Blind Spot (2010)

by Nancy Bush

  Tasha had made love to Rafe on Nathaniel’s grave. She hoped Catherine knew.

  Needed her to know!

  Footsteps in the hallway. Tasha squirreled the knife and pills beside her in the bed.

  That meddling doctor again. Her dark eyes were all knowing, digging, burrowing, burning holes into Tasha’s skin. “It’s dinnertime,” the doctor said. “Let me take you down.”

  Friendly voice. Evilness inside.

  Tasha decided it was time to take a new step. “I can walk down on my own, thank you.”

  The doctor was so stunned she looked like she was going to pass out. Tasha hid an inward smile.

  “Good,” she said. “It’s nice to hear your voice. Tomorrow I’ll bring your baby to you.”

  Tasha nodded, and reluctantly, the doctor left, giving Tasha an uncertain look that meant she was beginning to suspect.

  Quickly Tasha slipped the knife up the sleeve of her dress and the pills inside the side of her sock.

  She was leaving tonight.

  Chapter 26

  “Tasha spoke to me,” Claire said into the phone to Lang, unable to completely hide her surprise. “It was so unexpected. And…weird. I don’t want to be influenced by Catherine, or Rita, but it gave me kind of a jolt.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Basically that she was going to walk down to dinner rather than have me wheel her. I told her I would bring her baby to see her tomorrow.”

  “What’d she say to that?” Lang asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Hearing something in her tone, he asked, “What are you thinking?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “So, how long are you staying at Halo Valley?”

  “Probably till just after dinner. It’s just been so unsettled around here.” She told him about Freeson’s directive that she stick around.

  “Hey, I want to see you,” Lang said. “I don’t feel like waiting.”

  A smile crossed her face. “So, what can we do about that?”

  “I’m coming your way. We’ll figure out the rest of the evening later.”

  “Okay.”

  She clicked off her phone, her pulse racing light and fast. She was falling for him. Oh, boy, was she falling for him.

  Tasha sat at the table, trying to recall the extent of her dark dreams. Sometimes she could. Sometimes she saw Mary, her mother, hovering just beyond her reach, although that was rare. Mostly she had to rely on the clues that were left in the dream’s wake. Like the knife and the pills.

  Gibby was seated beside her. He’d actually pulled away when she took the empty seat next to him, alarmed. Everyone else had looked at her, too. She hadn’t acted this decisive before.

  His glass of unfiltered apple juice was sitting by his right hand. Tasha surreptitiously pulled the handful of pills from her sock, picked up her own glass, pretended to drink, then slipped the pills into it while she was setting the glass back down. They didn’t all immediately sink, so she placed it to her lips again and made swallowing motions.

  She wasn’t sure what the pills were. She didn’t care. Enough of them would be bad for Gibby. Might even kill him.

  Maribel suddenly grabbed a dinner roll off Big Jenny’s plate. A roar went up, and in the moment while everyone looked at Jenny, who lunged for Maribel, Tasha switched glasses with Gibby. Gibby glanced back at her, frowning.

  With an effort she smiled, though it felt like her muscles were glued down.

  “I doan like you,” Gibby said.

  The meddling Dr. Norris heard him and her brows raised.

  Tasha gazed at Gibby blankly, as if she didn’t understand.

  “She is a fucking liar!” Gibby shouted.

  “Shut up, moron,” Thomas McAvoy snarled.

  “Gibby,” the doctor admonished.

  She looked worried by his turnabout, but Tasha wasn’t surprised. Nathaniel had been a tattletale, too. Neither of them could keep their idiotic mouths shut.

  But the doctor was getting too smart. Tasha could feel the questions inside her head.

  Gibby shrank back in his chair and reached for his apple juice. He drank several big gulps. Tasha saw the white edge of several pills through the glass and realized her plan wasn’t going to work.

  There was a roaring in her ears. They would find out what she’d done! They would lock her in a room, strap her to her bed! They would never let her out.

  Her heart beat so hard her chest hurt. The edges of her dark dream crowded close, but she strained hard and pushed them back. She needed to be in control!

