by Jenna Ryan
Confused, Jimmy skimmed both texts again and in doing so almost stumbled into a woman’s scooter. She scowled. He fumbled out an apology. And felt his pickled organs liquefy when his phone rang and Leshad’s symbol of seven question marks appeared.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
If there were monsters in the fog that clung to the California coastline, Kate figured no one would know until it was too late to do anything. The same situation might apply to her and Nolan. Time was slipping away, and any control she’d had over her life seemed long gone. With raw nerves crawling inside her, she left Nolan and Duffy to their computer searches and sat down to document her movements the night of Phoebe Lessard’s disappearance.
At one point, she thought she glimpsed Nesty through the window of Duffy’s work Pullman, but only once and very briefly.
“He’s been acting stranger than usual since late yesterday afternoon,” Duffy confided after a quick search outside. “He was watching the old church last night. Saw him trying to get a look through the window with binoculars. I stayed out of sight and closed the shutters with the thought of luring him down from the house, but he never came.”
Nolan shrugged. “Maybe he was hoping to catch a glimpse of Kate naked.”
“Maybe Kate or maybe you.” Duffy’s eyes twinkled. “I’ve never been completely sure of Nesty’s sexual orientation.”
Nolan continued to scan his friend’s laptop screen. “Sorry I mentioned it.”
Laughing, Kate returned to her memory log.
Duffy had CNN playing on a corner-mounted television. Kate worked for an hour then, needing a break, brewed a pot of tea and leaned on the galley-style counter to watch the current story.
C. J. Best was offering the camera his perfect southern smile and making celebratory Vs with his fingers. After kissing a crowd of small children, he loosened his tie and began hefting crates bound for state food banks onto a truck. He mingled with voters, shook hands and chatted with the media, pleasantly, easily. The only time his smile dimmed was when the puffy-faced man with red hair said something in his ear.
More than once, a twinge of recognition struck. But Kate had already established that C.J. reminded her of one of her med school professors, so she dismissed the twinges and finished her tea.
In the work area, Duffy slapped his knees and whooshed out a breath. “I’m beating my head here, folks. Far as I can tell, Phoebe Lessard doesn’t exist beyond her high school graduation. We know she didn’t die, but whatever she did do from that point on isn’t accessible, even to a crafty old hacker geek like me.”
“Would that be Crucible’s magic or Leshad’s?” Kate asked.
“Crucible’s.” Nolan’s eyes remained glued to his own screen. “I know stuff’s screwed up lately, but this thing with Leshad is a unique circumstance. In halfway normal situations, Crucible could probably wipe certain departments of the FBI from existence.”
Which had to be an exaggeration, but Kate got the idea. Crucible had clout.
And she had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to glean from the chaotic jumble of events that had unfolded the night of Phoebe Lessard’s disappearance. She knew the answer lay within the jumble. The trick would be to pluck it free.
Needle in a haystack, she reflected and set her cup in the sink. “I need air.”
“Nesty,” Nolan reminded her.
“Stranger than usual,” Duffy added.
She picked up a short, scarlet jacket, one of yesterday’s shopping spree indulgences. “Call it a change of scenery. I think better when I’m not listening to other people snarl and mutter in the background.”
“You hum, Kate.” Nolan pointed out. But he said it with a smile and a glance that made her skin tingle.
She arched challenging brows. “You swear under your breath.”
“Not far under.” Duffy chuckled. “My old uncle, he used to belch.”
Kate grinned. “My cousin clicks her fingernails. Also, my college roommate used to groan in her sleep. She sounded like a sea lion calling for its mate.”
“Lottie snores like a bull moose.”
“Who’s…?”
“Local bar owner.” Nolan looked up again. “Don’t press for details.”
When her blood warmed from something as basic as a few glances, Kate knew she was in desperate need of separation. “Going to the fun car.” She picked up the notebook Duffy had loaned her, tugged on a 49ers ball cap and would have slipped from the car if Nolan hadn’t snagged her wrist and pulled her down for a kiss that made her head spin and Duffy beam at them over the top of his computer.
“Love made the world go round in the sixties.” Drawing a set of monster-sized headphones from his desk drawer, Duffy slid them on. “Looks like it still does today.”
