by Nancy Bush
A faint, uncertain light suddenly emanated from the front window of Cade’s house. As if it were coming from the back of the house, near the kitchen.
Lang got a cold feeling. He suddenly wondered if he should take his Glock out of the glove box. After a moment of suspended animation, he did just that, slipping it into his right hand. Then he shouldered open his door and eased it back shut just enough to turn off the interior light, not enough to make much noise. Cade had probably seen him already, but he didn’t need to announce his arrival to the whole neighborhood. He moved up to the front door.
The light was gone.
“Cade?” Lang called softly, twisting the handle. The door was locked.
No answer.
He circled around to the back porch, knocked again. Again, no answer.
“Cade, it’s Langdon Stone,” he called, louder this time. “We talked before?” He rattled the back knob and was surprised when it turned in his hand. Carefully, he eased the door open. “Cade?”
The door suddenly stopped short, hung up on something.
Lang pushed harder and whatever was in the way gave, making a scraping sound against the floor. “Cade?” he called again.
And then he saw what had impeded the door. A pair of jean-clad legs.
He jumped inside and slammed his left hand against the wall, automatically searching for a light switch. Encountered it. Flipped it up. No power.
Cursing himself for forgetting, he bent over the figure on the floor. The windows offered a lighter darkness than the interior of the house and illuminated Cade’s wide-open eyes. Lang leaned toward him. Listened. Faint breathing.
“Cade!”
Lang set down his gun and put his hand on Cade’s chest. Felt wetness. Noticed the spreading black stain across Cade’s shirt.
Blood.
He yanked his hand back, dug in his pocket for his cell phone. Fumbled it. Dropped it to the floor with a clatter. Reached for it. Felt the cold outline of a handgun—not the Glock.
Fear crawled up his spine. He scrabbled for the Glock, shoved it in the back waistband of his pants. Found his phone and punched in 911. Asked for an ambulance. Gave them Cade’s address. Explained it was a gunshot wound and gave them his name.
“Mister…” Cade whispered.
“Don’t talk. Save your strength,” Lang ordered. He was leaking blood. Lang applied pressure to the wound, praying it would help.
Cade swallowed. “She…she…”
His mouth went slack and his head slipped sideways, his eyes closing.
“Stay with me,” Lang ordered. “Stay with me.”
And then the same uncertain light glowed from down the hall, penetrating the kitchen’s gloom. A candle?
He looked around, felt the muscles on the back of his neck tighten. He jumped up, on the balls of his feet, reaching for his gun, heart thundering, as the candle carrier moved into view.
“Rita?” he rasped, leveling the Glock to the approaching light.
But it wasn’t Rita.
It was a blond angel carrying a candle. Heavy with child. Breathing hard. Crying silently.
“Tasha?” he said in disbelief.
Her knees wobbled and Lang leapt forward to catch her. A thin trickle of dark blood ran down her hand and onto the floor.
“She stabbed me,” Tasha said in a whisper. “She…stabbed me…again.”
Chapter 22
Come on, come on, come on!
Lang gently positioned the nearly unconscious woman in the passenger seat of his truck beneath the kaleidoscope of the ambulance lights. She moaned softly, as if in pain, and tensed up as he worked the seat belt. A contraction? God, he hoped not.
The EMTs were moving Cade. There’d been nothing more for Lang to do, so he’d opted to take Tasha himself. After speaking she’d lapsed into her same nonresponsive state, eyes open, unaware.
Except she was in labor.
Closing her door, he half-ran, half-slid in the now pouring rain, grabbing on to the hood of his truck for support. His door was stuck and he gritted his teeth in impotent fury, yanking it free, cursing the fact that he hadn’t gotten the damn thing fixed. Inside the cab he snatched up his cell phone, called the sheriff’s department, and tersely told them about the dead man and gave them Cade’s address. He told them he was on the way to Ocean Park Hospital with a victim of the attack, who was possibly in labor.
He drove with deep intensity, wanting to race, keeping himself in check, aware he could endanger them both by hurrying too much.
