She took the ice pack she’d made in the kitchen and went upstairs to her bedroom. Sunlight slanted across the unmade bed, which was just as she and Trevor had left it the previous morning. Skimming her fingers over the rumpled sheets evoked vivid images of their lovemaking. She needed to think of that, and not Trevor lying bleeding and unconscious on the plane’s floor.
The lack of sleep had caught up to her. Rain’s limbs were sore and her eyes burned with fatigue. Too tired to even locate a nightgown, she shrugged out of the oversize medical scrubs and slid naked under the sheets. Pressing her face against the pillow where Trevor’s head had rested, she hoped to catch some lingering scent of him. But there was only the light floral fragrance of the laundry detergent. Disappointed, she closed her eyes.
The slow fall of footsteps interrupted her drowse. Rain sat up, drawing the sheets over her breasts. She called out, fearing a response, and was relieved when she heard only silence in return. After a short while she brushed her hair from her face and lay back down, chalking it up to her clattering nerves.
Rain was just falling asleep when she heard the strains of music coming from downstairs. Desiree’s husky voice floated up to her on the rich melody. Fear tingled along her skin. She wasn’t alone.
She dashed to the door with the intent of slamming it closed and locking it, but a towering frame filled the threshold. Carteris’s green eyes behind his spectacles held a mocking glint.
“You thought you could kill me that easily?”
He carried her backward in one swift movement and fell with her onto the bed. Rain tried to scream, but his weight crushed the air from her lungs.
“We have unfinished business, little one.” Grabbing her hair, he forced her head back and bared her throat. Rain’s eyes widened as his mouth opened to reveal long, pointed incisors. His head drove down, his teeth sinking painfully deep into her neck. Carteris’s grunting sounds of pleasure echoed in the room as he fed.
Paralyzed, Rain felt herself dying. The warm, sticky wetness of her blood poured over her throat and chest, soaking the mattress under her.
She awoke to the phone’s ringing. The sheets twisted around her were soaked with perspiration, and her voice when she answered came out breathless and unsteady.
“Rain?” Annabelle was on the other end of the line. The clock on the nightstand indicated it was nearly three in the afternoon. The ice pack she’d brought from the kitchen had melted into a mess beside her on the bed.
“I overslept,” she said, instantly panicked. “What’s happened?”
“He’s awake.” Annabelle’s words held a tremor. “He tried to pull out his breathing tube. They’re trying to calm him down, but it’s not working.”
Rain phoned for a taxi and left the house.
The nurse at the monitoring station called after her, but Rain kept going until she reached the windowed ICU bay. Two orderlies were exiting the area. She inhaled sharply at the sight of Trevor’s wrists enclosed in padded restraints against the bed rails. Annabelle bent over the bed, talking to him in a soothing tone. Although his eyes were closed, tears leaked from under his dark lashes. Rain could see anxiety etched on every millimeter of his face.
“Trevor,” she whispered, moving closer.
He opened his eyes at the sound of her voice and Rain offered him a gentle smile. His pupils were dilated, overpowering the stormy blue-gray of his irises, and his gaze appeared glassy and fevered.
She ran her fingers through his sweat-dampened hair and spoke to him softly. “I know you don’t like the ventilator, but you have an injured lung and it needs time to heal. That’s all it is, a tiny little tear in your lung. Everything else is fine, I swear.”
She wasn’t sure if he understood her. But when she slid her hand into his, Trevor’s fingers clutched hers tightly, as if she was his lifeline. Moisture welled in her eyes.
“This is just for a few days, until your lung is stronger,” Rain urged. “Just rest. Let the machine do the work for you.”
She continued stroking his hair until his eyes closed again. The rapid beep of the heart monitor slowed to a steadier pace. After a minute or so, she felt his grasp loosen. He’d drifted back to sleep, but she didn’t dare move. Rain looked at Annabelle. She stood at the foot of the bed, her arms wrapped around her stomach.
