Cold Death

by Mary Stone

  “Catch her!”

  That was the last thing Katarina heard before the darkness claimed her.

  She woke in the same damn bed she’d spent an entire week in, with her chest wound sore and re-bandaged, but at least the stupid chest tube hadn’t been replaced. Hopefully, that meant she’d be released from this dungeon soon. Kingsley had Bethany, and the first thing Katarina was going to do was hunt that bastard down and rescue her daughter.

  The bed clicked and hissed before the mattress shifted, making Katarina jump, then yelp when the movement pulled on her fresh stitches. “I swear, I’m going to hunt down a baseball bat and beat the ever-loving shit out of you if you don’t stop that,” she hissed.

  She stared at the white ceiling and groaned. Great. Apparently, she’d been stuck in the hospital for long enough now that she’d resorted to threatening beds. This one really did deserve a good beating, though, along with the genius who’d invented the damn thing. Stupid piece of junk moved on its own every fifteen minutes. She’d just be getting comfortable or dozing off, and then…click…hiss! The mattress she was pretty much chained to would self-adjust the air volume and wake her up.

  Earlier in the week, she’d all but begged a gray-haired nurse to switch her to a different bed, but the frumpy woman had barely spared Katarina a glance as she’d bustled around the room, checking monitors and jotting notes into the keyboard. “We keep all of our ICU patients on these beds. They help prevent pressure ulcers and deep vein thromboses. And young lady, you’ve been through enough, as I’m sure you know. You keep ripping out those stitches and getting infections, you’re never going to leave this place.”

  Upon further prodding, the nurse had simplified those terms down to “bedsores” and “blood clots.”

  Katarina gritted her teeth. Bring on the blood clots already. She’d happily trade one of those for a bed that minded its own fucking business and stayed put.

  She sighed, opened her eyes, and found the ancient TV bolted to an adjustable stand on the wall. On the screen, a couple argued with dramatic hand gestures. Katarina curled her lip. Soap operas. Before last week, she would have bet money that they no longer existed.

  She only wished that she’d been right.

  Not only were the abominations to the TV world still around, but here she was stuck watching this stupid, melodramatic crap. How many times could characters in one town suffer from amnesia, anyway?

  Katarina cast a longing glance at the remote bolted to the table. A foot away, but with her hands in restraints, it might as well have been a mile.

  The only way to watch a different show was if she called in the nurse to turn the channel for her. Katarina clenched her jaw and settled in. As bad as the acting was, she hadn’t quite sunk that low yet.

  Besides, she needed to spend all her waking moments coming up with a plan on how to get the hell out of this place. As annoying as they were, cringe-worthy dialogue and yet another plot twist where the main character came back from the dead was the least of her concerns.

  Click. Hiss. The mattress moved again, inflating beneath Katarina’s hips and deflating under her shoulders.

  She growled deep in her throat. How could she possibly get anything accomplished with the monstrosity beneath her serving up constant interruptions?

  After punching the mattress with both secured fists, she forced herself to concentrate. Bethany. How was she going to find her daughter?

  Before she got very far in her planning, the door opened, and a man in blue scrubs walked in. Late twenties, with stubble on his chin, blue eyes, and brown hair just short of a buzz cut. Cute, in that Midwestern, corn-fed, broad-shouldered sort of way. He even had dimples when he smiled, as he was doing at Katarina right now, and the motion spotlighted a small nick by the left side of his mouth, likely from a shaving mishap.

  “How’re you feeling this afternoon? Sore, I bet, after all the excitement. You’ll be happy to know that you didn’t do any lasting damage. In fact, the doctor said your pneumothorax was all drained, so we didn’t even have to replace the chest tube.”

  Even his voice was warm and sweet, matching his twinkling eyes and reminding her nothing of Clayne. Neither did the way he fussed over her by adjusting her pillow and pushing the rolling tray with the water bottle closer. Still, now she couldn’t stop thinking about Clayne and how he’d begged for his life in those last few moments before she’d slit his throat.

