Promises: Do You Know Where the Poison Toadstools Crow?

by Lori Beasley Bradley

  Ivy woke to someone clearing his throat. Half asleep, she assumed it would be one of the vampires coming to draw blood. The sight of Carl standing illuminated only by the monitor next to by her bed startled Ivy fully awake.

  “Carl, what are you doing here so late?” Ivy asked as she roused herself into a sitting position. It surprised her to realize the room was in total darkness except for the blue glow of the buzzing television, no longer offering programming at the late hour. She saw no light from the hall with the door to her room closed.

  “I came to say goodbye,” he said softly.

  “Are you leaving then?” Ivy asked, yawning.

  “No,” he whispered, “you are.”

  “What?” Ivy asked in confusion. She had no plans to travel.

  “You’ve ruined me, Ivy Chandler,” Carl growled. He had a hard look in his eyes Ivy had never seen before, and it frightened her.

  “What are you talking about, Carl?” Ivy asked, beginning to feel a bit of desperation. She moved her hand toward the call button for the nurse’s station. Thankfully, it lay concealed under the blankets beside her leg.

  “Because of you,” Carl accused, “Judith has pulled her funding from all my projects and is calling in all her loans to me. I’m ruined, and it’s all because of a low-rent piece of ass I couldn’t keep my cock out of.”

  “Carl, what the hell are you talking about? I haven’t done anything to you.” Ivy’s hand finally found the call device, and her finger desperately searched for the appropriate button.

  “Judith thought I intended to propose to her on that trip, and when she saw you here, she thought I’d made arrangements to meet you behind her back. She got all worked up on the flight back to Phoenix, and when she got home, she began the process of dissolving our business relationship. She and her bunch of vulture lawyers are snatching up all the properties we bought together.

  “You’ve ruined me, baby. You lured me in with that tight little hillbilly snatch of yours and kept in touch just enough so I couldn’t get your filthy tight asshole off my mind.” Carl jerked a pillow from beneath her head. Ivy began pressing the buttons on the call device. The television flicked off, casting the room into near full darkness.

  Carl pressed the pillow into her face, cutting off her oxygen. Ivy struggled but continued to press the buttons on the device she hoped called for assistance from the nurse’s station.

  “I paid one of these stupid hillbillies to bake you those special muffins and drop them off, but she screwed that up, and that damned truck driver never left your side long enough for me to do this while you were out cold. I waited in the lobby tonight until I saw him go. You’ve ruined me, baby. And I promised myself I’d end you tonight.”

  Ivy saw her grandpa sitting on the porch, and Granny stood by the open front door. They noticed her but didn’t beckon to her to come forward. They stood together, serenely smiling, and waited for her to move toward them. Ivy wanted to take a step forward out of the cool shade of the big maple, but something held her back. A voice from behind called out her name. Ivy turned back, sadly, to her waiting grandparents. They both smiled and waved as if telling her to turn away once more. They called her to tell her they’d be there waiting when it was time.

  Ivy opened her eyes to blinding lights above her bed. Someone pounded on her chest, forcing air into her lungs. Ivy jerked up, gasping for breath. Someone grabbed her and pulled her back down onto the bed. He slipped an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. Ivy gulped in the oxygen that helped to clear her head. Her eyes darted around, looking for Carl.

  Oh, my God. It was Carl. Carl tried to kill me. He tried to kill me twice. Oh, my God.

  The sadness of the realization overwhelmed Ivy, and she felt herself drifting into unconsciousness once more. She wanted to sleep. If she slept, it would all just go away. Ivy wanted to sleep.

  The warm morning sun shone onto her face from the window the next time Ivy opened her eyes. She sensed someone beside her bed. Remembering Carl’s vicious attack, Ivy snatched herself away.

  “It’s OK, honey. It’s Dan.”

  Ivy calmed, recognizing his voice. “Danny,” Ivy wept, “it was Carl. Carl tried to kill me.” She spoke as though she had a cold with a stuffy nose.

  “I know,” his voice soothed. “The nurse called me. I came right away, but you were sleeping. Are you alright?”

  Ivy raised a hand to her throbbing nose. She felt a bandage and something metal.

  “They said he broke your nose when he tried to smother you. Don’t even ask me for a mirror,” Dan said, rolling his eyes and trying to sound light-hearted.

  “Why?” Ivy asked and touched her tender face again.

  Smiling, Dan took out his cell phone and snapped a picture. Ivy watched him grin before he handed her the four-inch phone. On the screen, Ivy looked back with a bandage in the center of her face, held in place by a delicate metal brace, between two swollen purple bulges with narrow weeping slits where her eyes should be.

  “Oh, my God,” she mumbled, and rage at Carl surged through her. “Where is the fucking son-of-a-bitch?”

  “He’s gone, Ivy,” Dan said softly, taking her hand.

  “What do you mean he’s gone? Did they let him get out of the hospital? Are the police looking for him?” Ivy demanded.

  “The hospital security guys stopped him, and the police took him away,” Dan told her. “But on the way to the jail, he had a massive heart attack, and by the time they got him back here to the hospital, Carl was gone.”

  “Oh,” was all Ivy could say as a sense of relief flooded over her. She closed her eyes and drifted back into sleep, wondering who waited for Carl on the other side.

