Night Tides

by Alex Prentiss

  “Oh, so you’re the detective now?” Marty snapped. Ethan could tell by the banging and rustling that his brother was frantically getting dressed. “Well, you couldn’t do a worse job than I have. I’ll meet you at my office. Hopefully I’ll have the answers by then. Goddammit, I’m an idiot!”

  “You’re not an idiot.”

  “Yes, I am. Now shut up so I can call the station and get all this checked out.”

  Ethan closed his phone and shook his head. And to think he’d been worried that he would sound like a lunatic.

  “IT HURTS,” Patty rasped, her breath shallow. She squirmed stiffly against the wall, and her face drew into a grimace. “It’s getting hard to breathe… .”

  “That’s just panic,” Rachel said, knowing it wasn’t. She rubbed her hands up and down the girl’s arm for reassurance; the touch of skin on skin helped her work through the last of her post-tryst shakes too. “Try to stay calm. You’re not alone, I’m right here.”

  “Why did you… What made you…” Patty couldn’t find the words she wanted.

  Rachel leaned close. “When we get out of this, I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “What if we don’t?”

  “We will, sweetie. And that’s the only way you’ll believe me.”

  Patty nodded at Rachel’s fresh tattoo, which had bled anew in places, leaving black streaks down her belly. “Does that hurt?”

  Rachel smiled wryly. “I’d forgotten all about it, actually. Thanks for bringing it back up.” Truthfully, the splinters driven into her hips and buttocks hurt far worse, especially when her weight pressed on one.

  “And that’s why he kidnapped us? To give us tattoos?”

  “Apparently. I think we all turned him down at some point when he wanted to get fancy on us, and we hurt his feelings. Now he’s terminally ill, so this is his last hurrah.”

  “When I got mine done, he wanted to do more, to do wings on my shoulder blades. I told him no.” Her lip trembled. “The design was beautiful, though. Really. I just felt like I wasn’t pretty enough for it. Maybe I should’ve said yes.”

  “No,” Rachel said firmly. “None of this is your fault. Don’t ever think like that. What he’s done to us is awful, disgusting, and wrong.”

  Patty smiled. “You came to my show the other night, didn’t you? I gave you a CD.”

  “That was me,” Rachel agreed.

  “And… this is weird to ask: Did you follow me home?”

  “Actually, yes. And when I explain the other thing, it’ll explain that too.” She added dryly, “But I’m really not into girls.”

  Patty managed a small, hollow laugh. “I’m not either, but under the circumstances, if we get out of this, I’d feel like I owed you.”

  “Just try to stay still,” Rachel said, and turned toward the door at the top of the stairs. No light showed underneath it. “The more you move, the faster the poison will spread.”

  At the word poison, Patty’s smile vanished. “Are you a nurse?” she whimpered. “Is that how you know?”

  “No, I… I run a diner.”

  “You’re a cook?”

  “Head cook. And bottle washer.”

  “Then how do you know about spiders?”

  “Honey, you’ll just have to trust me on that. It’s the land of the blind and I’m the one-eyed man.”

  Suddenly Patty winced and arched her back as much as her bonds allowed. The dim light fell across the bite, now dark and swollen.

  Rachel turned to the others. “She’s going to die if we don’t do something,” Rachel said.

  “Help,” Carrie called mechanically. Faith said nothing; she just continued to glare at Rachel.

  Rachel spat her disgust, but truthfully she had no other ideas. She looked around the dark room one last hopeless time. No doors, no reachable windows. Nothing to cut their bonds. Nothing to throw or use as a weapon. And no sign that her desperate Hail Mary to the lake spirits had done anything at all, except that she was sure she’d somehow connected, however faintly, with Ethan. But was it enough?

  Just then a distant door slammed, and the floor above them squeaked beneath someone’s steps. Rachel’s heart pounded in her ears. If she was going to do something, she’d have to do it now. But what?

  Only one idea came to her. She looked back at Patty. “Hang on. Try to stay calm, no matter what happens.”

  “I will,” Patty sniffled.