Not that anyone except him had used the word love or would be doing so in the near future, but you never could tell what might… No, stop right there, Kate ordered herself. Time to shut down that part of her brain, breathe some cool, foggy air into her lungs and focus on the task at hand.
Fingers of mist swirled around her as she headed toward the next Pullman. The cars stood higgledy-piggledy in a semi-cleared patch of woods. For some reason, this particular spot struck Kate as even more haunted than the local graveyard. Tucking the notebook under one arm, she shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket and willed away the clammy chill threatening to envelop her.
A gap in the trees ahead coincided with a break in the fog and allowed her a rare glimpse of the clouds massing overhead. Their purplish edges gave the entire area a brooding feeling.
She really needed to back off, she realized. Spooky thoughts and hit men didn’t mix. Especially when the mix was supplemented by a dozen unsettling noises made by things and/or creatures secreted within the fog.
Setting her teeth to keep them from chattering, she eyeballed the distance between the Pullman she’d left and the one ahead of her.
“Halfway point,” she muttered. “Wouldn’t you know it.”
Determined not to let the fear now spiking in her stomach win out, she hunched her shoulders, pivoted to resume her trek and forced her mind back to the night of the storm.
Accident victims had crowded every floor of the hospital. There’d been doctors, nurses and technicians rushing back and forth. Pre-op, post-op, blood and sutures. The O.R.s had been hopping. Patients in, patients out. Then finally, thankfully, there’d been a break in the chaos.
The hospital had long since been reduced to generator power, so corridor lights were few and far between. Not that she’d had time to think about anything that mundane, Kate recalled. Her mind had been functioning on at least four levels. When not in surgery, she’d walked around blind and absorbed. She could have passed the Grim Reaper in the hallway without realizing it…. And who’d said anything about a hallway being significant?
Pausing, she searched her mind and did a mental hmm. Had the idea of a hallway been planted, or was she sneaking up on whatever it was Tallulah had wanted her to remember?
“People in the corridor,” she said aloud.
A man’s face, or rather the indistinct outline of one, ran through her head. Her footsteps slowed on the spongy ground. Fog slithered. Brown and gold leaves fluttered down.
She pressed on her temples. She could do this. She just had to. There. The image swept through again in a blur of blue. Dark blue.
Did the face have features? Not quite, but almost. And as had happened many times lately, there was something familiar about them.
“Go away,” she ordered C. J. Best, whose perpetual smile taunted her in the background. “It wasn’t you. You’re nothing more than a doppelganger for someone in my past.”
The Code Blue alarm echoed garishly in her memory. She heard the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum, the sound of equipment clicking and beeping, voices snapping orders. Then, happily, the rhythmic double beep of an old man’s revived heart.
Crisis averted, with only a brief moment of concern for the bobbling b
ackup lights. Fifteen minutes later, she’d been back in the corridor, walking and skimming a chart.
Her arm and shoulder had collided with something. No, not a thing, a person.
The face flashed in her mind’s eye like a strobe light. There and gone.
Stopping, she concentrated while fog swirled and the woods made eerie noises around her. She needed to bring the speeding image into focus. Slow it, freeze it. Understand it.
A crow burst out of a mulberry bush, startling her. A split second later, a twig snapped. Kate’s head jerked up as a hand covered her mouth from behind and a man’s voice flowed into her ear.
“Scream, Kate Marshall, and you’ll pay the ultimate price.”
* * *
Every muscle in Kate’s body went rigid. Until she got past the guttural rasp and used her other senses. Then she plunged an elbow into her captor’s stomach, tore his hand from her face and spun.
“You, Jason Nolan, are a complete and utter bastard. I could have had a stroke.”
“The way you were daydreaming, you could have had a knife in your back. I walked right up behind you, Kate, with no attempt at stealth.”
Swatting his arm away, she glared. “I was recreating. I got embroiled.”
“I say again, Kate, dead.” But he softened the verbal blow by catching her chin between his fingers and thumb and giving her a hard kiss. “Did you resurrect anything important?”
