Rouse (Revenge Book 7)

by Trevion Burns

  A flash of shock zoomed across Jake’s face. “Linc’s wife is dead?”

  “Oh, and he knows I’m the Chopper, too,” she chirped, conversationally, swirling her finger in the air. “So, there’s that… Hm, what else? What else? What else has gone horribly wrong in the last twenty-four hours? There’s been so much. I’m sure I’m forgetting something…”

  “Coco.”

  Snapped out of her haze, Veda looked to Jake as if she’d just realized he was in the room. “Hm?”

  “A minute ago, you were talking about how helpless you felt because of Gage, Linc, and Coco.”

  Veda’s eyes widened, but just before she went to speak, her gaze shifted to the window that looked out into the hallway. When she caught sight of the chief of staff turning a corner, making a beeline for the pharmacy door, she drew in a breath and curled up her face, poking out her lips while waving her hands in front of her body as if in the midst of a panic attack.

  Jake held his arms out to her but didn’t touch her, appearing concerned. “Um. Are you having a stroke?”

  “Squeeze my knee reassuringly,” Veda said, hurriedly, still breathing rapidly, so quickly she was sure she actually did appear on the verge of a stroke.

  “Huh?” Jake’s face grew pinched. “Squeeze your knee—?”

  “Squeeze my fucking knee,” Veda growled through clenched teeth.

  Jake’s hand flew out without another word—even as his eyes remained puzzled—and he squeezed Veda’s knee just as the door to the pharmacy swung open.

  Veda gasped in a breath as the door hit the wall, her voice ten times higher than it had been a moment ago. “I just can’t believe I did that!” she howled, doing everything she could to get her eyes to fill with tears. Considering the terrible state of her life, it wasn’t particularly difficult, and in seconds her brown orbs were glistening. “Oh fuck! Oh God! What if he dies?” Let us pray he dies. “I’ve never killed a patient, Jake! How will I go on? How will I go on?”

  Every muscle on Jake’s face visibly begged to curl up, but Veda saw the moment when he realized he couldn’t let them. She saw the moment his blue eyes shifted over her shoulder and landed on the person who’d just barged in, understanding that the alligator tears in her eyes had everything to do with him.

  “Uh, morning, Chief,” Jake said.

  Veda shot a teary look over her shoulder and feigned shock at the sight of Dr. Jerome Bryne, a short African-American man who’d just been hired as the hospital’s new chief of staff. Dr. Bryne stood at the door with his arms crossed on top of his beer belly, brown eyes stern behind his circular glasses and lips drawn tight.

  Veda sniffled heavily, still blubbering, running the back of her hand dramatically over each of her wet eyes, letting her gasping breath become haggard as if fighting for the courage to hold the tears at bay.

  “Dr. Bryne,” she began, shaking her head softly. “I’m so… so sorry. Is he going to be okay?”

  Dr. Bryne took a deep breath, uncrossing his arms and placing his fisted hands on his hips. “Listen, Dr. Vandyke. I have to take you off the floor until further notice. Go home and wait for my call.”

  This time, the reassuring hand Jake had on her knee softened, becoming more warm and genuine.

  “Am I fired?” she asked, straightening on the desk just as Dr. Bryne was preparing to leave. Of course, she knew she wasn’t fired. Nearly a year on the job and she’d killed fewer patients than most residents did in their first week. While accidents in a hospital setting were unfortunate, they were also completely unavoidable.

  Dr. Bryne paused, taking hold of the doorframe before meeting her eyes. “No,” he breathed. “This isn’t good, and I want you off the floor for the day to regroup, but it was an accident. Worse case scenario, legal becomes involved.”

  “Is Todd gonna be okay?” she blubbered. I hope Satan tap dances on his grave.

  Dr. Bryne sighed again, giving her a look that only fellow doctors could understand. Much like police officers, or any other high-stress occupation where people’s lives were on the line, when push came to shove, the medical personnel at Shadow Rock Hospital looked out for their own. Every doctor and nurse in that place understood that what had just happened to Veda could’ve happened to any one of them. One doctor’s “accident” was every doctor’s accident.

