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Past Presence

Page 26

by Nicole Bross


  “Audrey, look at me, open your eyes,” Kellen says. He sounds so frightened. I manage to crack one eyelid a fraction to see him looming over me. Naomi’s the one pressing on my chest. “Hey,” he says with a smile, but he’s crying at the same time. He’s still got my hand in a death grip. “Stay with me, Audrey, don’t leave me, okay? I need you in this lifetime, not the next one. I love you.” Both my eyes open at that. “Yeah, I said it,” he says with a laugh. “Somebody had to first.” I want to laugh too, but all that comes out is another weak cough. My eyes want to close again so badly. I hear the front door open, and footsteps pounding into the house.

  “We’re in here,” Sheena yells. “Hurry, she’s been shot!”

  Who’s been shot? I wonder before the blackness takes me.

  27

  Waking up is eerily reminiscent of Naomi’s vision. I’m in a hospital bed, surrounded by sterile pale green walls and the scent of disinfectant. The sound of steady beeping comes from somewhere behind my head, and an IV tube filled with clear fluid snakes its way out of my left hand and up a pole. There’s also a clip over my index finger. I feel like I’ve been hit by a dump truck, then backed over again. The last thing I remember is lying on Naomi’s bedroom floor, with everyone kneeling over me. Reflexively, I groan as the scene replays itself in my mind. Drew must have shot me in the struggle.

  Kellen’s hand is wrapped around my right one, and the man himself is fast asleep in a chair beside me, his chin on his chest. There are smears of what must be my blood on his gray T-shirt. I squeeze his hand and feel his tighten in return, but he doesn’t wake. A sense of warmth and safety envelops me, and I close my eyes again, knowing he’ll still be here when I wake up.

  ***

  There are only a few streaks of orange light left on the horizon when I open my eyes again. Just as I knew he would be, Kellen is still parked in the chair beside me, although he’s got a clean shirt on and is awake, reading a paperback. He doesn’t see that I’ve come to, so I spend a few moments watching him, drinking in the sight of his face, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, his long fingers as they hold the book. We are so lucky. Things could have turned out much worse.

  He glances up over the pages and sees me looking at him, and I’m treated to his megawatt smile. Without a word, he leans over the bars on the bed and kisses me long and deep, cradling the back of my head so our foreheads press together. Some nebulous vision flits through my mind but I ignore it, wanting only the present. When we break apart I feel lightheaded in a way that has nothing to do with having recently been held hostage and shot by a serial killer.

  “Hey,” I manage, as my own face mirrors his wide smile.

  “How are you feeling?” I consider the question. Better than when I woke up the first time—maybe the truck that hit me was only a half-ton.

  “All right,” I tell him. “Sore. Achy.” He nods and leans over to press a button on the wall behind me.

  “I’m supposed to alert the nurses’ station when you wake up,” he says. “You’ve been out for almost an entire day.”

  Only one day. I breathe a sigh of relief. I’ve got the same disorientation and sense of missing time as when I’d had meningitis.

  “What happened?” I ask him. “I mean, I got shot, but after that?”

  “You had a collapsed lung. The bullet hit here,” he indicates a point on the right side of his chest, “and passed almost all the way through. The surgeon removed it. You lost some blood, but she said you’re going to be absolutely fine. It didn’t come anywhere near your heart or your spine.” He folds my hand into his own, and not even the faintest hint of a smile remains on his face. I ignore the vision he gives me—it’s full of fear and grief and things I don’t want to feel right now. “I was so scared,” he says. “When I saw you lying there, covered in blood, and your face was so pale…” he trails off.

  “I’m fine,” I reassure him. “It takes more than a bullet to stop me.” It was true, I realize. I’d been shot, and I survived. The thought is sobering and freeing at the same time. “How are your mom and Sheena?”

  “They’re both great. One hundred percent. Ma was a bit woozy, but they both got those patches off before there was any serious risk of overdose. The paramedics checked them out and decided neither of them needed any treatment besides a good night’s sleep.”

