Never Let You Go

by Erin Healy

  “But she’s been pardoned! She confessed!”

  “Confessed to what?”

  “Being lost.” He began to shake his head, a fearful wobbling.

  “Oh, Dad.”

  Lexi slipped her hands out of Barrett’s grip and rubbed her thumbs over his knuckles. His skin was soft and more knobby than she’d noticed before.

  “I’ll find her, okay? I’ll find her and everything will work out. Don’t worry anymore, please. I don’t want you to worry.”

  “There is no worse place to be than in jail.”

  Lexi smiled at him. “It’s not the end of the world.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “I’ll talk to Joe,” she said. “Maybe he can help me.”

  Dad nodded slowly. “You do that. Yes, that would be a good idea. He’ll know what to do. In fact, go for a walk by the river. That’ll clear your mind. It did me good.”

  He leaned back in his chair, taking his hands out of her reach. He closed his eyes again. Lexi took this as her cue to start a monologue.

  “Grant showed up out of the blue yesterday. And Molly wants to see him. I’m not sure what to do about that. She was in a car accident, but she’s okay, except she broke her ankle and’ll be hobbling around for a long time . . .”

  She went on like this for several minutes until it seemed to her that her father was asleep. Usually at this point Molly and she would leave. Today, though, Lexi felt the urge to stay.

  It occurred to her that this kind of ease might be the very thing Molly longed for in Grant. Even at nine, she might understand what she was missing. Lexi questioned herself. Would I dare withhold such a relationship from her? Even for her own good?

  When a nurse headed toward them with the bearing of someone about to dispense of medical orders, Lexi rose to go. She bent over her father’s resting form and kissed him on the cheek, then turned away.

  He lifted his arm and touched Lexi’s hand.

  “Tell your mom I love her, Lexi.”

  Lexi’s cheeks were still wet with tears when she stepped outside of the Residence. She stopped in the covered breezeway, wanting neither to go nor to stay. Her mind reeled through the current agony of her most important relationships: Molly, Mom, Dad. Maybe Grant.

  She felt pain, but concrete thoughts eluded her.

  She considered going to see Gina and Mort. Maybe she’d go get something to eat. Maybe she’d—

  “Care to walk by the river?”

  She gasped and spun. Angelo stood behind her. “If you think you’re being cute, I’m seriously freaked out. What are you doing here?”

  “Following you around.”

  “No kidding?”

  “I’m teasing. How’s your dad?”

  Swiping her cheeks with the heels of her hands to make sure they were dry, Lexi wondered what he knew about that, then started walking toward her car.

  “I don’t know you well enough to say,” she told Angelo.

  “He seemed well when I saw him yesterday. Took him out for a walk.”

  She pulled up and decided to stay close to the building in case she needed to run for help.

  “How do you know my father?”

  “When I’m not eating out, I’m here.”

  “Getting treatment, you must mean.”

  He laughed. “I work here.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Nothing medical or professional. They need me for my brawn, not my brains.”

  “How come I’ve never seen you before?”

  “You’re only here once a week. And on Saturdays, I’m only here’til noon.”

  She swallowed. “If you’re here so often you should know better than me exactly how my father is doing.”

  “Well, maybe that wasn’t a fair question. I wanted to know how you thought he was doing.”

  Lexi raised both her hands like an officer stopping traffic. “I’m not comfortable with this,” she announced.

  He paused. “With what?”

  “You. This . . . asking all these personal questions. What do you want with me?”

  “I don’t want anything from you, Lexi.”

  “Then what’s with the stalking?”

  He chuckled, friendly enough. “I’m serious. You don’t need to be afraid of me.”

  “You’re not very good at calming people down, then. Were you the one who got my dad on this kick about jailers and lost little sisters? Because that was unkind. I could hardly talk to him.”

  “You’ll have to tell me what he said.”

  “No. I don’t have to do anything.”

  “Okay.” Angelo’s face sobered, and Lexi thought that his expression was sympathetic. “I heard you got a letter about Norman Von Ruden yesterday.”

