by Ray Garton
A vivid memory entered his mind: Toby at lunch that day, joking that someone at Braxton-Carville might rig explosives to his car once they learned what he knew about the diversion of Paaxone. But it wasn’t a joke anymore.
Voice still ragged, Falczek said, “Who are you? Who sent you?”
The man didn’t hear him. He was too busy shrieking in pain and trying to get away from Barnabas. The dog’s head jerked back and forth, teeth buried in the man’s shoulder, tearing flesh and muscle with each movement. The man shrieked even louder. He swung his right fist around and punched Barnabas in the face, but the dog did not budge. He did it again, then a third time, harder each time, and finally Barnabas’s grip loosened enough for the man pull away. He scrambled to the chair in which Falczek had been sitting and clutched the pruning shears on the floor. In a squatting position, he turned to face the dog, ready to inflict pain.
He didn’t have a chance.
Barnabas was on him, closing those powerful jaws on the man’s throat as he knocked the man back against the chair. The shears fell to the floor again as the man’s arms flailed and his legs struggled beneath Barnabas’s weight. His cries of pain became wet, gagging rasps barely audible beneath the dog’s growls.
When Falczek saw blood spattering the chair’s pale upholstery, he turned away—but his eyes fell instead on the dead bodies of his friends, Toby and Cherie.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered as he clenched his eyes shut. He was in a nightmare from which he could not awaken. He walked over to the doorway that led to the front hall and tried to pull his thoughts together.
Obviously, what Renny had told him was very dangerous information. Renny had claimed that he’d received a threatening phone call and that his friend Lauren Parks had already been silenced by a suspicious car accident, but Falczek hadn’t believed him. It had sounded like another of Renny’s melodramatic concoctions. He no longer thought that.
He looked down at the gun in his right hand. There was blood around the base of his forefinger. His prints and DNA were on the gun. Without any thought, he decided to take it with him.
Take it with me where? he wondered.
He closed out the horrible sounds behind him—the dog’s growls and the intruder’s awful burbling coughs.
If he went back to the Crowne Plaza, there was a good chance someone might be waiting for him. Someone was upset enough with him to send a masked gunman to the Im house to kill everyone—had anyone else been there, he suspected they would be dead along with Toby and Cherie—just to find out where Falczek had gotten his information. He had no doubt they already knew where he was staying and which airport he’d come into and would be leaving from, and they weren’t going to take a chance of missing him at either place. He had everything important in his car—he wasn’t about to risk his life for his clothes and toiletries. Instead of the Reagan airport, he could drive to Dulles and catch the next flight out. Even Dulles might not be safe. It might be better to drive out of the area to another city, another airport.
White light flickered at the windows and thunder rolled a moment later.
He turned around when he realized the growling and gurgling had stopped. The man lay slumped against the chair, arms limp at his sides, head leaning forward with his chin on his chest. There was blood everywhere, especially soaking his police uniform.
Barnabas stood staring at the man for a moment, his snout smeared with dark blood. He turned and walked over to Toby and Cherie, dead on the floor. He sniffed them one at a time, then licked Toby’s face.
Should I call the police? Falczek thought.
If he called the police, he would have to stay there and wait for them to arrive. Then he would be questioned, probably more than once. It would keep him there for hours. He couldn’t afford that. He had to get out while he could and get back home. He needed to talk to Everett and take measures to protect himself from further attempts on his life.
I have to get out of here, Falczek thought.
He looked around the room and tried to remember what he had touched. His eyes fell on the shears on the floor near the dead man. Falczek’s blood was on the blades. He walked over and picked them up, stuffed them into the pocket of his suit coat. The dinner dishes had been cleaned in the dishwasher, but he’d been drinking. He went to the kitchen and found the tray of glasses on the counter. He couldn’t tell which one had been his. The dishwasher was humming, but it stopped when he pulled the door open. He put all three glasses in the dishwasher, then pushed the door closed. The washer kicked into action again. Falczek left the kitchen and went down the hall to the doorway that opened on the living room.
Barnabas lifted his head, looked at Falczek with troubled eyes, and released a high, tremulous whimper.
Falczek took a deep breath and fought back the urge to cry, just cry like a baby. He turned and left the house in a hurry, carrying the gun, with the bloody shears in his pocket. He walked through the rain with his head down, and got into his car. He wasn’t quite sure where he was going, but he wanted to get there as soon as possible.
6.
Hands on her body, pulling her.
A mouth on her skin, hot breaths coming rapidly.
Hard flesh stabbing against her thigh.
Chloe gasped as she opened her eyes in the dark, frightened by the frantic movement and the rough way she was being rolled onto her back.
“Eli?” she whispered.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s just me.” His face was next to hers his lips touching her cheek.
“What? What is it?”
“I need you,” he said, breathing heavily. He felt hot and a little damp, as if he’d been perspiring.
He was naked beside her, leaning over her. He pried her legs apart with his hand and his fingers crawled up her thigh. He clutched her there, a finger pressing between her lips.
