HARMED_Seconds From Revenge 2

by Dr L. Jan Eira

  “I didn’t want to tell you,” said Claire, “but we haven’t seen or heard from Kate.”

  “Where’s the list of names she got in Indy?”

  Claire shrugged. “Kate’s gone rogue on us.”

  “Rogue? What does that mean?”

  “I’ve called her cell phone numerous times. Cesar Madera says she’s not with her parents.”

  Jack closed his eyes. “That can’t be good.” He shook his head. “She may be in trouble…” His eyes opened wide. “Or getting in trouble. You have to find her. And now Susan can’t help us find Kate.”

  “We’ll find her,” said Claire. “Or she’ll come to her senses and come back home.”

  “I can’t forgive myself if she gets hurt on my account.”

  “Sweetheart, you have to stop blaming yourself for what Lagrange is doing to you. And all of us.”

  “It’s not easy.”

  “What should we do now?” said Claire.

  “Go visit Susan. Give her my best wishes. Maybe she can call Detective Mills and let him know about Kate’s disappearance.”

  “What do you think’s going on with her? You know her well, don’t you?”

  “I think she’s in Indy looking for Lagrange. But I’m worried about what he’ll do to her.”

  “Or maybe we should worry about what she may do if she finds him. She’s been very angry about him abducting her sister.”

  “I know,” said Jack. “And what the lunatic had her do to my patients.”

  “She feels responsible for the deaths she caused.”

  Jack fished out Claire’s cell phone and dialed. “Kate, this is Jack Norris. Please come home and stop what you’ve been doing. Lagrange is a mass murderer. I need to know you’re all right.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Wearing a blond wig and sitting in her car, Kate reviewed her list once again. Her plan was to search the transplant patients one by one until she found Lagrange. She smirked as she examined herself in the rearview mirror. This hairpiece is nothing compared to the lengths you’ve taken to change your appearance, she mused. But the one thing you can never change, no matter what, is the window into your soul. And I will never forget the malice in your eyes.

  The first name was already crossed out. Nathaniel Byrnes, she discovered, had died from posttransplantation complications two weeks earlier. Fortunately for Kate, he had become an easy rule-out.

  The second patient on her list, Frederick Hook, took a couple of days to locate. When Kate repeatedly drove past his home, she had seen no activity at all throughout the day. She found out from a neighbor that he had been hospitalized. Posing as a floral-delivery worker turned out to be fruitless. A nurse stopped Kate in her tracks before she could see the patient.

  “Hospital policy does not allow flowers at the bedside of heart-transplant patients!” she said, shaking her head.

  On her way out of the hospital, Kate threw the bouquet in the garbage and considered plan B. No flowers, no problem. She disguised herself as a phlebotomist and entered Frederick Hook’s room at four in the morning. She gently shook the man’s arm and turned on a bedside light. He opened his eyes and acquiesced, extending his arm toward her and turning his head away from her. She faked the preparations to draw blood, hoping to take a glimpse at the man’s eyes.

  “Don’t worry about this blood test. It won’t hurt that much,” she said, placing a tourniquet around his upper arm.

  “I’m not worried about the pain,” he said, turning his head to look at Kate, their gazes linking. “My body’s rejecting my new heart,” he said, melancholy in his voice. “It took me forever to get it. Now, I may lose it.”

  Your eyes aren’t the eyes of the monster, she thought. “I’ll pray for you, Mr. Hook,” she said. “I’ll pray that you’ll be OK.” With these words, Kate undid the tourniquet and put the syringe and needle in the sharp disposal. “I’m sorry. I came into the wrong room.” She turned off the light and left.

  Next was patient number three on the list. After two days of stealthy searching, Kate discovered he was recuperating from his transplant surgery out of town—in Michigan or Wisconsin. According to his neighbor, he’d been out of town for the last four weeks, staying with his daughter. There was a slight chance he was Lagrange, but it was unlikely.

  On to number four. Preliminary information indicated Mr. Christopher Weidner was fifty-two and had his heart transplanted six weeks ago. His home was in Indianapolis, approximately six miles from the hospital. Kate had located the house and had driven by twice; both times, she had seen no signs of life. She was now parked up the street a few houses, listening to soft music on the radio.