  And then she saw that other man. The inmate who always had a guard with him. He made the hospital staff very nervous. Something wrong with him, Tasha guessed, but she had no real interest in learning what it was.

  But he was watching her. With those same kind of burning eyes, like the doctor.

  Burning, burning, burning.

  Something had to be done.

  Lang pulled up to Halo Valley Security Hospital and recognized the tension in his gut that still resided there. He had to let it go. Had to move on. As much as he’d like to piss off the Marsdons and take their sneaky end run around Heyward’s incarceration to the media, he wasn’t going to do it. Putting it all back in the public eye wouldn’t guarantee Heyward would be put back on Side B and it sure as hell wouldn’t bring his sister back. Nor would it do much for his growing relationship with Claire, either.

  He’d spent the last month coming to terms with it all and had learned, in the process, just how much Claire had been a victim, too.

  So, okay. Time to move on. He locked his Glock in the glove box and walked up to the sliding glass doors. The girl at the desk saw him, recognized him, and set about opening the doors.

  As they slid open he stepped inside and saw that the patients were just finishing dinner.

  And Heyward Marsdon sat to one side, his attention on, of all people, Tasha.

  The muscles at the back of Lang’s neck tightened in spite of himself.

  He saw Melody in his mind’s eye. Her smile. The way she was before her illness ravaged her looks and her soul.

  And then Claire was coming toward him, a soft smile on her face. He took a step toward her when Heyward, seeing her, suddenly leapt up and raced toward her.

  Lang moved automatically, lunging forward. He stepped between them and grabbed Heyward by his collar in one fluid movement. “Stop,” he growled angrily.

  Fury took over. All his warnings to himself splintered. Were obliterated.

  “Wait, wait!” Claire’s voice. Panicked.

  Heyward sputtered, “She poisoned him. She poisoned him!”

  “Shut up.” Lang’s teeth were gritted. He held him tight. Squeezed hard. Wanted to pop the bastard’s head off.

  “Stop! Stop!” Claire was there. Clawing at his arms. Freaking out. “Lang, no!”

  “Let go, Claire,” Lang bit out. “He’s hallucinating.”

  “No…!” Heyward cried.

  “No. He’s on his meds! Lang, please! No!”

  And then Tasha was there, flying toward them. Flying toward Heyward. Her face twisted with rage. Reaching up her sleeve.

  To Lang’s distinct shock she pulled a knife from her sleeve and charged Heyward, running him through his stomach.

  Heyward staggered and Lang caught him.

  And Tasha grabbed Claire by the hair and pressed the knife hard against her throat. “I have to kill them,” she said in a hard voice. “They won’t let me leave.” Then to Lang, whose muscles were tense, she said, “Don’t move.”

  Heyward gasped, blood oozing through his clothes as he pointed to the table, “She poisoned him. Gibby. I saw the pills in the glass.”

  “Don’t talk,” Tasha said to Heyward.

  “Don’t hurt her,” he answered back, piteously.

  “You talked,” she said, and made a shallow cut across Claire’s throat.

  It was a nightmare. The same nightmare he’d imagined with Melody. Blood ran from t
he cut while Claire’s eyes, huge and scared, silently begged him not to move.

  Lang was frozen. Shackled by fear. Hearing the seconds count off in his head as Heyward sank to the ground, breathing unevenly.

  Not Claire. Please, not Claire.

  “Tasha,” Claire said. “You can leave anytime.”

  “Liar.”

  “You don’t have to stay here. We’re a hospital. We’ve been waiting for you to get better.”

  “She poisoned him,” Heyward murmured, clutching his stomach, his dull gaze directed toward the dining room where the patients and staff were all staring at Tasha and she was glaring back at them. “She stabbed me.”

  The orderly, Greg something, said loudly, “There’s been a stabbing and a poisoning!”

  “Shut up! Don’t move,” Tasha warned again. “Any of you.”

  Donald moaned, “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”

  Gibby started crying. “It’s in my apple juice!”

  “Don’t move or I’ll kill her! You’ll make me!”

  Everyone froze.

  Lang glanced from Gibby to Heyward to Claire, his chest tight. He saw Claire understood what Heyward had been trying to say.

