Eye of the Storm

by Sara Reinke

  * * *

  Paul clung to his daughter, stroking his hand against her hair, his tears spilling. “I’m here, Bethie,” he gasped, as she began to sob, shuddering against him, twining her small hands against his shirt.

  “Daddy!” she wailed, muffled against his shoulder. “D-d-daddy, I’m sorry…!”

  He spared a glance at Susan’s fallen body. She was dressed all in black, her head covered in a ski mask. She lay facedown against the floor, her body surrounded in a growing pool of blood. When he’d rushed across the threshold and into the lantern-lit room to see her straddling Bethany, throttling her with her hands, his mind had snapped. Everything that was a police officer within him―someone who understood and obeyed the law―had abandoned him to sheer, primal instincts, a parent’s insincts. He’d opened fire, the pistol leveled in his hands. His finger had closed against the trigger again and again, sending seven consecutive nine-millimeter, hollow-point rounds slamming into Susan’s body. The last had sent her brains scattering, but even though his clip had been expended, even though he watched Susan crumple away from Bethany and to the floor, his finger had kept squeezing against the trigger, over and over.

  Susan was dead, and all at once, Paul remembered Jay, his brother with the only barely controllable ability of resurrection. “Jay…!” he gasped, pulling away from Bethany, turning to the horrifying chair he’d seen so often in his dreams.

  “He’s hurt, Daddy,” Bethany whimpered, but he could see this plainly for himself. Susan had stripped Jay’s shirt from him, and then pierced him with at least a hundred dissection needles. It looked as though she’d burned and sliced him up some, too, but all of that was nothing compared to the wire garrotte.

  “Oh, Christ,” Paul gasped, leaving Bethany and scrambling to his brother. He cradled Jay’s face in his hands and lifted his head. He moaned softly in horror; Jay’s face had turned purple and the noose was so tight around his neck, he’d lapsed into oxygen-starved unconsciousness again. That was why he hadn’t reacted to Susan’s death; why he hadn’t started struggling involuntarily against his bonds to reach her, touch her, resurrect her from the dead. God Almighty, he’s all but dead himself, Paul realized.

  “Hang on, Jay,” he pleaded, snatching up the steel sheers from the floor. He moved around behind the chair and settled the taut length of wire between the blades. He closed his fingers about the handle, feeling the eerily familiar sensation against his palm, the pressure as the blades closed. He felt resistance as the edges fell against the wire, and then he squeezed harder, snapping it in two.

  He patted his hands against Susan’s pant pockets until he found a set of keys. He pulled them out, wincing to notice the Channel 11 News logo on her keychain, and then searched quickly, desperately until he found the manacle key. Once Jay was free from the chair, and Paul and Bethany could ease him gently against the floor, Paul again used the shears to carefully sever the wire buried deeply in the meat of Jay’s neck.

  “Jay,” Paul whispered, anguished, cradling his younger brother’s battered face between his hands. Even though he was freed from the chair, his predicament was no less dire, and Paul knew it. Jay’s breathing was irregular and infrequent, a terrible, struggling, wheezing sound, and his pulse was a fluttering, sticatto mess to Paul’s touch. He wouldn’t rouse again, or respond to Paul’s voice. Paul leaned over, his tears spilling again, spattering against Jay’s face. “Jay, oh…oh, Christ, kid, stay with me, okay?” he pleaded. “Don’t leave me here, ’cause I…I can’t follow you. I can’t follow like you did for me, and that’s not fair, goddamn it. It…it’s not fair.”

  He fell silent for a moment, choked on his tears, and he closed his eyes, trembling. “Besides, I promised Emma, Jay,” he whispered, anguished. “I promised Emma you’d be okay.”

  At this, his voice broke and his shoulders shuddered. He clapped his hand against his face and uttered a hoarse sob. All my fault. Christ, this is all my fault.

