Although my stomach lurched and bucked, I knelt down and grabbed his wrist. “Please be alive. Please.”
A slow erratic pulse greeted me.
I heard myself starting to hyperventilate before I felt it. My chest constricted. My breath came in short puffs. Panic swelled in my lungs and adrenaline coursed through my veins. I dialed 911 and gave them the address.
I folded up a blanket from a display case and eased it beneath his head, then found a white Adirondacks tee shirt and used it to stem the blood flow from his forehead. By the time the paramedics arrived, I finally allowed myself to back up and take a breath. Breakfast surged into my throat and waterfalled into a nearby garbage can.
***
Detective McCann and Agent Jaworski had appeared within the hour, and after butting heads with the local cops, who’d badgered me relentlessly, they finally guided me to the diner next door for coffee, and pummeled me with their own series of questions.
Jaworski wore the same navy blue skirt and jacket, but this time she sported a pale yellow blouse. I wondered if she had multiple sets of the same suit, or if she just wore this one every day. Then I wondered why I even cared, and realized I was fixating on her stupid clothes to forget about my recent close encounter with the man who’d now kidnapped Rita and almost killed her grandfather.
Questions raced in my head about Quinn’s safety as I watched the ambulance race past our window. It had been an hour since he peeled out after the blond in the white truck.
I picked up my cell phone and checked it again. The battery was half charged. No missed calls. The remains of a stack of buttered toast stared back at me. I didn’t remember eating it.
Jaworski took another sip of her black coffee and reached over to pat my hand. Any feelings of harshness she’d shown when they first arrived had evaporated like wet footprints on a hot deck.
“You understand, don’t you, Marcella? We’re upset because you withheld evidence from us and ran off to conduct your own unprofessional investigation.” Her lips compressed into a thin line, but her warm steel-colored eyes seemed to forgive me.
McCann averted his eyes, as if he were ashamed of me. I’d been messing with his territory and had been misleading him for days.
A healthy dose of anger exploded inside me. I slid back in the booth and spilled some of Jaworski’s coffee. “What was I supposed to do? Sit around and twiddle my thumbs while you two didn’t find my mother?” I slammed my hand on the table. “Do you even know where my husband is? What if that bastard stopped his truck and took him? What if he’s lying dead on the side of the road? Why aren’t you looking for him right now?” My voice had risen to a screech that sounded shrill to my own ears. “What if–”
A few locals turned to stare. Jaworski pulled gently on my trembling arm and shushed me. The action pushed my rage to new heights. I wrenched my arm away, ready to tear into them again.
McCann’s radio interrupted me. He shot out of the booth and paced rapidly back and forth outside the diner, flapping his arm in an apparent fit of anger. When he returned, he threw a twenty onto the table.
“Come on, Jaworski.” He looked at me as if I were an afterthought. “You’d better come, too. Your idiot husband almost got himself killed.”
I grabbed his sleeve. “Is he okay?”
McCann loped with his head down toward his cruiser. “Yeah. But we’ve gotta hurry. They’re both in the hospital.”
“What about Rita? Did he hurt her?” My heart flipped like a Mexican jumping bean immobilized for a hundred years and suddenly released. I hurried after them. Jaworski took two steps for each of McCann’s ground covering strides. All business, she followed him with questions. “What’s going on? Who’s in the hospital?”
We jogged toward the police car. “Hollister and the perp in the white truck.” He practically shoved me into the back seat, then peeled onto Black Otter Street. “Haven’t heard anything about Miss Little Newt.”
I leaned forward and shouted over the wail of the siren. “What happened? Are you sure Quinn’s all right?”
McCann concentrated on the road, talking out of the side of his mouth at me. “He’s got lacerations and a broken arm. But he’ll live. The other guy wasn’t as lucky. Guess your husband rammed his van into the truck and knocked ‘em both into a ravine.”
I blanched. “What about Rita?” My voice hitched when I pictured her dead on the side of the road. I clenched the back of the seat rest and tried to process the information. Then it struck me. “Oh my God. That bastard knows where my mother is. We have to question him.” My voice did that horrible shriek thing again and I cringed at the sound of it.
