Sooner than I expected, I saw them wheeling Mikey past my window, back to his room. He looked so tiny, a little lump, under the sterilized linens. His face, still smudged with soot, was turned toward me, mouth open just enough to see a gap where a tooth was missing. Sound asleep, too, from the look of it, and I didn’t blame him.
Somebody stopped their progress, just beyond my room. “If he’s stable, we’re going to need help transferring the mother. She needs to go to Luther ASAP.”
I heard them getting Mikey re-settled, and then the action shifted to Karissa’s room. She must have needed more extensive assistance than St. Joe’s could offer. Feeling the guilt of having led the killer straight to her, I said a silent prayer, promising to look after her boy.
CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE
After dimming the lights and covering me with a warmed blanket—heaven—the nurse left. I hadn’t considered that they’d leave us alone. It would be easy, so easy, to fall asleep. A wave of exhaustion washed over me, making my arms and legs feel too heavy to move, my brain fuzzy. I yawned.
Then, I shook myself so hard I almost heard my brain rattle. Forcing myself to sit up, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed.
I watched.
It was just a flicker, a shadow flitting through the only bit of door to Mikey’s room that I could see. But after what seemed like an eternity spent trying not to doze off, I just couldn’t be sure. I pulled off all the attached medical paraphernalia and slid off the bed—a controlled fall, might be a better term, since my legs almost gave out—and ran to the door. I peeked out, not wanting a nurse to catch sight of me until I was sure I wasn’t imagining things. They’d pulled the curtains on Mikey’s windows. Astrid’s room was similarly cloaked. The nurses’ station was crawling with observant, efficient medical personnel, modern-day sentinels over their patients. Didn’t anybody take coffee breaks anymore? If I was wrong and they caught me sneaking around Mikey’s room, they’d decide I was the dangerous one. They were already wondering, I could tell.
An alarm set off behind me, its shrill beeping designed to alert the nurses that their patient had become untethered from her monitors. Shit-shit-shit.
Decision made.
I dropped to the floor and belly-crawled the fifteen feet to Mikey’s door. The tiles were freezing but very clean, I noted, then I slid around Mikey’s door.
Astrid stood poised over Mikey’s sleeping form, a pillow clutched in her gauzy-mitts. With a croaky roar, I scrambled to my feet and launched myself at her.
It wasn’t anything like those choreographed, action-movie scenes.
Astrid was far more skilled—and mentally prepared—for physical violence, but I was psycho-pissed and at the end of my rope. It helped, too, that she was used to having the element of surprise, sneaking up on her victims. She clearly wasn’t used to crazed avengers screaming like banshees and hurtling themselves across the room.
We careened into multi-million-dollar machines, tripped over a stool, and took out a storage cabinet on wheels, shooting it across the room and tipping it over with a horrendous crash. Mikey screamed hysterically, adding to the bedlam. Astrid grappled for my throat, using strategic self-defense techniques, trying to knock my feet out from under me. I bit and scratched and gouged and kicked and went for the eyes. If she’d had balls, I would have kicked those, too. We were both wheezing and grunting like asthmatic pigs.
The room filled with blue-smocked beings. Astrid and I fell, locked in each other’s arms, bringing a clatter of metal and plastic down on top of us. Hands grabbed, pulling me off, dragging me away. I got a couple of kicks in before they were successful. I fell against Mikey’s bed and he latched onto me with a howl, his little fingers wrapping so tightly around my neck, he almost finished off what Astrid started. I started coughing, my tears mixing with his. A nurse tried to separate us, but Mikey let loose such a wail, she gave up.
“She’s crazy! She’s trying to kill me.” Astrid got the first preemptive accusation in, a good move. “She attacked me at the barn, too. There were witnesses.”
“The barn fire, don’t you mean? You tried to kill us. You were trying to kill Mikey.”
Mikey buried his face in my shoulder, shuddering and sobbing, “Mama. Mama.” I patted his back.
“It’s going to be okay, Mikey,” I said. “It’s okay now.”
Only it wasn’t. We might have stayed in a stalemated she-said/she-said wrangle, but just then the cop plowed in the room, way late to this particular party and pissed as all hell. Probably embarrassed, too, ‘cause he was going to have to explain why his arsonist had been jumped by the crazy-lady-from-the-barn-fire in the innocent child’s hospital room. Didn’t look good for him at all.
Since he’d already witnessed my “aggression” earlier, he zeroed in on me. He even had his hand on his Tazer, the desire to zap me tangible in his eyes. But Mikey and I clung so tightly to each other our skin practically grafted together, and there was no way he could risk shooting me.
“Lady, step away from the child.”
