by Jonas Saul
“You’ve got …” he swallowed and tried to speak through his anger again, “… some nerve coming in here and lying to me like this.”
Sarah leaned down until she was almost touching his nose. “I’m not lying. Normally I would be kind and feel sorry for someone in your position. But whatever you’ve set in motion with your sons has my sister pretty pissed off. I can feel the disgust and revulsion in waves oozing from her right now.”
“You’re crazy.” He moved his face away and looked at the door. “Nurse!”
They would be coming soon. Evacuating the hospital meant this room, too. As usual, time was running out and she didn’t want to be stopped at this point. Vivian had more for her to do, much more. Whatever she was chipping away at seemed to be working, but it still didn’t make much sense to Sarah.
“Get out of my room,” the old man said.
“Gladly. I don’t want to spend another minute in here with you. But first—” Her hand numbed rapidly. Then just as fast, her arms and upper body. If she hadn’t been leaning into the bed, she would’ve fallen to the floor.
Vivian!
With great effort, while Sarah focused hard to fight Vivian, she unrolled the toilet paper and stuffed a small ball of it into the man’s mouth. As he struggled to push it out with his tongue, and Sarah struggled to regain control of her body, her hands uncapped the water and poured it over the toilet paper. Then, as fast as Vivian took over, she let go. The internal struggle came to a halt instantly, and Sarah passed out, dropping beside the hospital bed to the tiled floor.
What felt like a brief moment later, Sarah stirred to the sound of knocking on a door. She opened her eyes to fully comprehend where she was and what had just happened.
She gasped in shock and got to her feet as the banging on the door intensified. Police sirens roared outside the window.
Fletcher’s father stared at the ceiling, his eyes open but seeing nothing. The man on the bed was dead. His mouth was filled with toilet paper, a thin sheet dangling out the side where it rested on his cheek. Water had clogged his throat and poured over the rim of his shriveled lips. The lids of his dead eyes had drawn back into the hollow of his orbital bone, leaving behind the terror of death on his features.
“What have you done, Vivian?” Sarah whispered. “I will follow you to the ends of the earth, but outright murder? We never murder someone unless they deserve it. What is this?”
He deserved it.
More knocking on the door. She heard keys going in and out of the lock. “But I don’t know that. This is jail time for me. They have my face on camera. I’m on the fourth floor. I can’t jump out the window. I’m done, Vivian.” Sarah turned to the chair that held the door closed. It had moved sideways slightly with the relentless banging from the hallway. “When you killed this man, Vivian, as righteous as you say it was, you killed me, too.”
In time you will understand.
“No!” she shouted, panic entering her system. She had been used in a way that she never thought possible. Welcoming her sister in through this form of channeling had been a new and enjoyable experience. It had allowed them to work together in a more efficient manner. But this was something altogether different, horrifying and wrong.
In time … Vivian whispered. Leave now …
Like a cloud had enveloped her consciousness, Sarah walked toward the room’s door thinking about toilet paper and how it formed a gelatinous goo when wetted. In the back of the man’s throat as he attempted to swallow it with water, all it did was clog up and remove his ability to breathe. If she made it out of this alive, she would have to remember that one.
There was still hope that she would escape this. Vivian seemed to be in control and calm about the entire matter.
Sarah kicked the chair aside and stepped up behind the door, her back to the wall.
It burst open and two doctors stumbled inside. Now that the door was open wide, the alarm in the corridor was much louder.
“What the …” one said.
“Holy shit,” the other gasped.
Sarah eased around the door and hopped into the hallway. The chaos from earlier had subsided as the patients that could walk on their own, wheelchair and gurney bound patients and visitors had mostly been removed.
Fletcher called in a bomb threat, Vivian said.
Stay out of my head! I’m pissed at you right now.
Sorry. Can’t. You need me to stay alive. Take the stairs. Go to the basement. Once outside, be ready to duck when I tell you to or you will be shot and killed. I’m sorry, Sarah, but you will only leave this hospital from the morgue.
Chapter 18
Parkman entered the Swiss Chalet restaurant on Yonge Street and spotted Aaron immediately in a booth in the back corner. He meandered through the restaurant until he stood by the table, looking down at Aaron.
“Well?” Parkman said as he set his briefcase on the floor.
“Well what?” Aaron said, a wide smile on his face.
“I haven’t seen you since you took off from California. The least you can do is get up and hug me.” Aaron pushed out his chair as Parkman continued, “Welcome me to Canada, fucker.”
They embraced, both men slapping the other’s back.
Pulling away, Parkman held Aaron’s shoulders. “How have you been, man?”
