He had to get Henry out of here. He stopped the car as close to the scene as he dared and reclined the seat to its lowest position. It wasn’t an ambulance, and he wasn’t an EMT, but he was all Henry had.
Sweat and rain streamed through Seth’s hair and down his ravaged face. Falling to his knees on the muddy ground, Seth gathered Henry in his arms. Henry cried out. Pain contorted his ashen face. Seth clenched his jaw, straining under Henry’s weight, and staggered toward the open car door.
“Hang in there,” he muttered as he placed Henry on the seat as gently as he could.
He cinched the tourniquet tighter, trying not to focus on all the blood, the horror of flesh and bone and sinew that was Henry’s stump. He had never seen so much blood.
Henry was going to die.
There was no way to secure the seatbelt around Henry’s unconscious form. He slumped to the side, dead weight, his skin sweaty and gray as he went into shock. Seth grabbed a sweatshirt from the back seat and spread it across Henry’s torso.
“Stay with me, buddy. We’re getting you out of here.”
Seth slammed the car door shut.
He tore down the highway like a maniac, taking the corners wide. Gravel shout out from beneath his tires as the wheels veered wildly off onto the shoulder. He wrestled the car back onto the road one-handed, keeping a tight grip on Henry.
He dug his fingers deep into Henry’s throat, and searched for a pulse. He couldn’t feel anything.
“Goddammit, Henry, don’t you die on me.”
A curve took Seth by surprise. He pinned Henry in place and laid on the brakes, felt the car float beneath him.
The car screeched around the corner and Seth laid on the gas, the tires finding purchase and gripping the road. He fumbled for his phone. Found it. Called 911.
“What’s the nature of your emergency?”
“This is Seth Crawford,” he said, falling into cop mode. “I have a thirty-year-old man with a severed leg. I need an ambulance. Police. We’re three miles south of Buckley in a green Prius.”
“He lost his leg?”
“I’ve applied a tourniquet, but he’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Is he awake?”
“No.” The questions seemed endless. Pointless.
“The ambulance is on its way.”
Rounding another hairpin turn, the lights of a semi blinded him. The blast from the truck’s horn sounded as loud as a cargo ship. A bright flash of fear shot through Seth. He dropped the phone. Veered. Hit gravel again. The car skidded into the ditch.
Once the truck had passed, Seth pulled back onto the road.
This was taking too long. He sped down the roller coaster road as fast as he dared toward Enumclaw, toward help, while Henry lay unresponsive and bleeding beside him.
Was moving Henry the right thing to do? He didn’t know. He was way out of his depth here. Seth peered out the muddy windshield. Red lights flashed in the distance. The ambulance was approaching fast.
“Hang on buddy. Help is coming.”
Seth stopped the car. He stumbled out onto the side of the road and waved his hands overhead.
The wail of the sirens closed in around him.
“Over here.”
Seth ran toward the car and the EMT followed.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. It’s my buddy.”
The EMT ripped the passenger’s door open.
He shouted orders to the other EMT, who pushed Seth out of the way. A sea of flashing lights closed in. The 911 dispatcher had sent the entire emergency response team. Seth sagged against a fire truck, reduced to a bystander, as Henry was pulled from the car.
Henry.
Henry had saved him that day in the bar, but he had failed to stop Henry from running headlong into danger. And now . . . Shit.
The firemen and EMTs swarmed around Henry while a cop crossed the road, headed straight for Seth.
“You the one that called it in?”
Seth nodded. He ran his bloody hands through his hair.
Laid out on the stretcher, Henry looked dead. They loaded his friend into the rig and slammed the doors shut. Lights flashing, sirens on, they pulled a hasty U-turn and sped down the darkened highway.
Seth watched them go. He should be there. In the ambulance. Holding Henry’s hand just in case.
“You’re a cop?”
