Laurie Salzer - A Kiss Before Dawn

by Laurie Salzer

  “Ah, I heard about that. Judge Evans has quite an opinion on those types.”

  Mary Jo continued chatting with her father while they finished lunch. After agreeing to do his hotshot veterinarian daughter a favor, her father promised to see her soon and left. She knew it would be awhile before she saw him again.

  Anxious to see Chris, she drove down the New York State Thruway in a great mood. She was almost home. Her day had gone better than she could’ve possibly hoped.

  As soon as she drove through the tollbooth to take the Thruway ticket, Mary Jo dialed Chris’s farm number. She disconnected the call before the answering machine picked up. She called Chris’s cell phone, which went directly to voice mail.

  “Damn it, Martel, I told you I would call you. The least you could do is keep your cell phone with you,” Mary Jo muttered and thumped the palm of her hand against the steering wheel in frustration.

  At almost six o’clock, she turned onto the farm drive. No lights were obvious in the front of the house, so she glanced at the barn. “Huh, I guess Chris is in the back part of the house. Maybe she’s cooking.”

  She rolled her eyes at the impossibility of Chris actually preparing a meal.

  As she pulled in next to the farm truck, she wondered why it wasn’t in the garage. Chris was fastidious about putting the vehicle away.

  She parked her truck, grabbed her purse from the passenger seat, and got out. As she neared the porch, she heard whining coming from the other side of the door, followed by impatient scratching and an urgent yip.

  Confused, she opened the door. Cedar shot out with her hackles raised.

  “Hey, there, what’s the matter?” Mary Jo let the door close. Cedar greeted her for a split second then raced to the barn. “What the hell is going on?”

  Sensing something amiss, Mary Jo followed the Lab at a run, becoming decidedly more worried. Chris rarely went anywhere without the dogs. They followed her everywhere. A knot of worry formed and tightened her chest.

  She lost sight of Cedar and paused when she got to the barn. Peering into the dark from the doorway, she heard only horse sounds.

  She flipped on the lights. Hesitating a few seconds longer, she thought she heard Cedar’s faint bark from the back of the barn. Forcing herself to remain calm, she hurried down toward the office.

  “Chris?” Mary Jo called. “Are you in here?” The silence was deafening.

  She stopped in front of the office. Oddly, the door was ajar. That increased her uneasiness. Chris always kept it closed and locked if she wasn’t at her desk.

  Mary Jo took a quick look inside. Her heart stopped when she saw the bloodied floor.

  “Oh, my God, Chris? Where are you?” Her frantic gaze swept the room. She glanced down and saw more blood at her feet. There seemed to be a trail of dark red drops. She followed the trail outside the office and heard Cedar bark a second time.

  Her heart threatened to hammer out of her chest. She ran toward the sound, keeping an eye on the blood trail that led down the aisle to the foaling stalls. She found Cedar scratching and jumping up and down in front of a stall door.

  “Oh, my God, that’s Hattie’s stall!” Could the mare have attacked Chris?

  Mary Jo ran the last few yards to Cedar. The Lab whined and paced and kept jumping up to put her paws on the stall door.

  Taking a deep breath, Mary Jo eased the door open a crack, afraid of what she might find. The sight chilled her to the core: a blood-soaked Chris lay facedown in the middle of the stall, clearly trampled by the horse’s hooves.

  A sob escaped Mary Jo as she opened the stall door more fully. “Oh, God, no.”

  The instant the door was wide enough, Cedar pushed through past her. Mary Jo followed, tears running down her face. To her surprise, Cedar didn’t go to Chris. Instead, she ran in the opposite direction, toward the hayrack.

  Mary Jo stopped short in the doorway when she realized the person lying in the straw wasn’t Chris. She didn’t know who it was, just that they appeared to be dead.

  Top Hat stood against the back wall of the stall with her ears pinned and gnashing her teeth, but to Mary Jo’s relief, the mare wasn’t focused on her.

  She talked softly and tried to sound more confident than she felt as she slowly eased her way inside the stall.

  Top Hat mock charged her then withdrew as Mary Jo crooned, “Easy. Easy girl. I won’t hurt you.” She continued talking in a low, quiet voice as she slid her way along the wall toward the hayrack and Cedar. Thankfully, the black mare didn’t charge again. Top Hat remained in the back of the stall, sweating and twitching nervously.

