He owed her an explanation – now.
He went into the bathroom to shore himself up. Leaning over the chipped sink beneath the flecked mirror, he took his reflection’s measure. He was nearly unrecognizable. Pink-rimmed eyes, pasty flesh, sweat-dark hair swirled this way and that. No wonder Kat was so terrified.
With horror he saw that blood had dried beneath the fingernails of his left hand. He dug at the black crescents with his other nails, shoving his fingers under the stream of boiling water, but the flakes were stubborn and would not budge. He stopped suddenly, steam rising from the sink, moistening his cheeks. The dried blood beneath his nails was the only part of Annabel he had left.
A memory swept through him, so vivid it seemed he could fall into it: the last time they made love, Annabel’s arms crossed at the wrists behind his neck.
I want you to look at me. All the way through.
He cried as silently as he could, banging a fist gently on the lip of the sink. Then he sucked in a breath and forced his face still. Staring down his reflection, he murmured, ‘Get it together. Talk to her.’
He splashed bracingly cold water over his face. He still didn’t like what he saw in the mirror, but it was as good as it was gonna get.
When he stepped out, Kat was sitting against the headboard with her knees pulled up to her chin. She was staring down at Mike’s phone, her face drawn and terrified.
Mike rushed over. ‘We can’t turn that phone on.’
‘I was calling Mom, and . . . and . . .’ She started crying.
He snatched the phone from her. The block letters of text message crossed the LED screen.
YOU’RE NEXT.
His stomach went to ice. He threw the cell phone on the floor, crushed it under heel.
She shoved herself farther away, as if to escape the phone’s toxicity. ‘What does that mean? I want to talk to Mommy.’
He crouched at the edge of the bed, took her hands. ‘You can’t talk to Mom right now, honey.’
‘Why not? Why not?’
‘She can’t . . . she can’t talk.’
‘That’s not an answer. Dad – that’s not an answer!’
‘Honey, listen. Mommy . . .’ He took a deep breath, let it out as evenly as he could. The last photo he had of his wife was in the phone he’d just smashed into the thin carpet. ‘Mommy is—’
The other cell, the sleek Batphone, rang. Mike snapped it up. ‘Shep?’
‘Yeah,’ Shep said. ‘It’s me.’ A rare hesitation.
‘What?’ Mike said. ‘What is it?’
Shep said, ‘She’s alive.’
Chapter 30
‘Don’t you dare,’ Mike said. ‘Don’t you fuck with me.’
‘I’m at the hospital,’ Shep said. ‘They have her at Los Robles Med Center.’
‘I saw her. I saw the body.’ He was fighting, now, through a different sort of denial. Hope felt too dangerous, a wobbly tightrope.
‘The body?’ Kat’s voice, flat with dread. ‘What happened to Mommy?’
Mike covered the phone. ‘She was . . . hurt.’
‘How bad?’
‘I don’t know.’ Back to the phone. ‘I need to see her.’
‘You can’t come here,’ Shep said. ‘Cops crawling all over the place.’
‘She needs me—’
‘She doesn’t need anything right now. Kat needs you – alive. Now, I managed to grab the doc alone in the hall. I’m gonna put you on with her.’
‘Wait, I—’
‘Mr Wingate?’ A cool, feminine voice. ‘This is Dr Cha. I’m a trauma surgeon. We have Annabel stabilized. That’s the good news.’
‘Stable? I was with her when she died. She had no pulse anywhere. She was blue.’
Kat was crying, Mike holding up a hand for her to wait, just wait. It was going down fast and wrong, exactly how he didn’t want to break the news.
Dr Cha was talking in his ear already. ‘The blade slipped between her sixth and seventh ribs, slicing her spleen and puncturing a lung, causing it to collapse. The collapse is called a tension pneumothorax – that’s what made her lose breathing and pulse. The hypoxia – low oxygen – is what caused her to look blue. The paramedics needled her on site, got that lung inflated. She had some blood in her chest from a nick in the artery. We rolled her to the OR and got her spleen out, but I didn’t move on the artery. I’m hoping it clots off on its own so we don’t have to crack her chest. She’s only lost a few hundred cc’s of blood over the past few hours, and it seems to be slowing down. We’re continuing to transfuse her, of course.’