Seth shook his head. “Used to be.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Seth rode in the back of the squad car all the way to Enumclaw while the two police officers peppered him with questions. He spilled the whole story quickly, not missing a detail as the small town slid by. Sharing the truth was the fastest way to cut through the bureaucratic tape, he knew, and he wanted a team dispatched to the farm right away.
He saw the blue hospital sign pointing left fly past. The cop didn’t even slow down. He kept driving straight.
“Can’t we do this from the hospital?”
Nobody should die alone.
The cops didn’t answer. They parked him in an interrogation room with a stale sandwich and bad coffee. He knew what they were doing. Trying to build a rapport with the subject, just like he’d done so many times before. He stared at the sandwich, left it untouched, his stomach tied in knots.
He could only assume that they had dispatched officers to the farm, looking for evidence to corroborate his story, but goddamn, they were taking a long fucking time. Minutes turned into hours while he waited. Exhaustion settled in. Head leaning back against the wall, Seth dozed off. Images. Fragments of Henry flashed through his head. Blood. Screaming.
He jarred awake as a cop strode in. It was four in the morning.
He wanted to ask what had taken them so long, but he didn’t. The cop looked as tired as he felt as he led Seth from the interrogation room. The station was small, and lined with white desks. The officer motioned toward one of the hard-backed chairs and shoved a phone toward Seth.
He used his one call to contact Alvarez. The lieutenant awoke from a dead sleep.
Seth dumped the story as quickly as he could. He held the phone away from his ear as Alvarez let loose a stream of obscenities.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?”
“Garcia’s fucking job, that’s what,” Seth yelled back. “While you all were busy slow playing Maddox, we solved the case.”
“And got Henry hurt in the process. You probably tipped off the perp. If they were at the farm, they’re sure as hell gone now.”
Seth winced. Alvarez was probably right. The whole situation was a disaster. And if Henry died, it was on him.
Silence hung on the phone line. After a few seconds, Alvarez spoke.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Everything was going on around him while he was stuck here waiting for Alvarez. Henry could be dying. The suspects escaping. Becky and Suzie could be suffering right now, and there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was wait.
Finally Alvarez arrived. He strode into the room looking like a pissed off parent.
“Let’s get out of here,” he grunted.
After signing for his personal items, they exited the police station into the frigid predawn air. Seth glanced at his phone and frowned. Marissa had called a half dozen times. They were supposed to meet last night to talk things through. With everything that had happened, he hadn’t called her. Shit.
There was no point in waking her up now, Seth reasoned. In a few hours, she’d be up and they could talk things through.
He stuffed the phone in his pocket and climbed into Alvarez’s car.
“You look like hell. Are you all right?” Alvarez asked.
“What the hell have they been doing all night besides wasting time?”
“Investigating the scene. Deploying the bomb squad. You and Henry walked into a hell of a mess.”
“How is Henry?”
Alvarez’s expression was grim. “In surgery. They’re tryin
g to stabilize him before they fly him to Harborview.”
Harborview had the best trauma unit in the state and was Henry’s best chance.
“Survivability?” Seth asked.
He avoided looking at Alvarez, afraid of what he might see on the Lieutenant’s face.
“Too soon. I don’t need to tell you it’s bad.”
Seth ran his hands down his jeans. Dried blood saturated the fabric and felt like cardboard under his palms.
Enumclaw slid by in a sleepy parade of dark bungalows. Seth knew there would be no sleep for him. His mind was full of Henry and the case. Wilcox could be anywhere. With any luck, the locals would find something on the farm that would point them in the right direction.
Alvarez headed south, away from the main road that led to Maple Valley. To Seattle. Home.
“Where are we going?” Seth asked.
“I thought you might like to track down these bastards.”
Chapter 47
Feather light, Marissa glided through the water, toward the rippling surface. The water was as warm as summer rain. The flow of it peaceful like a dream. The gentle currents pulled her down. Deeper. Colors slid past, shades of gray and gauzy blue like thin clouds drifting across a clear sky.
