“Did you love your sister? Is life empty now for you?”
“Finally, you’ll take a breath and fill your lungs with sand and water and frog shit.”
The quicksand had now reached Odessa’s lower ribs. On the car it had risen to the controls for the windows.
“Have you thought about what her body must look like now?” Odessa crooned. “I understand the hair lasts the longest . . . and the fingernails. Did she have pretty hair? Did you look up to her?”
“Shut your damn mouth.”
“Or what? What will you do to me?
Unable to control herself, Marti pulled her arm back and hurled her flashlight at Odessa’s head, but it missed.
Odessa had been holding his knife by the handle. Before Marti realized what was happening he had somehow turned it in his hand so he now had it by the blade. In a motion so quick, she barely saw it happen, he threw the knife.
And he didn’t miss.
Chapter 32
ODESSA’S KNIFE struck Marti in the thigh, blade first, penetrating all the way to the bone. In the instant before the pain began, she pulled the knife free and flung it into the bog.
“Whoa,” Odessa shouted with glee, “Mark one up for the psychopath. And you thought you were safe. You’ll never be free of me. I’ll haunt your dreams ’til the day you die.”
Struck by a sudden jolt of fire in her thigh, Marti bent over in agony.
“Does it hurt?” Odessa crooned. “Poor baby. Just keep telling yourself it’s all in your mind. Pain is just an illusion of something real. You can’t touch it, so why let it bother you?”
Weary of Odessa’s voice, Marti turned and limped away, the pain in her thigh so bright each time she put her weight on that foot, it blossomed into something very real.
“And don’t think you’ve accomplished anything.” Odessa yelled after her. “When this is over your sister will still be dead, and there’s nothing you can do about that.” The quicksand was now at the level of Odessa’s sternum.
Back on the trail, though she could see it only poorly in the moonlight, there was now a bloodstain as big as her hand on the front of Marti’s slacks. And even though she tried to favor that leg as she shuffled forward, each step seemed to widen the stain a little more.
Help was a long way off. Could she make it to Clay’s house without going into shock? Without knowing how badly she was bleeding, there was no way to judge.
Damn it. Why had she thrown her flashlight at Odessa? Without it, she could barely see the margins of the stain soaking into her pants. She had to get a better look at the wound and maybe rig a tourniquet.
She was now opposite the old barn, where she could get off the trail and feel a bit more secure about what she needed to do. So she shuffled a dozen more steps, then, after checking her surroundings, loosened her belt and let her slacks down, turning toward the moon to take maximum advantage of its light.
She couldn’t be absolutely certain, but the wound didn’t seem to be pulsing blood in rhythm with her heart. If true, that was good, as it meant that if the blade had cut a major vessel, it was a vein, a low-pressure channel a clot could easily block. She put her hand gently onto the wound feeling for a rhythmic pressure head pushing against her palm.
She felt nothing, convincing her that the knife had not hit an artery. But she still needed to get off her feet and put some pressure on the wound until it clotted. Remembering a bench just inside the barn door, she shuffled in that direction.
The roof of the barn had a major hole in it. This admitted enough moonlight so Marti could easily find the parson’s bench she was looking for. Gingerly, she eased herself onto the bench and stretched her wounded leg out in front of her, biting her lip at the pain that shot up into her groin. She pulled her slacks snugly against her thigh to help close the wound.
Except for an occasional skittering sound, from what was probably a mouse scampering around the loose hay in the barn, the place was so quiet it reminded her that by now Odessa was fully entombed in the bog. So it was done. Her promise to Lee had been fulfilled.
She had often imagined how she would feel when this day came, and it was always with the expectation she would want to howl at the moon and beat her chest. But now that it was here, she was just tired.
So tired . . .
She laid her head back against one of the studs supporting the barn wall, closed her eyes for a few minutes, and withdrew into a land where there were no obligations and no decisions to make. It was pleasant there and she wanted to stay longer, but she was beckoned back to reality by the specter she had only glimpsed briefly in the last few days, but which now stood squarely in front of her.
Who was the real Marti Segerson?
What would her life be like without the direction and structure hatred had given it?
Was there any other person inside her?
The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the side of the horse stall directly across from her, and against the old boards, the dim outline of the object she’d thought about when Odessa was chasing her with the car.
Suppose she hadn’t thought of the bog? What would have happened had she chosen the barn instead? There was a very real possibility she’d be dead, and Odessa would be the one wondering what he was going to do next.
That suddenly made her want to be far away from there. She had probably been sitting long enough for her wound to clot, but either way, she wasn’t hanging around this place any longer.
HIS FACE still burning from the heat of the barn fire, Clay arrived home and just sat for a moment in his truck, reliving the excitement of the biggest fire they’d had in the county in a year. Finally, remembering the call he’d been too busy to take at the fire, he checked his phone to see who had tried to contact him. When he saw it was Marti, he started to ring her back, but then realizing this was an opportunity to see her again, he started the truck and headed up the road to her cottage.
