Run Rabbit Run Boxset

by Jette Harris

  “I tried to organize the report in the order which the injury occurred, but that was understandably difficult. Miss Stokes didn’t have any way to determine the passage of time, and the events understandably… jumbled in her mind…” He opened a drawer and pulled out a small glass jar. “I think we got it sorted for the most part.”

  He placed the jar on the desk before them and stood with his hands on his hips. Remington finally took a breath, as if he had been the one running around. Steyer took the jar and shook it. Metal rattled against the glass.

  “What’s this?”

  Remington leaned close and squinted. It appeared to contain two small screws and a curved metal plate.

  “That… uh… that’s what was used to set her clavicle.”

  “Then… what’s it doing here?” Remington asked.

  “Hm?” Dr. Scarrott raised his brow.

  “Did something go wrong with the surgery?”

  The doctor’s expression fell. He licked his lips and shook his head.

  “I believe,” Steyer said, “the doctor means the collarbone was set before Heather arrived at the hospital.”

  “Oh.” Remington’s brow went up. “So… What? He broke her collarbone and took her to the hospital?”

  Dr. Scarrott shook his head. “The metal isn’t surgical grade.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “These components stood up well, but they’re not surgical grade. There’s no serial number, and there’s already signs of corrosion—”

  “He set her broken bone? Avery Rhodes, the Phoenix?”

  “Miss Stokes was unconscious for hours before and after the bone was set. She said Rhodes had told her something about a ‘back alley sawbones.’”

  Steyer snorted.

  “There is a prominent underground medical practice in Atlanta: veterinarians, med students, ex-doctors who extract bullets and suture stab wounds. But their work…” He grabbed some photos and handed them to Remington. “… usually leaves something to be desired.”

  Remington shuffled the photos, then passed them to Steyer. They focused on Heather’s left shoulder. The first showed a uniform line of tiny black stitches, and the other photos followed the doctor’s progress as he opened the existing wound to reveal the hardware. Remington scratched his face.

  “I’m not a doctor, but… I don’t see anything wrong.”

  “There is nothing wrong with it. Except for the sub-optimal hardware, this is cosmetic-level work.”

  “Cosmetic? You mean like plastic surgery?”

  “Yes. Whoever set this clavicle is a practicing surgeon, and very good at what he or she does.”

  Steyer set the photos on the desk. “Is there anything else to support that claim?”

  “Yyyesss…” Dr. Scarrott pulled out two more photos and handed them to the agents.

  “About May twentieth, Miss Stokes attempted suicide by ripping her wrists open on a… um… a broken sill sweep.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s apparently a metal strip along the bottom of a door to prevent pests… and… weather…”

  Remington frowned at the photo. The skin was ragged and mutilated. The photo Steyer held showed some of the skin pulled back to expose a series of stitches.

  “Anyone who can sew can give stitches,” Dr. Scarrott said. “But these are sub-dermal, arterial stitches. And, unlike the improvised bone-setting hardware, the thread is professional-grade.”

  “Is it difficult to come by?” Remington asked.

  The doctor shrugged and shook his head. “Any medical supply store could provide them. And they can be purchased online, of course.”

  Remington ran a hand over his face. “A surgeon…”

  Steyer shrugged. “Could be worse.”

  “How?”

  “He could be a lawyer.”

  *

  The fog over Rhodes’s brain had lifted for the most part, but before the painkillers wore off completely, he forced himself to get out of bed and pace the length of the motel room. The movement would hinder proper healing and he would regret it in the long-run, but he had to focus on the here and now.

  He was only able to cross from the door and back once before the radiating pain made him clench his teeth. He promised himself a Percocet if he could get to the point where he could hide the limp. He promised himself all sorts of things: ice, a knee brace, a real vacation, a fuck—anything, as long as he kept walking. All of his bribes were forgotten when the phone rang. He turned toward the unexpected sound and cried out in pain.