  What will I do when I find you, you monster from hell? she considered. Will I shoot you dead on the spot?

  She opened up the glove compartment of her car and eyed the handgun. She extended her arm toward the weapon to touch it and to feel its steely power.

  Abruptly and unexpectedly, a loud, piercing shrill originating from within the small storage area created a sense of dread deep inside her chest. The racket emanated from a place adjacent to the gun. For a split second, her bravado unraveled as overwhelming panic overtook her. The clamor ceased. Then returned. Next to the weapon, she found her cell phone, which again shuddered loudly, pulsating as it rattled against the floor of the glove compartment. She exhaled forcibly. It was Claire, calling for the umpteenth time. Kate wasn’t ready to speak to her. She wasn’t yet ready to speak to anyone. Kate felt deep ridges form on her forehead. She reclined back into her seat, trying to let the soft background music soften her agitation.

  She sat up straight when a car slowly drove into the driveway of the house she was scouting. A young man got out of the driver’s side and walked around to the passenger seat. He opened up the door. An older woman exited the vehicle from the door behind the driver. The two helped a man get out of the passenger’s side.

  “Well, hello, Mr. Christopher Weidner,” said Kate, her curiosity piqued. “Are you Lagrange?” She looked on intently. From approximately forty feet away, it was difficult to be sure. The older man was built approximately like Lagrange. Approximate height and weight, give or take. That there apparently was a wife and son was unexpected but not impossible. If this was the man, was the whole family involved? Should they all pay? Pay dearly with their lives? What should she do to rule him in or out? With these thoughts reverberating in her head, Kate waited, trying to let the music soothe her nerves.

  After about twenty minutes, she was ready. She removed the gun from the glove compartment and stuck it in her purse. Under the cover of nightfall, Kate approached the Weidner residence. She spied in all directions, making sure she remained undiscovered. All was quiet. She advanced toward a window and looked inside the home. The older man was sitting comfortably on a leather easy chair with his feet up. The older lady was giving him a mug of something warm, steam rising from the beverage. He accepted it with a smile. Kate would use the same technique she utilized on the previous patient. She was happy with the intelligence gathered. She walked toward the front door and rang the bell.

  “My name is Serena. I work for the transplant center. I know it’s a little late, but I was wondering if I could talk to Mr. Weidner for a few minutes? Check him over and see how he’s doing.” Ironically, the idea came from the monster himself. “Go out to the homes and pretend you’re there to see how the patient is doing,” he had commanded.

  “Sure. Come right in,” welcomed the younger man jovially, indicating the way. “I’m Jon, his son.” The two walked into the domicile and reached the family room. Jon took the remote control in his hand and pushed a button muting the TV. “Dad, this is a nurse from the hospital. She’s here to check up on you.”

  “Hi, Mr. Weidner. I’m Serena. How are you coming along with your new ticker?” She smiled and kneeled right in front of the older man. His wife had collected the hot-chocolate m
ug from his hand and sat on a couch nearby, a pleasant grin on her face.

  “I’m getting along better,” said the patient, a hurried breath every few words.

  “Any fever? Or chest pains?” Kate fished out the stethoscope from her purse. She placed it on the man’s chest and listened, but it was his eyes she came to analyze.

  “No. Doing really good,” he said.

  Their gazes connected. She peered deep into his eyes, giving Kate a sense of frustration and disappointment. This was not the monster. She placed the stethoscope back in her purse. Underneath the medical instrument, Kate felt the instrument of death, its cold, hard surface barely visible. After some chitchat, Kate exited the home, returned to the Honda, and made an entry on the infamous patient list. Exasperated, she pulled off her blond wig and threw it on the passenger seat with a deep sigh.

  “Next!”

  CHAPTER 49

  Jack was due in court the next day. A preparatory meeting with Chappell was in the cards for today. The guards came to his cell and escorted Jack to the visitation room. His lawyer was waiting. They shook hands but remained silent until the officers departed, leaving them to strategize.

  “How are they treating you, Jack?” asked Chappell.

