In his day, he’d seen almost all there was too see. He’d seen far more his share of dead men riddled with bullets than he’d cared to see. He’d pulled dead bodies to cover many times in the war. But he had never, ever, seen one come back to life.
Bice had been dead, he had no doubt. Bice’s blood still covered his own shirt, the crimson stains were not yet even dry.
But when Hawk, the invincible and manly fear-nothing celebrity bodyguard opened the car door and gazed in, he suddenly felt like a young boy again in school, getting licks from his teacher for fighting. The tears had stung his eyes back then, as the teacher paddled him. Embarrassing tears which had rarely come to surface since. Until now, this very moment.
He gasped and staggered backward as he watched Bice’s eyes briefly flash open at him. The trace of a smile weakly played across his once-fallen comrade’s cracked lips.
The big man fell to his knees, covered his face and sobbed.
* * *
The ambulance quickly rushed Dr. Killmore away, leaving Tommy in its blowing dust. He watched silently as it sped toward the city lights in the distance.
The firefighters had long since snuffed out the smoldering wreckage in the canyon below. The sun was beginning to rise in the horizon, and the winds were gradually picking up and bathing him in their salty breeze.
An officer approached him. “Son, could you tell me what happened?” He pulled from his shirt pocket a small notebook, licked his finger and slid a pen from behind his ear.
Tommy shook his head, as he slowly pried his eyes away from the emergency vehicle’s taillights. No one would understand. Hell, he didn’t even understand what’d happened.
“Son? Are you all right?”
He shook his head in dismay. No, he was not all right. Far from it.
“Was your father the only one in the car?”
“Yes.” He lied.
“We ran a check on the vehicle, Tommy. That car doesn’t belong to your father. Mind telling me why he was driving it?”
“I don’t know.” He chose his words carefully. “Tonight was prom night, I was there with my friend. I took her home and ran out of gas on the way back to my place.”
“Who is your friend, Tommy? Maybe he or she can give me more information.”
“She can’t.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated again. “I told you, I took her home and I ran out of gas. She went to bed. Now, will you kindly let me go to the hospital?”
“All right, son.” The officer replied. “We’ll get your car, and I’ll follow you to there.”
“Thanks.” Tommy muttered.
He was too eager to get the hell out of the Godforsaken canyon.
* * *
Harmon gently laid Heaven on her bed. She hadn’t stirred since the moment she’d fallen unconscious to the floor of the car.
The lower half of her gown was charred and tattered, her hair singed and burned from the heat of the explosion. Her hand was still wrapped in the stained fabric he’d torn from his shirt. He would never understand how she’d managed to escape the burning wreckage.
He dialed the phone on the bedside table. “Bonita, I need you in Heaven’s suite, quickly.”
He checked his watch. It was seven in the morning. In his industry, he was used to staying up all hours of the night and sleeping until well after the noon hour. He was drained though, the night had been too much even for him.
All because of one man, who was hell-bent on taking the helpless girl. He’d never in his lifetime wished anyone dead, but this inhuman monster would deserve it if he’d died in the fiery wreck.
He carefully raised Heaven’s charred gown, afraid of what he might see. He glanced at her legs, but quickly glanced away. He slowly took another look.
Her long legs were porcelain perfect, there was not a singed hair on them. He stared closely at them, until his face was almost completely under her gown.. He carefully felt her calves. There wasn’t even the slightest bit of heat. He was far from surprised this time. As a matter of fact, he was becoming quite accustomed to the strange phenomenon.
“Mr. Steele?” Bonita gasped. “What are you doing to that poor girl?”
Startled, Harmon leapt backward at the housekeepers sudden presence. Naturally, Heaven’s gown caught the back of his head. Unable to see, he lost his balance and tumbled from the bed, effectively ripping the entire skirt away from the bodice.
He fell to the floor and rolled and twisted under the suffocating fabric. He fought with the blackened skirt desperately, as he tried to pull it from his face.
“For the love of Mary!” Bonita stomped to the struggling musician and yanked the skirting from his head. “What in blazes is going on in here?”
