Critical Impact (3 page)

The person with the pillow simply stood there and looked at her without moving.

Finally, Anna said, “Hello?” Her middle-of-the-night voice was feeble and hoarse.

No response.

Anna said it more loudly. “Yes?”

The person in the green scrubs moved to the side of her bed. Then the doctor bent down close to Anna, and with one quick movement plunged the pillow into Anna's face.

Anna writhed and whipped her head from side to side, trying to break free. It was as if she were in the cave of rubble all over again.

She remembered suddenly about the nurse call button. Sara had said she had clipped it beside her left hand. Was it still there? She grasped for it, somehow found it, and pressed it over and over again.

She felt she was going to lose consciousness when she dimly heard from the PA beside her, “Anna—it's Nurse Sara, I'm on my way.”

The pillow and the doctor in green had vanished by the time Sara arrived.

“Someone tried to smother me!” Anna blurted out, tears running down her cheeks.

“What!”

“Someone was just in here. All in green. And he tried to smother me with a pillow.”

Sara went out into the hallway. A few moments later she was back again. “I didn't see anyone in the hallway, Anna. There's no one else here tonight. It's a very quiet night.”

“But there was someone. It was a doctor and he put a pillow on my face.” Anna couldn't breathe. “He was wearing all dark green and a mask, like a surgeon.”

Sara sat down beside her and put her hand on Anna's left arm. “Anna, there's no one here. One of the side effects of the amount and type of pain medications you're on is the feeling of being smothered sometimes. I'll talk to the doctor about it in the morning. In the meantime, would you like me to sit with you for a while?”

“I would. Thank you.”

With tears stinging her eyes, Anna finally drifted off to sleep. Had someone really been here? Or had it been a dream of the worst kind?

“Y
our best guess—you guys think what happened at City Hall was an act of terrorism?” Stu poured himself a cup of coffee. He was pretty sure the coffee in the pot had been sitting on the counter in the Whisper Lake Crossing Sheriff's Office for at least five hours. But since yesterday, Deputy Stu McCabe, Sheriff Alec Black and Deputy Liz Corcoran had been too busy to even rinse out the coffeepot after batches. To make it more palatable, Stu stirred in two spoonfuls of powdered creamer and three spoonfuls of sugar. He stood beside the window and stirred his coffee while he looked at the TV van parked outside.

“I do,” Liz answered, looking up at him. “Anybody who sets off a bomb is a terrorist. Plain and simple.” According to Liz, who had recently moved to Whisper Lake Crossing, all crimes had to do with terrorists, gangs or drugs. “It can't be any of these weirdos on the anonymous tip line,” she said, holding up the phone. “I just talked to a guy. Says he's the bomber. Says
he's also single-handedly responsible for assassinating JFK.”

“I hope you took down his name.” Alec looked up from his desk and over the tops of his skinny reading glasses. “Anybody who calls in is a potential suspect.”

“I know, I know…” She went back to the phone, holding up a yellow pad half-full of notes, numbers and details.

As any police officer knew, a tip line tended to bring out all the crazies from the woodwork, yet each tip had to be written down, analyzed and followed up on.

Alec and Stu and Liz had been at this for twenty-four hours and all they seemed to have succeeded in doing was getting the national media here in full force. Even now, a national news van, complete with a satellite dish, was parked out front. A well-dressed anchor-woman holding a microphone was being filmed, and the Whisper Lake Crossing Sheriff's Department was the backdrop for this scene.

Most of the media action was centered ten miles south at Shawnigan, Maine, where forensics and bomb specialists were still sifting through the rubble. But since Anna Barker and Mayor Johnny Seeley were from Whisper Lake Crossing, this town was also prominently in the news.

The mock disaster was to have been for the entire county of Whisper Lake, which included the
communities of Whisper Lake Crossing, Shawnigan at the southern tip and DeLorme in the north.

Of course, the disaster drill had been canceled due to the real disaster, something that the media was finding both ironic and newsworthy.

Stu decided that he'd had enough of a walking-around break. Time to get back to work. All morning he'd been trying to track down the elusive Peter Remington, former boyfriend of Anna Barker.

Anna had left California, “escaped,” she told him, from an ex-boyfriend who had “threatened” her. She'd given him Peter's contact information, but the e-mails bounced. Stu had left countless messages to no avail.

Alec looked at Stu. “Any more on Anna Barker? You going to see her today?”

“Planning to. After I make a few more calls here.”

Because Stu had been the one who had found and rescued Anna, Alec had decided that he should be the one to keep in contact with her. This was fine with Stu. She was the pretty, dark-haired woman with the sad face who mostly kept to herself. She always looked so perfectly polished and therefore out of his league.

When the explosion happened and he'd seen a woman fall, he'd had no idea it was her. His adrenaline had kicked in and he ran to help. It had done
something to his heart when he discovered it was her underneath that rubble.

But even with the scratches and gashes on her face, she looked beautiful to him. He had been saddened to learn that she'd been so hurt by a jerk in California. A jerk he was now having no luck tracking down.

He searched the guy's name on the Internet and came up with accolades on his great special effects. The company he worked for had even been nominated for an Academy Award once. Stu had run the guy's name through the police databases they had access to and come up with no information. He had no criminal record.

Stu sat down and called the studio in California where Peter worked.

“No,” a gruff female voice answered. “Peter Remington isn't here. Who wants to know?”

Stu introduced himself.

“The police?
Maine?
He in some kind of trouble?”

“We need to talk with him about something.”

“All I can say is if you find him, you can tell him to get his sorry self back here. He's the only one who knows the correct bomb sequence and we can't pro duce this scene without him. He's holding up editing. He's holding up production.”

Stu straightened in his chair. “What do you mean by bomb sequence?”

“For the movie. He's the one who's putting it all together.”

