“How could you know how long he’d be?”
“Well, I needed some time with you to make sure you didn’t suspect me or, if you did, to—” Burt waved the syringe at me.
“Yeah, but you can’t just kill me,” I said. “That would be super obvious it was you.”
“I guess,” Burt said, lifting up my empty teacup to look inside. “Unless he drugged you.” It was almost like that gave me permission to suddenly feel a little woozy. He waved the syringe at me. “I put quite a bit in. I’m surprised you’re still upright at this point, to be honest. The tea here tastes so terrible I knew you wouldn’t notice. And really, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to kill you. I was hoping you’d be happy to let Alex take the fall. I’d be able to tell Mendall you’d fallen asleep while waiting for him to get back and I’d put you to bed. Then tomorrow you’d wake up none the wiser.”
I clung to the back of the chair. The room was swaying but I was still upright. I took several deep breaths. I was fairly sure I could run. But who would I shout for? Would Oz even be able to feel me here? First things first, how was I going to get past Burt to the door?
“So what’s the plan here, Burt?” I asked.
“Well, I’m going to explain to Mendall how you tried to escape and I had to sedate you but you tripped and hit your head as you fell.” Burt shrugged. “Accidents happen.”
“You will never get away with that.” I shook my head in disgust at his appalling excuse and the room sluggishly followed the movement, like it was just ever so slightly out of sync. I moved to the side of Mendall’s chair and felt something tap against my thigh as the jumpsuit brushed against the chair. What was in my pocket?
“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll tell the police that I heard a scuffle and I came in here and found you with your head bashed in. Blame it all on Mendall after all.”
“That’s nice,” I said and stepped forward to make a dart for the door. He grabbed me by my jumpsuit and pulled me back. I pulled my hand from my pocket, held my pepper spray up, poised in his face. I sprayed it. Liberally. He stumbled backward, covering his face, and I stumbled forward, following him and still spraying despite the stinging in my eyes. I dropped the pepper spray and grabbed the potted plant from the edge of the desk.
Burt took his hands away from his face, his eyes watering and red. Maybe the pepper spray had impaired his vision because he mustn’t have seen the plant pot in my hands. Or maybe he did. Either way he lunged at me with his syringe. I felt the prick as the needle jabbed into my upper arm just as I brought the plant pot down on his head.
My arms reverberated with the impact. Burt landed face first on the desk and then slid off onto the floor. It was almost cartoonish. I rolled him onto his back and sat there for a moment. I grabbed the syringe from my arm and yanked it out. He’d not managed to empty the lot into me but whatever he’d had in it must’ve been strong enough to have knocked out a horse. I’d only taken maybe a quarter of it and I was already woozy as a drunk at closing time. I looked down at him as the room started to swim. I had nothing to tie him up with. I briefly considered leaving him but what if he came after me again? Or I could wait for Mendall to get back and try and explain. I wasn’t a fan of either of those options.
I took a deep breath and tried to focus. “Okay, think, Bridget. Think. What would Sabrina do?” I nodded to myself. “That’s easy. Sabrina would have stunned him before he could get near her.” I shook my head. “Not helpful, Bridget. Focus.”
His shoes were similar to mine so there were no shoelaces. All I really had was his jumpsuit or my jumpsuit. I didn’t really fancy trying to get his jumpsuit off. And what if he woke up while I was struggling to do it? Or if he were naked underneath and Mendall came back in and found me stripping an unconscious nurse? That would be way more awkward than him trying to kill me. With a little stumbling around I managed to strip out of my jumpsuit and hog-tie him. It wasn’t pretty but it was secure.
“Now what?” I stood up and stumbled to the door. “I need to find a nurse. But what if a nurse doesn’t believe me?”
I peeked out. The coast was clear. I supported myself on the wall as I tried to find my way back to the metal matchbox. It was late. Maybe the guards would be tired. Maybe I could unbolt the doors and dart through and tunnel away before they caught me. Maybe the sight of me in my underwear would have them entranced enough for me to escape. I was totally getting Pam to make me a baseball bat sheath when I got home.