The bedroom door was open and soft light fell in from the hall. She saw Eli over her, his face close and glistening with perspiration, half of it black with shadow and the other half touched by the hall’s light. He swung his leg over her and moved his body over hers. She felt his erection pressing against her.
“I need you,” he whispered in an intense rasp.
She reached down and guided him in. “Careful,” she said, “I’m kind of dry.” She gasped when he entered her hard. In a moment, he was pounding into her as his fingers clawed at her. He grunted, making low rumbling sounds in his throat, as if he were about to break into an animal-like roar.
This was not like Eli. He was a tender lover, affectionate and sweet. But now he seemed angry, bordering on violent. It sparked a certain excitement in Chloe, but that was rapidly quenched by her fear.
He propped himself up on his arms and locked his elbows as his thrusts came faster and harder. The light from the hall glimmered in his eyes, wide and showing a lot of white. His eyes seemed to hold a burning mixture of fear and anger. His grunts came through clenched teeth as he pounded with his hips, one hand groping her, clutching, squeezing, sometimes hard enough to hurt.
She did not have time lose herself in any of it. With a final roaring cry, Eli was done.
He remained over her on stiff arms for what seemed a long time, his body trembling as he gasped for breath. Then he rolled away and collapsed heavily beside her.
“I needed that,” he said, his trembling voice, dry and cracked, sounding near tears. His breathing slowed, became rhythmic.
Chloe had not moved since he’d stopped. She lay on her back, legs spread, knees up. Finally, she whispered, “Eli, what... what’s wrong?”
He said nothing, just kept breathing very regularly.
“Eli?” She put her legs down and turned on her side toward him.
He lay with his left arm across his forehead, his skin shining with sweat. He was asleep.
The digital clock beside the bed read 3:28. She had to get up soon. She lay back on the bed. In less than a minute, she could tell she would not get back to sleep. She was wide awake. She got up and
put on her robe. On her way out of the room, she stopped by the bed to look down at Eli. She wondered what had come over him, what was going through his mind, what had upset him so. She remembered what Roger had told her about Paaxone and she wondered if it was possible that an abrupt cessation of the drug could have such a drastic affect on him.
She sucked her lips between her teeth and sighed tremulously as she left the room, sick with worry and fear.
Chapter 12
Agitation
1.
“Hello, is this Emily Burben?” Eli said.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Are you the ex-wife of Neil Burben?”
A tentative pause, then, with a shade of suspicion in her voice: “That’s right. Who is this?”
“You don’t know me. My name is Eli Dunbar. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m calling about something that’s... well, it’s very important, and it has to do with Mr. Burben.”
“Is this another reporter? Look, I’ve already answered all the questions I’m going to answer. I really don’t want to—”
”No, no, I’m not a reporter.” He sat at the desk in the guest room, his cell phone in his left hand, his right hand absently rubbing the back of his neck, then running through his hair, then rubbing his neck again. As he spoke, he rocked back and forth slightly, absently. “It’s nothing like that, Mrs. Burben. Like I said, you don’t know me, but this pertains to your husband, and it’s—”
”My ex-husband,” she said crisply.
“Yes, I’m sorry, you’re ex-husband.” His right hand picked up a pen and began to doodle on a yellow legal pad on which he’d written a list of names. Each name was accompanied by the name of a city and at least one phone number, sometimes more, with lines drawn through many of the numbers. There was a check mark beside some of the names, with a question mark next to a couple of them. At the top of the list, underlined three times, he’d written, “Paaxone?” A few pages on which he’d scribbled notes earlier had been folded over and were beneath the pad.
“Is this going to take very long?” she said.
“No, it won’t. I just want to ask you a question. When the, uh, the unfortunate incident involving your husband, um... when that happened... well, in the news articles, you mentioned that he’d been having some mental problems. Is that correct?”
“Well, that’s what I said, isn’t it? Are you sure you’re not a reporter?”
“No, I’m not. I’m a—” He started to say “FedEx driver,” but thought better of it. “I work in advertising. I don’t have anything to do with the press. What I wanted to know was, uh... had he been taking Paaxone prior to the day he attacked that woman and her child on the street?”
She said nothing for a moment. “I didn’t tell that to any of the reporters.”
“No, you didn’t. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Well... yes. He was taking Paaxone... “ The sentence sounded incomplete, as if she were going to continue. But she did not.
Eli’s right hand trembled as it continued to doodle on the pad. He tried to keep the tremor out of his voice as he said, “Had he stopped taking it?”
She made a small, questioning sound in her throat, fell silent a moment, then said, “Who are you?”
“He couldn’t get the drug anymore, could he? His pharmacy didn’t have any, none of the other pharmacies had any. So he had no choice. He stopped because he couldn’t get it anymore. Is that right?”
“Who are you?”
“I’ll answer all your questions, Mrs. Burben, I promise. But please... answer mine first. He was unable to refill his Paaxone prescription, so he’d stopped taking it, isn’t that right?”
She sighed. “That’s what he said, yes. He told me there was no more Paaxone at the pharmacy. They told him it wasn’t available, they couldn’t get it.”
“When did he take the last pill?”
