Walt flinched. He brought a fist up. “Don’t talk to my daughter like that.”
The smell of bourbon did fill the air, but now she could tell it did not come from him. But he was between her and Jack, stubbornly set, and the fear she’d felt for Sarah now suddenly transferred to her father.
McKenzie screamed. “Dad, no! Get away from him. Run!” She hefted the bat.
Jack took a confident step forward. His boots crunched on broken dishware. His muddy eyes glinted sharply. “She’s my wife, old man. Get out of the way.” He shoved her father against the kitchen counter. Walt hit with a grunt. He grabbed for a frying pan left on the stove stop. Jack caught his wrist in midair, twisting it back. His lips twisted scornfully. The pan went clattering to the floor. Her father breathed heavily, sweat across his upper lip.
“Get out of here! Don’t you touch us. Leave me alone!” She didn’t care who heard. In fact, she hoped the neighbors would hear, and call for help. For once Mrs. Ethelridge’s nosiness would be welcome. Her voice tore from her throat, like the roar of a lioness, but it did not move either man.
Light and dark streaked the room starkly. Jack took a stride forward. Her father moved instinctively to block it. She saw Jack reach out and shove her father aside. He hit the rim of the kitchen sink and held on, gasping. She tightened her grip on the baseball bat. “I’ll kill you, so help me!”
Jack laughed, answering softly, “You’re not going anywhere.” He grabbed for her.
Her father lunged between them. McKenzie cocked the bat. She hesitated knowing she couldn’t swing without hitting him. “Dad, get away.” She hesitated, seeing Cody, blood-laced and torn, then her father again clearly. “Dad, go call 911. Daddy, please. ”
Jack shoved again, hard, pushing the older man backward. Walton hit the threshold to the back steps. He rolled off the stucco, going to one knee. Jack watched in satisfaction, before turning for McKenzie. She saw her father hook a leg out. Jack stumbled. Irritation replaced the grim pleasure on his face. He wheeled around and grabbed her father up by his shirt collar. The two began to grapple, sliding off the porch and into the backyard.
Jack’s fists slapped into her father’s ribs. He grunted coarsely, and her father’s breath sounded like a steam whistle. She began to shake uncontrollably. Her throat ached. Arms locked, faces going red, the two men wrestled. Jack’s lips peeled back in a fierce grin of pleasure.
She screamed again, “Help! Somebody help us!”
Her father let out a sound of pain. He went to one knee, clutching his shoulder. Jack clasped his hands together and clubbed him on his back. Walt put a hand to his chest. He twisted around, gasping. Sweat poured down his purplish face.
“McKenzie ... get out of here ... now....”
He started to fold up, like a broken toy. Jack put out a booted foot, paused, then deliberately kicked him over. He left her father writhing on the ground. He shot a look at McKenzie, who stood frozen in the kitchen doorway, and took the porch steps in a single leap. She swung the bat and missed.
They stared eye to eye. Jack reached out and knotted his long fingers around the end of the bat. McKenzie tried to twist it free, and couldn’t. She hadn’t enough strength to wrestle it back from him, and she didn’t have enough nerve to drop it and run. She just stood, rooted to the ground, numb, as he pulled the bat toward him. Like a leash, it drew her with it.
“And just where did you think you were going, little bit? How far did you think you could get without me? What kind of lies have you been telling?” He began to twist the bat. Her wrists burned as she could not let go, and her arms contorted. “Did you forget to tell him you liked it rough? That I was the best thing that ever happened to you? What—did you think you could just spit in my face and walk OUT?” He wrenched the bat from her grip and threw her backward.
The concrete edge of the porch smashed against her spine as she landed. The hot streak of agony made her gasp. It stung her eyes, made her think. She could die here, broken just like Cody, if she didn’t move! She could hear her father gargling in pain ... what was happening to her father?
Jack leaned close, grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her face up to meet his. He bit her lips, teeth tearing sharply. Her flesh ripped as she pulled her head back in pain. McKenzie could feel the blood well up as she let out a strangled sob. She raised a foot and kicked, hard.
Jack staggered back.
McKenzie rolled over and clawed her way up the back porch. She pulled herself up, through the door and into the house. Behind her, she could hear both her father’s feeble cries and Jack’s pungent curses.
9-1-1. 9-1-1. Her nails, splintered and torn, ached unbearably. She could feel blood running down her chin. Her butt felt as though it had been kicked in. She skidded barefoot over the hardwood floors, trying to find the phone.
A chair crashed behind her. McKenzie didn’t look back. Either Jack had fallen over it, or he’d thrown it at her. She didn’t want to know. She burst through the swinging doors of the dining room into the small living room, looking frantically through the dark.
There it was! On the side table, near the TV. McKenzie launched herself at it. She grabbed it up, punched in 9-1-1, and without waiting for an answer, threw the phone to the side of the couch, receiver off. She heard Jack behind her.
