Double-Crossed
Page 27
As if reading her thoughts, the doctor spoke again. “You have an injury now, and the one thing you had over me was physical agility. You have robbed yourself of your advantage. Poor planning on your part, Marianne. We will have to move faster now, as the police will have heard the gunshot.”
The doctor came out from behind the bar on the right side. Marianne shuffled around toward the shelving under the till. Now that he stood in the back of the bar, he would easily see that she'd moved. Marianne cursed as she realized how easy she'd made it for him to track her. Desperate to make no noise, she arrived, finally in reach of the shelving under the register. Leaning in, she felt in the dark over the top of the flat shelf. Papers, a hard steel box, and then she had it. The gun was in her hands.
“You won't be able to get out. I have locked the door, and I have the key. You can only exit through the kitchen at the back over here or back through the storeroom. I imagine you have no interest in going back into that room.”
Swiftly, Marianne assessed her position. She had a gun. A gun that might not be loaded, but she hoped like hell it was. She needed to get out safely. Standing and confronting the doctor with her weapon would probably end her life, unless she shot first. This man had out-shot Jimmy, Don, and Joe. As debilitating an illness as he had, he managed to handle the weapon he held. She had to get out. She could move towards the door, but she risked getting another bullet shot through her, and she might not survive the next one. She would have to attempt getting to the storeroom and go out the way she'd come in, crawling over corpses. If the pain or the horror became too much, she could always scream her lungs out in an attempt to solicit help, or take the risk and shoot the doctor with the gun he didn't know she had. In the dark, she immediately turned toward the storeroom. She crawled back toward the bar, trying not to make a sound, and felt her way around it.
Listening to the doctor's steps, she could tell that he worked his way toward the front door. She looked down and noticed blood on the floor around her now. The wound in her leg bled strongly. She felt sick to her stomach and light-headed.
Suddenly, a sound of cars raged outside the front door.
The police!
As she crawled her way around the base of the bar, she could see a faint light coming from the storeroom. It looked as though it opened at the end of a long corridor, a long corridor that seemed to be hazy, ending with a door that poured out the light. She had to get there. She struggled to remember why, but she had some sort of job in there to do. However, her leg hurt, and she couldn't remember why. Everything looked fuzzy.
A pounding started at the front door and echoed though her head.
She felt that if she could just crawl to that door somehow, everything would be over, and she'd be okay.
The crash came from the front door, and Marianne heard a voice say, “Stop! Police!”
At the same time, she looked up and saw two figures at the end of the long corridor. From somewhere inside her, mustering the last of her courage, Marianne screamed at the top of her lungs.
As the two figures came running toward her, Marianne heard the policeman's voice cry out. “No!”
The single gunshot rang deep into the darkness of the bar, and Peter's words rang in her ears, the last thing she heard.
“I'm here now. No one will ever hurt you again.”
* * *
“Well, I must say, that's the hottest gunshot victim I have ever seen.”
Marianne opened her eyes to see Peter sitting by her bed. From the white tiles and the strong smell of antiseptic, she could tell she lay in a hospital ward. Looking down at her bandaged hands and the clear plastic tubing that ran to the apparatus beside her bed, she noticed a band on her wrist that read, “Marianne Ferguson. St. Vincent's Hospital.” She looked over at Peter and smiled.
“How do you feel?” His eyes, deep pools of sympathy, radiated warmth that she felt right through her.
“I feel okay actually. Just a little dry in the mouth.”
“That's from the operation.”
He reached out, took her hand, and looked at her with great empathy.
“Your leg will be fine. The bullet went in through a muscle. They had very little to do. Just remove it and stitch you up.” He looked down and then back to her with an obviously false smile on his face. “You may have to live with a small scar, unfortunately.”
“When did they bring me in here?”
“This morning. Ten in the evening now. You've slept here for about nine hours.”
“Peter, the things I saw! I have to speak to someone.”
Peter put his hand on her shoulder, as if to encourage her to stay put.
“A full investigation is about to begin. They'll question you.”
He shifted in his seat and looked hard at her to see if she could handle a conversation like this. “You need to know some things. The police took the people you witnessed arriving this morning. They've gone to the Villawood Detention Center. There they will care for them and give them full checkups. Also, they know that the doctor killed Jimmy, Don, and Joe.” He looked up at her at this point.
“Evidence has come from other witnesses. The woman who lives next door to The Pink Pussycat is one, and a few people who had heard noises on the beach. Actually, they got the police involved from the beach.”
“Then the doctor must have killed Joe, Don, and Jimmy for incompetence.”
“That's what they assume. You'll be asked about his final hours, they want to know what you know.”
Marianne grew suddenly cold. “Do they think…? I mean, they can't think that I…”
“You're not in trouble. Down at the beach, one of the boat people saw you tied up and immobilized in the back of the car as they huddled into the truck. You couldn't have done anything there.”
Peter stood and walked to the other side of the bed. He positioned himself looking out of a window with his back to her. He seemed to be thinking. When he spoke, he spoke deliberately, carefully.
“Marianne, do you know that he killed himself as soon as the police broke through the door? He's dead now.”
“And you came to me, in a weird kind of vision,” added Marianne.
Peter turned around to face her and walked around to the side of the bed again. He sat in the chair and reached out for her hand.
“That's no vision. Alan and I looked for you for a couple of hours. We went first to The Pink Pussycat, but found it empty. We looked elsewhere. Alan picked up a disturbance reported to the police. We went back to the Pussycat and met them outside. As soon as we saw the dead bodies around the back, we feared the worst for you.”
Marianne looked up into Peter's eyes. “Peter, they wanted to kill me. They said they would kill me. Even Joe. They all wanted to kill me. And the doctor! They all double-crossed me.”
A cloud crossed over Peter's eyes, so dark they'd almost turned black. He let his eye run over her face, and she saw a deep anger in them.
“I know. Thinking of you as dead was the most terrifying moment of my life. I want you to know that we are together now. The truth is, we are together forever. No one will touch you or hurt you again. I'm with you, and I love you and will care for you.” He looked down at her hand for a moment as if studying it.
“The difficulty of the next few months will override everything. They will have inquiries, and you will have to go to court as a witness. However, I'll stay by your side. I won't leave you alone, and you will take strength from me for this task.”
She looked back at him and saw his eyes full of love. Here she remained home now. She had found her man, and finally together, nothing could hurt them. No sadness anymore, no grief, no sorry, lost childhood, and no obligations to people who wanted to use her for their own agendas. This was the man she had never dreamed could be possible.
“And what about after that, Peter? What will happen after this circus is all over?”
“After that, we will have nothing but each other and our new life to get used to.”
He leaned in and kissed her softly on her lips.
THE END
Barbra Novac
Ten Things about Barbra
1. I am very happily married with two children.
2. I live in the Blue Mountains in a small town called Leura, near Sydney Australia.
3. I have faked accents as a flirting technique
4. I don't do housework and I hate cooking!
5. I love reading romance novels and am proud to tell the world.
6. I love watching The Bold and the Beautiful and am embarrassed to tell the world.
7. I have a tattoo on my left shoulder of a snake and an apple and one on my lower back that is a Jack Kerouac quote.
8. I am a feminist but I love the Marquis de Sade
9. I secretly listen to Abba, but officially I love jazz, Indie and the Rolling Stones.
10. I love to go to tarot readers and astrologers.