Keller did remember her last tetanus booster. She’d been camping with friends near Canmore on a long weekend away from university and had sliced her hand open on a rusty metal fence. They’d sutured the wound at Canmore General Hospital. Keller remembered this so well because—as near as she’d been able to figure out afterward—her father had been collapsing with a heart attack at Calgary District 4 Station right about the time she had been getting a tetanus needle in her arm.
Sutures in my future.
She told Roberts, who then went through more of her medical history while starting an IV. She threaded an 18-gauge needle into a wide but crooked vein in Keller’s right forearm with the ease of a pro. “Zofran, right?”
Keller nodded. Her brain working again, she had a realization. “I should talk to the girls. Tell them… Jesus, I should’ve thought of this before. You can’t…” She gritted her teeth. “You can’t let them clean themselves up. Patch up the cuts, but they’ll want to do rape kits at the hospital.”
Not just them. Lucky me, like an early Christmas.
“Don’t worry. Kinsley knows. There are good docs on tonight,” Roberts said. “They’ll take good care of them… and you.”
Keller saw the other unit pull away and suddenly the ambulance she sat in felt like a cold and alien place. “I’m fine,” she said reflexively.
Yeah, sure you are.
“Better hurry with that Zofran.” She clasped her hands around the handles of the stretcher and took deep breaths.
“Coming.” Roberts was drawing the antiemetic up into a syringe. When she injected the drug into the IV, Keller counted the seconds. Zofran had a well-deserved rep for fast action and this batch did not disappoint. Her nausea ebbed immediately.
“Thanks,” she said.
Up front in the crew compartment, a door jerked open and Evans climbed in. “If you like the service, tip jar’s up on the dashboard,” he said with a smile. “We’ll follow Forty-Nine in a moment. Cops want to talk to us first.” He said it with his gaze on Keller.
Well, that’s not exactly a surprise.
She took a deep breath. The oxygen was working wonders. She had gone from “staggering, near comatose” to “worst Tequila hangover ever” in just a few minutes, which—considered in a macroscopic view of the last two hours—felt like genuine progress. She saw sympathy in Roberts’s eyes for Keller-the-victim.
But I’m not a victim, am I? I’m a killer.
As if on cue, Roberts said, “I know you’re in pain, but with the possible head injury, I can’t give you anything to help with that.”
Keller did know, had said it a hundred times herself.
Roberts continued. “I think you’re going to be fine, though, physically…”
Yes, that addendum was no doubt necessary.
“Don’t want anything.”
Roberts gave her a sharp smile, there and gone, an admiration that was unwelcome and entirely undeserved. “You saved those girls, you know.”
“I’m glad they’re safe.” I killed someone.
An evil someone, her mind argued back. Someone who would’ve killed you… Not just you, either.
But there were gulfs in life that, once crossed, changed you forever. It was something her father had said, but she’d never really understood it until now, when she could feel it like a grave marker on her soul.
One of the RCs—Hardy, who Keller and Jonas had seen a few hours—and a million years—ago at the domestic dispute, knocked on the ambulance doors. Roberts tugged the sheet up over Keller’s torso and levered the doors open.
Hardy’s face was grim as he spoke. They’d found Jonas’s body in the adjoining field. They had not yet located her ambulance.
The ambulance and Jonas, both moved. By who? Pigpen hadn’t had time. And Robin had talked about two men.
Not your job.
But it was a puzzle to solve, a welcome distraction from guilt and trauma. And she’d spent years picking apart crimes with her father before his death put an end to it. How could she ignore this?
As if you don’t have enough bad habits.
There were five RCMP vehicles in the driveway now, including a sedan a guy from the General Investigation Section had arrived in, skewed across the main drive, all of which was halfway a miracle. Rural Alberta was, in some places, still the Wild West. There was a lot of space, few people, and fewer police. It wasn’t at all uncommon for any single RCMP officer to be the only cop in hundreds of square miles.
