by Allen Wyler
The man stayed on the floor, holding his right arm with his left, the forearm at a weird enough angle for Tom to know the wrist was broken. McCarthy said, “Get up.”
Splinting his broken right arm against his chest, Womack struggled to his knees, then slowly to his feet, eyes burning with hatred for McCarthy.
McCarthy said, “Downstairs. Move.”
Bat in his left hand, gun in his right, Tom followed Womack down into the basement.
“Down on the floor.” McCarthy slipped the gun under his waistband.
Womack took one glance at the cement floor and shook his head. “Fuck you, asshole.”
Without warning, Tom swung the bat into Womack’s kneecap. Not as much force as the arm, but enough to make the point. “No, fuck you. Down. On. The. Floor.”
Teeth clenched, face crimson, Womack awkwardly worked into a sitting position on the concrete. Using a roll of duct tape, McCarthy bound his wrists and ankles, then secured his ankles to his wrists in a hogtie. Finally, he taped shut Womack’s mouth. He stood back and inspected the job. With a broken arm, only a flaming masochist could work the duct tape loose in a few hours.
“Can you breathe okay?”
He heard muffled words that sounded suspiciously like another “Fuck you.”
“Good.”
McCarthy slid the gun in the small of his back, returned to the first floor and made sure the front door wasn’t unlocked. Then he was back in the basement, ready to leave. Before opening the back door, he looked Womack in the eye. “The ironic twist to this is now you better pray I live. ’Cause if I don’t come back, chances are you’ll rot here. Appreciate the beauty in the symmetry?”
As he locked the basement, McCarthy heard a car door slam in front. He suspected Womack called for backup before entering the house. The disturbing thing was how quickly it arrived. He ran to the retaining wall, checked to make sure the fence was directly below him before lowering himself feet first. Just as his feet touched the top of the fence, he thought he heard pounding on his front door.
SECONDS LATER MCCARTHY tapped the side window of the rental. Sarah jumped and spun around, her eyes wide with fright. He motioned for her to hurry up and unlock the door.
“Gawd, you just scared the bejesus out of me. Why’d you sneak up on me like that?” Hand over her heart, she inhaled a deep breath.
He slid into the passenger seat. “Trying to stay hidden. Sorry.” He glanced back at the shadows he’d just came from.
“What took you so long? I was really getting worried.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
She fired the ignition. “Is there a problem?”
He locked his door, pulled the gun from his belt and stowed it in the glove compartment. “Yeah. One of Sikes’s men was there.”
“Why are you surprised?” She pulled away from the curb and headed toward the corner. “I’m glad to get out of there. That place creeped me out. Where now?”
McCarthy turned to look out the back window again, saw the Space Needle framed with downtown Seattle in the distance. Not a soul in sight. “Head toward town. I’ll make sure no one follows.”
39
SIKES FOUND WOMACK’S rental car unlocked with two empty water bottles and a couple of sandwich wrappers strewn over the front passenger seat and an ashtray overflowing Marlborough butts. A fucking pigpen. He studied McCarthy’s house, but it was completely dark with no sign of life.
No sign of life. Not good.
The front door was locked, and no one answered after he rang the bell two separate times. Using his cell, he called McCarthy’s landline and heard the faint sound of a phone ring inside. The call went into an answering service so he hung up. He glanced across the street at the neighboring houses. Someone watching him might call the metro police. So, the back door would be a better place to break in.
That door he simply kicked in. No finesse—just braced his back against a deck pylon and rammed his shoe into the basement door where the deadbolt latched. Took a couple tough slams but he quickly splintered the bolt from the frame, stepped inside, and turned on his flashlight.
And looked straight at Womack duct-taped like a trussed hog.
12:51 AM, DOWNTOWN SEATTLE
AS SARAH BRAKED for a red light at the bottom of Queen Anne Hill, McCarthy became aware of gnawing hollowness in his stomach. “I’m starved; how about you?” He couldn’t remember the last time he ate. Or, for that matter, what he’d eaten. Then it came back to him, that lousy Caesar salad and lasagna at the lunch buffet. “Come to think of it, I didn’t have much lunch.”
“I could go for a big breakfast myself,” she said. “Any places around here you know of open this time of night?”
By now he was paying more attention to the surrounding buildings rather than if someone was following them. Most restaurants were shut down by now. Two taverns were open, but he wanted a place with real food. Then he remembered a diner a half mile away, a dive where he’d grabbed early morning meals a few times on the way home from the hospital.
“Matter of fact, I do. There’s one over on First and Denny. They’re open around the clock.” He wondered if having breakfast with Sarah qualified as a date. When they were trapped in the call room, he’d fantasized about dating her, but under very different circumstances.
“Yeah, sure, I know it.”
THEY DUMPED THE rental car along the curb on First Avenue, crossed the empty street, and pushed through the glass door of a triangular building formed from the angle of intersecting streets. The smell of chronic grease and chlorine hit before he noticed a busboy mopping the floor. More customers here than he expected at this hour. Then again, what did he know? This could be the hotbed of Seattle’s early-morning social life.
