“It’s a mystery, Hank. I’ll tell you one thing, though. We need to examine every inch of this cane. There may well be additional openings.”
Gretchen’s wind chimes tinkled. I looked up, ready to greet Mr. LaBlanc. A man wearing a black ski mask stepped inside and strode toward me, swinging a baseball bat like a hitter warming up. I gasped and stood up, slipping into crisis mode. My attention was concentrated, my focus absolute. I registered every detail.
The bat was made of blond wood, ash maybe. The man was taller than me but not as tall as Ty. Perhaps it was a man; possibly I only assumed it was. Forget that, I thought. The mask was wool, too hot for today, too hot for spring. He wore black leather gloves, black jeans, a black long-sleeved turtleneck, black socks, and black sneakers. The only skin that showed was near the eye and nose holes. He was white. He didn’t make a sound. With the bat held shoulder high, like a cleanup man, he aimed for my head. I dropped the walking stick. It clattered across the table and rolled onto the floor.
Time slowed.
I dove for the floor, crawling to the side, away from him, scuttling toward Sasha’s desk.
The bat missed me and connected with the table, shattering its edge. Bits of wood sprayed over me. I closed my eyes for a moment, avoiding sawdust and splinters, then crab-walked backward, into the narrow space between Sasha’s desk and the inside wall. When I opened my eyes, I saw him moving toward me, circling the desk, holding the bat over his head like a hammer. I was trapped, my back to the wall, my knees drawn up to my chin.
The silence was terrifying, oppressive, overwhelming. I looked around wildly. There was nowhere to go. Get away. Get out. Do it now. I lunged forward back under the guest table, scurrying toward the front door. He swung the bat low, like a golf club, and connected with my thigh.
I screamed, a harrowing sound, as the pain shot up my leg to my spine to my neck, and into my jaw. Gold flecks danced in front of my eyes. They drifted away as the pain subsided. The bat swung up as he prepared to deliver another blow. I dragged my injured leg out of his line of fire.
Fight back, I told myself. If I couldn’t hide, if I couldn’t run, I had to fight.
My eyes lit on the cane. I grabbed it and swung at his ankles, my only target. The brass elephant head connected as if I’d rehearsed it for a year, but with such a limited range, the blow lacked the oomph to do much damage. Still, he grunted, which fueled my confidence, and I swung a second time, and again I connected. He grunted again, louder this time, but I hadn’t stopped him. I hadn’t even slowed him down. I was annoying him, nothing more. I needed more power, and that required a more open area.
He stooped over to better his aim at me and swung at my head as if he were trying for the big green wall at Fenway. I scooted farther away, and he missed me, thudding on carpet instead.
I crawled another few feet, trying to reach the front door. Clear of the table, I stood up, but my timing was bad. He swung with the fury of a cyclone. I jumped away, but not far enough to avoid it completely, and I landed on my gimpy leg, sending shock waves of pain raging up my spine. The blow glanced off my shoulder, slamming me against the wall, leaving me dizzy and breathless from the pain.
Then I got mad.
I used the cane like he used the bat, swinging the elephant head at his stomach, and the blow landed perfectly. He grunted again but recovered quickly and took another swing, again aiming at my head. I saw it coming in time to duck aside. His bat crashed into the wall three inches from my head, leaving a deep gash in the plaster. I swung again, aiming at his right wrist, hitting his right arm. His bat fell to the floor. He clutched his arm to his stomach protectively, grunting loudly. I pulled back, ready to aim for his head, and he ran. He charged at the front door and ripped it open, and he was gone.
I lunged for the door and locked it, then fell back against the table, shaking. I grabbed Gretchen’s phone, the closest unit, and punched 911. Out the window, I saw him running in a zigzag pattern across the parking lot, stumbling, recovering his footing, stumbling again. His ankles had to hurt. He made it to the woods, heading toward the church.
The operator answered, “What’s your emergency?”
“A man in a ski mask,” I said, gasping for air as if I’d run a marathon. “I’ve been attacked. He tried to kill me.” I reported his route, then pressed the END CALL button. I waited two seconds, got a dial tone, and called Ted at the church. I knew he’d be there. His wife, a nurse, dropped him off each morning en route to her 7:00 A.M. shift at Rocky Point Hospital. He didn’t answer. I made a fist and pounded the desk, terrified that my attacker might take Ted hostage or worse.
“Ted,” I said, as steadily as I could into the church’s general voice mail, “it’s Josie. I’ve just been attacked. I scared him off, but he’s running your way through the woods. Lock your doors.” I heard sirens, a welcome sound. “The police are en route.”
I hung up, then sank to the floor. I pressed my right hand against my left shoulder in a futile effort to stop it from throbbing. I rubbed it a little, which also didn’t help. A bitter taste made me swallow hard. Adrenaline. I couldn’t think of what I should do next, so I did nothing.
The sirens grew louder.
I got up, using a guest chair for support, and peeked through the window in the door, I watched as a Rocky Point patrol car roared into my lot. I unlocked the door and stepped out. I swayed and grabbed the frame.
Griff was alone and walking toward me. I didn’t see him get out of his vehicle, but there he was, approaching.
