by Sharon Sala
Johnny let go of Raphael’s neck and stepped back, surveying the mess that they’d made, for the first time aware of the pain in his own hands and the blood all over his clothes.
He cursed beneath his breath. This hadn’t been planned. He couldn’t walk out of the ward with blood all over him like this and not be noticed. He would have to ditch the disguise and hope for the best.
Quickly he stripped off the coat, gloves and mask, and dumped them in a large biohazard container near the door, then looked back at the man on the bed. He couldn’t get the smile out of his mind. What the hell had the sorry bastard had to smile about?
Fourteen
Luke and Jade were only minutes away from the hospital when they began approaching a busy intersection. Luke tapped on the brakes to start slowing down but felt no resistance. He hit the brakes again, this time pumping them rapidly, and felt the brake pedal go all the way to the floor.
“Hell.”
“What’s wrong?” Jade asked.
“No brakes,” he said. “Hold on.”
Jade didn’t have time to be afraid, but from the look on Luke’s face, he was plenty afraid for them both. She braced herself against the dashboard with both hands and closed her eyes.
Luke swerved to miss a car already stopped at the light. Steering through the space between two other vehicles that were still moving, he let the car bump up onto the curb and begin dragging high center. Luke yanked on the emergency brake and slammed the car into park just as the gears on the transmission sheared smooth. The moments after the screech of metal and rubber were surreal. The silence was as comforting as the noise had been frightening. Before there had been no certainty that there would be another breath to draw, and now they sat, listening to the rapid beating of their hearts and seeing the hiss of steam coming out from under the hood.
Suddenly there were people everywhere, tapping on the windows and shouting to them, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”
Luke reached over and grabbed Jade’s arm.
“Jade…honey…are you all right? God, please be all right.”
Jade leaned back against the seat, then took a deep breath. Nothing hurt. Nothing bled.
“Yes…I think so. What happened?”
“I don’t know, but you can bet I’ll find out. Don’t move. I’ll help you out on the other side.”
He got out in a hurry, circling the car on the run. There was so much smoke and steam coming from under the hood, he feared something leaking might cause an explosion.
“I called 911,” a man told him.
Luke nodded his thanks as he grabbed the passenger side door and yanked it open. Seconds later, he was pulling Jade out of the car and into his arms. He carried her a distance away from the accident.
“I can walk,” she said.
“Humor me,” Luke said, as he sat her down beneath some trees. “Don’t move around until a medic can look you over, okay?”
She grabbed his arm, trying to still his panic.
“Luke. Listen to me. I’m okay.”
Luke stopped, then, for the first time, really looked at her. When she smiled, he exhaled slowly.
“See?” she said. “All my fingers. All my toes.”
He shook his head, then leaned forward and kissed her squarely on the lips. Before she could react, his cell phone began to ring.
Jade was shocked by what he’d done but thought she understood the reason. He was just relieved that they were all right and had showed it with a kiss. Nothing personal about it. Just a gesture of relief. Still, as she watched him answering the call, she couldn’t help but touch her fingers to her lips, just to see if they felt different.
They felt the same, but she did not. For the first time in her life, the feelings she had for a man weren’t of fear and loathing. And never having had a normal crush or a stirring of puppy love, she didn’t know how to identify what she was experiencing.
She shoved a shaky hand through her hair, then leaned back against the trunk of the tree, trying to regain some composure.
Just when she was beginning to relax, someone recognized her. She heard the whispers starting. They rose to a murmur, spilling throughout the crowd; then everyone began to come closer. She could no longer see Luke. Panic struck, and she called out in distress.
“Luke! Luke!”
She was struggling to get to her feet when he came out of nowhere, pushing and shoving both men and women aside in an effort to get to her.
“Get back!” he shouted, as he pulled her to her feet, then pulled her beneath the shelter of his arms. “What’s wrong with you people? Get the hell back!”