  Mary Jo couldn’t see much other than Chris’s outstretched legs until she pushed Cedar aside. Chris sat slumped forward in the corner, unconscious and covered in blood. “Oh, my God, Chris.” Mary Jo fell to her knees next to Chris’s head. Cedar bumped against her and whined.

  She reached for Chris’s neck and checked for a pulse. It was there, weak but constant. She pushed Chris’s shoulders in an effort to lean her against the wall to ease her breathing. When she got Chris solidly upright, she was horrified by the knife wound in her abdomen.

  Urgency beat at her. She hurried to open the stall door and said, “Cedar, rawhide. Quick. Rawhide.” Once the Lab disappeared out the door, Mary Jo returned to Chris’s side. She pulled her jacket off and pressed it to Chris’s seeping wound to staunch the bleeding.

  Chris moaned, almost inaudibly.

  The other injured person forgotten, Mary Jo focused on her lover. “Chris, can you hear me? Oh, baby, I’m here. Help is on the way.” She sobbed and wiped her tears with a bloodied hand, hoping her words were true. “I love you, Martel, so don’t even think about leaving me.”

  Mary Jo wasn’t sure whether Chris heard her or not, but she had to believe Chris would be okay. She needed to believe.

  After what seemed an interminable amount of time, Mary Jo heard sirens in the distance. “Babe, help is coming. You need to stay with me. Please, I can’t live without you, Chris. Please try and stay with me.” Tears ran in a steady stream down her face.

  When she heard voices in the barn, she yelled, “In here! Please hurry.”

  Reluctantly getting up, she quickly reached outside the stall for a halter and lead before moving to Top Hat. Sensing the horse’s nervousness, she approached with care and laid a hand on her neck. Top Hat visibly relaxed. Mary Jo slipped the halter over the horse’s head and tied her to the wall ring.

  Mary Jo closed her eyes in relief. She silently thanked the mare for behaving and Chris for the exercise they’d done earlier in the day. God, that seemed like ages ago. She swallowed hard in an effort to keep from vomiting as she surveyed the scene around her. She could handle the worst blood and guts scenario when it came to animals, but if the situation involved a human, all bets were off.

  Cedar suddenly bolted through the partially opened stall door, followed by two EMTs and two police officers. Top Hat remained standing in place, even when Mary Jo left her to join Chris. The mare’s ears flicked back and forth, but she didn’t show signs of lashing out. The horse looked absolutely exhausted and was covered in dried sweat on her neck and sides.

  Mary Jo wondered whether the exhaustion came from the stress of smelling Chris’s blood or from what Top Hat had done to the person lying in the straw. Probably both, if she had to guess. It would be a miracle if Hattie didn’t lose the foal because of this.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” an EMT asked as he approached.

  “No. I came home and found them like this.” Mary Jo read the nametag pinned to his shirt: Mark. The other EMT’s nametag read Dave.

  “Do you know who that is?” Mark pointed at the other victim with his chin.

  “I… no… I’ve never seen him before.”

  Mark squatted down to assess Chris’s condition.

  Dave knelt next to the person lying facedown in the middle of the stall. After attaching a cervical collar, he and Mark carefully flipped the body over and on
to a backboard. Mary Jo glanced up and realized the trampling victim was a woman. She bit her lip when she saw a bloody knife slip from the woman’s hand.

  She refocused her attention on Chris. Mark returned to take Chris’s vitals with experienced efficiency and inserted a needle into her arm to begin an IV drip. He taped sterile packing, damp with antibiotics and sterile water, onto Chris’s abdomen.

  “I’m ready to transport this one,” Mark said. “She’s critical. What do you have over there, Dave?”

  “Severe head trauma, pupils are fixed and unresponsive, may be internal injuries. Pulse is weak. She’s lucky to be alive. Let me finish hooking up this IV, and I’ll be ready to transport.”

  Mary Jo sprang to her feet. “You’ve got to take Chris first.”

  “Miss, calm down. We can take both of them at the same time,” Mark said.

  “I’m riding in the ambulance with her.”

  “I’m sorry, only family members can ride in the back.”