  He heard? How? From whom?

  “How do you know about that?” She held up her hand and took a step toward the parking lot. “No. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. I really don’t want to know.”

  The truth was, everyone in Crag’s Nest knew about Norman Von Ruden and the poor Grüggen family, how they’d collapsed and dissolved after the beautiful young Tara Grüggen was so unbelievably slaughtered in public. The tragedy made the national news the day after it happened, then was forgotten everywhere but in this cozy little mountain town.

  Maybe this strange giant had kept tabs on the story.

  A creepy option. The fear that had swirled in her stomach yesterday when he first introduced himself flared again.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” And she didn’t. Not about the past two days, not about Norman Von Ruden, not about how Angelo knew as much as he did.

  “Alright,” he conceded. “How’s Molly’s ankle?”

  “I’m surprised you don’t already know.” She sounded rude to her own ears. A breeze swept past the front of the stone building, which was meant to look more like a spa than a treatment center, she supposed. She shivered and overlapped her jacket across her chest. “I’m sorry again. I’m always doing that. How did you happen to be right were she needed you to be last night?”

  Angelo scratched his head.

  Lexi nodded. “Ah. I see. You’re Batman and can’t reveal your secret identity.”

  He gazed out into the parking lot. “Somehow I don’t think Batman would go for a cranberry B[KAE1]atmobile.”

  Lexi didn’t know what to make of his easy, self-deprecating reply. She relaxed a little. “What’s with the pink?”

  “It’s not pink, its cranberry. And I love that truck. The paint job wasn’t cheap, either.”

  “It’s magenta, fuchsia.”

  “I refuse to let a woman drag me into an argument about color.” He smiled as he said it.

  “Call it what you want. It’s Mary Kay on steroids.”

  “Nothing unmanly about steroids.”

  She had the distinct sense he was messing with her. Maybe it was the way the corners of his copper eyes crinkled. She took one step back. What an odd duck. “Maybe you should tell me the truth.”

  “Here it is: I thought you’d like an ally right about now.”

  “That’s it?”

  “In the simplest terms.”

  The simplest terms were immensely appealing, but also inadequate, and strangely put. “Why would I want an ally?”

  “Like I said, I heard Norman Von Ruden came up for parole. I knew your dad was here, unlike when Von Ruden was on trial. Your mother was out of the country until recently, and I gather your relationship with her isn’t on the best of terms.”

  It was hard for Lexi not to be offended by this. “And how do you gather that?”

  “She told me a few things before we connected with you at the hospital last night.”

  Lexi shook her head, disgusted with her mother’s inability to hold her tongue.

  “How’s Molly handling all this?”

  “I’m sorry, but I just don’t see why you—”

  “Molly’s getting older. Old enough to have new questions, give you some new anxieties. What does s
he know about her aunt’s death?”

  “Not as much as you do, I’m sure.”

  “And then you have Grant, coincidentally out of prison at the same time—”

  Lexi reached out behind her for something to lean against, but found nothing. “Grant was in prison?”

  Angelo looked at her and let the truth sit out there for a few seconds. The news burned her throat like a pending illness. What did Alice know about that? And how did it figure into her whole “people change” campaign?

  “This is crazy. Nothing’s private anymore. Did you tell my dad? About Grant?” She wondered if that would explain what triggered his jailer remarks.

  “We talk.”

  “You shouldn’t worry him with that kind of thing. When he’s not lucid he makes all kinds of irrational mental connections.”

  “That’s true for any of us, don’t you think?”

  Lexi glared at him. “I should run far, far away from you right now.”

  He waited for her to go, and when she didn’t, he said, “But you could use some support.”

  “We have Gina.” Had Gina. Even if she were well, Lexi wouldn’t have leaned on her with the full weight of her burdens.

  He said, “True,” and Lexi got the unnerving sense he was answering her thoughts rather than her statement.