Within seconds, police cars began to arrive, along with an ambulance. One of the officers recognized Luke and quickly helped disperse the crowd.
“Hey, Kelly! Is that your car?”
“Yes, and I need you to do me a favor. Have it towed to police headquarters and have the crime lab check it out to see if someone messed with it.”
The officer frowned. “You serious?”
“As a heart attack,” Luke muttered. “I’ll call you later.”
It was the word “call” that reminded Jade his phone had rung. Still worried about Raphael, she wanted to make sure it hadn’t been about him.
“Luke?”
Even with the noise of the wrecker backing up to hook onto his car, and the police sirens and people talking, he heard her say his name. She wasn’t stupid. She had to know that something besides the accident had him concerned.
“What, honey?”
“What’s happening?”
“Just a minute,” he said as he flagged down an arriving police car, then quickly hustled her inside. But when the cruiser suddenly turned and headed back the way they’d come, Jade grabbed at Luke’s arm.
“Luke! We need to go to the hospital. He’s going the wrong way!”
Luke felt sick. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but if he was right, Jade’s life was in danger.
“No, honey, we can’t do that right now.”
Confusion turned to anxiety. “Yes! We can! We have to! I need to see Raphael. I need to give him his socks.” Then she remembered that they were still in Luke’s car. “I forgot the socks. We have to go back and get them. I told you, Raphael’s feet are always cold.”
“Something happened,” he said. “We have to go back to Sam’s now.”
Jade started to shake. “You’re lying to me. You told me that you’d never lie.”
Luke reached for her, cursing whatever fates continued to bring such hell into her life.
“I’m not lying. I said we can’t go to the hospital because we can’t.”
Jade had scooted to the far end of the seat. Her arms were wrapped around her middle, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Then tell me why,” she said. “Damn you, Luke Kelly. Tell me why.”
Luke shuddered. He’d heard Sam saying the words and still could not believe what he’d been told.
“You heard the phone ring?”
She nodded.
“Well, it was Sam.”
Jade was trembling now—trembling so hard that she could hardly breathe—but she still had to hear.
Luke felt sick. The moment he spoke the words, he would be giving them life. They would be impossible to take back.
“Sam said the hospital called.”
Jade shuddered. Her face went blank; then she started to rock back and forth where she sat. Luke had seen her do this once before, when she’d been telling him about her childhood. He wished Michael Tessler were there, because he didn’t know what was going to happen by the time he was finished.
“He’s dead…isn’t he? He died alone…without me.”
Luke sighed. “Yes, Jade, he’s dead.”
For a moment she just sat there, mute and trembling. Trouble was, Luke wasn’t through destroying her world.
“That’s not all,” he said softly. “There’s more.”
Jade shuddered. It was all she could do to f
ocus on Luke’s face.
“How could there be more? Dead is dead.”
“He didn’t die from natural causes. He was murdered.”
Jade reeled as if somebody had just slapped her face.
“That’s a mistake. It wasn’t Raphael. They’re wrong. We need to go to the hospital and see.”
“No, we don’t need to see any of it,” Luke said. “And it’s not a mistake. Somebody came into his room, killed his nurse, then him. There was a struggle. They don’t know a lot of details right now, but the police are checking the security videotapes.”
She shook her head, then put her hands over her ears.
“I can’t hear you,” she said softly, and bent her forehead to her knees. “I won’t hear you.”
“I’m sorry, Jade. So sorry.”
Then she started to wail—a thin, high-pitched sound that ripped through Luke’s head and straight into his soul.
He reached for and pulled her into his arms. She fought back, resisting both touch and sound, and still he held her until she suddenly went limp. When her forehead bumped against his shoulder, he thought that she’d fainted, but then she started to speak.
“All the newspapers…all the pictures…all these years we kept running and hiding. But as soon as we stopped…”
Luke frowned. “Are you telling me that you think the man you call Solomon did this?”
