One Fatal Mistake

by Tom Hunt

  “A man, skinny, long brown hair, stopped me as I was moving Amber. Mid-thirties. He had a gun. He forced me into a room and took her.”

  “Good.” Karen ran into the room and tore the pillowcase off the bed. She carried it back to the hallway. Before closing the room door, she stared in at Carmella.

  “I’m sorry,” Karen said. “I’m so sorry. I’ll explain everything later.”

  Karen shut the door. She tied the pillowcase around the door handle and railing, same as with Brian’s door. Down the hallway, he was no longer pulling at his door. She could hear him talking, probably into his walkie-talkie, calling for help.

  * * *

  • • •

  Karen hurried back over to Amber.

  “We’ve got to be quick, okay?” she said. “Can you walk?”

  Amber wasn’t even looking at Karen. She stared off, slumped in her wheelchair, her eyes half-open, her gaze empty. Whatever painkillers she was on were doing their job.

  “Please, we have to hurry,” Karen said, lightly shaking her arm. “Can you walk?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “We’ll walk to the ground floor and leave through a side exit. My car’s parked a few blocks from here. You can do this.”

  Amber mumbled something.

  “What was that?”

  “H-handcuffs.”

  Amber lifted her hand. Her wrist was handcuffed to a metal bar on the wheelchair.

  “We’ll fold up the chair, drag it down the stairs. I’ll push you to the car.”

  Karen pushed the wheelchair over to a door at the end of the hallway. FIRE ESCAPE—CAUTION. ALARM WILL SOUND, read the red bar secured to the middle of the door. Yellow construction tape was tied in front of the door. Karen ripped it away.

  “The stairs are past here,” she said to Amber. “The other stairways have cameras, but the fire escape doesn’t.”

  At least, she was almost positive there weren’t any. A few years ago, a patient had wandered from his room and taken the fire escape stairwell out of the hospital. The search for him had been complicated because there was no security footage to study. She didn’t think security cameras had been installed since then, but she wasn’t positive.

  Karen helped Amber out of the wheelchair. She folded up the wheelchair; it was still bulky but was thinner and not as cumbersome. She kept one hand draped behind Amber’s back to support her, and they walked over to the fire door, Amber dragging behind her the wheelchair, still handcuffed to her wrist. With her free hand, Karen reached out and gripped the metal bar on the door.

  “Three flights, all right?” she said to Amber. “You can do this.”

  Amber nodded. Karen took a deep breath and pushed against the metal bar. The door flew open and the alarm wailed and screeched. Past the door was a stairwell with a flight going up and a flight going down. They shuffled over to the stairs heading down. Step by step, they descended, Karen with one arm wrapped around Amber, helping her navigate the stairs, Amber dragging the wheelchair behind her. The alarm screamed, earsplittingly loud as they walked down.

  It took only a few seconds to reach the landing for the third floor.

  “Two flights to go,” Karen said.

  They continued down another flight of stairs, Karen descending a step, helping Amber take the step, then doing the same for the next step. She tried to listen for voices or footsteps approaching but she couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the alarm. It was so loud she was getting a headache. She was—

  Amber stumbled and lurched forward. Karen held on tight but Amber kept leaning forward . . . forward . . . forward, like a building about to topple. She tried to pull Amber back but she was just too heavy. Amber stumbled down a step and her momentum carried her forward. She fell down and tumbled end over end down the stairwell, her body clanging against the metal steps, the wheelchair clattering down alongside her. At the bottom of the stairwell, she slammed onto the flat landing area at the base of the stairs. She writhed on the ground, face locked in a pained expression.

  Then she started screaming.

  * * *

  • • •

  Karen ran down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairwell, she leaned over Amber, still huddled on the ground, still screaming. The wheelchair was a few feet away.

  “Are you all right?” Karen asked.

  “H-hurts.”

  Karen could barely hear her over the alarm. She looked down at Amber’s stomach and saw blood staining the front of her hospital robe. She moved the robe to the side. The dressing covering her wound was soaked in blood. Karen peeled the dressing away and saw that Amber’s stitches had been ripped out during the fall. The wound was reopened; blood poured from the hole in her stomach.

  Karen placed the dressing back over the wound. She grabbed Amber’s hand and squeezed.

  “I know it hurts,” Karen said. “But we have to get out of here. We have to hurry.”

  She helped Amber onto her feet. They took a few steps; then Amber fell to her knees, grimacing and holding her stomach.

  “Come on. You can do this,” Karen said.

  Karen helped her to her feet again. With Karen’s arm around Amber’s back, they walked down the staircase, dragging the wheelchair behind them. Grunting and groaning, they reached the landing for the second floor.

  One more flight to go.

  Karen dragged Amber down the last flight of stairs. The alarm continued to wail. When they finally reached the ground floor, Karen pushed open the exit door. A blast of cold air hit them at once. She squinted; even with the sun hidden behind clouds, the outside sky was so much brighter than the dark stairwell.

  She unfolded the wheelchair and set Amber in it.

  “A few blocks; then we’ll be at my car,” Karen said.