  He felt Bethany’s hands against him, heard the soft hiccuping of her tearful breath, and turned, hugging her fiercely, burying his face momentarily against her shoulder. “Will Uncle Jay be alright?” she whimpered, clinging to him.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. Please, God, let him be alright. Take what he gave to me back, if you need to―whatever strength he restored in me, give it back to him now. Please, I’m begging you. Paul leaned back, pressing his hand against Bethany’s face, looking her in the eye. “But we have to get him out of here, okay? We have to get him to a hospital. Where’s M.K.? Where’s your sister?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “She went to get help. She…she went to call you. Uncle Jay told us that we were beneath, that she needed to go up higher so she…she could get a signal on the phone…”

  She began to cry again, and he pulled her to him, kissing her ear and whispering her name gently, repeatedly. “I’ll find her,” he promised. “I’ll find her, Bethie, don’t worry.”

  “Who…who is that man, Daddy?” Bethany asked, trembling against him. “Why did he do this? Why did he want to hurt us?”

  Paul looked beyond her toward Susan’s body. “It’s not a man,” he said hoarsely, his heart seized simultaneously with disgust and dismay. It’s a monster, Bethany. All of your life, I’ve told you there were no such things, but I was wrong. I was dead goddamn wrong.

  He closed his eyes, holding her near. “It’s not a man,” he whispered again.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jay awoke with a start, his dark eyes flown wide and bright with fear. He tried to sit up, but Paul caught him. “Easy, kid,” he said softly, gently, leaning over the hospital bed rail to speak nearly against Jay’s ear. “Easy now. It’s alright. You’re safe now.”

  He felt the tension in Jay’s body relax at the sound of his voice, and Jay crumpled against him, exhausted and fading again. It had been less than an hour since he was wheeled out of the first of what was to be several rounds of surgery to repair damage to his internal organs caused by the one-hundred and thirty-two, two-inch long, nickel-plated steel dissection T-pins that had been punched into his body. He kept rousing from the anesthesia, if only for fleeting moments, but always in a panic, never realizing or remembering where he was.

  He couldn’t sit up much. He couldn’t speak; he’d been intubated to help him breathe. A thin, grim seam of countless, miniscule stitches wound its way around his throat, trailing behind his ears. His hair had been cut and shaved along the nape of his neck so that the deep wound from the wire garrotte could be cleaned and closed. His hand pawed lightly against Paul’s sleeve, his fingers clutching weakly. Intravenous lines ran through tubing connected through the backs of both hands. Jay uttered soft, whimpering sounds and trembled against his brother while Paul stroked his hair. “It’s alright,” Paul whispered, tears stinging his eyes. “I’m here, Jay. I’m right here. Everything’s alright now.”

  Jay fell asleep again within moments, relaxing in full, and when Jo returned from down the corridor, where she had been conferring with some of the Intensive Care Unit nurses, Paul left her with a gentle hug. He watched in the doorway for a brief moment as she leaned over the bedside, brushing Jay’s hair back from his face and kissing his brow softly. Then he turned, his heart heavy and hurting, and left them alone.

  Bethany and M.K. were in the unit waiting room with their mother and Cameron Taylor. Paul met Vicki’s gaze from across the room for a long moment, and then Bethany broke away from beside her and hurried to him. She’d wound up with more than two dozen stitches across the palm of her hand to close a ragged, nasty wound, but her doctors felt confident that it hadn’t been deep enough to damage any of her mobility. Paul hugged her, closing his eyes, holding her fiercely. “Hey, kiddo,” he whispered against her hair.

  “Is Uncle Jay okay, Daddy?” M.K. asked, and when she came over, he lifted his arm, drawing her into the embrace with her sister. Both girls had already been released from the hospital from their own perfunctory examination
s. They’d showered and changed clothes. They wore no make-up, and their hair was unfixed, their clothes unassuming―T-shirts and old jeans. They looked like little girls again. His little girls.

  “He’s resting, and right now, that’s all that’s important,” Paul said. He looked toward Cameron Taylor. He hadn’t missed the fact that the young man and M.K. had been sitting side by side when he’d walked in the room; that his hand and M.K.’s had been folded together, their fingers intertwined.