  Beep, beep, beep.

  The nurse frowned when the heart rate monitor picked up the pace. “Everything okay?”

  A week ago, I killed my boyfriend to save my daughter’s life, and now she’s missing anyway. Kidnapped by the same vicious man who stole her from me at birth. What do you think, does any of that sound okay to you?

  She asked a different question instead. “When am I going to be released?”

  “Whenever the doctor agrees that you’re ready.” He laughed at the disgusted snarl Katarina made. “I know the hospital isn’t much fun, but you have to remember that you were shot. In case you didn’t know, that’s kind of a big deal. We need to make sure you’re okay before you leave. Otherwise, you’ll wind up here again, only in worse shape next time.”

  The hell she would. “Can’t I just sign some papers and leave against medical advice?”

  “Someone’s been watching too much Grey’s Anatomy. Just kidding. That might have been an option…before you attacked the doctor.”

  Katarina punched the mattress again. “Oh, right. That.”

  The man shot her an amused look. “Yes. That.”

  So stupid. She hadn’t meant to attack the doctor, not exactly. The nightmare had freaked her out, and when she’d woken, all she knew was that his hair and build reminded her of Kingsley, and it was like her brain had just snapped.

  During the brief time she’d fought him, she’d been half out of her mind, convinced that the man wasn’t an ICU doctor at all, but Kingsley. The entire time she’d been trapped in this hospital room, she’d been on edge, waiting for him to show up at her bedside in yet another new face.

  “It’s the stupid bed. I haven’t been sleeping well.” He shot her a sympathetic look, and she sighed. “So what, once I’m all healed up, they’re going to throw me in jail or something?”

  The man tapped the plastic bracelet strapped to her wrist with his pen. “Nah, you should be okay. Temporary insanity. You’re headed to the Behavioral Health Unit after this.”

  Surprise was like a fist to her gut. “Yeah, no way. I need to get the hell out of here.”

  He chuckled. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  With a sinking heart, Katarina noticed the bright yellow color of her new bracelet, which matched the new socks on her feet. A string of curse words flooded her mouth, but she choked them back with a valiant effort.

  Dammit.

  That damn doctor must like punishing people who got the better of him, the big wimp. The psych ward, seriously? The place the staff referred to as Crazytown when they didn’t think the patients were listening.

  Katarina was always listening, though.

  She studied the man as he worked. “What’s your name? This is the first time I’ve seen you around.”

  “Jasper.” He flipped his name tag around so she could read for herself.

  Jasper A. Matthews, Behavioral Health CNA

  “I’m the one prepping you to move to the behavioral health unit. A bed just opened up.”

  “I swear, I’m not really crazy.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded defensive, and Jasper’s lifted brow reinforced her suspicions. She rolled her eyes and groaned. “Okay, fine, you’ve probably heard that one before.”

  “Three times today already, but who’s counting?” He winked at her. “If it helps at all, your stay in the unit will be as short as it needs to be.”

  And who made those length-of-stay decisions? Some freaky old psychiatrist who worshipped Freud and wouldn’t release Katarina until she agreed that penis envy was the root cause o
f all her problems? Fine, whatever. Give her a script, and she’d recite whatever BS was on the page verbatim.

  Anything to get the hell out of there and find her daughter.

  “Do the beds on the psych floor move?”

  Jasper’s laugh was deep enough to shake his entire body, and warm. A nice laugh. “No. Moving beds on the psych ward would cause more problems than they solved.”

  “Thank god for small favors.”

  He laughed again, and Katarina allowed the warmth to flow over her. The sensation faded all too quickly, though. Flirting with the cute CNA wouldn’t do a damn thing to save her baby girl. “Please. I don’t want to be transferred. I want to go look for my daughter.”

  “Is your daughter Bethany? The girl in all those Amber Alerts lately?”

  Katarina’s throat swelled up, and she nodded. “That’s her.”