  (When I get my hands on that bitch…)

  He forced the thought away as he hopped to the bedside table. He was surprised to find his Blackberry ringing, not the burner phone he had picked up at Wal-Mart. The screen flashed:

  Nicholas deAsshat III

  Rhodes groaned.

  “Hey.” He put the phone on speaker and sat on the edge of the bed. Abandoning the deal he made with himself, he cracked open a bottle of water and popped two Percocet.

  “Hey! When are you coming back to work?”

  Rhodes checked the date. “Fuuuuuuuck…” He should have been on a flight back to Spain yesterday, and heading home tomorrow. He ran a hand over his mouth.

  “What?”

  “I should have called you.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “I… My passport was stolen.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Rhodes knew his cousin too well to take his skepticism seriously. “The embassy says it could take up to six weeks to get me a replacement. Two at the very least.”

  “Todd, don’t do this to me.”

  Rhodes blinked. It had been so long since he had heard his own name. The sound of it was grating. “I did nothing; Five soccer hooligans did it. You’re welcome to take it up with them.” He lifted his throbbing leg to extend and contract slowly.

  “Five soccer hooligans,” Nick repeated under his breath. “Are you OK?”

  “I’m a little busted-up; I over-extended my knee.”

  “Fuck.”

  “I know.”

  “Have you told RosaLynn you’re gonna be late?”

  “Fuck.”

  “I know.”

  “I just spent the last two days stoned off my ass, and I will be returning to that state shortly…” Rhodes had been actively avoiding thinking about how to explain his delay returning to work.

  “I’m not telling her.”

  “Please, bro.”

  “No. She would give me that death glare.”

  The screen of Rhodes’s burner phone lit up, blinking: Jamal Byron. Jamal Byron. Jamal Byron. Rhodes took a deep breath. “I’m imagining it now.”

  “No.”

  “I will remodel your ugly fucking kitchen.”

  He heard Nick take a deep breath and hold it. “I really hate this interim surgeon, Todd. He doesn’t know his ass from his elbows, and he doesn’t know how to talk to kids.”

  “One week of your clinic rotations for every day I’m not back. If he’s shit with kids, give him a pep talk and force him to sit in post-op at bedtime.”

  “He avoids the children’s ward.”

  “Then have RosaLynn glare at him. I gotta go; I have another call coming in. Please tell Dr. Valdez I’ll make it up to you and her, I promise.”

  “I hate you.”

  “You love me. ’Bye now.” Rhodes hung up the Blackberry and flipped open the burner phone to call Byron back.

  “D,” Byron hissed, “where the fuck have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for four days!”

  “I… I had to run out of town.” Rhodes rubbed the back of his neck. “But I just got back and heard the news.”

  Byron sighed as if just hearing it himself.

  “Congratulations, I guess.” Rhodes picked up the bottle of Percocet and toyed with the idea of taking an extra one. “What… what kind of shape is she in? Is… is she OK?”

  “I don’t really know. Agent Steyer won’t let me talk to her, but we we
re there when she… you know, we were the ones who picked her up.”

  “No shit…” Rhodes’s face burned as rage swelled in his chest.

  “No shit. And she was… I mean… I barely even recognized her. She looked like… you know how people look in concentration camps?”

  Rhodes blinked. (It couldn’t have been that bad.) He gave a non-committal grunt.

  “I overheard the nurse say she weighs, like, eighty-nine pounds.”

  Rhodes’s throat tightened. “When…” He swallowed and forced his voice even. “When will she be able to go home?”

  “Should be tomorrow morning.”

  “How’s the security coverage?”

  “Crawling.”

  Rhodes exhaled slowly through his nose. “I might swing by in the morning.”

  3

  02 June 2006

  Friday

  The lights were glaring on the painted cinderblocks of the low, narrow hallway. Thatch was disoriented. A few people walked around him: a woman holding the hand of a small child, an elderly couple, others with the same visiting hours. He had seen them all before on a few other occasions, but didn’t know anything about them. Shame filled his chest for not coming more often, not coming sooner.

