“She’s alive. Doing quite well.” I manage a taunt. “You won’t succeed here, either. The MPs and cops are out there. If I found you so quickly, they will, too.”
He blew that off. “You found me because I drew you here. I didn’t leave bread crumbs for them. I picked a place they’ll never search.”
Frank bellowed and I held him back by the thinnest thread. “You’re not that smart, Shax.”
“You can call me Doctor now that we have no secrets between us.”
Frank shouted and pushed.
“I wanted you to watch Bethany scream and beg me not to hurt her. It would have given me so much satisfaction to see your face as I raped her, hear her anguish, watch the life drain from her eyes. But I miscalculated. I killed her too soon.”
My ears filled with the confusion in my brain. I didn’t want to hear any more.
“Then you lost your mind. That was even a bigger disappointment. You broke down so you didn’t have to suffer the guilt of what you did.”
“I didn’t do it. You did.” The voice coming from my throat deepened and took on a gravely quality.
He bent over and traced a thin line down the top of Cali’s left thigh with the point of his knife. She whimpered. Her eyes were closed and her breathing shallow. “Your mother whisked you away and I spent a long time tracking you. She wanted to be sure to tuck you so far from Buffalo you couldn’t taint her reputation.”
Frank pushed harder.
“If you’d have left me alone, I wouldn’t have to punish you. Bethany, that sweet girl, would be, what, nineteen now? She’d be in college. And Cali would get to see the sun rise tomorrow. All of this is your fault.”
The roaring in my head made it impossible for me to answer.
Shax poked the tip of the knife in the skin just under Cali’s left ear. Her eyes flew open and a guttural scream soaked into the gag. Her legs and arms twitched, as if she didn’t have strength to fight more.
He looked up at me, glee shining in his eyes. “Death by a thousand cuts and we’re only on about six hundred now. Of course with Bethany, I only got to five hundred or so. But she had some of your mother’s spirit and fought much harder. She didn’t want to die.”
Frank exploded. Out of my head, into my whole body. He roared with a voice that vibrated the metal walls of the plane. My muscles burned with his hatred, fueling a primal urge to kill.
“No!” I screamed it with all my strength. My head felt as if it burst with bits of bone and brain exploding into the plane. Before I could face Shax, I had to defeat Frank.
My hands clamped over my ears and I squeezed my eyes closed. “No!” I shouted again, not able to form words and instead using everything within me to push Frank back. Not with the rage of death, but with the strength of love.
I held him back but the roar and pressure in my head made it hard to breathe or focus my eyes. I needed Frank but I couldn’t let him take over or I might never come back.
Shax threw back his head and laughed, a high-pitched cackle. “Fascinating.”
Cali opened her eyes, lost and terrified, they pleaded with me.
The voice thundering from my throat was Frank, but it was me who burst from the floor. I hit Shax full force in his chest, driving him backward where we crashed to the ground. My years as a cop and his small size gave me a chance. I pushed up and straddled Shax’s chest.
Shax held his knife and slashed wildly.
Blood flew as I grabbed for the weapon and the serrated edge ripped my palm. I pulled my left arm back and popped it forward, punching Shax squarely in the nose. The crunch of cartilage and warm spurt of blood made Frank bellow for more. I clamped my mind closed.
Shax screamed and arced his knife with no real aim. His eyes lost focus in his panic.
The knife struck me in my right bicep but Frank beat against my brain.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
I ratcheted back and punched again, this time smashing into Shax’s jaw with a crack.
The pain must have snapped something in Shax and his face hardened with determination. This time when he thrust the knife, he had a clear target.
The knife headed toward my jugular and I twisted to the left, my knee slipping from the ground. The knife punctured skin and muscle just below my collarbone, sending fire through me. Frank howled.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Shax bucked and knocked me to the ground. Air rushed from my lungs as Shax landed on my chest. The knife flashed in the scant candlelight. High above, then arcing down. I jerked enough the ragged edge tore at the side of my neck.
