right hand. Mace could feel his muscles starting to regroup and he said a quick prayer. A thought crossed his mind—Samson in the temple. He might have to die, but why die alone?

  He bolted down the steps, straight for Gillespie, gambling that Caleb didn’t want to shoot him in the back.

  “Stop him!” Caleb yelled.

  Gillespie pointed the gun but froze, his hand trembling. A few more steps. But just before Mace got to him, Gillespie lowered the gun and fired. Mace felt his left thigh explode with pain, driving him to the ground.

  “Get Jamie!” Caleb yelled. “And finish him off right there!”

  Mace’s left leg felt like it had been ripped apart. The pain was shutting down his thoughts. He tried to stagger to his feet, but Rivera pushed him back down and stood over him with the Taser. Caleb had a gun pointed at Mace’s head.

  Gillespie jogged to the 4Runner and tucked the gun in his waistband. He opened the passenger door and pulled Jamie out. She appeared lifeless, a rag doll. Gillespie carried her down the sidewalk, his arms squeezed around her waist.

  He stopped a few feet from Mace, close enough in the muted light that Mace could see the sweat on Gillespie’s brow, his eyes wide with panic. Caleb came closer, his gun still trained on Mace’s head. Rivera was there as well, finger on the trigger of the Taser. Gillespie propped Jamie up and positioned himself behind her, his arms wrapped around her. He pulled out the gun and wrapped her dead hands around it, pointing it at the front door. Using Jamie’s finger on the trigg
er, Gillespie squeezed off four random shots.

  That’s when it clicked for Mace.

  They were setting it up to look like Jamie had killed him. Like he had been at a meeting at Caleb’s house while Jamie was lying in wait outside. She had opened fire, killing Mace, perhaps thinking she had killed Caleb too. They would probably stage Jamie’s subsequent suicide, and Gillespie, as her counselor, would claim she had been suicidal for some time.

  After Gillespie fired the shots at the front door, he turned the gun toward Mace. Three weapons—two guns—all pointed at Mace. It was time to pick one.

  He took a deep breath, ignored the pain in his wounded leg, and lunged headfirst at Caleb Tate. But Tate sidestepped, managed to keep his balance, and threw Mace to the ground. Mace felt the pain bite at his leg as he hit the turf and rolled. He cringed, anticipating the impact of the bullet.

  He heard a shot and looked up in time to see the bullet rip through Rivera. Gillespie had dropped Jamie and had the gun pointed squarely at Caleb Tate.

  When he had lunged, Mace had knocked Caleb’s gun to the ground, but it was still several feet away. With his hands cuffed behind his back, Mace had no chance of getting to it in time.

  He did a quick reassessment. Gillespie killed Rivera?

  Before Mace could process it all, Gillespie fired two more shots, one that hit Caleb Tate’s left shoulder, the other exploding Caleb’s face. “That was for Rikki,” Gillespie said as Caleb crumpled to the ground.

  Mace rolled twice, trying to get to Caleb’s gun, but Gillespie beat him to it. He stepped on it and pointed Jamie’s gun straight down at Mace.

  “I saved Jamie,” he said. His hands were shaking, his eyes wild with fear. “I can’t save you.”

  Mace closed his eyes, thought about the things in life he had left undone, and heard the next shot echo through the night air.

  88

  For the second time, Mace felt no pain.

  He opened his eyes in time to see Gillespie blown backward, blood spattering his shirt. There were sirens in the distance. And big Bill Masterson, gun in his right hand, appeared from behind Jamie’s 4Runner. He raced over to Jamie and checked her breathing.

  “You all right?” he asked Mace.

  “Just a flesh wound,” Mace gasped. His hands were still cuffed behind his back, so he couldn’t put pressure on the wound in his left thigh. He was losing blood, but that wasn’t his first concern. “Is she alive?”

  Masterson had his hand on Jamie’s neck. “Alive, but I don’t like her pulse.”

  Mace James asked as many questions as he could on the way to the hospital, but nobody seemed to know anything. The first ambulance had taken Jamie away. He was in the second. The paramedics told him to calm down and try to relax.

  Easy for them to say. He had just seen three men killed with stupefying speed, all within arm’s length. He had been Tasered and had a gun pointed at his head. He had a bullet lodged in his thigh, which still hurt like crazy. He was losing blood fast.

  His mind was spinning trying to process all this.

  When they hit the emergency entrance at Johns Creek Hospital, there was a flurry of activity, lots of serious faces and urgent orders and people hustling this way and that. He signed consent forms as the pain medication started to kick in. They hooked up IVs and pumped in some blood, preparing him for surgery.

  Mace’s questions were still being deflected, but he wasn’t sure he was making sense anymore. The surgeon and anesthesiologist talked for a few minutes, and then the bright lights of the operating room went dark as Mace James drifted into a well-earned sleep.

  89

  I finally clawed my way to the surface of consciousness, fighting through the nightmares I had been slipping in and out of. I was still disoriented. My head felt like it might explode. I was lying in a hospital bed in a dark room with the television on. I had no idea what time of day or night it was. There were IVs hooked up to both arms, and my thoughts felt like they were wading through quicksand.

