"Do you know anything about the articles she was working on?" I asked.
"Beth was investigating a conspiracy which caused several deaths. I know that much, but I don't have any details. It got her killed, didn't it? I warned Beth that pursuing the story put her in danger, but she wouldn't listen."
"Did Beth tell you why we never saw one another after being best friends for so many years?"
"She did. After you split up, Beth was in the depths of despair. She was in therapy for years, but she eventually got herself together and went to school to study journalism. But you have her all wrong, you know."
"How do you mean? She was responsible for Dad losing his job, his wife, his house, everything we had. She lied about him."
"I helped Beth clear out what remained of her parent's house after the fire. The place was mostly intact. The deaths were caused by smoke inhalation. We found emails from your Dad that she'd printed up and handwritten letters. They backed up what she said really happened."
"Tell me what lies she told you," I asked numbly.
"You should read these." Greg reached into his canvas satchel and pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed it to me.
I took it and began to read the emails.
I ache to feel your little body naked next to mine again. I know you liked what we did on vacation . . .
They all described intimacy between my Dad and Beth. From the dates on the emails, she would have been fifteen and sixteen. I read until the bile started rising in my throat.
I ran to the bathroom and vomited in the toilet. After rinsing my mouth, I went back to Greg shaking. I couldn't find the words to speak. He said:
"Whatever you think, your Dad raped Beth and had sex with her on numerous occasions while she was underage. She only recanted because the police chief told her she had to. He threatened to lock her up in a mental institute for good if she didn't."
"Get out!" The words exploded from my mouth.
Greg rose from his seat, his face ashen. "Beth said he took photographs of her posing naked. If you have anything of his, you should look for them."
"Get the fuck out of my house! Before I do something, I'll later regret."
I held the door open. Greg shouldered his satchel and slipped outside. He turned to face me and said:
"You're making a big mistake. Beth resented you for siding with your Dad and not believing her. She knew about the scar on his groin which he got in the military."
"We all went swimming together. You could see the scar when Dad's trunks hung low. Everyone knew about it," I lied and slammed the door. I hadn't seen the scar myself, though I knew he'd been shot in the abdomen.
CHAPTER 37
REPORTER KAYLA ELLIS COULDN'T understand why her head was pounding. It wasn't the muscle tension headache she often experienced from spending too much time at her computer, but a fierce stabbing pain which jolted her entire body. She was lying on a bed but had no memory of how she came to be there. The fluorescent lights set in the white ceiling were unfamiliar, as was the hum of conversation, the metal IV stand with saline bags, and the antiseptic odor. In the distance, a child screamed. Perhaps it was just another bad dream brought on by the stress of losing her friends.
A face she recognized hovered over her. "You're awake," said Ananda, smoothing down her blue and white nurse's uniform.
"Where am I? Is any of this real?" Kayla's mind was racing as she tried to make sense of her surroundings.
"You're in the ER at Abbey Mount Hospital. You've had an accident. The police are here and want to question you, but they'll have to wait until I've checked you over." Ananda shined a flashlight in Kayla's eyes.
"Accident? What kind of accident?"
"You were attacked. The detective will tell you more. You've had a lucky escape this time, my friend. How do you feel?" Ananda's brown eyes registered disquiet.
"Like someone is hitting my head with a sledgehammer, and my shoulder is trapped in a vise."
"I'll get you something for the pain. You have a concussion and extensive bruising, but nothing is broken, so all you need is rest. Since you were unconscious for a time, the doctors want to keep you here for observation. Let's make you comfortable."
Ananda fluffed Kayla's pillows and raised the head of the bed. She returned moments later with pain medication and a glass of water. After taking Kayla's temperature and noting the readings from the nearby equipment, she said:
"I'm going to let the police come in and speak with you for five minutes tops. Let me know if it becomes too much, and I'll get rid of them."
