Praying for Time

by Carlene Thompson

  ‘But you can’t stay in this place. You know you can’t – I’m only doing what’s best, what you said you need!’

  ‘No, Brody, you said I needed to be taken away. I don’t! Please let me go to Vanessa!’

  ‘I can’t let her have you. I can’t!’ He pulled Roxanne hard against him. Vanessa watched in horror as they wrestled ferociously for a moment, and then Brody cried out. ‘My sword! My sword …’ He looked at Vanessa, his gaze surprised. Then he sank to his knees as Roxanne stood above him holding a knife with a long blade in her blood-covered right hand.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Still looking surprised, Brody fell sideways. At first Vanessa registered nothing except Brody’s fallen body and her sister backing away from him, holding the knife. Vanessa rushed to Brody, moved his jacket aside and ran her hands over his chest. She found the wound and pressed her hands against it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Roxanne cried. ‘He tried to kill me!’ Vanessa couldn’t answer her. ‘Nessa!’

  Blood spurted between Vanessa’s fingers. She pressed harder on the gushing hole in Brody’s chest. Now his eyes were closed, he made no sound, he didn’t move, and he was barely breathing but she held firm. Her hands were slick with blood and her arms were trembling from the pressure she was applying.

  ‘Ma’am, move aside, please,’ she heard a man’s voice say.

  Vanessa looked up at the three men who had appeared, doubtfully took in their uniforms and one holding a medical kit, and finally removed her hands. ‘He’s been stabbed in the chest. There’s so much blood …’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. You’ve done well. We’ll take over now.’

  Vanessa stood up, still staring at Brody. Then Roxanne grabbed her arm. ‘Nessa, he was trying to kidnap me,’ she sobbed. ‘If I didn’t go with him he was going to kill me!’

  Reality hit Vanessa like a blast of icy water. She pulled Roxanne to her and held her sister with all the strength she had left. ‘Oh, Roxy, my God!’

  Another man said to them, ‘You both need to leave the ship and wait on the beach.’

  Vanessa looked at him blankly then at her sister. ‘Why were you outdoors? Where did you meet him? Where did you get that knife?’

  ‘I sort of woke up and then found myself outside. Maybe I was sleepwalking. He came out of nowhere and grabbed me. He had the knife! He said the voices were telling him to take me away in a ship and if I wouldn’t come with him, he’d have to kill me! He was crazed, Nessa!’ Roxanne began sobbing against Vanessa’s shoulders, her whole body shuddering.

  ‘You both need to get outside right now,’ the man said sternly.

  Roxanne began hyperventilating. ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t—’

  ‘Follow me,’ the man said.

  ‘OK. It’s OK,’ Vanessa said, pulling Roxanne along, back through the rotting hull and the smothering darkness. She could hear Roxy dragging air into her lungs, gasping, wheezing. Finally they staggered out of the ship and onto the beach. Roxy’s arms began flailing. Vanessa clutched at her. ‘Stop! You’re all right!’

  ‘I can’t … breathe,’ Roxy rasped out.

  ‘If she can talk, she can breathe,’ the officer said in a calm voice. He stepped into the Seraphim May and called, ‘Can someone look at this woman?’

  ‘Is she badly hurt?’ the response came from within the wreck.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then hang on a minute, please.’

  Vanessa nodded at him then returned to Roxanne and stroked her face and arms. ‘Try to calm down.’

  Roxanne gave her an agonized look. ‘C-can’t.’

  ‘I know it’s hard but try.’ Suddenly Roxanne made a gagging noise and began gulping air. ‘You’re safe, Roxanne. The police are here. Take slow, measured breaths.’

  A paramedic appeared and, using a flashlight, gave Roxanne a quick examination. ‘I don’t see anything except some minor cuts, but you’ll need to go to the emergency room,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get the man there quickly. Do you want to ride in the ambulance with him?’

  ‘He’s alive?’ Roxanne’s breath returned with a rush.

  ‘Yes, ma’am, he’s alive.’

  ‘No! I can’t ride with him!’

  ‘Are you sure? We can get you to the hospital quicker.’

  ‘No!’ She looked imploringly at Vanessa. ‘Please, Nessa. You take me.’

  ‘All right.’ The other technicians were carrying Brody out of the wreck. Roxanne turned her head away from him. ‘I’ll take you, Roxy. You don’t have to look at him again.’

