She sat up, finally sober, all sound drowned out by the barely audible ticking. She remembered being drugged by Vanessa and turned to see the woman wearing the floppy witch’s hat low on her forehead.
The drug dealer smiled. “Right on schedule.” She rolled the chair to a stop and knelt by Kissy. “You came running to save your boy toy at the warehouse. Now we’re gonna see if he loves you as much.
“Here are the rules. You say anything about me or my necklaces, I hit this switch and blow the vest bomb you’re wearing. Try to take the vest off, I blow it. Leave this room, I blow it. Kee has fifteen minutes to save you. If he doesn’t, I blow the vest. Now if your knight in shining baldness proves himself as selfless as you; click, I disarm the bomb. Say anything—“
Kissy finished for her, “Kaboom. I get it.”
“Good.” Vanessa pulled the mask from Kissy’s head. “Showtime.”
“Are you crazy?” The question was out of her mouth before Kissy realized what a dumb thing it was to say. She quickly clarified. “I can’t sing. You drugged me and my throat is parched.”
The creepy cheeriness slid from Vanessa’s face. She coldly leaned forward and bit a gem from the string of candy jewels around Kissy’s neck. Then she raised a hand and gripped the singer’s chin in a vise, speaking with a full mouth, “This should help.”
The murderess leaned forward and kissed her human bomb, forcing her tongue and the strawberry candy deep into Kissy’s mouth.
“Now sing, before I push this button just for fun.”
Kissy matched her gaze and wrapped her fingers around the bitch’s wrist. “Do it, and you die too.”
Vanessa nearly fell back in her rush to get out of Kissy’s reach. Kissy enjoyed the rush of triumph but didn’t revel in it. Instead, she sucked on the candy to lubricate her dry throat as she pushed herself up from the chair, noticing it wasn’t Ella’s. When she’d gotten to her feet, she had to focus a moment against a dizzy spell knocking her right back down. As soon as she felt steady she turned to let Vanessa know she wouldn’t get away with this. But Vanessa wasn’t anywhere in sight. No scrawny figure wearing a witch mask either.
That really scared Kissy. She scanned the audience as she mechanically strode over and picked up her ukulele. She nodded at Julia who was sitting with Dr. James Fuller, her orthopedist who was apparently still refusing to remove her friend’s cast. From the look on his face, Kissy suspected he had a personal agenda for making sure Julia had to see him again. A few rows behind them she spotted the winged purple wheelchair with a dazed Ella. Then she nodded at the GinNtonix as she took center stage.
The patients and family and even many of the staff looked back at her eagerly. They wanted to be distracted from the chaos around them. They thought it might be the best part of their day that a witch with a red ukulele was about to tap dance right there in front of them. Kissy could barely keep from screaming at them all to run for their lives.
Fifteen
Avi nearly ran Tim over when the smaller man froze in his tracks just behind the first row of chairs and couches that made up the audience. He saw Kissy standing frozen onstage for an instant, staring back at them before she danced off to Ella on the far aisle and drummed on her purple wheelchair. Ella looked groggy. When the old woman reached out to grab the black robe Kissy was wearing, she danced away upstage.
Tim recovered his balance and started moving through the crowd at a more measured pace.
Avi grabbed him. “Stop. We need to find Vanessa.”
Tim hissed back, “Kissy’s wearing a bomb!”
“Which is likely armed to go off if you mess with it,” Avi pointed out.
“I know a little something about bombs.” Tim wrenched his arm away but Avi already had the fabric of his stolen scrubs wrapped around one fist.
He pulled Tim back. “And I know a little something about criminals.”
“Then this won’t surprise you.” Tim dropped as if he were trying to slip out of the shirt, but Avi had twisted it tight just so the small man couldn’t get free.
He was surprised though, when Tim slammed his elbow into his crotch. Avi doubled over reflexively and lost hold of Tim’s shirt. Tim skipped up to the raised platform and spun behind Kissy. As Kissy tapped and Tim unzipped her robe, Avi focused his mind away from the pain. He breathed into the cramping in his gut and frantically searched the crowd for a small woman with blond pixie cut hair. He had no doubts Vanessa would want to watch.