Carefully, his eyes glued to the road in front of him, wipers slapping madly against the rain, he phoned Claire.
Gibby had been awake and sitting up in bed, much like Heyward, when Claire entered his room. “Are you all right?” she asked him.
“Thomas threw a book at me!” Gibby declared. “He hit me!”
“I know. I’m sorry. Did he hurt you?”
“Nah…I’m okay.” He gazed at Claire with innocent eyes. “But he doesn’t like her. He said she was lying!”
“Is that what started the fight between you?”
“He said Tasha was a fucking liar! He said Tasha was a fucking liar!”
He started throwing himself around in the bed and Claire quickly stepped forward, putting her arms around his shoulders, trying to calm him. “Gibby. Shhh. Gibby, it’s okay. You can’t listen to Thomas.”
“He’s mean.”
“I know. Shhh.”
“She’s a’scared of him, too,” Gibby declared.
“Like she’s scared of the mean nurse,” Claire said.
“Yeah…she scares me, too. ‘Hello, Tasha,’” he suddenly said in a low, threatening tone. Then, “My baby…”
Claire felt her skin shiver at Gibby’s sudden change of voice and attitude. “Did you hear somebody say that?” He nodded jerkily. “Who?”
“The mean lady who Tasha’s a’scared of.” He wrapped his arms around his neck again, his elbows in front of his mouth and nose, like he had the night before. Now Claire saw his fingers sliding around his back shoulders. “She hurt her here,” he said, tapping his back.
He meant the stab wounds to Tasha’s shoulders, Claire realized. “Who is this person? Is she a nurse?”
“A bad, bad nurse.”
“Not Darlene,” Claire confirmed.
“No!”
In her pocket, Claire’s cell phone rang softly. She ignored it. “Gibby. Think hard. Please. For me. This bad nurse…is she the new one at the hospital? With the dark hair?”
His elbows were still in front of his mouth and nose, but his eyes rolled fearfully. “Bad, bad nurse.” He gulped and cried again, “Thomas said she was a fucking liar!”
Claire’s phone buzzed insistently. Frustrated, she snatched it from her pocket, her annoyance dissipating when she saw it was Lang. “I’m kind of in the middle of something. Can I call you back?”
“I found Tasha,” he clipped out. “She’s in the truck with me now, unconscious. We’re on our way to Ocean Park. Cade Worster was shot.”
“What?”
“I don’t know details yet. Tasha’s in shock. Maybe in labor. I’ve already alerted the hospital that we’re coming and I’ve called TCSD. The ambulance is bringing Cade.”
“Is Tasha okay? She isn’t responsible, is she?”
“Doesn’t look like it. There’s some blood from a cut on her arm. Looks superficial.” Gibby started crying in earnest at something he saw in Claire’s face. She pulled herself together with an effort as he added, “Claire…I think I might know who did this.”
“Who?”
“Meet me at the hospital. I’ll tell you there.”
“I’m on my way.” She clicked off and flew out the door.
“My baby,” Gibby repeated in his strangely threatening voice, the sound following her like a curse.
Tasha’s hands were clasped across her abdomen, her eyes closed, as the policeman drove through the evening’s rain and wind to the hospital. She didn’t know if
she’d been saved, didn’t trust this man’s, or anyone’s, motives. The last person she’d trusted completely was Rafe, and Rafe was gone.
She heard him on the phone making terse commands and comments, though he thought she was unaware. She had drifted off for a bit to that place of nightmares. It was something she couldn’t help, though she’d suffered a lot of blame for it over the years.
She understood that this man was worried, that he’d been stunned by Cade’s bloody corpse. Rita’s fault. Always Rita’s fault.
She could have told the man that she was okay, but she felt silence might aid her better. She’d seen him before; he’d come to the hospital and tried to engage her in talking, but she’d kept mum then, too.
They drove several miles before they found an area with power again, lighted windows suddenly popping up from houses along the highway. Tasha could feel another contraction coming on and took a deep breath in preparation.
