“We all saw him standing up there, his vestments flapping. He looked like some clumsy stupid bird. I didn’t know he would die then. It worked out better than I ever dreamed. Do you have any idea what it sounds like when someone’s head hits the pave —”
Beth swung the heavy lens in a horizontal line through the air and smashed it against the bridge of his nose. Brad’s left hand came up, touched blood. He let out a brief whimper of pain — or was it surprise? Beth didn’t wait for another. She struck again, this time coming up low and hitting the point of his nose. There was a sickening crunch and blood spurted from his nostrils onto her chest, mingling with her own. A third swing, then a fourth. She lost count after that, only knowing she needed to knock him out and wouldn’t stop until she had.
When Brad slumped onto the cement floor, Beth was dragged down with him, the pressure from the pull on her handcuffs causing her to cry out. Lying naked on top of him filled her with a new revulsion. She half-expected him to open his eyes and grin at her. How badly had she hurt him? Carefully, she rolled off him, wondering how much time she had before he regained consciousness. She used her free hand to probe his pockets for the key to the handcuffs. His front pockets were empty. Frantic, she reached behind him, jammed her hand between his buttocks and the cold cement floor and wrestled the knife from his back pocket. She set the knife on the floor beside her, away from Brad. He wouldn’t realize she had it, and if he came to, she knew she would kill him, plunge the blade deep into whatever part of him she could aim at. But she wouldn’t use it unless she had to. Beth continued to probe his pockets for the key to the cuffs.
The damn key could be anywhere. She clawed at his starched shirt, buttons popping as she tore it open. Resting on the Spiderman’s nearly hairless chest was a Chi Rho medallion, exactly like Jordan’s. It seemed to mock her from where it lay. Filled with rage and frustration, she yanked the chain until it broke, then she flung the necklace across the room.
The labyrinth of storage containers, drawers, and cupboards that surrounded her were all potential hiding places for her key to freedom. Or it could be up in the house. Wherever it was didn’t matter. Beth’s body told her there wasn’t time to search. Her stomach heaved, and she rolled toward Brad and vomited, the bright red froth spattering Brad’s chest. She tasted salt and heaved again.
When her insides ceased their spasm, she squeezed the thumb of her left hand against her baby finger, hoping that, after little nourishment and some fluid loss, she could make her hand small enough to fit through the handcuff. The metal bracelet got as far as the padded muscle beneath her thumb and stayed there. A small bruise formed around the first knuckle bone. She relaxed her hand and remembered the knife.
With the tip of the knife’s blade, Beth poked carefully at the keyhole. One slip would be fatal. The handcuffs held fast. She saw nothing in the room strong enough to smash against the metal bonds. The photo cropper, X-Acto knife, and scissors were as useless to her as the ceramic knife.
There was only one thing she could do. She had to get out of this dungeon. There was no telephone here, and no one could help her if they couldn’t see her. Her only hope was outside and that meant dragging Brad with her.
He was shorter than Beth by almost four inches, but he was a solid mass of athletic muscle and Beth, in her weakened state, knew she couldn’t possibly get him to his feet. She clamped the knife between her teeth, used her free right hand to grasp at Brad’s belt and struggled to pull him. The stickiness of her own vomit felt cold against her bare skin. The pressure of Brad’s weight against the handcuff bracelet made Beth cry painfully between teeth clamped on the knife blade. A bruise was already forming on her wrist.
She hazarded a glance at his face, inches from hers. Her cry hadn’t awakened him, but when she tried to adjust her grip and raise herself to a standing position, her knees buckled and they both toppled to the floor. The ceramic knife flew from her mouth, then Brad’s body hit the cement, breaking the impact of Beth’s fall. She heard his head smack against the concrete. There was no danger of Brad regaining consciousness any time soon.