Kayla drifted as the medication took effect. Movement near her bed startled her awake. Detective Prentiss was standing beside her bed with a uniformed female officer she didn't recognize. Instinctively she tugged down the hem of her hospital gown. She never thought them long enough to be decent.
Prentice introduced himself and Officer Emma McAdams, before asking, "Do you remember what happened?"
"The nurse said I was attacked, but I have no recollection of that. The last thing I remember is leaving my apartment, but I can't even recall where I was going."
"Witnesses tell us you were in the parking lot of your apartment building when a man tried to abduct you in his truck. If it hadn't been for two quick-thinking high school students, who were visiting their grandmother, he'd have gotten away with it. They were on the football team and gave your assailant a beating before he made off. He wore a ski mask the whole time, so their description of him is limited to a tattoo. We don't have a plate number for his truck either, except it could be a dark-colored Explorer."
"I don't remember any of it. It's a blur from leaving my apartment to waking up here."
"Do you have any idea who might have done this?"
Either the people who abducted and tortured Matt, or whoever murdered Jack Bennett, she thought.
Instead, she said, "No one specifically. In the past, I've had death threats, from people upset with my column."
Ananda, who had been hovering nearby, interjected, "That's enough questions, for now, Detective. She may remember more later, but right now, she needs to rest."
After Prentiss and McAdams said their goodbyes and left, Ananda admonished, "I said you were in danger when we last met, and then this happens. What is wrong with you? Why can't you tell the police the truth? If you don't, at least go and stay somewhere safe. The next time he comes for you, it may go very differently from today. You could end up in a coma like Matt—or worse."
"I'll do something about it when I get out of here, I promise. Is Matt still in intensive care?" Kayla asked.
"They moved him into a room as he's stable, though still unconscious." Ananda consulted her phone. "Let's see . . . it's room 320. There was a cop guarding him, but maybe you'll be able to see him when we release you."
"Did the attacker do anything sexual to me?"
"A doctor checked you out, and there's no evidence of that. She just told me again she wants to monitor you here overnight. It's too late to move you to a ward, so I'm going to turn the lights down, and you should try to get some sleep." Ananda flashed her a smile and left the room, closing the door.
Kayla slept fitfully, dreaming about faceless men dragging her toward a precipice. Each time they picked her up to throw her over the edge, a child told them it wasn't time yet. But soon it would be.
She awoke with a start. It took what seemed like an eternity to remember she was in the hospital, and why she was there. Kayla needed to see someone who wasn't a nurse or doctor. Poor Matt was in a coma. She could sit with him, talk to him even though he couldn't talk back. Perhaps seeing him would remind her of the time before all this crazy violence began. It couldn't be far to his room—Abbey Mount Hospital wasn't that big.
A clock on the wall showed 3 a.m. Tentatively Kayla sat up in bed. The room spun for a moment, then stabilized. After pausing, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and slid into a standing position. Vertigo seized her, and bile rose in her throat, making
her grasp the bed for support. After standing for several minutes in the semi-darkness, the symptoms dissipated, and she was able to search for her clothes. She found them in a cabinet, and dressed slowly, nearly losing her balance as she stepped into her panties and then jeans.
Leaning out of the door to her room, Kayla could see the corridor was deserted. Remembering that the ER was in one wing of the main hospital building, she trudged toward the patient rooms. Kayla stepped inside the waiting elevator and stabbed the 'three' button repeatedly until the metal doors slid closed and the floor lurched upwards. She doubted the wisdom of her journey and thought that anyone who saw her would assume she was drunk. A bell chimed as the doors opened on the third floor. No one was in sight when she stepped out, not even the police guard which Ananda had mentioned. She shuffled along the corridor to Room 320 and slipped inside unnoticed. Only one of the beds was occupied, and the covers rose and fell, as Matt breathed rhythmically, assisted by a ventilator hose taped into his mouth.