  Jasper stopped smiling, and compassion creased the skin around his eyes. He reached over the bed rail and patted her hand. “When you get up to the sixth floor, all you have to do is show the doctor that you’re mentally competent and no danger to yourself or others. Then they’ll let you go.”

  For some reason, his small bit of kindness made the lump in her throat grow larger. “Thank you.”

  “No worries, I’m here to help.” He rose from the rolling stool. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay? I need to check on that bed.”

  Katarina’s gaze stayed on him as he left. Kind, cute, young. Jasper could prove to be useful in her escape plan.

  Or he might get in the way.

  She closed her eyes. Yes, he was nice, but if he tried to stop her from going after Bethany, she’d kill him. Just like she had Clayne.

  Her stomach roiled at the memory. As long as she lived, Katarina would never forget the stark horror and disbelief in Clayne’s eyes the moment he’d realized she was going to kill him. Or the warmth of his blood when the liquid gushed over her hands. Or the blood that bubbled from his mouth right before he died.

  Almost worse than that, though, was the smug little grin on Kingsley’s face as he’d sat back and watched the whole thing. Like he was a proud dad, basking in the glow of his child’s first win at a track meet.

  Her stomach clenched down hard, and saliva flooded her mouth. She was still fighting off the last of the nausea when the door swung open again. “That was quick.”

  She’d expected Jasper, but the tall man who’d entered her room wore a white lab coat instead of scrubs.

  Katarina frowned at the newcomer. The tanned skin and brown eyes beneath square-shaped glasses looked familiar. Even the voice reminded her of Kingsley, though the doctor didn’t enunciate as clearly, almost like he spoke with marbles in his mouth or had a slight speech impediment.

  But the jaw and mouth were all wrong. She relaxed, reminding herself of what happened earlier. Maybe she really was losing her mind if she kept finding Kingsley in every single male doctor’s face that entered the room.

  The doctor straddled the stool and rolled closer to the bed. “On a scale of one to ten, what’s your pain level this afternoon?”

  “Two.”

  “Any problems urinating or defecating on your own?”

  “No.”

  The next few questions were more of the same, routine checkups on her recovery that she answered multiple times a day. Katarina could have answered them in her sleep by now.

  “How does it feel to be in the hospital when your daughter is out there missing?”

  Katarina’s inhalation hissed louder than the bed, but the doctor wasn’t even looking at her. Her pulse eased when she remembered the transfer. The psych ward, right. This was probably just a tiny taste of the kinds of intrusive questions she could expect up there. “Awful. Scary. Any chance you could decide to let me go now and schedule an outpatient appointment instead?”

  “I’m afraid not.” The doctor skipped right ahead to the next questions. “How are you feeling mentally, besides that? Any nightmares from being shot?”

  “One or two,” Katarina lied. More like multiple nightmares every night, but she was afraid admitting as much would end in her being held prisoner here for an indefinite time period.

  “How did you feel when you killed Clayne, and his blood spilled on your hands?”

  Katarina went still for a heartbeat while a loud whoosh roared through her ears.

  Had he really just…holy shit!

  Her head whipped to the side. The doctor’s smile was like a razor now, and a cunning gleam sharpened his eyes. Even though he looked different now than he did when he took her daughter, Katarina knew.

  “You bastard! Where is she? Where’s Bethany?” Katarina’s fingers curved into claws, and she launched herself at his face, but the restraints held tight, yanking her back to the bed. She screamed, ripping at the bindings again and again, thrashing and kicking her legs so hard that the metal headboard banged against the wall.

  “There’s my beloved girl, always so full of piss and vinegar.” Kingsley leaned over the rail and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “Bethany’s blood is so much sweeter than yours ever was.”

  With a howl of pure rage, Katarina bared her teeth and snapped. He yanked his hand away with a low chuckle before she could sink her canines into his flesh.

  “You sick fuck! I swear I’ll kill you if you hurt so much as a single hair on my daughter’s head, do you hear me?”

  As Katarina continued to thrash and spew hate at the smirking monster from her nightmares, two scrub-clad men rushed to either side of the bed and grabbed her arms.