Again, Frank let out a savage shriek and I summoned the strength of the multitude to hold him back. Frank roared and surged and I didn’t know if I could keep him locked inside much longer. I grabbed the blade, screaming at the pain as it tore through my hand.
I wrenched it out of Shax’s grasp. He rolled off me and jumped to his feet, panting and eyeing me. “Are you going to kill me?”
Blood streamed from my hand, thigh, chest and maybe a few other places. I concentrated on the pain to keep from listening to Frank’s blood lust. A desire to kill so strong I was afraid it would obliterate everything else.
Shax backed to the wall. His eyes suddenly darted to the door propped against the opening. He held up both hands. “They’re here. You were right. I guess I didn’t hide well enough after all.”
KILL HIM!
Frank wanted Shax’s blood. His only reason for being was to make that blood flow, hard and hot. I shifted the knife from my right hand to my left and wiped blood from my palm to my shorts. Frank was left handed. With the knife firmly in hand, Frank urged me to advance on a trembling Shax.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Shax once again flicked his eyes to the door. “Wait. See? You don’t have to do this. They’re here.”
“Jamie!” Rafe’s shouts sounded from outside the door.
Now! Kill!
The knife seemed to breathe and Frank’s passion threatened. I wanted to shove the blade into Shax’s heart, feel it sink deep, hear his cry of agony, watch his life ebb as he’d watched Bethany.
Do it! Now!
All I had to do is let Frank take over. Shax deserved to die.
“Don’t kill me.” Shax fell to his knees and begged.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
I couldn’t take the chance he’d slip the system and be on the loose again. The world would be better off without him. It would be easy to finish him now. All I had to do was let Frank have his way one more time.
But I couldn’t hide from myself any longer.
“Hurry,” I shouted to Rafe. “In here.”
47
Rafe and the MPs burst into the plane. Shouts, confusion, noise, both inside my head and out. Rafe grabbed me by the shoulders at the same time the MPs rushed Shax and had him tackled to the floor before I dropped the knife.
“Cali.” I pulled away from Rafe and threw myself to the ground next to her. I tugged a filthy blanket to cover her. “It’s okay.” I crooned, even though I knew it would be a long time before it would be okay for her again. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
A radio cracked behind me and the woman MP ordered an ambulance. She knelt next to Zoey and took her in her arms and whispered comforting words.
Rafe used his cell and called for backup.
The other MP cuffed Shax and shoved him toward the door.
Shax ranted about his innocence and that I was the one hurting Cali and Zoey. He yelled I was trying to kill him.
The tiny candle flame only gave muted light but the male MP donned a headlamp and set flashlights around. He screwed up his face. “Holy crap, it smells awful in here.”
Rafe disappeared, probably to help guard Shax.
The sirens sounded in the distance and Cali wept, like a weak kitten crying for her mother’s warmth.
I pulled her close and rocked her, telling her over and over that she was safe and I wouldn’t leave her. The voices inside of me quieted as we waited for
the ambulance.
When the EMTs arrived, I stepped back only long enough to let them attend to her and load her on a stretcher. The woman MP carried Zoey, cuddling her and refusing to relinquish her to a stretcher. I followed one step behind as they lifted her from the plane into the cool night air. The girls were carried to two waiting ambulances.
Rafe stood in a crowd of uniformed officers surrounded by three patrol cars with pulsing blue and red lights. He jogged to my side and laid a gentle hand on my arm. “You’re hurt. You need to get cleaned up and bandaged.”
Blood oozed from my hand and at his mention, I felt the burning along my collarbone. Dried and sticky blood covered my leg where it had spilled from my thigh. “I’ll get it done at the hospital.”
The MP climbed into one ambulance with Zoey. I kept following Cali until one of the EMTs held her hand up.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. You need to wait for the next unit. They’ll treat you and take you to the hospital. You can see her then.”
Cali opened her eyes and focused on me.
I levered the woman’s arm down. “I’m not leaving her.”
