And the traction had been another nightmare. They had hooked him to the pulleys and turned the machine on, making it pull for twenty seconds, then release for five, then pull again. . . .
Jake’s hope as he endured the pain was that the pulleys would relieve the compression in his spine, free the nerves to function again, and bring the feeling back into his legs. But when the exercise was over, he was as numb from his hips down as he had been when he’d gotten here. It would take time, Buzz told him. Lots of time.
And time was something he had more than enough of. He had all the time in the world and absolutely nothing to do with it but endure more torture, more terror, more disappointment.
Yanking at the sheet the nurse had laid over him, he tried to fling it off the bed, but it was attached somewhere. Instead, he grabbed a glass of watery tea and hurled it across the room. It shattered and left a stain on the wall, but that did nothing to appease Jake’s rage.
Lynda heard a crash as she reached the door of Jake’s room. Stepping out of her wheelchair, she pushed the door open. A tray of food flew against the wall, and plates and food and a cup went crashing to the floor.
“Jake! What are you—?”
She ducked out of the way of the plastic pitcher.
Jake’s face was red, and his bandage was wet with tears. Randomly, he reached for something else to throw. The phone book sailed across the room and then the tissue box. When he grabbed the phone he had already broken the other day and tried to yank off the cord, she dove for him.
“Stop it!” she cried, wrestling the phone from him and grabbing his flailing arms. “Jake, stop it!”
He fought for a moment more, and then, sobbing and cursing, finally gave up and let his arms fall across his face.
Lynda stood next to the bed, staring down at him, feeling helpless. Where were the people who loved this man? Where were the ones who could fight this battle with him? Was there really no one?
But there was someone, Lynda thought, succumbing to her own tears. She was here, and Jake needed her probably more than he’d ever needed anyone in his life.
She leaned over him and slid her hands to his shoulders. Somehow as he sobbed and shook and wailed, she got her arms around him, and suddenly he was clutching her like someone hanging from a cliff, about to fall to his death.
Maybe she was the only one who could pull him back.
He held her while he wept out his last ounces of strength while she cried against the bandage on his face.
“It’s okay, Jake,” she whispered. “I promise it’s going to be all right.”
But they were empty words. She could make no such promises.
When his grief had run out of strength for the moment, he loosened his arms.
Slowly, she let go of him.
He looked like a little boy in a broken man’s body, she thought as she stroked his hair back from his damp forehead. Tears still rolled slowly down his temple, but he was too exhausted to wipe them away.
She stroked his forehead until his wet eye finally closed, until she felt the last ounce of fight seep out of him, until she heard his breathing settle into a relaxed cadence.
When she was sure he was sleeping, she went to get someone to clean up the mess he’d made.
But she didn’t leave him until someone from her floor came and forced her to.
For it was only now that she realized just how alone he was. As much as he might hate her, she was all he had.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
* * *
He fingered the newspaper photo of the crashed plane, still amazed that anyone had survived. It should have been a sure thing. He’d snipped the hose with such precision, leaving it partially intact so that it wouldn’t be noticed on the preflight. When the landing gear engaged, the pressure in the line was certain to tear it the rest of the way. The gear would go partially down without locking—a deadly combination of problems. They should have been the last ones she would ever encounter.
But Lynda Barrett had a way of getting around sure things.
He clenched his jaw in frustration as he picked up the phone and dialed the number he had memorized for the hospital. He’d gotten daily updates on her condition, posing as a reporter one day, an uncle the next, a deacon another. The nurses had been unusually forthcoming, probably because her injuries were so minor. She’d be going home soon, he’d been told. Now he just had to find out when.
He asked for the nurse’s station on her floor then waited as he was transferred. After a few rings, someone answered.
“Third floor nurse’s station. Sarah McNair speaking.”
“Sarah!” he said as though he knew her. “How’s it going?”
She hesitated, trying to place his voice. “Fine.”
He grinned. He loved throwing people off guard.
“Listen, this is Bob Schilling, Lynda Barrett’s law partner. I just tried calling her room, but the line was busy. I wonder if you can tell me yet if she’s had any word on when she might be released.”
“Uh . . . just a second. I’ll check.”
He waited as she left the phone. She was back in just a moment. “I’m sorry, but there’s no word yet. We may keep her a couple more days. Would you like for me to transfer you to her room?”
“No need. I’ll drop by to see her this afternoon. You gave me what I needed for now. Thanks a lot, Sarah.”
He hung up, frowning, and wondered whether he should make his move now, rather than waiting until she returned home.
But how?
He checked his watch. Three hours before he had to be at work. Time enough to pay the hospital a visit, check out the possibilities, and formulate a plan. If he played his cards right and caught her while she was sleeping, he might even be able to get into her room to see if she is on an IV. Maybe he could inject it with something—aspirin to thin her blood, maybe. Or he could grind up some of his blood-pressure pills. Maybe enough to make hers crash. Maybe this crash she wouldn’t survive.
