Chapter 26

26

GINA

G eorge began muttering to himself. I leaned forward to catch the drift of what he was saying but couldn't make out anything. With horror, I realized that he was beyond rationality. Whatever substance he was on was spurring him to make the worst possible decisions.

"Listen, George," I tried, inching to the edge of the seat to be closer to him. "You're in trouble, I get it. We can figure this out. I have some credit cards; I could get a cash advance."

He continued mumbling, not turning toward me. I was hoping that I could break through and penetrate the haze of his intoxication, but it wasn't working. He refused to acknowledge my existence, bent on whatever communication he was having with his own demons. Desperately, I cast my eyes around, looking for a solution. If I couldn't reason with him, maybe I could make a run for it.

I reached for the door handle, my wrists sweating beneath their bindings. I had the door open and one leg out when George leapt from the driver's seat, pivoted, and brought the gun up to my nose. I stopped, falling back against the chassis.

"Get back inside," he growled.

I fit my fingers together like a prayer, pleading with him. He ignored me, grabbing my arm and shoving me back inside. He slammed the door shut and leaned against it, still muttering to himself. I looked at the driver's seat. The keys were still in the ignition. Could I vault over the seat and reach the pedals before he reacted? It was worth a try.

I pitched myself forward, folding myself across the back of the seat. I got stuck with my butt against the ceiling, my arms and legs dangling on both sides. George saw what I was doing, ripped the driver's-side door open, and pointed the gun at me again. I came down into the front seat with a thump, landing on the same arm I had injured before. My head fell out of the vehicle, and my hip hit the parking brake.

He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me into a sitting position, thrusting me onto the passenger's seat. "Stop. I will shoot you."

"Then do it!" I spat.

"Don't tempt me!" he screamed, stabbing me in the neck with the muzzle of the gun.

I choked back tears, not believing that my own brother could be doing this to me. Where was the protective big brother that Lincoln and I had followed around when we were younger? The one that let us play with his friends even though they were "too mature" for us? Where was the kid who had stayed up late to study for his science test and ended up getting the best grade in the class? Where was the person who had helped me clean up after Mom's tantrums, who had helped Lincoln and me hide the liquor, who had lied to the social workers to keep our family together?

He swung the door shut and slammed the car into gear, tearing off underneath the highway. I was pinned for a moment from the force of the acceleration, squished against the back of the seat. He peeled around the city, throwing me back and forth with every start and stop. I couldn't fathom what was going on. He had roughed me up, kidnapped me, and was taking me on some kind of satanic joy ride around Nashville. I could only hope the police would catch on and they would stop him.

"Where are we going?" I asked as he came to a sudden halt at a traffic light.

"Have to waste time," he muttered.

"Why?" I felt a throbbing in my temple and raised both hands to touch my head. There was no blood, so that was something.

"Shift change," he said, barely coherent. He thrust the car into motion again, wreaking havoc on my transmission.

"Slow down!" I complained.

"We can sit somewhere until the shift change if you promise not to try to escape." He split his attention between me and the road, introducing a new fear that we would be T-boned by a distracted driver.

"I promise," I relented.

He pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot, driving around back and parking beside the dumpster.

I exhaled in temporary relief. I didn't understand what was happening, but at least in this moment, I wasn't going to die in a traffic accident. I closed my eyes, finding my center and regulating my breathing. I could hear his voice pick up softly as he began to repeat nonsense words and phrases. Trying to fit together the pieces of information I had collected, I developed a narrative. He wanted to wait until the shift change at the treatment center, and then he wanted me to go into the pharmacy and get as many narcotics as I could. He had a gun, and he was not thinking clearly. The drugs had done permanent damage to his thought process. What kind of drugs, how long he had been using and in what quantities, I didn't know. But he was exhibiting both symptoms of being stoned and having lost his mind, so whatever he had taken had been chipping away at him for a long time.

I decided to keep quiet. The treatment center had its own experience with violence, and George was not the first druggie to imagine the pharmacy held a jackpot. If I could get George through the doors and make it obvious to all that it was a hostage situation, then maybe one of my coworkers would trigger the silent alarm. The police took any emergency at the hospital seriously and would arrive within minutes.

Finally, George turned the engine on and crept backward out of his parking spot. It was game time. I arranged myself in my seat, fastening the seat belt just to make sure I didn't die on my way to my own funeral. The tension level in the car bottomed out, and we drove in silence, each focused on our own mission.

I wondered how Porter was doing.

I wished that I could be with him, in his bed right then, just like he asked. Anywhere but driving around Nashville with my drug-addled brother intent on robbing a pharmacy would be preferable. But Porter's bed especially would be like heaven.

George pulled into the parking lot of the treatment center, now driving more calmly. There were no jerky starts and stops. He seemed focused on the task, gliding the car into a spot at the back of the lot. I was about to reach for my door handle when he pushed an arm past me, opening the glove box. Inside, a plastic bag with four little white pills crumpled into his hand.