He limped around the room as casually as he could manage, trying to look at faces from the back of the crowd. He couldn’t see anyone who looked like the vicious drug dealer. He’d been blindfolded for most of the time he’d spent with the woman so he tried to focus on the voices of the people whispering to each other over the sound of Kissy’s tapping.
Avi ran a hand over his strangely smooth head and lifted the phone he still held in hand. Hanging out with Tim made him forget he was a cop. He swiped away from the picture of Kissy strapped with explosives and dialed the station.
“Desk Sergeant,” a female voice answered.
A siren suddenly pierced the babble of sound in the hospital lounge. From the corner of his eye, Avi saw someone react. He turned and headed in that direction as the front doors closed and the siren was muted again. He tried to picture who had reacted, searching the heads in the crowd.
“Hello?” The desk sergeant asked. “Officer Kee?”
Avi glanced at the stage. He saw Tim’s hopeless face as the man caught Kissy’s ukulele. They needed the bomb squad. But the bomb squad would arrive with sirens and that might spook Vanessa into setting it off. He flipped back to the text.
Your turn, lover boy.
His turn to what?
Avi realize the crowd was applauding. He clapped along, looking up as Tim dipped Kissy and kissed her. Even as the Killer on Call whispered in her ear, Kissy locked eyes with Avi. She was begging for his help. He nodded, shoved the phone in his pocket, and rushed to the stage.
He went to the four other members of his group, waiting in their chairs. “Hey guys. Let’s give Kissy a break.”
Kevin leaped to his feet. “Yeah, we’re here to sing.”
“Not to watch people die,” Mitch added.
Kay, their only girl, hit Mitch and walked past them all to center stage counting off Save The World. Avi sighed at the choice and followed them on, weaving in the bass line. Tim and Kissy cleared the stage.
The KC pulled her down the far aisle toward the back, but Avi watched as his girlfriend shook her head and sat in an empty chair beside the groggy looking Ella. Tim knelt beside her, still arguing. Avi kept searching the room for Vanessa as he sang. He was so concentrated on the search that he almost missed it when Tim abandoned Kissy. The blond killer ran out the lounge doors, leaving Kissy sitting beside Ella in tears.
Sixteen
After the applause died away and Avi came up to join the GinNtonix, Tim led Kissy from the stage. Her eyes were glued to Avi but she followed Tim’s lead. He led her past Julia, who was flirting with her orthopedist, and along the outside of the chairs. They’d only passed a few rows of chairs when Kissy stopped. Tim kept walking, hoping she’d follow, but when she didn’t, Tim hustled back to his ghostly white friend.
“Come on. We have to get out of here.” He spoke quietly so the audience around them wouldn’t hear the stress in his voice.
“I can’t.” Kissy darted her eyes down and grimaced, shaking her head no.
Tim understood the warning, but he pushed desperately, “We can run.”
“Timothy, I’m wearing tap shoes.” She laughed shortly.
He begged, “Please.”
But Kissy turned and sat in the empty chair beside Ella’s purple wheelchair. Tim took the seat behind them. He reached into his bag and then used a clean handkerchief to wipe the sweat dripping down Kissy’s neck. The GinNtonix began an energetic song. Kevin and Mitch were bouncing around the stage area, getting the audience pumped up again. The other two s
ingers, Scout and Kay, danced with each other and tried include Avi. The audience responded, dancing in their seats and even clapping along. Avi did not engage. He sang and swayed to the beat, but his eyes were cold, checking out each and every person in the lounge.
Tim didn’t think finding Vanessa would gain them any more time if she was even still in the hospital. He wracked his mind to think of how to save her, of how to save everyone in this room. Tim had known at a glance that the bomb was too complicated for him. If he could get Kissy outside he’d have a chance of getting the vest off of her without killing anyone else. He stared at the zipper on the back of the witch robe, trying to rethink the wires and explosives he’d seen wrapped about her waist.