The silvery lights rippled and danced their way across the waves overhead. Marissa pushed off the sandy bottom and floated up and up.
From beneath the surface, she heard them. A woman speaking. Her voice as light as air. The words indistinct. Indecipherable. Marissa sank deeper, the currents pulling her down into the depths where the light faded. The water turned brisk.
Then anger cracked like thunder from above. Fear spiked as fast and deep as lightning.
She heard a scream.
Pain. Anger.
The silvery light disappeared. The pond was engulfed in shadow. Marissa felt a chill.
Up.
She had to wake up. Liquid lead oozed through her veins as she made her way to the surface. She struggled to open her eyes. Her lids felt as heavy as cement blinds.
Blinding white light flooded her vision like ten thousand stinging bees. She closed them again.
Her mouth tasted bitter. She tried to speak, ask for water, but the effort was too much. The words refused to form.
The shadow moved closer. The image of his face was distorted, like a reflection in a rippling pond.
Seth?
The desire to drift away again was strong, disappear into the murky water where she could sleep. But something kept dragging her back toward the surface. A far-off blaring like an alarm clock prodding her from the grip of a dream.
His face took shape. Sharp angles and planes. Light skipped off the surface of his glasses. He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring blankly at the wall.
“Where am I?” she croaked, her mouth as dry as sand.
The man glanced at her with mild surprise, like he too had just been roused from a far-off dream.
“You’re awake,” he said, turning his attention away from her to a plastic squeeze bottle cupped in his hands. Cold, gooey gel pooled on her stomach. She gasped. The chill of it as shocking as the flow of a glacier-fed stream. He pressed a plastic wand into her flesh and glanced toward a screen at the foot of the bed. “It looks like you’re about ten weeks along.”
The glimmer of a monitor grabbed her attention. The image was grainy. There was movement on the screen. She struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. Something hard and smooth dug into her belly. The image shifted.
Marissa made out a kidney-shaped sack with an embryo inside. The largest circle was the baby’s head with another long oblong shape comprising the body. A wave of pure happiness suffused her as she saw the tiny flutter of her baby’s beating heart.
Her baby.
“Lucky,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re okay. So is your baby.”
The memories came rushing back. The parking garage. The man.
“Where am I?” Marissa repeated.
“You were in an accident, but you’re going to be okay. Your baby is fine too.”
“You really are a doctor.”
The pressure on her belly eased and the image disappeared. He swiped the wet gel from her skin and placed the wand back on the portable ultrasound machine.
“A surgeon.”
It sounded like he said he was a surgeon, but surely that couldn’t be right. Why would a surgeon be doing an ultrasound?
She propped her hands on the bed and tried to lever herself up. The pain was real enough. It lit up her hip and leg in a bright white burst.
Marissa couldn’t move. It was like she was pinned in place by an invisible hand. Panic clawed at her throat.
“I can’t feel my legs,” she blurted.
The doctor glanced down the table and shrugged. “Your legs are fine.”
“Then why . . . ?”
Marissa lay covered in a thin blue surgical drape. She peered past the doctor.
A woman’s body was sprawled across her lower half. White skin. Red hair. The nurse from the clinic. A bullet hole was centered between her dead eyes.
Marissa screamed. Recoiled. Trapped beneath the woman’s weight she thrashed but she barely moved an inch.
“Oh God.”
Plastic restraints circled her wrists and manacled her to the bedrails. She yanked at them, clawing to get free.
“Her?” He glanced down at Marissa with a creepy half grin. “She can’t hurt you now.”
The doctor hummed a tune under his breath while he polished something. Terror exploded inside Marissa’s chest. Light glinted across the razor-sharp edge of a scalpel. He set the instrument down on a tray beside the bed. The other surgical instruments clinked.
“Do you have a family history of Alzheimer’s or dementia?”
Terror closed like a fist around Marissa’s throat. Unable to speak, she shook her head.