  “We managed to revive him, but his condition’s worsened. He’s fallen into a second coma and isn’t likely to wake up. If he does, let’s just pray he’s willing to sign a waiver clearing the hospital of all negligence and malfeasance…” Dr. Bryne gave her another long look before leaving the room completely, closing the door behind him as he did.

  Veda watched him retreat through the glass before she looked back down at Jake.

  Jake blinked lazily at her. “What have you done?”

  “I gave him a thousand times the recommended dosage of opioids, and he went into respiratory distress.” She squealed the words “respiratory distress”, unable to contain her glee as her shoulders came up to her ears and the smile she’d felt so guilty about a few minutes earlier blossomed on her face once more.

  Jake gave her a fatherly tilt of the head. “Didn’t you just tell me and Hope that you were done the other day? That your quest for revenge was officially over? That you were officially a normal woman doing normal things? I understand that you’ve had a rough life and there’s a learning curve to all this ‘normalcy’, so I’m gonna let you in on a little secret… murdering a man that just came out of a coma?” He shook his head. “Not normal behavior. Not normal at all.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “There’s always a choice. And now your job’s in jeopardy.”

  “Dr. Bryne just said I won’t lose my job, and I have malpractice insurance. Worse case scenario, my premiums skyrocket. I can live with that. Besides, this is the first big mistake I’ve made since I started here—”

  “The word ‘mistake’ is a little strong—”

  “He tried to rape Coco last night.”

  The rest of Jake’s judgmental sentence floated away, and his face fell. He cradled one elbow on the arm of his chair, hiding his mouth with his hand.

  Veda nodded as he finally got the picture. “And it’s not the first time he’s tried. It is, however, the last time he’ll try. I guess she’d finally had enough.”

  “Coco?” Jake breathed, his hand falling from his mouth.

  “I know.”

  “But…” He sputtered. “But she’s such a precious angel.”

  “Guess that precious angel finally hit her limit. Holding it in for so long that she finally just… snapped.” Veda raised her eyebrows. “I can relate.”

  For the first time since she’d met him, Jake appeared speechless.

  “I had to do it,” Veda said. “If he’d woken up, he would’ve named her. Hell, he was on the verge of naming her before I upped his dosage a thousand fold.” She sighed, her mind floating to another place. “If I’d killed that bastard when I had the chance, Coco would’ve never been driven to do this in the first place. Now she has blood on her precious angel hands forever. Her precious angel tongue has tasted it. Let’s just pray she doesn’t take a liking to the flavor and become some deranged serial killer.”

  “So that’s what they were talking about on the news?” Jake breathed, still putting the pieces slowly together in his head. “Right before those kids were found, they were saying the Chopper had made a sixth attack. I was blowing up your phone!”

  “I was too preoccupied to answer, but yeah, I had a copycat. No surprise it was Coco. The one person on this island stupid enough to emulate me, even when she doesn’t realize she’s doing it.”

  “Coco isn’t the only one who has to worry about getting addicted to the taste of blood. You keep saying you’re done with all this, yet you keep escalating.”

  “This is different. This is yet another person suffering because of me. My mistakes. My shortcomings. I had to take care of this, but this is the last one.”


  “Until something else rolls around. Some other catastrophe that you feel responsible for. You can’t always protect the people you love from misfortune, Veda. If it were that easy, no one in the world would ever know pain, get sick, or die.”

  “Maybe I can’t protect the people I love from everything… but I can try my best, Jake.”

  “Even if it’s to your own detriment? Shit, you just said Linc caught you red-handed. Maybe you should worry a little less about everyone else and start worrying about yourself.”

  “He’s not turning me in…” Her eyes went to a faraway place once more. “His life is going to the dogs right next to mine, and probably at a much faster rate. Losing his wife like that…” She paused, realizing she hadn’t yet told Jake the entire story of how Lisa had died. “It’s like I can already feel him floating away from me. Too far to reach. The look in his eyes last night… it was like I barely recognized him.” She met his eyes. “I’m not worried about Linc knowing I’m The Chopper, and neither is he. I’m more worried about him than I am about myself.”

