Kent stood frozen, willing Mitt to choose mercy over revenge against the man who deserved every bit of it.
Tears came into her eyes, her hand began to shake, and she brought the gun down to her side. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Drop it on the floor,” Tice said.
The gun hit the floor with a thud.
“How are you even here?” Tice said.
“Why I’m not dead, you mean? Why I’m not blown to bits?”
Tice stroked the cape of the pigeon he held, calming the restless bird. “Exactly.”
Mitt eased slowly between lab benches until she was next to Kent, as if being close to him would give her strength. “When Dr. Stephenson headed out the front door, I headed out the back.” She fired a vicious look at Tice. “It was a good thing. Wasn’t it?”
Tice looked bewildered. “You actually thought that I would kill you?”
Mitt huffed a derisive laugh through her nose. “I didn’t know. I didn’t even suspect that you would out and out kill me after all we’d been through. After all I’ve done for you. I figured you might dump me, call it quits, yes. But probably you were satisfied since you beat me up. It never entered my mind that you would actually kill me.”
Tice’s cool expression did not change.
“But on the other hand,” Mitt said, “I did see myself killing you. Stopping you means stopping all the death and destruction. It’s my redemption. That’s why I left the house.” She looked at Kent with as much kindness as her face could muster, then back to Tice. “I knew Dr. Stephenson was coming after you. I know he has every right to kill you, but he’s got too much to lose to get hung for the murder of a worthless thing like you. We know about getting hung for something that wasn’t our fault, don’t we, Marvin? Besides, I wanted the pleasure of killing you myself.” She smiled weakly and even seemed to relax.
Tice returned the smile, but it was obvious he loathed her.
There was a long uncomfortable silence as the three of them evaluated their options.
Finally, Tice said, “Well then, I guess all we have is a couple of killings left to go.” He lifted the bird toward the window.
“Let them go,” Kent said. “Neither of them have anything to do with this.”
Tice gave him a mock look of confusion. He reached over and rotated the laser sight 180 degrees, swinging the red glow onto Kent’s chest. He pulled the bird back into the room, turned it to see the dot. “Wrong couple,” he said with a smile.
Kent was at once relieved and terrified.
The pigeon became more restless when it saw the red dot only a few feet away. It flapped its wings trying to escape Tice’s grip and pursue the glowing target it was programmed to attack.
“You’ll die too if you let the bird go,” Mitt said.
“It’s the old ‘If I go, we all go’ thing.” The bird beat its wings and clawed with its feet. Tice struggled to secure it.
“Don’t do it, Marvin,” Mitt said.
“You always needed someone strong,” Tice said. He let go of the bird with one hand just long enough to grab a discarded clipboard that lay on the bench and heaved it at Kent. “It used to be me. Now it’s him.”
Kent ducked as the clipboard sailed past. Lucinda went into full-on defend her master mode. Her pupils became slits. She fixed on Tice, her target. Her muscles tightened visibly under her skin and she let out a roar that sent a chill through all three observers.
Kent hooked his fingers under her collar as she lunged at Tice.
Instinctively, Tice took a step back. He reached over to the laser sight and redirected the dot onto Lucinda’s chest. “Let’s make it her, instead.”
Kent dropped to his knees next to Lucinda. “No. Keep it on me,” he said.
As he shielded Lucinda on the floor, his hand touched a saucer-size mirror, a remnant of the rat maze missed in the clean-up.
“I think you really would die for that dog,” Tice said.
Kent pivoted, pinpointing Tice’s location. “Of course, I would.”
He brought the mirror up so that it intercepted the beam on Lucinda and reflected it back at Tice. To Mitt, he said, “Duck.”
Tice looked down in horror at the red dot on his own sternum, but it was too late. The pigeon, still in his grasp, saw the dot too, only inches away. The blood drained from Tice’s face as the bird pecked the C4 detonator. Tice released his grip on the bird, but the damage was done.
Kent saw Mitt dive behind a lab bench. He shoved Lucinda behind one too and covered her with his body. He closed his eyes and covered his ears. The concussion knocked him senseless.