“Good. You?”
“Fine, but this Sarah business has me disturbed.” Parkman took his seat and pulled it in close to the table. “What’s going on? When she called, did she mention anything to you? What’s she up to?”
Aaron rested on his elbows while he toyed with his new goatee. “Nothing. She called out of the blue and asked for a favor. I got arrested. They interrogated me for over fifteen hours and then let me go.”
“What was the favor again?”
Aaron filled him in on everything, including the takedown in the Eaton’s Centre garage and how he saw Sarah poke her head out of the stairwell.
“And that was it?” Parkman asked. “No further contact?”
“Nothing since.”
The waitress interrupted them. Parkman ordered chicken and a beer. Aaron did the same. When they were alone again, Parkman pulled a folder out of the briefcase he brought with him.
“Sarah said two things to me before she left for Toronto.”
“What’s that?” Aaron asked.
“That she was coming to see you. She wanted to talk to you. She missed you and wanted to see if there was anything left between you two. Or something like that.”
“Okay,” Aaron said. “That’s good. There is.” His eyes darted away, but before they did, Parkman saw the raw emotion in them.
“The other thing was a request. Vivian had given her the name Niles Mason.”
“Niles rings a bell,” Aaron said in a soft voice as if he was trying to recollect where he’d heard the name.
“She asked me to learn everything I could about Niles and the people he lives with and works with. When you called me from custody, I bought a ticket on the next flight and here I am.”
“About Niles,” Aaron said, rolling his hand in circles in a carry-on gesture.
“Right. Niles Mason is a detective with the Toronto Police Force.”
“That’s where I heard the name. Detective Simmons grilled me the most, but a woman, I think her name was Diner, asked me questions, too. Niles was her partner.”
They stopped talking as the waitress brought their beers. They clinked the necks of the bottles together, then took a swig each.
“Sounds like the same Niles.” Parkman looked down at the file in front of him. “Born in the sixties, Niles has had a decent career with the force, making detective only five years ago. Now partnered up with Detective Marina Diner, they have solved numerous cases for homicide and specialize in mispers.”
“Mispers?”
“Missing person cases.” Parkman used his finger to follow the words on the paper. “Niles is married to Samantha Mason, who as far as I could tell, is a stay-at
-home housewife. They have no kids.”
“So what’s this got to do with Sarah and what she’s here for? Did you find any connections?”
Parkman drank more from his bottle and set it back on the table.
“I have no idea. I looked for blemishes on his record and saw none. This guy is a regular Boy Scout. Fuck, he’s so clean they’d make him a Scoutmaster.”
“There has to be something,” Aaron said. “She wouldn’t make you go to that kind of trouble to research a good cop.”
“That’s what I thought.” He drank more, the beer going down good after the long flight from LAX to Toronto. “Then I realized that maybe she just wants this guy on our radar. So I called a couple of friends of mine on the Toronto Police Force while I was waiting for my flight at LAX.”
“And?”
“Sarah’s in a lot of trouble. Diner and Mason are the detectives tasked with finding her.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Aaron, brace yourself.” Parkman crossed his arms and sat back until Aaron nodded. “Sarah is wanted for murder.”
“What?” he shot forward.
“They have the murder weapon with her fingerprints on it and there were over a dozen witnesses to her pulling the trigger. Some of those witnesses are cops. I’m sorry, Aaron, but this time Sarah might have gone too far. She’s been lucky before, but this was coldblooded murder. Now, Sarah has become the unlucky one. And there’s more.”
The chicken arrived. They asked for extra chalet sauce and dug in. While eating, Parkman continued to explain what he knew and how Sarah would need a good lawyer. He couldn’t see any other way out of this mess.
His phone rang as he washed the last of his meal down with what was left at the bottom of the beer bottle.
“Parkman here,” he answered, absently reaching for the toothpicks on the table.
He listened to the officer explain their new findings. His contact finished fast and hung up.
Parkman dropped his phone onto the table and hung his head.
“What?” Aaron asked. “What is it now?”
Parkman met Aaron’s eyes. “It’s Sarah.”
“What? Is she dead?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“She’s might wish she was, though.” He cleared his throat and explained what he just heard about the house in Orillia and the bomb threat at the hospital that was taking place as they ate.
“Oh no …” Aaron whispered, a distant look on his face.
“Sarah stole a cop’s gun and used it to kill those people. Then the attack on a city councilman and his dying father.” Parkman shook his head. “Oh no is right. Wow, I never thought she’d go this far.” He gathered his papers and shoved them into the briefcase. “I feel sick now.”
“Me too.”
“We have to prepare ourselves. They may shoot on sight.”
