“At home. I just got here a few minutes ago. I was teaching the kids at the church how to scare people for the haunted house.”
“I’m at the hospital and I need you.”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
She took a deep breath. “Mark’s dying.”
“What!”
“Yes. He said you didn’t know. He’s asked me to get him out of here because he doesn’t want...doesn’t want to die in here. I’m going to get a wheelchair and try to sneak him past the nurse’s station. He wants to go home.”
“I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“Thank you,” she whispered before hanging up.
Jeremiah was out the door and in the car in seconds. He didn’t know what had happened. Mark had seemed stable when the EMTs had taken him away and he’d heard that the doctor at the hospital had said he was going to be okay. Maybe they’d misjudged the type of poison or the dosage.
He felt sick to the bottom of his soul. He had seen so much death in his life, lost friends to it, but he realized he’d never had a friend as close as Mark. Proverbs 18:24 spoke of a friend that was closer than a brother. It was a Proverb he had only just recently come to understand and he kept reciting it in his mind as he blew through three stop signs and two red lights.
He skidded into a parking slot at the hospital and raced inside. Cindy hadn’t said where they were in the hospital. Before he could move the door to the nearest elevator opened and she emerged, pushing Mark in a wheelchair.
She moved quickly and Jeremiah fell into step beside them, leading them out to his car. Mark was ashen and Jeremiah felt his stomach knot more. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s not your fault,” Mark said, his breathing ragged.
Jeremiah opened the door to the backseat of the car.
“Help me stand,” Mark whispered.
Jeremiah shook his head. “I’ve got you.” He put an arm under Mark’s legs and another behind his back and picked him up. Cindy moved the wheelchair out of the way and Jeremiah gently sat Mark down in the backseat. He closed the door and ran around to the driver’s side as Cindy got in the passenger front seat.
Seconds later they were leaving the parking lot and heading for Mark’s house.
He took one hand off the wheel and reached over to grab Cindy’s hand, needing to feel her warmth. Tears began spilling down her cheeks, but she didn’t say anything, just squeezed his hand back.
He wanted to say something, but words were failing him. Mark had slumped over sideways in the back seat. Jeremiah kept glancing in the rearview mirror every few seconds just to make sure that he was still alive.
Finally they pulled up in front of Mark’s house. The lights were on inside and he hoped that Traci was there. He didn’t know why she hadn’t been at the hospital when they were breaking Mark out.
He parked in the driveway and was out of the car in a moment, going around to the back. Cindy raced up to the door with Mark’s keys in her hand. Jeremiah moved around to the back of the car and lifted Mark out.
“I feel so helpless,” Mark said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jeremiah said softly.
Cindy pushed open the door just as they got there and he carried Mark inside and then set him down on the couch. Cindy closed the door.
“Traci!” she called, her voice cracking.
There was no answer.
“She’s not here,” Mark said, voice shaking.
“We’ll find her,” Jeremiah promised him.
“What if I never see her again?” Mark asked him with haunted eyes.
Jeremiah crouched down next to him so he could look him in the eyes. “I promise you, that’s not going to happen.”
Cindy was walking into the back of the house. She was back a minute later. “No one’s here.”
“Not even Buster,” Jeremiah frowned as he realized that Mark’s beagle wasn’t there to greet them.
“She took them all with her,” Mark said, his words somewhat slurred. His head was bobbing a bit. He was getting weaker.
“Where, where would she have taken Buster and the kids?” Jeremiah asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe her sister’s place.”
“Amber?” Cindy asked.
Mark nodded. Sweat was beading on his forehead. A phone rang and Cindy pulled it out of her purse. “Mark, it looks like Trina is calling your phone,” she said. “Do you want to talk to her?”
Mark stretched out his hand, but then it fell. “I don’t think I can,” he whispered.
Jeremiah’s throat constricted. Mark was fading fast.
Cindy passed the phone to Jeremiah and sat down on the couch next to Mark.
“Hello, this is Jeremiah speaking,” he said, doing his best to answer with a steady voice.
“Where on earth is Mark?” Trina demanded. “I’ve got a bunch of doctors and nurses here breathing down my neck. Apparently they think some woman helped him escape the hospital.”
“That was Cindy. He begged her for her help.” Jeremiah turned away from Mark and Cindy and lowered his voice. “They wouldn’t let him leave and he wanted to die at home.”
“What?”
“Yes. So, that’s where we are.”
“He’s not dying,” Trina said.
“That’s what I thought, too, but apparently we were wrong.”
There was a pause and he could hear Trina talking to someone else. A few moments later she was back. “He’s not dying, but he is very sick and he’s supposed to be recovering in the hospital for a few days.”
Jeremiah blinked as a tiny ember of hope flared to life inside him. “He’s not dying?”
“No.”
“Then why does he think he is?”
“I don’t know, maybe he was hallucinating or something. The bottom line is, you need to get him back here. There’s all kinds of fluids and medications he’s supposed to be taking.”
“Understood.”