MARTI’S WOUNDED leg had stiffened from being held so long in one position, and she found it difficult to get up. But eventually, she managed it.
Moving carefully so she would put the least amount of weight possible on her bad leg, she shuffled the few steps to the door and stepped outside. As she did, something hit her in the face with enough power to drive her staggering backward into the barn, where her heel caught in the dirt. Trying to keep from falling, she stutter-stepped backward, each footfall on her bad leg a rimshot of pain that echoed off the throbbing fire in her nose, where blood was now oozing from both nostrils. Failing to find her balance, her back slammed against the side of the stall and she slid to the ground on her butt.
“I guess you didn’t know the quicksand was only five feet deep near the edge of the bog,” Odessa said, charging into the barn after her. “Honest mistake. I forgive you. But we now enter the penalty phase of our game . . . the part where you die of a crushed skull. It’s time our challenger picks a weapon. Marti, I’ll take bare fists for a hundred.”
WHEN CLAY saw that Marti’s car wasn’t in front of her house, he got out his cell phone and tried to call her on her cell.
“I’m sorry, but that number is not in service.”
From where his truck was sitting, Clay couldn’t see the smashed window on the side of the cottage, so although he was puzzled at why Marti’s phone wasn’t working, he turned the truck around and drove home.
ODESSA CAME at Marti hard, blotting out what little light there was in the barn. She tried to lift her legs to fend him off, but the pain in her wounded thigh was so bad she could only manage to raise the other leg, which he would surely just swat out of his way. As she shifted her hands on the ground to get more leverage to resist him, her right palm dropped onto something hard and round.
Realizing it was the handle of the rusty old pitchfork she’d thought about before she got the bog idea
, she rolled to her right, got hold of the implement in both hands, and brought it around it front of her just as Odessa threw himself at her.
The force of the impact drove the handle of the pitchfork into Marti’s stomach. Odessa though, took the worst of it, because two of the tines went into his neck, tearing both carotid arteries. Blood immediately began spurting from the impalement points, showering Marti with it.
Unable to hold him dangling on the end of the pitchfork, Marti shifted it to her right and let Odessa’s body fall to the ground.
Just before he lost consciousness, Odessa gurgled his final words on this earth. “Your sister is still dead.”
Then Marti, too, passed out.
Chapter 33
INCREDIBLY, ODESSA got to his feet, the pitchfork hanging in front of him, its tines still buried in his neck. He grabbed the handle of the tool, pulled it free, and turned the bloody tines toward Marti, who was still on the barn floor. It was now dawn and Marti could clearly see what was happening. Grinning, his teeth smeared with blood, Odessa drove the pitchfork into her, causing her entire body to convulse in agony.
Then, with the tines buried in her belly, he began to shake her from side to side like a shark with a piece of meat in its mouth.
“Wake up . . . Marti, wake up . . .”
Marti opened her eyes into a world of subdued light, and there was Clay Hulett bending over her.
“Where . . . what’s going on?”
“You’re in the hospital. But everything’s okay. In a few days you’ll be pretty much your old self . . . except for maybe the bruising around your nose . . . that could take a little longer.”
“Odessa . . .”
“Dead. And so’s Quinn. Apparently Odessa killed him in the hospital basement before he came after you.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“About thirty hours.”
“Thirty . . .”
“You were pretty banged up. I’m sure you needed the rest. I think they gave you a mild sedative.”
Though she’d just re-entered consciousness, Marti was aware that thirty hours meant . . .
She looked at the side of the bed where Clay was standing, then turning to her right, saw the collection bag on the opposite rail. Shifting her pelvis a little, she now felt the catheter between her thighs. Ordinarily, she would have accepted being tethered to a urine collection bag as just one of those things life sometimes requires of you and would have had no feelings about it one way or the other. But for some reason, having her plumbing visible to Clay embarrassed her.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“Pretty much the whole time.”
“Only on that side of the bed?”
Puzzled, Clay said, “Yes.”
Figuring then that he hadn’t seen the bag, Marti relaxed. “Your vigil would explain why you need a shave.”
“I understand in LA that’s a hot look.”
“Never cared for it, but considering how you got it, I may have to change my mind.”
The door opened, and a thin, dark-haired guy in a white coat whisked into the room. “Well, look who’s back with us.” He turned up the lights and came to the bed. “I’m Dr. Gilbear. I know it says Gilbert on my coat, but trust me, the T is silent. Now let’s have a look at you.”
He examined her eyes with his penlight and checked her pulse. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I don’t belong here any longer.”
“That’s a good sign. Can you stand up?”
“Am I wearing one of those gowns where my butt is going to show?”
“Good point.” He looked at Clay. “Could you give us a moment?”
“Sure.” Clay got up and went into the hall.
“I’m also tethered to a Foley,” Marti said when Clay was gone. “Could we get rid of that?”
“Of course.”