  Dan was there at her side when she woke again, and they shared a dinner of instant mashed potatoes, soggy chicken nuggets, mushy green peas, warm peach slices, and weak sweet tea. Ivy hated tea, and Dan went to the vending machine and got her a root beer.

  “This food sucks,” Dan said with a grimace. “When you get home, I’m gonna cook you a meal of real fried chicken and mashed potatoes.”

  “That sounds awesome,” Ivy sighed. “I actually dream about eating real food in this place.”

  “I can imagine. The doc told me you could probably go home in a day or two. I guess the police asked them to keep you in here just in case someone tried to hurt you again.”

  Rage suddenly surged through Ivy. “You mean those fat bastards were using me like bait in here?”

  “No, they thought you’d be safer here than at the house.”

  “Well, they certainly fucked up there. Didn’t they?” Ivy shook her head, and a frustrated tear ran down her cheek. Carl had tried to kill her twice, and now he lay dead on a cold slab in a coroner’s office somewhere. He’d been her lover. She’d even thought she’d loved him. How could things have gone so very wrong?

  24

  Dan picked her up at the hospital three days after Carl’s attack and death. His children had collected his body and taken him back to Wisconsin for burial. Someone had left a USA Today on her tray table folded to a page featuring Carl’s photo from the Tulsa tornado coverage. The headline said something about ‘From Hero to Attempted Murderer.’ Ivy refused to read it and tossed it into the trash can beside her bed.

  The doctor had removed the bandage from her nose, and Ivy was happy to see it had no deformity. The swelling under her eyes had subsided, but there would be dark circles beneath them for several weeks to come, the doctor assured her.

  A blue-smocked young man wheeled her down to the front door, where Dan met her with the Lexus. Ivy had never been so happy as the minute they wheeled her out into the fresh air and sunshine. She never wanted to step inside a hospital again.

  Ivy slid into the car and strapped on her seatbelt. Dan tossed the plastic bag of hospital sundries into the back seat.

  “Can I tempt you with a little pulled pork and slaw?” Dan asked.

  “Oh, God, yes,” Ivy nearly begged.

  They drove up to t
he BBQ joint, and Dan went inside. Ivy remained in the car and did her best to hide her face when people looked her way. Her hair looked a mess, and her face would probably frighten small children.

  Dan returned with a large brown paper bag and two large Styrofoam cups with lids. Ivy took the cups while Dan stowed the bag on the floor near her feet. The aroma of smoked pork filled the Lexus, and Ivy’s mouth watered with anticipation.

  When they drove into the drive, Ivy very nearly didn’t recognize the place. She couldn’t believe it had very nearly been a month since they’d driven out of the drive for the lumber yard that day.

  “Oh, my God, Danny,” Ivy gasped, taking in the new addition to her country home. She stepped out of the car into a two-car carport, built from lumber stained to match the cabin. “I can’t believe this.”

  Dan walked around the front of the car and opened the door for Ivy, who still held the cups of soda. Dan picked up the bag of food. “Come this way, my love.” He put a strong arm around her shoulders and walked with her to a set of three steps with a railing, leading up onto the new deck.

  Ivy marveled at the additions. To her left, the deck led to a short step up, connecting the new deck to the front porch. Posts and lattices made a secluding fence of sorts around the new deck area. “This is beautiful, Danny.” Terracotta pots of blooming marigolds, petunias, and mums rested atop each post.

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, woman.” Dan turned her around and walked her to the other end of the new deck. An enclosure with a roof had been added from the edge of the back door about fifteen feet to the end of the existing cabin. Dan opened glass-paned French doors and ushered Ivy into a tropical paradise. The floor, covered with green indoor-outdoor carpet, held a bubbling, octagonal tub dropped into the center of the room. “No climbing over tall sides to get in,” Dan chuckled, “you can just step right in.”

  “Oh, my God, Danny,” Ivy said as tears of joy ran down her bruised face. Around the tub, he’d arranged the wicker patio furniture. The bright red cushions stood out against the bright green carpet on the floor, and Ivy thought it looked beautiful. A tall potted tree stood in one corner, and pots of pink and orangey-red begonias hung in front of walls made from tall glass panels. Ivy looked up to see two glass panels set into the ceiling as well. “This is beautiful, Danny,” she wept, “just beautiful.”

  “Well, when it gets cold, you’re not gonna be able to sit out on that swing and write your stories, so I thought this would be a good alternative.” He hugged her and kissed the top of her head. “Do you like it?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Like it?” Ivy exclaimed. “I love it.” She wrapped her arms around Dan and kissed him on the mouth, careful of her still painful nose. “Now, I have my country cabin and my Victorian solarium.” She spun around the bright, sun-filled room, smiling. “I’m gonna have to see if Humphry has any wrought-iron accent pieces in his store like a big birdcage for one of the corners and some hooks for the towels.”

  “Oh, good lord,” Dan sighed, taking Ivy’s thin, ravaged body into his strong, protective arms once more, “and it begins again.”

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  Acknowledgments

  This book is dedicated to Adam Sterling, my friend, my mentor, my booster, and my muse. Thanks for all your support and encouragement. You always make it into my books. Sorry, I kill you so often, but you see a lot of action. I hope you enjoy living--and dying vicariously on my pages.