  Jake shifted in his seat. “How did he find out?”

  She chortled. “He knew all along. He said, deep down, he’s known since he found that chipped piece of cow print nail polish in Eugene Masterson’s house. Can you believe it?”

  “Yeah,” he laughed, causing her to chuckle as well. “I can. I’ve been telling you all this time that man’s in love with you. He’s built you a million bridges, mapped out a million different escape routes, given you a million chances to make a different choice. But you’re just addicted, aren’t you?”

  “The night he let me go in the O’Dair guest house…” She licked her lips, lowering her voice even more than it already was. “He told me there’s footage.”

  Jake’s mouth fell open, and his rosy cheeks went white.

  Veda nodded at his stunned face. “A tape from the party that night. A tape that shows all ten.”

  Jake leaned forward on his knees, eyes locked to hers.

  “All ten of the bastards who followed me into that room. I swear to God, when Linc told me that, I felt like a crackhead who needed a hit. Like an addict whose drug of choice was a grainy black-and-white videotape from ten years ago. Last night, I wanted to ask for that tape like I wanted air to breathe…” She swallowed thickly, looking away. “But then I realized it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who ten is. That there’s a tape out there that proves who he is. It doesn’t matter that I could’ve just asked Linc who he is because he probably knows. It doesn’t matter—because I know if I watch that tape… if I find out who ten is…” She shook her head. “I’ll relapse. And I don’t want to, Jake. I wanna get better. I don’t wanna be angry anymore. I wanna heal. I want my future husband safe. I want my baby safe.” She placed a hand over her stomach. “I won’t let this one end up like the last one.”

  Jake placed a hand on top of hers, smiling softly, both of their gentle touches lingering on her still flat stomach, where the child she’d just told him about a few days earlier was just beginning to flourish.

  “You want your baby safe… more. Right?” he asked, gently, searching her gaze, hand still over her stomach. “ ‘Cause if you’re really ready to stop, you have to mean it. You have to mean it from your soul. You have to mean it even when you think about everything ten did to you. Every time he slammed your neck down onto that white stone railing. Every time he ripped your hair straight from your skull. You have to mean it, Veda, every time you think about the way he ignored you… every single time you told him you couldn’t breathe…”

  Tears filled Veda’s eyes, the tips of her nails digging into her stomach with every word Jake said. She knew he was only being so blunt because he cared. Because he understood nights would come when she was hit with those terrible memories all over again. Nights would come when she’d be moved to make the wrong choice. Those nights would come over and over. They would come for the rest of her life. Nights when she’d find herself faced with a choice. A choice that, if made incorrectly, wouldn’t just hurt her, but everyone she loved as well, even if only indirectly.

  So as those words spilled from Jake’s lips, and the anger didn’t eat her alive, Veda was able to whisper her next words with ease.

  “I don’t care,” she said, with more authority than she ever had. “I’m done.”

  He held her eyes for a long moment—he studied them as if he was certain he’d be able to find the truth inside them even if she was lying.

  He knew her so well, Veda realized, that he probably could.

  In the next instant, his face softened, and he squeezed her hand softly. “You’re making the right decision, bub. I’m proud of you.”

  13

  The next morning, wearing a white dress shirt and tie, Linc pressed the rim of the beer bottle against his lips, hesitated, and then tilted his head back. The ice-cold liquid cooled and burned his throat all at once, the bubbles tickling his stomach and spreading all over his body until he was sure the fizz had entered his veins. Still, the boil that beer sent bubbling up inside of him was no match for the hot churn that had already been present long before he’d taken that swallow. So he took a few more, his Adam’s Apple bobbing as he downed half the bottle.

  Slamming it down on the island, he took a deep breath as his gaze flew across the small, humble kitchen, past the kitchen’s domed entryway, and into the living room, landing on the tail end of Lisa’s white casket. The white casket that sat in the living room of that small house on the hill.