Beth caught her breath, kneeled on the floor, straddling Brad, carefully planted her feet where her knees had been, and rose to a jackknife position, her crotch over the Spiderman’s face. The handcuffed wrist couldn’t withstand further injury. The bruise was an angry purple now, so her free arm would have to do all the work. Reaching down, Beth picked up the knife and clenched it between her teeth once more, and began to drag Brad across the floor. When she reached the door to the darkroom, she stopped to rest, but only for a split second. Vision in her right eye was cloudy, and she knew the eye had hemorrhaged. She released her grip on the Spiderman and reached up to where her clothes hung from the metal stand. She tugged her blouse from its hanger and shoved it into the space between the handcuff and her wrist. The flimsy silk would be a small buffer for her bruised skin, but she had to hurry. It was a long way to the outside, and the trek might kill her, but she was determined not to die here in this horrible place. Gritting her teeth against the knife blade, she tugged at Brad with both hands and staggered to the next door.
The distance across the room, a room she’d traversed easily not so long ago, seemed to lengthen with each painful step. When she finally reached the door, she could barely see, and felt a tug of fear. What if the door was locked?
The knob turned easily in her hand. Of course Brad hadn’t expected her to escape, nor did he, in his deluded mind, ever think anyone would discover the truth about him and come to search his lair. The door opened, and Beth felt the rush of fresh air hit her body.
Through blurred vision, Beth could make out a glimmer of light, a pale grey rectangle overhead, and to reach it, she had six, no — seven steps to climb, with a load that grew heavier with each breath. Her whole being screamed out for rest. She could just curl up here, in the doorway to the Spiderman’s prison. She could die a peaceful death. In minutes, overcome by exhaustion, she would fall asleep, and her body would continue to hemorrhage. There would be no violent spasms, no pain. The Spiderman would be denied his grand finale. Brad would awaken to find her already dead, and paradoxically, she would triumph. There was some dignity to that. Others had not been as fortunate.
But the light overhead continued to beckon, and Beth adjusted the blouse around her injured wrist, bit down hard on the knife blade, and began to climb the stairs.
65
Kearns and Fuentes could have parked in Petersen’s driveway. They could have knocked on his door, introduced themselves, asked some routine questions. They could have listened to Petersen’s lies. They could have waited for the backup from Marin, which, because of an overturned truck blocking the road, had yet to arrive. Instead, Kearns made Fuentes steer the Taurus in the direction of the deserted beach, his cop’s sixth sense guiding him toward an ambush from the rear.
His intuitive nose had led him astray before, his antagonism toward Jordan Bailey way off the mark. If Kearns was wrong now and Sondra Devereaux got wind of it, she would bust a gut laughing, right before she crucified him. He patted his jacket, felt for his cell phone and his revolver, and got out of the car.
The predawn sky was the colour of mercury. By the time Fuentes stepped around the car to join Kearns, he was soaked. Both men moved across the sand toward the homes, an assortment of beachy architectural styles at the top of a steep grade.
“Which one is Petersen’s?” Fuentes shouted above the storm.
“Fourth one up the hill,” Kearns hollered back and pointed, remembering the description Bailey had given him. “Redwood deck and all the windows. Let’s go.”
Kearns broke into a run, with Fuentes keeping pace right behind. Beneath Petersen’s deck, there was a flicker of movement. Kearns wiped his eyes with a soggy sleeve. “What the hell was that?”
Fuentes squinted, the rain pelting against his face. “Where? I didn’t see anything.”
Kearns gestured frantically. “Near the deck! Something moved up t
here! Come on!”
Fuentes pulled his gun, but Kearns, recognizing the pale yellow jacket, grabbed his arm. “Wait! It’s Bailey!”
The two men raced across the wet sand and scrambled up the hillside. The rain had turned the slope into freshly poured concrete. Their shoes formed dents in the sand as they dug their toes in for a firm hold. When they finally reached the top, neither was prepared for the gruesome sight awaiting them.
Beth lay sprawled face down on the ground, the last of her strength expended on raising her head in hopes of making herself more visible to someone, anyone. The sight of her nude body shackled to a fully clothed Brad Petersen filled Kearns with unbelievable loathing. He grabbed his phone from his pocket and called for a chopper as he watched Jordan Bailey wrap his windbreaker around Beth.