  “You’re all looking at me like Catherine does,” Tasha said, alarmed.

  The blood ran in tiny rivulets down Claire’s neck. Just a small wound. Flesh wound, Lang told himself. But he felt weak. Impotent. He had to do something.

  Had to get the crazed woman to talk. Keep the moment from spinning into disaster.

  “This isn’t like you, Tasha,” he said.

  She laughed. “You’re all so dumb. Just like all my sisters. All morons. And Catherine. But they know better now…”

  Keep her talking, Lang told himself, pushing his fear into a deep, dark part of his soul. Keep her talking. “Rita told the truth after all. You stole Rafe from her so you could get away.”

  “Rafe loved me,” she stated coldly. “Not Rita.”

  “Rafe told you about Rita’s obsession over wanting a child. It gave you the idea to get pregnant.”

  “She couldn’t have one,” she gloated. “Rafe told me!”

  “But you have an ‘affliction.’ You may not think so, but Catherine’s had your number for a long time. You’re the bad seed, aren’t you? The secret embarrassment of the Colony.”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  “You wanted Catherine to see you pregnant. Wanted her to see how you’d defied her again.”

  “Catherine shut me in my room, but I got out.” Tasha was smug.

  “With Rafe. But Rita followed you. She found you at the rest stop,” Lang said, counting the seconds. It felt like an eternity. He didn’t have his gun. Why didn’t he bring his gun? “She attacked you, intending to take your baby. But something went wrong.”

  “I knew she would follow us! I wanted her to. She’s crazy and jealous and she would never leave us alone unless Rafe killed her!”

  “You wanted him to,” Lang realized. “But it all went wrong. She got chased off. She intended to take your baby, but she didn’t have a chance.”

  Heyward, who’d been down on his knees, had rolled to the balls of his feet. Lang sensed rather than saw the move. He wasn’t sure what was in the man’s mind. Knew it couldn’t possibly help.

  “What happened, Tasha?” Lang said. “What happened to Rafe?”

  “He took Rita’s knife away from her. She stabbed me! So he took her knife and said he would turn her in to the authorities. He said if she came near me, he would kill her. I was screaming at him to just do it. But Rita was shrieking like a witch. Said it was her baby! Rafe told her she was crazy. He would have killed her but she left too soon!” She inhaled through her teeth. “He said the baby and I were his. We were his.”

  “You killed him,” Lang said. “Not Rita. No defensive wounds,” he added. “He wouldn’t fight his pregnant lover, even when she was stabbing him.”

  “He let Rita go, but I was his prisoner!” Tasha said intensely.

  “You cut your own abdomen and blamed it on Rita.”

  “She was going to take my baby! She just didn’t have time because of Rafe! He tried to stop me, so I stabbed him. I had to. I had to.”

  “What about Cade?” Lang asked.

  “You’re just wasting time!” She started dragging Claire toward the door. “I need a driver,” she stated flatly. “The rest of you stay back.”

  He had to keep her from taking Claire away. “Cade tried to stop you, too.”

  “He wanted me to call you! Wanted you to help!”

  “And Gibby? You poisoned him with something?”

  “Pills,” Heyward said.

  Tasha’s gaze flashed on him.

  It was just a moment. Not even a full second. But Lang took it, leaping forward and grabbing Tasha’s arm, yanking hard, jerking the knife from Claire’s throat. Tasha screamed at him, slashing wildly, slicing his arm. Blood beaded instantly but Lang didn’t notice. He twisted the knife from her grasp, fighting the raging, spitting cat she’d become.

  And then a body slammed into them both, breaking them apart, knocking Tasha hard to the ground, her head bouncing on the industrial carpet, her eyes rolling up.

  Lang swirled around. It was Heyward. He’d hit her in a flying tackle.

  And now he was on the ground, not moving, blood flowing.

  “Claire?” Lang stumbled away. To Claire. The woman he loved. Who’d nearly met the same fate as Melody. “Claire!”

  She’d crumpled to the floor when Lang grabbed Tasha. Now she was half-sitting, half-lying on the carpet, blood pooling around her, her eyes open and fixed.

