Just a Memory

by Lois Carroll

  Few people would be out on a day like this. She wondered how long it would take for anyone to notice. Would Judy call and then come over when she got no answer?

  Carolyn turned to her kidnapper. “Where is Mac? Where are you taking me?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” he told her without looking in her direction.

  “Why me? What can I do about your problem?”

  The windshield wipers had a difficult time staying ahead of the heavy falling snow. The man was forced to drive slowly to avoid skidding.

  “I said you’ll find out soon enough, and you’d better be able to help him, sister. If you let him die, I’m going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble. I got orders to hold him ‘til the boss gets here. So if he dies, you die. Now just shut up so I can concentrate on driving in this damn snow.”

  Carolyn watched the houses of Lakehaven move past her window through the heavy snow. In the slow moving oncoming traffic, she saw the Martins, her neighbors. They had to be driving home. Maybe they would see her open door and think something was amiss, but if they were paying as much attention to the road as her driver was, they would never look up at her house.

  Tears stung her eyes as she watched the rows of Christmas trees at the cut-it-yourself stand go by. She saw a family happily tying a tree on top of their car. The kids were playing in the snow. For an instant she fantasized jumping out of the car as it slowed to turn, but it wouldn’t work. The children! She could never endanger the children. Tears welled in her eyes when she wondered if she would she ever see her own child again.

  “Not far now,” the driver offered.

  Carolyn’s heart sped up. They passed the distinctive entrance to the long driveway into the VanVleet’s farm. She’d helped that dear old couple by repairing a 1930 wedding dress so they could donate it to the local historical society.

  The car kept moving. She saw no other tire tracks on the country road ahead of them. Other people knew better than to travel out in the middle of nowhere in the snow.

  A couple of miles farther on, the driver slowed and pulled into what had been a motel in about the 1950’s. The rundown little cabins looked totally abandoned except for the largest one at the back end of the row where a dim light shined through the slit between the drawn drapes. He parked the car in front of that cabin.

  “Some vacation spot, huh? It wasn’t hard to find the circuit box to turn on some electricity. Won’t the owners be surprised when they get the bill?” He laughed, but his face sobered quickly when he aimed the gun at her. “Now get out nice and slow and walk to the door. No funny stuff, got that? There ain’t nobody around to help ya. No place for ya to go except straight into the cabin, real nice like.”

  She looked around. He was right. Houses and farms were few and far between on this road. Even back toward town, where they were closer together, the curves and hills made it impossible to see from one to another. She couldn’t even see the road from this cabin. Carolyn fought her rising panic.

  “Move it!” he ordered.

  She felt the barrel of the gun against her shoulder blade and trudged through the deep wet snow. Any footprints he’d left coming out of the cabin earlier had been filled in with new snow. She clutched her coat closed against the cold while she waited for him to unlock the door. She stepped into the dimly lit room and automatically stomped the snow off her wet sneakers.

  Her senses were assaulted by the faded and peeling wallpaper, the worn furniture, the decades-old flowery linoleum, and the mildew, cigar, and stale urine smells. Her gaze moved to the lit kitchenette off the main room where the table showed evidence of takeout meals having been eaten there.

  In the larger room she saw two double beds against the wall and a door leading to a bathroom. A small TV sat on the bedside table pushed next to the foot of the first bed.

  In the dark end of the room on the second bed…

  Carolyn saw Mac and gasped. He was lying at a strange angle across it. One ankle was tied to the footboard and one wrist was tied to the headboard so tightly that he couldn’t move in either direction. His hand looked blue beyond the bindings. He was unconscious. Or else he was…

  Carolyn’s fear turned to anger. “Untie him at once. How could you do this to him?”

  She ran across the room and kneeled on the bed at Mac’s side and began pulling at the knots holding his wrist. Then she noticed the blood. In the dim light, it wasn’t obvious at first on the red plaid shirt he wore. She succeeded in freeing his hand and rubbed it to restart the circulation and laid it at his side. She untied Mac’s foot and lowered it to the bed.