Gilbert picked up the house phone and called the nursing station. ‘Would you send someone to two twelve stat. Dr. Segerson needs her Foley removed.”
“I don’t know all the details of how you got your injuries,” Gilbert said while they waited for the nurse, “but it sounds like you had a harrowing experience.”
“I wouldn’t like to do it again . . . or even talk about it,” Marti replied, giving him a broad hint that she didn’t want to be drawn into a discussion about what had happened.
The awkward silence that followed was ended by the arrival of a nurse with the syringe needed to draw the air out of the small balloon that held the catheter in Marti’s bladder. With Gilbert discreetly looking out the window while the nurse worked, the job was quickly done and all traces of the thing removed.
Back now on purely medical turf, Gilbert once again became his old self. “Now let’s see how you do on your feet,” he said brightly, coming over to stand between the bed and the door to the hall.
Marti threw her sheet back, slid her legs over the side of the bed where Gilbert was waiting, and got up, holding her gown closed at the rear, even though there was no one behind her to see anything.
“Any dizziness?” Gilbert asked.
“No.”
“Let’s see you move around.”
Her first step sent a mild shock wave up into her groin from her bad leg.
Noticing her reaction, Gilbert said, “That’ll be a little tender for a few days.”
After she’d taken a couple of steps, Gilbert said, “Okay, you can lie down again.”
“I don’t want to do that. I want to leave.”
“I’d like to see you eat something first. If you can handle food with no problem, and then can walk down to the nursing station and back with no bleeding and are steady on your feet, we’ll get you out of here. Deal?”
“I suppose,” Marti replied, reluctantly getting back in bed.
“I’ll have a tray sent in.”
Gilbert swept out of the room and Clay returned.
“What’s the verdict?” he asked.
“I’ll probably be released in an hour or so. Who found me?”
“I did. I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner. I know you tried to call me, but I was working a barn fire and couldn’t answer the phone. When I got home, I came up to talk to you but your car was gone. As I was leaving, I noticed fresh tire marks leading into the trail through the field. I drove down to the bog and when I saw your car in it with the door open . . .” He shook his head. “I thought you were buried in there, too.
“But then I noticed wet muck on the railroad tie and that made me think you got out. I started looking around and found you in the barn . . . you and Odessa’s body. I can’t stop thinking about how you were down there fighting for your life, and I was sitting in front of your house like an idiot, doing nothing to help.”
“You had no way of knowing what was happening.”
“I could have seen those tire marks a little sooner.”
“There’s nothing to be gained from that kind of thinking. Believe me, I know from long experience.”
There was a knock at the door.
“It’s okay, come in,” Marti said.
It was Sheriff Banks, looking well groomed as ever in his crisply pressed uniform. “Morning,” Banks said, coming to the bedside. “How are you feeling?”
“Not bad, considering . . .”
“You ought to be proud of yourself. You prevailed over a pretty nasty situation.”
“I don’t feel proud.”
“Sorry, maybe that was the wrong sentiment. I just dropped by to give you this.” He handed Marti the big envelope in his hand.
“What is it?”
“Oren Quinn kept a journal. When your county sheriff started his investigation of what happened the other night, he found several volumes of it in Qui
nn’s office. Among other things, the volume Quinn started when he arrived at Gibson includes an explanation of how Odessa got out of seclusion the night he committed the Blake murder, so the sheriff made a copy of that entire volume for me. You won’t be surprised by what you read in that part of it, but there are some other sections you’ll find interesting. I didn’t copy all of it for you, just the highlights. But it’s enough to give you a good picture of what’s been going on.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“All the guilty are dead, so it can’t do any harm. And, considering your recent and past personal involvement in the situation, I thought you deserved to see it.”
“What do you mean, my past involvement?”
“Eighteen years ago . . . at the beach.”
“You know about that?”
“I did a little checking around. Have you given the county sheriff here a statement yet about what happened the other night?”
“Apparently I’ve been asleep since then.”
“I’m sure he’ll be wanting one. I wouldn’t mention that you’ve seen those pages. Because then he’ll ask me if I gave them to you, and I’ll have to say no.”
“That surprises me.”
“How so?”
“You don’t seem like the type to lie.”
Banks emitted a baritone chuckle that seemed to rise from the deepest part of him. Then he turned and left, still chuckling as he went out the door.
Marti opened the envelope and took out the stapled pages inside. The first entry was dated nearly two years ago. She began reading aloud.
“‘O has arrived. Now to make sure I can control him. Surgical suite in my lab nearly ready. When the time comes, will give him something to make it appear he has appendicitis. Will say that with such a potentially dangerous patient I am reluctant to send him out for surgery, especially since my facilities can easily handle such a simple procedure, and that I know a fine surgeon who would be willing to do it on site. Will bring in someone who looks the part, but will make the implant myself. O can recover in our infirmary, where a temporary staff, who won’t care that he has a neck wound in addition to an appendectomy incision, is already in place.’”
The Memory Thief Page 24
