Call the sheriff.

No. There was no telling how long it would take for the nearest deputy to drive out here to the house.

Call her parents.

No. Mom and Dad lived nearly twenty minutes away.

Call Pax. Yes, Uncle Pax and Aunt Maddie lived only ten minutes away. Surely that time was short enough.

Dulsie opened her phone and was grateful to have their number on speed dial and she could actually remember what it was. The room seemed to be swimming around her, and Dulsie’s light headedness and nausea were increasing.

She held the phone to her ear and the electronic ring Dulsie heard only seemed to increase her urgency to hear Uncle Pax’s voice.

Chapter Fourteen

Therefore was the first man, Adam, created alone, to teach us that whoever destroys a single life, the Bible considers it as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a single life, the Bible considers it as if he saved an entire world.

--Mishnah

The clanging jangle of the cradle phone on their bedroom nightstand made Paxton awake with a start. As he grabbed for the receiver without sitting up, Paxton glanced at the alarm clock and saw that it was nearly one-thirty.

A phone call in the middle of the night couldn’t be good. Trepidation already began fluttering in his stomach as Paxton pressed the receiver to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Uncle Pax!” The gasping voice on the other end of the line was panicked and breathless. “Call the sheriff! Get over here! Somebody’s here with a gun! I’ve been shot!”

Paxton sat bolt upright. “Dulsie?”

“Please be careful! He’s got a gun! Get the sheriff over here, but I need you!” Her voice seemed weaker.

“I’m coming right over!” Paxton scrambled out of the bed and grabbed at his jeans and light brown shirt hanging at the foot of it while the cord of the phone pulled taut. “Where are you exactly?”

“Be careful! Please be careful....”

“What is it?” Maddie was wide awake and already swinging one leg to the floor.

“Where are you?” Paxton didn’t like the way Dulsie’s voice had trailed off. “Can you hear me? Dulsie, where are you? Dulsie!” Paxton yelled into the phone as he began pulling on his jeans with his free hand.

“What’s happening?” Maddie asked urgently as she finished getting out of bed.

“Dulsie!”

When silence remained his only response, Paxton slammed the receiver into its cradle.

“Call the sheriff!” He gasped to Maddie. “Dulsie said there’s an intruder at the house with a gun. She’s been shot.”

“My God!” Maddie scrambled across the bed to grab for the phone.

Paxton shrugged on his shirt but didn’t button it as he strode toward the bedroom door. “And tell the sheriff not to shoot me when he gets there!”

“You can’t go by yourself!” Maddie froze in the midst of dialing as she looked at him.

“I have to!” Paxton grabbed the rifle hanging above the door.

“Let me call the sheriff and then I’ll –”

“NO!” Paxton thundered. “I need you to stay here!” He darted out the bedroom, through the hall, and down the stairs without looking back.

As he entered the kitchen and yanked open a cabinet drawer to grab a box of ammunition, Paxton noticed a slight trembling in his hands. He assumed it was caused by the terror that flashed through him from the thought Maddie could get hurt – or worse – if she came along. But Dulsie was already hurt. Paxton had to pull himself together for her.

Where was Shad?

Paxton disregarded a few gun safety rules by going ahead and loading the rifle before pulling on his boots and running out to the pickup.

By disregarding a few traffic laws he made it to Shad’s and Dulsie’s house in a very long five minutes.

He saw only their Buick at the house as Paxton slowed the truck to pull into the driveway. He also saw something white lying off to the other side of the house. Paxton squinted at it as he drove past. The house was completely dark.

Paxton could feel his heart pounding in his chest and hear the blood roaring in his ears as he braked the pickup to a stop. He turned off the engine and took out the keys but left the headlights on, and tightly gripped the rifle as he stepped out of the truck.

So far, so good. Paxton wasn’t shot at yet.

The headlights illuminated the front of the house and their car parked to the side. As Paxton stalked to the porch, fiercely trying to hear above his own heartbeat, he noticed he couldn’t see their pickup.

Dulsie hadn’t mentioned Shad. Where was Shad?

Paxton sidled up the steps of the porch and cautiously slinked to the far end of it to peek around the corner and see the other side of the house.

The white mound was still there. It looked suspiciously like their dog. It looked suspiciously like the dog was dead.

A chill crept through his bones.

Paxton scrambled to the other end of the porch and peeked around that corner as well. This side was lit up by the headlights, and he still saw nobody skulking around.

Paxton strode to their front door, and the storm door readily opened. The entry door was locked.

He fished out the keys he had dropped in his pocket and found the spare that Shad had given him to this door. Paxton unlocked it and stepped into a dark room.

He immediately turned on the light. Paxton wasn’t about to make himself into a lovely backlit target for some lowlife that might be hiding in the corner. There was no intruder lurking about, but what Paxton did see made him gasp in horror.

Smudges and drops of blood stained the floor from the kitchen through the living room, and ended at the closed bedroom door.

Paxton strode toward it, and as his heart managed to beat even harder he called out.

“Dulsie?”

She didn’t respond. Nobody shot him.

Paxton grasped the doorknob. It was locked.

Still grasping the rifle in one hand, Paxton took a couple of steps back into the short hallway. He lunged forward and kicked the door with all his strength just below the knob.

The door jamb splintered, and with a second kick Paxton stumbled into the room.

Dulsie was right in front of him. She was collapsed on the floor, next to the bed, a varmint rifle in front of her and the cell phone near her limp hand. Most of her torso was covered in blood, and blood stained the bed and floor around her.

“Dulsie!”

Paxton never liked hospitals. He became less fond of them during the time he actually had to stay in one to get his tumor removed. They were dreary and somber in spite of trying to decorate themselves in cheerful colors. And at three o’clock in the morning hospitals were even worse.

He, Maddie, Jill and Karl were the only ones in the waiting room. Dulsie was still in surgery, and all they knew at this point, besides the fact Dulsie was still alive, was the surgical team was making sure they removed all the fragments of the bullet.

Nobody felt like sitting. All of them were roaming around the room and keeping a lookout for a nurse who might have some news for them. Paxton knew that Maddie was as particularly agitated as he was.

Where was Shad?

Paxton was wearing a different pair of jeans and a dark blue shirt. His other clothes became bloodied when he held Dulsie in his arms and tried to stop the bleeding. Luckily the ambulance arrived on the heels of the deputy, and Dulsie was quickly transported to the hospital.

Paxton answered what questions he could, then hurried home to inform Maddie and change clothes. Maddie had already called Jill and Karl, and when she discovered Shad was missing, she called his cell phone. But her call went directly to voice mail.

Paxton and Maddie had arrived at the hospital shortly after Jill and Karl.