Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 31

-Jacey-

Caleb gave his gun to the Mountie who then had him put his hands behind his back. He cuffed him and started leading him away.

“Hey!” I called weakly. “Hey, you can’t do that!”

No one listened. Paramedics bustled over and picked up the stretcher, hefting me out of the seaplane and into an ambulance.

“Caleb!” I cried, reaching out as they stuck him in a different vehicle.

“Hush, dear. Worry about yourself for now,” one of the paramedics said.

I shook my head. “You don’t understand. He’s my boyfriend. You can’t take him away from me!”

“Darling…” the paramedic started to tell me.

“Jacey,” I provided.

“Jacey, your boyfriend is a murderer. You’re going to have to do without him for a while,” the paramedic said kindly.

Murderer? “No, you’ve got it all wrong! What are you talking about?!” I gasped.

The paramedic patted my arm, then brought out a syringe of something. “You’re getting too agitated, Jacey. We need to calm you down.”

I felt a pinch, and knew I was being injected with sedative. Aside from making me calm, it also made me drowsy.

“Caleb,” I murmured as my eyelids got heavy. “Caleb… I need Caleb…”

***

My eyes felt crunchy, and my body ached, but I opened my eyes just the same. “Caleb?” I mumbled, looking around. I lifted my left hand to rub away the sleep in my eyes, only to find my wrist was handcuffed to the bed.

“Oh, you’re awake,” a woman, Kate, who had ‘RN’ on her name badge said, leaning over me with a tight smile. “I’ll just go get the doctor.”

“Where’s Caleb?” I rasped, trying to sit up.

“No, no, just lay back and rest. Here, I’ll put the head of your bed up,” Kate admonished me. She pressed a button on the bed and my top half sat up.

I tugged on my wrist. “Why am I handcuffed to the bed?”

The nurse blinked. “Because you’re suspected of a double murder.”

“Wait… what?” I asked, confused.

“Well, accomplice, actually, but still, pretty bad. Your boyfriend killed two Mounties,” the nurse said in a sotto whisper.

I frowned. “That’s not true.”

“You can explain it all to the police, dear. Right now, I’m going to get the doctor,” the nurse replied. I could tell she didn’t believe me.

I tugged on my wrist again but stopped when the doctor approached.

“Hi, Jacey. How are you feeling?” the doctor asked, leaning over me.

“Trapped. Where’s Caleb?” I demanded.

“Caleb Killeen is facing some serious charges. He’s at the police station,” the doctor said. “You’re facing some pretty serious charges as well. The police would like to speak to you.”

I nodded. “Good. Send them in. I’ll tell them the truth.”

“Ahuh.” The doctor didn’t believe me, either. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know that we stopped the bleeding, but your fallopian tube was beyond repair. Luckily, you still have one good ovary and should have no trouble having children someday.”

“I… was pregnant? For real?” I gaped.

“It was an ectopic pregnancy. Do you know what that means?” the doctor asked.

I shook my head.

“It means the baby was starting to grow in your fallopian tube. That’s a bad place for it to grow. It was always going to end in a miscarriage. It’s just lucky we were able to save your life,” the doctor said.

I’d barely been pregnant, but somehow it still hurt my heart to know Caleb and I had lost a baby. I needed to tell him. “Okay. So… how long do you want to keep me?” I responded. “I need to go see Caleb.”

“Jocelyn,” the doctor began.

“Jacey,” I corrected him.

“Jacey, you need to worry about yourself and your health for a bit,” the doctor said.

I struggled in my cuffs. “I need Caleb. Nothing is going to be okay until we clear up this mess. And he deserves to know we lost the baby.”

“You can ask the detective to get word to him. But right now, you need to rest,” the doctor insisted. “You’ll be out of here in a few days and in the custody of the Canadian police…”

“I demand to speak to the police. Right now,” I said.

The doctor sighed, nodded, and walked out of the room. I heard him say, “She’s ready for you now” to someone I couldn’t see.

Two police officers in uniform and what I assumed was a detective in plain clothes came into my hospital room. “Ms. Jocelyn Collins?” the detective asked.

“Jacey,” I replied. “You can call me Jacey.”

“Jacey,” the detective repeated. “I suppose you know by now that you’re in some serious trouble.”

I sat up on my elbows. “Where is Caleb?”

“Caleb is currently in holding,” the detective said. “But I would caution you to think about yourself. Anything you say can…”

“Yes, fine, whatever. I watch TV. I have nothing to hide,” I interrupted him testily. “I need to see Caleb. We’ve lost our baby. Please, bring him here.”

The detective sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“What you’re accusing him of is total bullshit!” I finally snapped. “Double murder? Girard did that! We were trying to show the Mounties where the old illegal logging camp was, and then Girard showed up and shot them!”

The detective began jotting something down on a notepad. “Girard?”