  Rachel crawl-scurried across the floor to the steps and began working her way up them again. Her desperation and fury overrode all the pain. Above her, someone moved through the house with the slow familiarity of a resident.

  WHEN ETHAN entered the police station, he found Marty waiting in the lobby. His brother’s jet-black hair stuck out at odd angles from beneath a baseball cap, and his khaki pants were wrinkled. “Come on,” he snapped with no preliminaries. “We’ve got a name.”

  Ethan followed his brother through empty hallways toward the garage. “Who?”

  “A guy named Arlin Korbus did Rachel’s tattoo, Patricia Patilia’s, and at least one of Ling Hu’s. I don’t know about the other two, but three out of five is enough to justify talking to him.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. I have a spider sense, and it’s going off like crazy. He lives out in Fitchburg, so I’m going to pay him a visit.”

  “I’m coming too.”

  “Have I tried to stop you? Just promise me you’ll stay back and let us handle it.” He paused outside the garage door and frowned. “Why are you wet?”

  “Er… I fell in the lake.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  In the garage, Marty unlocked the unmarked cruiser and they climbed inside. Before he started the engine, he turned to his brother. Marty knew what Ethan had seen in Iraq and would have given an eye to spare him a second experience like that. Quietly, he said, “There’s no telling what we might find there, Ethan.”

  Ethan nodded, looking straight ahead through the windshield. “I know.”

  Marty roared out of the garage, simultaneously calling for two other patrol cars to meet him at the address.

  RACHEL REACHED the top of the stairs again, careful not to lose her balance this time, and drew breath to yell. Then she stopped. Even if Korbus had told the truth about the Asian girl’s death, he wouldn’t dare summon medical help for Patty. The girl would die in the same slow agony that had almost claimed Rachel’s uncle.

  She heard his footsteps on the other side of the door. His shadow blocked part of the line of illumination along the bottom of the jamb. She waited for him to open it, but nothing happened. He was listening, she realized, to see if they were moving around.

  She licked her lips and, in a ragged voice she hoped sounded like a whisper, said, “Hurry, keep digging! We have to make the hole big enough to get out! He’ll be back any minute.”

  Below, Faith looked puzzled and Carrie opened her mouth to speak, but Rachel quickly put her finger to her lips. She hadn’t heard Korbus walk away. Faith sat up straighter, watching with wide eyes.

  “Are you out?” Rachel hissed. “Good! Now you, go out after her!”

  The light came on downstairs, blinding the three captives below. Rachel winced, but the stairwell protected her from the worst of it. The bolt slammed aside and the doorknob turned.

  Her perception of time entered the adrenaline-fueled slow motion of a car wreck. As the door began to open, she reached blindly forward and grabbed handfuls of Korbus’s baggy sweatpants and bathrobe. He cried, “Shit!” as he fell over her and tumbled the length of the steps, landing facefirst on the floor below. His skull made a sound like a thick melon smacking the concrete.

  Faith found her voice and screamed.

  Korbus rolled onto his back, wincing, and put a hand to his forehead. The impact had vertically split the skin between his eyebrows, and blood poured out. “You fucking bitch,” he said in disbelief.

  Rachel sprang down onto him, driving both knees into his gro
in with all her weight. He tried to grab her, but his hands slipped on her sweaty skin. Then she took hold of thinning hair and smashed his head repeatedly against the floor until the solid thunk sound changed to something wetter.

  She was speckled with his blood, and when she released him he did not move. She rolled off him, breathing hard, and tried not to slip into shock at what she’d done. I killed him, she thought in numb awareness. On purpose. She looked at her red-smeared hands. Was the blood hers, from where the plastic tie had cut anew into her wrists, or Korbus’s?

  She forced herself back to the moment, glanced up the stairs, and froze. The door had swung shut behind him.

  With all the speed she could manage, she crawled up and, balancing precariously on the top step, managed to reach the doorknob. It did not turn. She shoved against the door, but the wood merely creaked.

  “No!” she screamed. “No no NO!” She pounded on the wood with her fists, and it sent her falling backward down the steps. Again she landed atop Korbus’s body.

