The Crush

by Sandra Brown

  Had she known then that Wick was driving the pickup, she probably would have felt even happier. He made her smile, laugh even. That crooked front tooth—

  The telephone awakened her.

  Chapter 15

  Wick got away from Oren with no time to spare. He climbed into his pickup—it seemed to take an hour for the parking-lot attendant to tally his charge—and drove to the edge of downtown. He parked on a deserted side street and then, for the next few minutes, tried to convince himself that he wasn’t about to die.

  Repeatedly he popped the rubber band against his wrist, hard, but it didn’t stop the false signals of imminent death from whizzing toward his brain. He’d never had much faith that a rubber band could work that kind of miracle. It would be like using a bull whip to halt a runaway freight train. But the doctor had recommended it, so Wick had humored him and started wearing it.

  His fingers and toes tingled. Numbness crept up his legs and through his hands into his arms. The first time he experienced that temporary paralysis, he took it as proof positive that he had a brain tumor. He had learned that it was symptomatic of nothing except a shortage of oxygenated blood in his extremities due to hyperventilation.

  He opened his glove box and took out the brown-paper lunch sack he carried with him. Within seconds of breathing into it, the tingling abated, the numbness receded, and feeling returned.

  But his heart was pumping as though he had come nose-to-nose with a cobra poised and ready to strike. He was drenched with sweat. Although he knew he wasn’t dying, it sure as hell felt like he was. For five hellish minutes his reason and his body went to war. His reason told him he was suffering a panic attack. His body told him he was dying. Of the two, his body was the more convincing.

  He had been having dinner out with friends when he was seized by his first. Midway through the meal it had slammed into him. He hadn’t seen it coming. There was no warning. He didn’t just begin to feel bad and then gradually get worse.

  One second he was fine, and the next a wave of heat surged through him and left him trembling. Immediately he was dizzy and nauseated. He excused himself from the table, rushed into the men’s room, and was stricken with violent diarrhea. He shook like he had a palsy, and his scalp felt like it was crawling off his head. His heart was beating like a son of a bitch, and though he was gasping, he couldn’t suck in enough breath.

  He had believed wholeheartedly that whatever the hell had made him suddenly sick was going to kill him. There and then. He was going to die on the floor of that public rest room. He had been convinced of that as he’d never been convinced of anything in his life.

  Twenty minutes later he was strong enough to stand, to wash his face with cold water, to excuse himself from the group of friends. He felt lucky to be leaving the restaurant alive—as wrung out as a dishcloth, but alive. He’d gone home and slept for twelve hours. The next day he was weak but otherwise fine. He figured he’d been gripped by a vicious strain of flu, or maybe the marinara sauce he’d been eating was toxic.

  Forty-eight hours later it had happened again. He woke up in his own bed. No nightmare. Nothing. He’d been sleeping soundly when he abruptly awoke, in abject terror of dying. His heart was hammering. Sweat poured from him. He was gasping for air. Again he’d had the tingling in his extremities, the crawling scalp, and the absolute conviction that his time on earth was ending.

  This had taken place shortly after all the shit with Lozada had gone down. The assassin was thumbing his nose at the department in general and at Wick in particular. And now he’d been stricken with a terminal disease. That was his take on the situation when he made an appointment with an internist.

  “You mean I’m just crazy?”

  After putting him through a battery of tests—neurological, gastrointestinal, cardiological, you name it—the doctor’s diagnosis was that he suffered from acute anxiety disorder.

  The doctor was quick to tell him he wasn’t crazy and to explain the nature of the syndrome.

  Wick was relieved to learn that his illness wasn’t fatal, but the cause was imprecise and that bothered him. He wanted a quick fix and was disheartened to learn that it usually didn’t work that way.

  “You may never experience another one,” the doctor told him. “Or you may have them periodically for the rest of your life.”

  Wick studied the subject, researched it, exhausted the material available. While he hated to think of thousands of others suffering as he did, he was comforted to know that his symptoms were common.