  “Claire!” He pressed his hand to her throat. Direct pressure. Not too much. Stop the bleeding, not the breathing.

  The woo-woo-woo of an ambulance siren came rushing toward them and galvanized the rest of the staff into action. Greg knelt beside Lang. “I called 911. She said don’t move, but my hand was on my phone, in my pocket. That’s why I said that about the poisoning and stabbing.”

  “I didn’t drink it!” Gibby moaned. “It tasted funny.”

  McAvoy said, “Those were my pills. She’s a fucking thief!”

  The EMTs rushed in. “Who’s the poison victim?” one yelled, then they saw the prone forms of Claire, Tasha, and Heyward.

  “Get another ambulance,” the second one ordered.

  “No poisoning,” Lang said, shaking as he released Claire into their professional care. “Two stabbings. By the unconscious blond woman. The intended victim didn’t drink the poison.” He pulled his own phone from his pocket and called the sheriff’s department.

  He hadn’t believed he could feel as bad as he did after Melody’s death. He hadn’t known he could care that much again.

  And if he’d been asked, he would have denied vehemently that his pain could be over one Dr. Claire Norris.

  But it was. He followed the ambulance to Ocean Park hospital and waited while Claire was rushed into surgery, pacing, praying a little, remembering his sister and Claire and Heyward and all the bad feelings. If he could take them back. If he could just please, please take them back….

  Then she was wheeled into recovery. He sat beside her, his hand gripping hers, his forehead down on the bed, his retinas burned with the vision of her white face, whiter bandage circling her throat, immobile form.

  He ached inside. Soul-deep with misery. Oh, please, please, he prayed silently. Please, don’t let her die.

  He stayed beside her in recovery. Hours passed. Days. Eons. He knew it was his fault. He’d blamed her. He’d set her on this course. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I love you, Claire.”

  Please, don’t let her die.

  “I love you.”

  His torture was endless, internal. Heyward had tried to save her, too.

  She had to live!

  And then, in the darkest moment of his soul, he felt something. Movement beneath his hand. Trembling fingers.

  Slowly Lang raised his head, his blue eyes capturing her
brown ones, dulled by pain, full of recognition. Joy sang through his veins. Impossible to believe. A miracle!

  She opened her mouth but he put his own finger to her lips.

  “Shhh.”

  Her fingers squeezed his. He squeezed back.

  “I love you,” he said brokenly. “I love you…”

  Epilogue

  “…the Tillamook, the Trask, the Miami, the Wilson, and the Kilchis.”

  Lang sat at the end of Claire’s couch, smiling down at her as she cradled a cup of herbal tea. Dinah, carrying Bea close to her chest in a blue-and-white paisley sling, had brought over a hot carafe and had just finished sharing a cup with Claire when Lang got off work. She left them, then, saying she and Bea would be right next door, sensing their need to be alone together.

  “Someone’s been searching the Internet,” Claire said. Her voice was faint, more a case of being careful and easing around sore muscles than actual damage to her vocal center.

  “Harder than you might think, given the age of my laptop,” he assured her. “But if I can name all five rivers, O’Halloran seems to think I can do the job.”

  “That’s the only reason?”

  “The only one.”

  “Nothing to do with finding out who killed Rafe.”

  He reached under the covers and grabbed one of her bare feet. “Not a thing.”

  “Don’t you dare tickle me,” she warned.

  “I was thinking more of a massage.”

  “Sure.”

  Lang grinned. “I called Will Tanninger at Winslow County, brought him up to date with all the little pieces he missed about the investigation. He was really interested in all the information about the Colony. Said he thought his girlfriend would want to talk to Catherine.”

  “Well, maybe…”

  Lang gave her a speculative look and added, “She did come to the station, you know. Catherine. She wants to be Bea’s guardian.”

  Claire would have shaken her head vigorously but knew better. Though she was healing well, the cut and subsequent surgery on her neck muscles and tendons damn well hurt! “Maybe Siren Song isn’t the torture chamber Tasha imagined, but I don’t want Bea there. I want her with Dinah.”