  Roxy clung to Vanessa as they climbed the hill and walked to the SUV. As soon as they were inside, Vanessa pulled her cellphone from her pocket and called Christian, telling him only that Brody was badly injured and on his way to the hospital. He started asking questions but Vanessa clicked off the phone. She didn’t want to say more in front of Roxanne. As soon as she put away her phone, Roxy asked, ‘Why did you try to save him?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He tried to kill me, Vanessa.’

  ‘He’s sick—’

  ‘He’s Christian’s brother.’

  ‘It wasn’t because of Christian—’

  Vanessa didn’t finish. She started the car, trying to shut Roxy’s words out of her head. She understood. Roxanne must have seen her act as the ultimate betrayal. Instead, it had been simply blind instinct. ‘Can you breathe now?’ she finally asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Roxy—’

  ‘I don’t want to talk.’

  She stopped trying to think of the right thing to say and concentrated on driving. Although Roxanne remained rigid and quiet, Vanessa felt as if a storm was roiling beside her. She knew Roxy was confused, angry and deeply hurt.

  When they arrived at the hospital, Roxanne was whisked away for an examination. Vanessa sat miserable and blood-covered until a nurse suggested she wash. Vanessa stood almost blindly in the restroom splashing water on her face and arms, scrubbing at her hands that wouldn’t come completely clean. I’m Lady Macbeth, she thought almost hysterically. She even had blood in her hair. By the time she emerged, wet and dripping, Christian was waiting for her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘I’m not physically hurt. Emotionally?’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Chris, it was awful!’

  He took her in his arms. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  Suddenly Wade appeared beside them. ‘First she needs to tell me what happened.’

  They went to the small emergency-room waiting room and Vanessa recounted everything, including seeing Brody and Roxanne on the beach, following them into the Seraphim May, and seeing Roxy stab Brody. ‘And then you tried to save him?’ Wade said.

  ‘I don’t know what I was doing. He’d collapsed, gushing blood, and I stopped thinking and just acted. I tried to stop the blood—’ She began to tremble.

  ‘Yesterday you gave me a ring someone had sent Roxanne – a ring she’d been wearing when she was kidnapped,’ Wade stated. ‘You said she was terrified. Then last night someone murdered Nia Sherwin on your property. With all this, what was Roxanne doing outside at night?’

  ‘I was on the front lawn where there are lights. Brody just appeared.’ They looked up as Roxanne entered the waiting room in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse. ‘I’d taken a sleeping pill – the kind you’re always hearing about making people do loopy, irrational things. Christian prescribed them. If I hadn’t taken them, I would have had more sense than to go outside.’ She glared at Christian.

  Christian looked back unflinchingly. ‘I told you to take one pill.’

  ‘I took two. I didn’t do anything wrong by going outside, only foolish because my judgment was impaired.’

  ‘OK, enough about the sleeping pills.’ Wade sounded annoyed. ‘Then what happened, Roxanne?’

  ‘I was standing on the lawn looking at the Christmas lights in town down below and someone grabbed me. Someone tall and strong. Someone who called me “Your Hi
ghness Roxanne”.’

  ‘That’s all he said? Your Highness Roxanne?’

  ‘No. There were other things. “I’ve found you”, “I’m taking you away”. I started struggling and he put his hand over my mouth and carried me. He was babbling about how I had to go with him. When I kept struggling, he said he’d kill me if I didn’t stop.’

  ‘He actually threatened to kill you?’

  ‘Yes. He had a knife with a long blade. He said he’d stab me. I was terrified.’ Roxanne’s stony composure broke. ‘He was going to kill me! Doesn’t anyone care?’

  ‘We all care,’ Vanessa cried. Roxanne turned her head away.

  ‘So he dragged you down to the beach and headed for the shipwreck,’ Wade said.

  ‘Yes. He kept saying we were going away on a ship. We went inside. Vanessa must have followed us. We were fighting and I got the knife away from him and stabbed him. He fell. I’d protected myself and the man who was going to kill me was lying there dying. And then Vanessa had to step in and save the day!’ Roxanne’s voice broke. ‘My own sister.’

  Brody Montgomery was still in surgery when Roxanne said she had to go home, she had to go to bed, she couldn’t take any more.

