The doctor nodded. “Yes you did. I’m glad you came to us, and I’m glad we were able to give you the help you needed.” He smiled warmly at me.
I returned the gesture, smiling through the emotional pain I was enduring even as we spoke.
After discussing prescriptions and outpatient care, I left his office, returning to the long, bright hallway.
Again, I kept my head low and my eyes lower as I walked down the hall, thinking about the conversation I’d just had with Dr. Loyd. Talking to him always put me in a foul mood. I hated bringing up the past, thinking about the decisions I’d made, reliving things I’d seen and done, and remembering all that had happened in the previous couple of years. Every session was like tearing the scab off a wound, preventing it from healing. I always walked away feeling exposed and vulnerable, both of which were feelings I hated.
Before I knew it, I was three quarters of the way down the hall.
“Hey. There you are, Nicky. I’ve been wondering about you. You wanna do something later?”
Ignoring her, I planned to pass her by and go straight to my room, but it didn’t happen that way.
“Huh? Nicky? You wanna do something? Nicky?”
In a flash I had my hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing as I pushed her back against the wall. I felt her pulse throbbing beneath my fingertips as her heart raced.
She looked at me with wide eyes, but her arms remained at her sides. She didn’t try to fight me off or pull my hand from her neck. She didn’t try to scream for help, though it wouldn’t have done her any good even if she had. The hallway was empty except for the two of us.
“I told you,” I said through clenched teeth. “My fucking name is not Nicky. If you ever call me that again, I’ll cut your throat while you sleep and watch you die. You got that?”
Linette tried to speak, probably tried to agree to never call me Nicky again, but she could only gurgle an unrecognizable grunt under the pressure of my hand as it constricted her neck.
I gave her throat one final squeeze, pushing her head back and thumping it against the wall before I let go, turned, and walked away.
At the end of the hallway, I turned right and made my way to the room that had been mine for three months. I curled up on the bed in the fetal position, closed my eyes, and waited for the anger to die down inside of me.
It was a process that would take a long time.
3
After returning the water hose to its place on the wall, he straightened the tools on the work table, washing away the blood and chunks of flesh before drying and returning them to their rightful place on the pegboard above the table.
Behind him, Candy groaned, a sign that she was coming around.
He continued the task as the news came back from commercial break. They opened this time with a story that captured his full attention.
“You may remember the story of a local woman who was kidnapped from this mall two years ago.”
Turning his head, he looked at the television screen, watching as a photo appeared in a box next to the news anchor’s head. He stood motionless, frozen in place with a bloody hammer in his hand. He stared at the photo of a mall he knew well, a mall that would always hold a special place in his heart because that’s where he met her. The only woman he’d ever loved.
“This story captured our attention back then and we’ve been following it closely ever since, updating you in the search for the alleged kidnapper.”
Behind him, Candy’s moans grew louder, bordering on hysterical sobs. Ignoring her, he focused harder on the TV, trying to hear every word the news anchor spoke.
“The woman, Nicole Lee of St. Louis, disappeared from the parking lot of the St. Louis Galleria Mall, kidnapped at gunpoint. This is a police sketch of the man accused of the kidnapping.”
The photo of the mall was replaced by a black and white sketch of a man who looked remarkably like Ron. At least, the way he used to look, before the gray hairs took up residence around his temples, and before the weight gain that filled out his cheeks and made his face rounder.
Ron took a step closer to the TV, putting his back to the table on which Candy lay, fully conscious now and screaming at the top of her lungs.
Over his shoulder, he told her to be quiet. She ignored him, screaming loudly enough to drown out the sound of the television and leave him clueless as to what was being said. For all he knew, the police had figured out who he was and had his house surrounded at that very moment.
The thought of being captured, put on trial, and sentenced either to death or to live out the rest of his life in a cage—which in essence was also a death sentence—angered him and sent him flying into a rage.
Determined to silence the filthy bitch’s screams so he could hear what the news anchor was reporting, he turned around and rushed at her.
With the bloody hammer raised high above his head, he swung, sinking the claw end into the pale meat of the terrified whore’s neck.
Still trying to scream, she emitted sounds of gasping and gurgling. A quick jerk on the hammer ended those sounds, the forked claw tearing out her esophagus and vocal chords, quickly suffocating her as the blood gushed from her neck in rhythmic spurts, pumped out with each frantic beat of her heart.
The front of Ron’s shirt was spattered with blood, as was his face. He didn’t notice. He didn’t feel the heat of her life force as it cooled against his skin. Didn’t notice and didn’t care.
With the screaming bitch now silenced, Ron turned his attention immediately back to the television, listening intently as the story continued.
“Before escaping and immediately alerting the authorities, the woman claims to have watched as her captor tortured and murdered numerous women, many of whom were prostitutes, though the bodies of those women have never been found.
“Mrs. Lee was released today from Alpine Grove Mental Health Facility, where she checked herself in three months ago.”
