Kill Me Again, page 8
He wasn’t worried that she posed any real threat to him. But he knew for sure it would be easier to deal with the bookworm than the beast, so he intended to do whatever was necessary to ensure that the beast stayed caged.
6
Police Officer Bryan Kendall arrived at Shadow Falls General Hospital at 3:32 a.m. It had been three quarters of an hour since a nurse had phoned him at home, waking him from a restless sleep to tell him that the mystery patient had vanished from his bed.
He went straight to the nurses’ desk, where a blonde who looked too young to be in charge of much of anything greeted him. Her tag read Kathy Curry, R.N.
“Officer Kendall,” she said. “I’m sorry to wake you at home, but I was told to call you directly if anything happened.”
“That’s what I asked for,” he said. “And fortunately, my fiancée is very understanding. So what happened?”
“We don’t know. I checked him at two, and everything was fine, but—”
“You personally?” he interjected.
“Yes. I’ve been the only one taking care of him this shift. But when I went in to get his 3:00 a.m. vitals, he was…gone.”
“Has someone searched the hospital?”
“Security has been all through the place. Still checking, but so far there’s no sign of him.” She came around the desk and walked briskly toward the missing patient’s room, leaving Bryan to try to keep up. Nurses, he thought. They walked like they were doing time trials for the Indy 500 or something.
He caught up to her at the door, and they both went inside. Bryan took a quick look around. “Did anyone report seeing anything suspicious? Did he have any visitors?”
“No, Officer Kendall, nothing like that.”
“Did they check the parking lot?”
She nodded.
“Has Dr. Overton been notified?”
“Not yet. I thought I should talk to you before deciding whether to wake her.”
“Okay. Look, I want this room closed off. No one in or out until I get a forensics team in to go over it. Got that?”
She nodded.
He pulled out his cell phone, then paused. “Is it okay to use this in here?”
“Yeah. The cell companies finally made it into the twenty-first century. Cell phones don’t interfere with pacemakers anymore.”
“Took them long enough.” He put in a call, waking Chief MacNamara, though he hated to. The man was a bear when he didn’t get enough sleep.
“Kendall,” the chief growled when he picked up. “What?”
“Sorry, Chief. I’m at the hospital. Our shooting victim has vanished. I figured you’d be madder if I didn’t call than if I did.”
“Hmmph. You figured right. So did he leave on his own, or was he taken?”
It was the first question Bryan had asked himself, as well. “I don’t know for sure, but it looks like he left on his own. No one saw anyone hanging around his room. No visitors since the professor left him. His clothes are still in the closet. Shoes are missing, though. Window’s locked from the inside. Hospital’s being searched, but so far, no sign of him.”
“You get a positive ID on him yet?”
“I have a call in to the publisher, but it’s the weekend. Doubt I’ll hear back until Monday.”
The chief sighed. “What’s your plan, Kendall?”
“Get some guys out here to dust the room for prints, check for traces of blood, gunpowder residue.”
“It’s a hospital room. There’ll be prints everywhere. Traces of blood, too.”
“They keep them pretty clean, Chief.”
“Still…”
“They’re going to close off the room until we clear it. Meanwhile, I want to head out to Olivia Dupree’s place.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s the only person we know of with any connection to him, and the last visitor he had before he vanished.”
“A damn flimsy connection,” Chief Mac replied.
“But the only one we have.”
With a slow sigh, the chief said, “Okay, go ahead. Order a team to go over the room, and check with Dupree personally. Keep me posted.”
“Done.” Bryan disconnected and clipped the phone to his belt, then turned to Nurse Kathy, but she’d vanished. Heading into the hallway, he met her coming toward him, her steps rapid and silent, her hands bearing a large manila envelope.
He pulled the door closed, touching the edge of the wood, not the knob. “Put up a sign or something until I can get a team in there, okay?”
She nodded. “I thought you might be able to use this,” she said, holding the envelope a little higher.
“What is it?”
“His head shot. Come with me.”
He followed her into an empty room, and she pulled the X-ray from the envelope and slapped it onto a panel on the wall, then flipped a switch to turn on the backlight.
“How’s this going to help?” he asked with a frown, staring at the illuminated human skull.
“The steel plate. You can see the serial number. Right here,” she said, pointing it out for his untrained eye. “And…?”
“It’ll be in a database. We can get a positive identification with this.”
He lifted his brows and took a second look at the nurse, his opinion of her rising. She might be young and pretty, and she might walk as if her feet were on fire, but she was sharp, too. Smart, quick, efficient. Probably all good qualities in an R.N. He squinted at the numbers, which were so blurry he could barely make them out, then looked at her again. “Is there a way to enhance this?”
“Not here. But maybe you have something in your…crime lab, or its Shadow Falls equivalent.”
“There is no Shadow Falls equivalent. But I can send it out. Can I keep this?”
“Yes. In fact, I made this copy for you.” She took the X-ray down, slid it back into its envelope and handed it to him. “Should I call Dr. Overton?”
He shook his head. “Why wake her? There’s not a damn thing she can do here that can’t wait a few more hours. I’ll be in touch. Thanks for this. You’ve been a big help.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Remember, we’re still keeping this quiet.”