It seemed eons until the helicopter arrived. In the distance, Kearns heard the mournful wail of sirens, then the muffled stampede of the backup units swarming the place, the sound of his own bargain with God drowning out the surrounding din.
Let her be all right, and I’ll do whatever you ask.
Bailey covered Beth’s body with his own, shielding her from the driving wind and rain. Beth was aware of nothing. She was unconscious.
Kearns was cold to the bone, his earlier numbness now surpassed by a full body shudder. Despite the fleece-lined tracksuit one of the rookies had found him, and the strong hot coffee he’d forced himself to drink, Kearns was certain he would never be warm again. He spotted Jordan Bailey at the end of the hospital corridor not looking much better. Four empty Styrofoam cups sat on the table next to him.
“Had to report to the captain,” Kearns said. “I got back here as soon as I could. How’s she doing?”
Jordan rose to his feet. Kearns saw the effort it took, put a hand on the pilot’s shoulder and guided him back onto the seat. Kearns dragged another chair from its perfectly aligned row and sat across from him.
“Still critical,” Jordan told him. “They’re giving her fresh frozen plasma. The doctors are trying to bring her prothrombin level back to normal, but even if they do, it’ll be at least two weeks before we’ll know if she’s over the worst of it.”
“Son of a bitch.” Kearns didn’t know what the hell a prothrombin level was, but it didn’t take a Ph.D. to know that Beth was in bad shape. When they had come upon her naked and cuffed to her captor, Beth’s skin had been a perverse patchwork of hues. There were bruises the colour of African violets, blood-red eyes, muddy rust-coloured blotches across her chest, upper lip and chin, and a horrible yellow cast to the parts of her not covered in sand, gravel, and grass.
Kearns had nearly lost his mind in the rescue helicopter, could barely restrain himself in his seat. He felt only a microbe of relief when the sight of the large “H” of the hospital helipad appeared just beyond the windshield.
Only once during the ride did Beth open her eyes, and above the thwacking of the copter’s rotor, she uttered one word.
“Who’s Kay?” Kearns now asked, remembering.
“Not who,” Jordan answered. “What. Vitamin K. It’s the primary agent used to clot blood.”
Kearns nodded. “I’ll never forget those red eyes. Her wrist looked pretty bad, too.”
“Imagine her dragging that sicko, the condition she was in.”
“She needed to get outside. She had no way of knowing we were coming for her.”
“Doctor said the handcuffs had a lot of scratches on them,” Jordan told Kearns. “Looks like she tried to break free. Where was the damn key?”
“In the bastard’s shoe.”
Jordan buried his face in his hands. “Shit.”
Kearns clamped a supportive hand on Bailey’s shoulder. “You gonna tell her Petersen was already dead?”
The Spiderman, Kearns had told the ravenous press, had died when the cartilage from his nose was rammed upward into his brain. The city had its hero. Now all she had to do was pull through.
66
Jim Kearns gave his pants a generous tug. In the six weeks since Brad Petersen’s death, Kearns had shrunk a belt size. He was battling chronic fatigue, his sense of desolation nearly equal to those bleak months following his divorce. The adrenaline bursts and the mental challenge of the Spiderman investigation were replaced by a kind of post-crime depression. A return to the same-old-same-old. Kearns imagined Brad Petersen/ William Prescott bottoming out like this on a month-by-month basis.
When he neared Beth’s home, he noticed changes there, too. There was no Christmas wreath on the door, no coloured lights strung on potted conifers. After being ushered inside, Kearns was struck by the same sense of abandonment. Unread mail littered the top of the desk. Miscellaneous shoes piled up near the door. Purses hung from doorknobs. Still, the air bore the aroma of a simmering coq au vin, a dish Beth had promised to cook for him and one he’d looked forward to all day.
She greeted him with a smile, and he wrapped her in a bear hug, summoning every effort to keep his mood light. Kearns presented her with a bag of shortbread cookies from his neighbourhood bakery. “Pardon the look of the place,” she said. “I just got home.”
“Really?” Kearns inhaled deeply. “Then who’s —”
Jordan Bailey emerged from the kitchen with a tray bearing three mugs of spiced eggnog. “Hi, Jim. Hope you don’t mind me playing chef this evening.”