“I don’t know…maybe…but I should have been there. If I’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“No, Jade, no. You couldn’t have stopped it any more than Raphael’s nurse could. She tried and she died. He would have killed you, too. In fact, I think he already tried. There wasn’t a thing wrong with my brakes this morning. I’ve never had a bit of trouble with them until now. After what just happened to Raphael, I don’t think this was an accident.”
Jade pressed her fingers against her lips, stifling the urge to scream as Luke continued.
“I’ve got some friends at the police department looking over the car. If my suspicions are right, someone tampered with the brakes, hoping to cause a wreck.”
She crumpled in his arms just as the policeman reached Sam Cochrane’s home. Sam met them at the door as Luke carried her into the house.
“Call Tessler,” Luke said, as he started up the staircase to Jade’s room.
Sam followed Luke up the stairs, then pulled back the bedcovers as Luke laid her down. She was still unconscious.
“I can’t call Tessler,” Sam said. “He’s tied up at the hospital with the police investigation. I called Antonia DiMatto instead.”
Luke paused in the act of removing Jade’s shoes.
“Who’s she?”
“A psychiatrist, but also a friend.”
Luke brushed the hair away from Jade’s face, then pulled the sheet up over her legs. He kept hearing Jade say that they shouldn’t have stopped running. He felt sick, wondering if she was right. He sat down on the edge of the bed, then looked up.
“God, Sam…what have we done?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“When Jade heard about Raphael, she went to pieces. She seems to think that whoever killed Raphael is someone from their past.”
“Preposterous,” Sam said.
Luke shook his head. “Maybe not. Think about it. They endured a true hell on earth. They saw things that no adults should have seen, never mind the fact that they were children.”
“What are you saying?” Sam asked.
Jade had asked Luke if he was going to tell Sam what she’d just told him about her past. Then, he hadn’t been sure, but he was now. If they were going to keep her alive, Sam had to know everything he knew.
“Come out into the hall with me,” Luke said. “There’s something you need to know.”
Sam went.
Luke started to talk, and by the time he was through, Sam was pale and shaking. He stood for a moment, as if trying to gather his thoughts, then suddenly turned and headed down the stairs.
“Sam? Sam, what are you going to do?”
Sam didn’t answer.
Luke hesitated, uncertain as to whether to follow Sam or stay with Jade. He peeked in on her. She was motionless on the bed. Still concerned about what Sam might do, he bolted down the stairs, taking them two at a time. He found Sam in the library, taking down the painting of Ivy that he’d hung on the wall.
“What are you doing?” Luke asked.
“She doesn’t deserve to be remembered,” Sam said. “I don’t want to look at her face again and know that she chose to put our daughter in danger. If she was so goddamned stifled by living in this house…if she felt that her life was going to be enhanced by living with a bunch of fools who experimented with every drug they could get their hands on, then fine. But she should have been woman enough…no…by God, she should have been mother enough not to take a child into such a place.”
Then his voice broke. He lowered his head. His shoulders started to shake.
“Oh God, Luke…oh God. If I could find them, I would kill every man who ever touched her with my bare hands.”
“I know, Sam. I feel the same way, only we can’t change her past. What’s done is done. What we can do is make sure she has a future.”
Sam swiped a hand across his face, struggling to pull himself together.
“Yes, of course. I’m just sick at heart. She was hardly more than a baby. How can a grown man do that?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said. “But God better help the offenders, because I won’t. If I ever find myself face-to-face with one of the men who put his hands on her like that, I will make him sorry he was ever born.”
Then the doorbell began to ring. Luke hoped it was the psychiatrist Sam had sent for. If it was, Velma would let them know. All Luke knew was that he wasn’t going to leave Jade alone.
“I’ll get that,” Sam said. “You go stay with Jade. I don’t want her to see me like this. She’ll think I’m upset with her, and that’s the farthest thing from the truth.”
“Will do,” Luke said, and hurried back up the stairs.