“Are you okay?”
The question seemed too complicated to answer simply, so I stayed quiet, holding my shoulder, waiting for him to come up with an easier one.
He took a few more steps toward me. “What’s going on, Josie?”
His tone was gentle, caring, but the question was still too complex.
“I’m worried about Ted,” I said. “At the church.”
“We’ve got someone there. What’s going on with you?”
“I think maybe he broke my shoulder.”
He lifted his collar to talk into his microphone and called for an ambulance.
“I don’t need an ambulance. I can walk. Not quickly, though. He got my leg, too.”
“Just in case,” he said. “Who attacked you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he want?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say a word. He left his weapon behind, though. Want me to show you?”
Griff approached the door. I pointed to the bat.
“How’d you get away?”
“I didn’t. He ran off.” I smiled, a shaky one. “I made him. I used the cane to fight back.”
He looked at me, surprised, it seemed, that I could fight my way out of trouble.
“Okay, then. I want to get you into the patrol car until the ambulance gets here. Go ahead and lean on me.
We set off at a turtle pace.
“I want to talk to Ty. I need to call him.”
“I’ll call for you,” Griff said.
I sat sideways on the backseat, my feet on the asphalt. I called out Ty’s number, and Griff punched it into his phone.
“It’s going to voice mail,” he said. “I’ll leave a message.”
“I should.”
“Let me.”
I nodded and closed my eyes, willing the sharp barbs of pain to stop stabbing me. When I opened them, Griff was beside the car, talking to someone through his collar mic. Moments later, the ambulance turned into the lot, its lights flashing. Two men jumped out of the cab, one young, one older.
“I’m fine,” I said.
They hauled a gurney out of the back.
“My staff. I can’t leave the place open. The man may come back.”
“I’ll wait for them,” Griff said. “You’re safe now, Josie. Go.”
Griff left me with nothing to worry about, and as soon as I realized that, I collapsed onto the stretcher and let the men do their jobs. They took my
blood pressure, timed my respiration, and checked my pulse, calling in the numbers to someone far away. Moving hurt more than staying still, so I closed my eyes and didn’t move. With Griff taking care of my worldly responsibilities and paramedics taking care of me, I was fearless and free to feel the pain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Nothing is broken,” the doctor said. I’d already forgotten his name. “But you’re going to have some pretty colorful bruises.”
“That’s great news,” I said. “I can’t believe I got so lucky.”
He gave me instructions about painkillers and rest and ice and heat and told me I could go. “I understand Chief Hunter plans on driving you home.”
Ellis and Zoë were waiting for me in the emergency room lobby. A big round clock read 1:20. I’d been in the hospital for more than five hours. I thanked the aide who’d wheeled me out into bright sunshine, then watched him disappear down a hallway.
“Can I hug you?” Zoë asked.
“Sure—if you want to hear a grown woman scream. I’ve got major bruises.”
Ellis stood nearby. “Let me pull the car up.”
“Okay.”
Zoë sat on a thigh-high stone wall. I leaned against it. I would have liked to sit, but I didn’t have the strength to hoist myself up.
“Ty is driving down,” she said. “He expects to be here by four.”
“Good.”
Ellis drove under the overhang. Walking was work, and every step hurt. I managed to get into the backseat and latch my seat belt, but barely.
“Your place or Ty’s?” Ellis asked.
“Mine, I think. I want to go home.”
“I’m assigning an officer twenty-four/seven until this is sorted out.”
My throat closed for a moment, and I couldn’t speak. I coughed. “Thanks.”
When we got there, Ellis walked inside ahead of me and cleared each room. Zoë took my hand and patted it. I leaned my head against her shoulder.
“All clear,” he said. “Let’s be prudent, though, and close all the drapes.”
“You sit,” Zoë said to me. “Ellis and I can do it.”
I felt too battered to argue. I sank into my favorite chair, a blue velvet club chair. The pain was constant but dull. Zoë turned on lamps, then pulled down the blackout blinds and drew the velvet panels together. The living room looked cozy in the incandescent light.
Ellis came into the living room. “You look like you’re ready for a nap. Can I ask a few questions before we help you get settled?”
“I take it that means you haven’t caught him?”
“Not yet. My guess is that he parked on Dover Street, on the far side of the church. No one who lives in the area noticed him—or a car. Why were you at work so early?”
I told him about the e-mail and how I was certain it would be a dead end, a message sent from an account set up for the purpose from a public computer in some location without security cameras, like a mom and pop Internet café.
“You’re probably right. We’ll check it out anyway. How about a physical description?”
“I don’t know. He was tall, but in the normal range. Ditto, his weight.”
“How sure are you it was a man?”
I met his eyes. “Not very.”
“No outstanding features?”
“No.”
Zoë came up beside me and squeezed my arm. “Do you want something to eat, Josie? I have chicken soup.”
“You’re a wonder woman. Boston cream pie last night and chicken soup today. I’d love some. Thanks.”
Zoë headed out. “I’ll bring the pot.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Would you get my tote bag, Ellis? I should check messages and e-mails.”
“Let them wait.”