“I can’t,” I said. “He’s scared.” I clutched him tighter. I was scared, too. Mikey kicked his wails up a notch to prove my point. Covering Mikey’s ears, I pointed a shaky finger at Astrid. “She was trying to kill us in that fire. She killed Joyce and Regina and a bunch of other women—abused women—and she tried to kill us. And just now she was trying to kill Mikey. She had a pillow and … She would have done it, too.”
Everyone turned to stare at Astrid.
She didn’t look like a killer. She’d sagged in the nurses’ grip, the gauze trailing from her hands like day-after party streamers, her face gaunt and haggard. She looked old and bewildered. Sad.
Then, her lips pulled back from her teeth in a feral snarl. “You stupid bitch.” Mikey twitched in my arms and burrowed his face deeper into my breast. “Who are you trying to save? Him?” Astrid pointed at Mikey. “Why even bother? That stupid cow is just going to drag him back to that abusive asshole. And you can’t tell me that she doesn’t know better. But she’ll still act oh, so surprised when he does it again. And again. How long do you think it will be until big, strong Daddy starts smacking the kids around, too? I suppose you think they can change, don’t you? That if he says he’s sorry, he really means it. You’re as stupid as the rest of them, running around, poking your nose into my business.”
Behind Astrid, the doctor signaled to one of the physician assistants in the hall. The PA disappeared.
“And that little brat is just as bad,” she strained and flailed against the hold the nurses had on her. “He’s just going to grow up into another asshole. That’s how they make them, you know. One after the other after the other. A little asshole assembly line. The mothers are just as guilty, too, because they don’t stop it. And they could. We show them how, so there’s no excuse for it, really. Maybe we can’t stop the men, but the women could learn, if they wanted to. I keep telling them and showing them. And they just don’t listen.”
The PA was back, edging around behind our group, until he reached the doctor and handed him something. Astrid kept spewing her verbal vomit, but the doctor moved in swiftly, a quick jab, which made Astrid squeal in surprise. She thrashed around some more, but only for a few seconds, then she sank, finally quiet. Blessedly quiet.
The medical team snapped back into their practiced, efficient groove, tackling the debris scattered across the room and hauling Astrid out. The cop trailed after. I stayed with Mikey, holding him and crooning while he sobbed. We curled up on the cot. I thought they might try to medicate him, but instead they rolled us into my room, hooking me up to my oxygen and covering us with warmed blankets. They left us alone, checking frequently, until he fell back to sleep. Then, they shifted me to another exam room, hooked me back up to my oxygen and shuttled me down to X-ray—everything back to business as usual.
CHAPTER SIXTY SIX
When someone mentions HBO, I no longer think of movies, but of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. HBO means lying in a
clear tube for over an hour, while pure oxygen is pumped in. I advise you to not drink liquids beforehand. It actually wasn’t that bad. Mostly I caught up on my sleep. The part I didn’t like was staying three days in hospital, before they let me go home and do the treatment as an outpatient.
I had visitors, of course. Paul had shown up at the ER, after all the excitement had passed. He’d gotten held up, giving a statement to the police, but once he got there, he stayed until after they transferred me to a regular room. And was back the next day. And the next. He drove me home.
At least it wasn’t my mom.
Marshall came, too. I think Hannah got a hold of him and let him know I was laid up. He showed up on the second day, toting a simple bouquet of daisies. I guess he remembered that I didn’t like roses anymore. I’d been taking a nap and when I woke up, Paul was on one side of the bed and Marshall on the other. They each held a hand.
Awkward.
“Do you mind if Letty and I talk,” Marshall asked Paul. “In private.”
Paul, bless his heart, checked with me first and when I nodded, he swallowed hard and excused himself. Before he got to the door, I stopped him.
“Paul? Would you mind getting me a chocolate shake?” He must have realized that chocolate trumps daisies. Made his day.
After some um’s and throat clearing, Marshall told me he was going to give California (and his marriage to Bobbi) a try. I had to sit through the whole we’ve-decided-to-work-on-our-marriage speech, but to give the man credit, he looked both embarrassed and proud of the cliche. A two-fer on the emotional Richter scale.
I couldn’t argue. Didn’t even want to, really. There’s nothing wrong with a man trying to get his marriage right, and if he was in California at least I wouldn’t have to watch him do it. I wished him luck. He kissed me on the forehead, holding his warm lips against my skin for about ten heartbeats longer than he should have.
Diana came to see me, too. And to apologize. I beat her to it. Blodgett gave us about ten minutes alone to cry it out, and then shuffled in to claim the chair at my bedside. He was using a cane. He looked old. He was pretty sure, although we never learned for certain, that Astrid had been the one to crack him over the head. He’d been to the shelter that afternoon to “look around,” using Regina’s accident as a door-opener. Astrid was the only one he’d talked to, but he couldn’t remember anything more than that and there really wasn’t any proof.
