Both Mona and Diggs turned to look at Crane.
“Never,” Mona said. “Didn’t you see what those animals did to him?”
Diggs motioned with a tilt of her head for her partner to leave.
He skulked out of the room. Diggs pulled up a stool and sat down next to Mona.
“Here’s the problem. Merrick didn’t have so much as a scratch—not a single injury on him. So something’s not adding up. And I hate when things don’t add up.”
Mona waited, digesting the fact that Merrick was uninjured.
“The dead guy with the smoking hole in his chest had a record. Then we got another career criminal came in here a while ago, flattened by a car a few streets down from your alley. I figure the two of them were working together, so that part of your story holds water. I’m also convinced that you were attacked tonight. I’m just not sure who did it—the two dead guys, or the boyfriend without a scratch, or maybe all three of them. Your relationship is your own deal, but I got three dead people and one missing boyfriend, and that’s my problem.”
“Three dead people?”
“The guy with the hole in his chest, his partner that got hit by the car, and the first driver that hit him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The perp got hit twice, best we can tell. The second driver finished him off and kept going, so we have a car out looking for him. But the first driver was a nice grandma-type who probably clipped him, then lost control and ran into a van parked on the side of the road.”
“And she died, too?”
“That was the grandma’s flat line going off a little bit ago next door, when you were running around trying to get away from your boyfriend. Before he fled the scene. Might have nothing to do with him at all. Might not, but it sure looks connected.”
Mona shook her head. This couldn’t be happening. The officer thought Merrick had something to do with all of those dead people. If she could remember how the man in the alley had died, she could help sort this out, but her memory was filled with bright flashes and rumbling vibrations and not much more.
“He didn’t do any of this,” she finally said. “Merrick’s a victim, like me.”
“I know you don’t want him to get in trouble, and I believe you if you say he didn’t do anything, but if I could just find him and talk to him, maybe he could tell me what happened in his own words.”
Despite the seeming care in the officer’s voice, Mona knew that she was just trying to use her to find Merrick. But she wasn’t the only one who could act.
“If I knew where he was, I swear I’d tell you,” Mona lied. “I said he didn’t kill anyone, but I never said he wasn’t a jerk. We broke up tonight, and frankly I don’t want to see his face right now. I just want to go home and relax and forget about him and those men in the alley…unless you have any more questions for me, Officer Diggs.”
“You could save me a phone call by giving me Merrick’s address. Other than that, I guess we’re done for now, but you’d better check with the doc before you just up and leave.”
“Can he force me to stay here?”
The officer squinted at Mona.
“I’m not going to answer that.”
She closed her notebook and started out of the room.
“If you see your boyfriend—I mean, your ex-boyfriend—before I do, tell him we want to ask him a few questions. Just call the police station and ask for Officer Diggs. I’ll send the doc back in and you can talk to him about leaving.”
The officer closed the curtained door behind her, leaving Mona alone in the room. She ripped off the circular pads adhered to her chest and carefully removed the tube from her arm. She used a corner of her bed sheet to apply pressure to the tiny hole in her arm.
She looked around the room. She wasn’t going anywhere dressed in a backless paper gown. Satisfied that her arm wasn’t going to gush blood, she hopped off the bed and looked for her clothes. She found them folded under the gurney bed and started to get dressed.
Just as she was pulling her shirt down over her stomach, the chubby nurse stormed in.
“You’re supposed to be on bed rest. Lie back down and I’ll tell the doctor to come see you first chance he gets.”
Mona pulled her shoes on and smiled at the nurse.
“Police said I could leave,” she said, standing up straight. “Talk to them if you want, but I feel fine, actually better than usual, and I have to go.”
Mona picked up Merrick’s sweater from the chair and glided past the nurse. She made her way through the clamor of the emergency room and emerged into the chilly dampness of the night. The cool rain felt wonderful after being closed up in the emergency room for so long. She looked at her watch—almost midnight.
She heard a splash next to her and looked over to see a nurse trying to light a cigarette in the rain. The inside of her cupped hands glowed each time her lighter sparked. The nurse finally gave up, as a yellow cab stopped in front of her and she opened the back door to get in.
The nurse sat down and yelled out to Mona.
“Want to share the fare? I’m heading for Herndon.”
It would feel great to go home and lie down in her own bed, safe and warm for the night, but she had to find Merrick, and his parked car was as good a place as any to start looking.
“No thanks,” she replied. “I think I’m going to walk.”
The nurse seemed nice enough, but Mona wasn’t in a trusting mood.
The nurse glanced out at the downpour and then back at Mona. She raised an eyebrow and closed the cab’s door. The brake lights of the car illuminated the wet asphalt as it wheeled around the corner and out of sight.
The rain tapered to a light drizzle. Mona put on Merrick’s sweater and walked down the sidewalk to the bus stop. Luckily there was a meager overhang that she could stand under to keep from getting completely drenched. When a taxi pulled up ten minutes later, she hopped in, told the driver to take her to Old Town, and slouched down in the back seat.