“They sedated him through his IV line, but it hasn’t had much effect,” she said quietly. “They don’t understand it. The doctors don’t want to put him all the way under because his blood pressure is so low already. But they said if they had to, they’d medically induce a coma.”
Her voice broke on the last word. “I don’t know how he has the strength to fight.”
“He has a strong will,” Rain murmured.
“He’s remembering the last time he woke up on a ventilator, isn’t he?”
Rain hoped Trevor hadn’t done any damage when he’d attempted to extubate himself. The surgical tape that held the breathing tube in place concealed the scar that ran along the base of his chin. War wounds. Trevor had a lifetime of them. Even in his weakened condition, it was possible he was having a flashback of emerging from his coma years ago. Rain thought of the difficulties Trevor had gone through then, trying to rebuild his strength and regain his verbal skills. What if he feared the same thing had happened to him again?
Annabelle must have sensed her thoughts, because she added, “I think seeing me is upsetting him.”
“He’s disoriented. He’s just confused about what’s happening,” Rain reassured her. But in that moment, the courage and faith Annabelle had shown throughout the past evening appeared to be slipping. It was clear how much she loved her brother.
“Have you checked on Haley yet?” Rain asked. She knew a neighbor of Annabelle’s was watching the little girl. “You’ve been here since last night.”
She wiped her cheeks. “Brian’s coming in another hour. I’ll go then.”
“Go ahead and go now. I’ll stay with him.”
When she saw the worry in Annabelle’s eyes, Rain promised, “I won’t let them throw me out. To hell with the ICU rules. I’ve already dealt with a serial-killer vampire. I can handle a bossy nurse.”
Annabelle’s vision lingered on the rise and fall of Trevor’s chest.
“He responded to you,” she said. “As soon as he saw you, he was able to let go. He needs you, Rain.”
She picked up her purse and put its strap over her shoulder. “The ICU is supposed to be family only. Just so you know, I gave your name at the desk this morning as Trevor’s fiancée.”
They shared a long look and then Annabelle left the room. Shifting her gaze back to Trevor, Rain took in the paleness of his features and the shadows under his eyes. He looked fragile to her, immersed in a labyrinth of tubes and wires. She was achingly aware that he stood on the edge of a dark abyss. Holding his hand, she vowed not to let him fall.
49
“I hope we’re not talking shop in here.”
Trevor looked up from the hospital bed to see Annabelle in the doorway. Considering the guilty looks being exchanged between Sawyer Compton and Eddie McGrath, who were also in the room, he figured there was little point in denying a briefing was taking place.
“Your sister’s gonna have my hide if you don’t say something,” Sawyer muttered. “She warned me to go easy on you.”
“I asked them to come, Anna.” Trevor’s voice was raspy from the tube that had only recently been removed from his throat. “I needed details on the case.”
“You need to rest.” Taking the chair beside the bed, her expression reflected concern. “You’ve only been out of ICU for two days.”
“I’m okay.” Nearly a week had passed since the surgery. Although Trevor still felt like hell, his desire for information currently overrode his need to recuperate. He’d called both men and asked them to come by and fill him in on what had been pieced together on Carteris so far. As he already knew, the surgeon’s lecture circuit matched the time line of the killings in other
cities. But his DNA had also now been linked to the victims, indisputably establishing him as the killer of all seven women. Not to mention, the remains of two additional, unidentified bodies had been located in the swamps near the bayou cabin.
What was less clear, however, was Carteris’s past. The further the story went back on him the murkier it got, beginning with a discrepancy about the year of his graduation from Oxford Medical School. The date supplied by the university and the one in Carteris’s personnel records at All Saints differed by nearly two decades. As for a birth certificate, there was none on file. The Louisiana Office of Public Health listed it as officially misplaced.
Trevor thought of the man who’d been at the center of his manhunt for well over a year and a half. The same man who’d abducted Rain and stabbed him. He’d seen Carteris with his own eyes and he was damn sure he’d been nowhere near eligible for a senior citizen’s discount.