  Thatch followed the others into a large, circular room. Glass partitions separated the room from a walkway. Thatch sat at one of the windows and leaned forward until the top of a stairwell came into view. He bit his lip anxiously and ran a hand over his back pocket, feeling the envelope tucked there.

  A sense of dread rose in his throat, momentarily cognizant he was dreaming.

  A man ascended the stairs, another familiar face with no other context. The child cheered at the sight of him. He sat before them and lifted the receiver of a phone. The woman already held her receiver to her ear.

  A younger man hopped up the stairs two at a time. He was about the same age as Thatch, twenty-one. He started toward Thatch before noticing the elderly couple in the opposite direction.

  Thatch waited, slowly sinking back into his seat. At the first sign of movement, he shot back up. The sight of Wren Chares made his heart swell. He smiled, but it disappeared. Wren moved slowly, as if moving pained him. His black hair had grown to his shoulders and looked uncharacteristically greasy. His face—normally a healthy olive—was garishly pale. His eyes were red and sunken, his lips pale and cracked. He paused to greet a guard, gesturing toward Thatch with an exhausted smile. Thatch couldn’t hear him, but he recognized his mouth forming the words, “My son, back from the Army.”

  Thatch sank back onto his chair as Wren sat before him. They each took their receivers.

  He’s sick. Oh, God, he’s so sick…

  (You have no idea.)

  “Todd! It’s great to see you. You look good. Healthy. I’ve missed you.” His voice was low and raspy. He didn’t conceal his Greek accent as he normally did.

  “I’ve missed you too. I… I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

  Chares pursed his lips. “Last time was difficult. I understand.”

  Thatch’s throat was tight. He shook his head. “What’s wrong? You look… awful.”

  Wren coughed a laugh. “I’ve been to the clinic. The doctor says it’s just a bad case of the flu.”

  Thatch’s tension grew. “A bad case of the flu is called ‘pneumonia’.”

  Wren shrugged. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Over thirty-one thousand people died of the flu in 1980.”

  “I’ll be fine.” He punctuated it with a cough. “I look much worse than I feel.”

  Thatch studied him, shaking his head.

  “Stop, Todd. I hate it when you look like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the sky is about to fall on you. Come, you said you had some news. Hopefully good news this time, something to make up for you… getting shot.” He pressed a hand to his chest with a tired smile. It looked like a skull smiling. His perfect teeth had started going bad. He looked like he had been there for decades, not just three years.

  Thatch pulled the envelope from his pocket and slowly, dramatically extracted and unfolded the letter. He pressed it against the glass. Wren leaned close to read it, his face slowly lighting up. He covered his mouth, eyes shining.

  “How did this happen? The Army?”

  “Oh, no,” Thatch chuckled. “The Army’s done with me. It was… um… I…” He cleared his throat. “Aunt Claire asked me to enroll with Nick to keep an eye on him.”

  “Ah… I thought Nick went to Harvard?”

  “He got kicked out. Something about the dean’s daughter.”

  “And now you’re both going to UC…” Wren had a wild, feverish look in his eye.

  “And both pre-med.”

  He shook his head in wonder. “Does your mother know?”

  Thatch closed his eyes, heart lurching with a painful throb. He can’t be that far gone…

  “I’m sorry.” Wren shook his head. He gestured his face. “This… is making my brain fuzzy. Your mother would be proud of you. I’m very proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” Thatch’s throat was tight again.

  “When do you start?”

  “Next month. End of August.”

  Wren’s face lit up. “I get out in September.”