Kat was on her knees on the bed, her face focused and alert. Mike circled the room like a caged animal, rubbing the back of his head, emotions sawing back and forth, cutting him to the quick. His wife, alive. But alone and injured. And him not there. He started for the door, his feet moving him before his brain slammed into drive. He halted.
‘The bad news?’ he said faintly.
‘She’s not coming fully back online. We’re looking for her to initiate her own breaths – she’s intubated – and show some pain response, wiggling toes or fingers, anything. Right now she’s not. It’s early yet, and we hope that it’s temporary, but only the next couple of days’ll tell.’
‘How . . . what does that mean?’
‘The longer it goes, the worse it’ll look. Now, as her husband, you’re her health-care proxy, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You might want to get down here.’
He fought with himself, excruciatingly aware of Kat, her pained face hammering home his responsibility to protect her. Annabel’s voice came at him again, a ghostly imprint: Promise me.
‘I can’t. I – There’s a threat. To me, my daughter. The people who hurt my wife—’
‘There are plenty of police officers here.’ The silence spoke volumes. ‘I see. That side of it is not my concern. I am Annabel’s advocate here. Not the cops’. And I need to make sure I can talk to you if we have to make a tough medical decision.’
‘Can I transfer—’
‘Health-care proxy responsibilities? No. Are you reachable?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You might want to figure that out in a hurry.’
‘Okay. I can be. Through Shep.’
‘Is he family?’
‘Sort of,’ Mike said.
‘Just so you know, if there’s a major decision, we need to see you in person, or we’re going to require something in writing, a fax, whatever. If not, the decision making passes to the backup proxy.’
Annabel’s father. Jesus.
‘I’m handing you back to your friend now.’
And she was gone.
Mike reached for the bed, lowered himself down, light-headed with relief and a new host of concerns.
Shep again. ‘The doc told me there’ll be security and on-call nurses with her through the night shift, so she’s safe through morning. No one’s gonna pull anything with this many bodies around.’
‘I need . . .’ Mike lost his train of thought, found it again. ‘I need you to call Hank Danville, my private eye. He’s former LAPD.’
Kat was rocking herself and moaning. He lowered his voice so she wouldn’t hear. ‘See if he can find out why dirty cops are gunning for us. What they want from me.’
Shep said, ‘Where are you?’
Mike gave him the hotel name and room number.
Shep said, ‘Contact no one. I’ll see you in three, four hours.’
Mike hung up. Kat was staring at him, her face ashen. He fought for focus. ‘Your mother’s injured. She’s at the hospital.’
‘Is she gonna be okay?’
‘We don’t know yet.’
She stiffened, recoiling from the words. ‘What happened to her?’
‘She was stabbed.’
‘Like in the movies?’ She stood abruptly, hugging her stomach, shifting from shoe to shoe so quickly it seemed she was stamping her feet. ‘I want to go see her.’
‘We can’t, honey. Daddy’s in some trouble. I’m not sure what’s safe right now.’
‘Why don’t we call the police?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know which cops we can trust.’
‘You mean they hurt Mommy?’
‘I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t have many answers. I know that must be really scary. But I’m going to figure this all out and keep you safe. We’re gonna be fine.’
‘And Mommy, too?’ He swallowed hard.
Her face seemed to collapse. He sat on the corner of the bed and rocked and shushed her until her jagged breathing settled.
He said, ‘We need to stick together. I won’t let anyone hurt you. But I need you to be strong as we figure out what to do. If you can be strong, we’ll get through this. Deal?’
She nodded against his chest, her face flushed in streaks. Her tiny hand poked up, and they shook. ‘Deal.’