Jaworski turned to me, her face tense with concern. “Let’s hope he’s still conscious when we get to him. We might catch a break.”
I slumped back onto the seat. It smelled of stale cigarettes and old French fries. I idly wondered how many hundreds of times McCann had gone to the McDonald’s drive-thru in his career. Did he like the Big ‘n Tasty burgers? Or an old fashioned Big Mac? Did he quaff down giant sized cokes? Or was he a milkshake man?
The pines whipped by my window, morphed into a green blur that made me dizzy. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples with trembling fingers, trying to stem the migraine that loomed.
Where was Rita, and why hadn’t McCann heard anything about her?
I opened my eyes again and watched a flock of Canada geese land on a turquoise lake that whizzed past the window.
Nothing made sense. I prayed harder than I’d ever done before, and waited.
Chapter 27
We flew over roads I didn’t recognize for an hour, flashing past countless villages and lakes. The sun rippled pineapple yellow over the calm water, and streaks of indigo painted the western sky. Under different circumstances, I would have appreciated the majesty of the remote landscape. As it was, I didn’t care if we careened over the Mohave Desert or muddy cow fields. I just wanted to touch my husband’s face, to feel his chest rise under my hand, to know he was okay. I’d yell at him later for playing the hero and almost getting himself killed.
As for the blond bastard, I wanted to kneel on his chest, scratch his beady eyes out, and force him to tell me where my mother and Rita were. Or something equally violent. The rage I felt toward him was uncontrollable and I couldn’t wait to face him.
The Miles Needham Memorial Hospital was nestled on a small hillside fifty miles south of Lake Placid. It was well past sundown when McCann parked in a no parking zone and led Agent Jaworski and me at a near run through the double glass doors to the information desk. The hospital sparkled and smelled of fresh paint. From the recently mulched chrysanthemums blooming beside the entrance to the glittering brass signs advertising the ER, maternity, and surgical wings, the place screamed money. I wondered who Miles Needham had been, and how many millions he’d donated.
After McCann flashed his credentials and was given directions to the floor we needed, we ran across glossy marble floors and through corridors decorated with murals that seemed freshly painted by children. The psychedelic parade of giant purple flowers, red butterflies, smiley-faced suns, and stick figures wearing giant band-aids blurred into the background.
“Which room is Quinn in?” I skidded behind the detective and agent, rounding a corner that led to a bank of elevators.
“Three oh two.” McCann panted the words, then jabbed at the brass buttons. “The perp’s in surgery. Busted a lung, pierced a pancreas. Something like that. We won’t be able to question him until he gets out of the recovery room, but he might have said something to the ambulance attendants or the officer who brought him in. They’re holding them for questioning.” The elevator doors finally kissed shut, and we whirred quietly to the third floor. “And you were right; the Little Newt woman was with them. She’s unconscious, in the ER. I’m going to interview the ambulance men first.” We exited the elevator at a run and he pointed down the hall. “You can go right in to see your husband.”
I checked the
room numbers with my heart pounding, whispered a few words to the nurse who sat behind the counter in the center of the floor, and hurried to Quinn’s room.
He slept on his back with his arm in a cast amidst a tangle of IVs and monitoring equipment. No one occupied the other bed. Bandages smothered one side of his face and purple bruises darkened the exposed skin on his cheek and forehead. Blood crept around the edges of the gauze, and his lower lip was so swollen he looked like he’d been playing kissy face with a supercharged Oreck vacuum cleaner.
My stomach clenched and threatened to revolt. I grabbed the doorjamb and closed my eyes.
He’s alive. Pull yourself together, damn it.
I took a few deep breaths and moved closer. With wobbly steps, I dragged a padded vinyl armchair to his side, perched on the edge, and touched his hand.
The exposed eye fluttered open. “Baby?”
“I’m here, sweetie.” I leaned over to kiss the back of his hand. My lips trembled against his skin, and I felt that cold, sweaty feeling that preceded fainting. I remembered to breathe deeply, and tried to center myself. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He winced. “Just scratches and a broken arm. Doc says I’ll be fine.”