  I tried to blink my eyes a few times so I could bring my memories into focus, but it wasn’t happening. How did I get here? How long have I been passed out? There were fragments of memories—Aaron Gillespie at my house, images of my parents covered in blood, a visit from Mace James.

  I turned my head slowly to the left, but the dizziness and pain came charging at me. I closed my eyes, blinked slowly, and opened them again. Bill Masterson was sprawled out in a chair, mouth open, snoring loudly. I had no idea why he was in my room.

  I tried to talk, but my mouth was dry as cotton. I needed something to sip on but felt like my muscles were paralyzed and wouldn’t respond to my brain’s commands. I managed to murmur something and thought I saw Bill start in his chair. But then he settled back into a rhythmic snoring, and I realized there was no use fighting the sleep. I closed my eyes, relaxed, and let the nightmares take over again.

  Mace came out from under the anesthesia feeling groggy but ready to answer the nurse’s questions. “What’s your name? Where are you? What kind of surgery did you have?” His words sounded a lot like grunts, but he apparently got all the answers right, and she offered him water and some crackers.

  “The doctor will be here in a few minutes,” the nurse told him, “but he says you’re a lucky man. The bullet tore into your quadriceps muscle, but it didn’t hit any bone. It’s a good thing you’re a weight lifter.”

  As Mace gathered his bearings, the events of the last twenty-four hours settled back in his mind, creating a sense of sadness and apprehension. He needed some answers.

  He asked for his BlackBerry, but the nurse said he didn’t have one when he came in. He wanted to use the phone, but the nurse told him he needed to wait and talk to the doctor first. “After that, there’s a Detective Finnegan who wants to talk to you.”

  “Is there a Jamie Brock in the hospital?” Mace asked.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t give out that kind of information. Why don’t you relax a little bit? If the leg starts to hurt, you can push this button right here, and it will release another shot of morphine.”

  Mace grunted in frustration, but there was nothing he could do. He waited patiently for his surgeon to make the rounds and then threatened to check himself out of the hospital if they didn’t get him a cell phone. A few minutes after his display of belligerence, Detective Tyler Finnegan came into the room and gave Mace an update on Jamie Brock and David Brewster.

  “We found Brewster in the trunk of Rivera’s car,” Finnegan said. “Tied up but basically unharmed. They were probably going to dispose of him later.

  “Jamie’s okay too. Gillespie gave her a drug called ketamine, a fast-acting narcotic sometimes used as a date rape drug. It’s hard to detect in the system and can cause some short-term memory problems. Jamie’s coming around, but she probably won’t remember much.”

  Mace had a thousand questions, but Finnegan had a few of his own. He pulled up a chair, crossed his legs, took out a notepad, and began asking. Thirty minutes later, with Finnegan still probing about details, Mace drifted back to sleep.

  I opened my eyes again, encountered the lights in the room, and closed them. My head was still throbbing, and I felt like throwing up. I felt numb, and I couldn’t seem to get out of the haze. I started drifting away again.

  “Jamie?” A familiar voice cut through the fog. I felt a touch on my arm, an insistent shaking, and then heard the same voice. “Jamie, can you hear me?”

  I tried to reach out for him, squinting to bring into focus the silhouette standing over me.

  “Thank God,” Chris said.

  He bent over and gave me a gentle hug, and I raised my arms to hug him back.

  He offered me something to drink, and I sipped it gingerly through the straw. He propped my head up with the pillow. I looked to the other side of the bed and found LA sitting, watching me intently, a thin smile showing his relief.

  I struggled to form some questions, but my tongue was thick and uncooperative. I couldn�
�t remember how I had gotten here or what had happened, but I had this strange sense that whatever it was, it wouldn’t go away. Images started creeping into my mind.

  “How . . . how did I . . . get here?” I managed to stammer.

  Chris pulled a chair up to the side of my bed and slowly, in a soft voice, started telling me everything that had happened. I tried to absorb the news as best I could, but I couldn’t wrap my stumbling mind around the notion that Gillespie had been working with Caleb Tate the entire time. I shook my head as if I could change what had happened by a sheer act of will.

  I wanted to understand, but my body needed to rest. I asked a few questions, but it all seemed like a terrible nightmare. When Chris finished updating me, he told me how thankful he was that I was still alive. He said that God was looking out for me, that God must have big plans for my future.

  I closed my eyes with Chris holding my right hand and LA holding my left. I felt secure between these two men and safe here. And I knew, on some level, that Chris was right. The same God with whom I had been angry, for whom I’d had so little time, had now spared my life.

  The pillow was soft. The bed was warm. And my body needed its rest.

  90

  Seven days later, I found myself ready for a picnic, wondering why I had agreed to go in the first place. I had on a pair of shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops. It was eighty-five degrees, so I put on some sunscreen and grabbed a few towels. Justice seemed to sense that something was up, and he started getting antsy. At least one of us was excited.

  The doorbell rang at a few minutes after one, and I took a deep breath before heading to the front hall. Justice, on the other hand, sprinted to the door, barking like a maniac, ready for the day’s great adventure. I opened the door, and Justice attacked with an exuberant display of dancing, licking, and hyperactive motion that nearly knocked my guest off his crutches.

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “We’re buddies,” Mace James said. “Besides, I grew up with dogs.” He rubbed Justice’s head. “Ready?” he asked me.