  For a while, he saw a therapist weekly and took the prophylactic medication that was prescribed. Finally, though, he persuaded both doctors, and himself, that he was cured. “I’m over it,” he told the psychologist. “Whatever triggered the attacks—and it was a combination of things—has passed. I’m good to go.”

  And for the past ten months he had been. That was how long it had been since his last panic attack. He’d been fine. Until tonight. Thank God it wasn’t a severe one, that it had been short-lived. He’d recognized it for what it was and had talked himself through it. Maybe the rubber band had helped after all.

  He waited five minutes more to be certain it had passed before he began driving again. He took an entrance ramp onto the west freeway and drove with no particular destination in mind. In fact, his mind was empty except for thoughts of Rennie Newton. Surgeon. Equestrian. Lolita. Killer.

  His panic attack might have been precipitated by hearing that, at sixteen, she’d been involved with a married man. Her father’s business partner no less, probably much older than she. She had been a teenage home wrecker.

  That jibed with Crystal’s description of a teenage hell-raiser. A girl who would drive around town bare-breasted would also sleep with her father’s partner, destroy his marriage, and probably laugh about it later.

  Dalton’s moral majority would be outraged by such behavior. Throw into the mix the fatal shooting of her father’s business partner and it was little wonder that her parents had said good riddance when they sent her to boarding school.

  But all that was incongruous with the woman Wick knew. Granted, he’d been in her company all of two times, but from what he had observed, he believed he had a fair grasp on her character.

  Far from a party girl, she had the social life of a monk. Rather than flaunting her sexuality, she shrank from being touched, going so far as to say “Don’t” when he would have touched her cheek.

  Now, was this the behavior of a femme fatale?

  He couldn’t reconcile the two Rennie Newtons and it was making him nuts, and for reasons that had nothing to do with the Lozada connection and Howell’s murder. His objectivity had flown, and Oren knew it. That’s why Oren was monitoring his activities, tracking him like a damn bloodhound.

  But he couldn’t really be angry at Oren. Okay, he was pissed that he’d hit him so hard, and he was dead wrong about Rennie. But Oren was doing his job. He had recruited Wick to help him do it, and instead he had added a complication.

  Suddenly he realized that his driving hadn’t been as aimless as he had thought. He was on the street where he had grown up. He guessed his subconscious had directed him here. Maybe he needed to touch home base, get grounded again. He pulled the pickup to a stop at the curb in front of his family’s house.

  He had sold it after Joe was killed. It would have seemed like a sacrilege to live there without Joe. He didn’t know if the couple who’d bought it from him still lived here or if it had exchanged hands since then, but the present owners were good trustees. Even in the dark he could tell the place was well kept.

  The Saint Augustine was clipped and neatly edged, the shrubbery pruned. The shutters had been painted a different color, but he thought his mother would approve it. Her rose bed on the east side still flourished.

  He could hear his father saying “You boys should be ashamed of yourselves.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your mother prides herself on those
roses, you know.”

  “It was an accident,” Wick mumbled.

  “But she had asked you not to play ball near her rose bed, hadn’t she?”

  Wick had been going out for a pass thrown by his older brother. The football had landed in the rosebushes—and so had Wick. By the time he had thrashed around to extricate himself, he’d broken off the branches of several plants at ground level. His mother had cried when she saw the irreparable damage. When their father got home from work, he had laid into them.

  “From now on, play football on that vacant lot down the street.”

  “There’re fire ants on that lot, Dad,” Wick had said.

  “Will you just shut up,” Joe hissed.

  “Don’t tell me to shut up. You’re not my boss. You’re no Joe Namath either. If you’d hadn’t thrown the damn ball—”

  “Wick!”

