Chapter 3

On hearing the medic's exultant cry that their patient was alive, Pete Riordan sighed in relief. He was glad that his delayed arrival had apparently not caused a truly tragic event.

"So what do we have here, guys?" he asked as he moved so that he could see the patient between the two medics.

"Oh, Christ!" he exclaimed as he saw that the pasty white faced girl on the floor was Julie.

"You know her?" asked one medic.

"She's a friend, yeah," he said worriedly. "Is she going to be okay?"

"It was touch and go there for a minute, but yeah, it looks like she'll make it. I'm worried that we can't wake her up though. But her heart has settled down enough for us to transport her to the hospital. Looks like she took a hit to the head," he said, gesturing to the wound on her forehead that his partner was in the process of bandaging. "But she - "

"She was at the same wedding I was at earlier today," interrupted Pete in wonderment.

The medic had been going to tell Pete about Bobby's report that Julie was a drug user, and that the head wound was not sufficient to cause Julie's condition. He held back from saying it now, waiting for Pete to recover from the shock of seeing the girl he knew on the floor.

Pete was remembering the screaming match he had overheard between Julie and Bobby, just before Julie had stormed out of the wedding reception:

"Do what you fucking want! I'm not your girlfriend any more! Just leave me alone for once, you clinging son of a bitch!"

"Who made the 911 call?" Pete asked the paramedics. "Was there anyone here when you got here?"

"Yeah, there was a kid here. He took off just before you pulled up. He was pretty big but you could tell he was young." He went on to describe Bobby's features and clothing, which included the dress pants and shiny shoes that he'd still had on from the wedding.

So Bobby had come here anyway, after Julie told him not to. Bobby, who was highly skilled in karate. And now Julie lay here on the floor, with blood stains from her wounds that Pete could see clearly on the side of her pale face.

"One more thing about him," said the paramedic soberly. "He's got a gun." He went on to briefly describe what he'd seen of the revolver, and how Bobby had hidden it behind his back before leaving.

Pete nodded grimly, and to the paramedic's surprise, suddenly turned and left without another word.

Bobby reached his home, running the whole way from Julie's trailer. He went to his room and tossed the pistol and Julie's note on his bed. He quickly changed into jeans and tennis shoes, t-shirt and a hooded sweat shirt, all in black.

He scooped up the note and pistol, putting them as before, in his back pocket for the note, and in the small of his back for the revolver. He then grabbed the small recorder he used for taping lectures at school, and shoved it into another pocket.

He ran downstairs and sat at the laptop computer that was on the built in desk in the kitchen. He fired it up, made a few quick google searches, and soon had the address of the only Daddock listing in Columbia. He scribbled down the address and stuffed it into his pocket.

He then ran out to the side of the house, wheeled out his bike that was kept there, and took off.

He had just turned the corner at the end of the block, when behind him he heard the squeal of the tires on Pete Riordan's patrol car. He stopped and got off the bike, and crept back to look down the street through a bush. He saw the cruiser as it rounded the corner at the other end of the street, and sped down the block to stop with a screech in front of his house.

Bobby got back on his bike, and pedaled away as fast as he could.

The paramedics were just finishing strapping Julie onto their stretcher when they heard a soft knocking at the trailer door. As they wheeled the stretcher out the medic in the lead found a short elderly lady standing in his path.

"Hello ma'am. Can you excuse us? We need to get this young lady to the hospital."

"Certainly," Muriel answered, moving to the side. "Is the policeman coming back?"