He suddenly turned the truck off the highway, and she squinted her eyes open to see a long black-topped road flanked by gnarled trees. At the end of this drive the lane opened up to a hospital’s central parking lot, more open than Halo Valley’s. The building was low and light spilled from every window. It was welcoming in its way, but Tasha knew it was merely another trap. Another prison. She had to be careful.
They were met by a team of nurses and doctors. Blurred faces. Rushing her inside. She closed her eyes and pretended to be unaware as they seated her in a wheelchair and pushed her through the whooshing sliding glass doors.
“She’s in labor?” one of the nurses asked.
“Something’s going on,” the man who’d brought her answered.
“Can you hear me?” another nurse queried, close to Tasha’s ear.
“Are you a relative?” a new, authoritative female voice apparently asked Tasha’s driver.
“No,” he answered. “Langdon Stone. Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Nina Perez,” she said brusquely. “What’s the patient’s name?”
“Tasha,” he said.
Tasha’s heart flipped over. They knew? They knew? Gibby, she thought darkly. He’d probably told them about the clothes as well.
“Last name?”
“Not sure. She’s from the Colony.”
Now she could feel them all turn and look at her. Tasha inwardly shrank from the sea of curious faces. She felt faintly ill. Catherine and the sisters had stared and stared at her, accusing her, enprisoning her. They wanted to dislike her, blame her, make her their scapegoat.
They blamed her for Nathaniel…
An ambulance came screeching in, sirens blaring. Tasha slowly opened her eyes and stared straight ahead as a team ran outside to greet it. She saw them pull a collapsible bed from the back and was mildly shocked to see Cade Worster’s body.
He was dead. Cade was dead. She wondered why they bothered bringing him to the hospital. Someone muttered, “DOA,” and she wasn’t sure what that meant.
“She’s awake,” one of the nurses said. Her name tag read Carlita Solano.
“She’s having a contraction,” the authoritative one, Nina Perez, said grimly. “Jake,” she said to a dark-haired man in deep blue cotton top and pants. Scrubs. That’s what they were called. He reminded her a little of Rafe, and her heart clutched as he grabbed the handles of her wheelchair and took her behind a curtain that was suspended from a track in the ceiling. A makeshift examining room. Carlita and Perez left and a doctor bustled in. Young. Male. Lots of dark hair. He put his hands on her belly and felt around. “Where’s Gallippo?” he demanded.
“On call,” Jake said. “The midwife’s here.”
“Bring her in.”
“What about her arm?”
The doctor lifted Tasha’s arm and examined the bloody sleeve. “Give me the scissors.” But Jake was gone, so he reached over and grabbed them himself, cutting straight through the sleeve. He made a hmm sound at the long slice and said, “I’m going to stitch this up.”
Tasha could scarcely feel the cut or the needle as the doctor went to work. Rita had wielded a knife and she’d slashed wildly. Cade had jumped for the pistol and Tasha had pushed Rita with all her might.
And then…and then…
Another blurry nightmare threatened to overtake her. Fighting against it, Tasha stared overhead at the bright lights, breathing deeply, concentrating on the contraction that was overtaking her. They’d been on and off, some strong, some weak. Her little girl was getting ready to arrive.
The midwife was familiar. The same gray-haired woman who’d examined her at Halo Valley. Tasha hadn’t liked her then and didn’t like her now.
Then she heard a familiar voice outside the curtained room. The crystal diction sent shivers along her arms and legs. He’d scared her when she was younger, as much or more as the shaman had. Dr. Loman. The other one. The brother of the one who’d attended them before his death. The ultra-critical man who even seemed to cow Catherine upon occasion. Catherine didn’t like him and neither did any of the sisters, herself included.
But he’d been “a necessary evil,” as described by Catherine.
To Tasha’s utter shock she heard the man, Langdon Stone, ask if a Rita Feather Hawkings was employed at the hospital. Carlita responded that Rita used to work there, but that she’d quit a few weeks ago. Dr. Loman demanded to know if Rita was the rude nurse. Nina Perez said shortly that Carlita was correct. Rita was no longer with Ocean Park.
