“Megan Denham?” a doctor asked, pulling aside the curtain. She was an attractive woman of about sixty with her hair pulled back into a French twist. Her brow was furrowed.
“Yes?” Megan said, her voice cracking.
“I’m Dr. Morris. Just looking over your X-ray. According to your report, you aren’t sure if you were actually shot or not?” She removed a pair of glasses from her coat pocket and put them on. She held something up to the light.
Megan cleared her throat. “Yes. I know that sounds strange, but I think that maybe I was just grazed and then I…blacked out or something.”
“No, you weren’t just grazed.” She attached the X-ray to the lighted box and pointed. “That’s the bullet lodged in your pelvis, near your right sacroiliac joint.”
Megan’s eyes widened in disbelief. A bright oval object was hovering near her hip. “Are you sure that’s a bullet?”
“Well, it certainly appears to be. Is there anything else you think it might be?”
Megan thought for a moment. Of course not. “But it doesn’t hurt.”
The doctor shook her head, her face scrunched. “Have you ever been shot before? Or had a foreign object pierce your stomach? Have you had any other illnesses that meant you experienced pain or blood loss differently?”
“No,” Megan whispered. “Is it possible…” She trailed off with no way to finish that sentence. Angeline flashed through her mind.
“May I examine you?”
“Sure, of course.” Megan lay back on the stretcher, her heart racing. It couldn’t be a bullet; there was just no way for it to be a bullet. If she’d been shot, it would hurt, it would be bleeding, she’d probably be dead. It had to be some sort of mix-up.
Dr. Morris snapped on a pair of gloves and lifted Megan’s hospital gown. She poked at her stomach and pelvis. She pushed down with both sets of fingertips. “You have no pain in this area?”
“No.”
“Your sweater had blood on it?”
“It did, yes.” Megan held the sweater up for the doctor to see. Dr. Morris shook her head in confusion.
“Well,” Dr. Morris said, lifting the blanket over Megan’s stomach, “it couldn’t be yours. You have no wound or entry point, so the bullet in the X-ray must be from a prior incident.”
“But it’s not!” Megan said, trying not to sound panicked. “I’d know if I’d ever been shot before, wouldn’t I? And the blood on my sweater suggests I was shot, doesn’t it?”
“One would think so, yes. And I don’t see any evidence of X-ray on that area in your medical history, so I have nothing to compare it to. Perhaps you could get something from your pediatrician? Maybe they’ll have some answers. But no one gets shot and then doesn’t have an entry wound, bloody sweater or not.” Dr. Morris all but shrugged.
“This is insane. I was in a store when a maniac was shooting at me, the camera showed me collapsing, I have a bullet in my body, and all you can suggest is that I get in touch with my pediatrician? Really?” Megan’s breaths became rapid and shallow. She tried to push down the terror she was feeling. Falling victim to an anxiety attack wasn’t going to help anyone.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Denham. I don’t have an explanation for you. You have no open wound, no skin lesions, not even a bruise. A gunshot wound doesn’t heal itself that quickly. It simply doesn’t. Without an entry point, removing the bullet would do more harm than good, and it isn’t in a place that will cause you any further issues. I can have the nurse come in to give you something for your anxiety.”
“Can they make you remove the bullet as evidence? It would prove that it came from the robber’s gun,” Megan said. She touched her side gingerly.
“No, they can’t do that. It would violate your Fourth Amendment rights. And I would strongly advise against it if you’re considering it for your own benefit. Non-necessary surgery is never a good option. Best of luck.”
Megan looked at Dr. Morris incredulously. It was clear that the doctor was at a loss, and while she might have been sympathetic, she had no additional answers.
The nurse came in a short time later, offering Megan a Xanax. She declined, wanting to be able to weed through the memories should could muster with a clear head. Since they found nothing physically wrong with her, aside from the lodged bullet which they were going to leave in place, they discharged her to the care of the Fog Hollow Police Department.