“Not if it tastes as good as it smells.”
They sat in the living room, Jordan and Beth close together on the loveseat, and Kearns on a chair opposite. Samson wrapped himself possessively around Beth’s ankle.
“It’s Monday,” Kearns said. “Don’t tell me you went in to work?”
Beth shook her head. “I’ve started volunteering. At Sanctuary.”
Sanctuary was a safe haven for battered women. The Victorian house, with its rusty iron fence and peeling paint buried itself among others like itself in Haight-Ashbury, the shelter’s system of passwords, padlocks, and alarms a grim reminder that there were potential killers everywhere.
“I think it will be good for me, Jim,” Beth said. “My adversary is dead. So many others still exist.”
Kearns gave her a smile of encouragement, and the three quietly toasted the season.
“You’ll never guess who volunteers at the shelter with me.”
He shrugged and took a long swallow of eggnog. “I give up. Who?”
“Sondra Devereaux.”
“Well I’ll be damned. Every time I try to hate her, something like this happens.” He set his mug on the table.
They spoke about Ginny Rizzuto, who had sent flowers and phoned daily. Beth had finally agreed to have lunch with her on Friday. “I suppose I’ll have to forgive her,” Beth acknowledged. “But she’s got some changing to do, that’s for sure. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go check on dinner.” Beth rose, gave Samson a gentle nudge, and both cat and owner headed toward the kitchen.
Once she had gone, Kearns quietly asked, “Is she all right?”
Jordan nodded. “Most days are pretty good, but she’s had a few rough nights.” He spoke of Beth’s troubled sleep, when unbidden images would loom up to haunt her, images of a handsome man hovering over her, his deep blue eyes impaling her with their gaze until the eyes became four, then six, then eight. Then he wasn’t a man anymore, but a slavering, grotesque spider. The horrid sensation of mandibles twitching near her face invariably awakened her screaming. “On those nights,” Jordan said, “we pop a comedy into the VCR and stay up until dawn.”
Kearns knew all about bad dreams and those dreadful hours before sunrise that should be tranquil but often were not. “The dreams will go away in time,” he said, avoiding Bailey’s gaze.
“You sound skeptical. She’s doing just fine, Jim. Really.”
“Of course she is. She’s got you.” He paused, felt his cheeks warm, then said, “I never did thank you. I should have.”
“What for?”
“If you hadn’t come back to the station and identified Brad in that pic
ture, Beth might not be with us. She’s pretty special.”
“I know,” Jordan said. “I’m glad you two are friends. And you know I had to go out to Brad’s house. I was the fool who introduced her to him in the first place.”
Kearns hung his head. Seated across from him was a man he’d originally thought to be too pretty to be anything but a lightweight; now he knew Bailey had real guts. He reached into his trouser pocket, took out a small velvet box and flipped open the lid. “You think Beth is strong enough to deal with this?”
Beth re-entered the room carrying a large bowl of salad. Samson followed close at her heels. She looked at Kearns’s hand, then set the bowl on the dining room table and stepped toward him. “What’s that?”
Inside the box was a pair of diamond stud earrings.
“Oh, no,” she gasped. “Not the ones Anne bought.”
Kearns cut her off. “You sure as hell paid for them.”
“What do I do with them? I can’t w —” Her voice caught.
Kearns snapped the lid shut and handed the box to Jordan. “Shove ’em in a drawer someplace. Maybe someday you’ll be able to see them as just a nice pair of earrings.”
Jordan rose to his feet and planted a tender kiss on Beth’s forehead. “You don’t have to decide anything right now, Beth. Why don’t we eat? Jim could use a few pounds.”
Over dinner, the conversation was superficial. They traded commentary about what had made the evening papers—the newest shock-rock group, the crime rate as Christmas approached, a recent political scandal.
It wasn’t until Kearns was preparing to leave that Beth mentioned the earrings again. “I’m going to sell them,” she announced calmly. “The women at Sanctuary can use the money. I think Anne would be pleased, don’t you?”
About The Author
Every Wickedness Page 28