She couldn’t remember exactly where Merrick had parked, but she was fairly certain it was on one of the side streets off of King. She arched her back, stretching her neck as her mind flashed back to the alley earlier that evening. King was a long street, and unless she got lucky, it could take her a while to find his car. The chances of her being attacked again were pretty slim, but her stomach still clenched in apprehension of strolling around Old Town by herself, so late at night.
After a half-hour cab ride, with an increasingly impatient driver, she spotted the jazz bar she and Merrick had passed earlier. The driver pulled to the curb, letting her out as she walked briskly through the misty night. This time, she instinctively stayed under the light of the street lamps as much as possible even though plenty of people were still milling around outside the various bars and restaurants now that the rain had let up.
She quickened her pace, peering down each side street as she passed, hoping to recognize Merrick’s truck. After checking only three streets, she saw his black four-wheel drive parallel parked alongside the curb. It was dirty and dusty despite the rain. She walked over and looked in the windows—no Merrick.
Neon lights advertised cheap beer and live music at a bar just a few yards away. Merrick didn’t usually drink, but after tonight, anything was possible.
Strolling past the bouncer, she entered the candle-lit restaurant and climbed a narrow set of red-carpeted steps that led to the bar upstairs. A quick survey of the room and a few questions to the bartender convinced her that Merrick hadn’t been there.
She walked back down the stairs and past the bouncer again. The rain had completely stopped now, and people were spilling out onto the street. It would take more time and energy than she could muster tonight to search all the night spots of Old Town. Because Merrick had driven, she would either have to hang out by his truck or just pay another cab to take her home and wait for a phone call—hopefully from Merrick and not the police. She hated to abandon him, but she had had a
tough night as well, and she was more than a little nervous about waiting all night on the street by herself.
She flagged two cabs that were cruising by—one behind the other on the far side of the street. One of the taxis had a large dent in the chrome of its front fender. The other looked brand new and sparkled with the water that beaded across its freshly waxed body. The shiny cab continued slowly past. The taxi with the dented fender screeched its wheels and pulled a U-turn coming to an abrupt stop in front of her.
She leaned over and looked at the driver—olive skinned with thick black hair and dark half moons under his eyes.
“Can you take me to Herndon, please?”
The driver stared at his front windshield and nodded. She got in the back seat and closed the door behind her.
“Where in Herndon?” he spoke in a tired voice.
“Stonymeadow Apartments, off of Elden,” she said. “Do you know where that is?”
“I’m a taxi driver,” he said. “Of course I do.”
Mona looked out the window as they passed stores that were battened down for the night, with metal gates guarding their front doors.
She had survived her first mugging and maybe been struck by lightning all in the same night. She leaned back against the vinyl seat and inhaled deeply of the artificially sweet air that emanated from the cab’s four pine tree air-fresheners.
The universe wouldn’t dare throw anything else at her tonight. She would make it home in one piece. Merrick would call—probably even apologize for leaving her alone at the hospital. They’d spend the night together, and tomorrow he could explain to that policewoman what had happened in the alley. Everything would work out fine.
#
This woman would be his last fare for the night and then he would turn his cab in and go home. Nothing would look out of place—except for his front fender. Most cars in the fleet had lots of dings or dents, but Esco’s had been in almost perfect condition before tonight. If the dispatcher noticed or complained about it, he would say that a shopping cart had rolled into the middle of the road or that someone backed into him and left before he could get the driver’s information. They would surely believe him. He was one of their top earners, pulling double shifts six days a week to give his wife and three children the kind of life they deserved for following him to this country.
He glanced in his rear view mirror. The woman in his back seat was nothing to look at, not like his wife, but she would be a good tipper. He could tell because of the guilt in her voice when she asked if he could take her all the way to Herndon, as if he was doing her some sort of favor and not just doing his job.
He winced at the memory of crunching chrome and bone and of his car jolting like it had just gone over a speed bump. He had wanted to stop, but he knew that the man he hit was dead. There was nothing he could do about it, and he could not afford to go to jail. What happened to him was of no consequence, but his family would be destitute without him, and that was unacceptable. He had worked too hard to let a careless pedestrian in the middle of the road take everything away from him.
He slammed his hand on the steering wheel, honking at the driver in front of him. With a flick of his wrist, he whipped the steering wheel to the right and gunned past the slower driver.
The woman in the back seat flinched, obviously nervous. He wondered what her reaction would be if she knew that she was riding with a killer.
CHAPTER 5
THE RAIN STOPPED just as Merrick found his truck. Now that he could finally go home, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He turned toward the garbled roar of a nearby bar.
Normally, he hated being around drunks. Their true personalities were unleashed by the alcohol and almost always were better kept suppressed by sobriety. Tonight was different. Losing his self in a throng of mindless people would help get his mind off of Mona and give him time to think.
He slipped his truck keys into his pocket, walked over to the pub and went inside. The steaming hot room was packed with sweaty bodies preventing him from seeing the floor. His skull pulsed in time with the blaring music while the Scottish soccer game played on in silence on the oversized flat screen television.
He shoved his way through the crowd to the bar, trying to avoid getting splashed with beer from the tilting cups of the screaming sports fans. As he arrived, two women abandoned their chairs and he quickly sat down.