“We’re trying to get access to Carteris’s records prior to his return to the States two years ago,” Sawyer said, picking back up on the discussion. “But since his research took place at private institutions in Europe and Asia, they’ve been less than forthcoming about what he was working on.”
“What about the autopsy report?” Trevor asked.
“Based on the condition of the internal organs, the M.E. estimates Carteris was in his early forties. And despite his fondness for ingesting human blood, he was amazingly disease free. But he’d definitely had some cosmetic work done. A rhytidectomy, which is a fancy word for a face-lift. I have to admit that kind of plastic surgery seems out of the ordinary for a man that young.”
“But it’s not unheard of.”
“Did you tell him about the wife?” McGrath interjected.
Trevor shifted his attention to the detective. “Carteris’s? What about her?”
“There was no car accident,” McGrath said. “The medical file says she died of a massive hemorrhage. Apparently, she fell from a balcony nine years ago and was impaled on a garden stake. The Thai authorities ruled it an accident, but who knows for sure.”
Sawyer leaned against the robin’s egg–blue wall of the private room. “If I had to guess, I’d say Carteris was bedbug crazy and not some kind of superfreak.”
Still, Trevor knew about the things Carteris had claimed to Rain during the time he’d held her captive. Although he concurred with Sawyer’s assessment, Carteris’s boasts had to be unsettling to her.
“Have the labs come back on the drugs found in Carteris’s bag at the cabin?”
“They’re still running analyses,” Sawyer said. “But the preliminary report indicates high-dosage antioxidants, steroids and injectable HGH, or human growth hormone. There were also two compounds they’ve been unable to identify that might be part of Carteris’s research. Trace amounts of them showed up in his bloodstream. Which again points to crazy, not immortal.”
“So how do you account for the graduation date from Oxford?” McGrath asked.
Sawyer shrugged. “Maybe the university got the dates messed up, or there was another Christian Carteris who graduated years earlier. Maybe our guy assumed the original Carteris’s identity. There’re still a lot of questions.”
“All I know is what I saw at the surgeon’s house.” McGrath adjusted the sling that held his injured arm. “The letters were addressed to Desiree Sommers, and they were postmarked over thirty years ago. They were love letters, signed by Carteris.”
“Letters that no longer exist,” Sawyer reminded. “They burned with the rest of the house. There’s no way to test their authenticity.”
“Okay, then what about the photo from the cabin? The lab can’t find any indication of it being doctored.”
Sawyer crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t tell me you’re buying this ageless-vampire thing, Detective McGrath? Because you sound like you are.”
“All I’m saying is maybe there’re things we’re not supposed to know. Things that defy explanation. This is New Orleans, Counselor. Weirder stuff has happened here. Tibbs would’ve chalked it up to some bad juju. He’d remind us Carteris is dead—case closed—and that we’ve got plenty of live dirtbags to focus on.”
“Thibodeaux was a good cop,” Trevor said.
“Damn straight.” McGrath’s expression was somber. “And he’s probably pissed right now Carteris got the jump on him.”
One thing was for certain, Trevor thought. Whoever or whatever Carteris was, he’d taken too many innocent lives.
“One more issue.” Sawyer switched topics. “You should know D’Alba’s out on bail. He’s been arraigned on conspiracy to commit assault.”
Trevor’s jaw tightened. “I hope the D.A.’s going after him.”
“Like flies on…” Sawyer’s words faded as he glanced at Annabelle. “You know.”
Coughing, Trevor grimaced at the flare of pain in his chest.
“We should let you get some rest.” McGrath moved to the door. “I’ve got somewhere I need to be, anyway. Tibbs’s funeral is still going on. It’s one hell of a party, Rivette. Shame you’re missing it.”
Trevor was aware New Orleans funerals could last a week, particularly in the African-American community. He imagined a parade being led by a full jazz band and boisterous memorial events taking place at the French Quarter bars. There was no doubt it would be a proper send-off.