Hardy turned as the GIS guy came up beside him, a tall, fortyish man with jet-black hair, a wide build, and a face with a lived-in look. General Investigation was vague-speak for the RCMP Major Crimes section, and so this man was in plainclothes, his boots and pants stained with mud from traipsing around the crime scene. He’d probably just come from viewing Jonas’s body. She hoped it was covered by now.
“You’re Ashleen Keller?” He had a trace of a Maritime accent and Keller wondered if he had requested an Alberta assignment, eager to see the country, or if he was simply the victim of the capricious vagaries of RCMP headquarters’ posting practices.
“Ash. That’s right.”
“Corporal Ross Ressler. RCMP, GIS.” He gave her a bare smile, making his face look a little less bitchy, a little more sympathetic. He reached out to shake her hand, then saw the bandages on her wrists and turned it into a gentle fist bump. “I know you need to get to hospital. I just have a couple of questions.”
She looked at Hardy. “Already told him most of it.”
Hardy looked abashed. “Ash, you’re going to have to go over this a lot.”
“At the hospital would be better,” Roberts said, rising to her feet and placing herself halfway between Keller and the two cops. “She’s badly concussed.”
Protective now, but what will she think when she finds out what I did?
Ressler’s smile widened and Keller saw he could look charming when he worked at it. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through a lot. Even a couple of minutes to get us started down the right track would help.”
“All right,” Keller said.
Roberts dropped back down beside her on the CPR seat and Ressler’s smile slipped a bit, but he said nothing. He slid onto the bench seat opposite Keller and plucked a notepad and pen out from his jacket. Hardy settled in beside him.
Keller went through it again, from the girl running onto the road in front of them to the fire crew from Hanna arriving. A little clearer this time, she thought—a little less muddled by carbon monoxide, a little less pain and nausea swimming through her brain. Accustomed to condensing hours of patient-care info into brief reports for triage nurses, it took no more than five minutes to relate the events of the past few hours to Ressler. She did her best to describe Pigpen, the rape and killing of the girl she guessed was “Teela,” then the fentanyl and her escape with the three girls.
By the end of it, both Ressler and Roberts were frowning, and why not? They’d both heard her describe poisoning Pigpen with narcotics, after all. She noticed Roberts had edged back from the stretcher, though her expression remained compassionate.
Hardy, by contrast, looked more than a little distressed as he shifted on the seat, his gaze bouncing restlessly from Ressler to Keller.
Ressler’s face wore the well-practised neutral look of a Major Crimes cop. Whether you were telling them about disassembling a lawn mower or a girlfriend, you’d get the same look of polite interest. No judgment in it ever. That’s interesting. Tell me more. Tell me all about it.
“Okay. There’s the guy you called Pigpen”—Ressler waved a hand—“ever see or hear anyone else?”
“You mean another captor?” Keller shook her head. “The girls seemed pretty sure there was another guy, but I never saw him. I don’t think they did either; not clearly anyway. But you’d have to ask them.”
“I will.” Ressler gritted his teeth. “If there’s anyone else involved in this, we’ll find them. I guarantee it.”
“Sound
s good to me.”
“We should get going,” Roberts said and stiffened, ready for an argument.
Ressler ignored her, rubbing at his chin. “Ms. Keller, I just need to clarify one point.” He locked eyes with her and his voice went up slightly. “I should first say I think you were exceptionally brave tonight.”
Beside her, Roberts visibly relaxed and placed her hand on Keller’s shoulder.
Ressler went on. “I’m thinking it was very fortunate—exceptionally fortunate—that this man, a kidnapper and killer, had drugs in his house and right in the room with you. I’m not surprised he did. I assume he used drugs on his captives from time to time.”
Keller was startled. Ressler was throwing her a lifeline.
As she watched, he nodded as if he liked the way his story was shaping up. “It would make his victims more pliable, easier to handle. Right, Hardy?”
Hardy’s expression wavered between relief and astonishment. “Makes sense,” he finally said.
