Dangerous Obsession

by Richard Hunter

Chapter Nineteen

Looking carefully around, fearing the sound of another shot or the pain he could only imagine if shot, Robbie slowly emerged from the pool. Tyler was laying face down about six feet away, not moving. A small pool of blood was beginning to spread from under him.

Rushing over, Robbie carefully turned Tyler over. His face appeared ashen, obviously going into shock or something. Isn’t that what they always said on the cop and doctor shows when someone was hurt? That they went into shock? He leaned over, calling Tyler’s name. He saw the hole in Tyler’s chest about three inches above and two inches to the side of his left nipple. Robbie knew he had to call for help and then get something to stop the bleeding.

As he ran into the house, he met Sterling coming from the front of the house. Sterling appeared highly agitated. How did he know what had happened already?

“Thank god you’re okay, Robbie.” Sterling grabbed the boy in a big hug and held him close. “When I found out that the dead body call was a fake, all I could think of was that I left you here alone and maybe the call was just to get me away from here.”

Robbie’s mind digested what Sterling was saying but didn’t process it. All he could think of right now was Tyler. “Tyler’s been shot! He’s hurt real bad. He’s bleeding all over the place!” He blurted it out so forcefully that Sterling snapped from his reverie of relief and was immediately moving toward the back of the house.

“What was he doing here? I thought he went to work.”

Sterling knelt down beside his companion, cradling his head, and grabbed at the microphone pinned to his shoulder. “This is Patrol One. Emergency.” Sterling was more panicked than he could ever remember being before.

“Patrol One. Go ahead chief.”

“Get paramedics to my house immediately. I’ve got one down. And get me some backup. I don’t know if the shooter has escaped or is still in the area.” As the dispatcher acknowledged the instructions and the emergency tone sounded over the radio set on his belt followed by the dispatchers calm voice giving instructions, Drew realized there was still danger and looked up at Robbie. “Get in the house now. Go into my office and lock the door behind you. It’s the most secure place in the whole house. Don’t come out until I tell you to.”

Robbie turned white and ran in the doors, frantically navigating the furniture and down the hall to Drew’s office. He slammed the door and locked the deadbolt on the inside and ran around the desk, hiding in the knee space. His teeth chattered from nerves and fright. He felt cold and shuddered, wondering if everything would be okay, hoping Tyler would be okay, wishing he had told Tyler he loved him like the big brother he had seemed to be.

Sterling was bent over Tyler, tears streaming down his face, stroking along those beautiful cheekbones and tracing his lips, kissing his forehead and lips and muttering, “Hang on baby, don’t give up. I need you. You can’t leave me now.”

Tyler’s eyes opened and he looked at Drew, a faint smile on his face distorted by pain and weakness. “I love you, Drew.”

“I know, baby, I know. I love you, too. More than I could ever tell you. But, why were you here? I thought you were at work?”

“I was just parking a car at the restaurant and I saw you go by in a blaze and it struck me that Robbie was here alone. I was worried about him. I came in the house and saw a guy with a gun going past the picture window toward the pool and realized he was after Robbie. I guess I got in the way.”

“You’re a hero, baby. You saved Robbie’s life. But now be a hero again and save your own life. Hang on. Help is on the way. You can hear the siren’s already.”

Tyler smiled and Sterling bent down kissing him again, praying frantically that this beautiful, selfless boy, who he loved more than he had ever thought was humanly possible, would be okay. He heard the chiming indicating the gates were opening. All security gates were required to have an emergency bypass activated by a special key that only police and fire department personnel had access to. Within moments, two paramedics came rushing through the house in response to Sterling’s call and swiftly went into action.

A quick evaluation and radio call to a physician authorized the start of an IV. When Sterling heard the doctor on the other end of the radio give the instruction, his fears increased. Normally the doctor would instruct the paramedics to ‘start an IV of D5W, drip’ but he had said to start the IV ‘push’ meaning they had to get the IV into Tyler quickly because he was in bad shape. The D5W, or five parts dextrose and one part water, was a blood expander to help maintain blood pressure in an injured patient until a blood transfusion could be done. As soon as the IV was started, the medics lifted Tyler onto a stretcher and wheeled him rapidly through the house to their rescue ambulance and took off for the hospital.

Sterling called out to Robbie to come out of the office so they could go to the hospital. Robbie came rushing out, and they hurried to Sterling’s vehicle and took off in a blast of lights and siren toward the hospital. As he maneuvered through the evening traffic and the drivers who were either inattentive, deaf, blind or stupid who did not pull to the right side of the street and stop, Drew barked out orders to the dispatcher to contact the deputy chief and advise of the emergency, to get officers to his house to secure the property and the crime scene, to get Detective Abbott and the CSU over there. “Have the watch commander set up a grid search - I think the guy must have escaped by way of the beach. That means he must have pushed the release bar on the gate so have CSU dust it for prints. Dust the whole damn place if necessary!”