  “What about Drew?”

  “They brought him here too. Ma clocked him so hard she fractured his skull. He’s under police guard though, probably handcuffed to the bed. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

  There’s a knock on the door, and a nurse enters a second later, carrying a chart.

  “My name’s James,” he says. He glances at the monitors and writes something down on the chart. “How are you feeling? You’ve had quite a day.”

  “Okay, all things considered,” I tell him. “Pretty sore. Thirsty.” Parched, actually. I also need to brush my teeth—the inside of my mouth feels all fuzzy. I can’t believe Kellen kissed me with morning breath like this.

  “You can have some water. I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake, and she’ll be in to talk to you soon.” He marks down a couple more things and leaves Kellen and me alone again.

  “How did you know to come to the house?” I ask him. “Drew said he sent you off down the beach after me.”

  “I started out that way, but it didn’t feel right. I jogged all the way down to where we sat before and didn’t see any sign of you. The further I went, the more wrong it felt, but I couldn’t text you because the police still had our phones, so I decided to go back to the inn and look for you there. When I got to the front desk, I saw your journal open and read through it. At first, I had no idea what any of it was about, but it was clear enough that it had something to do with the people who died in town, and my ma. You weren’t up in your room, and I checked Sheena’s place too. The only thing I could think of to do was see if you were with Ma. I heard the voices as soon as I walked in the house, and listened for a few minutes, figured out what was going on, dialed 9–1-1 from the kitchen phone, and left it off the hook on the counter. The rest, I guess you know. How did you know I was there?”

  “Saw your feet under the door,” I tell him. “I’m so glad you figured it out. If you hadn’t been there, we all would have died.”

  “I wish you’d told me about all of that stuff,” he says. “Reading your journal, I could tell how much it was weighing on you.”

  “I was afraid you’d think I was crazy. Or even worse, that you wouldn’t. I told Sheena and she…changed. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe me—she did, but she was afraid of it, of me. If you’d felt the same way, it would have killed me. I couldn’t bear to see that happen, to have you pull away from me.”

  “I’m not afraid of you. It’s one of the things that makes you who you are. I always knew you were a remarkable woman.” He smiles, and I wrinkle my nose at him. To prove it, he slides his hand into mine.

  He put the final touches down on his next sermon, drinking in the warm spring air as he did so. It was the first night it was warm enough to sit outside and work. Memories of the long winter were still fresh, but the village was recovering, and the subject of his sermon was resiliency. He had closed his Bible and was about to step inside when there was the sound of loud scuffling in the street in front of his house. A moment later Pavel appeared, dragging Karina by the wrist. Her face was streaked with tears, and she fought to escape his grasp.

  “Open the church, Father,” Pavel said. “You’re going to marry us, right now.”

  “Have you lost your mind, Pavel? It’s obvious this woman does not want to be wed to you. Let her go at once.”

  Pavel pulled a knife out and held it to Karina’s throat. She became very still. “Do it, Father. I will not be defied by a woman, or by you. Her father has promised her to me, and tonight I intend to take her.”

  He stepped forward toward Pavel almost unconsciously, and the man pulled the knife away from Karina to point it at
him. He grabbed Pavel’s arm, twisting his wrist until the man cried out in pain, even as the knife bit into his own forearm, drawing a thin line of scarlet, visible in the dim moonlight against the white of his shirt. He wrenched Pavel’s wrist further, and Karina broke free and ran into the night, screaming for help. Pavel’s grip on the knife loosened and Father Lvov grabbed the hilt, turning it toward the man’s chest as he was tackled and knocked to the ground.

  So, the Father hadn’t intentionally killed Pavel. It had been an accident, an act of self-defense. I never truly believed Kellen, in any of his forms, had it in him to murder someone in cold blood, but it was reassuring to see how Pavel’s death had come about. I weave my fingers into Kellen’s and squeeze tight, and his smile broadens.

  Doctor Danielsen pokes her head into the room a short while later to check on me, and I learn she’s the surgeon who operated on me the night before. She checks my dressing, and I’m surprised to see I only have a small incision about two inches long, above my right breast.