The bartender tapped on the top of the bar and asked what he wanted to drink. He shouted for a whisky but doubted that the man behind the bar could hear him. A minute later and the bartender placed a shot of whisky in front of him. He paid for it, took a whiff of the walnut colored liquid, and drank it in one gulp. He couldn’t breath at first, but the initial shock to his system diminished as the trail of fire spread down his throat and warmed his stomach. He breathed deeply and tasted the first hint of the numbness he was looking for—no dead man with a smoking hole in his chest, no hospital, no police, and no Mona—just him and some time to figure things out where no one could find him.
He ordered another shot, while his mind sorted through everything he knew about lightning. Bolts of lightning were hotter than the surface of the sun—he remembered that much from television. They didn’t really come from the sky or strike downward. They shot upward from the ground so quickly that the human eye couldn’t see them snaking skyward to meet their other halves extending down from the clouds. He also remembered that lightning often left red marks on its victims like dead tree branches—scorch marks from the electricity traveling through the victim’s veins.
He downed his second whiskey as soon as it showed up and then looked at his forearm—no red marks. Lightning just couldn’t be the answer. It didn’t explain his restored eyesight, his rippled abdomen, his fixed teeth, his full head of hair, or what had happened to Mona. It made no sense, but his body had been reshaped physically by some force or power that was beyond his understanding. He laughed, thinking how any sufficiently advanced technology was the same thing as magic. Whatever it was called, he had not only been affected by it, he had made it happen by his own force of will, and he had no idea how he had done so.
He ordered another shot and looked up at his new thin-faced reflection in the mirror behind the bar. He did not feel his normal urge to contort his face into that of a stranger. Despite being upset about how Mona had reacted to him when she came out of her coma, he liked the person he saw in the mirror. For some reason, he thought he was looking at his real face for the first time.
The bartender set down his third shot. Merrick reached for the small glass, blinked his eyes hard, and shook his head. The alcohol was already making it hard to focus. It probably wasn’t the best timing, but he decided that there was only one way to see if his powers were real.
He closed his eyes and tried to call on the energy he had tapped earlier. He concentrated as hard as he could and thought that he felt the beginning of the familiar tingle that signaled the onset of his power. He chased the sensation, trying to catch it—to harness it.
Then it was gone.
He sipped his whiskey, then drooped his head, feeling worn and suddenly tired. He didn’t want to give up his place at the bar, but he had to go to the bathroom. He stood up and steadied himself with one hand placed on the edge of the bar. The floor felt like it was made of sponge as he tried to focus on weaving through the dense maze of people without running into anyone.
Once inside the men’s room, the noise of the crowd muffled to a low drone. Merrick squinted against the buzzing fluorescent lights. He gently swayed back and forth as he waited for a large man reading the newspaper displayed in the glass frame in front of the urinal to finish. The man walked away and didn’t flush. He brushed Merrick’s shoulder as he left and muttered something unintelligible. Merrick sauntered up to the urinal. After relieving himself, he went to the sink and rubbed the grainy pink liquid soap into his hands.
He looked up at his new reflection in the men’s room mirror. Despite his exhaustion, he looked and fel
t younger—better than he ever had. He laughed and then smiled. The smile looked more foreign on his face than any of his physical changes, but he liked it. He threw away the paper towel he used to dry his hands and paused at the door, preparing to re-enter the drone of humanity on the other side. Usually, the clatter of so many people was like a discordant grating. Tonight, he couldn’t wait to dive into the herd.
He straightened himself and pushed open the men’s room door. The crowd’s noise surrounded him as he collided with a woman who had just come out of the ladies room.
She raised her face to look up at him. She was stunning, with short, dirty blonde highlighted hair, a soft, but distinct jaw and full lips. He struggled through an apology, and the woman laughed—a gentle, warm chuckle. At first he was entranced, but then he feared that she was laughing at him, probably thinking he was trying to pick her up.
He turned to walk away, but the woman touched his shoulder.
“I didn’t mean to laugh, but you weren’t who I was expecting.”
He was so startled that he barely wondered whom she had been expecting.
“I thought I scared you,” he said.
“How could a girl be scared of a nice guy like you? God knows we could use more of them around. I don’t mean to be forward, but would you let me buy you a drink? Just one to help you get your buzz back. You seem to have lost it because of me.”
She dipped her head just enough for her hair to fall in front of her left eye like an animal peeking out from its hiding place. She had probably practiced that move in the mirror countless times to get it just right, but he didn’t care. A beautiful woman wanted to buy him a drink, and after the night he’d had, he wasn’t about to refuse. It was time to try out his new looks. He followed closely behind her as she walked to the bar. This was just what he needed to put all thoughts of Mona and whatever was going on with him out of his mind.
To his surprise, the two seats were still open at the bar. He sat sideways on his barstool, propping his elbow up on the bar, as he stared into her light brown eyes. Four drinks later, he hadn’t moved and was telling her all about his life. She kept buying him drinks, and he kept talking.
The Conservation of Magic Page 5