He hung up and turned back to Cindy and Mark. He leaned down to look at Mark whose eyelids were half closed over eyes that looked glassy and dazed. “Mark, you’re not dying.”
“He’s not?” Cindy asked, eyes wide.
Mark’s head lolled forward. “Of course I’m not.”
“What!” Cindy said, grabbing Mark’s shoulders. “Then what were you talking about in the hospital?”
Mark’s head snapped back and forth and Jeremiah pulled Cindy off him. Then he had to fight down the urge to shake the man himself. He managed to get himself under control and asked, “What’s going on, Mark?”
He stared at both of them. “Traci. She left me.”
17
An hour later they were back in Mark’s room at the hospital. He was back in bed and hooked up to a variety of monitors and an IV. He was pretty out of it, but a little bit better than he had been at his house. Cindy was just grateful that between him being a cop and whatever Trina had said the hospital staff seemed to be willing to look the other way about his temporary disappearance.
She was still shocked, though, about his revelation about Traci. He really hadn’t managed to tell them anything else. He’d passed out in the house and hadn’t woken up again until he was back in the hospital. One thing was certain, the doctors were right to want to keep him bedridden for a couple of days until his system could fully recover. She was relieved that at least taking him out of the hospital didn’t seem to have actually done more damage.
Cindy had planned to tell him what she had found out about Cheyenne’s sister, Lacey, but she wasn’t sure that he would even remember anything she had to say. Before she could try, the doctors finally shooed them all out declaring that Mark needed sleep at that point more than anything else.
In the hallway Trina stifled a yawn. “I’m guessing I’ll see you all tomorrow?” she said.
“Probably here at some point,” Jeremiah affirmed.
“Good.”
She headed toward the elevator and a minute later Cindy and Jeremiah fo
llowed. In the parking lot he walked her to her car. When they got to it he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. She hugged him back, bone weary in a way she hadn’t been in a long time and emotionally spent.
“I was so scared,” she whispered.
“So was I.”
“I’ve got to talk to Traci, figure out what’s going on with her, but I just want to sleep.”
“You could call her tomorrow.”
It was tempting, but she knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep if she didn’t at least try. She was worried about both of her friends and didn’t like what was happening.
“They have to be able to work this out,” she said.
“I hope so.”
It wasn’t exactly the reassurance she was looking for, but at this point she’d take what she could get.
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.
He nodded as she pulled away. “If you do talk to Traci, you should let her know what happened today.”
“About Mark trying to get home to find her?”
“Yes, but that wasn’t what I was talking about. I don’t know what happened between them earlier and I don’t know if he had a chance to tell her that Lizzie called him.”
“Lizzie called?” Cindy asked, feeling suddenly hopeful.
“Yes,” Jeremiah said, his voice grave. “At least we know something now, even if it isn’t good. She is being held against her will. She was able to get to a phone for a few seconds and indicated that a woman was involved before she got cut off. Trina seemed to think that since we were in the house we might have tripped some sort of intrusion alarm distracting the woman.”
“Poor Lizzie. Poor Traci,” Cindy muttered. “I didn’t get a chance to tell everyone what I learned today. Brenda, one of our high school students, was at the church today, hysterical because she had just found out that one of her closest friends was Cheyenne, the first girl that was killed. She told us that Cheyenne had an older sister, Lacey, who was cruel and had hurt Cheyenne often. Brenda believed Lacey would have been capable of killing her.”
A look of concern filled Jeremiah’s eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Sarah and Brenda, they were the two girls who I was responsible for at Green Pastures. They were at the church tonight for the scare class. They both looked like they had been crying, but they were supporting each other and putting on brave faces. Sara’s younger sister, Meghan, is the one who ran away, but I had no idea Brenda had lost her friend.”
“Those two girls have been through so much,” Cindy said softly, feeling her own emotions deeply.
“They’re going to be there on Sunday to help finish the construction. I promised the kids I’d come, too, make some suggestions. I’ll try to talk to them both more then.”
“That would be nice. I know all the kids who were with you love and respect you,” Cindy said.
“So I’ve been finding out.”
“That surprises you?”
“I guess I had assumed I would be just part of a terrible memory that they’d be trying to forget.”
She shook her head. “You bring out the best in people, push them to achieve things they never dreamed possible. No one’s going to forget that.”
He ducked his eyes, but didn’t say anything.
“I should go if I’m going to try and reach out to Traci tonight,” Cindy said.
He waited until she was in her car and had started it before turning to walk toward his own. All Cindy wanted was to sleep, but she knew that she had to at least try to talk to Traci.
She pulled out her phone and called Traci’s cell. She was surprised and relieved when the other woman picked up.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Cindy. Can we talk?”
There was a pause so long Cindy checked to see if the call had dropped. Finally Traci said, “Okay.”
“Awesome. Where are you?”
“I’m at Amber’s house.”
“Give me the address and I’ll meet you there.”
“Actually I’m the only one here awake. Why don’t I meet you at the Starbucks down the street?”
