by H. P. Bayne
Eva followed Dez back to his place, but stayed only long enough to give him hell.
“If you ever make a move like that without letting me know first, I will kick your ass from here straight across the river.”
Dez grinned but quickly realized he’d do better to look regretful. “I know it was stupid. I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I didn’t really have a choice, Eva.”
“So you keep saying. Tell me something. What did you get out of today’s little visit other than a pissed-off wife and a serious case of the heebie-jeebies?”
Dez was so pleased to hear Eva use the word “wife” rather than “ex-wife” that he almost forgot about the heebie-jeebies. Almost.
“Lorinda Usher knows something.”
“She’s crackers, Dez.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean she’s not involved.”
“How exactly would she be involved? I can’t imagine she can leave the place at will, let alone get up out of that wheelchair for more than a few minutes at a time—if she can get up at all. We don’t really know, do we?”
“No, we don’t. Come right down to it, there’s a hell of a lot we don’t know. That’s the problem.”
Eva put her hands on her hips, appeared to reconsider, and slid her fingers into the pockets of her jeans. “Dez, think about it. You’re saying someone took Sully, right? Do you really believe a middle-aged woman in her condition is capable of overpowering and making off with an able-bodied twenty-four-year-old man?”
“She wouldn’t have had to if she had someone who could do it for her.”
“So it’s a conspiracy, now?”
“Eva, come on. Stay with me, here. I was attacked and left in a situation that ended up drawing Sully out. Pax was tranqued and Sully went missing, leaving what looked to be physical signs of a struggle. Lachlan, who was investigating Sully and his mother, was attacked and almost killed. This was planned, Eva. From what I can tell, it was planned to the teeth. Now someone knows something, and they’ve essentially committed the perfect crime, because no one but me and you and Lachlan and Lucienne knows Sully is alive. You can’t launch a kidnapping investigation when the victim doesn’t exist, can you?”
“Maybe it’s time we tried. I’m not trying to be difficult here, but I think it’s far past time we thought about coming forward with all this, let the police handle it.”
“We can’t do that, not until we know something for sure, anyway. There are still people Sully needs to stay hidden from. If we go public with this, we blow his cover. You know what kind of fodder this will be for the news media, a supposedly dead guy now alive but possibly not for long. Add in the fact he’s the same guy who made headlines over his abandonment as a baby, and the whole world will know his name by the time everything’s said and done.”
“You’re worried he’ll end up back at Lockwood.”
“Damn right, I’m worried. Aren’t you?”
Eva scanned the ground, and Dez saw the fight leave her. “Okay. But we need to be ready, just in case.”
“Just in case, what?”
“In case the two of us aren’t enough to save him.”
Eva didn’t come upstairs, needing to pick up Kayleigh from Dez’s mom.
Dez trudged to his apartment, and was trying to figure out his next move when the next move came to him.
He had just stepped inside his apartment when he caught sight of movement from the corner of his eye. He wheeled in time to spot the business end of a baseball bat coming at his head.
He didn’t have time to do much but sidestep before it caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder. Given the quick dodge, it hadn’t been hard enough to break anything, but it still hurt like a bitch. Dez tried his best to ignore the pain as he squared off against a masked assailant.
Within the eyeholes of the balaclava, the man’s eyes looked huge and terrified, and Dez’s first thought was that he was about to go toe-to-toe with a meth addict. If so, it was quite possible he had a real fight on his hands. The guy was a few inches shorter than Dez, but he was no small fry, and there had been power behind that swing. And people high on meth were unpredictable, paranoid and delusional and, quite often, didn’t feel pain the same way they would sober. Not only that, but he wasn’t likely to listen to reason.
Dez’s study of the man lasted only a few seconds, but it was long enough to find further proof for his theory as he saw the man’s eyes darting around the room before once again landing on Dez.
“I don’t know what you’re after, but I don’t have anything of value,” Dez said. “I need you to put down the bat.”
The man didn’t answer. Not in words anyway. His eyes did it for him, the fear giving way to focus as they narrowed, gloved hands tightening around the bat.
It was go time.
Were this a simple hand-to-hand fight, Dez would have let the man come to him, would have waited out his opponent’s first move and countered with something intended to put the man on the ground and out of commission. But with a weapon involved, he didn’t have that luxury. He lunged toward the intruder, hands reaching to grasp the bat.
He got his hands on it just as the masked man raised it up and to the side as if preparing for a home run swing. Instead, the man released the weapon, the move coming so suddenly and unexpectedly, Dez was thrown off balance. That was the moment he realized he wasn’t dealing with a meth junkie. Nor was he up against some typical street hoodlum whose version of a punch-up involved throwing shots like a five-year-old in a snowball fight.
This guy knew what he was doing, and Dez—out of condition after all this time off the job—wasn’t prepared.