Chapter Five
“Here you go, Cocoa,” Angeline said, placing the small brown Holland Lop back into his cage at Fog Hollow Animal Hospital. It was quiet as usual. The rabbit stayed still for a few minutes so she could pat him. “Who’s my sweet little bunny?” Cocoa curled up in his small fleece bed, his floppy ears hanging down to the steel floor below him.
Angeline sighed and sat at the computer. She started typing up her nightly notes when she heard a cat cry, low and loud. She stopped to listen. The cat cried again.
She walked over to the row of cat enclosures and saw the overweight orange tabby had turned over his water bowl. “Ugh, really, Juice? Again?” Angeline grabbed a towel, mopped up the water, and plucked a weighted bowl from the dog cabinet. She filled it halfway and nestled it in the corner. “If you can flip that over, my man, then you are definitely ready to go home. ’Night, pal.”
Angeline pulled up PetDesk again and resumed typing. She stopped short when a pang in her stomach nearly doubled her over. “What the hell?” she muttered. Before she could get any more words down, another one hit. After the events earlier that evening, Angeline was determined to concentrate on work and nothing else. How infuriating that woman had been. She’d seemed offended that Angeline had stepped in and saved her. Exactly why she’d saved her was still a bit of a mystery, since she’d been so careful not to get mixed up with anything like that for an awfully long time. But she’d done it, and she didn’t regret it. She could have just walked away, pretended like she hadn’t seen anything, and found another convenience store nearby. But she’d seen the pleading look in the woman’s eyes just before the gunman had pulled the trigger, and she couldn’t leave her to die.
The pain felt like a series of needles pricking her abdomen. She stood up, walking around the office to see if it was just a cramp or something like it. Because there was no way it could be that. She hadn’t given her nearly enough for it to be that.
Angeline could lie to herself all she wanted, but she’d been around long enough to know exactly what that feeling was.
She slammed her pen down on the desk and shook her head forcefully. She was determined to ignore it. How many times had it happened to her over the years? Three, four? And every time, she vowed that she wouldn’t let it happen again. Too much responsibility, too much of a burden. The barriers that she’d carefully constructed around herself didn’t mean much if she kept compromising them.
“Just let it go,” Angeline said. She sat in her chair again and started entering the notes into Cocoa the bunny’s medicine chart. “It’s fine. It’ll go away.”
Satisfied that she might actually be able to ignore it this time, Angeline smiled just a little. Her typing picked up speed as she lost herself in her work. For a few minutes. And then the twinges of pain started up again.
“Damn it,” she said, loudly. She pulled up the office contact sheet and traced her finger down the list until she found the number she was looking for.
* * *
Megan was surprised to find that the inside of the Fog Hollow Police Department looked nothing like the sterile interrogation rooms on television. There were no stone walls or tables screwed into the floor with handcuffs hanging from them. She was led to a plush leather couch in a room that had a table full of magazines, a small TV hanging on the wall, and a water cooler.
Detective Nolan took a seat on the chair across from her. “How are you feeling, Megan?”
“Okay,” she said. She was lying. She was tired, confused, and annoyed. She really just wanted to go home and pretend like the whole night had been a bad dream
.
“I’m sure you’re exhausted,” Nolan said. At least he was perceptive. “We just need to figure out exactly what went on at the Gas ’n’ Eats tonight. As I said, I’m with the State Police, here to help out with the investigation. From what I gather, you don’t have many incidents like this around here.”
Megan nodded. She wasn’t sure what his point was, and frankly, she didn’t care.
“Just to confirm, you’re thirty-two, you’re a real estate appraiser with HomeSure, and you live at forty-seven Shaw Way. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now what were you doing at the Gas ’n’ Eats?”
“Getting gas.” Megan looked directly at him.
“Right. Your tank was full. Why were you in the store? Pack of gum? Cold soda?”