Kayla sat on the bed in the darkened room, holding Matt's hand. She wasn't religious but said a prayer for his recovery. Just in case. She so wanted to see his smile and dancing eyes again. Hearing footsteps in the corridor, she stepped into the bathroom and stood behind the door. Leaving it cracked open gave her a view of the room, and she saw a man enter. He was well built and wore street clothes. Kayla wondered what he was doing there in the middle of the night. He looked familiar, but after the attack, her brain felt like it was made of cotton candy.
When the intruder neared the light over Matt's bed, she saw his bald head and stubble beard, and an electric shock ran through her body. Kayla recognized him as the man from the Bluebird Café who'd followed her to the Spotted Owl. He couldn't be up to anything good. She wanted to rush out of the hiding place and alert people, but try as she may, her feet stayed rooted to the ground.
The man had a hypodermic syringe in his hand and was injecting something into Matt's IV line. Moments later, Matt abruptly tried to sit up in bed.
The intruder pulled the breathing hose out of his mouth.
Kayla tried to scream in horror. She felt the air exhale out of her mouth, but no sound accompanied it.
The man slapped Matt across the face and yelled, "What did you do with the hacked data? You stole something which didn't belong to you. Tell me, dammit."
Matt opened his mouth, but only a jumble of meaningless words came out.
Don't do that. Leave him alone.
"Tell me what you did with it. Now." The bald man shook Matt's shoulders violently until he collapsed back onto the bed, exhaling like a deflating balloon.
The monitoring equipment emitted a piercing alarm. The man climbed on top of Matt and started beating him with his fists. "No, no, you can't die. You have to tell me the truth."
Fear squeezed Kayla's chest and stopped her breath. She thought she might faint, but her body was too frozen in place to do even that.
The door to the room crashed open. A doctor in scrubs and a nurse pushed a cart of equipment alongside Matt's bed.
"He's coding; he's coding," the bald intruder said. He was on top of Matt, performing chest compressions.
"You can leave him to us now," the nurse said. She yanked up Matt's gown and began performing CPR herself. Kayla fought the urge to retch, fearful of giving away her location.
The doctor greased the paddles and placed them on the bared chest, shouting, "Clear." Matt's back arched.
"Nothing. Pushing one of Epi," the nurse said.
"Charging to 360. Clear." Again, the doctor shocked Matt's body, and it arched off the bed to no avail. He listened for heart sounds with a stethoscope, then looked at his watch and said, "He's gone. Deceased at 3:40 a.m. What's his name?"
When they had all gone, Kayla came out of her hiding place, gasping for breath and fell onto the bed beside Matt's body.
Dying at the hands of the bald brute was no way for her friend to go.
She put her head on Matt's still-warm chest and sobbed herself into unconsciousness.
Kayla awoke and saw it was 4:15 a.m. She had to get back to the ER before anyone came looking for her. Something on the floor caught her attention. It was the syringe the bald man had used. She slipped it into her jeans pocket and peeked gingerly out of the door to the room. Seeing the corridor empty, she retraced her steps.
Kayla was outside the elevator when she heard footsteps behind her. She hurried inside and stabbed a button, but the doors stayed open. On the corridor wall facing her, was a collage of headshots showing the senior hospital staff. A picture in the second row of a bald man with a stubble beard caught her eye. She read: Kent Brickman, Head of Hospital Security. The man who'd just killed Matt.
The footfalls sounded closer, as Kayla frantically stabbed the 'close door' button.
Finally, the sliding doors rumbled closed before whoever was walking down the corridor reached her. Brickman must have known it was risky to try bringing Matt out of his coma. Kayla thought what she'd seen was nothing less than murder. But how would anyone find out? She could go to the police, but it was her word against that of a senior hospital employee.
Who was going to look for evidence on Matt—he had been comatose right before he died? Brickman would get the doctors to say she'd been hallucinating after a head injury. It wouldn't bring Matt back, and after witnessing the man's brutality first-hand, Kayla didn't want him to come after her. This wasn't his first rodeo, she surmised. Better to see if she could find concrete evidence of something criminal in his past. Something she could leak to the police and have the bastard locked up for good.