“I don’t know. I saw a man’s face, but I couldn’t hold onto it long enough to identify it. I think the attached body was wearing dark blue scrubs. I had an impression of brown hair, pretty-ish features. Only the scar kept him from being perfect…. And I just said ‘scar,’ didn’t I?”
Nolan took hold of her arms. “Where was the scar? Rewind your brain and hone in.”
She stared past his shoulder into the thickening mist. “It was on his cheek. No, under his cheekbone. Right side.” She started to draw it on her own face then stopped the motion and gave a fatalistic laugh. “Of course. That’s where I saw him.”
“Who?”
“Troy. Anna’s new toy boy. He was in the Acute Care ward the night Phoebe disappeared. I saw him with another man.”
“And that means?”
“Probably very little. I told you when I spotted him in Anna’s room yesterday that I thought he worked at the hospital.”
“Works at St. Mark’s by day, moonlights as Anna Perradine’s dirty deed leg man at night. I’ll go into the hospital records and see what I can dig up on the guy. Are we talking orderly or care attendant?”
“No, idea. Ouch.” Nolan caught her when her ankle turned and she stumbled. “I’m fine.” She waved off his concern. “Just really frustrated. The man toy boy was with was—Nolan, look out!”
Her eyes widened, and she grabbed his jacket, but it was already too late. Before he could react, Nesty leaped out of the fog and gave him a backhanded whack to the head.
Kate heard the rifle butt strike bone and felt herself going down with Nolan. She hit the ground half under him. More shocked than fearful, she scrambled free and tried to see how badly injured he might be.
Nolan lay facedown and unmoving on the path in front of her. She reached out, but Nesty knocked her hand away and shoved the rifle in her face.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars.” His voice quivered in anticipation. “That’s how much I figure to make off you.”
Kate’s shocked gaze dropped to Nolan. “He didn’t—we weren’t serious about the bounty, Nesty. We didn’t want you to shoot us.”
Saliva dribbled down Nesty’s chin. “Doesn’t matter what you said or did. Only matters that the lady with the big money’s willing to pay.” Yanking a clump of filthy ropes from a hook on his belt he tossed them to the ground in front of her. “You tie Nolan up good and tight. Then I’m gonna roll him over the bank and into the gully, cover him with leaves.”
Was he breathing? Kate couldn’t tell with so much fog crawling over Nolan’s prone body.
“Nesty, please,” she tried, but he jabbed the rifle into her shoulder.
“You shut it and keep it shut,” he warned. “Else I might be tempted to put a bullet in you. Nothing that’ll kill, only a little something so you’ll know I’m serious.”
She clamped down on her jaw until the muscles hurt. “I’ll do what you want. I won’t try to escape. Just don’t kill Nolan.”
“Wasn’t planning to, but if I did, it wouldn’t matter.” Nesty’s lips peeled back. “He ain’t worth shit. I asked when the guy who’s coming to collect you called. You’re all the lady wants, sweetheart.”
Desperation clawed at the terror slithering in her belly. “If she wants me, she can have me, but it’ll be a lot easier for you to cash in if I cooperate. Let Nolan live, and I will.”
Nesty’s face grew ugly. “You got feelings for him, don’t you? Maybe you should give old Nesty a try before I turn you over for the loot. I’ll think on that while you use those ropes on your lover.”
Kate didn’t argue or press for promises he was unlikely to keep. She simply forced her frozen fingers to do as he instructed and cinched the rope around Nolan’s wrists and ankles. Then she held her breath and prepared to launch herself at him if he took aim at Nolan’s back.
Alternately scowling and salivating, Nesty forced her to bind her own ankles. When he was satisfied, he set his rifle down and wrapped the final length of rope around her wrists.
Within five minutes, he had Nolan buried, Kate’s feet untied and the end of his rifle jammed into her spine. He chortled. “Look at all I pulled off while dumb Duffy sat pecking away at his keyboard.” Kate spied a flicker of movement, and suddenly Nesty’s stubbly cheek was pressed to the side of her head. “You smell like wildflowers,” he drawled and took a long, appreciative sniff. “Mostly all I smell are dead things.” A dirty hand pushed her hair aside so he could explore her neck. “You ever smelled something’s been dead for a week or more?”