He held Diana’s hand as he told me he’d decided to retire. He was tired of waiting. Diana was, too.
It was on the third day, about a half-hour before I was due to be discharged, that Clotilde showed up. I could have done without that.
She looked like she could have, too, so I’m not sure what compelled her to come. Paul braved her presence, refusing to leave even when she glared at him. He flinched, but he stayed.
“What do you want, Lachlyn?” I was too tired and too beat up to be polite.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I almost didn’t come.”
I waited.
“If you’re wondering whether we knew Astrid was killing our women, then no. We didn’t. But I suspected something was wrong. I … ” She stopped, clearing her throat. She glanced at my water pitcher and I waved a hand at it, giving permission. She shook her head, but Paul poured her a glass anyway.
“Actually, it was Regina I noticed,” Lachlyn continued after taking a sip. “She was acting very strangely. Distant. I don’t know when it occurred to me, but I suddenly realized I was watching her watch Astrid.” She lifted her hands helplessly—a gesture that seemed alien to her. “When she fell—”
“She didn’t fall. She was pushed.” I wouldn’t allow euphemisms for Regina’s death.
Lachlyn gave a nod of acceptance. Another alien gesture. “She was pushed. So, I started watching Astrid. But I didn’t know what I was supposed to be watching for. And then you showed up.” She took a deep shuddery breath, looking away. “I thought maybe Regina had told you what she was afraid of. But then you seemed as much in the dark as me. It made us certain though, that there was something really bad going on.”
“Us?” I repeated.
Lachlyn flushed. “Me. Just me. Clotilde … I never spoke to her of my suspicions.” She made direct eye contact, no blinking.
Such a rotten liar.
“Regina hadn’t told me anything,” I said, moving her away from the subject of Clotilde. “The circumstances of her death felt strange, but I probably wouldn’t have thought any more of it, if you all hadn’t been so resistant to letting me do my job.”
She smirked. “Your job? That should have been my job. I’d known for years that I was supposed to take charge of Regina’s case load if anything should happen; and she, mine. Can you imagine how it felt to know that Regina didn’t trust me? She was my … Anyway, I knew there was something about the paperwork that had worried Regina and when she appointed you, then it meant she expected you to find it. Maybe she believed that I would have ignored it. Or hidden it.”
“Would you have?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. “Astrid … I know you’ll never understand this, but she was a good soldier in this war. It just … She saw too much. It got too hard. Something broke inside her, a long time ago.” Lachlyn raised a hand to her heart. “I know what that feels like, especially now. I guess Regina felt I wouldn’t be able to do … what needed to be done.”
“Maybe Regina chose me because she knew how difficult it would be for you. Maybe it didn’t have to do with trusting me or not trusting you. She could have just been looking out for you. You’ve been in this battle for a while, too. Maybe she just didn’t want you to suffer anymore than you already have. Maybe she wanted to make sure you didn’t break, either.”
Lachlyn looked startled. Her hand dropped to her lap, and a little iron returned to her posture.
“Maybe,” she said. And then she left.
They closed the shelter. Most of the women had been relocated to other facilities during the media uproar that erupted when everything came out. They just never re-opened. I heard from Beth that Clotilde is gearing up for a run at the state capitol. More power to her, I guess. At least, figuratively.
I never heard from Lachlyn again. And that was okay.
What wasn’t okay was not getting a chance to say good-bye to Mikey. Karissa and Mitch took off with their kids as soon as she was physically able to make the move. I could probably have tracked down Bernie or even gone back to the cousin’s farm, but it seems too stalker-ish. I just hoped they gotten him some help, wherever they went. If they were able to trust the system again. Which I doubted.
One good thing? At her last session, Bettina told me about running into “her man” and the missus while they were dining at Houligan’s Pub. I couldn’t tell her that I knew, so we had to play the story out with a pseudonym. She chose “that fat asshole.” Worked for me. She said she realized how stupid she’d been—her words—and that she was going back to try to make her marriage to Frank work. Seemed to be a lot of that lately. Unfortunately, she never gave me permission to report him. I had no choice but to let it go. His tires were mysteriously slashed, three days in a row. Coincidence?
That was a hell of a lot of good-byes, now that I looked back on it. But not everyone left. Paul didn’t. Sue didn’t. Ma wouldn’t, although I tried to convince her that the weather in Florida would suit her arthritis better. She reminded me that she doesn’t have arthritis.
I can dream.
Whittaker 02 The One We Love Page 26