  She placed her fingers on Mac’s neck and felt the weak but steady pulse. She felt relieved, but Mac hadn’t moved or made a sound since she’d gotten there. Gathering her courage she began to assess Mac’s injuries.

  “What have you done to him? What’s the blood from?” she asked while she pushed his hair back and laid her hand across his forehead. “He’s burning up with fever. We’ve got to get him to a doctor,” she said, turning back to their captor.

  The man had taken off his coat and was fiddling with a space heater when he finally answered. “You want to know what the blood is from?” He snorted a laugh. “I shot him. Then he tried to shoot me, so I shot him a couple more times. Now you fix him up. He’s gotta wake up just long enough to talk to the boss. That’s all. He’ll die then anyway.”

  His cruel words hit her as hard as his gun had on the back of her head. She couldn’t catch her breath. Her lungs had collapsed and wouldn’t accept any air. She sank down on the bed next to Mac, the old rusty springs squeaking under her. Mac’s hand in hers, she doubled over and lowered her head to rest with her forehead in his palm until the lightheadedness she felt passed.

  She had no idea what to do to help Mac wake up, but she had to do something. They had to get out of here, away from the man with the gun. To do that Mac had to be awake. She stood and took off her coat and draped it over the footboard of the bed. Her own injuries forgotten, she started around the bed to get soap and water.

  “Where do you think you’re goin’?” The gun was aimed directly at her.

  “I need to clean up and then I need something to wash him with. Are there clean towels?”

  “Yeah. I stole some. In the bathroom through that door.”

  Carolyn headed for the towels first, but the sight of her face in the mirror over the little sink brought her up short. Her cheek was bruised and her hair wet with blood and melted snow. She found a bar of soap that she first used on herself. She cleaned her hands, at once relieved that the hot potato burns were just red and not blistering.

  The bloody smears on her face went next and then she rinsed the bloody taste from her mouth. She toweled out some bloody water from her hair and was relieved to discover that, although her head pounded ferociously, the cut wasn’t still bleeding.

  She didn’t waste any more time on herself. With the soap and the other clean towels, she headed for the kitchen for a pan of water. She wished it was sterile or boiled or something, but she had no choice. She returned to the second bed and began to undo Mac’s shirt buttons. The fabric was stiff with dried blood. The shirt wasn’t tucked into his jeans so when she had the buttons undone she opened it back easily to reveal his chest.

  She cried out and her hand went to her mouth as a wave of nausea rose in her. The dark hairs on his chest were caked in dried blood from two ragged holes high on one shoulder near his scar. Thankfully, the wounds didn’t seem to be bleeding much now.

  After a few deep breaths to regain control of herself, she began to wash away the blood, working in gentle circles from near the wounds. She rinsed the cloth in the pan each time and started again.

  She looked over to see their captor watching television as if nothing had happened. Why was he doing this? “Hello? Ah, what’s your name? What do I call you?” she asked hesitantly.

  “What’s it to ya?”

  “Nothing. I just wondered what name to use when I address
you.”

  He looked back at the television. “Harry,” he grunted.

  “Good. I’m going to need your help, Harry. I have to get this shirt off Mac and I can’t lift him and remove it alone. There’s blood on his arm and on the bed under his shoulder. I want help lifting him so I can see his back. I’d like to know if the bullet went all the way through his shoulder.”

  Harry grunted more than he spoke his agreement to help. He stood and walked around to the other side of the bed from the one Carolyn was on. Kneeling opposite her, he lifted Mac with an arm under his shoulders, letting his head flop back and then forward as he rose.

  “Careful!” she shouted.

  Harry held Mac up while Carolyn pulled the shirt off his uninjured arm. Then he pulled it across Mac’s back and handed it back to her across Mac’s chest so she could pull it off the other arm. She saw blood on his back, but could not see any evidence the bullet had come out. At least there wasn’t another wound to worry about bleeding. Or was it worse that the bullets had stayed in him? She didn’t know.

  “Hold him a minute longer while I wash the blood from his back.”