Aaron looked away before wiping at a tear. “Oh Sarah. What is going on?”
Parkman flipped the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “I’m sorry, Aaron, but the harsh reality is that if Sarah makes it out of this alive, she will spend a few decades in jail. With politicians involved, they’ll ask for the longest sentence. It’s one thing to hurt or kill in self defense when dealing with scum. But to attack a councilman,” he paused, swallowed loudly, then added, “that’s something altogether different.”
The toothpick in his mouth snapped in half.
He reached for another, thanking God for life’s little pleasures.
Chapter 19
Sarah ran down the stairwell two at a time. When she hit the second floor, hospital patients exiting that stairwell door slowed her down. She mingled with the crowd and continued to descend the stairs until she was out the side door. A large group had gathered across the back parking lot. Others formed close-knit groups of people talking, probably trying to work out what was going on. Many of the patients were sitting, but some remained standing. For a cancer hospital, it surprised her how many were smoking. They had decided to use this drill as a chance to catch a puff before bed.
Fire trucks, police cars and ambulances were scattered about as everyone tried to make sense of what was going on.
Sarah stayed close to the building after exiting the stairwell door, grateful that she made it out of that man’s private room without being seen.
I hope you know what you’re doing, Sis.
Near the back of the building, she followed a woman in her forties who was pushing a wheelchair out into the rear parking area. As soon as she got two blocks from here, she would hail a cab and get to a hotel. She had to think. She needed direction and Vivian was going to offer it or Sarah would leave Toronto. There would be no more murder, no more killing of sick, defenseless people no matter what they had done.
Vivian, what happened to the morgue? Sarah asked. I thought I’d be leaving through the morgue.
What looked like an unmarked cruiser drove by. She froze, hoping he didn’t see her. The car continued, its search light bouncing across the cars, reflecting off windshields.
She stepped out between two cars.
“Freeze,” a man said.
Sarah stopped, raised her hands about a foot away from her waist and turned around slowly.
Detective Timothy Simmons.
He leaned against the side of a van about fifteen feet away, a gun aimed at her.
“I asked myself,” Simmons said. “Was it pure luck or just good fortune when I saw you walking right toward me?”
“Probably luck.”
He pushed off the van and moved a few steps closer.
“Why would you say that?”
“I was going to go the other way to miss the traffic out front.”
“Are you armed?” Simmons asked.
Sarah shook her head, keeping her hands raised slightly at the waist.
“Oh, right, you left my gun at the murder scene in Orillia.”
Sarah frowned. “Interesting, since I’ve been in Toronto all day.” Would he buy the lie?
“You think a jury will believe that? I think not.”
“And you can place me in Orillia, can you?”
“Of course. You left witnesses. The hitchhiker.” He lowered the gun as someone walked by. “Just like you let witnesses watch you shoot my daughter.” The gun was back in place, aimed at her.
“Why did you lower the weapon?” Sarah asked. “You’re a police officer making an arrest in public. People understand the gun in your hand. They get it.”
He shrugged one shoulder, then stepped closer again.
“You lowered it so no one would remember you with a gun pointed at the girl they found dead right here. Am I right?”
He shrugged once more. “Something like that.”
“Is that what you think Vanessa would—”
“Don’t say her name!” he shouted.
In the light from the parking lot’s tall lamps Sarah saw his tears and knew he cried for his daughter and for the decision he had made that tore him apart inside. The decision whether to shoot her or not weighed on him.
“Don’t ever say her name again.”
Sarah swiveled her eyes from Tim’s face to the parking lot and back to Tim in search of the unmarked cruiser that had passed moments before.
Tim moved closer. He cocked the weapon.
Really, Vivian? Is this how it ends?
He was too close to duck down and try to run. She’d get hit. There weren’t many options. As far as she could tell, people were still filing out of the hospital, but no one was nearby. He could shoot her and disappear in the dark at the back of the parking lot and not a single person would see a thing.
Nervous sweat covered her back and her knees hadn’t felt wobbly from fear in a long time, but they shook now.
“Okay, Detective. You got me.” She brought her wrists together. “Cuff me. Take me in. I’ll explain everything.”
“I don’t think so. You’ll never see the inside of a
courtroom.” He moved to point-blank range. He couldn’t miss now unless the gun jammed. “I am going to kill you right here, Sarah Roberts. Then it will be over. This gun is unregistered. Serial number’s gone. It’ll never be traced to me.” She noticed his hands were gloved. “Speak to whoever you want to, Sarah, make your peace, ask for forgiveness, but I don’t think anyone or anything will forgive you.”