The elevator shuddered to a stop, and Kayla stepped out. The corridor was darker than she remembered, and many of the fluorescents were buzzing and flashing, but she turned right and started walking back to the ER.
Kayla hadn't gone far when she heard the same footfalls as she had earlier. How did the person from the third floor get here so quickly, she wondered?
She hurried along the corridor, past an equipment room decked out with warning signs. Kayla knew she hadn't seen it on her way out from the ER. Crap. In her haste, she must have pushed the wrong button in the elevator. From the number of storage rooms and the way the corridor zigzagged, she figured she must be in the basement. Unless she could find the stairs to the floor above, her only hope of evading the man was to find a place to hide.
The first unlocked door opened into a room full of furniture covered in plastic sheeting. Kayla entered and threw herself underneath a conference table, laying on her stomach as far into the darkness as she could. After several minutes of watching the door, she began to think she was a victim of her overly vivid imagination.
She was about to emerge from her hiding place when the door cracked open, and a figure stepped into the room. Dazzled by the man's bright flashlight, she couldn't see his face, just that he was tall and broad-shouldered.
Like the man who she'd watched murder Matt. The man she now knew was named Brickman.
He crossed to where she was hiding and stopped with his polished brown leather shoes inches from her face, while he swept the room with the beam of his flashlight.
Kayla tried frantically to think of sunny childhood days with her mother, but the picture came and went like a TV with a bad connection. As distraught as she was from Matt's death, she cursed him for the devastation he'd brought on her and her friend's lives. This Brickman character had quite possibly killed Beth and Ashley, she thought.
There was no shortage of dirt about prominent members of the community on the USB flash drive. It also held an enormous database of patient surgery records. She'd scanned the last few years' worth, and while she'd seen things people wouldn't tell their friends or neighbors, there was nothing anyone would murder over. Matt must have found details of something terrible. It was either in the password-protected files she couldn't access, or he hadn't had time to put the documents on the flash drive. If she got out of there alive, she had to find out what it was.
&n
bsp; Kayla held her breath as the beam from Brickman's flashlight swept past her hiding place.
The man seemed to linger forever before finally leaving the room. After he'd gone, Kayla waited another half hour, before daring to come out from under the table. She sat on the floor for several more minutes, shivering from a combination of fear and the cold, and counting the light fixtures to calm herself.
Kayla peeked out around the door. When she saw no sign of Brickman, she hurried to the waiting elevator and boarded.
Once the doors opened on the ground floor, she ran back to her room in the ER, oblivious for now of her injuries from the previous day. She climbed fully clothed into bed and pulled the skimpy blanket over her head for warmth.
Had this Brickman character come after her because he'd seen her in Matt's room? And was he connected to the guy who'd jumped her in the apartment parking lot? What was the head of security trying to hide—something damaging to himself, or to the hospital? One botched surgery wouldn't be enough for the lengths to which he seemed willing to go.
Kayla tried to calm her frayed nerves and heaving stomach—the surges of adrenaline from the chase through the hospital basement had left a lingering ache in her muscles. Did the crazed Hospital Security Chief know her name, and where she lived? As soon as the doctor released her, she would go into hiding, before she became another victim. But where could she go?
CHAPTER 38
WE HAVE RENTED A CABIN on the coast for the three of us – Beth, Dad, and me. Mom has stayed at home on this trip. As usual, Beth and I are sharing a double bed, but when I awake, she is nowhere to be found. The clock says 3 a.m. The only sound I can hear is the ocean—waves crashing on the rocky shore and receding. Drunk with sleep, I stagger down the short hallway to the bathroom. I relieve myself but don't flush. It's our custom not to do that in the night unless we really need to. As I walk back to our bedroom, the door to Dad's room opens. Beth steps out naked.
She sees me and stops short; her hair damp with perspiration; her face seared with guilt.
Devil's Pasture Page 18
