A Strange Little Desert Town - Chapter 13 (4/5)
A Strange Little Desert Town
Chapter Thirteen - But I Don't Want to Go
Part Four of Five
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“What happened, Jass?” Daniel asked her.
“Dad had Ash at gunpoint,” she said simply. “I stopped it.”
“I’m sorry, Jass,” Daniel said gently but firmly, “but I need as much detail as you can recall.”
She sighed.
“I’ve been watching him for a while now,” she spoke quietly, leaving out any & all mention of Wendy’s involvement. It wasn’t her responsibility. She didn’t need to be mentioned. “Basically, since the funeral.”
Daniel scowled. “You think Gilbert was behind Bella’s death? You didn’t tell me?!”
“No, I wasn’t sure. There was just a comment he made, just offhand, when I visited around the time. Nothing substantial, just a feeling that he was happy to see bad things befall your side of the family & then the tiniest hint of mannerism that suggested he was up to something. It wasn’t that I thought that he killed Bella - her death was a tragic accident - but it was the callous disregard lending towards sadism that made me think he was planning something bad & hurtful.”
She stopped & braced her hands to stop their shaking. She wasn’t sure which particular factor pressing on her was causing the shakes, but they were getting harder to cover. Harder to ignore. Hurry. Tell him quickly. Shit, I need to get out of here & soon!!
“I have never forgotten that afternoon at Miimac when he threatened my brother. I figured that counted as two warnings & I would be stupid to wait for a third. If anything, the third was more likely to be something serious rather than just a hint or a few nasty words.”
Daniel nodded. “So what happened tonight?”
“I saw him leave home outside his normal routine, which was weird - he’s a stickler for routine. So I went after him to see where. Now, technically, an old man going to hospital wouldn’t be weird. But an old man, calmly driving himself to hospital? That triggers alarm bells. So I kept following.”
Jacinta looked at her hands again & tried to stop the shaking. Daniel watched her covertly. She clenched her jaw & drew a deep breath in through her nose.
“When Dad came into the hospital, I went to the air con. I got in at the basement & made my way up to the security office where the video feed runs. Then I watched & waited. It was pretty easy. I just needed to watch Ash & he wasn’t far. He laid low for two hours while he waited for her to be on her own. The moment he started moving to follow her on her break, I was out of there & hurrying through the vent to where she was. I was scared I wouldn’t make it. I was just lucky we were on the same floor.
“I climbed down into the bathroom while talking to him. I was trying to get to him. I wasn’t working though. He had the gun pointed at Ash & was threatening to kill her if she wouldn’t sign over mum’s estates to him. He reckoned it was his & was saying that Mike had changed her will. Somebody banged on the door. I think it was another doctor trying to use the showers? I’m not sure. But the door’s not normally locked I guess so they banged & it distracted Dad enough. Ash lunged at him.”
This is where I lie. Oh gods, lying to my own family. But I’m not my dad. I take after Mother & this is one of those times that she would have deemed it necessary.
“He hit the wall. Hard.” She stopped & took a breath.
She tried not to think about how she then picked her father up by the front collar of his shirt, or the shocked look on his face as she took the gun from his hands while she bled from the gunshot wound in her stomach. Jacinta hadn’t lost eye contact with him while she ejected the clip, dropped it & the gun & kicked them both away. She tried to forget the look in his eyes as she changed her grip on him to either side of his head. How she’d told him that he had brought it upon himself & that she was doing nothing more than cleaning up. The sound of his neck snapping as she twisted his head sharply, before letting him slump back against the wall & onto the floor. The horrified look on Ash’s face as she looked from Gilbert, to Jacinta, to her bleeding stomach, to the gun.
Jacinta forced herself to keep going. “Then people came in. Then we were in the corridor & now I’m talking to you.”
Daniel frowned, concentrating. “When did the gun go off?”
“When he hit the wall. Or when Ash hit him. It was a bit of a blur.”
Jacinta was clenching her jaw again. She’s lying. What happened? Why is she lying?!
“So the blood?”
“It’s just a graze. Nothing serious. Really. Ash checked me & I’m okay. Really,” she told him out loud. Oh yes, she checked me. And now she knows my secret.
Daniel kept frowning, but nodded. There was no way the blood on the wall & floor in that bathroom was from a simple graze. His eyes dropped for a split second. As I thought. The blood on her jumper wasn’t obvious because of the black knit fabric, but it was there if you looked for it. The hole & the blood weren’t in a place wherein it could possibly be only a graze. That should have been a serious, if not mortal, wound.
I can’t push her tonight, he thought. Gilbert was her dad.
“Thanks, Jass,” he said, putting his hand over hers.
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