  She started pushing Amber down a walkway, moving as fast as she could without looking suspicious. After a couple of minutes, she reached the side street she’d parked on. She helped Amber out of the wheelchair and tried to cram it into the front seat. It wouldn’t fit. Even when folded up, it was too big. She looked around, down at her car, then helped lower Amber so she was sitting on the ground next to the curb, a few feet to the right of the car. Karen moved the folded-up wheelchair so it was directly in front of her car and checked to make sure that Amber’s handcuffed wrist was far enough away from the car tire to avoid injury.

  “Don’t move,” she said to Amber. “Just stay right there.”

  She ran around the car and jumped inside. Pulled forward a few feet and heard the crunch of the car tires running over the wheelchair.

  She stopped and jumped out of the car. The wheelchair was ruined, broken into pieces and shards of metal. The support beam Amber’s handcuffs were attached to had snapped in two. She slipped the handcuffs off the wheelchair and helped Amber into the passenger seat.

  Karen sprinted around the car and sat down in the driver’s seat. She fired up the engine and sped away.

  * * *

  Seated in the passenger seat of the car, Amber felt like she was floating. Or flying. She was cold and clammy. Her hospital robe had done nothing to protect her from the freezing air as they’d hurried to the car.

  She closed her eyes. Clenched her teeth. Tried to ignore the burning in her stomach.

  After she’d fallen in the stairwell, she’d nearly just given up. The pain had been so agonizing that she wanted to curl into a ball. Stay in the stairwell. Admit defeat and stop fighting.

  But then she thought of Ross’s letter. Thought of seeing him again. That was what pushed her to continue on. That was what helped her through the pain.

  She placed her hand over her hospital gown and applied pressure to her stomach. She winced at the sharp dagger of pain. Blood gushed onto the already soaked front of her gown.

  Ross. She thought about Ross. Thought about being with him again, starting ov
er together.

  As long as it was just the two of them, everything would be fine.

  FIFTEEN

  Karen turned off the gravel road and pulled into the driveway. She parked next to Joshua’s car. Amber sat next to her, pale and sweating, her breath coming in quick pants. Her hospital gown had gotten even bloodier during the drive; the entire middle of it was nearly covered.

  Right as Karen turned off the car, Ross stormed out of the house and sprinted to them.

  “Out of the car,” he yelled to Karen. He gestured to an area in the middle of the front lawn. “Go over there.”

  Karen opened the car door and walked over. From a few feet away, she watched as Ross ran around the car and threw open the passenger door. He leaned inside and hugged Amber.

  “I knew you’d make it, baby,” he said. He cupped the sides of her face with his hands. “I knew it all along.”

  He kissed her, hugged her again. It reminded Karen of those videos of returning soldiers being greeted by their families—there was pure happiness, pure love, in his embrace.

  “Careful,” Karen said. “Her stitches were torn. Don’t make it worse.”

  Ross looked at the blood on the front of Amber’s hospital robe. He kissed her forehead and walked over to Karen.

  “Anybody see you when you escaped?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  Ross gestured to Amber. “What happened to her?”

  “We fell when we were leaving. Her wound got ripped open.”

  “So how bad is she?”

  “I’m not a doctor.”

  “Didn’t ask if you were. Just gimme your opinion.”

  “She’s in bad shape,” Karen said. “She needs to get back to a hospital.”

  “A hospital?”

  “Yes. And soon.”

  Ross scratched the back of his neck, stared off for a moment.

  “How’s that supposed to work?” he asked. “Can’t exactly show up to a hospital an hour after someone looking just like her escaped from one. Same injury and all.”

  “You’ll have to go far away. Get to another state. Missouri’s only a few hours from here. Illinois, too.”

  Right now, she just wanted them to leave. End this, right here, right now—that was her focus. Get them away from the house and far, far away.

  “The keys are still in the ignition,” Karen said. “I won’t call the police. Just take my car and go.”

  “Listen, I’m no fool,” Ross said. “That won’t work. I know there’s alerts and stuff that go out. I show up to a hospital with her, they’ll look up her records, see that she escaped, and that will be it. She’ll be arrested. Doesn’t matter if the hospital’s in another state.”

  “You’ll have to take that risk. If her wound gets infected, she might not make it.”

  Ross bit his lower lip and stared at Amber, in the front seat.

  “I gotta think about this,” he said.

  “You don’t have time,” Karen said.

  “Won’t take long. I think I got an idea. Just need to make a few phone calls.”

  He walked back over to the car.

  “Meantime, I’m bringing her inside.”

  “What? No.”

  Ross nodded.

  “You’re a nurse. And you got a bed inside. We’ll set her up there for now.”

  * * *

  Karen tried to protest, but Ross waved her off. He lifted Amber from the front seat and wrapped a steadying hand around her waist, helping her walk from the driveway up to the front door.

  “Open that for me,” he said to Karen. “And don’t try nothing. The gun’s in my waistband. Won’t take but a second to grab it.”

  She opened the door and stepped into the living room. Ross and Amber entered a few feet behind her.

  “Go down the hallway,” Ross said to Karen. “I saw a bedroom earlier. We’ll go there.”