One way or another, he was going to get her out of his way. Lynda Barrett’s luck was about to run out.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
He knew they were cops the minute he spotted them. It was probably the sports coats that tipped him off, he thought; cops always wore coats to cover the guns strapped under their armpits. Or maybe it was the way they walked, with that quick, arrogant stride, as though they didn’t exist on the same plane as everyone else. Then the radio blaring in their unmarked car confirmed it.
Were they here to talk to Lynda? he wondered. Had they realized yet that the crash was not an accident?
Curious, he sped up to join the two men where they waited for the elevator. Rubbing his hand over the slick hair he’d combed back, he tried to assess them over the frames of his glasses.
One of them, the dark-haired one who stood at least four inches above him, flashed him a smile. He hoped they’d never seen his picture before. The last thing he needed was to be identified before he even got to her room.
The elevator doors opened, and he followed them on.
“Which floor?” the blonde cop asked the other one.
“She’s on three; he’s on four. You want to talk to her first?”
“Might as well,” he said, punching the button. “How about you? Where are you going?”
For a moment he didn’t realize they were addressing him. “Uh . . . three.”
“We may not be able to talk to him,” the tall one said. “They’re saying he’s in pretty bad shape.”
“We need to, man. Our hands are tied until we do.”
The bell rang, and the number three flashed above them. The doors opened, and they all stepped off.
He looked both ways up the hall, as if trying to figure out which way to go. The two cops headed for the nurse’s station. Taking out their badges, they flashed them to the first nurse they approached.
“Hi, Ma’am. I’m Larry Millsaps, St. Clair Police Department. This is my partner Tony Danks. C
ould you tell us Lynda Barrett’s room number, please?”
He made a mental note of their names. He might need to know them later.
“Lynda’s in 413. Down that hall and to the left.”
“Thanks a lot.” They started in the direction she was pointing.
He stepped into the waiting area and watched as they disappeared into her room.
What were they up to? Until now, the crash had been ruled an accident, at least according to the television. They couldn’t know that someone had sabotaged the plane, could they? No—they were here for something else.
He eyed the room next to her; there was a name on the door. But the room on the other side of hers appeared to be empty. Checking behind him to make sure no one was watching, he went into the vacant room.
The bathroom door was on the side adjacent to Lynda’s room. The door was closed. He remembered being in a hospital once that had rooms that adjoined through the bathroom, and carefully, he turned the knob.
The door opened quietly, and he peered in. Another door was on the other side. It must open into Lynda’s room.
Grinning, he went in and pressed his ear against the door. He couldn’t hear, so he hesitated a moment weighing the risk and then turned the knob.
The door opened silently, and he heard her voice.
Perfect. If he could get this close, he could wait until she was alone. Maybe he could wait until she slept, then put a pillow over her face. That way he wouldn’t have to worry about IV’s and blood thinners. He could take care of her with his bare hands and make sure that he did the job right this time.
Then, as quickly as the thought had come, he realized how absurd it was. The cops had seen him. If she were found smothered in her bed, wouldn’t they consider everyone who’d been on the floor a suspect? Of course, they’d still have to find him and identify him, but it was too risky. When he finally took her out, he needed an alibi. He needed to be far enough away that they could never pin it on him.
For now, just listening was enough. Maybe he’d hear what he needed to hear.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* * *
You’re the pilot,” Larry told Lynda as she sat up in bed, all bruised and scraped and stitched, like a mad scientist’s experiment. “Maybe you can help us figure out what kind of person might know enough about planes to cut exactly the right hose.”
Lynda shrugged. “A mechanic, I suppose. I’m not sure I would have even known which hose to cut.”
Tony paced to the window and looked down on the parking lot. “What we’re trying to determine is whether we’re dealing with someone who’s very familiar with planes or someone who didn’t know what he was doing and just got lucky.”
“Lucky, huh?” Lynda said in a dull, flat voice, and Larry wished Tony had chosen a better word.
“See, Lynda,” Larry threw in, “it was difficult to determine if there was anything else tampered with, since the fire destroyed so much, but from what the NTSB can tell us, that was the only hose that was cut. It seems pretty deliberate. Calculated. Like someone who knew planes well had done it.”
Lynda agreed. “It would have to be someone who’s done a lot of work on airplanes.”
Larry shot Tony a look. “So I guess that narrows down our hunt to someone with a background in aircraft mechanics or maintenance or maybe someone who had built planes.”
“Did you interview all the guys who work at the airport?”
“We’re in the process of doing it now. The problem is, we aren’t having any luck finding anyone who has a vendetta against you.”
Pulling her robe tighter around her, Lynda got out of bed and went to the dresser across the room. “I’ve been racking my brain since yesterday to think of anyone who might hate me. Maybe people whose cases I lost or didn’t get along with or people I’ve been rude to.” She let her voice trail off and tried to blink back the tears as she pulled a small notebook out of the drawer. Pulling out a piece of paper with a short list on it, she handed it to them. “These people wouldn’t put me on their top-ten list of favorite people. But I can’t see any of them doing something so deadly. I felt guilty even putting their names down.”