“I don’t know his last name. You must have our statements and stuff from when we were rescued,” I said exasperatedly.

“We do. We also have a statement from a conservation officer…” the detective began.

“Jacob? Yeah, I can tell you all about that dirty old man,” I responded. “He isn’t worth spit. I’ll bet he pulls a runner.”

The two police officers looked uncomfortable.

“What?” the detective asked.

“Jacob did take early retirement, sir,” one of them mumbled.

The detective’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “You’re joking.”

“No, sir. Said his eyes were getting bad,” the other officer said.

“You don’t know your ass from your elbow,” I snorted.

The detective scowled at me. “Caleb Killeen was holding the weapon used to kill those Mounties when we arrested him.”

“Yeah. He got it off Girard. Girard wasn’t going to let him come with me to the hospital. He was basically using Caleb as slave labor, and he was going to take me in himself so I didn’t do or say anything stupid,” I explained.

“So… how did Mr. Killeen get Girard’s gun?” the detective asked.

“He punched Girard, and he took it, and he made the pilot take us to the airstrip. Only we didn’t know you were going to arrest him!” I yelled. “You should have arrested the pilot!”

The detective looked at the police officers. “We didn’t arrest the pilot, did we?”

“No, sir. He gave an SOS in French…” one officer said. “We…”

“Where is he? I want him for questioning,” the detective growled.

The officers swallowed. “You see, sir, he filed a false flight plan, and I don’t think we got his real name…”

“So, what? You have this all tied up in a neat little bow with all these loose ends? Were you hoping I wouldn’t notice your complete incompetence?!” the detective snarled.

“Well… you see, sir… we had it on very good authority… and there was the gun, sir…” one officer stuttered.

The detective’s eyes narrowed. “Were Mr. Killeen’s the only prints on the gun?”

“No… sir…”

“Did you run the prints?” the detective asked.

“It’s still in process, sir…”

The detective shook his head. “I’m sure we’ll be issuing a formal apology soon, Ms. Collins. But, in the meantime, we do need to keep Mr. Killeen in holding. He was holding the gun that shot the two Mounties.”

Tears stung my eyes. “I just want him here. Can’t you bring him here?”

“I’m sorry.” This time, the detective did look truly sorry. “This has to be cleared up first.” He patted my cuffed hand. “Get some rest. I’m sure things will look less bleak in the morning.”

I turned my face away, and the detective sighed.

“Come on, you two. I’m going to be giving your whole department the dressing-down of its life,” the detective said and ushered the two police officers out.

The memo that I probably wasn’t a criminal did not reach the staff, however. I got some pretty painful jabs here and there and would be nearly parched before someone would bring me some water. Every time they brought me food, it was cold.

I decided it would be best just to sleep through most of this terrible experience. I didn’t have any trouble doing it, either. Depression over our baby and the fact Caleb wasn’t with me dug its claws into me. I cried myself to sleep every few hours, day and night.

Finally, they told me I would get to leave in police custody the next day. I’d gotten so low that I didn’t really care. If I was still handcuffed to my bedrail. That must mean Caleb, too, was imprisoned. More to the point, he wasn’t with me.

It was night, I thought, when I felt a hand on my left arm, removing my cuffs. I blinked my eyes open to see the detective.

“Sir…?” I mumbled.

“I need to get you out of here,” the detective whispered hastily. “You’re not safe.”

That got my senses to sharpen. I sat up and rubbed my wrist. “I don’t understand.”

“This logging operation thing you stumbled upon… Girard… has his fingers in many pies and contacts at all levels of government,” the detective said. “Apparently, we’ve been trying to nail him for years. For your own safety, you need to go into witness protection.”

“Like… in America or here?” I asked.

“Here. For now. I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but you need to be out of this hospital and off his radar as soon as possible,” the detective stated.

“O-Okay…” I let the detective help me out of bed. I was still in my hospital gown, but the detective assured me that was a good thing as we tiptoed our way through the hospital.

We reached the alley behind the hospital. The detective used a special key so as not to set off the emergency alarm. In the alley was a black SUV with tinted windows.

I suddenly wondered if I should be trusting this man. I stopped and turned, eyeing the detective.

“You don’t have a choice,” the detective replied to my unspoken question.

My nostrils flared. “I’m tired of not having a choice.”

“I’m sure you are,” the detective said. “But I brought something to sweeten the pot.” He opened the car door.

Inside, in the dome light, Caleb held out his arms to me.

I sobbed and dove into the back of the car.

“Get them out of here, Al,” the detective said, thumping his hand on the top of the car before closing the back door again.

Al peeled away from the loading dock, and Caleb and I were thrown against each other. We looked out the back window just in time to see a group of black cars pull up and surround the detective.

The last thing I saw before Caleb silenced my scream was the detective getting shot and falling to the ground.