Easing herself as far away from him as she could manage, Kate shook her head. “Nothing that ever walked, flew, crawled, swam or slithered and wasn’t embalmed or kept in formaldehyde.”
She heard the frown in his voice. “What’s that leave?”
“Plants,” she told him. Her jaw ached from clenching it. “I had a cactus in college. It shrivelled up and died in my second year. Nesty, I have money. I’ll pay you five thousand more than you’ve been offered if you’ll let me go.”
“And you’ll like, what, write me a check?” He snorted. “Nice try, Doc, but I know crap when it’s thrown at me. What I don’t know is how Papa’s mean old ghost’s gonna feel about having a woman show up uninvited. Papa never liked women,” he confided with equal amounts of malice and glee. “Last one he saw, he killed. And you know what people say.” He slid the tip of the rifle along her spine. “Apples don’t fall far from the trees they grow on.” He wheezed out a laugh. “I’m an apple, Kate Marshall. And in case you didn’t know it, I fell from one of the rottenest trees in these parts.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Nolan surfaced in stages, from black fog to gray to white. As his vision slowly cleared, a face swam into view. Not Kate’s or Duffy’s. Not even Nesty’s. The man hovering in the mist had a beard. And a tic in his left eye.
His mouth moved, but Nolan couldn’t hear him above the demonic shriek of pain in his skull.
He saw the man’s hands reach for him, felt them grab his shoulders. His mouth continued to move, but Nolan’s only thought was for Kate. What the hell had the bearded guy done with her? To her?
Gathering his strength, which wasn’t much, he shoved the man back and, rolling, snatched the gun from his waistband. Swaying on one knee, he demanded, “Where is she?”
The man, now sprawled in a pile of soggy leaves, eyed the gun. “You don’t know me,” he said, “but I’ve been tailing you for some time.”
“Got that. Don’t care. Where’s Kate?”
“She’s—whoa, hey, don’t shoot.” The man raised his h
ands quickly when Nolan cocked his gun. “I didn’t snatch her. The tall skinny guy who whacked you did that. She called him Nesty.”
“Yeah?” Because his mind was threatening to go dark, Nolan fired a bullet over the bearded guy’s head. “You don’t want me doing much more of that in your direction, pal. My vision’s less than fifty percent right now. Where did he take her, and why the fuck didn’t you stop him?”
The man’s fingers twitched as if he longed to go for his own weapon. “I don’t know where they went. I heard him say something about his pa.” The man stood as Nolan did. “Fact is, I’ll push a boulder down a hill to take a man’s feet out from under him, but I don’t argue face-to-face with a .30-30 rifle in the hands of a lunatic.”
“What about a Glock in the hands of a pissed-off trauma surgeon?”
Features tightening, the man took a step forward. “Look, pal, I do the job I’m paid to do, nothing more or less. That’s why I didn’t go after her.”
Tired of riddles, Nolan summoned every scrap of strength he possessed and straight-armed the gun. “Before I do something no civilian surgeon ever should, I’m going to ask you one more question. And you’ll answer, or you’ll die. Why does Leshad want Kate?”
“I don’t know,” the man replied. “I don’t,” he said when Nolan raised the Glock. “It’s not my job to know, any more than it was my job to go after your lady friend. My name’s Firko.” A set of wolf-like teeth appeared. “I didn’t come for Kate Marshall, Nolan. I came here for you.”
* * *
“Stop stumbling.” Nesty poked his rifle into the small of Kate’s back. “Tricks don’t work on me.”
Neither did bribes, threats or appeals to his better nature. Kate had run the gamut during their walk through the haunted white woods.
“You fired a bullet back at the Pullmans, Nesty. How do you know Duffy isn’t behind us, armed with one or both of the revolvers I saw in his desk drawer?”
Nesty’s laugh resembled the bray of a donkey. “Those old relics won’t save your skin. Don’t you know McDuff’s a klutz with weapons? Damn near shot his own foot off to prove it. He went to Woodstock, and he wasn’t no spring chicken when he did that. Kerouac was his guru. He might swat a bug now and then, but shoot a flesh-and-blood human? Not a chance. Now you walk upright the rest of the way, or I’ll plug you in the arm and make you bleed.”