Fifteen minutes later they were in Target, a dead-on-their-feet march through the aisles. Wonder Bread, peanut butter, baby monitor and batteries, a powder blue child-size sleeping bag. He wouldn’t let Kat out of his sight, not around a corner, not for an instant. She trudged beside the cart yawning, scratching her head, rubbing her eyes. The black vinyl bag, filled with cash, strained on his shoulder. It occurred to him that Kat had left her eyeglasses back in his truck, but there was nothing he could do about that now, and besides, she only really needed them to read. In a bin on the checkout lane, Beanie Babies stared out with doleful stuffed-animal eyes. Mike plucked a polar bear from the heap, wiggled it at Kat. ‘Snowball II: Bride of Snowball?’
She read the tag. ‘Its name is Aurora,’ she said flatly.
Its.
He bought it anyway.
The checkout lady said, ‘What a pretty girl you have.’
Mike’s thumb had moved to the cool gold of his wedding band. He had to concentrate to get his mouth to move. ‘Thank you.’
The woman looked at him, uneasy, and rang them up without another word.
Back at the Bates Motel, he loaded batteries into the baby monitor and tried the reception with the connecting door closed and Kat on the other side. ‘Testing one two three,’ she intoned. ‘Testing one two three.’ Some static, but it worked well enough. The parent unit had a belt clip, which he hooked onto his waistband. It maintained a decent connection to the edge of the parking lot and down to the front desk.
When he came back, Kat’s face was gray with exhaustion. On the little counter, he made her a peanut-butter – no jelly – sandwich, grateful to have something to do, some way to provide something for her. Meticulously, he spread the peanut butter and cut off the crust. His hands were shaking, and he thought of his father’s arms in the station wagon, his arms shaking as he held the wheel. For the first time, Mike felt a stab of empathy for his father’s situation: the blind panic of watching one’s life come unraveled. The feeling felt forbidden, threatening; he tamped it down with anger. After all, his father had captained his own fate.
Mike focused on the sandwich, centering it on the plate and slicing it on a neat diagonal. What did he think, that a lovingly made sandwich could mitigate the hell his daughter was going through? Yes, that was his hope.
He gave her a half, and she took a few nibbles before setting it aside.
He was crestfallen. ‘Can you eat any more?’
‘It’ll make me throw up.’ She pulled her legs in Indian style and scratched at her head.
‘Okay, sweetheart. Okay.’
She was really digging at her hair behind her ear and it hit him: head lice.
He sagged against the counter. For some reason this above all else seemed an insurmountable obstacle. It reminded him of those endless first nights they’d had Kat home from the hospital, the baby cries, the feedings and changing and burpings. He remembered the comprehensive exhaustion, himself and Annabel lying there in the dark, trying to rise to the wails, reaching back for more that they just didn’t have but that as parents they had to produce, because if they didn’t, no one else would.
Slurping at a leaky juice box, Kat was having trouble keeping her eyes open. He went over, turned her head, and parted the fine hair at her nape. ‘Honey, your head lice are back.’
She had fallen asleep against him.
‘Sweetheart, we gotta run back to Target. I have to buy mayonnaise and Saran Wrap and get this taken care of.’
‘Can’t I just stay here?’ she mumbled. ‘Can’t I just sleep? Please, Dad?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and her shoulders rocked with dry, soundless sobs.
An exhausting forty minutes later, she was curled in her new sleeping bag atop the starchy sheets, her head wrapped in mayo. Mike nestled the baby-monitor transmitter into the sleeping bag right beside her. And then he retrieved the polar-bear Beanie Baby from the Target bag.
‘This isn’t just an ordinary polar bear.’
Her eyes slid over, found him.
‘This polar bear has magical protective capabilities,’ he said.
‘A magical polar bear.’
‘That’s right. He will keep us safe.’
‘If we get attacked by animal crackers.’
‘We have to name him. Do you like Aurora?’
‘Hate it.’ She picked it up by the tiny scruff, studied its face. ‘Snowball II. Like you said.’
‘Snowball’s Revenge.’
Reluctantly, she tucked the Beanie Baby into her sleeping bag. She scratched at the plastic wrap on her head, doing her best not to look miserable. ‘Will you read me a story?’