  When their dad used that tone of voice he and Joe knew it was wise not to say anything more. “This weekend the two of you will clean out the garage and scrape out the gutters. No friends can come over, and you can’t go anywhere. And if I hear any complaining, quarreling, or cussing,” he said, looking directly at Wick, “you’ll have it even worse next weekend.”

  Wick smiled at the memory. Even then Joe had shown self-restraint and had known when to keep his mouth shut, lessons Wick had yet to learn.

  Many memories had been made inside that house. His mom had made major events of holidays and birthdays. A variety of cats and dogs, two hamsters, and one injured mockingbird had been their beloved pets. He’d fallen from the pecan tree in the backyard and broken his arm, and his mom had cried and said it could’ve been his neck. The day Joe got his first car, he had let Wick sit in the driver’s seat while he pointed out its features.

  Parties had been held for each of their school commencements and then again when they graduated from the police academy. Their parents had been proud of them. Wick figured his dad had bored his Bell Helicopter co-workers with stories of his boys the policemen.

  There were some sad memories too. Like the day his parents had told them about his father’s cancer. By then he and Joe were living separately in apartments, but they came home frequently for family get-togethers.

  They had been gathered around the kitchen table, eating chocolate cake and regaling Mom and Dad with cop stories, which they always edited so as not to cause them too much worry, when their father had turned serious. His mother had become so upset she had had to leave the room, Wick recalled.

  Two years into her widowhood, a teenage driver ran a stop sign and hit her broadside. The EMTs said she had died instantly. At the time Wick had railed at the injustice of losing both parents so close together. Later, he was glad his mother hadn’t lived to see her firstborn slain. She had thought the sun rose and set in Joe. If that car accident hadn’t killed her, having to bury him would have, and it would have been much more painful.

  His darkest memory was of the night Joe had been taken from him.

  After their mother’s death, they had moved back into the house together. That night he had been entertaining a group of friends. It was a boozy, noisy crowd, and he had barely heard the doorbell above the blaring music. He was surprised to see Oren and Grace standing on his threshold.

  “Hey, who called the fuzz? Is the music too loud?” He remembered raising his hands in surrender. “We promise to be nice, Officer, just don’t haul us off to the poky.”

  But Oren didn’t smile, and Grace’s eyes were wet.

  A slam-dunk of realization, then “Where’s Joe?”

  He had known before asking.

  Wick sighed, gave the house another poignant look, then let his foot off the brake and drove slowly away. “Enough of Memory Lane for one night, Wick ol’ boy.”

  The city slept. There were few other vehicles on the streets. He wheeled into the motel parking lot, got out, locked his pickup, trudged to his door, and let himself in.

  The room smelled musty. Too many cigarettes, too many occupants, too many carry-out meals. Disinfectant couldn’t penetrate the layers of odors. He turned on the air conditioner full blast to circulate the stale air. The bed, sad and sagging as it was, looked inviting, but he needed a shower first.

  Even at this hour of the morning the hot water ran out before he could work up a sufficient lather, but he didn’t rush. He let the cold water stream over his face and head for a long time, washing away the aftereffects of the panic attack. Besides, he was beginning to like cold showers, and just as well. It seemed that he and ample hot water were never going to be roommates.

  The moment he switched off the faucets, he heard the noise in the bedroom. “Goddammit,” he muttered. That maid must have radar. But this was ridiculous. It was… He checked his wristwatch. Four-twenty-three. The manager was going to hear about this.

  Angrily he snatched a towel off the bar and wrapped it around his waist, then yanked open the door and barged through.

  She was lying on his bed, faceup. The silver letters on her T-shirt glittered in the glare of the nightstand lamp. It also reflected in her open eyes and shone garishly on the two neat holes in her forehead.

  He sensed movement behind him but didn’t have time to react before an iron forearm was clamped down on his Adam’s apple. He was punched hard in the back just above his waist. It caused his ears to ring and the room to tilt.

  “You can blame yourself for her, Threadgill. Think about that as you die.”