Dez’s forward momentum had propelled him into the wall, and the intruder landed a solid punch to the side of his head that left him seeing stars. The blow pushed Dez sideways, and his fingers brushed the wall as he fell, finding nothing there to grab onto. He landed on the bat hard enough to bruise the back of his right thigh, but there was no time to wallow in the pain. The intruder was fast, already at Dez’s side and landing two kicks to his mid-section. Curling in on himself, Dez protected his belly, leaving his knee to absorb the next kick. He yelled in pain and reached out, seizing his assailant’s stationary leg. The man shifted his weight to his free foot and lunged in a move to strike, but Dez was ready, getting one leg up in a kick directed at the side of the man’s knee.
The intruder buckled, hitting the ground with a howl, and Dez followed up with a punch he was forced to deliver with his weaker left hand, his right busy bracing himself against the floor. They were grappling now, no time to think, Dez’s brain fully locked into survival mode as his body reacted with as much muscle memory as he had left from his defensive tactics training. He drove a knee up, trying to strike his opponent’s abdomen, but the other man’s movement blocked him. The intruder was closer now, taking this from fistfight to wrestling match. Stuck between his assailant and the wall, Dez wasn’t in a good spot, and he knew it.
The man seemed to be trying to get on top of him, and Dez got his hands up, attempting to push him back. He didn’t see it in time, the sucker punch to his throat that left him gagging and unable to draw breath. Panic set in at the possibility his throat had collapsed, and he didn’t notice the man had retrieved the bat until, now wheezing on his hands and knees, he felt a blow to his back that laid him back out. A second followed, then a third.
And he knew instinctively the next one would be to his head.
“Drop your weapon, or I’ll shoot!” came a voice from somewhere above. The command—which was female but didn’t sound at all like Eva—was followed by the growl and bark of a large dog on the attack, then the sound of a man shrieking in pain.
Dez was on the verge of passing out, only vaguely aware of the sound of the man’s continued screams. He battled unconsciousness, dragged a few breaths into his spasming throat until he managed a good coughing fit that felt surprisingly refreshing.
His vision swam, b
ut he could make out enough now to see Miss Crichton leaning over him, checking him for injuries. He opened his mouth to order her back to the safety of her apartment but managed nothing but a croak followed by another coughing attack.
“Take it easy, Desmond. Just try to breathe. You’re going to be fine.”
He managed the word, “Where?” which proved enough to get him an answer.
“He’s unconscious and is bleeding quite badly. I’m afraid Pax did quite a number on him. I should go check on him.”
Dez snagged the woman’s arm. “No.”
For some reason, that drew a chuckle from her. “Oh, now, don’t you worry about me. I’ve got my little Smith & Wesson right here. I don’t expect our friend here will give me much trouble.”
She held up the snub-nosed, nickel-plated revolver for him to see before making her way over to the unconscious man. Gun or no gun, Dez wasn’t about to leave little Miss Crichton to deal with that lunatic alone, so dragged himself to his knees and crawled over to her side.
The man was indeed bleeding badly, a wound in his arm spurting blood despite Miss Crichton’s attempts to stem the flow. For his part, Pax was sitting next to the man looking, in Dez’s view, rather pleased with himself.
“Atta boy, Paxie,” Dez said.
“Oh my,” Miss Crichton said. “I didn’t intend for Pax to go after him. I sure hope he doesn’t die.”
“Did you call 9-1-1?” Dez asked, dragging in one more solid breath before taking over First Aid duties from his neighbour.
“I did, as soon as I heard all the commotion. I’d imagine they should be here any minute.”
As if on cue, Dez heard sirens approaching from several blocks away. Taking advantage of what time he had, Dez pulled off the intruder’s mask, revealing the face of a man in his late twenties or early thirties, his skin scarred by a handful of old injuries. There were fresh-looking bruises around his throat and a bleeding puncture wound to the crook of his neck that Dez was certain neither he nor Pax had caused. Dez studied the face, trying to fit it to a name or at least to someone he might have encountered in the past. The mental search came up empty.
As they waited for the emergency vehicles, something else occurred to Dez.
“There was a woman here, Miss Crichton.”
“Emily, please.”
“Did you see her?”
“If you mean Victoria Ward, then, yes, I did. She left not long after you did. I’m afraid I didn’t get a chance to say hello.”
“Listen, the police are going to ask you some questions. I need you to forget you saw her, all right?”
Miss Crichton smiled coyly. “Are you having a fling?”
“Uh … no. She’s someone who came to me for help finding someone.”
“I thought she said she was an old colleague of yours.”
“She wasn’t exactly on the level with you. I’m sorry.”
“I see. And you say no one can know about her?”
“She’s in some trouble.”
Miss Crichton was smiling again. “If she has anything to do with all this nonsense, I’d say it’s more likely she is trouble.”
“Fair enough. You’re probably right. Listen, I don’t think I need to tell you that you saved my life here. Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it. You would have done the same for me.”
Dez smiled. “You know it, Miss Crichton.”
“Emily.”
“Right. Emily.”
The ER was busy, even for the General, with countless people in and out of hospital garb bustling past the curtained entrance to the cubicle in which Dez sat waiting for the all-clear.
He’d already provided a couple of statements about the attack—a brief one to a patrol member at the scene and a second, full statement once he had been examined in the ER. At this point, he just needed the outcome of various tests, the doctor having noticed his goose egg from the other night.