  Soft weeps petered in from the living room. Weeps of people he couldn’t see from his vantage point leaning against the kitchen island. The sound caused his fingers to tighten around the beer bottle, and he lifted it again, bringing it back to his lips.

  When Martin Zhang, lead forensics technician and Linc’s former co-worker, turned the corner and entered the kitchen from the living area, Linc lowered the bottle from his lips and loosened his black tie.

  Having replaced his white lab coat with his own dress shirt and tie, Martin had been almost unrecognizable to Linc when he’d arrived that morning. Martin’s face was sober as he approached the other side of the island, giving Linc a tiny, sideways smile. A long silence fell in the way it only could at delicate events like that. No one ever knew what to say—every conversation encased in a sticky, uncomfortable film. As if they were all waiting, in terrified anticipation, for the wrong words to spill from someone’s lips. Maybe even their own.

  For the first time since Linc had met him, Martin’s dark brown eyes were unsteady. His busy lips sealed.

  Good.

  Linc wasn’t in the mood to talk.

  But Martin, ever the motor-mouth, finally managed, “It’s a beautiful wake—”

  “You bring it?” Linc jumped in, his voice—much deeper than Martin’s—swallowing the rest of his whispered sentence whole, bouncing off the peeling floral wallpaper of the tiny kitchen.

  Martin went into the pocket of his slacks and produced a Ziploc bag with a cell phone sealed inside. He slid it across the island.

  Linc’s eyes fell to the bag. The strip of masking tape strewn across it had the word ‘evidence’ written in black Sharpie, validating what a risk Martin had taken in bringing it to him. Removing anything from the evidence locker was expressly forbidden at the precinct. If he were ever found out, Martin would be joining Linc on the unemployment line. But still, after visiting Martin at the forensics lab the day before, he hadn’t hesitated when Linc had asked him to lift Lisa’s phone, telling him he’d need a day to cover all his tracks.

  Martin also hadn’t hesitated in allowing Linc to see Lisa’s body the day before, even though that too, had been against protocol. In the years he’d been a cop, Linc had watched a lot of people fall to pieces at the sight of their loved ones lying on those steel tables at the morgue, but never in his life had he imagined it would feel the way it had the moment he’d laid eyes on Lisa. The white-hot agony that had skewered him every second hi
s shredded eyes had studied her colorless, naked body, finding a new scar on every inch of her skin they touched. Her once flawless skin marred by battle wounds that hadn’t been there before she’d disappeared. Each one serving as a heart-churning confirmation of the nightmare she’d lived for the five years she’d been gone.

  Was his daughter living that same nightmare?

  His face grew tight, cheeks burning. His breathing became noisy, dots of sweat popping up on his forehead as he curled his hands into fists.

  “What’s happening with the kids?” Linc asked.

  Another question that, if answered, was terminable, but still, Martin didn’t hesitate. “Most of them are from South America. Test swabs show half of them have been assaulted in the last week.”

  Linc’s lips curled.

  Was his daughter suffering the same fate?

  Martin shook his head with a heavy sigh, his voice still hesitant and controlled, the only way it could be when there was a casket in the other room. “Modern day slavery, man.”

  “Blackwater?” Linc growled softly, digging his nails into the island’s gritty tiles. “Kincaid?” His teeth ground at the thought of David Blackwater and Pierce Kincaid, who’d both been detained at the airport a day earlier. Their arrests had been heavily covered by the media—on every news station damn near round the clock. He thought of the smug smiles on both their faces even as they were hauled away in cuffs. The way they’d looked dead into the lenses of the many camera phones that pedestrians had used to record their arrest. The way their smug smiles had remained, even then.

  After being brought in, the defense their team of lawyers had immediately trotted out was that the royal blue shipping crate had been found on the back of a truck and not on the Celeste, rendering the allegations against their clients ludicrous. It was a strong argument, but Linc knew it was bullshit. Even if they had managed to unload the container in the nick of time, Gage had seen the truth with his own two eyes, and there was no way the CEO and Chairman of the Board had no idea what was going on at the bottom of their largest and most profitable ship.