  “That’s him! That’s the man who—”

  “Calm down, or we’ll have to call the nurse to give you another sedative. Do you understand?”

  When Katarina nodded yes, Jasper turned to Kingsley. “What happened?”

  “I was just walking by when I heard a woman moaning in pain, so I popped in to check. When I got closer, she attacked me, ranting about some missing daughter?” Kingsley raked a hand through his hair and flashed the CNA a sheepish grin. “Sorry, I was trying to help, but it seems I only made things worse. I best get back to my own patients and leave you two to this one.”

  Katarina wanted to scream, but she couldn’t afford to lose more time to a sedative. Not now. Not when he was so close.

  She dug her fingernails into her palms until they bled, forcing herself to let him walk away without a fight. When he reached the threshold, he glanced over his shoulder and winked at her. “Good luck.”

  As he disappeared from view, Katarina fumed with helpless rage. The heart rate monitor beeped faster, in time to her galloping heart.

  Laugh now, but I promise that if you’ve hurt Bethany, I’ll be the last one laughing when I carve you up one centimeter at a time and feed you your own flesh.

  But before she could make good on her threat, she had to figure out a way out of here.

  5

  Detective Harold Fortis checked the time on his computer and logged out with a weary sigh. Two and a half hours past shift change. He should be home already, cracking open his second beer with his feet kicked up, catching that new comedy on Netflix. Instead, his chump ass was still stuck behind the desk like a true sucker. Guess that’s why they paid him the big bucks…half of which would start heading straight into his wife’s pockets if he signed those divorce papers she kept pestering him about.

  He cracked his neck to both sides and arched his back in a deep stretch, but his spine still complained when he first stood up. Christ. He was only in his forties but already creaking like a damned rocking chair. At this rate, he’d be walking as stiff as a robot by the time he hit fifty if he wasn’t careful.

  After gathering his bag and jacket, Fortis walked out of his office and into the bullpen. A curly headed detective with pale skin and a crooked nose waved him over to a desk near the door. “Yo, Fortis, long time, no see. Must be rough, working that nine-to-five grind. You sure you don’t want to clock in late with us big dogs? I’d even be willing to sacrifice
myself and trade shifts. That’s how much you mean to me.”

  The detective plastered his hand across his heart like he was reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

  Fortis grinned as he detoured over to the desk. “Whatever. You’re all talk, O’Reilly. You moan and groan about the night shift, but deep down, we all know you crave the excitement.”

  The brown-skinned detective sitting two desks over swiveled his chair toward them. “He might, but I’d pay good money to sleep normal hours again. My wife has been busting my balls lately, waking me up in the afternoon to do shit around the house or help the kids with their math homework. That woman, I swear.”

  He shook his fist while Fortis and O’Reilly cackled.

  “Please, Willis, you’re not fooling anyone. We all know you’d clean the floor with your tongue if Rita asked you to and say thank you afterward.” O’Reilly grinned as he made the jab. Fortis laughed and shook his head.

  Willis flipped them both off. “Yeah, and so what if I would? That’s why I’m married with kids, and your ass is single.”

  O’Reilly rolled his eyes at Fortis. “Because I won’t lick the floor on command? I think I’m okay with that trade-off.”

  Fortis chuckled at their banter. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss seeing you two clowns.”

  “Same here.” O’Reilly grinned. “We should try to get together for a round of golf soon if our schedules ever cooperate.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Even with taking the kids a few times a week, Fortis had a lot more down time on his hands now that he’d moved into that crappy little apartment. It’d be nice to shoot the shit with the guys again. “I’ll send a text this week. Let’s see if we can make it happen.”

  “Perfect.” O’Reilly shot him a quick salute. “You out of here?”

  “Yeah. Gotta get my ass home before I turn into a pumpkin.”

  “Too late for that.” Willis snickered after Fortis as he headed for the corridor. Fortis flashed them the middle finger, and their laughter followed him into the hall.