“I’d forgotten my keys. I usually use my debit card, like everyone else on earth, but I had cash on me. When I went to pay the clerk, I put my keys down to unzip my wallet. I pumped my gas, and then went back for the keys. When I went inside, the shooter was already there, aiming his gun at the clerk.” Megan fought back tears at the recall of the clerk’s face. His wide eyes, his trembling hands. He was terrified. Minutes later, he was dead. Dead. She could still barely believe those events had really taken place. She swallowed the massive lump in the recesses of her throat.
“Do you need a second?” Nolan asked, leaning forward in his chair.
She took a deep, shaky breath. “No, I’m fine. Anyway, he ordered me to get down on the ground, so I did. The clerk grabbed a shotgun from somewhere behind the counter, but he wasn’t quick enough. I don’t know why he didn’t just give that guy the money and send him on his way.” Megan felt tears overflow. “Then I told him I wouldn’t say anything if he just let me go, but he shot me anyway. At least that’s how I remember it. And the next thing I know, I’m waking up on the grass with a strange woman hovering over me.”
Nolan jotted down a few notes. “Angeline, you said? Did she tell you her last name?”
“No.”
“We’re waiting for the sketch artist to show up, but in the meantime, can you describe her for me?”
Megan shifted, picturing the woman who’d been staring down at her. “She has long dark hair. Wavy. I couldn’t tell if it was brown or black, but it’s definitely one of the two. I remember her eyes. They were this strange color, like a liquid light brown. Kind of like caramel, maybe. She had on jeans and a hoodie. I think it was red. Or purple. I don’t know.”
“Okay. And you’re sure you don’t know her? She didn’t look familiar to you at all?”
“No, not at all.”
“What did she say to you?”
Megan didn’t respond for what felt like minutes. Nolan raised his eyebrows in anticipation.
“Well, she told me that she had saved my life. She said she didn’t call for help because there was no time. She didn’t say very much.”
Nolan chewed on his pen cap. “I’m sure you can acknowledge that this is strange. That you were presumably shot and there’s a bullet inside your stomach, but there’s no wound. That you disappeared from the crime scene and ended up a mile away with a strange woman who then took off after ‘saving’ you. The gunman was killed at some point after he shot the clerk, and after he shot you. This doesn’t sound like it makes a whole lot of sense, does it?”
Megan just sat there, her head swirling. No, it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t just Nolan who couldn’t wrap his mind around the events of that evening. Try living it. “No, it doesn’t. But that doesn’t make it any less true.”
“I’m not saying that,” Nolan said, holding up a hand. “I’m just saying that the facts of the case don’t line up at the moment. If—when—we find your new friend, that may all change. We’d like to send your sweater out to identify the blood on it, just a formality, and we’d also like to take some fingerprints. Are you agreeable to those two things at this time?”
Megan nodded. She didn’t see any reason she shouldn’t be agreeable. It was her blood, and her fingerprints wouldn’t turn up anything that she hadn’t already told the detective.
“Great.” Nolan waved in a young female officer who collected Megan’s sweater, which was folded on the seat beside her, a DNA swab, and some fingerprints. On her way out, Officer Brent stepped in and handed Nolan a manila folder.
Megan shivered from a combination of nerves and the chill in the air. She wanted to ask if they were done, if she could go, but was afraid she was already under suspicion. She didn’t want to appear as though she were in a hurry to leave.
“Well, it looks like the clerk was a fifty-three-year-old man named Peter Sampson. Husband and father of two grown children. His family has owned the Gas ’n’ Eats for three generations.” Nolan paused, shaking his head. “And the gunman was twenty-three-year-old Richard Haim, known to friends as Richie, or Richie Rich to his posse. Small-time criminal trying to make rank in the Boston gang scene. Do either of these names spark anything for you? Any kind of recognition?”
Megan stared at him, trying to digest his words. Two people she had been in the same room with just hours ago were lying on a slab somewhere. She should be on one too, but she wasn’t. “No. Neither one.”