  “This place is growing on me,” said Jack, a smirk on his face. “I discovered the library and the gym. What else could somebody want or need? As long as you get me out of here by the Soccer World Cup next summer, I’ll be fine.”

  “Jack, I’ve been thinking,” said Chappell. “How did Lagrange know where to find you when you were flying back home the day he tried to kill you in the air?”

  “FlightAware.com. It allows tracking of airplanes. I’m sure that’s how he knew where I was and my route. Why?”

  “Can we use that to flush him out?”

  “No. Right now he’s too sick to fly. If he could fly, we wouldn’t know which airplane he’s using and…” Jack stopped suddenly, letting his last few words linger. “I don’t think he owns an airplane, so he probably rented.”

  “How does that help us?”

  “I have friends at the airport. Maybe we can prove I’m innocent, if he’s been seen there while supposedly being dead. Let me think about it.”

  The two men conversed strategy and tribunal decorum for two hours. Soon after Chappell departed, Claire arrived. Jack had remained in the visitation room, scheming and writing notes on a legal pad left behind by his lawyer, after approval by the guards.

  Claire came to Jack, and the two kissed a long moment.

  “Somebody’s pretty frisky,” said Claire.

  Excitedly, Jack sat on the edge of his chair. “Lagrange was flying a fast airplane. I can’t be sure, but it looked like a Piper Meridian. Go see Steve Peski at the Evansville Airport and show him Lagrange’s picture. See if he recognizes him. Maybe he’s seen him at the airport recently, while he was supposed to be heartless and dead.” The hope in Jack’s voice was intense.

  “I’ll take care of it right away,” said Claire. “Maybe I can have some information by tomorrow’s court time.”

  “Let’s hope.” Jack put his pen down. “How are Susan and the baby?”

  “Both mamma and baby are doing fantastic.”

  There was a knock on the door. “It’s time for chow, Doc,” announced the prison guards. “You have to go now.”

  Jack got up, kissed Claire, and was escorted out, leaving her alone in the room.

  • • •

  Claire called Susan as soon as she was in the parking lot. She informed her of Jack’s condition and idea. Claire drove straight to the airport and soon was in front of Steve Peski, the shift supervisor. She explained the situation. He knew most of it from the news reports. He had seen Lagrange but didn’t know his pseudonym. He had not seen the man in the photo in about three months, he recalled. He knew the man didn’t own his own airplane but was aware that he had rented airplanes from plane owners at the airport. When Claire mentioned the possibility of a Piper Meridian, Steve’s face brightened.

  “There is a person by the name of Eli Johnston who owns one,” he recalled. “Eli rents it out from time to time.” Steve made a call, and soon Claire was on her way to the Johnston dairy farm, armed with Lagrange’s photo.

  “Do you recognize this face?” she asked after introductions.

  “Yeah, that’s the guy I rented my Meridian to. The last time was about a month and a half ago, at least, if not longer. His name is Warren McGrath.”

  CHAPTER 50

  “Warren McGrath,” said Kate, alone in the Honda, reading the next patient’s name. “Number six.” She reread her preliminary notes. “This guy is fifty-eight and had his transplant about eight weeks ago. His last outpatient-clinic appointment was five days ago, and he was progressing well postoperatively.” She entered the patient’s address on her GPS. Despite her youth and characteristic vigor, sleepless exhaustion had started to surface. Kate had been at this for over a week. Although she had rented a hotel room a few nights, mostly she slept in her car, between gathering intelligence and sipping Starbucks.

  She arrived and parked under a large oak tree, approximately thirty-five yards up the street from the small house. She waited. Several hours went by. Nothing. As it started to get darker, she decided to stretch her legs. She placed the wig on her head and exited the Honda. Her usual first move was to walk by the home, trespassing as if to cut across the property to get to the street behind. There was no fence, visible or invisible. There were few windows. No dogs were detected. As she walked past, she saw no one indoors. Inside the home, things were neatly arranged, from the little bit she could see. The furnishings were sparse. No vehicle in the small, attached garage. No overtly demonstrable cameras on or by the house. So far, so good. She took about fifteen minutes on foot around the streets behind the property and then returned via the same path to the street in front, all along making firsthand observations. She got into her Honda.