His thoughts were interrupted by a gentle tapping on his arm. He turned away to find Ella peering over her shoulder and crooking a finger at him. He glanced at Kissy who was focused solely on Avi and then leaned forward to hear the old woman.
She whispered, “Edward,” before a coughing fit interrupted her.
Tim automatically reached into his satchel.
Ella struggled to speak. “Edward Parker,” she rasped before taking a sip of the water Tim offered, “was a marine."
She paused again for a breath. But before she could continue, Tim figured out what she was saying. He looked at her sharply. “He was in the bomb squad.”
Ella sank back in her chair, nodding. But when Tim didn’t move fast enough, she sat up again. “Go!”
And without another look at Kissy, he slipped silently from the chairs, wove through the crowd and was out the door on his way to the third floor to find the angel of mercy, his target and client.
Seventeen
Kissy sat helplessly in the seat beside Ella, trying to psychically tell Avi to come save her. He didn’t. He sang. He searched the crowd, focusing on every single face except hers. When she’d caught his eyes during the bow, she knew he’d understood. And then he’d rushed the stage and her heart had leaped with relief, until he ran right past her to his friends.
He was singing with them now and looking for a criminal he could arrest. He wasn’t thinking of Kissy at all. She felt her blood running cold through her veins and shivered to think the kind old lady beside her had almost been the one wrapped with this deadly vest.
Tim had come to her. But he said he couldn’t help and then he abandoned her too, running from the room to save himself.
No. She rubbed her freezing hands together and stopped the self-pity She was on her own. She would find a solution. Once again, she ran through the rules in her head. Tim had wanted her to leave with him but she couldn’t leave the lounge. She couldn’t tell him to take people’s necklaces. She didn’t even have a watch so she couldn’t tell how long it would be before Avi’s fifteen minutes ran out. How many minutes had it been since Tim told her she had seven minutes to live? She had to get away from this crowd.
Kissy started to stand. She was going to run as far upstage as she could get and just hope. But Ella reached out and put a hand on her arm.
“Wait,” she coughed out. “Trust him.”
Kissy searched the old woman’s face. “Trust who?”
Ella took a sip of water and swallowed painfully. As she struggled to get her voice working, a smile crept over her face. “The killer is going to save us.”
Kissy stared in awe. How did she know Tim was the Killer with a Conscience? Or did she mean Vanessa? No. No one could mistake Vanessa for a ‘he.’
Suddenly Tim was there beside her again. She grabbed his arm and stood but he turned her chair sideways and pushed her gently back down. Someone behind her unzipped the hateful robe and she felt pressures on her back.
“Three minutes,” the man behind her whispered.
Kissy’s heart leaped into her throat. She felt adrenaline rushing through her and turned to look at the old man working at her back.
Tim quickly leaned over and whispered, “This is Edward. He knows bombs. Don’t look and maybe Vanessa won’t notice.”
“Won’t matter if she does,” the old man murmured. “I just dismantled her digital remote connection.”
The relief was too much. Kissy crumpled forward, falling from her chair.
Eighteen
Avi sang by rote. He trusted the countless rehearsals to hold him up as he relentlessly scanned the faces in the audience. He tried to ignore hair color and style and clothes and just look for the cruel black eyes he remembered from his time strung up in the warehouse. He’d seen someone with black hair react to the siren but Vanessa could have changed wigs or put on a hat if she saw him notice.
The dynamics of the lounge had changed completely from when they’d begun the performance that afternoon. Initially most of the chairs right in front of the stage area had been filled with patients and their families. While only a few lurkers lounged in the couches and along the back walls. But now, the chairs of the audience were sparsely populated and the walls were crowded with people. Avi was glad that the majority of the people in the room were far away from where Kissy sat beside Ella.
There had been a party atmosphere when Danny sat in the front row beside where Julia sat with her doctor. Now, the air was heavy. The antiseptic scent had overpowered the floral. A few people even looked like they were sleeping through the performance.