"What's that?" I asked, though I knew damned well what it was. He must have hidden his stash in the glove compartment when I was in the back seat. Somehow, the fact that he had used my car to transport drugs made me angrier than being kidnapped. How dare he? "I hope you choke on them." I narrowed my eyes and spat the words.

He grinned, fishing two out of the bag and slipping them onto his tongue. He made a point of showing me by lengthening his tongue, and I thought I caught a glimpse of the child he once had been. Swallowing the pills without water, he stuffed the remainder back into the glove box.

"No," I said stubbornly, making a play for the illegal narcotics. Out of all the injustices he had visited upon me, stuffing his poison in my space seemed like the worst.

He slammed the butt of his gun down on my wrist, chasing my hands away. I cried out in frustration and pain. I didn't want the damned things in my car. He motioned to me that I should get out, shooing me away and slamming the glove box closed. I wrenched the door open and stomped out.

"You know what to do?" he asked, meeting me on my side of the car.

"Yes," I said. I knew exactly what to do; it just wasn't what he wanted me to do.

We approached the treatment center together, George holding me by the arm, the gun to my side. The early evening was calm, no voices or movement anywhere to impede our progress. I marched confidently into my place of employment, through the public entryway. There were cameras in the lobby, and I knew that from here on, everything we did would be recorded. There was a guard in a back office who should be watching the footage, though he had a dozen screens to sift through. If I was lucky, he was paying attention, and I was no longer alone.

In order to get into the locked area, you had to have a badge. I had left mine at my apartment, and George was so out of it, he hadn't bothered with that detail. Visitors had to sign in at the main desk, where they were photographed and granted a temporary pass. I approached the receptionist, showing her my bound hands.

"He has a gun," I said calmly.

She reached under the counter and touched the button before putting her hands in the air. That was it; I was sure now that the police would be on their way. It was just a matter of minutes before they arrived to take control of the situation. Between then and now, all I had to do was stall.

"Open the door," George said.

"I can't do that," the receptionist whispered.

"It's okay," I said.

She looked at me, and even though we couldn't talk, she understood. Without further encouragement, she slid a temporary card across the desk. I picked it up and swiped it across the card reader, opening the door to the patient area.

"Put your gun away," I told him. "You're only going to scare people."

"That's exactly what I want," he growled, yanking me tight against his side.

I ground my teeth together.

"Where's the pharmacy?" he snarled.

"On the second floor."

"Where's the stairs?"

I pointed, and he strode toward them, pulling me in his wake. I saw the frightened forms of my patients cowering in doorways and under tables. It was the stuff of nightmares, a crazed gunman on the loose inside the facility. I fought to keep my breath even. If I could just maintain a sense of calm and impart that feeling onto my brother, maybe I could pull off this impossible stunt. I was so close to achieving my goal, if I could just hold out for a few minutes longer.

The stairwell door closed behind us, and George took the stairs two at a time. He seemed to understand that he had very little time, and I didn't want to anger him by moving slowly. I had an altogether different plan in mind.

We broke out onto the second floor, and he hesitated. "Which way?"

"That way." I pointed. "Room 204C."

He stalked away down the hall, reading room numbers on placards until he came to 204C. I held my breath. Just a few more steps and the trap would be sprung. He glanced inside and didn't see anything resembling a pharmacy.

"Where?" he demanded.

"It's right past there." I pointed with both hands, indicating that there was something behind the curtain that bisected the room.

He stepped inside, and I swung the door shut. It locked the moment that metal touched metal, designed with the most dangerous of drug addicts in mind. I dropped to my knees as George pounded against the door, stepping back to level his weapon. He fired and the safety glass cracked, shattering into hundreds of rounded pebbles that rained down on me. The wire mesh frame of the window held, resisting George's attempts to break it. He fired again through the window, digging a bullet into the wall opposite.

"Put the gun down!" I screamed, scooting out of the pool of broken glass, back down the hall toward the stairwell.

Two orderlies approached, crouching, and helped me to my feet. We ran back down out of the locked ward to the nurses' station on the first floor. One moment it seemed that my life was in my own hands, and the next moment, I was free. Cindy was there and helped me into the break room.

"What the hell is happening?" My friend gasped. She took in my disheveled appearance and the duct tape on my wrists.

I sagged into a chair, too tired to talk. Whatever happened now, George was trapped until the police arrived to arrest him. He might destroy property, but he had ceased being a danger to anyone but himself. A nagging part of my mind urged me to stand up. I should go wait for the police, to explain that George was my brother, that he was high and didn't know what he was doing. I should be an advocate for my own family member and plead with the cops to take it easy on him.

Instead, I looked into my best friend's eyes and said flatly, "Do you have a pair of scissors?"