Pulling into the emergency room driveway, the vehicle shuddered to a halt with tires squealing and Sterling and Robbie rushed inside. Tyler had already been taken into the emergency treatment room and medical personnel could be seen rushing around the table on which Tyler lay, efficiently and professionally rendering care. Sterling was frustrated and agitated, pacing back and forth, waiting for some word of Tyler’s condition.

After a wait of twenty minutes which seemed more like two hours, the head emergency physician came into the waiting room. “Chief?”

“Yea, doc. How is he?”

“I’m sorry. We were unable to save him. The bullet hit a major artery and he bled out so quickly that his vital organs just started failing. There’s so little you can do when they start cascading and shutting down. And we couldn’t get blood into him fast enough to maintain his pressure. I’m so sorry.”

Sterling collapsed into a chair in the waiting room, his face white, his hands shaking. No. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Tyler was too young, too beautiful, too vital and selfless for his life to be snuffed out so suddenly and for no reason. It had to be a mistake. It just couldn’t be.

Robbie came over and sat down next to Sterling. His cheeks were wet with tears that streamed uncontrollably down his face. He didn’t know what to do. He had no idea what he should say or do to help Drew deal with this loss. Maybe Drew would hate him. It was his fault, after all. Tyler was killed trying to save him. If it wasn’t for him, Tyler would still be alive.

Sterling noticed Robbie sitting there, a pained, questioning expression, the tears flowing, and he reached out and put his arm around Robbie and hugged him close to him. His own tears started flowing now and he had to concentrate on suppressing the audible sobs that were trying so hard to break free of his throat. He was unable to stop the tears or the ragged breathing or the shaking of his shoulders as his grief overwhelmed him.

It was almost half an hour before Sterling regained some semblance of his composure and was able to speak with the hospital clerk. “I’ll notify his family. Hold the body for the coroner. I’ll contact them and have them get him tomorrow or the next day, as soon as they can. The cause of death should be recorded as murder by gunshot. You can put me down as next of kin and responsible party for the hospital’s bill.”

With that, Sterling turned and left with Robbie following close behind. The drive home was extremely quiet, no one saying a thing. Even the radio was seemingly subdued as though all criminal activity had ceased for a few moments in deference to the police chief’s loss. At home, however, it was an entirely different story. Police were moving about the property by the dozens, flashlights panning the property looking for clues to the identity of the assailant - now double murderer. It was almost eleven o’clock before the last of the police and CSU personnel left and Drew quietly went to his room, still expressionless and pale.

Climbing into his bed, he pulled the pillow from the side that Tyler had slept on last night and inhaled the aroma of Tyler’s cologne. The smell triggered thoughts and memories and the tears began to flow again. Sterling lay staring at the sealing, mentally berating himself for having lost so much time. Six months he had eaten dinner at Mark’s without trying to get to know the real Tyler even while Tyler was obviously trying to get to know him. Six weeks he had Tyler here at home with Tyler making his feelings very plain, just waiting for a sign from him to indicate he was interested. And then, when he was tired of waiting for Sterling to say or do something, Tyler took the bull by the horns and love was born. That was yesterday. One night together, three times making love. Such a waste. A lifetime together lost. A beautiful, caring, decent human being taken from the world because of some madman, some psycho, that wanted to kill boys. For what reason?

As Sterling lay in bed, picturing the beautiful face and body that had been Tyler, hearing his soft voice, hearing his dying utterance, “I love you”, he thought his pain was so great he couldn’t deal with it, he couldn’t survive. As he pictured Tyler in his mind, he realized he was absently stroking his erection and recalled how it had felt when Tyler closed his pretty lips around it, how tight Tyler had been last night after begging him to fuck him. Memories were all he had now. And too few of them.

Sterling didn’t hear Robbie enter his bedroom or feel the pressure on the bed as Robbie crawled in beside him. He felt the wetness of Robbie’s tears as the boy lay his face on Sterling’s shoulder. He felt the warmth of Robbie’s embrace as the boy wrapped his arms around the grieving man’s chest. He felt the hardness of Robbie’s enormous erection as it pressed against his hip and left a faint trail that expressed the boy’s feelings for him. After awhile, he felt the comfort of Robbie’s hand as Robbie grasped Sterling’s cock and slowly stroked. Then all was black and sleep overtook them.