The news anchor disappeared, replaced by a video of a woman walking out of a building and descending concrete steps. She kept her head low, her hair covering most of her face. The cameraman remained on the street, zooming in on Nicole as she emerged from the large hospital.
Nicole didn’t seem to notice the camera as she walked purposefully down the sidewalk.
“The ongoing search continues for this man.”
The video cut away just as Nicole lifted her head. For a second and no more, he saw her face, her eyes, and felt as though she was looking at him. Then, the police sketch zoomed in, filling the screen.
“If you know this man or believe you have seen him, please call the number at the bottom of your screen.”
The news anchor threw it over to Bob with the weather, but Ron had already stopped listening. He didn’t care about the weather. All he could focus on was her face. Her eyes.
He suddenly didn’t care that he had killed Candy before completely using her body. He didn’t care that he’d spent months touching the hideous and grotesque feet of filthy, drug-addicted prostitutes. Nor did he care about the profound loneliness he’d suffered over the past two years. None of that mattered now.
Only one thing mattered to him and that was Nicole.
4
It was bright outside the cold stone walls of the Alpine Grove Mental Health Facility. I stood just outside the front doors, lingering at the top of the steps, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the sunlight. When the shock wore off and I no longer needed to squint, I looked around, peering into the depths of every shadow, watching for movement in every parked car, and studying the faces of the handful of people milling around the hospital grounds.
Across the street from the hospital was a white news van with a large, blue 5 on the side. My stomach knotted at the sight of it and my palms grew damp with perspiration. Fortunately, there wasn’t a reporter on the scene, just the van with a cameraman. Still, the thought of being on television made my heart race. I didn’t know why the news van was there, but I did my best to
ignore it, even though I had to walk toward it to get to my car.
I descended the concrete steps and followed the sidewalk to the hospital’s parking lot where my car set exactly where I’d left it months earlier. It was parked beneath a light, askew between the white lines that identified the space. Rushing into the parking lot that night three months ago, I’d been frantic, in a hurry to flee from my situation, my past, and myself.
That wasn’t the case now. Now I had plenty of time, and it showed in my cautious approach to the car, which was now covered in a layer of dust.
I steered clear of any large vehicles such as vans and SUVs as I traversed the maze of cars occupying the parking lot, keeping an eye out for anyone sitting in vehicles along the way. Luckily, all cars were empty.
After unlocking the driver’s door, I tossed the suitcase onto the back seat and slid in behind the steering wheel. Immediately, I hit the button to lock all the doors, I looked around, making sure no one was approaching my vehicle or watching my every move. Satisfied that no one was near me, I breathed a sigh of relief and buried my face in my hands.
This was going to be a lot harder than I thought.
As I pulled out of the parking lot and drove away, I watched in the rearview mirror as the imposing gray building—a building with four levels and over a hundred problem-riddled patients—faded behind the trees and out of view.
It felt good to leave the hospital. The farther away from the building I got, the thinner the air seemed to become, and I finally felt as though I could breathe again. It was as though a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders and left in my room on the second floor. However, leaving the hospital did nothing in the way of lifting the weight from my mind, no matter how much I wanted it to.
If Dr. Loyd had any idea of what was really happening in my head, of the nightmares that came when I finally managed to sleep, he would lock me up in a padded room and throw away the key. So I’d had to lie to him, to make him believe that while I wasn’t completely cured, was far from back to normal, I had made enormous progress toward that goal.
And I suppose in the grand scheme of things I had made progress. Though I still woke up drenched in sweat and screaming in terror, I no longer woke to find myself huddled in the corner of the room with my fists flailing. I was still paranoid and traumatized and burdened with guilt, but I’d learned to hide it better, which was surely a step in the right direction. If I could hide it, that meant I could deal with it. If I could deal with it, that meant I could make it go away. And if I could make it go away, I’d be cured and everything would return to normal.
At least that’s what I told myself.
With nowhere to go, I drove around the city for a while, thinking. I needed some sort of plan and I needed one soon. Night was coming and the thought of sleeping in my car didn’t appeal to me. That would put me in a vulnerable position. Never again would I allow myself to be in a vulnerable position. Not if I could help it.
After grabbing something to eat at the drive-through of a fast food restaurant, I found a motel to settle into for the night. Carrying my suitcase, purse, food, and drink, I walked to room 8 while constantly checking my surroundings for anything that seemed wrong. I knew from experience that evil showed up when you least expected it and it came in all shapes and sizes, so I was wary of everyone and ready to flee at a moment’s notice.
Without incident, I made it to my room and locked the door behind me. I placed the food on the nightstand, tossed the purse and suitcase onto the bed, and grabbed the only chair in the room, wedging it tightly underneath the door knob. No one was coming through that door. If they wanted in, they’d have to break the window next to it, a noisy job that would alert me to their presence.
Once the curtains were drawn tightly, I took off my shoes and settled onto the bed. I used the remote control to turn on the television and find a mindless program to watch while I ate. It had been a long time since I’d had an appetite, but I knew that I needed strength and energy, both of which came from food. To not eat was to die, and I’d come too damn far and survived too many things to die now from something as stupid as starvation.