They chose a table furthest from the others, but this also put them near a huge plate glass window, making them easily to be spotted from the street. But what were the chances of Sikes driving by and looking in? Not high, but it still made him tense.
A pale, skinny waiter with a tongue piercing, tank top, and shoulder-to-fingernail tattoos plunked plastic water glasses and napkin wrapped flatware in front of them. “Coffee?”
McCarthy nodded. “Black.”
Sarah asked, “What kind of tea you have?”
The waiter tossed two plasticized menus on the table while rattling off a surprising number of choices. As soon as she picked one the waiter vanished.
McCarthy watched Sarah unwrap her flatware, inspect the knife before polishing away a few water marks with the napkin. Satisfied, she positioned the knife on the table just so, before spreading the napkin on her lap. Her precision reminded him of something Caroline might do. But not in an irritating way. And made him wonder what kind of a lover she’d be. Of if she’d even be interested.
He leaned forward, took her hand, and, in a lowered voice, said, “I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for your help, but soon as we get some food in us we need to split up. Every minute you’re with me, you’re at risk.”
She squeezed his hand. “Don’t be silly. You still need my help.”
True. But he couldn’t very well justify having the authorities prosecute her as an accomplice. Which made him wonder if they already knew about her. That could be something easily learned by checking with Cassera. If anyone outside of the police force would know, it’d be him. And while he was at it, he could ask him to find out if Sarah’s car was what tipped the cops to search the park for him.
“I worry about the risk I’m putting you in. If something happened … Tony can help me at this point. So far, no one knows for sure if you’re involved in this. I can’t allow either Sikes or the police to come after you too.”
Her eyes hardened. “Do I have a say in this?”
He started to say no, realized how that would sound.
She didn’t give him time to think any further. “Then it’s settled. We didn’t know it at the time, but we both became involved when we started working up Bobbie Baker. We’ll fi
nish this together.”
Her tone of voice left no room for negotiation. Besides, he could still use her help. “Thanks.”
For a long moment they held eye contact in one of those nonverbal moments when you hope the other person is thinking what you are. Finally, Sarah nodded at the menu in front of her. “What’d you decide to have? An omelet sounds good to me.”
To him too, but he scanned a menu anyway. Choices spanned breakfast through dinner without consideration of the hour. He liked places like this, where you could get ham and eggs mid-afternoon if that’s what you wanted. A Denver omelet maybe? His stomach growled in approval.
The walking tattoo returned, toothpick bobbing from the corner of his mouth, to serve their drinks and ask if they were ready to order. Sarah chose a feta and tomato omelet. McCarthy opted for scrambled eggs with diced ham.
Soon as the waiter left Sarah asked, “What’s next?”
“I’m not sure. Need to think about this. Right now I’m too tired and hungry to really concentrate.” Suddenly, his exhaustion came crashing down on him. And he knew if he didn’t get some sleep, his judgment might become seriously flawed, if it hadn’t already. He considered going to his boat, but rejected that option as too obvious. The police surely had run his name though a variety of computer databanks and would know about it.
Sarah glanced at the cup of hot water she between her hands, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “My condo’s just down the street. If you don’t mind the mess, you could stay there.”
Good suggestion, but would it be safe? Had Sikes already figured that out? Probably. And because Wyse knew he was linked to Sarah via Baker’s workup, he might reach the same conclusion. So, he had to assume Sikes was aware of her. But Sikes likely didn’t have the manpower to watch every possible place McCarthy could hide. Instead, Sikes would have to narrow the options down to the most likely spots, like Davidson’s office. And if her car had been identified out at Gas Works park, the police might also be looking for her.
McCarthy shook his head. “Too risky.”
“We could find a hotel.”
“You comfortable with that?”
“I don’t see any other option. Do you?”
They sat in awkward silence for several moments, Sarah playing with the tea bag, raising and lowering it in the steaming water. Finally she said, “Next question. What made you develop such an interest in Baker and Russell? I mean, once you’d ruled out posttraumatic seizures it was clear their problem wasn’t surgical.”
Relieved to switch topics, he thought about the answer. Truth was, his motivations were multiple, unrelated, and a bit self-serving. From the moment Sarah approached him in the doctors’ lounge, he found himself attracted to her and figured that working up Baker might give him the opportunity to get to know her. Equally important however, was the challenge of determining the cause of those two patients’ bizarre memories. The mystery was intriguing, and the more he dug into the problem the more he wanted answers.
All his life he’d been hounded by a need to understand phenomena well enough to explain their occurrence in terms of scientific principles. This was the reason physical sciences appealed to him in school. As a kid he’d taken apart toys to learn how they worked, a habit that drove his mother nuts because he usually destroyed them in the process. As a physician, he felt inadequate when he wasn’t able diagnose a brain problem. True, the attitude “Don’t accept failure” was drilled into every neurosurgery resident, but he took that axiom a step further, internalizing it into professional pride.
He answered Sarah with “I don’t like to fail.”
“And for you, being unable to diagnose a problem is failure?”
That sounded so like a psychiatrist, he almost laughed. But she pretty much nailed it. “It’s not just simply making a diagnosis; it’s also being able to understand what causes the problem.” That was the primary thing that distinguished an average physician and an excellent one, he believed.