  That done, he held Mac’s limp body a few moments more while she pulled the bedspread out from under him. There were no sheets. With painful abruptness, he dropped Mac back down to the bare mattress. Carolyn gasped.

  “Not waking up, huh?” Harry asked, watching Mac for a sign of any reaction to his abuse.

  “No, but with the pain you just caused, it’s probably a good thing.”

  Carolyn threw the blood-soaked shirt into the far corner of the room beyond the bed. Harry went back to watching television. She discovered that under the dried blood she washed from his arm, there were two more holes where another bullet had gone in and out. One wound was smaller than the other and not so jagged. They weren’t more than two inches apart. The area between and around them was swollen and purplish, but she was fairly certain the bullet had missed the bone.

  As she washed his arm she felt some resistance from his muscles for the first time. Was he coming to? Her gaze flew to his face, and she could see his pain mirrored there.

  Taking a clean strip of towel she had ripped apart, she wrapped it around the wounds on his arm and tied it. It made a bulky knot. She worried about the lint from the terry cloth getting into the wound, but it would be better covered. The pressure would help to keep it from bleeding again when his arm was moved. If only she could do the same for his shoulder.

  “I should have bandages and antiseptic to clean the wounds better. The bullet in his shoulder has to come out. He has a fever. We must get him to a doctor right away,” she insisted.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Carolyn turned to argue with him but found the gun pointing at her. She turned back to Mac. Maybe later she could talk him into getting some antiseptic and something for the fever.

  Mac’s head began twisting from side to side. She stroked his forehead lightly while taking his good hand in her free one and holding it between her breasts. “You’re going to be all right,” she whispered to him. “But you must lie still.”

  When Mac lay quietly again, Carolyn went back to the kitchen. She washed the face cloths with some dish detergent she found there and turned back to caring for Mac. He seemed to be getting hotter, and yet he was shivering as if cold. She’d been trying to cool him, wiping his brow with a cool cloth, but now she worried he was getting chilled with no shirt on.

  Carolyn turned back to Harry. “I need your help again. It’s too cold in here for him to be without a shirt, so I want to put my smock on him. It’s a man’s shirt. It’ll be small on him, but better than nothing.”

  She turned her back to Harry to remove the smock. Even though dressed in slacks and a blouse under it, she didn’t want to give any suggestion of disrobing in front of him.

  Harry got up and shuffled over to the far side of the bed again. As they succeeded in getting Mac into the shirt and under the cleanest section of the bedspread, he groaned with the pain.

  “Hey, way to go!” Harry said triumphantly. “The sonofabitch is comin’ to. Shouldn’t be too long now ‘til the boss gets here.” Harry returned to his post on the other bed. “Damn snow.”

  Carolyn closed all but the top two buttons of the shirt on Mac, hoping the tight fabric would keep in place the piece of towel she’d folded over the wounded shoulder. She tucked the spread under his good arm and across his chest. It was very dusty, but it might help make him warmer.

  With just enough room to sit on the edge of the bed beside him, she leaned against the headboard. Oh God, help me. Pleased don’t let Mac die. She took Mac’s hand and verbally tried to reassure him. There was no response from him now.

  Carolyn inhaled deeply to maintain the self-control and confidence in herself she felt slipping away. She loved Mac so much and she felt his pain on top of her own. There was nothing she could do for him.

  Or was there?

  If she could escape and get help…

  Chapter Twelve

  From the moment Mac saw the third flash from the gun and the frigid blackness closed in around him, his body started to fight back.

  Harry had left him where he fell in the snow while he shut off the house lights and quickly searched the empty rooms. He pocketed Mac’s handcuffs and searched for their key, which he finally found in Mac’s pocket and put into his own.

  Now Mac was hearing voices. He even thought he heard Carolyn’s voice, but that was impossible. The pain was so bad–his head–his shoulder. He couldn’t move his arm. The whole side of his chest felt so heavy, so hot.

  The darkness crept in again before he could open his eyes, but this time it was spotted with dark dots. Eyes. The eyes were laughing. He saw his partner Sam. His eyes were wide with surprise. Then there were dark eyes. Why were those so familiar?