  The punch started hurting like hell, but it jump-started his conditioned reflexes. He tried to throw off the arm across his throat. At the same time he jabbed his elbow backward. It connected with ribs, but not with any significant thrust. He repeated the movements and aimed for his assailant’s kneecap with his heel. Or thought he did. He wanted to. He tried, wasn’t sure he did.

  Jesus, he hadn’t realized he was so out of shape. Or had the panic attack been worse than he thought? It had left him as weak as a newborn kitten.

  “Mr. Threadgill?”

  His name echoed out of a hollow distance. It was followed by repeated knocking.

  “Fuck!”

  The arm across his neck let go. When it did, his knees buckled and he went down, landing hard on the smelly carpet. Pain rocketed through his skull. Jesus Christ that hurt!

  Oblivion rolled in like a dense fog. He saw it coming, welcomed it.

  * * *

  Rennie rushed from the doctors’ parking lot into the emergency room.

  “Number Three, Dr. Newton.”

  She tossed her shoulder bag to the desk attendant. “Watch this for me, please.” She ran down the corridor. There was a lot of activity in Room Three, numerous personnel, all busy. A nurse was standing ready with a paper gown for her. She pushed her arms through the sleeves and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. As she adjusted a pair of clear goggles to cover her eyes, she said, “Tell me.”

  The ER resident said, “Forty-one-year-old male, stab wound in the back, lower right side. Object still buried to the hilt.”

  “Kidney?”

  “Almost certain.”

  “Pressure’s down to eighty,” a nurse said.

  Other nurses and an intern called out other vital information. The patient had been intubated. He was being transfused with O-negative blood and was getting Ringer lactate solution through an IV. He’d been rolled onto his side so she could inspect the wound. The handle of what looked like a screwdriver extended from it.

  “His abdomen’s swelling. He’s got a bellyful of blood.”

  She looked for herself and determined there was no need to do a peritoneal lavage or CAT scan. The patient was bleeding out internally.

  “Pressure’s dropping, Doctor.”

  Rennie assimilated the barrage of information within thirty seconds of her arrival. A nurse hung up a wall phone and shouted above the confusion, “OR is ready.”

  Rennie said, “Let’s go.”

  As she turned away she happened to glance at the patient’s face. Her wordless cry
momentarily halted everyone surrounding the gurney.

  “Dr. Newton?”

  “You okay?”

  She nodding, saying gruffly, “Let’s move.” But nobody did. “Stat!” That galvanized them. The gurney was wheeled into the corridor. She ran alongside. The elevator was being held open for them. They had almost reached it when someone shouted her name.

  “Wait up!”

  She stopped, turned. Detective Wesley was running toward her.

  “Not now, Detective. I’ve got an emergency on my hands.”

  “You’re not operating on Wick.”

  “Like hell I’m not.”

  “Not you.”

  “This is what I do.”

  “Not on Wick.”

  The gurney had been rolled inside the elevator. She motioned the emergency team to take it up. “I’ll be right there.” The elevator doors closed. She turned back to Wesley. “He’s in shock and he could die. Soon. Do you understand?”

  “Dr. Sugarman is on his way. He’ll be here in five minutes.”

  “Sorry, haven’t got it to spare, Detective. Besides, I’m a better surgeon than Sugarman and have more trauma experience. A patient needs me, and I’ll be damned before I’ll let you stop me from saving his life.”

  She held his stare for ten seconds before turning away and rushing toward the elevator that had been sent back down for her.

  * * *

  “The girls are all right? You’re sure?”

  “Oren, you asked me that ten minutes ago. I called the house. They’re fine.”

  He took Grace’s hand and rubbed the back of it. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She slipped her arm across his shoulders. “The policewoman you sent over was cooking breakfast for them. Another officer is watching the house. They’re fine.” She massaged his neck. “I’m not so sure about you.”

  “I’m okay.” He pushed himself off the waiting-room sofa. “What could be taking so long? He’s been in surgery for hours.”