  She cleared her throat. “You’re saying all this like I’m supposed to believe in old-fashioned altruism.”

  “So you’re of the chivalry-is-dead opinion,” Angelo said.

  “No, I’m a card-carrying member of the pepper-spray club.”

  Angelo laughed again, a belly laugh that cut through all her cynicism and fear, right against her will. “You asked me to tell you the truth.”

  “It’s harder to believe than I expected.”

  He nodded. “Most truth is.”

  She softened. Just a little.

  “I still think you’re strange,” she said. “Or desperate for a date. Or both.”

  “I wouldn’t object to having lunch with you.”

  “I thought I’d go see Gina,” Lexi said.

  “Can I join you?”

  She thought about it.

  “Okay. But only because you asked. Next time you sneak up on me uninvited, I’ll transform back into my chilly, rebuffing self.”

  He removed his keys from his pocket and jangled them midair. “I’ll follow you in the Batmobile.”

  { chapter 14 }

  Mort Weatherby, St. Luke’s Community Hospital, trauma center, south building, fourth floor, room 406.

  Warden entered the man’s room wearing a white coat and a laminated photo of himself clipped to his pocket. Even with all the hullabaloo about increased security, he found that walking into a hospital room was one of the easiest things to do, so long as there wasn’t a dinosaur nurse at the front desk who knew the name of every doctor and patient she’d ever met in the last fifty years. But he’d been doing this kind of thing awhile.

  He had the vial; he had the syringe; he had the sleeping body.

  This would only take a minute.

  Mort. What an appropriate name.

  “What are you doing?” Craven was already in the room. His eyes widened and he came off the wall where he had been slouching.

  “Accepting your invitation to join the party.”

  “What?”

  Warden filled the syringe and tossed the empty vial into the trashcan on the other side of the room. This was his preferred method: hide the evidence in plain sight and almost no one ever sees it.

  “You’re not going to kill him?”

  Craven, a foot taller than Warden but half his weight, stood beside him, avoiding his eyes like some poor noodle of a high school boy who couldn’t hold the gaze of the star quarterback. His cheeks were flushed and his nose was running. He wiped it on the heel of his hand.

  Warden lowered the needle to the crook of Mort’s elbow.

  “I’ll file a complaint!” Craven protested.

  Warden lifted the needle off the skin and cast an unconcerned glance at Craven. “Don’t whine. You should have anticipated this when you involved my girl in your little escapade last night.”

  Craven’s bloodshot eyes are glassy. “What are you talking about?”

  “That little girl you almost killed.”

  “You said the Grüggen woman was yours.”

  “That’s her mother, imbecile.”

  The cackle that rose out of Craven’s throat at this news was most grating. It started low like an angry cat and crescendoed into a full chicken cluck. Warden had met hyenas with less agonizing expressions of pleasure. He restrained his annoyance. There was no point in wasting it on a worm like Craven.

  “I would have liked that very much,” Craven said. “If the little one had died.”

  Warden returned the needle to the vein pulsing weakly beneath Mort’s skin, silencing Craven.

  “You can’t kill him. It’s against the rules.”

  “Not even you play by the rules.”

  Craven was a weightless thing, but fast. His arm lashed out and his knuckles struck the inside of Warden’s wrist, knocking the syringe out of his hand. It slid across the floor, spinning as it went, right under the vacant bed next to Mort’s. Craven dived for it.

  Warden pulled the bed on wheels away from the wall. It rolled over Craven’s outstretched hand. Warden sat upon the bed, pinning his opponent’s palm to the floor. Craven snarled. The situation couldn’t possibly hurt, but Warden was sure he found it inconvenient.

  The needle rested in a cloud of fuzz, having stabbed a dust bunny clean through the heart. “Someone should tell Mort that this place isn’t sanitary,” Warden said.

  With his outstretched foot, he kicked it out of Craven’s reach while the man tried to extricate his hand from under the wheels, cursing as if Warden weren’t already cursed.

  “Relax,” Warden said. “I’m not going to kill him.”