I tried to smile. “That’s a sensible idea.” I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Will you call my office and let them know I’m okay?”
“Sure.”
I felt disassociated, strangely unconnected to what was happening around me. I could hear Zoë and Ellis chatting, not their words but the pace and tone of their comfortable companionship, yet it was as if I were dreaming it, not living it.
“She’s going to be stiff as a board when she wakes up,” Ty whispered. “I’m going to carry her up to bed.”
I opened my eyes and smiled. “Ty. You’re here.”
He stretched his left arm under my knees and slipped his right arm around my back.
“I’m too heavy.”
“No, you’re not. Put your arms around my neck.”
I did as he said and pressed my cheek against his chest. He stood up, lifting me as if I weighed nothing.
“I didn’t have my soup.”
“I’ll bring it to you in bed.”
“You don’t need to do that. I can sit at the table.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Let me take care of you.”
I smiled again and closed my eyes, and for the first time since Phillippe LaBlanc had burst into my office, I relaxed.
* * *
I slept for ten hours. It was dark. I turned to see the time, rolled onto my bruised shoulder, and groaned, then glanced at Ty, hoping I hadn’t awakened him. He was on his side, facing away from me, solidly asleep. I reached for the old-fashioned clock, a relic from my childhood. The green luminescence glowed brightly: 4:03. I was hungry and achy and stiff. I dragged myself to a sitting position and stood up, holding on to the bedside table. I made it downstairs by taking one stair at a time and leaning on the banister in between steps. The bottle of painkillers was near the sink. I took one with a glass of apple juice, then put Zoë’s soup pot on low.
While I waited for the soup to warm up, I went through my “are you okay” voice mails and e-mails. Wes had left three messages. The first one wanted details of my attack, including pictures of my bruises. I shook my head at Wes’s moxie. His second message came at eleven last night. He told me that the police had already located the sales record for the phone Phillippe LaBlanc had used to call me. It was another disposable, this one purchased from a big-box store in Rocky Point by a white man last week for cash. The store’s security cameras showed a tall man wearing a Red Sox baseball cap and big sunglasses. I downloaded the photo. The man’s chin was tucked in close to his chest, his head angled down. I couldn’t see any distinguishing marks. He was of normal weight. It could be anyone. Wes’s last call delivered what he described as an info bomb: Ellis got the information he sought from Jason’s executor. Jason had died a wealthy man. In addition to various trusts and real estate worth more than $10 million, he had $554,318 in his checking account.
“What?”
How can that be? It didn’t make any sense. If Jason didn’t need the money, he didn’t get a loan from McArthur. Jason didn’t hire Ralph Kovak. Which meant Kovak’s identification of Jason was wrong.
I e-mailed Wes thanking him for the update, telling him I would not be sending him photos of my bruises, and confessing that I was mystified.
I had two bowls of soup, thinking about why someone would attack me. My father once said that when you face a problem that seems to have no solution, do more research. When you can’t think of anything else to research, make a decision. To stay in limbo was always counterproductive. To delay making a decision was, in fact, a decision by default, and usually a bad one. Once your research was done—act. I tried to think of something to research. I couldn’t, but neither was I ready to act. Tomorrow, I thought. Thinking productively was beyond my current capabilities.
Ty came down about six thirty, yawning for coffee, offering to scramble eggs. I accepted. Zoë’s soup was delicious but not enough.
“I don’t know why that man attacked me,” I said, watching Ty wield the whisk.
“You know something. Or he thinks you do.”
“I can’t imagine what.”
“Something no one else knows or something you don’t know you know.”
“Or something only
I know the significance of, even though I don’t realize it.”
Ty paused and looked at me, his intelligence radiating from his dark eyes. “So what do you know?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea.”
“Don’t think about it now. It will come to you later.”
“I feel pretty punky.”
“You should. You got beat up.”
I grinned. “I bet he feels worse than me.”
Ty added diced honey-baked ham and shredded Emmentaler into the eggs. He stirred constantly, adjusting the heat periodically, a little lower, then higher, then lower again.
He toasted hearty white bread and sprinkled it with cinnamon sugar, then spread some of the blueberry preserves Zoë had put up last summer.
I ate it all. “This is maybe the best breakfast ever.”
“You’re forgetting Zoë’s French toast.”
“True. This is one of the best breakfasts ever.”
“Is this enough? I can make you something else or more of this.”
“This is perfect. I need a bath and more rest. Then I’ll be good as new.”
“In other words, the painkiller has kicked in.”
I smiled and faux-primped my hair, giving little pushes against my scalp. “I’m going on TV later today. I need to get my beauty rest so I’m ready for my close-up.”
“You’re beautiful, Josie. Rest or no rest. You’re always ready for a close-up.”
“Wow. That’s nice.”
“Let me get you upstairs.”
“I can do it. Don’t you have to go to work?”
“No. I can stay for as long as I need to.”
“Did you straighten out those training glitches?”
“It’s a process.”
“In other words, no.”
“In other words, it’s a process.”
I limped over to him. I touched his chin, drawing my finger along his jawline. “I love you with all my heart.”
He leaned down and kissed me, and I kissed him back.
Blood Rubies Page 26
