Holding the flesh and blood of his body close, Lanie wrapped around him. She knew in her heart he’d never stay with her as a ghost. Jason would leave the moment he found a way. Knowing this might very well be their last time to love each other, she pulled him to the mossy ground and made sure his soul would never forget.
Rolling in her sleep, Lanie’s mind was filled with frightening thoughts, her body restless. Jason leaned close and shushed her. “Shh, it’s all right. Take us back, sweetheart. We need to see it to the end.” He smoothed her hair back from her ear and the small action seemed to settle her.
Chapter 24
The lovers woke to the sound of the porch door slamming and morning light streaming in through the louvered windows. The trees stretched to the topmost panes where hummingbirds flew in and out of the opened slats to seek the flowers below. Visual textures and flowery scents filled the sunny space, and all of it took Lanie’s breath away. This was how she wanted the atrium to look in her waking world. Especially now that the atrium had been their intimate retreat. They heard voices coming close.
Just outside, Mrs. Boatwright and Addy were waiting on Patrick to bring the carriage around. “I spoke with Clyde Fielding last week. He’s planning on bringing butter and cheddar cheese today,” the cook told the housekeeper. “I’m thinking the doctor might enjoy a rarebit for supper tomorrow. Even as a lad, Jacy always liked the cheese melted on toast. I remember one day his aunt and I made...” Her voice trailed off to be replaced by the rolling of carriage wheels.
At least Addy will be away from the house for now. Jason stood and reached a hand to help Lanie rise. “It’s market day. They’ll be gone until the early afternoon. Jason smoothed her hair and helped her button her blouse. While tucking in his own shirt, he remembered the gun. “Let’s get inside before the fiends stir.”
The conversation they’d overheard the night before came rushing back to Lanie. “Jason, I’m scared.”
Hugging her to him tightly, he kissed her temple and, in an attempt to lighten the mood, he chuckled, “Don’t be. I’ve told you before, I’m already a ghost.”
“It’s not funny.”
He kissed her head again. “Let’s go inside. You’re going to pack your bags and take my buggy to the inn. I don’t want you here when they show their hand.”
Lanie shook her head. “But it’s my dream. I have to be here.”
Jason frowned. He hadn’t thought of that. “Then you’ll stay here until the others return.”
“No. We’ll face them together.”
“We will not. I won’t have you in harm’s way.”
“I’m safe in my bed sleeping, Jason. I don’t understand much of what’s happening, but I do know that much. You’re the one in danger.”
The logic of the intelligent and well-ordered mind he’d come to hold in high regard put him at ease. Whatever happened to him, she’d be safe.
An instant later, Jason found himself washed and changed and standing in the hall outside the bathroom across from Lanie’s bedroom. It sounded like she was bathing.
Finding herself fully lathered in the bathtub of all places, Lanie hurried to finish rinsing. In her sleeping mind, at least two hours had passed since she and Jason woke in the atrium. The light streaming in through the hall window suggested it to be an hour or so before noon. A loud crash came from below. Here we go. After dunking herself, she grabbed for the towel.
Jason quietly hurried down the stairs and found Bertha standing in the dining room doorway.
Though he was wary, he gave her a smile. “Good morning, Bertha.”
She whirled around and he noticed her watery eyes, red nose, and a thin sheen of sweat on her pale face.
Overjoyed to see him, Bertha smiled. “Jason, I…”
A feeble moan came from the dining room. Jason made to enter, but Bertha caught his sleeve. “There’s nothing you can do.” Alarmed by her words and inscrutable face, Jason looked over her shoulder to see what it was she tried to block him from seeing.
“Help…”
“Bertha, let me pass.” Setting her aside, he rushed into the room. There, amid broken china and spilled food, lay Richard and Cathy. Richard lay on his back, his eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling, his open mouth filled with the food he’d been eating when he died. Cathy moaned from the floor. His gaze flew to Bertha. “What have you done?”
Seeing repulsion in Jason’s eyes was just too much to bear after the horrible things Cathy and Richard told her the night before. Bertha pulled the brown bottle from her dress pocket and set it on the sideboard.