“Sure, just tell me where to go.”
Half an hour later Cindy was parking outside the coffee shop. It was farther than she’d wanted to drive, but at least traffic had been light. She staggered inside and was relieved to see that Traci was there. She looked like a wreck, but she hoisted two cups off the table and Cindy walked over.
“I got you a hot chocolate with raspberry. That’s what you drink here, right?” Traci asked.
“It is,” Cindy admitted as she sat down.
The thought of face-planting on the table was almost overwhelming, but she managed to remain upright as Traci handed her the hot chocolate.
“How are you?” Cindy asked.
“I’ve been better,” Traci said. “How are you?”
Cindy took a sip of her drink and then set it down. “I had one of the most stressful nights of my life,” she admitted. “I found out that Mark was in the hospital and why. Then, when I made it to his room to see how he was doing I realized that he was in much worse shape than I had been led to believe.”
Cindy looked up, purposely watching Traci’s face. “I took one look at him and knew something was desperately wrong. That’s when I found out that I’d been misinformed and that he was actually dying.”
Traci jerked and the color drained from her face. “What?” she whispered.
“Yeah, and the nursing staff refused to let him go home to take care of things he needed to do. He was so weak he couldn’t even stand on his own and when he had tried to get out of bed he had collapsed on the floor.”
Traci’s hand was pressed over her heart and she had a look of pure distress on her face.
“He begged me to get him out of there so that he didn’t have to lie there as his life slipped through his fingers. I did manage to smuggle him out and Jeremiah had to carry him from the wheelchair to the car and then again into the house. We were about to start to look for you when we got a call from a very upset F.B.I. agent who was being grilled by the doctors about his disappearance. Meanwhile, he had collapsed entirely on the couch and was fading fast. Then, we heard the news that he wasn’t dying. Turns out when he told me his life was over and that he wasn’t okay and couldn’t be fixed, I thought he was talking about the poison. It turns out he was talking about the fact that you walked out on him.”
Cindy tried to say the last part without sounding accusatory, but she wasn’t sure how well she succeeded. She picked up her drink and took another sip. She was gratified to see that Traci had at least been showing signs of concern during her story.
“What happened?” Traci asked.
“We had to take him back to the hospital. It was a good thing, too. He’s going to pull through, but his body desperately needed to be confined to bed and to be taking certain fluids and medications. In convincing me to help him escape, which I did because I thought he was dying, he could have been gravely injured. And given that he did pass out before we could get him back to the hospital, he never had a chance to explain to us what happened.”
Traci was gripping her coffee with white knuckles. “I couldn’t take it anymore, almost losing him, wondering when he was going to finally get himself killed. I found out he was poisoned in that house and I had such a bad feeling when he told me about the first victim that I made him promise me he wouldn’t go back into that house again. And he did, and he didn’t even need to since Jeremiah and Trina seemed to manage just fine without him once he had to be taken away to the hospital. If he won’t take care of himself, try to protect himself for me and the kids, what can I do? I can’t put them through that uncertainty. It’s bad enough I lived with it for years but they don’t need to grow up that way.”
“They wouldn’t be the first children of a police officer,” Cindy said.
“No, but they’re my first children and I want better for them than a life of fear an
d uncertainty, particularly if their father isn’t willing to do his part to keep himself safe.”
“Mark doesn’t intentionally put himself in harm’s way.”
“Maybe not, but he doesn’t do what he could to avoid it either,” Traci retorted. “I told him I had a terrible feeling that he was going to die in that house. He should have listened to me. He should have respected me and cared about me and the kids enough to at least do that.”
“Sometimes guys are idiots,” Cindy said, vaguely aware that it sounded like something Wildman had said to her.
“And what does that make the women who stick with them even against their better judgment?”
“Loving wives.”
Tears glimmered in Traci’s eyes. “I love Mark. I do. I’m just tired of living with this uncertainty. Knowing that he broke his promise to me, that he went back there, and it didn’t even have to be him that did it.”
Cindy could understand where Traci was coming from. She could feel the other woman’s pain and heartbreak. But she had seen Mark’s and she knew that he could never live without her.
“Mark would walk through fire for you,” Cindy said softly.
Traci didn’t respond.
“I don’t know what he got a chance to tell you in the hospital, and he certainly was out of it later, but Jeremiah was able to fill me in on something that happened earlier today that you should know about.”
“What?” Traci asked.
“While they were in the house Lizzie called Mark, just for a second. She is being held captive by someone, she mentioned a woman. Before she could say anything else the call was disconnected.”
Traci let out a sob and Cindy reached across the table to grab her hand. “I know Mark will do everything in his power to find her.”
“Of course he will. That’s who he is.”
Cindy didn’t know what else to say so she just sat quietly and held Traci’s hand while she cried. She couldn’t help but reflect that it had been such a day of terrible lows, but then there had also been the one incredible mountain top experience when she had gotten to pray with those wonderful people and see a miracle happen.
I Will Fear No Evil Page 15