  Cameron had found M.K. hiding in the sanitarium as he’d tried to leave. He’d actually forgotten the way out, and had become lost and terrified in the empty, dilapidated building. Stumbling upon M.K.―who was also lost and terrified―had been nothing short of blind luck, but the girl was convinced that he had rescued her. And apparently, she now adored him for it. For his part, Cameron, being a redblooded American young man, was stupefied and delighted by this unexpected adulation from the strikingly beautiful girl.

  Christ, here we go again, Paul thought. At least he doesn’t drive a Mustang.

  Bethany looked past his shoulder toward the doorway and stiffened slightly. She drew back, and when M.K. followed her gaze, her expression grew puzzled and wary. Paul glanced behind him and saw Brenda standing in the waiting room doorway.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as Paul drew away from his daughters and walked toward her. “I…I don’t want to intrude, but I…they called me about the body, told me what happened, and I…” She touched Paul’s face, cradling his cheeks between her palms. Her eyes glistened with tears and her brows lifted. “Are you alright?”

  He nodded once. “Yeah,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse and strained. She drew him against her, embracing him tightly, clutching at him, and he closed his eyes, inhaling the sweet comfort of her perfume.

  “I was so worried!” she gasped against his ear. “So frightened, Paul! Goddamn it!” She leaned back from him, and slapped his arm. “I could have helped. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “You told me not to,” he replied, and when he dropped her a wink, her fleeting, shocked expression softened and she laughed. He kissed her, pulling her fully against him once more and pressing his lips to hers. He didn’t care that Vicki was sitting across the room from them and could plainly see; what his ex-wife thought no longer mattered to him.

  That part of my life is over now, he thought. I have a new life now. I’ve had it for awhile, but I didn’t want to give it a chance…not until now.

  He pivoted, keeping his arm around Brenda, turning to face M.K. and Bethany. “Girls, I’d like you to meet Brenda Wheaton,” he said with a smile. “Brenda, these are my daughters.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, he and Brenda stood outside the hospital together while he smoked a cigarette.

  “You know, I’ve seen what those things can do to a person,” Brenda said, as he lit up.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, nodding. “You’re a medical examiner. You’ve seen the shriveled up black lungs and what-not. I know.”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve seen my father die of lung cancer at the age of fifty-seven.” She raised her brow at him and he felt immediately sheepish. He dropped the cigarette onto the sidewalk and stepped on it, snuffing it out beneath his shoe.

  I have a new life now, he thought again. A new life, new chances, new opportunities to be different than I was. Better this time. I’ve got to stop pissing it all away.

  “So what does Pierson think of your perp?” he asked. Dan Pierson had been one of the responding officers on the scene at Liberty Sanitarium. Paul imagined that he’d scrambled like his ass was on fire to get there as soon as he’d heard the call come over the radio, if only not to miss another chance to ream Paul for nosing into his case. They’d missed each other, though; Paul had been too preoccupied with his daughters and Jay to give a shit, much less notice, Pierson on the scene. But now, in retrospect, he would have enjoyed seeing the man’s expression―shock and dismay, his stupid goddamn hate crime theory blown all to hell―when the ski mask had been removed and Susan Vey had been identified.

  “He’s a little surprised,” Brenda said, her tone somewhat careful.

  “Yeah, I bet,” Paul said with a laugh. “So much for his instincts, huh? Maybe they’ll finally bust him back down to the beat for awhile and let him recut his teeth on some…” His voice faded, and he blinked. “I’m sorry. You’re seeing him. I…I shouldn’t have…”

  “I’m not seeing Dan anymore,” Brenda said. Paul cocked his head, his brow arched and she smiled. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he replied. “So does this mean I can ask you out for dinner now?”

  Her smile widened slightly, wryly. “It might.”

  He laughed, hooked his arm around her neck and pulled her near, kissing her. I love you, he thought, although he still wasn’t brave enough to say it aloud. Probably won’t be that brave for some time yet, he thought. I think I’ve about worn out my bravery reserve for awhile today.

  “Paul, about the perp…” Brenda began, looking up at him.

  “Channel 11 doesn’t get an exclusive,” Paul replied. “I don’t care if she worked for them. It doesn’t give them goddamn precedent over―”

  “She?” Brenda asked, looking puzzled.