  “What happened?” Patty asked. Her voice sounded tight and slurred.

  “We’re still locked in!” Rachel almost shrieked. She undid the belt of Korbus’s robe and began going through the pockets of his sweatpants, searching for the keys. She glanced at the watch on his wrist: It was after twelve. Midnight or noon? she wondered, then realized he was dressed for bed. They were lucky, she thought, that he couldn’t sleep.

  She came up empty and turned her attention to the bathrobe. The only sound in the basement was Patty’s labored breathing.

  Finally, Rachel held up the key ring she’d retrieved: easily a dozen keys, all unmarked except for numbers scratched onto some of them, all possibly the key to the cellar door. This would take a while, especially since, with her ankles and wrists tied, balancing to reach the doorknob was tricky at best.

  “Can I help?” Carrie asked shakily.

  Rachel nodded toward Patty. “Stay with her.” Faith stayed motionless, eyes wide. Her freshly tattooed legs and hips had scabbed over, but her sweat softened them in places and made tiny trickles of red.

  Suddenly Patty moaned. Rachel turned in time to see her fall on her side. She breathed with a rattle in her throat, the raspy way people do when they can’t get enough air.

  Carrie looked up helplessly. “You’ll never find the right key in time.”

  “The hell I won’t,” Rachel said, and began worming her way back up the stairs.

  Again, the ascent took forever. She would slip and freeze, praying she wouldn’t drop the key ring through one of the gaps in the steps. She was exhausted, and every movement took all her concentration. At last she reached the door and wriggled so that her legs were braced enough to hold her torso upright.

  She began methodically trying the keys one after another. Her hands shook, and that made it harder. Time crept by, marked only by Patty’s whimpering below.

  “Hang on, baby,” Rachel murmured. “Just hang on.”

  She had three keys to go.

  Then, like a scene from some teen horror movie, a hand grabbed her ankle.

  She had no time to react. The keys flew from her hand, and Korbus pulled her inexorably toward him. She shrieked and tried to wrench free. They slid down the steps to the concrete floor together.

  Patty moaned again. Rachel flashed to the inscription on Patty’s CD: To Rachel, who stayed to the end.

  “I don’t think she’s breathing!” Carrie cried.

  “You bastard!” Rachel cried, and suddenly she was again atop Korbus, again battering his head against the floor, lost in a red rage of fury that she’d failed to save Patty. Nothing else mattered: not the pain from her own injuries, not the humiliation of her nakedness or the violation of her flesh. She’d tried to do one thing, and this asshole had stopped her. That beautiful, sweet voice, that soul that was a treasure, was gone.

  Korbus had gone limp, but she didn’t stop. Something cracked like a large walnut. The sound of his head hitting the concrete grew squishier.

  “Rachel!” a new voice cried.

  She turned and looked up the stairs. Marty Walker and a uniformed officer stood, guns drawn and pointed, it seemed, at her. She blinked, and suddenly she felt cold, and afraid, and tears swelled in her eyes.

  “Call an ambulance, Marty,” she said, her voice small and weak but utterly calm. “A black widow spider bit Patty… . Please, hurry.” Her vision began to blur. “Please…” She looked at Patty, who lay as still as Korbus.

  Then she passed out. She never saw Ethan push past the officers, his bulk making the stairs creak as he charged down them, calling her name.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  IS THAT A BLINK, or are you just glad to see me?” Helena said.

  Rachel’s eyelids rose like a rusted garage door. She squinted into the light and for an instant thought she was seeing the bulb dangling in Korbus’s basement. It sent a surge of adrenaline through her, and with a gasp she sat upright.

  “Shit!” cried Helena, jumping back into Marty. He caught her, and she fluttered a hand at her chest. “Christ, Rach, don’t do that!”

  Rachel looked around at the hospital room, then down at herself. White gauze and tape encircled her wrists. When she shifted her feet, she felt similar bandages on her ankles. An IV needle was taped into the back of her left hand. Her hair was pulled back from her face, and she wore only a light hospital gown. The room was a double, but the other bed stood empty.