They didn’t have any books, but he couldn’t bear handing her another disappointment. Desperate, Mike opened the nightstand drawer, and there, instead of Gideon’s Bible, someone had left a dog-eared copy of Green Eggs and Ham. It might as well have been water into wine. He ran his hand across the beloved orange-and-green cover, then held it up triumphantly.
Kat said, ‘Dad, I’m eight.’
‘Oh,’ Mike said. ‘Too old for it.’ He made a show of putting it back.
‘I mean, if you really want to read it.’
‘I do,’ he said.
‘Then okay.’ She yawned, half asleep.
‘I heard Dr Seuss wrote this after someone bet him that he couldn’t write an entire book using only one-syllable words.’
‘“Anywhere.”’
‘What?’
‘“I will not eat them anywhere.” Three syllables.’
‘Oh. I guess I heard wrong.’
‘Mom does the best voice for Sam-I-Am.’
He collected himself. Read the first page. And then Kat was out cold.
He brushed an eyelash off her cheek. For a time he sat watching her sleep, waiting for the lump in his throat to dissolve.
Finally he crept into the connecting room with his vinyl bag of cash, easing the door shut behind him. He adjusted the volume on the receiver clipped to his belt until he could make out the faint whistle of Kat’s breathing. Slanting the blinds a half inch, he pulled a chair around and sat for a good half hour with his feet up on a rickety radiator beneath the window.
At last the Mustang’s headlights swept the glass, scanning bars of light through the blinds and across Mike’s face. He rose and opened the door before Shep could knock. Shep wore an army-green rucksack over his shoulder.
Mike peered out at the night. ‘Were you followed?’
‘No.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know.’ Shep took in the room, his gaze moving from the dark seam beneath the bathroom door to the interior door to the baby-monitor receiver clipped to Mike’s belt. He nodded faintly, putting it together, then said, ‘Hank wants to see you face-to-face. He’s gotta make sure he doesn’t have a tail, but he should be here within a few hours.’
Shep dumped the contents of the rucksack onto the bedspread. Soap, a razor, a brush, women’s deodorant Mike assumed he’d bought for Kat though she was at least a few years away from needing any, and a stack of Safeway p
hone cards.
‘Prepaid cards go through a central calling center, so they can’t be tracked.’ Shep’s hand dipped beneath his shirt, then he held out a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver, like the one Mike had left behind at the house but with a black rubber handle. Mike stared at it a moment, then took it.
Shep stretched out on the bed, closed his eyes.
Mike moved the cash from the black vinyl bag into the rucksack. He returned to Room 9, pulled a chair to the bed, and sat before the small bump of his daughter beneath the covers. Her back rose and fell, each sleeping breath giving off the faintest whistle. He felt something inside him give way a little. He swallowed, a dry click in his throat.
His hand, he realized, had tightened around the grip of the Smith & Wesson.
Chapter 31
The morgue smelled unnaturally clean. William walked the hall, his shuffle step pronounced, shoes squeaking on tile. He couldn’t find an elevator, so he labored down a flight of stairs to the basement.
Two cops and a coroner awaited him, standing before a picture window covered from the inside with a blackout drape. The big cop produced a card with a flourish. ‘I’m Detective Markovic. This is my partner. And the coroner.’
Everyone nodded awkwardly.
‘I’m sorry for this,’ Markovic said. ‘There’s never anything useful to say.’
‘No,’ William said. ‘There isn’t.’
‘When’s the last time you saw your brother?’ the black cop asked.
‘Months.’
‘What was he doing down here?’
‘Hanley was a drifter.’
‘Fortunate you were in the area.’
‘I was in San Diego for business. I drove right up when you called.’
They’d found William’s cell-phone number in Hanley’s wallet. The brothers carried each other’s number in case of emergency since they were purposefully hard to locate; the house and land were still under their grandma’s maiden name, which she’d gleefully gone back to after the old man succumbed to liver cirrhosis. The call, dreaded as it had been, was not a surprise. William had known that something was off right away, of course, but with the cavalry en route to the crime scene and no call from Hanley, he and Dodge, waiting in the van a few blocks away, hadn’t had many options.
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