  Christian had taken Vanessa aside. ‘I know Brody is going to die,’ he’d said with a strange calm that Vanessa knew masked unimaginable grief. ‘But I can’t leave my little brother. I’ve let him down enough. I won’t desert him now.’

  ‘You didn’t let him down.’

  Christian smiled weakly. ‘I did. I know it. I accept it. Anyway, I can’t take you and Roxanne home. I have to stay here with him.’

  ‘I drove Roxy here. I can drive her home. Then I’ll come back.’

  ‘No. It’s my job to keep vigil over Brody. It’s yours to help Roxanne.’

  When Vanessa and Roxanne got home, they found Audrey waiting. Roxanne went straight upstairs with barely a word. Vanessa sat down with Audrey and told her everything that had happened.

  ‘My God, Nessa!’ Audrey exclaimed. ‘I’m so glad the children slept through it, but Roxanne must be traumatized.’

  ‘She is. And she feels betrayed by me because I tried to help Brody. I didn’t even think, Audrey. I simply acted.’

  ‘And if you’d had time to think, would you have stood doing nothing while you watched him bleed to death?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I do. You wouldn’t have, even if it wasn’t Brody.’ Audrey reached out and rubbed Vanessa’s arm. ‘You’re not a killer, Nessa.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have been a killer, Audrey! I would have let nature take its course.’ Audrey shrugged. ‘But he’s not in his right mind. Brody doesn’t know what he’s doing.’

  ‘You know that and it’s your answer, Nessa. You wouldn’t have been fighting for your life like Roxanne. You were saving someone who couldn’t save himself.’

  Afterward, Vanessa went upstairs to the bathroom adjoining her room. She turned on the water as hot as she could bear and stood under the shower spray, lathering and rinsing, lathering and rinsing until her skin had started to turn red. She emerged from the shower, swept her long, dripping hair under a towel, dried off, and slathered sweet-smelling lotion onto the skin that fifteen minutes ago had smelled of perspiration and blood. She towel-dried her hair then walked down the hall to her sister’s room where she heard Roxanne in a storm of tears. Vanessa thought about knocking on the door, then decided against bothering her. Roxanne simply needed to vent her feelings, cry out her hurt, fear and frustration, and hopefully tomorrow she would feel better.

  At 4:45 a.m. Vanessa’s cellphone rang. When she answered blearily, not that she was actually sleeping, Christian said, ‘Brody’s out of surgery.’

  ‘He made it?’

  ‘Barely. I won’t fire a lot of medical jargon at you but the knife blade slipped between two ribs and nicked both his lung and his heart. Dr Amir did the surgery.’

  ‘So he’s going to live?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. If he makes it through the next twenty-four hours, he has a good chance. But he wouldn’t have a chance in hell if not for you. He had a massive hemothorax. He would have exsanguinated in that shipwreck.’

  ‘Then I’m … glad.’

  ‘You sound like you’re not sure.’

  ‘Roxy is so hurt, Christian. Brody might have killed her but she struck first and then I saved him. That’s hard for her to accept.’

  Christian was silent for a moment. Finally he said, ‘I can see how it would be if she blames him for everything that’s happened to her the last eight years. But I can’t blame him, Vanessa. I just can’t.’ He sighed. ‘I’m exhausted. I’m going home to get some sleep.’

  ‘Yes, please do. You need it. And Chris … I’m relieved that Brody is alive.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Vanessa woke up at eight thirty. Her first impulse was to call Christian to check on Brody, but she hoped he was still asleep. If Brody had died in the last four hours, she would know about it soon enough.

  In the meantime, she was hungry and desperately wanted coffee. She put on her robe and went downstairs, noting along the way that Roxy’s door was still closed. When she reached the kitchen, the kids were eating eggs and toast while Queenie lay at their feet, waiting for scraps. She couldn’t help noticing Sammy’s serious expression.

  Cara looked up at Vanessa and gave her a smile. ‘You got in late last night. Did you have a date?’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly a date but I did stay up very late.’ She went to Audrey, who was staring into the open refrigerator. ‘Anything exciting in there?’

  ‘More eggs for your breakfast.’

  ‘No eggs. And you’re not my cook.’ Vanessa gently moved Audrey away from the refrigerator and closed the door. ‘Toast for me and I’ll fix it.’