“Blazes?” He groaned. “Must you use that word? Never mind, help Heaven, she’s been in an accident. She should have been burned, but for some unimaginable reason, she’s not.”
Bonita turned to take a closer look at the sleeping girl. “What happened to her? For crying out loud, she look’s like she’s gone off a cliff!”
“That’s not funny. Tend to the wound on her hand, get her cleaned up and in a nightdress. I’ve got to check on Bice.”
Bonita moved to the opposite side of the bed. She carefully unwrapped the bloodied fabric from Heaven’s hand, and studied her palm.
“What wound, Mr. Steele?” She shook her head in confusion as she studied him. “Have you been nipping at the liquor tonight, Sir?
He gazed at Heaven’s palm. Of course it too was porcelain perfect, not a scratch or mark upon it. Not even a trace of blood. He should have known.
But, it was not something he’d ever get used to. On queue, his head slowly began to spin in dizzying confusion. No burns, and the wound on her hand was gone as if it were never there to begin with. He’d seen her smoking legs with his own eyes, he’d fought to put the flames out and had heroically wrapped her sliced hand. He had no doubt, and he hadn’t touched a damned drop of liquor in two solid hours.
He gaped at her unhurt palm, unable to break his stare. His mouth opened and closed, but words would not come. In the distance of his clouded mind, he could hear the dull ringing in his ears. The blasted, incessant ringing was back once again. The sound soon grew into a shrill pitch, a sound which he was quickly becoming familiar with.
Sometimes, things he thought he could get used to would never be one in the same. And, Heaven was one of those things.
Thinking ahead this time, he grabbed a pillow from the bed and laid down on the floor until the blasted ringing passed.
* * *
Hawk placed Bice carefully on the bed.
He slowly removed the tattered shirt from his friend, and tossed it to the floor. He watched his chest rise and fall, deep in slumber. There were no telltale marks on him, not a bruise, nor a scrape. A perfectly normal chest.
He laid his hand across his chest, carefully feeling across its warmth for a telltale sign of what might have happened to him. He pressed his fingers along his sternum, and moved his hand carefully alongside his ribcage. Nothing out of the ordinary stood out.
Still unconvinced, he laid his hand to Bice’s heart and listened to the soft thumping from deep within.
“Mr. Hawk?” Bonita stared at him from the doorway. “What are you doing to Bice?”
Hawk lurched away from his comrade, and stared at the maid in the doorway. He was at a loss for words, which was not really unusual for him. But words had never been of much importance to him anyway. He grunted, and gazed in silence at the housekeeper.
Her eyes shot daggers at him. “Things are getting stranger around here by the minute. Mr. Steele is taking a nap on the floor in Heaven’s room. I need your assistance helping me get him to bed, if you can bear to leave your object of admiration for a moment.”
She turned on her heel and hustled down the hallway, shaking her head in disbelief.
* * *
Tommy sat for hours in the hospital waiting room, oblivious to
the noise around him. The television droned from some faraway land. Distant laughter of children drifted in broken fragments into the furthest corners of his tortured mind. He laid his head back, and closed his eyes.
He and Heaven were walking hand in hand along the windy seashore. Frothy waves rushed across their bare feet. Their footprints quickly disappeared, left behind in the glistening sand were only sprigs of sea grass and foam.
She gazed at him with her lovely aqua eyes. He watched as the breeze swept her hair into golden whirls behind her. She smiled at him. He smiled back, and hugged her close. She smelled of the sun and the seas and the sands.
Suddenly an ugly mass of rotting, twisted flesh jutted out of the sand and stretched skyward. Its jelly like fingers grasped Heaven’s ankle before either could react, and pulled her away from him into the foamy torrent below.
She screamed in horror, and kicked at the vile flesh as it twisted her into a downward spiral. But the creature held fast, easily pulling her under. She was gone, drowning beneath his feet.
Her arm shot up from the watery sands and flailed once more, reaching out for him.