  Paul blinked, feeling a sudden tightening in his gut. “Yeah,” he said. “She. Susan Vey. You know, black shirt, black pants, ski mask. Used my baby brother for a pin cushion. She and Melanie Geary had a long-standing feud, a couple of mutual restraining orders against one another. Jason found it all on record. I still don’t know Susan’s connection with Aimee Chesshire exactly, but I figure if there is one, Jason will sniff it out. That kid’s really―”

  “Paul,” Brenda said, cutting him off. “There is no connection. Aimee Chesshire was a random victim chosen by a sadistic, psychotic predator. The body in the ski mask wasn’t Susan Vey.”

  Her words caused that little knot in his stomach to suddenly wrench tightly. “What?” he asked, somewhat breathlessly.

  “I met Susan Vey this morning, in fact,” Brenda said. “Your partner, Jason, brought her by the morgue. Your perp was her brother, David. We needed her to identify the body.”

  Again, the knot in his gut twisted. He thought of David, the handsome kid with the TV camera that he’d known in passing, at least enough to exchange friendly greetings. “David Vey?”

  “Jason said he tried to tell you, but you hung up the phone on him this morning,” she said. “He was running a background check on Susan, apparently thinking the same thing you were, and he came up with some hits in the areas surrounding their hometown of Hebrides. A series of rapes, with growing sadistic tendencies demonstrated in each one. Three police departments investigated. The cases were never tied together until the state database was set up. No suspects were ever arrested, but one name kept cropping up in Jason’s check. David Vey.”

  Paul forked his fingers through his hair. Jesus Christ, he thought. Jason tried to tell me. The kid kept asking me not to hang up on him, but I didn’t think…! I didn’t know. How could I have known?

  “David had psychiatric issues,” Brenda said. “Susan told us he’d been on risperidone, a very powerful antipsychotic medication, for some time now. He complained of weight gain from it, and some sexual side effects. He didn’t like it and apparently quit taking it without telling anyone. Apparently, the sexual side effects lingered, even without the medication, and he couldn’t force himself on his victims. So he turned to his more sadistic fantasies to derive any kind of satisfaction or pleasure. He was delusional, Paul.”

  “Jesus,” Paul whispered. How did I miss all of that? I’ve stood with the guy―talked to him, for Christ’s sake! How could I not have realized?

  Now it made sense, all of the things that had been scratching at the back of his mind, the finer points of his theory that Susan was responsible that hadn’t made sense, but that he’d overlooked in the heat of the moment, in his frantic haste to find Jay and the girls. “I…I shoul
d have seen it. I should have known.”

  “You couldn’t have, Paul,” Brenda told him gently, stroking his arm and drawing his anguished gaze. “You couldn’t have known. None of us could. We’re not psychic.”

  * * *

  Two days later, Paul left his apartment to take Emma to school. With Jo spending so much time at Jay’s hospital bedside, the little girl had again come to stay with Paul. They walked together, hand in hand, toward his truck. It was a quarter after seven, and for the first time in ages, Paul had slept the night before through, and nearly soundly at that. If his lousy upstairs neighbors hadn’t been fucking like jackrabbits at three in the morning, the thumping of the bed resounding through his ceiling, he might have been out fully for the count.

  “Hey, stranger,” he heard a familiar voice say from behind him, just as he thumbed the remote control on his keyring and unlocked the Explorer.

  Paul turned and saw Susan in the parking lot, a large box between her arms. For the first time, he noticed a bright orange moving truck backed up to the front door of her building, and two men in matching clay-colored uniforms loading furniture into its trailer.

  “Hey, Susan,” he said. He glanced down at Emma and found her shied against him, shy and uncertain. “You go on and get in the truck, lamb,” he told her, stroking his hand against her tumble of dark brown curls. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Okay,” Emma said.

  As she climbed into the backseat, Paul walked over to meet Susan. He knew he had been wrong about her, that David had been the sicko next door to him, not her, but that didn’t loosen the sudden, uneasy feeling he had at even this distant proximity. He didn’t know what to say to her. He’d killed her brother, for Christ’s sake. And for a time, he’d considered her a murderer. How do you go back to swigging beer and making small talk after that?