The wounds on the backs of Johnny Newton’s hands had finally quit bleeding, but they still stung. When he got back to Mabel’s house, he would doctor them. Mabel had struck him as the kind of woman who would probably keep a well-stocked medicine cabinet.
As he drove through the streets of St. Louis, he thought back over the event. It wasn’t as satisfying a hit as he’d expected it to be, although the nurse had been a plus. He hadn’t known she would be there, and the high he always got from the power of ending a life had been more than satisfying. He’d expected more of the same from offing Raphael, but it hadn’t happened. Who could have known that someone that sick would be so defiant? Not only had he fought back, but he’d made such a goddamned mess. Johnny didn’t mind spilling blood, but he didn’t like it spilled on him. Still, it was over, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that the bastard had known what was happening. He was still a little puzzled over the way Raphael had kept smiling, even though he was bleeding all over the place, but the way he figured it, he’d actually done the guy a favor. Instead of lingering with cancer and all the pain and sickness that comes with it, Johnny had put him out of his misery.
A few minutes later, he turned up the driveway and parked in the Tyler garage as he’d done before. He headed for the back door as if he’d lived here all his life and was just walking inside when someone hailed him from behind.
“Hey, mister!”
Johnny froze.
“Mister! Hey, mister!”
He turned slowly, his hand on the gun beneath his jacket. When he saw a bare-chested young teenager standing beside a lawn mower and realized he’d been smelling the odor of freshly cut grass without even realizing it, he relaxed.
“Excuse me? Were you speaking to me?” Johnny asked.
The kid nodded. “I’m Kevin. I just finished mowing the yard, but Mrs. Tyler isn’t answering the door. She always pays me when I’m through.
”
Johnny stifled a frown. “Yes, of course. If you’ll wait there, I’ll see where Aunt Mabel has gotten off to. She’s getting so hard of hearing these days that she probably didn’t hear the bell.”
“Sure, no problem,” the kid said, and ambled over to a bench beneath some shade trees to wait.
Then it dawned on Johnny that Mabel wasn’t going to be available to tell him how much was owed.
“Say, kid…how much does she owe you, anyway?”
“Forty bucks.”
Johnny dug his wallet out of his pocket. “How about I just pay you myself, then I won’t have to bug Aunt Mabel in case she’s taking a nap?”
“Yeah, sure,” Kevin said. “Wow, what happened to you?” he asked, as he took the money out of Johnny’s hands.
“What do you mean?” Johnny asked.
Kevin pointed to Johnny’s shirt and arms.
“You got blood all over you.”
“Oh that. Nosebleed,” Johnny said. “Happens a lot, thanks to a bad habit from my past.”
“What do you mean?”
“I used to be too fond of the white stuff.”
Kevin nodded, pretending that he understood, although Johnny could tell he was shocked.
“You know…nose candy,” Johnny added. “Let it be a lesson to you. Don’t snort the damned stuff. It fucks up more than your nose.”
“Yeah. Right,” Kevin said, as he pocketed the cash Johnny handed him and jogged back to his mower.
Johnny waited until the kid and his mower were out of sight; then he hurried inside. Locking the door behind him, he cursed all the way upstairs. He wasn’t in the habit of missing the details, but he should have known that an old woman like Mabel Tyler wouldn’t have done her own yard work. It reminded him that there might be other things he’d forgotten to take into account. The knowledge made him nervous. Maybe he didn’t have as much time to off Jade Cochrane as he’d planned.
Knowing that his visit with Mabel needed to come to a quick end, he stripped off his clothes as he strode down the hall, then headed for the shower to wash off the blood.
Later, as he was showering, the soap stung the scratches on his hands, reminding him of the other bungle that he’d made today. With an angry curse, he rinsed, dried, then quickly dressed. After retracing his steps down the stairs, he stopped off in the kitchen to get himself a snack, then grabbed his binoculars as he headed for his viewing window to see what was going on across the street.
