by Lee Driver
“Is it all right if I spend the night with her? She’s never been in a hospital before and it might be best if I’m the first person she sees when she wakes up.”
CHAPTER 34
Friday, October 13, 1:25 p.m.
Dagger had tried to sleep during the night but it was impossible. The chair was uncomfortable and he was too worried that Sara might wake up and not know where she was. A number of times it seemed as if she were having nightmares, fending off some imaginary fiend, moaning and crying, and one time screaming, which sent the night nurse tearing down the hall.
After the nurse had left, Dagger lay next to Sara and held her. That was probably the only fifteen minutes of sleep he had gotten all night.
Padre had called to tell him they had located the farmhouse where Paul Addison lived as Brian Andrews. Skizzy’s Mick had revealed a marker across the street from the house, a tag from the gas company, and a corn field. They were going through the house now and speaking to the neighbors.
Dagger scratched the stubble on his face and stared out of the window to the parking lot four stories below. The sun was glaring. The world was unaware of what had transpired last night and it was best they were kept in the dark. Besides, no one would believe them.
A nurse came in with a tray, checked Sara’s vitals and took a blood sample. Sara stirred and Dagger looked over to see her eyes blink slowly, trying to focus on her surroundings. What the nurse was doing registered immediately.
“About time you woke up. Still feeling groggy?” the nurse asked.
“NO!” Sara struggled to get up from the bed.
“It’s okay. I’ll handle it,” Dagger told the young nurse who had been startled by Sara’s sudden outburst.
“Sara, you’re in a hospital.” Dagger sat on the edge of the bed, his fingers brushing her hair from her face.
“No.” Her gaze followed the nurse out of the room. She tried again to pull herself out of bed. “You promised,” she cried. “No hospitals.”
He held her close and she struggled against him, mumbling, “You promised.” She wept into his shirt, her body trembling.
“I couldn’t help you like your grandmother could. I had no choice, Sara.” He held her close, making shhhing noises, her body weak and trembling.
She held onto both of his arms tightly as he pulled her away, forced her to look at him. “I had no choice. I couldn’t let you bleed to death.”
“You promised.” Her sobbing was uncontrollable now and she fought him, grabbing handfuls of his shirt, but soon relented and let him hold her.
Dagger gently cupped her face and kissed her forehead, then her bruised cheek. Her eyes reflected her anguish, the color dull. He imagined it would be awhile until her ordeal was a slight memory and doubted any of them would ever fully forget.
“I trusted you,” she said, pressing her head to his chest.
“Your grandmother trusted me to keep you safe. This was the safest place for you,” Dagger whispered as he stroked her hair. “They didn’t hurt you.”
He felt her head shake side to side under his chin. Her sobbing increased and he could barely make out what she was saying.
“You let them take my blood,” she whispered. “They can’t take my blood. They’ll know it isn’t normal.”
“What?” Dagger grabbed her shoulders and gently pulled her away, stared into her tear-streaked face. “What do you mean?”
“They’ll know, Dagger,” she sobbed.
Finally the realization hit him. She had more than just human blood running through her veins. “Jezzus.” He rushed out of the room and searched the halls for the nurse with the cart. He asked a young woman at the desk, “Where did the nurse go, the one taking the blood samples?”
“Probably to the lab on the second floor.”
Dagger ran to the elevators but opted for the stairway and dashed down the two flights. Following the signs leading to the lab he wondered how he was going to get the sample if the cart had already been wheeled in. But he lucked out. The nurse had made another stop and he found the cart parked outside the door to one of the rooms.
Dagger scanned the names on the vials. They didn’t seem to be in any particular order. The thought of just tipping the whole cart over with hopes all the vials would be destroyed crossed his mind. But that would be messy and there was no guarantee Sara’s would be one of the ones broken.
He heard the nurse coming just as he located Sara’s vial. Pulling the sample from the tray, he double-checked the name and headed to the closest restroom where he opened the vial and flushed the contents down the toilet. After rinsing the vial in the sink Dagger tossed it in the garbage can by the door. He was sure he must have violated some disposal law. Exiting the restroom, he was surprised to see Padre and Marty stepping off the elevator.
“Hey, we’ve been looking for you.” Padre said. He steered Dagger onto the elevator.
Before Dagger could ask Padre what he told the Emergency Room doctor last night, Marty said in a rushed voice, “She’s on seven.”
“Whose on seven?” Dagger eyed the two men who nervously watched the floor numbers light up.
“We checked out the house where Paul Addison lived,” Padre explained. “Found more weapons, Officer Riley’s finger, and learned something interesting from the closest neighbor.” The elevator dinged and the doors opened onto the seventh floor. “Addison had a wife.”
Marty whipped out his notepad as the three men approached the nurse’s station. Dagger looked around the floor and realized where they were.
“Yeah,” Marty confirmed. “It’s the Maternity Ward.”
Every nerve-ending Dagger thought was numb from last night came alive. “Paul Addison had a wife?”
“Brian Andrews, same difference. Her name is Josie,” Padre said. “According to the neighbors she was brought in some time last night.”
“May I help you?” The name tag on the nurse with the short-cropped hair said Linda.