After I’d finished the meal, I tried to continue watching television, wanting nothing more than to keep my mind occupied. It wasn’t to be however. I found the constant droning of the voices and the phony laughter of the audience to be abrasive to my ears, an annoyance that I couldn’t tolerate. So I turned it off and leaned back, resting my head against the marred wooden headboard that looked as if it had been there since the seventies.
In the silence of the room, I did what I’d spent so much time trying not to do. I thought.
My first thoughts were of Mason and Wade. My heart ached to hold them both and to hear their voices. I loved them dearly and it ripped me to shreds to be without them. I considered calling them, but it was late. Maybe tomorrow.
Then I thought of what I’d say when—and if—I called them. It seemed I never had the right words to say to express how I felt about them, how much I loved them, or how sorry I was that things had turned out as they did. Wade always told me it wasn’t my fault, but I knew it was. If I was a stronger person, I could’ve dealt with everything and got my life back. Instead, it had come to this.
I had escaped from Ron’s house, but in no way had I rid myself of him. He was very much a part of me now and I hated it. I hated that he was all I could think about. I hated that I still feared him after all this time, still looked over my shoulder for him, expecting him to be there. I hated that the life I’d built—the life I loved—had been stripped away, taken from me forever by the murdering son of a bitch who claimed to love me. And more than anything, I hated him. Ron. The man who kept me awake at night out of fear and who haunted my nightmares when my eyes finally closed. The man who’d ruined my life. The man who’d forced me to watch as he ended the lives of so many others.
That familiar feeling crept up on me, the feeling of being trapped and helpless.
I curled into the fetal position on the bed, wrapped my arms around my legs and hugged them tightly to my chest, and then I cried.
∞
When I opened my eyes the next morning, it was after a restless two-hour sleep, from which I woke feeling like crap. My eyes were swollen and gritty, and my head was pounding.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, considering not getting up at all. What was the point? What did I have to do or to look forward to? Nothing. The answer was always nothing. Just another twenty-four hours of pain and misery.
At the insistence of my bladder, I finally sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed, where I tried to talk myself into starting the day. I arched my back and lifted my arms above my head, stretching my stiff muscles, which made the pounding in my head intensify. Then I began my day with about as much enthusiasm as a death row inmate had on his way to the electric chair. But it was all I could muster.
After showering and dressing in jeans and a t-shirt, the rumbling of my stomach forced me out of the motel room and down the street, where I stopped at a small diner for breakfast. I sat in my car for thirty minutes before summoning enough courage to go inside where there were other people, strangers that I didn’t know.
In my mind, I heard Dr. Loyd’s voice telling me to rationalize the situation. Think it through with objectivity. Remain calm. Use common sense and good judgment.
Those were easy things to say for a man who’d never been traumatized or had any reason to fear the world around him.
Still, he was the expert, so I forced myself to do as the doctor advised.
I told myself that no one in the diner wanted to hurt me. The people inside were just other hungry people grabbing a bite to eat before heading off to work or school or wherever it was they went to fill the hours of their day. Nothing sinister was going to happen. Even if one of them did happen to be a serial killer who’d set their sights on me, it was still safe to go inside. There were other people in there. Witnesses. This wasn’t an isolat
ed parking lot. This was a bustling diner. I would be fine. Just fine.
Taking a deep breath, I grabbed my purse from the passenger seat, clutched it in my hand, and pushed open the car door. I got out, looked around the small parking lot to make sure no one was approaching me, and then I headed for the door of the diner.
By the time I sat down in the back corner booth with my back against the wall so I could face the door, my heart was racing and my palms were sweaty.
Fighting to keep calm, I quickly looked to each patron, wondering if any of them were keeping dismembered corpses in their basement.
Maybe it was the two road crew workers who sat across the table from each other, laughing and joking.
Or perhaps it was the elderly man who sat alone at the counter sipping coffee.
It could be the pregnant woman who sat in a booth across from the heavily-tattooed man wearing a sock hat low on his forehead.
It was also possible that it was the two middle-aged men dressed in flannel who sat across from each other in a booth near the front corner of the diner, speaking little as they devoured fried eggs and bacon.
Any of them could be a killer.
Or all of them.
“What can I get you today?” the waitress asked.
“I’ll have a western omelet, white toast, and a Pepsi.”
“Coming right up.”
Minutes later, she placed the drink, a napkin, and the utensils on the table in front of me and left with a smile.
As I watched her walk away, the pink skirt of her uniform swishing back and forth as she moved, I wondered if it was her. Maybe she was the one with bodies buried in the back yard.
With nothing else to do until she returned with my omelet, I watched the other diners as they ate breakfast, unaware they were being scrutinized.
The elderly man at the counter continued to sip his coffee and read the newspaper. His movements were slow and deliberate, making him the least interesting of the diners to watch.
Held & Pushed (2 book bundle) Page 20