  She flopped back on the pillows and sighed with relief. If this was a dream, she’d take it. “What hospital is this?” she croaked.

  “University,” Marty said.

  “Do they take my insurance?”

  “They do.” He wore a neat suit, with his badge hanging from the front breast pocket. Only the dark circles under his eyes betrayed his weariness. “How do you feel?”

  She managed a smile. “Like reused coffee grounds.” Then, with a rush, everything came back to her, and she sat up again. “What about Patty? The girl with the spider bite? Is she okay? Can I see her?”

  “She’s fine,” Marty said reassuringly. “They got to her in plenty of time. But if you hadn’t told us what was wrong with her it might’ve been different, so you saved her life.”

  “You saved all of them,” Helena said, her voice tinged with wonder. “You killed that guy bare-handed. You’re a hero.”

  “Yes,” Marty agreed. “It’s… pretty amazing.”

  “I don’t feel very amazing,” Rachel said. “How long have I been here?”

  “Not long. We brought you in at about one this morning.”

  She looked around again. Marty said, “He’s not here.”

  When she turned to him he continued, “I sent Ethan home. He needed a shower and some sleep. He stayed here until the doctors assured him you were out of danger.”

  She sighed and closed her eyes. “I could use some coffee. What are the chances?”

  “Christ, even here I’m a waitress,” Helena teased, then leaned down and kissed Rachel’s forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

  When they were alone, Rachel asked Marty, “So I really did kill him?”

  “Yes,” Marty said.

  She waited for the remorse, the disgust, the fear. She waited for any feeling at all. None came. “Will you arrest me if I say I don’t feel bad about it?”

  “No. Do you want to talk about it?”

  She thought about it for a long moment. “Yes. But not right now.”

  He nodded.

  “How did you find me?”

  Now Marty was silent for a long moment. “Actually, Ethan figured it out. He suggested that your tattoos might be the thing that you and the other girls had in common.”

  “Wow,” she said. Her stomach tingled a little. “So he…”

  “He didn’t eat, sleep, or stop until we found you. He was with me when we came into Korbus’s house. He carried you to the ambulance. But…”

  “But what?”

  “Helena’s right. You’re th
e hero. Based on what the other women said, you would’ve gotten them out soon anyway. True, it would’ve been too late for the girl with the spider bite, but…” He shrugged and shook his head. “What can I say except, wow.”

  Before Rachel could reply, Helena returned with three coffees, which she distributed. “I tasted it,” she said with a wrinkled nose. “Don’t expect much.”

  “I’ll check back with you later,” Marty said. “I’ll need a statement describing what happened, but there’s no rush. And there’s a guard outside the door, to keep out the riffraff. You’re going to be pretty popular for fifteen minutes once this story gets out.”

  “What was wrong with him?” she asked.

  Marty shrugged. “Korbus? Who knows? Some men just have issues with women, I guess.”

  “No, I mean physically. He said he was terminally ill.”

  “Oh. Yes, he had pancreatic cancer. He had only a few weeks at the outside. Must’ve taken everything he had to do all that.”

  Rachel nodded. “That explains a lot.”

  “It explains some. We may never know it all.” Then he left.

  Helena said, “I have to go too. Lord only knows what Jimmy will get into.”

  It took a moment for that to sink in. “The diner’s open?”

  “I took the liberty of hiring another waitress yesterday. I warned her it was temporary, but you might want to consider keeping her, especially if you now have a social life.” She kissed Rachel again, on the cheek. “They say you’ll be out tomorrow or the next day. I’ll be here to help you get home. Unless you have another ride lined up?”

  “No, I want you,” Rachel said.

  “Ew, it would be like doing my sister,” Helena joked.

  After Helena had gone, Rachel got out of the bed and walked stiffly into the bathroom. In the harsh light, she undid the hospital gown and stood in front of a mirror.

  Little scabs and Band-Aids covered her hips and thighs where the most pronounced splinters had been removed. Purple finger marks encircled one leg above the white ankle bandage.