“Josie Andrews. We understand she was admitted last night.” Padre held up his shield.
“Oh,” Linda gasped. “Is there a problem?” She thumbed through a stack of folders on her desk. “Haven’t had a chance to file them away.” Josie’s folder was near the top. “Here we go.” She opened the file and took a quick glance. “Yes, she was admitted at one-fifteen in the morning.” Glancing up at the men, she raised her eyebrows as if to say, “and you want to know because?”
“And?” Padre said, his hand circling as if winding her up.
“Oh.” She perused the patient chart and smiled. “She had a nine-pound-two-ounce baby boy at two-fifty-four.”
“Two-fifty-four?” Marty parroted.
“That’s what the chart says.”
The three men stared knowingly at each other, their minds reeling with Sherlock’s words: The evil is passed on from generation to generation.
“I’d like to speak with Mrs. Andrews,” Padre said.
“She isn’t here.” Linda looked past Padre at a figure approaching. “Doctor Foster,” she called out. A stocky man in blue scrubs made an abrupt stop. “These gentlemen need to ask you about Josie Andrews.”
Padre showed the doctor his shield and introduced the other two men. “Is there some place we can talk?”
The scent of antiseptic soap trailed behind Doctor Foster as he led them to a room at the end of the hall. It was a small waiting room with two couches and a dimly lit table lamp.
Doctor Foster explained how Josie had had a difficult pregnancy. She had been spotting the last four months so he had restricted her to complete bed rest. It hadn’t helped that she had gained fifty pounds.
“Had you ever met her husband?”
“Just once. I stopped by their house to bring Josie a prescription. He seemed a nice enough fellow. Very attentive to his wife.” He studied the faces of the three men. “What is this about?”
“Seems her husband isn’t such a nice guy and we were hoping to ask Josie a few questions,” Padre said
. “Did you know she left the hospital?”
“That’s what the nurse told me. It certainly wasn’t with my approval. They took the baby in to her at nine this morning. When the nurse returned at ten o’clock, mother and child were gone.”
Marty was quiet, staring at his notepad, folds of skin sagging under his eyes.
Dagger checked his watch for the third time, wanting to get back downstairs to Sara.
Marty asked, “Did she tell anyone where she might be going?”
“I would assume home.”
Padre shook his head. “Place is cleaned out, at least of clothes so whatever she brought with her here is all she is taking with her.”
“What about the baby?” Dagger asked, glancing at his watch again. “Any birth marks?”
“I would like a copy of his footprints,” Padre said.
“Of course. The baby was fine. No noticeable birth marks.” Foster paused and thought for a moment. “Although he did have a club foot. Not too unusual being cramped in close quarters like that for so long. But Josie was adamant about seeing a specialist.” He reached under his scrubs and dug into his pants pockets. “I gave her the names of a few specialists. She didn’t seem to care where they were in the country.” He opened a notepad and handed it to Padre. His hands were as smooth as a baby’s as he pointed to the short list, and the antiseptic odor wafted through the air again.
Someone’s beeper went off and the doctor, Padre, and Marty, all checked to see if it was theirs. Dagger’s beeper was set on vibrate so he knew it wasn’t his.
“I’m sorry, I have to leave,” the doctor announced.
Padre and Marty each handed him a business card and asked him to get in touch with them if he thought of anything else or if Josie or one of the specialists gets in touch with him.
The three men watched the doctor leave but remained in the waiting room. Dagger reached out and gave the door a shove. It closed with a soft click.
“Think Josie knows about her husband?” Dagger asked.
Marty shook his head. “According to the professor, the Addison wives were pretty much kept in the dark. He might have left her instructions to take the baby and run if one day he failed to show up.”
After several more moments of silence, Padre asked Dagger, “How’s Sara?”
“Still critical but she’ll be okay. She was shaken up pretty badly.”
“But what about her injuries?”
Dagger blinked wearily. There was so much he couldn’t say. “It looked a lot worse than it was.”
Marty closed his eyes as if in deep thought. All three men were startled when from somewhere down the hallway, something metal clattered to the floor.
“Be a long time til things are back to normal,” Padre said, a shiver pulsing through his body. He leaned back, a slow smile spreading across his face. “That Skizzy is something else. All he kept saying is ‘goddam government experiment.’” Then he started to laugh, an hysterical giggle. He soon had Marty laughing along with him. Call it a sudden surge of relief that it was all over or reverse shock. “And that Land Warrior weapon of his weighed more than Skizzy.” Padre was in an all out belly laugh now, tears streaming down his face. “It’s a wonder the first blast from the damn thing didn’t back kick Skizzy to Florida.”
Dagger couldn’t help but smile. It was over, at least for Paul Addison. And it was for Sara, too. But was she okay emotionally? Would she ever be the same or did this change her? She had been in the throes of it all. It would be hard for her to see the same humor in it that Padre did.
But at least Marty would probably retire now. Unfortunately, Sherlock didn’t live to see his worst fears confirmed. The six-year-old boy who had witnessed the death of his parents and brother, hadn’t imagined it all. It really had happened.