“Thank God.” The “scratches” he referred to looked anything but minor. I squeezed his hand harder and my voice hitched. “But what the hell were you thinking?”
He shifted and groaned. “I stopped him. I got the bastard.”
I wanted to hug him and hit him at the same time. “Good thing. It would’ve been a tad awkward if you’d pushed the wrong guy into a ravine.”
A laugh burst from him, quickly followed by a moan. “Oh, God. Don’t make me smile. My face hurts.”
I felt a little steadier, and kissed the tip of his nose. “Poor baby.”
His visible eye widened. “Ruby! Who’s going to feed her?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll call Cromwell. He’ll take good care of her for us.”
His shoulders relaxed and he sighed. “Okay. Good. There’s just one other thing.”
“Yes, baby?”
He looked toward the door, lowering his voice. “Can you get me some antibacterial hand gel? I can just feel the staph infection trying to get inside me.”
Instead of ridiculing or shushing him, I stood and tucked his sheet under his feet, just the way he likes it. “Of course, honey. I’ll take care of that right now. You just rest. I’ll be back in a flash, and we can talk more in the morning.”
***
I got a small container of hand gel from a kindly nurse at the main station. He fell asleep and didn’t wake when the floor nurses set me up on the extra cot in his room, or when I half fainted from hunger a half hour later.
Maybe I hadn’t eaten that toast? Maybe it had been McCann who polished it off?
They somehow found me a stale turkey sandwich, a container of applesauce, a juice box, and a package of mini chocolate chip cookies. I devoured it all and watched my man breathe for an hour while the television flickered silently in the background. I called Cromwell and was relieved to discover him still at the hotel. He admitted with a chuckle that he bunked in a room in the back of the hotel during the busy season, and that he only answered his phone because he recognized my cell number. After a quiet conversation, he agreed to feed Ruby and keep an eye on her.
At eleven, I slipped out to look for McCann and Jaworski. I found them in the waiting area outside of the surgical wing on the second floor. Five empty paper coffee cups littered the side tables and a crumpled MacDonald’s bag sat between them.
“He’s out of recovery,” McCann said without looking up from his notebook. “But he’s still unconscious. We’ll have to question him in the morning. And we got nothing from the EMTs. The guy was unconscious when they got to the scene.”
“What about Rita?”
McCann shrugged. “Same story. She was out when they found her. She’s in a coma. Needed stitches on her forehead and had a broken wrist set. She’s on the same floor as your husband.”
Jaworski stood and shrugged into her jacket. “We’ve taken a couple of rooms next door at the Holiday Inn. There’s a cop guarding the perp overnight.” She jabbed a finger toward room 221, where a sandy-haired officer sat reading a magazine. “But in his state, he’s not going anywhere.”
I grabbed her sleeve when she passed me. “Did you get his name?” Putting a name on the face of one of the men who’d taken my mother seemed suddenly crucial. I had to know.
She smiled with sympathy and nodded to McCann. “The detective’s got it written down, Mrs. Hollister.”
McCann glanced down at his notebook. “Wendell Barski. Twin brother to Yale Barski, whereabouts unknown. Used to live in Silver Bear, current address Old Forge. We’ve got a team heading over there first thing in the morning.”
“Silver Bear?” I said. “Then Rita—”
Jaworski buttoned her jacket and smoothed back her paprika red hair. The neat bun had started to come undone. “They went to the same high school. Not only did she know them, she was dating Wendell. At least according to my contact down there. I just got off the phone with him.”
I dropped to the chair beside McCann. “Rita lied to me.”
He gathered his notebook and slid a pen into the spiral bind. “She did. Probably wanted to warn him.”
“Or accuse him.” I stared at them both. “She was forcibly removed from her shop. You didn’t see her face.” I swallowed hard. “She was terrified.”
Jaworski yawned and re-pinned her hair. “It’s hard to say. She could be in on the whole thing.”