CHAPTER 43
Kent had no sense of time. He did not know, or care, how much time had passed. He had no interest in how long things took any more than he cared about when he ate or what he ate, whether or not he was hot or cold, or anything else for that matter. He was in a state of sublime peace, lying all alone on his private grassy knoll looking up at a sky so black it seemed purple. It was a majestic canopy with a million stars, contrasting tiny lights, all put there to comfort him.
The night air was wet and warm, and heavy. So heavy it weighted his arms and legs. He could not move, but he did not care. It was sweet in his nostrils. It was wonderful.
Sometimes beyond the night, on the far side of the starry firmament, he heard a voice. Aubrey’s voice. She soothed him, consoled him.
When he wanted to, he listened to her voice, dreamed about her, enjoyed the kind and reassuring monotony of her voice. He let himself float to a lighter plane. When he wanted silence in his night place, he exhaled just a little deeper and drifted back down to a more leaden plane of unconsciousness.
Then, one day, his cerebrum sent a message to the rest of his body that it was sufficiently restored. Repairs were complete. And he began to ascend for the last time. He felt his nose twitch as its olfactory centers registered acrid hospital smells mixed with the sweet bouquet of flowers around his bed—and Aubrey’s perfume. That was his first movement.
Aubrey must have been staring at his face when it happened because he heard her gasp, then wait, not believing her eyes. He did it again, the nose twitch, and heard her whine with joy, then scream, “Nurse! Nurse! He moved!” And that woke him more.
His index finger began rubbing against his thumb as if massaging a coin. Aubrey grabbed it and squeezed it tightly.
His eyes opened, squinted into the sunlight pouring on him through the window—and he was back.
Aubrey was sobbing and kissing him, burying her face into his neck and hugging him.
Nurses scurried about checking machines and doctors recorded vital signs, as if they were unwilling to concede his return without proper verification. But he knew, and Aubrey knew, that was all that mattered.
“Hi, there,” he said in a hoarse whisper. He swallowed hard. His throat felt like it was coated with chalk powder. “Water.”
Aubrey poured some from a bedside pitcher and supported the cup while he sipped through a straw. After a pause to let the water do its work, he asked, “How long have I been ...asleep?”
“Five days.”
“Long time.”
“Forever.”
Then the memories began to creep back.
“How is the CVC?”
“Fixable. Actually, they are working on it as we speak.”
“The statue okay?”
“They didn’t get the statue, either. It’s fine. God. I’m glad you can remember.”
He closed his eyes. Aubrey panicked. She touched his hand.
“How is Dee Mitt?” he asked, eyes still closed.
Aubrey breathed again. “Okay. She’s a few doors down. Covered with plaster just like you, but she’s going to make it.”
“That’s good. I like her.” After a moment, he said, “And Tice?”
Aubr
ey patted his hand softly. “Uh-uh.”
Kent knew he’d never confront that monster again. He thought about that through a pause so long that Aubrey thought he had drifted to sleep. Then, as she studied his face, his eyelids squeezed tight and a tear trickled down his cheek. His breathing became irregular and she panicked until she realized he was crying. He opened his eyes and looked at her as straight-on as his restraints would allow. His voice quivered. “Do I still have Lucy?”
“Yes. Yes, you do. We do. Lucinda is going to be fine.”
“Thank God,” he said, letting the tears roll.
“I didn’t want to say anything until you asked.”
“Is she … okay.”
“She’s at the CVC, of course. But she’s out of ICU now. Getting spoiled rotten as you might expect. She can go head to head with you in a plaster measuring contest, but she’s got all her parts, and,” Aubrey made quotation marks in the air, “‘Doctor’ Barry assures me that she will be 100 percent. He hasn’t left her side.”
“Man, I love that kid.”
Another long silence passed. Then, Kent said, “How about Loren? Where is she now?”
“I kicked her ass down the road. CVC accreditation be damned.”
“Amen to that.”
His gaze drifted down to his leg that was covered in plaster and suspended by a cable. “Do I still have all my parts, too?”
“Yes. Although they’re pretty dinged up.”
He smiled, then groaned as the sutures in his face pulled. It hurt like hell. “Feels good.”
Aubrey smothered a chuckle with a hand over her mouth and tried to look sympathetic. It was impossible. She was giddy with relief.