They screamed at one another as he grabbed for her. She felt the slaps and blows, hair torn from her head, her face go hot with pain and hurt. She fished around for the phone with her left hand. He jumped on her hand, the rough soles of his shoes digging into her, bones crunching. She kicked and yelled back, fighting uselessly. They crashed to the floor and he straddled her. She couldn’t breathe as he took his hands and cradled her face. Then, grinning, he began to bash her head into the floor.
Faintly, she could hear herself crying, “Oh, God! Somebody help me!”
Pain ricocheted through her skull. It brought her twisting into exploding darkness.
She was aware of lights stabbing into her eyes. She winced away from them, found her arms tangled and then imprisoned. Voices floated around her, some near, some far, one strident and jarring. They made no sense to her. Words pounded into her, but McKenzie could not understand them. A lance of light seared into her pupils. She flinched from it. Someone cradled her head. Strong fingers imprinted her scalp, holding her steady. Over the turmoil, the dizzying wash of light and sound, she could hear clearly the buzz and static of a police radio—odd, how could she hear that so well? And, beyond that, someone was playing “Stairway to Heaven.” Or perhaps she merely imagined it. The riff went on and on. It must be the long version.
“Keep your eyes open.”
McKenzie heard that. Her lids fluttered as she looked up. Dark blue uniforms over, around her. A thick collar about her neck. A shunt pricked the tender skin inside her elbow. She felt the sting of alcohol, then the cool smoothness of the needle sliding into place. Quick hands layered tape over and around her arm. An IV, they were giving her an IV. Help. Help had come.
The realization sank into her. She could feel herself lying on the grass, the sharp-edged blades of the St. Augustine jabbing her. She felt raw. Someone held her head up slightly, leaning over her. She could see other figures dimly, working a few feet away from her. The red, white, and blue flash of lights illuminated, then shadowed, fire trucks and EMT vehicles, all crowding the street and curb. They dazzled her eyes, and she could not bear to stare at them.
The pinpoint beam of a flashlight stung her eyes again, and a voice said, “Okay, pupils normalizing, I think we’ve got her back again.” A pleasant, tense face leaned over her as she blinked in reaction to the beam.
Footsteps by her other flank. McKenzie shifted slightly. The hands imprisoning her head relaxed, let her look. A thick-bodied man squatted down beside her, all in blue, darker blue, notepad in hand. He smelled faintly of coffee. “Can you tell us what happened?”
Her throat cracked. “Jack” came out like a croak. McKenzie gave a hard swallow, tried again. “H
e was so mad at me.”
“Jack who? This him? And who are you?”
Her hearing buzzed loudly. Everything blurred suddenly, started to go swinging past. She put her free hand out and grabbed for the policeman’s trouser cuff as if it were a lifeline and could steady her. The sharply creased fabric filled her hand. “I came home ... my father. How’s my father?”
Material twisted in her fingers. The masculine voices around her paused. There was a rhythm to them, she realized suddenly.
A voice called out, “Five, four, three, two, one. And clear.” A sharp buzz followed it.
“Okay, that does it. Sinus rhythm. Get the ringers going, put the mask back in place.”
She had this sense she ought to understand what they were talking about, what they were saying, if she could just concentrate....
The policeman answered her then. “Looks like he’s going to be okay. Can you tell me what happened? Did he hit you? Was there a fight?”
Her face felt warm. She let go of the officer. She put her hand up, could feel something sticky trickling down it. Blood? Tears? She couldn’t tell. She stared at her hand, unable to see in the unsteady lights what coated it. A sob squeezed her throat tight. “I tried to stop him. My father ... His chest—is it his heart? He fell. Collapsed.”
McKenzie squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again quickly as the paramedic touched her forehead, saying, “Keep ’em open. We need you awake right now. Thatta girl.”
“What can you tell us?” The policeman persisted.
She swallowed tightly. She tried to remember Jack Trebolt. Everything wavered. Her hearing began to close off, and the vision in her eyes narrowed to a tiny tunnel, at the end of which the paramedic waited. She thought she got out, “He drives a truck.”
The paramedic leaning over her picked up her hand, steadying the IV, and remarked, “From the tread marks on her skin, he drove over her.”
There was a flurry of motion beyond the officer. Her tunnel of vision widened enough to show her that they were moving her father in concert, a many-legged, multi-armed blur, hoisting him onto a gurney and taking him away. She felt an odd distancing come over her, as if she weren’t even involved, just watching. The back doors of the ambulance closed, shutting her out, and then the vehicle left. Another remained at the curb. For who? she wondered.
Paramedics surrounded her, hands on her ankles, under her hips, back, and shoulders. “One, two, three!” She was lifted and moved. The scent of crushed grass and dew wafted up. Agony roared through her body as they settled her again and strapped her in place. The buzzing in her ears escalated, and waves of dizziness overwhelmed her.
Someone said, “We’re losing her again.”
“Where’s she going?”
“Mount Mercy. You can follow up there.”
“I’m through here, anyway.” Faintly, “I’m getting tired of seeing this shit.”
Her eyelids fluttered. McKenzie could feel the corners of her mouth turn up slightly. Someone else thought Jack was a son of a bitch. Maybe it wasn’t all just her. The gurney bumped over the grass, jostling her. Mrs. Ethelridge leaned over her. “We’ll close the house up, dear. Don’t you worry.”