It didn’t make sense, but it could, Keller saw. It was a fabrication, but one the outside world would be happy to buy into.
Ressler met Keller’s gaze again. “It was incredibly fortunate that you were able to fool him into ingesting some of his own pills. So fortunate they put him to sleep.” His look was intense. That’s the story I’m ready to write up.
Keller could taste freedom on the tip of her tongue… And the bitter taste of her next hit as well. Cotton wrapped around her brain, an impenetrable barrier shielding her from the nightmares and the long days of nothingness when depression killed everything except the urge to sleep.
Ressler thought he was doing a good thing, offering a hero her freedom.
And in exchange she’d win the chance to go visit Glasgow again. Win another night sitting on her bathroom floor licking pills, the fentanyl coiling around her like a snake, waiting for the right moment to strike; and she, holding a syringe of naloxone poised over her leg—anti-venom—hoping she’d be quick enough with the needle if the opioid sank its teeth into her.
“The pills were mine.”
Ressler’s mouth tightened. “Ms. Keller—”
“I had three pills with me,” Keller said, looking straight ahead, feeling cool emptiness on her shoulder when Roberts drew her hand away. “I crushed them and put them in the liquor bottle when he was out of the room.”
“Ash…” Hardy said.
Her voice rose, but not too much. The pounding in her head still demanded moderation. “The pills were mine. I crushed them up. I put them in his whiskey bottle. I watched him drink them. When he was unconscious I—we—escaped.” She returned Ressler’s gaze. “That’s how it happened.”
Ressler blinked at her, looking her up and down, taking in the bloodstains and the bandages. He grimaced as if he’d swallowed something bitter himself, then nodded and rose to his feet.
“All right, Ms. Keller. I’ll catch up with you at the hospital.” He eyed Hardy. “This officer will ride in with you.”
Keller was about to protest it as unnecessary, and then she saw Hardy’s tight expression and heard his sigh of resignation. He avoided her eyes.
Not a courtesy… Of course it’s not. It’s chain of evidence.
When Ressler opened the rear doors to exit the ambulance, a warm wind brushed over her and she caught sight of a glow on the eastern horizon; the sun rising, a new day.
Not for Jonas, though, nor the dead girl in the burnt house.
Before the doors slammed shut again, she had a few seconds to savour those first rays of dawn on her face. The last time she’d seen a sunrise it had been… well, just a sunrise. Now it was something more.
The night dying.
Seventeen
At Drumheller Hospital, Keller was grateful when she was placed with the girls in four adjacent beds near the back of the ER. On the long ride to the hospital, despite Roberts and Hardy on either side of her, she’d felt utterly alone. It was oddly good to be back among the girls she felt she’d been to war with.
Maybe you can’t go back to normal… Is that it? And those girls must know what that’s like. You’re part of their club now.
If Keller had been the paramedic treating Kayla and Staci and Robin, she would’ve felt endless compassion for them, would’ve felt empathy and sorrow and treated them like gold.
And then she would have dropped them off at the hospital and left them behind, maybe wondering for a day or two what happened to them. Because they were patients, they were they. Keller was a paramedic, a caregiver. She treated victims, she wasn’t one of them. She was in a semi-satisfactory relationship with her boyfriend, Nolan, living at an acreage passed down to her from her grandfather. She had a life.
And oh yeah, that Ash Keller wasn’t a murderer either. This brand-new one is. And doesn’t misery love company.
A young nurse named Rachel Beltran with short red hair and lots of freckles approached Keller’s bedside. “Hey.” She pulled the curtain surrounding Keller’s bed fully closed—an illusory sheen of privacy thus maintained—and gave her a tight smile. “How’re you doing?”
Keller had seen Beltran before, had transferred patients into her care. “My head feels like someone’s been kicking it around a soccer field.” She bit back on tears, not sure which of the many things she ought to be crying about had birthed this particular sadness. But she wasn’t going to lose her shit in front of the other girls, no matter what. She wiped at her eyes. “Any chance of some ibuprofen?”