  “She has no other family! She’s my partner,” Mary Jo said through gritted teeth.

  “All right,” Dave said. “But you’ll have to sit in the front. Let’s move.”

  The police officers, who until then had been silent, moved out of the way as the paramedics shifted Chris to a gurney and wheeled her out of the stall and down the aisle.

  When Mary Jo began to follow the gurney, one of the officers tried to stop her. “Miss, we have some questions we need to ask.”

  Mary Jo abruptly pushed past him and called over her shoulder, “Ask me when we get to the hospital.”

  While Chris was being loaded into the ambulance and stabilized, Mary Jo called Cedar to her and put the Lab in the house to join Cagney and Sadie, who met them at the door.

  “Stay here, girls,” Mary Jo said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She closed the door and ran to the waiting ambulance.

  Chapter 26

  Chris deliberately kept her eyes closed when she felt the restraints on her wrists. She couldn’t let Sky know she was awake. If she did, the cutting would continue. Her entire body hurt like hell, and she wondered how long she’d been unconscious. She didn’t know how much more torture she could take before it was finally over.

  Sensing movement to her left, Chris involuntarily flinched. When she felt a hand on her shoulder, she panicked and wrestled against the bindings. She needed to get away before Sky had a chance finish her off.

  As she flailed, rocking her injured body back and forth, she could hear Sky saying her name over and over. She opened her blurry eyes for a split second and imagined the knife’s silver flash as it finished disemboweling her.

  “Chris. Baby, stay still or you’ll rip your stitches,” a soft, calm voice said close by. “Sweetheart, you’re safe now.”

  Chris stopped thrashing and blinked as the face above her came into focus. Breathing hard, she dropped back onto the hospital bed, her face wet with sweat.

  “Cav?” she asked, her voice barely above a whispered rasp. Her tongue felt pasted to the roof of her mouth, and her lips were dry and cracked.

  “I’m right here, sweetheart. Welcome back.” Mary Jo’s voice sounded choked by emotion. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. She squeezed Chris’s hand in both of hers.

  “Is she awake?” an unfamiliar female voice asked.

  Nodding, Mary Jo looked toward the hospital room door.

  Chris heard the soft pad of sneakers as an unknown woman approached her bed.

  “Hello, Chris. I’m Doctor Megan Ross.” The woman in blue surgical scrubs was tall and lean, with brown eyes and shoulder-length brown hair. “I just got out of surgery and thought I’d stop by to see if you were awake yet.” She picked up a chart from the foot of Chris’s bed, made a note, and put it down. “How are you feeling? Any pain? Nausea?” She pulled a light from her pocket to check Chris’s eyes.

  “I’ve felt better after getting thrown from a horse,” Chris replied roughly.

  Mary Jo laughed, as did the doctor.

  “I’m sure you have,” Dr. Ross said.

  The concern in Mary Jo’s expression worried Chris. “Can we untie her now?” Mary Jo asked.

  “I don’t see why not.” Dr. Ross removed the restraints. “You have a few IVs in you, so try and keep your arms still and flat, okay?”

  For the first time, Chris noticed the tubes running from both arms. The needle in her right arm was hooked to a blood transfusion pack. The other connected to a labeled bag of saline and amoxicillin. A machine that administered morphine also connected to her IV set. A line from a heart monitor disappeared into the top of her gown where the electrode was stuck to her chest.

  “Am I going to die?” Chris asked, partly joking and mostly serious.

  Mary Jo shook her head. “Good God, I hope not. I’ll kill you myself if you ever worry me like that again.”

  “No, Chris you’re going to be fine,” Dr. Ross said, the warmth in her expression reassuring. “You gave us quite a scare, though. Your heart stopped beating twice while you were in surgery to repair your abdominal wound. You lost quite a lot of blood. We’ve pumped in several units since you’ve been here. We’ll run some more tests, but you should have a full recovery. It’s good you’re as fit as you are. An average person might not have survived the trauma you experienced.”

  Chris worried there might be permanent physical limitations, but she was relieved by the soft look in Mary Jo’s eyes. She wordlessly returned her attention to Dr. Ross.

  “I’ll come around later, and we can discuss your discharge and aftercare,” Dr. Ross said. “You two probably have a lot to talk about. Mary Jo, Chris can have ice chips for now, and if she keeps them down, a small amount of water later tonight.” She nodded at Chris and walked out of the room.