“I’m not sure. Very recently. The end of last week? Sometime over the weekend? Something like that. How do you know this?”
“Were you with him then? When he stopped taking the drug?”
“I told you, I’m his ex-wife. We don’t live together anymore.”
“So you didn’t see him? After he stopped taking Paaxone?”
“No, but... no, I didn’t.”
“But what? What were you going to say? Did you talk to him, maybe?”
Another silent pause. “On the phone, yes. Sunday afternoon. He was supposed to take our son to his trumpet lessons this week. But he said he couldn’t.”
“Did he say why?”
“Well, he said he didn’t... feel well.”
“Tell me, Mrs. Burben, was he ever violent before? Did he have a history of violence? Or was this an unusual occurrence, out of the blue?”
“Neil had problems, but he was never violent before, never. That’s what was so... well, it came as such a... “
As her voice trailed off, Eli nodded slightly, thinking, Same as the others, no history of violence.
When she spoke again, her voice was firm, verging on angry. “Look, I’m not answering anymore of your questions until you tell me what this is about. Who are you and why are you asking these questions about Neil?”
Eli dropped the pen and stood. He walked to the other end of the small room, then turned and walked back to the desk taking long, quick steps. He rubbed the back of his neck as he repeatedly paced the length of the guest room. He wore a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and his face was shiny with sweat. He had not showered and his hair was uncombed and mussed. He struggled to keep his voice steady, to keep it from breaking. He did not want her to hear how afraid he was.
“My name is Eli Dunbar and I’ve been taking Paaxone,” he said. This was the first time he’d gotten far enough to explain why he was calling. The others had hung up. But at least most of them hadn’t hung up before they’d told him what he wanted to know. “This morning, I’ve talked to other people like you, people who were close to someone who was taking Paaxone but had to stop because the drug wasn’t available anymore. Just like me, just like your ex-husband. See, I’d read some articles yesterday and it’s been driving me crazy ever since because there was a connection, I knew there was a connection, and I—” He stopped talking and sighed, thinking, You’re not making sense. Don’t sound crazy. He cleared his throat and said, “I read these newspaper articles online from papers all over California. On a hunch—just a hunch, but it was really eating at me and I had to follow it—I took names from the articles and looked them up in the White Pages online. I made a list of their names and numbers. Sometimes it took a few calls to get the person I wanted. Some wouldn’t talk to me, they hung up. But most of them did talk to me, even though they were cautious, like you.”
He felt winded and stopped pacing for a moment, took a couple of deep breaths and tried to calm the buzzing anxiety he felt. The walls of the guest room seemed closer, the ceiling lower, as if the room were gradually swallowing him.
He heard the landline ring throughout the house—there was a phone in the living room, one in the kitchen, and another in the bedroom at the end of the hall. It had rung several times that morning, but he’d ignored it and let the answering machine take the calls. Now he ignored it again.
“I talked to the father of a 12-year-old boy in San Luis Obispo,” he continued. “The boy had taken a gun from his father’s closet and blown his brains out. I talked to the coworker of a woman who worked at a Wal-Mart in Anaheim. This woman went to the parking lot during her lunch break one day last week and used a can of lighter fluid and a book of matches to set herself on fire. She died two days later in the hospital.”
“Look, I don’t—”
”Please, please let me finish,” Eli said, surprised by the desperation of his plea. He started pacing again. “I talked to the sister of a high school principal in Petaluma who drove his car through the front entrance of the school’s main building one morning. He killed a student and a teacher, then got out of the car and physica
lly attacked and injured another student before locking himself in his office and slashing his own throat. He bled to death before anyone could get to him. I talked to a woman in San Diego, the mother of a teenage girl who strangled the toddler she was babysitting. Afterward, the girl put the dead toddler in the bathtub and started chopping it up with a meat cleaver before changing her mind and hanging herself in a closet. I talked to the sister of a man in Whiskey Lake—maybe you heard about this, it happened just a week ago—who suddenly became enraged and stabbed his wife, mother, and a neighbor. There was—”
”I don’t want to hear anymore!” the woman snapped.
“Okay, I’ll stop, I’ll stop. There were others, and these are just the ones I’ve talked to. But I’ll stop. The point is that all these stories, they seemed unconnected, completely unrelated. But they aren’t. These people—all the people who did these horrible things—they’d been taking Paaxone. But suddenly, they couldn’t get their prescriptions refilled. Just like Mr. Burben. Just like me. It disappeared, became unavailable. Within 48 hours of stopping the drug, they... well, they kind of, uh, snapped. Violently. Without much warning, if any. The people I talked to, they said—”
“Is this a joke?” she said. Her voice had suddenly lowered and become throaty.
“This is not a joke, Mrs. Burben, I’m very serious about this.”
“What are you saying? I-I-I mean, what... what are you telling me, that... that Neil was—”
”I’m not sure, Mrs. Burben, I’m not positive yet. But there’s a connection, here, this is very significant. It’s happened all over the state. Maybe in other states, too, I’m not sure yet because so far, I’ve just concentrated on California. People who’ve been taking the drug haven’t been able to refill their prescriptions, and they’ve—”