Beltran got her some pills, then donned a fresh pair of gloves and helped Keller out of her clothes, which she placed in evidence bags. Keller covered herself with a coarse paper gown, feeling vulnerable beyond imagining even though she was glad to be rid of the bloodstained uniform.
“A porter will be coming to take you to X-ray, then maybe CT,” Beltran said. “You’re concussed badly. No doubt of that. But I’d bet your head’s more or less intact if you’ve lasted this long without going unconscious.”
Beltran gave Keller a rapid head-to-toe examination, then focused in on her obvious wounds, pointing first to her bandaged wrists. “Mind if I…?”
“Go for it.”
She unwrapped the dressings, gently tugging at the last layer, which was sticky with drying blood. She examined the wounds critically, then looked up at Keller. “You did this when getting free?”
“It seemed like a good time to go all out.”
“Yeah, well, looks like you did. I don’t think you’ll need sutures, though—on your wrists, at least. Let’s have a look at the rest of you.” She eased Keller back against the semi-reclined bed and pulled her gown to one side, lifting the bandages Roberts had applied to the gashes on her chest and belly. “Going to need some here though. One of the docs will be in, in a few minutes.”
“Good times.” Keller arranged the gown back over her torso and Beltran pulled a blanket up over her chest.
Beltran’s gaze was thoughtful. “How are you otherwise?”
“Been better.” Keller lowered her voice. “I know there’re fun times ahead. I know you have to do a rape kit. The guy… He didn’t do anything to me. At least, I’m pretty sure he didn’t. I think I’d know.”
Beltran bit her lip and laid a hand over Keller’s forearm. “You can refuse, but it isn’t unheard of for someone not to realize they’ve been assaulted. I know you know this, but it’s not just about the police. If there’s some possibility of compromise to your health, we have to start therapies as soon as we can. There’s also… you’ve heard of a morning after pill?”
Keller shrank away from Beltran’s touch and wrapped her arms around her knees, tremors running through her.
“I’m okay,” she whispered. “He didn’t…”
“Again, not everyone knows for sure and well, if he did assault you…” Beltran’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “It’s best if we start therapies as soon as possible,” she repeated, as if at a loss for what else to say.
We. We have to start. Golly,
we’re in this together, Keller.
She recognized false-teaming when she heard it, though she didn’t resent it. Beltran was just doing her job.
“I know.”
And if I refuse, the girls might too. Although they probably can’t. They’re minors, except maybe for Robin.
Robin was in the bed to her right, with Staci and Kayla in the next two down the line. They were all talking quietly, and occasionally, paradoxically, one of them would laugh or sob. She felt the same way, though of course she knew the antidote to her sobbing was readily available if she could find her way to her dealer.
But that’s not happening, for now at least. So focus.
“Okay, let’s do this,” Keller said. She felt dirty. She wanted a shower. In fact she wanted a three-hour shower—no, a three-week shower. But all that was on the other end of this, so… “What’s first?”
“First is”—Beltran squeezed Keller’s arm—“this all takes time. It’s unusual for us to get four assault victims in at once, so I’ve called in another nurse trained for this, but it’ll be a while before we’re finished. All of it has to be done absolutely methodically. I need to examine you, bag your clothes, take swabs, and photograph your injuries.”
Anything that gets me one step closer to that shower.
It hit her then. If this was going to be hard for her, it would be a nightmare for the girls. “I should talk to the girls, with you, while you explain it.”
Beltran glanced toward the adjacent beds and nodded. “I was thinking that might be a good idea.”
Beltran helped Keller out of bed and a moment later, Kayla and Staci were staring with empty eyes at Beltran as she explained what had to happen. They seemed reassured when Keller told them she would be only a few feet away and that she would be going through the same exams. She put on what she thought might look like a brave face, if no one looked too closely.
But Robin, who Keller was starting to realize was very smart, did of course look closer, and saw right through Keller’s façade.
The Beast in the Bone Page 6