The laughter slowly subsided. Marty pressed his head against the wall and stared at the ceiling. After a few moments, he shifted his gaze to the two men and said, “In case anybody’s interested, June 13, 2014 is the next full moon on a Friday the thirteenth.”
CHAPTER 35
“Mr. Dagger, I’m so glad I found you.” Miss Collins, the second floor nurse hustled him down the hall as soon as the elevator doors opened on the second floor. “She’s gone,” she announced.
“Sara?” Dagger ran to Sara’s room to find a hospital gown lying on the bed. “Are you sure? You’ve checked the halls? They didn’t take her back down to X-ray?” Dagger checked the bathroom.
“We’ve checked every conceivable place. She must have stolen someone’s clothes or hospital scrubs.” Motioning to the stained denim dress, Miss Collins added, “And she obviously didn’t wear her dress.”
Dagger’s gaze drifted to the opened window. Sara couldn’t have shifted in her condition. She didn’t have the strength. But if she did, there was one way he could locate her.
Dagger turned the key in the ignition and switched on the dashboard monitor. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the red light blinking, indicating Sara’s location. According to his map, Sara was in the vicinity of her home.
Sara? He waited for her response. When he didn’t get one, he could only assume she was home and had already shifted back.
He put the Navigator in gear and tore out of the parking lot. It was a twenty-minute ride home. If he pushed it, he could cut it to twelve minutes. Punching the auto dial on the console phone, he listened to the answering machine. Sara wasn’t picking up the phone.
Why did she leave the hospital so soon? She was definitely in no condition. But she would heal quickly, she had already proven that.
Dagger raced the SUV down the driveway, not even bothering to pull the Navigator into the garage. According to the tracker, Sara was inside the house. He parked at the front door and ran inside. Hopefully she was in bed getting some rest.
There was no sign of Sara on the living room couch. The two doors to the aviary were shut firmly, the way he had left them yesterday. After poking his head into the kitchen, he quietly climbed the stairs to Sara’s bedroom. It was empty.
Puzzled, he checked her bathroom. Still no sign of Sara. Standing in front of the window, he searched the backyard. Maybe she felt the need to go to Ada’s grave out back. Sara? No answer. “SARA,” he called out. She had to be some place in the house, Dagger thought. Now she was starting to worry him.
Rubbing the back of his neck, his gaze dropped to Sara’s dresser. Her stud earring, the one he used to track her, was lying next to the lamp.
“SARA!” Dagger ran out of her room and down the stairs. He alternated calling her name out loud and telepathically. First he checked the garage to see if any of the cars or the truck were missing. They were all there. Then he climbed into the Navigator and raced out to the back acres where her grandmother was laid to rest.
Sara, I got the vial back. I made it right. He waited for her to respond as the Navigator bumped its way through the acreage. Sara don’t do this. You’re scaring the hell out of me. He brought the Navigator to a stop and ran up to the gravesite, which overlooked a creek. Sara wasn’t there. Exhausted and emotionally spent, Dagger dropped to the ground, kneeling on the damp grass. He apologized again to Sara explaining that it was a mistake. He didn’t know about her blood and promised to never do it again. DAMMIT SARA.
Then he started apologizing to Ada for not taking care of her granddaughter, for putting her in jeopardy. Just let her be all right, he told Ada, as if he believed she could really hear.
Dagger spent the next four hours cruising the streets near the hospital, extending his search to wooded areas until darkness made it impossible. Then he went home for his night vision goggles and continued his search through the woods.
He succumbed to his curiosity and returned to the isolated structure where Skizzy had killed the beast, thinking Sara might have had the same macabre impulse—to make sure it was really dead.
The first difference he noticed was the night sounds. What had been an eerie silence last night was teeming with activity tonig
ht. Cautiously he stepped into the building, his flood light illuminating the concrete floor, the trail of blood to the doorway. Finally, it settled on the alcove where he had thrown the beast. The floor and walls were charred. The beast had been reduced to soot.
Slowly he turned, the flood light spilling into the corners but there still wasn’t any sign of Sara. He had tried communicating with her during his search. He had told her about Josie Andrews and the baby that had been born. How Padre and Marty were hoping to locate Josie and her baby by contacting the specialists. They just didn’t know what they would do when they found her. He laughed when he told her that Skizzy was right. That the doctor will probably place a chip in the baby so they could monitor its whereabouts in fourteen years.
Exhausted, he returned home and sat on the catwalk in front of the windows, staring out at the yard. He could swear he saw Sara dancing, twirling, shifting into the gray hawk and then the gray wolf. But when he blinked the fatigue from his eyes, there was nothing in the yard but emptiness.
Padre offered to put out a missing person report on Sara but Dagger told him she was his responsibility. He would find her. Only problem was, he didn’t know where else to look.
He spent the rest of the week in a drunken stupor. Even Simon couldn’t console him, and to his credit, never made jokes or told him “I told you so.” Dagger didn’t return phone calls, especially Sheila’s.
By the second week even the liquor didn’t taste good. Einstein stopped talking and would join him on the catwalk just staring out into the yard, refusing his favorite cheese curls. Dagger never stopped trying to communicate with Sara, never stopped hoping she would respond.