  Mac twisted to get away from them, but they followed him. There was no escape. The eyes were right in front of him and then the darkness blew up in a red-hot flame.

  Those eyes. Those eyes were ones he had seen before. “Sam!” he tried to shout. But Sam didn’t move. The dead couldn’t move. Mac was too tired to think, too tired to open his eyes. Why wouldn’t they leave him alone? It hurt so much to move. He felt so hot.

  Caro’s voice again? She couldn’t be close enough for him to hear her voice. Those eyes would hurt her. Those eyes had shot Sam. They shot him so easily as he sat on the crates because Sam and Mac never thought they had to fear them.

  Suddenly the pain in Mac’s heart lifted and he remembered. He knew who had shot Sam. “Have to tell. Tell Hines. Have to tell Hines,” Mac mumbled as he tossed his head and pushed at the confinement barring his consciousness.

  “Mac, it’s all right. Lie still. Don’t move or your shoulder will start bleeding again. Please, Mac. Rest.”

  A cool hand smoothed back the hair from his forehead and stroked his hot cheeks with a cool cloth. Mac struggled to open his eyes. “Caro?” His voice was hoarse and not much above a whisper.

  “Yes, Mac. You’ve been shot and you must lie still.”

  Harry came up behind her. “Well, well, well. I see Sleeping Beauty woke up. It’s about time.”

  The instant Mac was aware of Harry, he struggled to focus his energy on moving. Harry was behind Caro and that could mean nothing but harm for her. He pulled his aching body up from the bed and tried to reach past her. “You–”

  Mac cried out and clutched his arm just below his hurting shoulder, arching his body back against the bed in pain. He slumped against the mattress.

  Carolyn moved the cloth back over the wound and pressed on it. “Mac, don’t move. The bullet wound is starting to bleed again.” She stood up to get another cloth to replace the bloody one, when Harry grabbed a handful of her hair and pressed her back down on the bed. She cried out in pain and shock.

  “Where do you think you’re goin’ now?”

  Tears stung her eyes. “To the kitchen. I have to get another cloth to stop the b
leeding. He…he can’t lose any more blood.”

  “You pull one funny trick and what you seen here is just the beginning of what is gonna happen to your boyfriend. Got that?”

  “Yes,” she managed.

  He pushed her toward the end of the bed, using the handful of hair he still held tightly as a handle. Then he turned to Mac and threatened him with what he knew would keep him in line the best. “You stay put, cop. I’d have to rough the lady up some more if I thought you wuz gonna give me any trouble.”

  “You keep your filthy hands off her, Harry, or I swear I’ll–”

  Harry’s loud laugh cut him off. “Big talk from a man who can’t even sit up.”

  Mac closed his eyes and sank back on the pillow. Their paths had crossed before, and Mac knew Harry was not smart enough to be doing this on his own. Before he pieced together what was happening, Mac had to know how badly he was hurt. He knew his arm wouldn’t function because of his aching shoulder wound. His head was pounding. He felt hot and weak. He wanted to go to sleep, but he knew he only had a chance if he stayed alert. So hot. He licked his lips. Hot and dry.

  Did that mean he had a fever from the wounds already? How long had it been since he’d been shot? What the hell was Carolyn doing here? God, he would never rest if anything happened to her. It would all be his fault. He had to figure a way to get her out. Hell, how could he? He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t even recognize the shirt he had on.

  Carolyn returned and wiped up the smeared blood and then pressed the new nearly dry cloth squarely on the wound. “I know this hurts, but I have to press it just until it stops bleeding. Just don’t move again, all right?”

  “I don’t think I can,” Mac told her weakly, trying to smile to soften the concern he saw in her face.

  With her free hand, she took a clean wet cloth and wiped his forehead and cheeks. “You’re running a fever. Does this feel better?”

  “Yeah.” Mac glanced over at Harry and saw he was engrossed in a movie. “Where are we? How long have I been here?” He captured her hand with the damp cloth in his uninjured one. “What are you doing here? Has he hurt you? Has he–” He swallowed hard and couldn’t ask the rest of the question he started.