“Why do you think this woman brought you away from the gas station to save you? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to get you some help right then and there?”
More questions she couldn’t answer. Megan didn’t know how many different ways she could tell the detective that she didn’t know. “She told me there wasn’t time to call for help. Why she dragged me away from the gas station, I don’t know. Maybe she’s a criminal. Maybe she’s undocumented. I don’t know. She told me next time she’d just mind her own business, whatever that means.”
“And you’ve never been shot? Or had any kind of stomach wound before tonight?”
“No. I’m just…me. I have a cat and a best friend, and I work in real estate. My life up until tonight was utterly normal. I don’t understand it either.”
“What did she say she did to help you? You don’t have any bandages or anything like that, right?”
“Right.” Megan hesitated. She wasn’t sure whether she should tell Nolan what Angeline had said to her. She got the feeling he already thought she was crazy. She didn’t see how telling him could possibly help her case. But if she did have a psychopathic killer after her who was under the impression that she was some kind of creature of the night, maybe it would be best to have law enforcement on her side. “She, uh, said that she fed me some of her blood so that I wouldn’t die.”
Nolan didn’t flinch. Megan shifted awkwardly, wondering if she’d be spending the night in a mental hospital instead of in her bedroom. He tented his fingers. “Mm-hmm. She said that to you? Why did she think feeding you her blood would heal you?”
“When I asked her that, she didn’t answer me. She said next time she’d just mind her business and then she was gone.”
“Did they test you for any communicable diseases at the hospital?”
“They took blood, yes.”
Scratching his chin, Nolan looked to the ceiling. “Was she trying to say that she was a devil worshipper, or a vampire, or some kind of healing angel or something?”
Megan closed her eyes. “I honestly don’t know what she was saying. She was gone too quickly for me to ask questions or to follow her. She took off into the trees. She didn’t even seem to have a car.”
Nolan nodded. “Okay, Megan. As the sole witness to what happened tonight, and…whatever else, please stay close by. I’m sure we’ll have more questions, and once we get the results back from our tests, I’ll be in touch.” He handed her a business card from his jacket pocket. “Do you need a ride home? Your SUV is still a part of the crime scene, so we can’t release that to you just yet.”
Still in a fog, Megan nodded. “Yes, please.”
Nolan called for Brent, who ushered Megan out into his squad car. Megan checked the clock on Brent’s dash. Three fi
fty-five. She watched the trees go by in a blur, trying to remember what life had been like at four o’clock the previous morning.
Chapter Six
Merlin swirled in repeated figure eights through Megan’s legs. She tossed her keys on the table and leaned down to stroke him.
“It’s been a hell of a night, baby,” she said, reveling in his purr. The comfort of home meant release. She fell onto the couch and broke down into sobs.
Everything seemed the same. Her radiators clicked, Merlin had spilled seven or eight pieces of kibble onto the floor near his dish, and her window blind was slightly askew, just as she had left it earlier that afternoon. She had meant to fix it but forgot. How silly a slanted blind seemed after everything that had happened. The thought of getting up and going into her bedroom seemed entirely overwhelming, but Megan didn’t want to spend another minute in the clothes that had touched a convenience store floor, dirt, leaves, and shriveled grass. Maybe she would burn them.
She dragged herself to her bedroom, deciding whether or not she had the energy for a shower. She didn’t. She threw on a red T-shirt and plaid pants and left her clothes in a pile near her door.
“Don’t scream.”
Megan screamed, backing up until her closet door abruptly stopped her from going any farther.
“I said don’t scream.”
“What are you doing here? Are you stalking me? The police are on their way over here, you know!” Megan scanned her room for a weapon, but the closest thing she had was a hanger dangling from her treadmill.
Angeline smiled. “No, they’re not, but A for effort. And no, I’m not stalking you. But something was bothering you earlier, so I came to see what it was.”
In the Shadow of Darkness Page 4