  Thatch’s heart lurched again. “I haven’t forgotten. September third, 1983. I’ve been looking for apartments near campus—”

  Wren chuckled, but was interrupted by wet, violent coughing fit. “I doubt very much Claire and Nicholas—”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what Uncle Nicholas thinks.” Thatch’s voice came out harsher than he had intended. “I can get a job and you can go back to being a mechanic. It’ll be like nothing changed, just… college instead of high school. We’ll have to deal with Nick, but he’s a big baby, so it won’t be all that different from—”

  Wren held up a hand to his excitement. “We will see.”

  “You… you just gotta get better, Dad.”

  Wren chuckled and managed not to cough. “I’m a doctor, Todd. I know how to handle the flu.”

  “If it’s just the flu.”

  “And I know how to handle pneumonia.”

  “If it’s pneumonia.”

  Wren sighed and pointed to him. “You’ll come to pick me up, right? September third? If you don’t have class, that is.”

  “I haveta take a bus and walk the rest of the way, but I’ll be here, I promise.”

  “I’ll see you then—”

  (Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.)

  “—I promise.”

  ****

  Rhodes opened his eyes. His hands were shaking, and this time it had nothing to do with pain or pills. They shook just like the hands of a twenty-one-year-old—barely more than a kid with too much knowledge of the world—who had gone to pick up his father only to find he had died two weeks prior. On his way back to the apartment he shared with his cousin, he bought every bottle of bad Scotch at the local liquor store, and spent the week in oblivion.

  He wanted to spend this week in oblivion as well. He stared long and hard at the medication bottles on the bedside table. But he had had nothing to do back then. Now, he needed to get Heather—

  (Or kill her.)

  —and get her back home. His original plan had been to fly back to Spain, and putz around in Barcelona for a day or two, taking a few touristy pictures to prove he had been there. That wasn’t an option now. Time was running out.

  “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…” echoed through his brain. He didn’t know the rest of the monologue, so that one line replayed like a pop song. When he slowly rose from the bed. When he forced himself to drink a protein shake. When he hobbled to the shower. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…

  (Today and today and today.)

  Rhodes stood in front of the motel room door, staring at the handle. He shifted his weight on and off his bad leg. His mind was unclouded for the first time since the fall, and he was abou
t to run out the door without a plan. Thoughts swirled. Usually he had time to plan, years, even. Now he had an hour.

  “Chief Collins is planning on holding a press conference.” Byron had lowered his voice to tell him. “So while everyone’s distracted, we’re going to take Heather home.”

  “That’s a great idea.” Rhodes tugged at the hair on the back of his head. He had to go. He had to see her, to know she was OK (Well, physically…). Then he had to get her, and get her home. His home.

  That would require time and patience, both of which were growing thin. His lie to Nick would only buy him two weeks at most. Otherwise, he risked losing the one thing that mattered to him the most: his job.

  One week. If he didn’t have Heather by Monday…

  A series of violent, blood-splattered images flashed through his mind. He covered his eyes and pushed them away.

  (That will be a thought for later.)

  Nodding, Rhodes opened the door and crossed the parking lot. He could not conceal the limp. The throbbing in his knee was blinding by the time he reached the Jeep. He leaned over and took several deep breaths before climbing in. As the pain faded to a dull ache, he glanced into the back seat. Everything from the house was still there. The barrel of his rifle peeked out at him from under the duffle bag. His mouth twitched.

  (All I would need is a few seconds, and I could leave Atlanta tomorrow—maybe even tonight—and never think about Heather Stokes again.)

  The thought made his throat tighten, much more than the pain had. He had lost everyone else; He was not about to lose her. This Sabbatical was so fucked, he could not envision another, just replay what had gone wrong this this one. Heather, at least, could compensate for that. He just had to get her, to sit and tell her everything, to hear her say his name.

  That’s all he needed. He put the Jeep into drive and pulled out of the parking lot.

  Rhodes frowned as he caught sight of the Jeep’s reflection in a plate glass storefront. He was going to have to get a new vehicle, and soon. Steyer would be looking for a Jeep. Heather knows it’s red.