I heard raised voices around what I was pretty sure was the corridor to the metal matchbox. One was familiar. I peered around the corner.
The door to the tunnelling room was only open a crack but I could hear the conversation.
“You’re not allowed in without authorisation.” The guard sounded annoyed.
“I’ve already shown you my ID,” Oz said, his voice at a hundred percent growl. I was glad I wasn’t that guard.
“That’s not authorisation, it’s identification,” the guard said with a tone that implied they’d already been through this. “You need to get clearance.”
“Oz?” I called, as I stumbled around the corner and headed toward the voices.
The guard turned to stare at me. I liked to think it was because I looked amazing in my underwear and not because I was a nearly naked woman staggering along the corridor like a drunk in a mental institution.
“Bridget!” Something metal clanged. There was a grunt followed by the familiar sound of a body hitting the floor. And then there was Oz. Three of him. Running at me in slow motion. Flip-flops slapping in a pleasant rhythm that had me swaying along. And then a wall of linoleum rushed up and hit me in the face.
Chapter Nineteen
My first thought was that I was warm. Snugly warm. As though I were on a beach. Was I back in Aruba? Wait, I’d never been to Aruba. That had been a dream. Where had I dreamt that dream? At home. In Oz’s bed. Was I in Oz’s bed again?
“Oz?”
“I’m here, Bridget,” Oz whispered and the bed dipped on one side as he sat next to me. I could just make out his silhouette in the darkness. I frowned at him. He was a little fuzzy. And somehow managing to sit sideways. As though someone had turned the bed from horizontal to vertical.
“How are you sitting sideways?” I asked. My tongue felt thick and heavy in my mouth. As if it didn’t fit. Maybe I had someone else’s tongue. Why would I have someone else’s tongue in my mouth? Something was very wrong here. “Do I have your tongue in my mouth?”
Oz paused. “No …”
“Are you sure?” I asked, feeling in my mouth for my tongue and trying to grab the end of it while speaking. “It doesn’t feel like mine.”
“Stop it,” Oz said, taking my hand from my mouth. He carefully rolled me onto my back and then gently sat me upright. He moved away across the room. I watched him.
“Hey, you’re not horizontal anymore.” I gestured to his slightly less fuzzy outline. “How did that happen?”
“I wasn’t horizontal, you were,” Oz said and sat back on the edge of the bed, offering me a tumbler of water. When I tried for it and missed a second time he moved my hands away and pressed it to my lips. It was cool. And lovely. And made whoever’s tongue I had in my mouth shrink back to normal size. It seemed to fit quite neatly. Maybe it was mine, after all.
“Better?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” I said and he offered me a damp flannel. I’m not a fan of them, per se, as I personally don’t think they’re super hygienic, but I flopped the thing over my whole face. It was oddly refreshing. We sat in silence for a few moments as my cognitive functions returned.
“What happened?” I asked, finally taking the flannel from my face and folding it up, using the more manageable size to press to different sections of my face in turn. My face felt really warm, almost sunburnt, and the coolness was soothing.
“What do you remember?” he asked.
“Why do my eyes sting?” I asked, reaching to rub my eyes with my free hand. Oz caught it and pulled
it away.
“Don’t do that.”
“Why won’t you let me touch my face? And why does it sting?” I asked, trying to frown at him but stopping because my face burned. Oz’s eyes darted all over my face and a horrific thought occurred to me. “Did I have an accident? Am I hideous?”
“You’re still beautiful,” Oz said and I was fairly sure it was indulgence I heard in his voice rather than genuine flattery. “But you managed to get a face full of pepper spray so your eyes and your face are a little too tender for you to go poking at them right now, okay?”
“It’s my face, I’ll poke it if I want to,” I mumbled but honestly my eyes were stinging enough just being open so maybe I shouldn’t be prodding them.
“What do you remember, Bridget?”