“It won’t stay quiet for long. Not with a forensics squad dusting the room for prints,” she said.
He sighed, lowered his head. “As quiet as possible, then.”
She made a zipping motion across her lips.
Bryan tucked the envelope under his arm and headed for the elevators.
He drove straight out to Olivia Dupree’s place. The house was dark, and the doors were locked up tight. Her car was in the garage. Nothing looked out of place or suspicious. And he hated to wake her in the dead of night, but he was worried. Olivia had a past she’d been dodging for sixteen years. He and his fiancée, Dawn, were the only people in this town who knew the truth about that past and the dangers it posed to her present—hell, to her life—if it ever became common knowledge.
And no one knew for sure who this missing patient was. Admittedly, it looked as if he was probably the reclusive author Olivia had been expecting. But Bryan didn’t think authors were generally targeted by professional killers. Better to wake Olivia for nothing and be safe than wait for morning and be sorry, he thought.
Besides, she would want to know the guy was missing.
He went to the front door, rang the bell and waited. When there was no response, he rang it again. After the third try, he started getting that feeling he got when something was wrong. Even if Olivia were out cold, Freddy would have been at the door the second he heard the chimes. So he tugged his cell phone off his belt and dialed her number.
He couldn’t hear the telephone ringing beyond the front door. No ringing. Nothing.
He now had probable cause to think she might be in danger. And he didn’t think Olivia was likely to mind too much, anyway, if he went inside uninvited. He went around back, through the gate into the fenced-in yard, and then crossed the deck to the French doors in back. Much easier to break in that way.
It took some doing, but he managed to break the security latch on the dog door, and then he crawled inside.
“Olivia?” he called. “Olivia, it’s Bryan!”
No answer.
“Freddy! Freddy, come here, boy!”
Nothing. No heavy paws tromping toward him. Not even a plaintive whine or playful snort.
He went through the house quickly, his heart in his throat as he entered her bedroom, praying he wasn’t going to find her body lying on the mattress. Echoes of ghosts past whispered up and down his spine as he scanned the room.
His prayers were answered. No body in the bed. Olivia wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere.
Returning to the kitchen, he resecured the dog door from inside, then went to the living room, so he could leave through the front and lock up behind him. But he paused when he saw the note on the coffee table, held in place by a clear acrylic paperweight with a sunflower inside it. He read it, but it only worried him more. A few days away. Past catching up with her. It was worded so that he would know what she was talking about but no one else would. Not unless they knew the entire story. She wouldn’t have written it that way if she’d been forced to leave a note. At least, he hoped not.
Still, this wasn’t feeling good at all. “Where the hell are you, Olivia?”
Olivia directed Aaron to the First Community Bank of Burlington, Vermont, and he pulled into the parking lot in the rear, found a spot and killed the engine. She dug through her handbag to find the safe-deposit key, then turned in her seat to stroke Freddy, promising to come back soon. She didn’t even object when Aaron got out of the car and walked with her.
They followed a well-kept sidewalk around to the front of the brown brick building. The bank was surrounded by yellow-and-gold floral explosions. Marigolds, daisies and other flowers she couldn’t name blossomed in abundance, and she felt the same twinge she always felt upon seeing a beautiful garden. Jealousy. She’d always wished she could have a green thumb. For her, plants tended to just…die.
Aaron opened the heavy glass door and held it for her. She went inside and up to the counter. The bank had only just opened for the day. To kill time before it did, the two of them had pulled onto the shoulder of a secluded side road and taken a nap right in their seats, then driven on to the city. And, she thought, she used the term city loosely.
She hadn’t expected to be able to sleep when they stopped, and she’d been right. She’d drifted off a few times, only to wake with a gasp and a start within a few minutes. She guessed her adrenal glands were still pumping that fight-or-flight response through her veins. She’d taken pity on her poor canine, since she couldn’t sleep anyway, and let him get out and romp in a nearby meadow while she sat in the tall grass and watched him. After a while she’d joined him in his running and jumping. She found a good-size branch on the ground and threw it to give him something to chase and shake and, eventually, chew into smaller pieces.
Freddy had still been restless in the SUV, even after an hour’s playtime. Which Aaron had slept straight through, she’d noted. He’d been through a lot, probably needed the rest.
Now, at the bank, Olivia felt sorry for leaving Freddy in the SUV again so soon and vowed not to take too long.
A smiling woman at the counter greeted her with an overly cheerful, “Good morning! How can I help you today?”
“I need to get some things from my safe-deposit box,” Olivia said. Then she wondered if she looked as grouchy as she sounded, and tried to paste a semipleasant expression on her face.
“Number?”
“Three-seventy-two.”
The woman vanished from behind the counter, then reappeared a moment later and opened a half door, motioning Olivia to follow her.
Olivia went through the door, Aaron following her. She’d wondered if he would. They accompanied the teller into a room with a wall of locked drawers, a table and a couple of chairs. Olivia inserted her key into her box.
The teller inserted her own key into the second slot, then pulled the box partway out. “There are complimentary sacks on the wall there.” She nodded at a hook on the wall, where plastic drawstring bags with the bank’s logo on them hung at the ready. “Help yourself if you need one.”