Sawyer followed McGrath’s exit, his fingers subtly brushing Annabelle’s as he went past. In the doorway, he turned and said to Trevor, “Don’t forget what we talked about.” Trevor nodded.
“You look terrible,” Annabelle observed once the men had left. She waited while he pushed the button that administered pain medication from the electronic console and laid his head back on the pillow. “I’m serious, Trevor.”
“When were you going to tell me about you and Sawyer?”
“He told you?”
“He didn’t have to. I might be in a medicated cloud, but all the staring and touching has been hard to miss. He spent the last five minutes making cow eyes at you.”
“Sawyer doesn’t make cow eyes.” She sighed as she folded her hands over her denim skirt. “I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell anyone. I’ve just made so many mistakes in the past. Sometimes it’s hard to trust myself.”
“What does Haley think about him?”
“She likes him. Even though she told him he has porcupine hair.”
The comment made Trevor chuckle. He winced as his sutures pulled again.
“Has Brian been here?” Annabelle asked once he’d settled back down.
“He came by. Early this morning.”
“Then he told you a gallery from Chicago called about a showing. Alex is teasing him that he’s going to leave the South behind for big-city life.”
“I’m proud of him.” Trevor thought of Brian’s skilled landing on the rural highway, and the way he’d trailed him into the bayou instead of following orders to wait at the plane. Brian had saved Rain’s life, as well as his own.
A space of silence filled the room. Standing, Annabelle fussed with an arrangement of flowers on the nightstand. “They’re not going to be able to charge Dad with anything related to taking Haley since they were only a few miles away and he called to tell us where they were. To a jury, it would look like a grandfather making an innocent mistake. Sawyer’s still pushing for aiding and abetting Rain’s abduction, but he’s doubtful on that, too, since he appears to be an unwitting accomplice. I asked him to let me tell you instead.”
Although it seemed clear their father was merely a pawn in Carteris’s game, it didn’t keep Trevor from wishing they’d have found a way to put him in jail where he belonged. If anyone deserved retribution for the unspeakable acts he’d committed, it was James Rivette.
Annabelle appeared to weigh her next words before speaking. “They’re considering removing the statute of limitations on forcible rape in Louisiana. I know it’s something they’ve talked about in the legislature before and it probably won’t happen…bu
t if it did, I’d consider pressing charges.”
When he peered at her silently, she added, “I want him to pay for what he did. To both of us. I should’ve been brave enough to do it years ago.”
“Anna,” Trevor said softly. His eyes held hers.
“I’ve never forgiven myself for lying about what happened to you, Trevor. If I’d only told the truth about what he’d done—”
“You were scared. You and Brian were trying to survive. I understand that.”
“Understanding isn’t the same thing as forgiving,” she murmured.
Trevor studied her face. What he was about to say wasn’t easy for him, but he knew it was time.
“My staying away from here…it hasn’t been about anger. It’s about me not wanting to remember.” He slowly shook his head. “I’ve tried like hell to forget about our childhood and every bad thing that happened to us. But every time I came back here…every time I saw you and Brian…the truth is, it all became real again.”
Trevor took a steadying breath. All the decisions he’d made over the course of his life now seemed questionable to him, and he fought a wave of regret. “I thought if I stayed away…I could have some kind of peace. But I realize now that all I’ve done is isolate myself from the people who matter most. I punished you and Brian because I wasn’t strong enough to deal with the past. I’m sorry for that.”
She squeezed his hand. “Trevor, you’re the strongest person I know.”
He stared at the plastic hospital-ID bracelet around his wrist. Rivette. It was a name he was tied to by blood, a connection that had proved hard to break. When he looked at his sister again, he saw the anguish in her eyes. Annabelle’s suicide attempt. Brian’s drug use and their mother’s alcoholism. Family secrets had wound their roots around each of them, threatening to drag them down into darkness. Trevor had run from those powerful tendrils even as they clutched at him.
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