Something about the way I said it made her pause. She looked down at Cali, then back at me. “Fine.”
Rafe watched me climb into the back of the ambulance. “I’ll be there soon.”
48
The next day, Rafe drove me home from the hospital. I’d recovered quickly once they pumped me full of fluids and dressed the wounds, but they kept me overnight and through much of the next day. I was grateful for Rafe’s backup when I insisted they put me in the same room with Cali. I’m not sure they’d have allowed it without his charm.
I wandered the hall outside Zoey’s room. Family and friends packed the small space and I felt she was in the most loving care possible.
Mom had hurried to the hospital, but after a few hours, I’d urged her to wait for me at home. She was annoyed with my attention to Cali and obviously put out by Rafe’s presence, so she agreed to stock up on groceries and keep the house clean for my return.
I spent most of the time sitting by Cali’s bed and talking to her whenever she was awake. Her mother had spoken to her on the phone and said she wouldn’t be able to get a plane back to Tucson for a few more days. Clearly, Cali’s mother didn’t see the need to cut her vacation short to nurse her daughter. I wanted to throttle Kandy, but Frank had nothing to say.
When Cali slept and while Rafe watched TV set on low volume, I’d closed my eyes and worked through everything Peanut told me
“Are you feeling okay?” Rafe asked for the hundredth time, pulling me back to the rumble of the car’s tires on the road.
“The stitches sting. This baseball glove of a hand is going to be a pain in the butt, but, yeah, I’m fine.”
“That’s not really what I was asking.”
“Oh.” I slipped my arm under the chest belt and tugged it away from the bandages on my collarbone. The bright sunshine colors of the Mexican bird of paradise waved from the median and the orange flags of the ocotillo cactus gave me something to focus on. “They’re back. Most of them.”
“Not all?”
Tara was going to have a field day with this. “Frank hasn’t said a word.”
After Mom left, I’d had some time to talk to Rafe. I’d told him about Benjamin Wainright, the prominent psychiatrist whom I’d arrested for child molestation. Then I tried to explain about Frank and what happened in the plane belly.
Rafe turned into my neighborhood. “Is Frank gone forever?”
I slumped into my seat, only half remembering the bloodlust and the desire to kill. “I can’t be sure.”
That scant smiled slipped onto his face.
Not what I expected. “What’s so funny?”
“I picture Frank as big and green. He’s the Hulk and you’re this mild-mannered Bruce Banner.”
A smile forced itself onto my face, then fled. “Except he’s not the Hulk. Frank is me.” The cloud dipped lower on my head and I said, “What would you think of me working with troubled kids?”
Rafe let out a chuckle. “’Cause you were so good with Megan?”
“Okay, maybe I have a prejudice against entitled brats with helicopter mothers, but I think I can help kids. Like Cali.”
He glanced at me and his face softened. “I think you’d be terrific. I know of a mentoring program that could use you.”
We drove closer to my house. Sherilyn’s front door opened and a rainbow of Mylar and ribbon burst onto the yard. Rafe braked while little feet raced toward the street.
I tensed. Sherilyn needed to be more careful with those kids.
Cheyenne held the strings of two balloons in one hand and jumped up and down, shouting and waving. Kaycee clutched a balloon string in each hand and stood patiently on the curb. Sherilyn, in cutoffs and tank top, carried Jackson on her hip, a ribbon tied around his arm and the balloon bobbing overhead.
Barely above an idle, Rafe inched into the driveway and the whole family swarmed my car door. They only backed up enough to allow me to open it. Keeping my grunts and groans to myself, I favored the least injured arms and legs to push and pull myself to stand.
“We baked you a cake!” Cheyenne shouted.
Kaycee threw her arms around my legs and the stitches in my thigh bit me, but it still felt good. In her passion, she accidentally let go of her balloons and they sailed away. She watched them float into the sky, tears accumulating in her wide blue eyes.
Cheyenne tsked. “I told you we should tie them to your arm. Here, you can have one of mine.”