He grasped her hand, and struggled to pull her from the hellish demon. But the invisible force was much too strong. She slipped into the torrid blackness, deep within a barren pit no living soul would ever see, and disappeared.
With a final thrust, her arm rose from the sands once again. She grabbed his hand tightly and shook it with the last bit of her ebbing strength.
“Tommy?” The physician shook the sleeping boy’s arm. “Tommy, wake up.”
Tommy sat up, and screamed. He gazed in fear at the white blur in front of him.
“Tommy, you must’ve had a bad dream. I’m Dr. White, a friend of your father’s. I’d like to talk to you about him. And afterwards, about Heaven.”
* * *
Late that evening, Harmon woke.
He gazed around his quiet suite. Bonita had apparently come and gone, never disturbing him. The room was immaculate, and a dinner tray sat near his bedside.
He lifted the metal cover, and gasped in horror. She’d made him tomato soup again. She knew he loathed tomato soup. He slammed the cover back down, and shoved the tray away.
He sat up and groaned. Suddenly, he remembered the nightmare from the night before. But it wasn’t a nightmare. It couldn’t have been. He leapt from his bed and rushed out the door.
He raced down the hall and flung open Heaven’s door. He froze in the doorway, afraid of what he might see. Perhaps a burned skeleton lying quietly upon her bed, the remains of a charred ball gown clinging to her blackened bones.
But she lay silently on the bed, undisturbed in her deep slumber. Bonita had bathed her, brushed her hair and put her in a clean nightdress.
His gaze fell to the floor. The smoldered prom dress and bloodied strip of fabric were gone. Her tiara sat neatly on her bedside table.
He gently lifted her hand. It was smooth as silk, and soft as a feather. No traces of the horrific injury were left behind. He gazed at her palm, and studied the undisturbed fingerprints. Prints which should have been cut away, or seared beyond recognition, were clearly unmarred.
It was impossible, there must be a telltale sign somewhere. He remembered the smell of the smoke, and the acrid smell of singed hair. It certainly would still smell of a faint trace of smoke, if Bonita hadn’t washed the odor away completely.
He held her hand under his nose, and sniffed her palm. The smell of freshly scrubbed skin wafted toward him. Maybe last night was nothing but a bad dream. He sniffed her hand again, still unconvinced.
He sniffed her wrist, and gradually sniffed his way up her arm. The scent of her skin was nothing out of the ordinary. She was consumed in smoke the night before, he was certain there was a burn mark or singed hair somewhere.
“Mr. Steele?” Bonita stood in the doorway. “What are you doing to that poor girl?”
He quickly dropped her hand to the bed. “Never mind, Bonita. How is Bice?”
“He’s not yet awaken.”
“Thank you. Carry on.”
He gazed at the sleeping girl once more, shook his head in disbelief and quickly left to check his fallen comrade.
* * *
Tommy followed Dr. White into his father’s office.
A picture of him alongside his mother sat proudly displayed on the desk. He gazed at the portrait, wishing with every fiber inside he could fall back into that dream world. He yearned for a way to somehow leap into the past, and live within the silent plane of frozen time.
Dr. White took a seat at his father’s desk and studied at him. “Tommy, I’ve been retired a short while, but I still act as a medical consultant on occasion. The staff decided it would be better if I spoke with you about your father, since he and I have worked closely for many years.”
“What’s wrong with my dad?”
“A couple of things. First, he has a closed head injury. He’ll be fine, but I’m afraid his short term memory is gone, and he has no idea how he was injured last night. He remembers nothing.”
“Will he get better?” Tommy fought back stinging tears.
Dr. White took a seat next to him, and handed him a box of tissues. “Eventually. He will need rehab. He also has some internal injuries, but they will heal. His speech seems to be affected, however, we’re hopeful in time that will resolve.”
“When can I see him?”
“As soon as he’s awake.” The physician stared at him a little to eagerly. “For now, I’d like to talk to you about Heaven.”
* * *
Chapter Twenty Four
Harmon walked into Bice’s suite, and quietly closed the door behind him.