“I remember finding the bodies in the maze, or body since Alex wasn’t actually dead, and then—” I had a flashback of Officer Leonard admitting me to Mendall. “That no good snake of a GB put me in Mendall Asylum! That’ll be the last time I offer him cake.”
“Anything else?” Oz pressed.
I tried to remember and then it all came rushing back in a huge deluge. I grabbed Oz’s arm and shook it. “It was Burt. I thought it was Mendall but it was Burt. Burt killed everyone. Even Lily. It wasn’t Katie. It was him. He’s tied up in Mendall’s office. You have to get someone to arrest him before he escapes.”
“Hey, hey,” Oz shushed as he loosened my grip on his arm but kept hold of my hand. “That no good snake of a GB arrested him. He seemed highly amused by your choice of restraints. I was not.”
“I was limited in my options.” I motioned for some water and Oz pressed the glass to my mouth again and I sipped. “Did they release Alex?”
“I don’t think Leonard ever actually suspected him. I think he used him like he used you. Again.” Oz sighed heavily and looked at his hand holding mine. He brushed his thumb across my knuckles. “We can’t carry on like this, Bridget. I know you mostly tried to keep your head down. I know that trouble comes looking for you. But you’re going to get yourself into something that you won’t be able to get out of. Leonard will get you into something you won’t be able to get out of.”
“Like something that would damage my hair? Or leave unsightly suntan lines?”
“Or a scar on your thigh. Or a scar on your face.”
“Whoa! My face is going to be scarred?” I wriggled in the bed trying to get up and get to a mirror. Oz placed a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me back down.
“No. But it’ll take a few days for the redness to ease.”
“A few days? How bad is it? You said I was still pretty.” I didn’t try and hide the accusation in my tone.
“Can you focus for a second?”
“I am focusing!” I snapped.
“Not on what’s important,” Oz said and I scowled at him.
“My face is important to me.”
Oz tugged on my hand to get my attention. “I’ve told you, you’re beautiful. A weird mottled red, but if you overlook that then …”
“You just wait until it’s my turn to cook tea.” I wanted to scowl but the skin around my eyes told me in very tender terms that expression was going to be out of bounds for a while.
“What are we going to do about you and your adjustment?” Oz asked, holding my gaze until I became uncomfortable and had to look away.
I gave a small shrug. “You know I can’t live like this. I can’t get up and go to a job where I move stuff and come home for eternity. I can’t. I have no purpose.”
Oz nodded as if he already knew this. “So what do you want to do?”
“I want to be useful. I want to do something that means something.”
“Your job does mean something. You have to give it time.”
“I move things. Maybe there is a grander purpose but I can’t see it. I need to be able to see it. I need to feel …” I left the sentence hanging because I couldn’t believe I was actually going to say it.
“What?”
“Useful. I want to be useful. I want to help people. Organise stuff. Be productive. I want an organiser. I want to need an organiser. One that I can colour code.”
Oz didn’t say anything. He looked down at me but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. A soft rustling came from the door and Oz glanced over his shoulder.
“I told them you’d need a good night’s sleep and they could see you in the morning,” Oz said and I assumed he was referring to my housemates. “I thought you might want some peace tonight.”
I gave another small shrug. “They can come in and say goodnight.”
Oz raised his eyebrows at me. “Are you sure?”
When I nodded he got up and opened the door. My housemates literally tumbled over each other on their way in, ending up in a tangle of limbs on the floor. Petal was the first up. She was crying before she even made it to the bed. She scrambled over the duvet, wrapped her hands around my waist and cried into my shoulder.
“You didn’t give her a mirror, did you?” Lucy asked Oz as she pointed to me. He shook his head and she nodded in approval. “Good, because nobody needs to see that. I don’t even want to see that.”
Pam elbowed Lucy in the ribs. “It’s really not that bad, Bridget.”
“Not that bad?” Lucy screeched. “Where are you looking? She looks like she’s wearing a Halloween mask.”