  “That doctor’s got the hots for you,” Mary Jo teased as she placed an ice chip between Chris’s chapped lips.

  Chris snorted a laugh and then cringed. “Ah, God that hurt.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mary Jo said. After a beat, she added, “Not really. It’s just so wonderful to see your smile again.” She wiped her wet eyes with the back of her hand. “I can’t stop crying. I’m so relieved to know you’re going to be all right.”

  Chris closed her eyes and cautiously took a deep breath. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” She sniffed. Suddenly, her eyes opened wide in alarm. “Are Hattie and the dogs okay? I don’t remember anything after I heard Sky come into Hattie’s stall.”

  “Babe, everybody is fine,” Mary Jo reassured her. “The police know who did this to you. Her name’s Cindy Jenkins.”

  “I know her as Sky. She’s the same one who beat the crap out of me last fall.”

  “Fucking bitch.”

  “Yeah.” Chris’s eyelids grew heavy. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Later. You need to sleep. Rest assured everything at the farm is fine.”

  “‘Okay.” Chris’s eyes fluttered closed.

  “Frances and I have been making out just fine,” she heard Mary Jo say, the voice coming to her as if from a distance. “But you better come home soon because I’m going to get fat from all the cooking she’s been doing at your house.”

  Chris felt a brush against her cheek—Mary Jo’s kiss. As she drifted off, Mary Jo’s whisper sounded like music to her ears. “I love you, Martel.”

  * * *

  Chris woke with a start. The room was almost dark. The light coming from the hallway projected eerie shadows on the walls. She wondered what time it was.

  Regular beeping from the heart monitor broke the silence, as did the hushed swish of a nurse’s shoes as she passed the doorway.

  She made an effort to raise her head, looked toward the door, and noticed a sleeping form in the visitor’s chair. “Frances?” She moved her tongue in her mouth to gather spit so she could talk. “Frances, is that you?”

  Frances sat up and rubbed her neck before she came to stand at Chris’s bedside. “Hey, sweetie, how are you feeling?” she ask
ed.

  “Like a herd of horses ran me over.”

  Frances laughed softly. “I bet. Mary Jo said you were awake earlier, so when she went back to the farm, I drove in.”

  “Are you staying at my farm?”

  “Yes. Your poor pups are all in a tizzy, Cedar especially. She’s been moping ever since Mary Jo came home without you three days ago. I brought Daisy over hoping it would help. Mary Jo got them to eat, but just barely.”

  “Three days?”

  “Oh, honey, yeah.” Frances took Chris’s hand in hers. “You’ve been unconscious for most of it. Mary Jo and I have been taking turns coming here so somebody is always with you, and the other is at the farm.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tears stung Chris’s eyes. She felt so guilty for putting Frances and Mary Jo, the two most important people in her life, through all that had happened.

  “Why, for heaven’s sakes? You have nothing to be sorry about.” Frances pulled a tissue from the box on the bed table and gently wiped Chris’s tears.

  “I had no idea going to the bar would come to this,” Chris said, closing her eyes. “I can’t remember anything that happened after I made it to Hattie’s stall.”

  “Chris, honey, you just concentrate on healing and coming home, okay?”

  Eyes still closed, Chris felt the numb edge of sleep overtake her again. She managed to nod her head in agreement before she succumbed to her exhaustion.

  Once Chris had awakened, and after the police had taken crime scene photos as well as evidence, Mary Jo and Frances spent the better part of a day straightening up and cleaning the office free from blood and debris. They didn’t rest until they had erased most of the signs of Sky’s destructive attack.

  Three mornings later, Chris sat on the edge of the bed waiting for her discharge from the hospital. Thankfully, they’d removed the heart monitor the day before. She was so sick of the incessant beeping and longed for the sounds of home and the farm.

  The nurse had pulled her IVs earlier, leaving her with a yellow gauze wrap on each arm. Jeez, my arms look like a druggie’s with all these bruises and pokes, she thought. Her abdomen was wrapped snuggly, but for the most part, it wasn’t painful anymore. The various other cuts that Sky had inflicted on her were either superficial or held together by butterfly bandages.