I stood up and paced. “Why don’t you interview the townspeople of Silver Bear now? Send some cops down to find out more about the brothers. Maybe there’s a cabin they stay at that they’ve bragged about.”
McCann narrowed his eyes. “Stop trying to play detective, Mrs. Hollister. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”
The venom in his voice snapped me out of my dazed state. I stared at him with my mouth opened. “Excuse me?”
A veil dropped over his hard expression, softening to a neutral mask. Had I imagined the malice in his eyes?
“Just be careful. Let us do our job. We’ll find your mother.”
Jaworski looked apologetic. They stepped into the elevator and disappeared.
I headed back to Quinn’s room. “Creep. Jerk. Control freak.” I pictured punching him in his pudgy stomach, and it made me feel better. A lot better.
Chapter 28
At 9:30 PM I found Rita. In my stocking feet, I slipped inside her darkened room. The second bed was empty, and the curtains had been drawn against the night. Light from the hallway fluorescents shone onto her bed, revealing the intriguing woman I’d been so anxious to meet.
Even attached to wires and machines with her eyes closed, she was stunning. A purple swollen patch hid her right eyebrow, and a bandage covered the stitches McCann had mentioned on her forehead. Long dark lashes fringed her closed eyes. Lustrous black hair hung in two loose plaits, draping over her high cheekbones on either side, then drooping down to her collarbone. An orange and yellow beaded necklace graced her neck. Her right hand lay curled on her breast, clenched as if she’d been dreaming of fending off Wendell Barski or holding on while the truck flipped over into the ravine.
So many people hurt. How was it possible? Of the four who’d been involved in the awful scene, only my Quinn had escaped without a head injury.
I realized with a start that he was probably the only one who’d worn a seatbelt. Knowing his insistence on safety, I imagined him quickly buckling up with one hand while he roared after Barski and poor Rita. And, of course, a seatbelt wouldn’t have helped Rita’s grandfather. I needed to check on him, too.
Long legs stretched beneath her hospital gown. She’d kicked off the sheets. Her pretty feet pointed toward the wall where a silent TV hung, beckoning her to watch the inane content that poisoned our populace day after day with harsh violence, pre-requisite sex scenes with yo
ung teens, and few people who had any concept of values. At home when I occasionally dropped in front of the tube, I found myself watching the older shows like “The Waltons” and “Andy of Mayberry.” I craved the wholesomeness of their daily lives tonight, especially after having lived through the past few days with people taking my mother, ransacking our home, beating poor old gentlemen until they bled, and now forcing this poor woman into a truck.
A patter of guilt touched my heart.
A truck that my own husband had forced off the road.
I knew he’d done it for me. For my mother. But God, he could have killed Rita.
I pulled a chair up to her bedside and took her free hand in mine. Soft and strong at the same time, her fingers curled around mine as if she’d been missing me.
She turned on her side toward me. I noticed her beautiful wide hips, perfect for the children she might bear. And for the first time in a while, jealousy didn’t stab at me, knowing I’d never have a baby. Somehow, some way, I’d get through the heartache, and learn not to hate every other woman who just had to open wide to receive the seed and subsequently bear a child.
Her legs shifted, revealing an anklet adorned with the tiny head of a silver bear. I leaned over to cover her with the sheet. It was cold in the room.
Her dark sloe eyes opened. She clutched my hand while she focused on her surroundings, frowning.
I patted her hand, speaking softly as if to a frightened deer. “It’s okay, Rita. You’re in a hospital. You’re safe now.”
The memories seemed to slam into her. She glanced at the cast on her wrist and grew rigid. She tried to sit up. “My grandfather.”
I didn’t want to lie to her, but I needed to calm her. “He’s here in the hospital. Not far. And he’s alive.”
“Wendell—”
“He’s here, too. They operated on him today.”
“He attacked my grandfather.”
“I know. I found your grandfather in the shop. The ambulance attendants took good care of him, brought him here. He’s alive, Rita.”
Tall Pines Mysteries: A Mystery/Suspense Boxed Set Page 13