His grin was ghastly in the half-light. “Your baby will do fine.”
He picked a syringe off the tray and pulled the cap off, exposing the bright shiny tip. He held a vial of clear liquid up to the light.
The doctor plunged the end of the needle into the vial and drew the clear liquid into the shaft. He squinted. Checked the dosage. Satisfied, he placed the vial on the tray.
Marissa gasped, a strangled scream escaped her. She thrashed. Wild with fear. Tried to tear herself free, but it was no use. His icy fingers clamped around her forearm like a vice. He thrust the needle toward her.
The lights went out. The room was plunged into utter darkness.
“What?”
The doctor released his grip. Instruments clanged as he shoved the tray out of the way.
Silence fell like a blanket of snow across the room.
“Excuse me,” he said.
His footsteps receded in the inky darkness. A metal door clanged shut.
Was he gone?
Marissa didn’t know, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to wait around to find out.
She yanked the restraints. Felt some give. If she could get some leverage, maybe she could slide them off. But with what? She couldn’t move. She was pinned under the dead woman’s body.
Marissa pulled down on the restraint encircling her right wrist. It caught against the bedrail. She pulled at it again. Pain seared through her shoulder. The plastic edges bit into her skin, burning like she was being flayed with a dull hunting knife.
Sweat popped out on her forehead. She pulled harder. It felt like her hand was being crushed. Warm blood trickled down her wrist and dripped onto the sheet.
One more savage yank and she was free.
She cupped her throbbing hand to her chest as a wave of nausea and pain washed over her.
Catching her breath, she went to work on the other restraint. She fumbled with it, her injured hand slow and clumsy. Every second counted, and she worked the buckle with her shaking fingers until her other hand was free.
The simple act of moving sa
pped her strength. She lay back against the bed, bathed in sweat. Wanting to sleep.
Knowing she couldn’t.
Marissa twisted her hips, swaying from side to side, trying to move the body off her, but it was no use. The woman was too heavy. Marissa sat up, grabbed the nurse’s shirt, and heaved, using her own weight as leverage.
It wasn’t going to work. She was too weak. Marissa heard the fabric of the nurse’s top tear. She gave it one more desperate heave.
The nurse’s body slid off her and hit the floor with a thud.
Panic burned like jet fuel through Marissa’s body. The drape slid away as she scooted to the foot of the bed. Every second an eternity as she wrestled with the restraints tethering her ankles.
Her legs felt like rubber as she lowered herself to the floor. Sweat dried on her bare skin and she shivered. She grabbed the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around her torso. Tried to get her bearings.
She thrust her hand in front of her face but couldn’t see a thing. Absolute darkness engulfed her. No windows. No light. She had no idea where she was. Which way was out? The room was silent.
He had left through a door. She’d heard it slam shut. Marissa closed her eyes and tried to recall the layout of the room. There were monitors above the bed. A tray with instruments. She never saw the door. It must have been behind her.
She tried to orient herself to the mental model she built from memory. She took a faltering step straight ahead. Like a blind man, she swept her hands through the air as she plunged into the darkness. Her toes crushed against something hard in a bright spark of pain. A tray went flying. Surgical instruments crashed to the floor.
Marissa caught her breath. The air was thick. Stale. Earthy. Shaking and scared, she lurched ahead into the vast empty space, all sense of direction lost.
She hated this. Trapped. Blind. Helpless. Fear overwhelmed her. All she wanted to do was weep. But crying wouldn’t help. She had to think. Fight. Reason her way out of the trap.
She had to find the door.
Marissa took a step. Then another. Groping for something solid in the darkness, something she could hold on to.
Her fingertips grazed a surface. It was hard. Smooth. A cupboard, or something like it. She turned and traced its length, let it guide her until it ended. Marissa found the wall. She followed it around the room until it ended. She stretched her fingers out like tentacles.
Dark Harvest (A Holt Foundation Story Book 2) Page 27