Jason recognized it instantly. Laudanum from his office, and the bottle appeared empty. Horrified, he turned back to Cathy who now had spittle bubbling at her lips, her breathing failing. Bertha was right. The deadly overdose of who knew how much opiate was killing her. There wasn’t he could do. Cathy took one last rattling breath and expired. He closed her doe eyes then looked at the doorway. Bertha was gone.
Lanie found him covering the bodies with the table linens. “What happened?”
“Bertha poisoned them.” He tipped his head toward the brown bottle. “That bottle was nearly full. Who knows how much they had.”
Laudanum. Reading the label first, Lanie looked around and found the broken carafe. The brown stain seeping into the carpet she knew to be tea. The Southerners drank gallons of sweet tea with their meals. The mildly bitter laudanum, covered by the sweetness of the copiously added cane sugar, wouldn’t have been detected. “Where’s Bertha now?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, she stood just there a moment ago.” Remembering the gun in his desk, he said, “Stay here. I’ll find her.”
Bertha stood before the torn portrait of Jason and Jackson Bowen as it hung askew on the wall in its broken frame. She addressed the portrait miserably, “You can’t love me now. I know you can’t. Oh, Jason, the look in your eyes…” Her arm across the mantle, she leaned her forehead and sobbed.
Jason found Bertha crying at the mantelpiece. His gaze went to the desk and found the drawer with its hidden compartment open. On the outside chance the gun still lay within, he quietly moved there to look inside. Sensing she wasn’t alone, Bertha whirled about. Pain filled her eyes. Her nasally voice cracked, “You don’t love me, do you?”
“We’re friends, Bertha.” He forced a smile.
Bertha faltered, wanting it to be true. “I saw you.”
He looked at her, confused. “You saw me?”
Nodding, she sniffed and wiped her wet nose on her sleeve. “Through the keyhole. I saw you in Lanie’s bed.”
Jason slowly inched toward the desk and the gun he hoped he’d find. Bertha was a dangerously deranged woman. “Bertha, you must understand. Cathy wouldn’t have me…”
Cutting in she said, “Oh, I do understand that, Jason. After Mama had me, the doctors told her she couldn’t have another child or she’d die. Papa had needs, too. Every nigra gal we owned saw to his needs. That’s what they were for. Richard and I would hide in secret and watch Papa. Then Richard got older and had needs with the nigra gals, too.” She nodded to herself, the images of countless childhood games dancing before her unfocused eyes. “All men have needs, and if they don’t keep nigras and their wives refuse them, they must go elsewhere.”
Jason slowly made his way to the desk. His heart fell when he saw the drawer empty.
Her gaze went to his. “Lanie and I arrived the same day. Why didn’t you come to me with your needs? We’ve known each other longer. Remember, I met you even before Cathy did.” She frowned at the truth in her words. He didn’t give her a second look once he’d seen Cathy. The words of the night before reappeared. You’re as homely as sin. No man would come knocking. He had come knocking, but it wasn’t for her. Her eyes narrowed. “You told me we were friends.”
“We are friends, Bertha.”
Absorbed in her inner dialog, she shook her head. “I would have seen to your needs. I know what a man likes done. I would have loved
you forever…” She pulled the revolver from her dress pocket and aimed it at him. Accusing now, she croaked, “But you went to her. You went right to Cathy and sniffed her like a randy dog.” Her voice rose. “And I was right there! Couldn’t you see she really hated you? Couldn’t you see that? Couldn’t you see I loved you?”
Lanie came running into the room. Jason yelled, “Lanie, stay back, she’s got the gun!”
Bertha spun toward the door then looked back at Jason in abject misery. Yes, she saw for herself the love in his eyes for Lanie. With a cry of pain, she pulled the trigger and shot Jason square in the chest.
“No!” Lanie ran forward. Tearing at the white shirt blooming with red, she found the wound and pressed her hands there. Pink bubbles dribbled from his nose and mouth as he groaned. He looked up at her helplessly. “Please don’t die, oh God, Jason, please, please.” His life was pouring through her fingers. There was nothing she could do in this time.