Avi saw Tim return, wheeling the old man he’d tried to kill not an hour earlier. The man was unwrapping a leather bundle in his lap as they approached Kissy and Ella. Tim planted Edward Parker directly behind Kissy and then stood blocking them from most of the rest of the audience. Avi scanned the room trying to see who else was interested in Tim’s return.
Suddenly Kissy collapsed in her seat and Tim grabbed at her to keep her from falling. A few heads turned and Julia cried out. But only one person stood and ran for the door leading out of the lounge. Avi tracked the pajama clad figure as it froze in the doorway and turned sharply to look at the chaos happening around Kissy. When she looked down at a device in her hands, Avi was sure. He broke from the quintet and ran straight at the woman.
Vanessa saw him. He caught her black eyes for just a second before she took off, racing toward his girlfriend. Avi altered course but he was still too far behind. Tim was turned away, gesturing for Julia to stay in her seat. Edward Parker was crouched in front of Kissy, focused on the vest.
Ella was the only one aware of the danger. Avi saw the old woman lift the candy necklace off her neck and spin it twice over her head releasing it with shocking aim straight at Vanessa’s face.
The necklace hit home just as the small drug dealer reached out with a knife and sliced Kissy’s throat.
Nineteen
Vanessa settled in on a couch right by the doors to the lounge. Her hat was on a smelly old woman in the middle of the chairs. She’d slipped on a long black wig and stolen a ratty bathrobe to wear over her bunny rabbit decorated pajamas. She watched Kissy perform with sweat dripping down her face and waited for the real show to begin.
A middle-aged man with drool on his chin shuffled into the room and blocked her view of the stage. She didn’t dare speak in case the cop came in and heard her voice. Vanessa had no doubt he’d remember her from their special time together in the Extabee warehouse. She remembered every inch of his muscled body.
When the drooling freak moved away, she saw that Avi and his friend the Killer on Call had arrived. Avi was looking around the room for her. She would have held her face up, daring him to recognize her, but the drooler came back.
He stood in front of her again and mumbled at her. She tried to ignore him, peering around to see where Avi was going. He mumbled more insistently and pointed at the couch. Did he want to sit? She nodded and gestured for him to take the seat.
When the freak cleared her view, she found Kee standing not three feet from her, fruitlessly searching the backs of heads in front of him. One last sting of chords on the ukulele and Kissy ended her song, throwing the instrument into the air. The killer was dancing with the cop’s girlfriend.
Vanessa gave him bonus points for kissing the little slut right there in front of Kee. How lovely.
The cop hurried up to the stage. Vanessa fingered the send button on her cheap flip phone and prepared to run from the room. But the cop didn’t even approach Kissy. He went straight to his singing friends as the killer led the little bomb off down the far aisle. Vanessa frowned as they kept walking.
Then Kissy shook her head like a good girl and sat. The killer reluctantly sat behind her. Vanessa couldn’t see them very well from her vantage point. She considered moving, but Avi was searching the audience from his much improved vantage point on stage and she couldn’t risk drawing attention to herself.
“Do you have a light?” The man who had taken the seat beside Vanessa was rocking and staring at her chest.
She leaned in to him and smiled kindly. “No.”
He turned forward and continued to rock. Vanessa slumped in her seat, matching her expression to the dull one beside her. The cop was still singing and examining every face in the crowd. She watched Kee look the two of them over and move on in his search. A smile almost reached her lips.
“A light.” The deranged patient beside her had turned and was rocking at her again. Each time he leaned forward his shoulder hit hers but his eyes never looked up.
“No,” she replied, less kindly this time.
Vanessa pulled the flip phone from the left hand pocket of her stolen robe and held it in her lap. She fingered the knife in her right hand pocket. She ignored the man bumping into her over and over and glanced over to see Kissy sitting morosely beside that spunky old bitch Vanessa had originally chosen to wear the vest. The seats behind the women were empty. The killer had left.
The bumping grew harder and the freak started mumbling again, “Light!”
Vanessa turned to him. “What do you want?”
The man mumbled a speech that ended with the same question, “Do you have a light?”
Killer on Call 6 Book Bundle (Books 1-6) Page 16
