Autumn looked up and stared at him. He whimpered, deep in his throat, and fell backward. He hit the wall behind him and slowly slipped to the floor, unmoving.
“Mama!” Autumn ran into the hall, fell to her knees, and shook her mother’s shoulders, lightly tapped her face, crying, begging her to wake up.
Ethan was at their side in an instant. He gathered Joanna up in his arms and rocked her. They turned as one to see Theodore Backman stagger toward them. He yelled, and his voice echoed in the small space, like Moses calling out from the mountaintop, “You have failed me, Autumn. You are not worthy to carry on my name. You are like your common mother, of no use at all. I disavow you as I disavowed your father!”
He raised his gun and fired.
The bullet struck Autumn in the chest.
74
PALMERTON COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
TWENTY MILES EAST OF PEAS RIDGE
It was a miracle she’d survived the transport, Joanna told Savich, but she had. She’d survived two hours of surgery and was still alive when Savich and Sherlock got to the hospital the next morning, Savich on crutches. He ignored the pull of the newly sewn stitches on his thigh, and he ignored the constant hurt too, now, in the face of Autumn’s dying.
Ethan had told the hospital staff he and Joanna were married, he’d explained to Savich on his cell when their FBI helicopter landed at Ricketts Field, only five miles from the hospital, so there would be no question he and Joanna could remain with Autumn in the ICU.
Ethan had called in a huge favor and gotten a medevac helicopter to pick them up in the clearing by the barn. He’d told Sherlock, his voice too calm—numb, really—that Peas Ridge Chief of Police Annie Parkes and all six of her deputies had arrived to deal with Theodore and Blessed Backman, and with Caldicot Whistler, all of them still alive, just as the medevac helicopter arrived. He’d told her about Kjell, about the people who’d stayed hidden when the violence had erupted, and about those who couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He told her to look for a fresh grave when it was light again.
Savich and Sherlock looked at Autumn through the open curtain of the ICU cubicle, her pale little face very still, both her impossibly small wrists tethered to IVs, an oxygen mask on her face. She looked terrifyingly fragile, and Savich hated it. He kept talking to her in his mind, telling her over and over that she would pull through this, that he’d introduce her to Sean and she could be his big sister and boss him around. He told her he wanted to see her smile, just for him, told her about Astro, how when she was well, she and Sean could throw a Frisbee for him, and how he’d lick her mouth if she wasn’t careful.
He never heard a whisper of her voice, never felt even a shadow of her. He prayed somehow she would hear him. He felt he had to keep talking, since there was nothing else he could do. And he wondered again and again how a small being like that could survive a bullet to her chest.
It was a good sign, an ICU nurse told them, that she was breathing on her own and didn’t need a respirator anymore.
Dr. Maddox, Autumn’s thoracic surgeon, fresh from a few hours’ precious sleep, followed Ethan and Joanna out of the cubicle. He said to them, “I won’t lie to you, like I told you, it was close, but she came through surgery like a champ”—a lie, but Dr. Maddox wasn’t about to tell her parents he’d nearly lost her. “She’s a strong little girl.”
A sheriff and two FBI agents, he thought. At least he could leave it to them to sort out how it was that a seven-year-old girl got herself shot in the chest. He hadn’t paid much attention to all the wild talk he’d heard about it. There hadn’t been time for that. He touched his hand to Joanna’s arm, shook Ethan’s hand. “The two of you can stay, but I’ll have to ask the agents here to keep it short. We have an ICU to run. Try not to worry too much, either of you, it will do no one any good. She’s in good hands. I’ll be in the hospital if she needs me.”
“She’s so small,” Sherlock whispered. “She looks smaller than Sean.” She turned in to him. Savich stroked her back as she sucked in a light breath, holding back tears that stung his eyes. He swallowed. He remembered his father telling him everyone expected the man to be strong, no breaking down, and in his opinion that just sucked. The memory almost made him smile. He said to Joanna and Ethan, “I’ve called her more times than I can count. She’s—not there.”
Joanna’s voice was a thread. “Or maybe she’s just not feeling strong enough. That could be it—sure it could. One of the ICU nurses told me she’s got a long way to go to get well again….” Her voice fell away.