SERIAL KILLERS UNCUT - The Complete Psycho Thriller (The Complete Epic)

by Blake Crouch

  “You have no memory of the accident?”

  “No sir, Special Agent Nash.”

  She thought her voice sounded all right—a husky girlishness, her just-woke-up voice, the kind of voice Agent Nash would probably imagine begging him to stop while he turned her over his knee and spanked the eighty-five percent of her bottom she could still call her own.

  He stared at her through those hard, unblinking eyes and said, “You were found at the bottom of a ravine, chained to the back of a car. You’d been dragged for two miles down a rough country road. The car crashed through a guardrail and took you and another man for a three hundred-foot ride down a mountainside.”

  In an instant, it all returned to her.

  Donaldson—now there was a man with ice eyes. Deep ice eyes.

  She recalled the car ride.

  His trick seatbelt.

  Drugging him.

  Hiding from him.

  Overcoming him.

  Helmeting him.

  She’d had him all set to go for a nice little road trip, but he’d handcuffed her leg at the last second and then the parking brake on his cheap-ass Honda had failed.

  A smile came at the memory of the pain.

  Two of the longest miles of her life.

  Her last memory—striking the guardrail at thirty miles per hour.

  Nothing after.

  “Who was I with, Special Agent Nash?” she asked.

  “Just Agent Nash is fine.”

  “You aren’t special?”

  He didn’t acknowledge her playfulness, only said, “You don’t remember?”

  “No, sir. Doctor Lanz told me I suffered a hairline fracture to my skull and that maybe it gave me amnesia or something.”

  If this frustrated Nash, he didn’t show it.

  “You were with a man named Gregory Donaldson. Do you know him?”

  “I don’t know anyone by that name. Was he injured, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Badly?”

  “I would be in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act to disclose any information regarding his condition.”

  “We wouldn’t want that. Can you at least tell me if he’s, like, alive?”

  “He’s alive.”

  Lucy realized there was a question she should have asked the moment the agent had come into the room, wondered if Nash had noticed that she hadn’t.

  “Why am I handcuffed to the bed?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk with you about. The man you were with, Mr. Donaldson—he’s a killer. The car that you were dragged behind was in his name, and we found evidence of multiple crimes inside.”

  “Crimes?”

  “Murders.”

  “Do you think he was trying to kill me?” She let her voice wander up an octave. “Could that be why I don’t remember? Because I was, like, traumatized and stuff?”

  “You didn’t have any identification on you when the paramedics arrived.” Nash fished a notepad out of an inner pocket of his jacket and clicked a pen. “What’s your name?”

  “Lucy.”

  “Lucy what?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Nash just stared at her for a moment.

  “Are you being straight with me?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Because this is a serious situation we got here. See, I’m what they call at the Bureau, a soft touch. But my partner, Penington, isn’t. He’s, to be blunt, kind of a dick. My point is…you want to be dealing with me, Lucy. And I want to help you, but I can’t if you lie to me. Penington deals with the liars.”

  Lucy shut her eyes and thought about her father.

  When she opened them again, a sheet of tears had formed across the surface of her eyes.

  She waited five seconds, and then blinked.

  Two trails started down her cheeks.

  It only lasted for a second, but she saw a flicker pass across Nash’s face—a millisecond of softening.

  Compassion.

  So he had a heart. But then again, most people did.

  She had him.

  “I’ll be back here tomorrow,” Nash said.

  I won’t.

  He rose, buttoned his jacket.

  “You better start remembering some things, Lucy.”

  “I’ll try.”

  He gave her a curt nod and strode out the door into the hallway, where he muttered something in passing to the deputy. Lucy let her mind drift.

  Donaldson.

  She smiled, wondering how badly he’d been injured. God, she hoped he wasn’t in a coma. That would be absolutely no fun at all. Vegetables didn’t feel fear. You couldn’t look in their eyes and watch the life leave or the pain come.

  Lucy thought about her guitar case, wondering if they’d found it. If she had any luck at all, the thing had been destroyed in the wreckage. Under the velvet lining, there were photographs—she was even in a few of them. Then there was that weathered copy of Andrew Z. Thomas’s novel, The Passenger, signed to her and referencing that Indianapolis mystery convention she’d attended fourteen years ago as a young girl.

  Great convention—she’d met Luther Kite and Orson Thomas there, two men who’d forever changed her life.

  If a smart lawman saw that book, they’d make the connection.

  She had to get out of this room.

  Deal with Donaldson.

  Escape.