  Craven still wriggled, but less vigorously. He spat on Warden’s shoe. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Fortunately, belief doesn’t change facts. Of course I won’t kill him. I need something to keep you occupied and out of my way. If Mort dies, I have a hunch you’d become an even bigger pest than you presently are.”

  “Then why come here at all?”

  “To remind you of your place.”

  Warden jumped off the bed, landing on Craven’s forearm. A bone cracked, and Craven cried out, spitting and writhing more. Taking two steps, Warden bent over to pick up the syringe, gingerly, without spilling his little bacteria sample everywhere.

  Craven descended onto his back, all arms and legs and teeth. He flailed and bit and, in spite of Warden’s conscientious effort, managed to knock the piston out. It rattled to the floor and rolled under Warden’s heel as he tried to pry the octopus off his body while keeping the syringe upright. He heard the plastic snap as his weight ground down on it.

  Warden imagined what this scuffle looked like to dear Mort, lying there, thinking he was dreaming. He couldn’t prevent a chuckle from escaping him. Craven swung at his head with renewed gusto.

  Still holding the syringe, Warden kept the needle pointed at the floor in order to preserve the contents of the tube. Craven’s bobbing head connected with the precious cargo, driving the needle like a nail into Warden’s opposite hand. This made him laugh harder. The sensation of pain, such as it is, was invigorating. And he had a firm grip on the bacteria now.

  Staggering only slightly under his furious burden, Warden returned to Mort. At the edge of the hospital bed, he raised his arm over Mort’s peaceful face and upended the separated syringe. The germ-ridden fluid splattered, hitting the patient right between the eyes. It pooled in the corners and ran into his ears and baptized his nose and mouth with an unholy sprinkle.

  “That’ll do,” Warden announced.

  He shook Craven off. The greasy figure slid off his back like water off the proverbial duck, landing on his feet, staring at Mort.

  “Wh
at is it?” he asked.

  Warden gripped the hollow plastic tube and yanked the needle from his hand. It was a fine needle, slender but strong, and still intact after the scuffle. He waved it in front of Craven’s eyes, breaking his concentration.

  Then he brought his arm down hard and shoved it into Craven’s back, into the soft tissue between his shoulder blade and his spine. Though if he had to guess, he would say Craven had no spine at all.

  Craven winced and grabbed at it, but the thing was out of his reach.

  Warden made to leave the room.

  “If you’re lucky,” Ward said, “he’ll live.”

  Lexi and Angelo arrived at St. Luke’s within ten minutes. Gina was still in intensive care, though her condition had been upgraded from critical to serious. Her room, which was third from the left on the bleach-white U-shaped ward of St. Luke’s, was partitioned off by a sliding glass door so that she, like every other bed on the floor, could be continuously within sight of the staff. Lexi wouldn’t be allowed to see her, a nurse on duty said, but when Gina’s mother saw her through the glass, she came out and grabbed Lexi in a bear hug. Angelo hung back, a gesture Lexi perceived as kindness.

  “You give that little girl of yours this hug from me,” Mrs. Harper said into Lexi’s hair. “I’m making Molly my honorary grandbaby.” She leaned back to look at Lexi. “They told me what happened. How’s Molly holding up?”

  “She’s good. I don’t think she knows how bad it could have been.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “I asked after Mort this morning. Gina has a thing for him, you know.” Lexi smiled. Mrs. Harper shook her head. “They say he’s taken a turn for the worse.”

  Distress for the man who’d only tried to help her family filled Lexi’s stomach.

  “Oh no. I’ll check in on him. How’s Gina?”

  Mrs. Harper let her go at the shoulders but grasped Lexi’s hands. She shook her head. “A virus of some kind maybe. One wicked germ. There’s so many tests to do. Far as I can tell they’ve only just started.”

  “Not food poisoning or something basic like that, huh?”

  “Oh no. They ruled all that out pretty quickly, not that I know how.” She faced Lexi.