  ‘You only want toast?’

  ‘I didn’t say how many pieces.’

  Cara giggled.

  Vanessa leaned in and murmured in Audrey’s ear, ‘Brody made it through surgery. It’s still touch and go.’

  Audrey nodded.

  ‘Has Roxy been down?’ Vanessa asked.

  Audrey shook her head. ‘Do you want me to go up and check on her?’

  ‘No. She might be asleep. Or still angry and hurt. Let’s leave her alone for a while.’

  Vanessa ate her toast and drank two mugs of coffee with the children. When the kids took Queenie outside and began brushing her, she went back to her bedroom, still tired from the horrible events of last night. She tossed herself down on the bed with her arms flung out from her sides, her eyes closed, images of Brody Montgomery clutching Roxanne in the hull of the rotting Seraphim May flashing behind her lids. She’d always felt uneasy when near that shipwreck. Maybe that uneasiness had been a premonition.

  Finally she left her room and knocked on Roxanne’s door. She didn’t think Roxy was going to answer but at last she heard a faint, ‘Come in.’ Inside, Roxanne had pulled the drapes against the morning sun and lay in semi-darkness, propped up on pillows and staring at a blank wall.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Vanessa asked.

  ‘I hurt all over but I know it’s just muscle strain.’

  ‘I meant emotionally.’

  ‘I don’t know how I feel emotionally, Vanessa. Probably as blank as that wall in front of me.’ She paused. ‘Is he alive?’

  ‘Yes. Barely. He might not make it.’

  ‘Good. I hope he dies.’ Roxy looked at Vanessa. ‘You think I’m horrible.’

  ‘No. I truly don’t. I understand, Roxy. I know why you wish he’d died. I only wish you understood why I tried to save him.’

  ‘I don’t have the energy to try to understand.’ She finally looked at Vanessa, her complexion pasty, her eyes bloodshot and flat, absent of life. ‘I’m worn out, Nessa. Depleted. Empty like I don’t even have a soul.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘Why not? It’s true.’ She turned away again. ‘Please go away. I don’t want you to see me like this. Maybe I
’ll feel better later.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Vanessa said as she closed Roxy’s door, but she was afraid her sister had reached her limit.

  Vanessa was in the kitchen talking with Audrey when her cellphone rang.

  ‘Hello, Vanessa, it’s Harold Jennings,’ a mild, male voice said. ‘I hope I’m not bothering you.’

  ‘Oh, Harold, of course not. Were you able to find out anything?’

  ‘Quite a lot. Do you have time to talk?’

  ‘Certainly. Just a moment.’ She held the phone to her side and looked at Audrey. ‘I have to take this in my room.’

  In Grace’s bedroom with the door closed, Vanessa sat down in a chair near the window and braced herself. ‘OK, Harold, tell me everything.’

  ‘I didn’t contact Zane’s grandfather’s lawyer. None of this really concerns him now, anyway, but I talked to Zane’s lawyer, John Dawson. I know him by reputation. He’s young and very sharp. Even though Zane is dead, John is still bound by attorney-client privilege. However, Zane left a waiver saying that all third parties with which he dealt are not bound by privilege.’

  ‘All third parties? Like who?’

  ‘Agents and business associates for example. Zane Felder left most of his estate to Libby Ann Hughes. I tried to tell her what all of that included, but she’s too upset to hear any more. I think she’s a very fragile girl.’

  ‘She is. But she’s smarter then she seems and I believe she has a toughness she hasn’t recognized. She adored Zane and hasn’t recovered from his murder. Give her a month. In the meantime, is there anything you can tell me?’

  ‘Yes. I know this shamble of a house Mr Felder left Zane has been the main source of interest. It sits on almost two acres of land and it should have been torn down years ago – it’s a public health menace – but in his will, Mr Felder said Zane could only accept it and the land if the house stood for five years.’ Vanessa knew all this but kept listening. ‘In four months, the five years will have ended. What I gather Miss Hughes didn’t know is that Zane intended to tear down the house and build a new one for them as a couple. He’d already filed demolition papers with the county and the permit had been granted. Zane had also been in contact with an architect – a very good one. The architect told me he’s been drawing up plans but Zane didn’t want to give the go-ahead on any of them until Miss Hughes had approved them. It was to be a surprise. A wedding gift.’