  Lucy pressed the NURSE CALL button, and fifteen seconds later a rail of a woman breezed into her room.

  She checked the IV bags and heart monitor before turning her attention to Lucy.

  “I’m Janine Winslow,” she said. “What’s going on, sweetie? You in pain?”

  “My catheter hurts.”

  “Really?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “You’re staying on top of your morphine pump?”

  “Yes, but it really hurts,” Lucy lied. “It burns.”

  Winslow furrowed her brow. “Dr. Lanz gave you your nerve block less than two hours ago. You shouldn’t be feeling anything at all.”

  “What’s a nerve block?”

  “A combination of lidocaine, corticosteroids, and epinephrine. Without a shot every twelve hours, you’d be in agony.”

  “I thought that’s what the morphine pump is for.”

  “That’s just to take the edge off. The nerve block is what’s keeping you from screaming hysterically.”

  “Can you take it out?” Lucy asked.

  “Take what out?”

  “The catheter. So I can use the bathroom.”

  “You can’t walk to the bathroom with the condition your legs are in.”

  “I’m sure I can make it.”

  The nurse swept her hair out of her eyes. “Lucy, you haven’t seen your legs yet, have you?”

  “No, why?”

  Winslow bit her lip.

  “Why?” Lucy asked again.

  “I have to change your bandages anyway. I’ll show you.”

  The nurse turned off the vacuum pump and walked around to the instrument stand at the foot of the bed. Off the tray, she lifted a pair of scissors and began clipping through the bandage that completely covered Lucy’s right leg.

  Lucy watched as Winslow cut all the way up to her thigh, and then returned the scissors to the tray.

  “You might want to give your morphine a little squeeze,” Winslow said.

  Lucy hit the pump.

  Winslow started at the bottom, peeling back a patch of black foam, and then unwinding the bandage around Lucy’s leg.

  “You tell me if you start to feel sick,” Winslow said.

  “I have a strong stomach…are those scabs?” Lucy asked.

  “No,” Winslow said. “You have to have skin to make scabs.”

  For the most part, her foot was intact, though when she wiggled her toes she could see three of the five metatarsals twitching.

  It was above the ankle that the real damage began.

  Portions of her tibia were
exposed, along with half of her patella.

  She’d seen raw muscle on many occasions, but always after dragging someone at eighty miles per hour for five miles, and by that time, the muscle had been reduced to bloody, dripping strings.

  Her tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius were largely intact, and she could even move them, finding the interplay between ligament, muscle, and bone simply gorgeous.

  “You doing okay there, hon?” Winslow asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I know it looks bad, but they can work wonders with skin grafts.”

  Lucy watched Winslow remove the bandage from her left leg.

  Even worse.

  Less skin coverage, and it looked as though portions of the muscle in her thigh had sustained damage—when she flexed her left quadriceps, the muscle quivered differently than her right. She could barely make it move.

  This was bad—and not because she was anything approaching vain—but because her beauty, her body, had always served as her most effective camouflage. In the summertime, standing on the side of the road in a skirt that stopped two inches above her knees was almost guaranteed to lure someone into pulling over.

  Even assuming she recovered from this, her legs would never look the same.

  They’d be horribly disfigured.

  And Donaldson had done this.

  He was responsible.

  Lucy had never hurt anyone out of anger or rage. Up until this moment, her only drive had been curiosity and lust and something else she’d never been able to name.

  That was all going to change.

  Tonight.

  She wondered what time it was. The blinds in her room had been drawn all day, but she could tell that the light coming through had weakened into the pale, orange glow of evening.

  “Do you have a watch?” Lucy asked.

  Winslow was swabbing her right leg with an icky-smelling antibiotic ointment, Lucy wondering how intense the pain would be right now if she wasn’t on morphine.

  Winslow checked her wrist. “It’s six-fifteen.”

  “It really burns,” Lucy said.

  “The ointment? It has a topical anesthetic in it.”

  “My peehole.”

  “You can feel the burn?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “I’ll talk with Dr. Lanz, see what he says.”

  Lucy screwed her face up and let out a moan. “I really need the catheter out…now.”

  Her heart rate monitor displayed a pulse rate at nearly 100 bpm, and if she could only get a moment alone, Lucy knew she could drive it higher.

  “Okay, settle down, sweetie. I’ll go get the doctor.”

  Winslow scurried out of the room, and Lucy shut her eyes and held her breath, summoning all the anxiety she could muster.