A clean-cut young doctor leaned between them and shined a pen-light in his eyes. “Pardon the dumb question, Dr. Stephenson, but how do you feel?”
“It hurts to smile.”
“When you get around to a mirror, you’ll see why.”
“My ears are ringing.”
“Yeah. Explosions tend to do that. It’ll go away.”
“Everything else hurts, too.”
“That’s good. It means your nervous system is behaving normally.
“Geez, you are a compassionate guy.”
The door burst open and Kent heard a familiar voice.
“Make way. I want to see this sorry sight.”
Aubrey thumbed over her shoulder. “Merrill’s here.”
“I gather.”
Aubrey and the doctor moved to give him space. Merrill bent down into Kent’s field of view. “Welcome back, Bro.”
“Good shooting.”
“It was like an ol’fashioned turkey shoot.”
“Sort of.”
“That part was kind of fun. The rest? Not so much. When the bomb went off, I thought, oh shit, there goes my brother. That would have been bad.”
“I can’t hear you, my ears are ringing. Say that again.”
Merrill smiled, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah, right. Not a chance.”
They walked through the whole thing again until the nurse came back in. “Okay, guys. Dr. Stephenson needs to rest. You are all going to have to …”
She stopped in mid-sentence as the door opened again. All eyes turned toward it as Barry entered. He pushed the door with his back because his arms were full—with Lucinda.
Everyone, including Merrill, joined in a chorus of “ahhhs.” Except the nurse. She suddenly seemed unsettled. She muttered something about having to check on another patient and headed out the door without finishing her instructions for them to leave. Barry winked at her as she brushed past.
“Can someone get me a chair? This girl is heavy,” he said, as Lucinda began to howl and struggle. “She was good until she caught a whiff of you, Doc.” To Lucinda, he said, “Take it easy, girl, you aren’t as strong as you think you are.”
Someone pulled out the chair next to the bed and Barry sat. He had all he could do to keep Lucinda on his lap as she mixed howls with yips and struggled to get to Kent.
Kent felt the wonderful cold, wet feel of her nose as she slid it under his hand. With the tips of his fingers he massaged her muzzle. Even that slight movement hurt, but it was marvelous. Lucinda whined the happiest whine he had ever her from her.
“How did you get her in here,” Kent asked.
“The nurse? Her daughter is in my class. She was telling me that they have three barn cats that need to be spayed, but it’s more money than they can swing right now. I told her to tell her mother that if she let me sneak Lucy up here, the CVC would spay her cats for free.”
“And she went for it?” Kent said.
“She waffled at first. So I threw in a rabies vaccination for each one.”
“You don’t have the authority to do that.”
“I know,” Barry said, not the least bit contrite.
“Good work.”
“She’s been a basket case ever since she started feeling better. I know she was really worried about you. I couldn’t explain to her that you were all right, too.”
Kent ran his eyes over Lucinda the best he could. Her fur was clipped in a half-dozen places. In the center of each site were sutures closing ragged wounds. “What’s with her leg?”
“Fractured humerus. She’s got a fancy plate under the cast.”
“Can she walk?”
“She would be able to if it weren’t for the fractured pelvis.”
“Jesus.”
“It’s away from any joints. The ortho docs say she should make a full recovery. It’s just going to take time.” He scowled at Lucinda. “And rest.”
There was a long comfortable quiet as they all watched the two victims reunite.
Then Kent said, “When can I get out of here?”
“Soon,” Aubrey said.
“I want to see the Simpatico statue.”
“That works, because the whole CVC staff is dying to see you. Don’t tell them I said so, but they are planning a welcome home party.”
Kent looked at Lucinda. “They should know by now, I hate parties.”
Aubrey said, “But Lucy loves them.”
Lucinda wagged her tail.
About the Author
Frank Martorana grew up working with animals on several farms in Upstate New York. After graduating from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University he became the family doctor for countless horses, cows, dogs, cats, and many other creatures around Cazenovia and Hamilton, New York. When he is not treating animals, he is hard at work readying the next book in the Kent Stephenson Thriller series.
Please visit www.frankmartorana.com
for updates on the next Kent Stephenson Thriller
The Color of Wounds Page 23