“Anything would help at this point,” Larry said, examining the list. “So who’s this first guy?”
“Jack Gild. A client whose business was being sued, and I lost the case. He had to file bankruptcy, and he lost his home. He was really angry.”
“What kind of business was it?”
“He repaired medical equipment. He was real mechanical, but I don’t know if he knew about airplanes.”
“What about this one? Doug Chastain?”
She sighed. “That was a client I dropped because he was so hard to get along with. I should have stuck it out, but I cut him loose before we went to trial, and it might have hurt his case.”
“Did he make any threats?”
“No, not to my face. He really didn’t seem like the violent type. He just had an attitude.”
“What were his charges?”
“Arson. He and some friends got drunk and set a girl’s yard on fire, just for kicks. Unfortunately, the house caught fire, too.”
“How old is he?”
“Maybe twenty.”
“What’s he doing now?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He served a little time, but I haven’t kept up with him. And that third name, Gordon Addison. Well, I feel silly even putting it down. It’s a pilot who’s asked me out several times, but I didn’t go. He has a tremendous ego, so I thought maybe. . . .”
“That he might try to get even for his hurt pride?”
She winced. “Actually, it’s ridiculous. Just mark him off. Talk about egos. I’m as bad as he is if I could imagine him being that torn up over my rejecting him.”
“We’ll just question him like we’re questioning everybody. He won’t know you gave us his name.”
“All right.” She sank back down on her bed. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“It might save your life. Try to think of more names, Lynda. It’s possible that your plane was picked randomly, that all of this had nothing to do with you specifically, but until we can determine that for sure, I think we have to assume it was someone going after you.”
She went back to her bed and sat back on the pillows. “It’s just so unbelievable.”
“It always is when something like this happens.”
“But who would want me dead?”
“Like he said,” Tony suggested, “it may not be you at all. In fact, it’s occurred to us that it could have been someone after Jake.”
“But it wasn’t his plane.”
“Maybe someone knew he was looking at it. We’re going to talk to him next.”
Lynda’s face changed. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“He’s . . . having a real hard time. He’s depressed. Really depressed. I don’t know if he can take any pressure right now, especially if you’re planting the seed in his mind that someone may have done this to him deliberately.”
“It’s a long shot,” Larry said. “But we have to ask. Don’t worry. We’ll try to be sensitive. But sometimes it’s helpful for someone in his position to have a chance to brainstorm with us. It gives them back a little control. If they know something’s being done—”
“But nothing really is being done, is it?” she asked quietly. “I mean, you don’t know who it is, so you can’t do any more than I can.”
“But we can keep digging until we reach the bottom,” Larry told her. “And that’s exactly what we intend to do.”
Lynda stared into space for a while after they had left, wondering whether, indeed, someone wanted her or Jake dead and why. It was crazy. It was amazing. It was unlikely.
Yet it had happened.
She heard a knock and thought the detectives had forgotten something. “Come in.”
Gordon Addison, one of the men whose names she had put on
the list, stepped inside.
“Gordon!” she said, every muscle in her body tensing.
He smiled—which may have been, she realized, the first time she’d ever seen that expression on his face. “I didn’t know if it was appropriate for me to come,” he said stiffly. “But I wanted to bring you some flowers and tell you you’re missed at the airport.”
Her heartbeat accelerated as she took the flowers wrapped in tissue paper and tried to look grateful. “You shouldn’t have, Gordon. But thanks. That’s so sweet.”
“How do you feel?”
“Better,” she said. “I’m expecting to get out soon.”
“Great. That’s good news.”
An awkward silence settled between them, and she looked down at the flowers, as if studying the petals.
“Well,” he said, finally. “You look tired. I’ll go. I just wanted to bring those by.”
She swallowed. “Thank you. Really.”
She watched as he left the room, and when the door closed behind him, she let out a deep breath and wilted back on her pillow. She should be ashamed, she thought. All he’d ever done to her was ask her out then act hurt because she wouldn’t go. He wasn’t a killer. Didn’t the flowers prove that he was only trying to be nice?
But someone had tried to kill her. Someone who’d gotten into the airport. Someone who knew airplanes. Someone who had a vendetta. That made it hard to be anything less than suspicious of someone like Gordon, who met those criteria as well as anyone.
Finally, she picked up the phone, hoping she could catch Larry and Tony in Jake’s room.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
* * *
Jake was so relieved to have visitors that forced his therapists to postpone his torture for an hour that he would have told the cops anything just to keep them there.
But for the life of him, he couldn’t come up with the name of anyone who might want him dead.
“Think,” Larry said. “You had looked at the plane the day before. Who knew about that?”
Evidence of Mercy Page 9