“He never loved me,” Bertha said in a far off voice. “I’m as homely as sin. No man would come knocking. He knocked on our door. He came knocking. But it wasn’t for me.”
Lanie heard the click of the hammer being pulled back close to her ear. Bertha was going to shoot her, too.
Bertha’s voice crumbled into hiccupping sobs. “You’re not homely as sin are you? Men prefer a lovely woman. Richard preferred you. Papa would have, too. Jason did. No other man I love will prefer you to me.”
Lanie flinched, expecting to die. The sound of the gun firing was met by a sickening crunch and breaking glass as the bullet shattered the window. Her eyes opened and she saw Bertha on the floor with an opened skull. The poker dropped with a clang, and Addy fell to her knees at Jason’s side. “My boy, oh my poor boy.”
Smiling feebly, he closed his eyes for the last time and mouthed, “I love you both,” followed by, “Lanie?”
“I’m here. It’s me, Lanie’s here.” She shook him. “Jason, Jason, wake up.” He didn’t stir. The two women leaned into each other and cried.
Chapter 25
Lanie took the chart from the door and read the night nurse’s log. She no sooner finished when the floor nurse walked in on her morning rounds. She slid it back in the holder, knowing it would be needed. Following the nurse to the bed, she said genially, “Good morning, Julie. How’s our patient this morning?”
The nurse checked the IV and adjusted the flow a bit. He’d been like this for nearly a week since his accident, and every morning the Doctor asked the same hopeful question. Today she finally had something encouraging to say. “Good morning, Doctor. Dr. Bowen made a sound earlier. I wasn’t on yet, but Leticia said she heard him moan.” Eyeing her wristwatch, the nurse checked his pulse.
Lanie perked. “Oh, that’s wonderful! What time was that exactly?”
Julie smiled at once feeling the excited happiness that shined in the doctor’s blue eyes. “About 7:30. I’ll set him up for his bath…only be a sec.” With that, she wrote her findings on the chart and left the two alone.
Leticia the night nurse had put on the Jane Eyre CD, her obvious favorite, again. Lanie listened as crazy Bertha Rochester stabbed her brother Richard for the fourth time this week.
Smoothing Jason’s hair back, she kissed his unresponsive lips. “Good morning, baby. Don’t worry. I’m taking Jane Eyre with me so you won’t have to listen to it again. I’ll stop by the library and pick up new books this evening.”
Jason didn’t respond, but Lanie knew people in a comatose state could hear, and that being the case, she had the hospital nurses play CDs continually so he’d have something to listen to when she wasn’t here reading to him herself. Thank God for the library and their books on CD. He’d been through Steinbeck, Brontë, Wilde, and several selections from Oprah’s Book Club. She flipped through the stack. All of them had to go back to the library today. Ejecting the Jane Eyre CD, Lanie considered what to play after she left. Maybe he’d like to hear Cape Fear again instead of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Jason knew the latter was her personal favorite, maybe he’d sense her thinking about him if he heard it again. She smiled inside, wondering what he’d say about her choices for his listening material. She tried to mix it up for him. Jason preferred Sherlock Holmes and Stephen King and thrillers like Cape Fear and Timeline. She preferred romances. Fortunately the library had a large selection. There was no telling how long he’d be in a coma.
Lanie sat on the bed beside him. It broke her heart to see him like this and missing him had her crying herself to sleep more than once over the past week. From the moment they met she loved him and she wanted nothing more than to feel his arms around her, to hold his hand, to make love with him. As his burned hands were still bandaged, she only rubbed his arm, her hands and heart aching for more. “Feel that, baby? I know you’ll come back to me in your own time. I’m just impatient and missing you.” She went on to tell him about the progress of the work being done. Ben’s family was busting their collective butts to ensure the clinic would open on schedule.
Digging for her cell phone, she went to the opened window for a signal then called her sister. Only eighteen months apart, her sister was her best friend and this was news worth sharing. “Lex, it’s me. I just got some good news.”
“He’s awake!” Lexie shrieked.
Lanie winced at the stab in her ear. “No, not yet. But he made a sound.”