“Thanks.”
The teller left the room. Olivia lifted the hinged metal lid and looked inside the drawer. Then she turned to meet Aaron’s eyes. He stood behind her—no view of the box’s contents from there. She said, “Would you get me one of those ‘complimentary sacks,’ please?”
He smiled a little at her use of the cheerful clerk’s terminology and turned to get the bag.
Olivia set the box on the table, sank into a chair and reached inside, touching items she hadn’t handled in more than sixteen years. Her driver’s license was in there. Faded and long expired. God, had she really been that young? The round-cheeked face staring up at her, the name Sarah H. Quinlan underneath it, barely resembled the woman she was now. She moved the license aside and found her birth certificate underneath. Below that, her Social Security card, a passport and several banded stacks of cash, each one holding five grand. And underneath all of that, a stack of three-by-five floppy disks and a little black .38 special with a box of bullets beside it.
In a flash she was back in Chicago on the day it all went down. She remembered the timing—how close it had been.
Tommy had had a rough day on the job, and came home with beer on his breath and coffee stains on the shirt with the Chicago P.D. emblem over his heart. She knew right then it was going to be a bad night.
And it had been. The worst one yet. She remembered hoping she hadn’t waited one day too long to put her escape plan into action. It wasn’t ten minutes before he’d lost his temper and found some excuse to start hitting her. She tried to remember what infraction she’d committed to set him off that last time. Right, right. She’d left the outdoor light on all day.
She’d been pretty sure her life was over that night. That all her plotting had been for nothing, because he’d kept on punching even her after she’d gone down, and he didn’t usually do that.
But then the police were pounding on the front door. She’d heard the noise through a haze of pain and thought, Thank God. I’m still alive. They’re here, and I’m still alive.
His own colleagues kicked in the front door of a home no rookie cop should have been able to afford and presented him with a search warrant. When he demanded to know what the hell this was about, they told him they were acting on a tip. And of course they found pounds of marijuana and hash right where their anonymous informant had told them to look, hidden above a ceiling panel in the master bedroom closet.
She remembered the look Tommy had sent her as they’d cuffed him and dragged him out the door. It had been murderous. And his words couldn’t compare with that icy hatred she saw in his eyes, even though her own were beginning to swell by then.
“You did this, didn’t you, Sarah? Didn’t you?”
She’d shaken her head no, backing even farther away from him, bumping into a cop she knew. One she’d tried to tell about the beatings before, but who hadn’t believed her. His eyes said he was sorry. “We need to get you to a hospital,” he said aloud. “Did he do this to you?”
She licked her lips and held Tommy’s murderous gaze. “I fell,” she said. “And I’m fine. No hospital.” They wouldn’t help her before, and she sure as hell didn’t need their help now. She was doing this on her own.
She’d had two choices, the way she saw it. Kill him, or send him to prison. Leaving him without doing one or the other first would only have ensured her own demise. And staying wasn’t an option. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would tolerate being abused. She’d been planning her escape since the first time he’d laid a hand on her—and planning it in a way that wasn’t going to get her killed.
At least not right away. But when he got out, if he ever found her…
“I’ll kill you for this, Sarah,” Tommy promised as he was shoved out the door in handcuffs. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”
The cops told her she would have to leave the house until they’d finished processing it. She’d been more than happy to comply. She’d already taken the stack of three-by-five floppies Tommy had taken such pride in. Records of his clients, their names, addresses, how much they bought from him, how much they paid for it. There were photos of many of the transactions, too. Invaluable information, Tommy always said. Priceless. So she’d taken them all, and then she’d removed the hard drive from his computer. With the drugs in the house, the police wouldn’t need that information to convict him. And she saw no point in causing trouble for his customers. Besides, as closely as he guarded those files, she thought he might want them back someday. He might even need them back. So she could use them to bargain with—maybe for her life—if he ever found her.
She’d taken the disks, all her important papers and as many of her clothes as she could reasonably carry. Everything was in the trunk of the car she’d managed to borrow from the wife of one of Tommy’s best customers. A woman who’d seen her bruises and guessed their cause. She’d taken the piles of money from his stash in the basement. Not all of it, but a lot. A hell of a lot. And she’d taken one of his guns and a supply of bullets to go with it.
Tommy was going to jail. And while he was away, unable to get to her, she was going to escape. By the time he got out, she hoped to have a whole new life under way. But as things had turned out, it ended up being an even more complete change than she had ever imagined.
“Your bag,” Aaron said, startling her back to the present. She’d forgotten he was in the room. Hell, she’d forgotten she was. She looked up to see him standing behind her, looking over her shoulder, all the items in the box clearly visible.
He whistled soft and low.
She pursed her lips, not looking at him. “Don’t ask.”
“Uh…I’m pretty sure I have to.”
“No, you don’t.” She scooped out the banded stacks of money, the gun, the bullets, the diskettes, the ID, all of it, and dropped everything into the bag. Then she closed the lid, got to her feet and slid the box back into its drawer. She held the bag in one hand, hiked her purse onto her shoulder with the other and turned to walk out of the bank.