  About thirty minutes later, a car drove into the driveway. The garage door opened, and the vehicle entered. As the door descended gradually, one older man exited the car hesitantly, obvious signs of discomfort demonstrable throughout the process.

  By the time the garage door obscured the view totally, Kate had formed a mental and visual picture of Warren McGrath. The chances that the man in the car was Lagrange were rather high, the highest so far going down the list. Unlike all the other transplant patients she’d visited at home, this one was alone, which furthered her assumption that this guy was it. No family or friends to help ease his pain caused by using his arms and chest muscles while exiting his vehicle so soon after having his thorax cracked open. Kate knew the agony that being alone caused, having dealt with patients after open-heart surgery. She would now wait.

  Kate grabbed her purse and felt for her handgun, its cool steel providing some comfort. She was terrified, but the fury and rage in her heart prevailed. Realizing she was probably only fifty or sixty yards from the probable monster gave her pause. Thoughts of whether she could really finish the job she came to do surfaced.

  Will I really pull the trigger and kill him? She felt a wave of nausea as the reality of the situation and the time for her to pull the trigger and rob a monster of his life neared. Drips of sweat appeared faintly on her forehead. Her hands shook, adrenaline pulses rushing through her veins. First, I have to make sure you’re the one! Kate felt her eyes tearing up. She shook her head side to side, flinging her doubts off. She struck her fist hard on the steering wheel.

  “I’m so tired!” She felt shattered and drained. “I can’t do this. Not yet!” She rested her head back, sobbing. I need more time. And to make sure you’re really Lagrange. But I will kill you when the time comes. Sooner or later, you will pay! She took a deep breath. But first, I need to rest.

  • • •

  A blanket of pitch-darkness had covered the neighborhood. Kate felt a sudden eeri
e feeling. The howling wind whistled right outside her car, swaying it gently like a crib. Kate heard a noise just to her right and behind, the sound of footsteps on dry leaves and fallen tree limbs. She turned in her seat and strained to hear it again, but now there was only silence. The Honda rocked soothingly, massaged by the passing breeze. Kate looked outside the car, but the visibility was nil, her world shrouded in an opaque mist.

  Out of the blue, a flashlight shone intensely on her face, blinding her vision. She looked downward to avert her eyes from the sudden painful brightness, but her gaze stopped at her own chest, a red dot flittering on her shirt. She heard a muted thump, first shattering the window of her car, then another, puncturing her skin, all this appearing to occur in slow motion. A mild discomfort appeared at the site. A slight burning sensation. Not bad. Half a second later, blood spewed from the hole in her thorax as Kate realized she’d been shot. She now started to feel progressive difficulty in catching her breath. Still in a haze, she fumbled for the door, unlocked it, and pushed it open with her foot. She looked at her right hand, now completely covered in crimson. The man smiled at first and then laughed loudly. The monster she could have assassinated earlier had pulled the trigger first.

  Kate felt her life departing her body. She was too weak to stand up by herself. She grabbed onto Lagrange. Or McGrath. The monster stood right outside the Honda, amused by the situation. Now nearly lifeless, Kate slid down the killer’s body, leaving behind a trail of her own blood. The man guffawed with obvious glee, his hands, shirt, and pants now painted with crimson tracks. Kate prepared to take her last breath, gasping loudly.

  • • •

  This woke her up from the awful nightmare. She sat up straight, breathing a mile a minute. Her heart hammered vigorously inside her chest. Still confused, Kate felt her upper body. She wasn’t shot. Her shirt was clean. Wrinkled but not bloodied. Sweating profusely, she needed some air. She opened up her car door and stepped outside. She was alive. It was all a nightmare, she repeated over and over in her mind, now starting to emerge from the dream fog. The ding, ding, ding of the open-door alarm was cheering, and little by little, Kate began to connect with reality. The cool breeze felt magnificent. She leaned on the Honda. She brought her hands to her line of sight. They were shaking uncontrollably. Tremors of contentment. Dead hands don’t tremble, reasoned Kate, another indisputable sign that she was OK. It was just a nightmare. She stood there for a long moment, feeling the draft hit her face, easing her distress.