Dr. Loman knew Rita? Tasha looked around the examination room wildly.
“Well, there you are,” the midwife said, catching sight of Tasha’s moving eyes. “Your baby’s fine. You’re having some contractions, I’m sure you can feel them. They haven’t settled into a rhythm yet, but I think we should admit you.”
Tasha stopped gazing around and stared up at the lights.
Langdon Stone’s voice reached her. “Did Rita ask for a reference when she left?”
“Human Resources could tell you,” Perez answered.
Tasha’s pulse ran light and fast. They didn’t know Rita was at Halo Valley Security Hospital. Yet.
She heard the emergency doors whoosh open and shut several more times. New voices joined the group outside. More officers, apparently. Their tone was low but Tasha knew they were discussing Cade’s death. She heard “gun” and “blood” mentioned and “fingerprints.”
Rita’s face swam into Tasha’s memory. She’d come through the back door looking murderous, charging Tasha. She hadn’t immediately seen Cade but then he’d lunged for the gun and Rita’s knife scraped down Tasha’s arm and then blam, blam, blam! Cade jerked like a marionette and went down hard.
And Rita turned to Tasha and said, “You killed him,” which was a lie!
Now Tasha quivered and shrank away, for once wanting desperately to go to that world inside her own head, away from all of this. She could still see Rita’s mouth, screaming and shrieking and babbling, and she could see the glint of the knife blade, the arc of her swinging arm.
Like at the rest stop.
“What?” the midwife asked and Tasha realized she’d made a gurgling noise.
With an effort, she closed her eyes and willed herself away to that netherworld of demons and nightmares, where she could hide.
Claire arrived in a blast of driving rain. She’d grabbed her coat but hadn’t put it on and she didn’t bother now as she slammed the car door and scurried through Ocean Park’s Emergency Room doors.
The first person she saw was Lang, in deep conversation with a silver-haired man of fiftysomething wearing a TCSD uniform. They both looked up at Claire’s arrival and Lang introduced Detective Fred Clausen before stepping forward, clasping her forearms as if to steady her, his eyes saying something far more intimate. She could scarcely believe how short a time had passed since they’d made love. She wanted to touch the cut on his face, but caught herself.
“You all right?” he asked.
She nodded jerkily. “How’s Tasha?”
“Wound on her arm’s been stitched. The midwife says her contractions are getting stronger.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Tasha hasn’t been able to tell us. Cade was shot in the chest multiple times. A bullet pierced his heart. He bled out.”
Claire shook her head in dismay and looked toward the emergency room examining cubicles.
“She is talking,” Lang said, pulling her to one side, away from the others. “She said, ‘She stabbed me. She stabbed me again.’ I think she meant a nurse who used to work here at Ocean Park, Rita Feather Hawkings.” Quickly, he gave her a rundown of the crux of what he’d learned from the Blackburns and about the nurse, Rita, who’d recently quit Ocean Park.
“Rita! She’s the recent hire at Halo Valley!” Claire quickly brought him up to date on what Gibby had said. “I’ve seen her around and she would never meet my eyes. Like she was hiding something. Oh, God. I think she’s been terrorizing Tasha.”
“Well, she’s safe now, whatever happened.”
“It must have been Rita’s keycard that Tasha used to get away.” Claire suddenly shivered. “Where is Rita now?”
“Good question. She wasn’t at the site. We’ve got a team doing an ongoing search at her mother’s house, where Rita lives. Clausen’s waiting for a call.”
“Leesha told me it was a nurse who said she knew her,” Claire murmured. “I should have checked.”
“You’re not blaming yourself,” Lang told her sternly. “We don’t know anything for sure yet.”
“I wish Tasha could say something.”
“She said ‘she stabbed me,’” he reminded. “Probably meant Rita.”
“Where could she have gone?”
He shook his head. “Detectives practically beat down her mother’s front door, were about to break it in rather than wait for a warrant, when the mom, Delores Feather, finally answered. She was using a walker and a bit confused, but she’s allowing the search.”