  “You’ll hardly have a scar once it’s healed,” she tells me. I expected a gaping hole and a line of black stitches marching across my chest. Once she’s finished applying new bandages, she shows me how to click a button for pain medication. I almost ask her if it’s fentanyl but decide I don’t want to know. “Don’t be afraid to use it,” she tells me, and I click obligingly. Seeing the incision has made the pain more acute, somehow, like it’s real for the first time. The last thing she does is hand me a sleeping pill and a glass of water. “You need plenty of rest,” she says when I protest that I only just woke up. “It’s the quickest ticket out of here. Another day’s observation and I’ll probably be able to discharge you, but your body needs sleep to heal.” She flicks off the fluorescent overhead light as she leaves, and I can already feel myself getting drowsy.

  “Stay with me?” I say to Kellen.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he reassures me. Gingerly, careful not to tangle the IV line or the monitor on my finger, I scoot over to make room for him in the bed. It’ll be a tight squeeze, but I know I’ll feel better with him beside me.

  “You sure?” he says, hesitating. “I don’t want to accidentally hurt you.”

  “You won’t,” I tell him. “You never could.”

  ***

  The next day brings a steady stream of visitors, starting with Naomi, who brings me a plate of chocolate chip cookies, a pan of lemon squares, and another of brownies.

  “I needed something to do while I was waiting on hearing about you,” she says by way of explanation as I giddily help myself to all three. My breakfast of cold cereal and toast was woefully inadequate.

  “Naomi, I’m so—” She cuts me off.

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, child, that’s for certain. There was nothing you could do. You ended up saving us both and came out of it far worse than anyone else for your trouble. I don’t want to hear another word about it.” I don’t dare disobey, not when she uses that tone on me. I know I still have a lot of processing to do, especially around my feelings of guilt and responsibility for Drew’s actions, but Naomi isn’t the right person to do that with. Maybe Doctor Danielsen can point me in the direction of a good counselor for victims of crime. Instead, we mostly talk about Kellen, who flees the room to go get some decent coffee when the conversation turns in that direction. It’s painful to laugh, but I can’t help giggling at some of the stunts he pulled as a kid.

  As she’s pulling on her sweater to go, her face becomes serious. “We didn’t mention anything about your gift to the police, Sheena and I,” she tells me. “Neither of us figured it was any of their business.”

  “Do you really think of it as a gift?”

  “I do,” she says vehemently. “However it came it to be, you have it for a purpose. It’s nothing to be afraid of, least I don’t think so, but I won’t tell a soul about it so long as you want it kept a secret.”

  “Thank you,” I tell her.

  “You think you’ll stay?” she asks, paused on the threshold of the room and the hall.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I think I will.”

  “Good. We want you to, me and Kellen both.” She nods approvingly and leaves.

  Detective Chao is next, along with her video recorder to take my statement. We talk for over an hour about what happened in Naomi’s room, leaving out anything to do with Drew’s abilities or mine. The only sticking point is what Sheena and I had been doing at Naomi’s in the first place—I told her we were waiting for Kellen to come home when Drew came along. It was almost the truth. I also explain the fraudulent charges on Roz’s business credit card, and how Drew had said he hoped the killings would make me leave town before I discovered them.

  “We searched Mr. Segura’s apartment and found the disposable phone that contacted both Marnie Decker and Aaron Glass,” Detective Chao tells me. “So far, it all lines up with what you’ve said. That, and his admission to the murders to you, Mrs. Greene, and Ms. Underwood, will be enough to charge him for at least those two killings, as well as the attempted murder of the three of you, and a variety of drug charges. It sounds like we’ll be able to add theft to the list as well.”

  “Am I in any trouble for what he made me do, putting the patches on?” It’s been weighing on me ever since she arrived, and I can’t stop questioning myself on whether I could have done anything differently. If I should have stood up to Drew, instead of following his orders and nearly killing my friends.