  Karen walked down the hallway. In her bedroom, she stood off to one side and watched as Ross gently laid Amber in bed.

  “You’re going to be all right,” Ross said, kissing her forehead. “Trust me, baby.”

  Ross motioned Karen out to the hallway. They left the bedroom and walked back to the storage room. Inside, Joshua was tied up in the same position he’d been in earlier. Ross sat Karen down in her chair and zip-tied her hands to the armrests and her feet to the chair legs.

  “You need to listen to me. She’s at serious risk,” Karen said. “If the wound gets infected, there’s nothing I can do here. I don’t have the antibiotics she needs. You need to get her back to a hospital.”

  “I believe you. I just need to make a couple phone calls. Won’t take long.”

  Ross walked out of the room. Karen closed her eyes. The rush of adrenaline she’d felt at the hospital had passed. It was only the afternoon but she felt so tired, so beaten down.

  “Mom, what happened?” Joshua asked.

  Karen sighed heavily. She told him a quick version of the events at the hospital.

  “She’s in my bedroom now,” Karen said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I’m hoping that this will be it.”

  She didn’t know how much more she could take. She prayed that this was almost over. Ross had said he wouldn’t harm them if she broke Amber out; she could only hope he meant it.

  But if he went back on his word, she had a plan. She looked down at her leg. Right there, tucked away in her sock, she could just barely see the handle of the scalpel she had taken from the hospital.

  * * *

  Lying on her back, Amber winced. The pain in her stomach was sharp, not a stabbing sensation as much as a steady, constant throb. She reached down and pulled the gown to the side. The dressing covering her wound was soaked in deep crimson. She winced and peeled the dressing off. The stomach wound was almost an inch wide, a bright shade of red, the surrounding skin inflamed. Blood had started to coagulate and dry over it.

  She looked away and glanced around the bedroom, searching for something to focus on, some way to distract herself from the pain. There wasn’t much; bedrooms didn’t get much more plain and ordinary than this one. The walls were covered in light blue wallpaper, the curtains and carpet a matching beige color. The only decorations were a few framed photographs resting on top of a dresser. There was one of the lady (what was her name? Karen) and a few friends, sitting at a restaurant table, smiling into the camera and holding margarita glasses in the air. A few other random photos, most of her kid. Some of him when he was younger: one at Disney World wearing a floppy hat with Goofy ears, another of him stepping off a school bus, a few of him holding golf clubs.

  Ross entered the room. He carried a coffee mug in one hand. Flakes of red were smudged around his chin and lips. Even in her dazed state, she could see that he’d been huffing paint.

  “Does it hurt?” he said. He sat down on the edge of the bed and ran his hand through her hair.

  She gritted her teeth and nodded.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said.

  He held up a mug and rotated it to show her the characters printed on the side—Ernie, Bert, Grover, Oscar, Big Bird.

  “Found this in the cupboard and thought you’d like it,” he said. “Remember Sesame Street? How we used to always watch it?”

  “Yeah,” she said. After Ross was released from prison and they were living in Nebraska, they got only one channel on the small, outdated television in their apartment: the local PBS affiliate. Almost every morning, they’d been forced to watch Sesame Street during breakfast because they had no other options. It had been a running joke between them since then.

  Ross cradled her head with one hand and lifted the coffee mug to her lips. His hands were slightly shaking.

  “Here, drink some water.”

  He tilted the cup and some of the water spilled out and dribbled down her
chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.

  For the next minute, he held her in his arms and helped her drink. Here was the Ross she loved. The man she knew was worth fighting for and risking everything for. The good person who was still somewhere in there, deep down.

  “That enough?” he asked her.

  She nodded. Ross leaned over and kissed the top of her head. He grabbed her hand and held it in his.

  “Listen, we can’t stay here for long. We need to get you looked at and fixed up. Can’t check you in to a hospital, though. Police know who you are now. They’ll be looking for you. Can’t let you get arrested.”

  Ross pulled a phone from his pocket—must’ve been the kid’s phone, she figured.

  “I got an idea,” he said. “I think I know what we can do. Just gotta make one quick phone call first.”

  “Wh-who?” she asked.

  “We’re desperate, babe. Gotta call up the only guy who I think can help us. I’m calling up Shane.”

  SIXTEEN

  “No.”

  That was the only word Amber could get out. No strength to say anything beyond that, though she wanted to yell, scream at the top of her lungs.

  “Yes, babe.” Ross stroked her hair. “I gotta make the call. I don’t know what else to do.”

  He scooted closer to her on the bed.

  “He hasn’t been picked up. I saw an article about the robbery earlier. He’s still out there.”

  Amber shook her head.

  “Yeah. I think he can help us. You remember that time I came home with my arm all stitched up, back when Shane and I were touring?”

  She remembered. Years ago, that was. Late one night, Ross had shown up at their apartment after a performance with a nasty stitched-up wound on his arm. He told her he’d fallen off the stage while performing.

  “Probably don’t have to tell you this, but I didn’t fall off the stage. Some guy thought we were shortchanging him on product, a fight broke out, and next thing I knew, he pulled out a knife and stabbed me.”