“I see.”
He paused to sip coffee. “Let me ask you something.”
“Sure.”
He’d weighed the ways to broach the subject, but hadn’t yet come up with a diplomatic one, so opted for straightforward. “You’re a little older than the typical resident. Did you start school late or did you practice before going into psychiatry?”
She stopped fiddling with the tea bag and her eyes became distant. She stayed that way a few moments. “I dropped out of med school during my original third year because I needed a couple years off. I was a little messed up. After a time, I got my head straight and decided to go back. Ended up having to redo my entire third year. Here I am.”
There was obviously more to the story but he didn’t want to push. “And your reason for dropping out?”
She seemed to weigh her answer. “It was personal.”
He got the message. More than just personal, it was a forbidden topic.
She said, “My turn. You’ve been married?”
Fair enough. “Yes. Her name was Anne. She died a couple years ago.”
Sarah wrapped the string around the sodden bag, cinching it against the spoon to wring excess water from it. She placed the spoon and bag on the saucer. “Was that when you lived in Memphis?”
Had he told her about living in Memphis? He couldn’t remember. “Yes.”
“Was that one of the reasons you moved here? To get away from her ghost?”
She was really sounding like a psychiatrist now. “Yes.”
“Do you mind me asking how she died?”
He hadn’t discussed it with anyone since crossing the Mississippi on the Interstate 40 bridge, the Memphis skyline in the rearview mirror. “Acute leukemia.”
“And you blame yourself?”
He tried to clear the constriction in his throat, but was having trouble.
She waited as he busied himself stirring his coffee.
She added, “You think you should’ve seen symptoms earlier so maybe it could’ve been diagnosed sooner?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
She reached over, put her hand on his.
He added, “She bled to death. It was horrible.”
“I can’t even imagine how it must have affected you.”
He needed a change subject. “How about you? Ever been married?”
She hesitated long enough for him to tell he’d hit a sensitive subject. And for a fleeting moment he saw the same expression as a moment ago. She withdrew her hand from his. “No.”
When she didn’t explain, he asked, “You seriously involved?”
“You mean now or in the past?”
“I was asking about the past, but you can answer both if you want.”
“I was, at one time.”
Silence.
“That’s all you want to say about it?”
For a fleeting moment he thought he detected anger in her eyes, but it quickly vanished. “He was married. My bad choice. I was stupid. Subject closed.”
He sipped coffee and thought of Caroline. It’d been the right thing to break it off with her before dragging it into a relationship he didn’t want.
Sarah replaced her hand on his. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just that, well, it’s a sore subject. I was stupid and shouldn’t have gotten involved. I know that. I knew it when it happened. He was married and I understood the odds of how it would turn out. But for some insane reason I thought I’d be the exception. There’s a name for that kind of behavior—denial. When it started, I wasn’t sure it’d end up anything more than a fling. But it turned out to be poor judgment every damn step of the way.
“He was an assistant professor of cardiology. I was a third-year student rotating on his service.” She gave a short sarcastic laugh. “Classic, huh? The bright-eyed student dazzled by her professor’s brilliance. I’m attracted to intellect. It’s a real weakness of mine. A turn-on.” She paused to test the temperature of the tea against her lips.
She asked, “Kids?”
“No.” He paused, but decided to not give her the impression he was anti-kid. “Before we married she had a severe infection. From an IUD. Caused a lot of scarring in her tubes.”
“And you knew that ahead of time? Her not being able to have kids?”
“I guess.” Hell yes, you did. Didn’t change a thing.
“And you were okay with that?”
Why was the subject making him uncomfortable? Maybe he wasn’t sure enough about the answer. Maybe they should be focusing on their present problem instead of rehashing the past. “Enough of this for now. We need to decide what to do next.”
The waiter materialized with a plate of food in each hand.
40
1:52 AM, DOWNTOWN SEATTLE
SARAH DROVE TO the Fairmont Olympic, a large, venerable hotel in the heart of downtown Seattle, pulled into the semicircle entrance, accepted a parking ticket from the valet, then slipped her arm through McCarthy’s and entered the lobby as a heavy glass doors opened. They cut a diagonal path across the plush carpet to another door, exited, and walked up the street to the W, a newer, boutique hotel. There, Tim Rush secured a room with two queen beds. The idea was to rent another car in the morning under the false ID. Once this mess was cleared up, they would go back and find Sarah’s car.
1:52 AM, QUEEN ANNE HILL
STANDING ON THE small second-story deck off McCarthy’s living room, Sikes peered out over the city, trying to guess what McCarthy might be doing. So far, the only word from the traitor’s lawyer was that McCarthy had not contacted him since his initial call when still inside the hospital. That was almost twelve hours ago.
McCarthy could be anywhere by now. Even out of the country. Sikes had notified ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement, who in turn sent a heads-up to airlines, airports, TSA, border crossings, and every other law enforcement agency he could think of, to keep a look out for McCarthy, but hell, he still might’ve slipped through. Besides, what’s to say he didn’t have a complete false identity by now? Maybe that was what he’d returned to the house for.