“Okay, ladies,” Oz said, “you’ve seen she’s okay. Now let her get some sleep.”
“Can’t we sleep in here?” Petal asked, blinking her watery eyes at Oz. Oz looked to me and waited. I nodded.
“I’ll bring you up some hot chocolate,” he said and I was pretty sure he was smiling to himself as he closed the door behind him.
Everyone waited until his footsteps retreated and then Lucy sat on the end of the bed while Pam came over and examined my face. She dug in her pocket and pulled out two thick wedges of cucumber. They were covered in clothing fibres from being in her pocket and one had a small bite out of the side. “For your eyes,” she said and offered them to me.
“Thanks, Pam. Put them on the nightstand for me and I’ll use them later.” I had no intention of using them ever but I saw no need to hurt her feelings when she’d done something nice for me.
“Okay, Bridget,” Lucy said, grabbing hold of my foot from on top of the covers. “Tell us everything!”
∞
“And that’s everything?” Officer Leonard asked the next morning as he stood in his usual position, his back pressed against the two-way mirror. Detective Johnson sat across the table from me and Oz was next to me. It was like every other time I’d been interviewed about a murder.
“That’s everything,” I said. Obviously, Oz and I had discussed exactly what was going to constitute “everything” before the interview. Or, more accurately, he’d told me and since my entire face burned from maintaining even a neutral expression I couldn’t argue.
Johnson snatched the brown file and signed witness statement from in front of me and stormed out of the room. He slammed the door behind him and it echoed in the silence of the room.
“Surely he’s not that upset just because once again there was a slew of murders and he didn’t get to pin any on me?” I looked between Officer Leonard and Oz. “Right?”
Officer Leonard shook his head. “No, that’s not why he’s upset, Ms Sway.”
“Then why?” I looked back and forth between them.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Ms Sway,” Officer Leonard said as he pushed away from the two-way mirror.
“I’d have been better if you hadn’t admitted me to a mental asylum,” I called after him, ignoring the burning in my cheeks as my face stretched to shout.
“The GBs are grateful for your assistance, Ms Sway,” Officer Leonard called over his shoulder as the door closed behind him.
“I think he means for my solving the murder for them,” I mumbled to Oz, whose expression told me he was unhappy about the reminder. “So what was Johnson unhappy abo
ut?” I asked before Oz could comment on my involvement with the GBs.
Oz pushed to his feet and I got up with him. He walked across the room and opened the door, gesturing for me to walk through. “You overturned his murder conviction of Katie.”
“Ohhhhh,” I said. “So, he’s out to get me now?”
“Won’t that make a nice change?” Oz asked.
“Aren’t we going home?” I asked as Oz guided me out of the interrogation room. Instead of turning in the usual direction of the tunnelling area, he had gestured to the right.
“Do you remember what you said last night?”
“My critiquing of your hot chocolate making?” I asked. He’d put the marshmallows on top of the drink instead of putting them in the bottom of the mug and pouring the hot chocolate over them. Who did that?
“In terms of your employment.”
I nodded slowly. I wasn’t sure where this conversation was going. “Divulging my desperation for an organiser, I remember.”
“About feeling useful,” he reminded me.
I slowed my pace as if that would somehow stall the conversation. I was pretty sure I didn’t like the direction we were heading in, literally or figuratively. He placed his hand on my lower back and urged me forward, forcing me to keep up with him as we walked along the side of the police department.
“To be clear, I absolutely do not want a career in law enforcement.”
Oz’s eyebrows drew together as he turned to look at me. “I don’t think they’d take you.”
“Why not?” I snapped, my voice hitching up an octave in offence. “I just solved an old murder case and cleared Katie’s name. I think I’d be an excellent policewoman.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be,” Oz said with a confused shake of his head.
“That doesn’t change the fact I would be excellent at it,” I informed him, squaring my shoulders. I’d have done the head toss motion as well but my face was stinging enough from talking – I didn’t want to pull the skin any tighter over it. “So, where are we going?”
A Little More Dead Page 27