  By the time Winslow had returned with Lanz, Lucy’s heart was pounding away at 120 bpm and she was sure her face was flushed and beginning to break out with sweat.

  “You’re experiencing a lot of discomfort?” Lanz asked, grazing the back of his hand across Lucy’s forehead.

  She nodded. “My peehole is on fire.”

  “She could have a ureter infection,” Winslow offered.

  “Thank you for the diagnosis, Dr. Winslow,” Lanz said. “Oh, hold on. You’re just a nurse, and unqualified to make a diagnosis.”

  Lucy watched Winslow’s face go scarlet.

  “Lucy, is the pain also up in your bowels or only close to your vagina?”

  “It’s everywhere.”

  “Okay, the Foley’s coming out.”

  Lanz squeezed into a pair of sterile gloves, said, “Surgical scissors.” Lucy could feel him working down there. “Cutting the inflation valve…draining nicely.”

  “I have to shit,” Lucy said.

  “Winslow, grab a bedpan—”

  “No,” Lucy said. “I’m not using a bedpan. It’s fucking humiliating.”

  “We’re all professionals here,” Winslow said. “I’ve done it a thousand times.”

  “You shit in a bedpan a thousand times? Why?”

  Winslow frowned. “I’ve assisted patients. It could be very painful to move you into the bathroom.”

  “Nothing’s worse than pissing and shitting into a bedpan in front of strangers.”

  “I understand,” Lanz said.

  Lucy felt a wickedly uncomfortable twinge, and then Lanz said, “It’s out. Better?”

  “Yes. Thank you so much, Dr. Lanz. You’re the best.”

  “My pleasure. Deputy!” Lanz called without even looking at him.

  Lucy watched the lawman struggle onto his feet and lumber into her room. “What’s up, Doc?”

  “Unlock these handcuffs. We need to take her into the bathroom.”

  The deputy hesitated. “I got my orders, and she ain’t supposed to—”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your orders. This is my patient, and she needs to use the bathroom.”

  Lucy watched the deputy’s face.

  So young. Early twenties. Smooth-shaven. A big dough-boy.

  “I don’t know, Doc.”

  “What do you think, she’s a threat? She weighs all of ninety-four pounds and has such severe damage to her lower body I doubt she can even walk. Look at them.” Lanz pointed to Lucy’s legs, and it warmed her heart to see the deputy wince. “Besides, the level of morphine running through her system will pretty much render her as docile and harmless as you are. So…unlock her wrist before I throw you out of my hospital.”

  She was a very good girl on her first trip to the bathroom, mainly because she had no other choice than to be.

  Winslow pulled out Lucy’s IV lines and helped her to sit up in bed.

  The deputy stood guard with his tactical baton extended and ready in his right hand.

  A big orderly named Benjamin lifted her out of bed and set her on her feet.

  She could hardly stand. The nerve block made it feel like her legs were asleep.

  “Just give me a second,” she said, holding her arms out in an attempt to find her balance.

  It was there.

  Barely.

  She stared down at her legs, which Winslow had yet to re-bandage, and took a tentative step.

  Near her left ankle, it was like watching the workings of an internal combustion engine—ligaments and muscle stretching, bones moving together, protected by cartilage.

  She could have watched herself walk all day.

  But she couldn’t have walked all day.

  Lucy got three steps and said, “I’m going to fall.”

  There was no pain.

  Just a beautifully weak imbalance from the morphine, like standing on a ship in heavy seas.

  Benjamin grabbed her under the arms, said, “I got you.”

  Five steps, and then she stood in the open doorway to the bathroom.

  Winslow hit the light switch for her.

  “I think I can make it to the seat,” Lucy said. She looked at Lanz. “Doc, can I still sit and shit considering—”

  “You rectum is bruised and suffered a major abrasion, but you should be able to have a bowel movement. Just sit down gently. Nurse Winslow will irrigate your rectum when you finish, to make sure no infection sets in.”

  “I can’t wait. Thanks, Doc.”

  Lucy limped inside by herself, shut the door behind her, and raised her hospital gown. Stumbling two steps to the toilet, she eased down onto the freezing seat.

  It felt strange—definitely more tissue on her right cheek than her left. She leaned to one side like a car with a flat tire.

  “You okay in there?”

  Nurse Winslow’s voice through the door.

  “I’m fine.”

  Lucy leaned back on the toilet. Several feet away, a plastic curtain had been pushed against the wall. She glanced through into a handicapped-accessible shower. Metal railings lined each wall, and there was even a seat bolted into the wall.