The hopeful tone was contagious. “Well, that’s good news right? It means he’s coming around.”
“It might. Listen, would you do a favor for me today?”
“Sure, sweetie, anything.”
Lanie smiled. “Two things actually.”
Lexie laughed. “I don’t know about doing two things.”
Lanie laughed with her. Her sister was hysterical. “Give Mom and Dad a call and tell them Jason made a sound today. Mom made me promise I’d give her good news as soon as I had any.”
“Okay, what else?”
“Tell Dad they replaced the fuse box and laid cement in the cellar. No more hazardous wiring and damp dirt floor. No one else will get electrocuted.”
“He’ll be relieved. Dad’s been worried sick you’d go down there and get zapped yourself.”
Lanie shook her head. She understood her parents worried like all parents did, but for them to lose sleep over the idea she’d go touch the very fuse box that electrocuted her husband was ludicrous. “Also, would you stop by and tell Ben…”
“Oh, three favors now…”
“Mom and Dad constitute one favor.”
“If you say so. Dad was talking about flying up there to stand guard at the cellar door so you wouldn’t go and hurt yourself.”
Laughing, Lanie said, “Seriously, Lex. Because Jason might very well wake up today, I’ll be staying here longer. I was supposed to go over the tile choices for the clinic with Zack at two o’clock. Just call Ben. He’ll let his brother know.”
“They’ll be glad to hear Jason’s coming around. You want me to tell them?”
Lanie thought a moment. Ben and Jason were best friends. He’d been fretting for days since the cellar cleanup and the accident. It was Ben’s quick thinking that knocked Jason away from the fuse box with the wooden rake handle. Held tight by the current, Jason would have died if he’d been zapped any longer. Then too if Ben hadn’t pushed her out of the way when she ran to Jason without thinking, she might have been electrocuted as well. “Yes, but play it down a bit. Okay?”
“But it’s good news.”
“It is good news, but I finally convinced him not to come to the hospital at night. I don’t want him knocking himself out to get here after working all day. He’s looking terrible, and Janice said he hasn’t slept a wink since Jason got hurt.”
“He still thinks it’s his fault?”
“Yeah, that’s what she said. I told her that’s crazy, but that’s Ben. He’s been Jason’s friend since they were boys. He told her he should have ordered gutters right off the bat. He thinks if he had, the dirt floor wouldn
’t have gotten wet after that huge rain.”
“You’ve only been in the house two months, how could anyone know?
The bag of hot soapy washcloths arrived. Lanie nodded to the nurse. “Hey, I’m going to give Jason his bath now. Thanks for…”
“Oh! Wait, gutters. I didn’t tell you…”
“What?”
“They caught the serial rapist. It was the gutter man from WeatherAll Siding and Gutters. Jason was right.”
Lanie’s hand flew to her mouth. “You’re kidding.” After news of the second attack made the paper, Jason had jokingly suggested that the rapist was most likely Max Brady, an asshole he went to grade school with.
“Uh-huh. That tall creepy blond guy. Remember, we saw him at the home center and Jason and I started singing the Doors’ song—Riders on the Storm? Killer on the road, brain squirmin’ like a toad…”
“Jason didn’t like him. Apparently even when they were kids, the guy was a real sick bully who liked to hurt people.”
“No shit. I read in the paper today that the creep would arrange to do the work at a house, then somehow fix a door or window so he could come back at night. Four single women in as many months. The last victim sprayed him in the eyes with a can of wasp killer…”
Lanie started, “Wasp killer?”
“Yeah the quick freeze kind with Freon. He’s blind now. That’s how he was caught. He couldn’t see to run.” The sisters were quiet a moment, unsettled by the fact Jason knew him and, joking or not, declared Max Brady the rapist before the police even suspected it was true.
Lexie said, “Okay, enough about him. You go wash your hubby. Give him a kiss from me, too. Hey, one more thing. Do you want Pete and me to stop by with dinner?”
“Nah, but thanks for the offer. My appetite is pretty nonexistent right now. I’ll call you later before I leave.”
“You have to eat, even an ice cream sandwich from the vending machine is better than nothing. Love you.”
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