He was hoping he’d be discharged before Forbes Raynor showed up, as he no doubt would, given the similarity between this attack and what had happened to Lachlan. Then again, it was more than likely Forbes was with the attacker, trying to crack him as the man lay there shy of blood and too lightheaded to know to shut up.
When the curtain moved, Dez braced himself for whatever news he was about to receive. Instead of chart notes, Miss Crichton appeared, peeking through the crack between curtain and wall.
“Are you decent?”
Dez checked his hospital gown and pulled the sheet a little further around his hips. “All clear.”
The woman came in, toting a repurposed plastic grocery bag, and perched on the cubicle’s sole chair—one of those bright orange padded, metal-framed affairs all hospitals seemed to have gotten at a discount in the mid-eighties.
“I brought you a change of clothes. I thought the ones you’d been wearing might be in a bit of a state.”
“Thanks, Emily. As it happens, the police seized the ones I had on.”
“Well, glad I thought of it, then. How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been beaten with a baseball bat.” Dez tempered the statement with a smile he hoped she’d read as cool and collected.
“Did you call your family?”
“No. I don’t want to worry them. Anyway, my wife’s been through enough on my account lately, and I don’t want my daughter to see me like this.” While he’d been assured his face had been spared, he had a painful spot on the side of his head that was likely turning some interesting colours to match the bruises he was now displaying on his arms. He didn’t even want to think about his back, which hurt like hell.
“Is anything broken?”
“Still waiting on X-rays, but the doctor suspects a cracked rib or two.”
“Oh, dear. I wish I’d been there sooner. It took me a moment to call 9-1-1 and retrieve my gun.”
“The police didn’t seize it on you, did they?”
“No. It’s registered, I’m licensed, and I was using it in self-defence. I can’t imagine they’re about to bust a little old lady who was standing up to an armed hoodlum.”
“You’re pretty awesome, you know that?”
Miss Crichton giggled. “Oh, go on with you.”
“Where’s Pax?”
“I left him at my place so I could come check on you. You had me worried.”
“Well, I appreciate that, but I’m fine. By the way, you didn’t see the woman come back, did you?”
“Not before I left. You’re quite concerned about her, I gather.”
“Given what just happened, I guess I am.”
Miss Crichton looked to be considering her next words. “Now, granted, I spend a little too much time watching television these days, but are you certain you can trust her? I mean, it seems odd she left, and then this man turns up, don’t you think?”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Dez said. “Thing is, I don’t trust her exactly, but I’ve got nothing at this point to suggest Lucienne is responsible for this.”
Dez realized his error as soon as the name was out of his mouth. Miss Crichton was having issues of her own, her jaw slackening as she stared at her neighbour.
“Lucienne, did you say? I thought she told me her name was—”
“You didn’t hear me say that, okay?”
“But that’s her name? Lucienne?”
“Why? Does that name mean something to you?”
Miss Crichton appeared to be thinking, but from where Dez was sitting, it looked less like she was figuring out what to say and more like she was considering whether to say anything at all.
When she at last responded, the answer didn’t get Dez very far. “Just a name I hadn’t heard in a long time.”
“Emily—”
“I’m very glad you’re okay, dear, but I’d best get back to Pax. He didn’t look all too keen to stay behind, and he’s big enough to turn my apartment inside out if he sets his mind to it.”
She leaned forward and gave Dez’s ha
nd a pat. “You phone me if you need anything, you hear?”
Dez called out to her as she turned, but she simply replied with a wave of a hand and a parting smile before slipping back through the curtain. He listened to the sound of her feet shuffling away down the corridor.
25
No trip to the hospital was complete without at least a little pain and, this time, Dez received extra in the form of Forbes Raynor.
Dez was officially cleared of having a severe head injury although, as he could have predicted, the doctor suspected some form of concussion. He also had a cracked rib, which explained why his back in particular was screaming at him like a toddler being refused ice cream before dinner.
But Dez had a high pain threshold, and the sharp throbbing had blessedly receded to manageable levels once the doctor had wrapped his ribs, offering a few instructions before discharging him. Dez had suffered a range of other injuries—bruises and scrapes mainly—and none of the affected body parts were too pleased with him as he struggled into the change of clothes Miss Crichton had brought.
He was grappling with his jeans, the bent position doing nothing to help his back, when the curtain parting had him drawing up to standing. He’d expected the doctor with some final instructions but instead found Forbes appearing at the gap in the curtain.
“Sorry,” Forbes said, backing out upon finding Dez in a partial state of undress.
“See anything you like?” Dez asked through his smirk as the curtain snapped shut.
The predictable response sounded from the other side. “Piss off.”
Dez finished with his jeans and drew the curtain back, finding Forbes with his back to the wall separating examination rooms, arms crossed. Slap on a suit and a pair of dark wraparound sunglasses, and he’d look like he was guarding the prime minister.
“I provided a full statement to patrol,” Dez said.
“I read it. I’ve still got some questions.”
“You’re asking the wrong guy. I’m as much in the dark as you are. Didn’t you talk to the asshole who attacked me? I mean, he’s in the ER, too, right?”