Sherilyn grinned at me. “It’s been like this since Kaycee came home from the hospital. I ‘spose she’ll get tired of being nice eventually, but I’ll take it for now.”
Rafe made it from his side the car and slipped an arm around my waist. For once, the feel of someone close to me didn’t make me want to scream. I wound my arm around him and leaned in, letting him take weight from my bad leg.
Mom stepped out the front door and hurried down the walk. She scowled at Rafe. “I told you to rent a wheelchair. I should have gone myself.”
I squeezed Rafe closer. “He had one but I made him take it back. I’ll heal faster if I exercise the muscles.”
She made a move to take Rafe’s place but he tucked me closer.
I stopped my slow progress and looked up at him. “Can you help Sherilyn and the kids with the cake and all the pictures I’m sure they’ve painted for me? Give me a few minutes to talk to Mom.”
His passive face and intense eyes told me he didn’t like it. I nudged him away and limped toward Mom.
She wrapped her arm around the small of my back and I flung my arm over her shoulder. Cheyenne and Kaycee raced toward the street.
Sherilyn issued a shrill whistle that made Mom and I both jump. We turned to see Cheyenne and Kaycee standing like soldiers on alert, their feet on the curb. Dempsey’s white Lincoln cruised down the road and pulled into their driveway. We all waited while Mr. and Mrs. Dempsey lumbered out and hurried toward us.
“Don’t you look like something the cat dragged in,” Mr. Dempsey said.
Mrs. Dempsey batted at him. “Oh bosh. Don’t listen to him.” She stepped forward and kissed my cheek. “You’re beautiful. And my, what a hero! First you save little Kaycee and then those poor, poor girls.”
Mom’s arm turned to stone. Her smile looked strained. “She really ought to get some rest. Thank you for your concern.”
I twisted around. “Sherilyn, there’s enough cake for everyone isn’t there?”
Cheyenne jumped up and down. “Yay! We have Skittles, too!”
Mrs. Dempsey brightened. “A party! I’ve got some sparkling grape juice left over from Christmas.” She grabbed Mr. Dempsey’s arm and tugged him across the gravel yard to their house.
Sherilyn released the girls to dash across the street. She hollered at the Dempsey’s. “Grab your suits. We’ll meet at Jamie’s in fifteen minutes for a pool party.”
Not
all the voices in my head were happy about the coming invasion, but even the most rattled took it better than Mom appeared to. “That’s not a good idea. Give us—”
My upheld hand stopped her. “I want them to come over. But we need to talk first.”
She helped me limp inside and I directed her to the backyard and asked for a glass of ice water with lemon.
She brought it out and set it on the half-finished mosaic table next to my chair.
After a sip I said, “The real reason I wanted Rafe to bring me home instead of you was to give me time to make a phone call.”
“I hope it was to Tara. I talked to her as well and we agreed you should definitely go to the spa in Palm Springs, maybe longer than I’d thought at first.”
I held my hand up, the white of the bandage flashing like the warning of a deer’s tail. “I called the retirement board this morning.”
She froze.
“My records are clean. With accumulated personal leave and union benefits from my breakdown, I retired legitimately. You didn’t pull any strings.”
She stared at the desert sky above the cinderblock fence.
“You lied to me. Was it a matter of controlling me?”
She still didn’t answer.
I took a swig and let it cool my throat while I gathered my courage. “I made another call.”
She glared at me. “Let me guess. Not to Tara.”
“I talked to the special investigator this morning.”
Her face paled. “Why?”
Sweat beaded along my back and I leaned forward to let the air flow. “There is this voice.”
She exhaled. “Not that again.”
“Her name is Peanut. Remember how we used to call Bethany that?”
She flinched. “She was so tiny and that blonde hair, so sweet.”
I tried not to think about it. “When I started therapy, I began to address the voices. Little by little I talked to most of them.”
Mom rolled her eyes.
“But not to Peanut.”
The Desert Behind Me Page 26