Bonita had indeed been busy while he’d slept the day away. Bice’s room was also sparkling clean. Beside his bed sat a tray of food, untouched.
He moved to the bedside and studied his friend. Bice lay silent on the bed, his long dark hair swept back from his face. His skin was freshly scrubbed, but a deathly pallor still clung to him. A cot had been brought in for Hawk, on which he slept alongside Bice. An empty box of donuts lay next to the cot.
“Bice,” he whispered, “can you hear me?”
Only silence could be heard throughout the room, except for Bice’s ragged breaths.
He slowly pulled the sheet back, and studied his friend’s chest. There was nothing remarkable. A normal human chest, and not a trace of blood to be seen. Like Heaven, Bice showed no telltale signs of the disaster which had occurred the night before. It was as if it’d never happened.
“Bice?”
Harmon whirled around. Heaven stood in the doorway, fighting to hold herself up. “Heaven, you’re weak and you should stay in bed.”
“No. Let me sit with him, please.”
“He’s still asleep. He won’t even know you’re here.”
“He needs me.”
Harmon gazed at her. She was shaking, and obviously still exhausted after the ordeal. Her eyes no longer burned with their usual fire, but were dull and lifeless. He turned back to Bice. The man seemed to be in some sort of a coma from which he may never awaken.
He pictured Heaven old and grey, still holding vigil at Bice’s bedside. Cobwebs would dust them both, as their clothing slowly yellowed into a sepia patina with passing time.
He sighed. Maybe somehow, someway, Bice would know she was at his side, and finally wake. He sighed in resignation. “I’ll get your blankets and pillow. Then, you will eat.”
He left the room without a backward glance. It was time to find Bonita. He too would need a cot sent up, to hold vigil at Bice’s side as well.
* * *
“I’d like you to tell me what you know about Heaven.” Dr. White gazed at Tommy, tapping his pen lightly on the desk.
Tommy glared at the aging physician. He was tired, confused and hungry. His life had turned into a living hell in the course of a few hours. Now, he was being interrogated by a strange and nosey physician who seemed to have one thing on
his mind. Heaven.
Apparently his father had contacted Dr. White. Now, this man was obviously pursuing as much information about her as possible. His father had told him in the kitchen her wrist had healed quickly. Much too quickly.
Now, his dad remembered nothing. Yet Dr. White seemed to be eagerly picking up where his dad left off. Something strange had happened last night. Bice was dead in the back of the car, moments after his father had taken Heaven hostage a second time.
His father had acted like a madman, first abducting her from the prom and yet again when he’d stumbled upon her sitting in the driveway. It was beginning to make sense now.
He too had chased the Limo, only a few miles separated him from the speeding car. Harmon and Hawk managed to pull Heaven from the wreckage and put her in the backseat with Bice’s dead body, in very short order. They’d left him standing in the blowing wind, and quickly sped away with barely a backward glance.
Why hadn’t the police been called? Bice was dead, he’d seen him with his own eyes. Why weren’t the police here, interrogating him under a bare light bulb and offering him cigarettes in return for his cooperation?
“Tommy?”
Tommy blinked at the ageing man. As he studied him, the words his father had spoken came back with a resounding fury, “A dead child at the hospital is suddenly walking and talking, after she left his room.”
Bits and pieces of the puzzle crashed down on him. In momentary flashes they fell into place, leaving him breathless as the jumbled picture in his mind began piecing itself together. Her broken wrist healed in short order, and the cut across her knee was gone the next morning. He remembered becoming ill in the car, thanks to Harmon’s obvious prior inability to conquer Driver’s Ed.
It was clear now. He choked back a sob as he remembered. He’d seen his mother that night, the moment he felt the warmth of Heaven’s palm on his forehead. Instantly, his overwhelming nausea was no more.
Harmon and Hawk then shoved her into the backseat with a dead man, when a normal human would have put her up front, away from the macabre scene. An unmistakable feeling Bice was no longer dead washed over him.
The Girl With Aquamarine Eyes Page 26