  “No,” Detective Chao says. “It was clear from both women’s statements you were acting under duress, only complied because you were under threat of your life and theirs, and you tried to talk him out of it. We have no reason to press charges against you, and in fact, you’ve been formally cleared of any suspicion.”

  “Okay, good. I’m glad.” I mean it. Hearing that the police don’t think I could have prevented what happened takes some of the weight off my mind.

  “Oh, and I have something I’m sure you’ll be happy to get back,” she says and for the first time, Detective Chao smiles at me, reaches into her leather satchel, and pulls out my phone, sealed in a plastic bag. “If you’re anything like me, you must have been going crazy without it.” I try not to look too eager powering it up. It feels good to have it back in my hands again.

  “Thank you,” I say, and I don’t mean just for the phone.

  “You’ll be called to testify as a witness when Mr. Segura goes to trial,” she tells me, back to business. “Are you planning on staying in Soberly?”

  “Yes, I am.” It’s the second time I’ve said it, and it feels right. It’ll be an uphill battle to win people over to my side, but I want to do it, and I know I’ve got a few people in my corner.

  “All right then. Take care and feel better soon.” She packs up her video equipment and takes her leave. James comes in within seconds of her exit.

  “No more visitors for a while,” he says. “You haven’t used your pain pump all morning. Doctor Danielsen’s orders were clear: you’re to stay on top of the pain and get plenty of rest.” He clicks the pump for me and hands me a now-familiar-looking sleeping pill. “I’ll wake you up for supper. Now, down the hatch.” I swallow the pill obligingly, although I’m not sure I even need it. The heavy nature of my conversation with Detective Chao has left me exhausted. Within moments, the ache in my chest recedes, and minutes later I’m drifting away.

  ***

  True to his word, James wakes me six hours later, bearing a tray of chicken alfredo, a roll, mixed fruit, and a juice box. It doesn’t look appetizing, but I unwrap the plastic cutlery anyway. I’ll reward myself with one of Naomi’s treats after I’ve finished it.

  Kellen’s in his usual seat beside my bed—he must have returned after I fell asleep.

  “That was quite a nap,” he says as I blow on a bite of pasta.

  “They keep forcing me to take sedatives,” I grumble. “Apparently I’m not getting enough rest.” Remembering what James said earlier, I reach over a
nd click the pain pump button. It hisses for a moment as it adds the drug to my IV and falls silent again.

  “You, not following doctor’s orders? I’m shocked,” Kellen teases. I roll my eyes and change the subject.

  “Shouldn’t you be at work?” It occurs to me the inn has probably had to shut down entirely, with me in the hospital, Drew under arrest, Kellen here keeping me company, and Jana and Cora gone. There would be no one in charge, and both the inn and the pub would be severely understaffed. With the financials as precarious as they were, there was a chance the inn wouldn’t survive. “It’s not open, is it,” I say glumly.

  “Everything’s fine. I’ll start back again once you’re home. In the meantime, Cora hired a few temps.”

  “Cora did?”

  He nods. “I think she feels pretty terrible about what happened to you, and about not listening when you tried to raise the alarm about Drew’s embezzlement. As soon as she found out you’d been hurt, she jumped right in, took charge of everything at the inn, and made sure nothing fell apart. I guess yesterday was a bit hairy since she wouldn’t let Ma come in, and every person in town stopped by to find out what went on, but everyone pulled through.” He checks the time on his phone. “She said she was going to come by to visit tonight, actually.”

  “Oh,” I say, unsure how to respond. I have no idea what to make of Cora’s actions, especially after how angry she’d been when we last spoke. And she was coming to visit me? Suddenly what little appetite I did have disappears, and I push the tray of food away. Kellen pushes it back.

  “Eat,” he says. “It’ll be fine.” His assurances don’t offer much comfort, and I only pick at the remainder of my now-cooled supper.

  It isn’t long before there’s a hesitant knock on the door, and Kellen gets up to leave. “I’ll be back in a while,” he says before letting Cora in.

 

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