The gurney thumped past an old woman with silver-gray hair, and many wrinkles, and a crumpled lavender wrap.
McKenzie barely recognized her.
“Poor dear ...” the woman said faintly. “She and her father used to have the worst rows. Wake the whole neighborhood. Just came back yesterday....”
Mac couldn’t stay awake any longer, no matter how they urged her. The ocean surged in her head, carrying away the words, sweeping her away with it.
He didn’t need the equipment for the hospital. He already knew it like the back of his hand. He tucked the gear inside his shirt, where it clung wetly to his rib cage, sticky from the sweat of his face. No one took any real note of him as he entered through the ambulance corridor, hood up, face down. His mind darted ahead, planning how to finish the job he’d begun earlier, how to take out his target, how to get away unnoticed, unnoticeable. She would be extremely displeased if he did not.
The emergency room was mainly filled with the sick, indigent families gathered around a flickering TV set, awaiting their turn, rocking babies who coughed and spit up phlegm intermittently. He strode through without stopping. The schizophrenic nature of an emergency ward was that a good many cases were not emergencies, except that no regular medical care had been or could be sought, and then there was the unit beyond the doors, beyond the EMT entrance where the real traumas were being treated. Some nights the wounded would fill these corridors. Other nights, like tonight, had been quiet up until his arrival. He had never seen a triage unit so galvanized. It suited his purpose in that it became much easier to blend in on the emergency wing, steal greens, and become a part of the scene. It did not suit his purpose in that the energy was mainly devoted to saving the man he intended to kill. He stayed in the corridors, found a clipboard, walked back and forth as though he had a destination.
A second man in cardiac arrest being brought in drew his keen attention, curtains separating one end of the triage from the other as teams worked to stabilize both men.
There were no similarities. One black and fragile elder. The other late middle-aged, stocky and white. Both meeting and finding a fate in the night. Trays and carts of supplies were rolled through hastily, nurses and residents lined up, monitors and leads beeped into frantic service. He watched as, almost simultaneously, the vast needles for cardiac injections were held up, tapped, extraneous fluid squirting into the air to clear air bubbles from the syringes, then doctors bent and injected into the chest cavities of the patients, the synchronization unnoticed by any but he. He observed, wondering if there was a way he could turn the havoc to his advantage. Seeing none, he decided to wait until the delicate moments when the stabilized patient would be left in triage, awaiting transport to ICU.
He cut across the first floor to the blood labs, found a plastic tray with empty vials, labels, and disposable syringes and lifted it. Blood work was always being done. It gave him an excuse for being anywhere, anytime. He might even find an excuse for the syringes. When he returned, the councilman was lying quietly, a single charge nurse monitoring him. The window of opportunity would shortly open.
He stepped across the hall, behind faintly yellow curtains, to wait. When he turned, he saw that there was an occupant there, her face battered, but still and silent. A clipboard was thrown across the foot of the bed. He picked it up. Head and chest x-rays had been ordered. Her monitor showed her heart rate stabilized, her IV had been taped to the inside of the rail. She would remain there, forgotten until the cardiac cases were resolved.
The curtains were troubled by his entrance, but the young woman did not awaken. He stood to one side, just out of her peripheral view should she come to suddenly, knowing he could be out of the area before she could focus on him. Watching her, he was drawn as much by the bloodstains and bruises on her face as by the kind of plain beauty they marred.
She slept as she would have normally, if her life had not abruptly met with such violence. In the late evening, closer to sunrise than sunset, her breathing matched that of the tides, slow, sure, ebbing. Morning would bring it surging back, along with her soul, and her awareness.
He loved women. They did not understand him, invariably. They turned away when he needed them most. But he loved them. He loved the curve of their eyes, the gentle creases and folds around their expressive orbs, the tangle of their hair, the shell-like cupping of their ears. He had never seen a woman with ugly ears. But it was their hair which he loved most, lustrous and thick.
He reached out and stroked her hair gently. His finger caught briefly in a silken strand. She had good color, young and rich and natural, unbleached ... he abhorred bleached hair. He plucked a strand of grass out of it, stroking, styling it gently away from her battered cheekbones, tucking it behind the delicate ear. Then he saw the violation, the rough patch where so
meone had sawed away a lock. Crudely and savagely, her skin was raw, hair torn or hacked from the roots.
He snatched his hand away as if burned by the mockery. He took souvenirs to remind him of the affairs he’d had, curling tresses to press into his hand whenever he wished to summon memories of the passion, the love, the blood.... He knew it was his signature, and did not care. It was the portion of his quarry which would never die, which would go into the grave as beautiful as it had been alive, never subject to the putrefaction of the flesh, strands which would perfume and tickle his fingers as long as he dared to hold them. Every woman’s mane was different, as individual as she was, scented with her body’s aroma and the soft perfumes of shampoos, each strand a road of memory as vibrant to him as a photograph or video.
And if stealing a lock of hair was his signature, then what was this forgery? Who dared to take what was his and his alone?
Death Watch Page 7