“So Peter Remington knows a lot about bombs?”

“He's the best.”

“And you don't know where he is?” Stu was taking rapid notes.

“Nope. Not a clue.”

Stu thanked the woman and got her to promise to call him if Peter did show up.

Well, well,
thought Stu.

He was finishing up his notes when a movement in the doorway caught his attention. A tall, hollow-cheeked young man with purple spiky hair and thick eyebrows stood there holding a black art portfolio. Since Stu's desk was closest to the door, he got up. “Can I help you? Something you need?”

The man shifted from foot to foot, clearly nervous. He wore shiny black boots, which came clear to his knees.

“Maybe,” he said. “I found something. Don't know if it's important or not.”

“What is it pertaining to?” Stu asked him.

“It's about the bombing at the Shawnigan City Hall yesterday.”

Stu invited him over to have a seat at his desk. The young man did and coiled his long legs around the front of the chair, leaning in toward Stu. His patent-leather boots squeaked.

“My name's Rodney Malini. I'm a friend of Anna's.”

Rodney laid the portfolio down on the desk and proceeded to pull out sheets of papers.

“Well, actually, I'm one of Anna's students. I am…was…good friends with Hilary and Claire. Our class was pretty tight. Anna's a great teacher. And last night…well, last night I was just so upset over everything that I couldn't even think straight. Couldn't sleep at all. So I got looking around the Internet. I started reading Hilary's blog. Don't know if it means anything but I thought the police should see it, maybe.”

Scanning the top of the sheets, Stu asked, “You live in Shawnigan?”

The young man nodded.

“You drove all the way up here instead of going to the police station down there?”

“Shawnigan's a crazy place. TV cameras everywhere, man. I don't like the limelight so much.”

Stu stared at him. He had certainly dressed oddly for someone who didn't like the limelight so much. “There's a television crew outside here now,” Stu said.

“I managed to avoid them. But this is what I wanted to show you.”

Stu picked up the top sheet. Rodney pointed. “It's that line there I thought you should read.”

I know she wants to hurt me, and even get me out of the way.

“And here's another one,”

She threatened me again today.

There were a couple more printed pages like this. With entries like,
She's stalking me. I can't take it,
all highlighted by Rodney's yellow marker.

Stu looked at him and then back at the blog sheets. “You said you were good friends with Hilary. Do you know who she was writing about?”

Rodney shook his head. “We, all of us were tight, but Hilary—she was a little different. Quiet. Didn't talk much. I don't know. I have no idea, in fact. I talked with some of the others, and no one knows. She kept to herself a lot. Hilary also kept a poetry blog. She also wrote poetry. She's one of those people who writes everything down.” His eyes swam with tears when he realized the verb tense mistake he had made. He corrected himself, “She wrote everything down. I'm going to see Anna,” he said suddenly. “Do you know if she can have visitors?”

“I'm pretty sure she can,” Stu said. “But check with the hospital.”

Before Rodney left, Stu wrote down the Web site address and took Rodney's contact information. Stu handed him a business card and said, “Anything else you remember, please call me. I wrote my cell number on the back of the card.”

Rodney left.

So
Hilary
could have been the target?

 

Anna decided not to tell anyone about almost being smothered the previous night—not her mother, nor her aunt, nor Deputy McCabe. Sara and Daphne, the day nurse, had convinced her that the pain medication had made her feel smothered.

In the morning, Daphne gently removed the bandages on Anna's face, washed the wounds, as well as the rest of her face, and re-bandaged them.

“It's healing nicely,” Daphne said.

“That's good. In some ways my face hurts more than my arm.”

“That sometimes happens.” The nurse paused. “I heard you had an episode last night.

” Anna nodded.
An episode.
“It felt so real,” she said.

“That's morphine for you. It relieves serious pain, but we always have to watch the side effects.” Daphne gave her a rundown of the side effects, everything from nausea to a feeling of being smothered.

They were probably right, after all. Anna had never taken such powerful pills in her life. She had never even spent any time in the hospital—until now.

Daphne took her temperature, her blood pressure, checked on a few more things and gave her a tiny white paper cup of pills and a glass of water.

“What are these?”

“Antibiotics. We're holding off on the pain pills until the doctor gets here. She's just down the hall.
She'll be by in a minute. And then,” Daphne said, “you have someone waiting to see you.”

The handsome police officer? she wondered. She hoped.

When the doctor came in, all crisp and white and holding a chart, she said, “I hear morphine isn't working so well for you, is it?”

“I guess not,” Anna said.

“We have a whole arsenal of pain medication at our disposal. If one doesn't work, there are always others.”

“Good.”

When the doctor left and her visitor arrived, she was charmed to see that it was Rodney. She loved her oddball student, with his flashy clothes and dyed hair, who wanted to design for stage makeup. He was talented and dedicated, her only male student in her class of females.

He came over and pulled up the chair next to her bed.

“It's nice of you to drive all the way up here to see me, Rodney,” she said.

“I had to come up to give something to the police,” he said.

Anna looked at him.

“It was about Hilary.” He told her that he'd found an online blog Hilary had written, indicating that she was being stalked.

This brought new tears to Anna's eyes. She had
never connected with the girl, although she had tried many times. On the morning of Hilary's death, Anna had intended to have a private conference with the girl, who was in danger of failing the course. And then Johnny Seeley, who, as mayor of Whisper Lake Crossing, shouldn't even have been in Shawnigan in the first place, slowed her down.

The delay saved her life. And yet Hilary and Claire were gone. None of it made sense.

She stifled a sob when she thought about that. Rodney put his hand on her left arm and wept like a baby. They both did.

“I can't believe it,” he said over and over. “I was talking to Claire just yesterday morning. Oh, Anna,” he said. “What are we going to do? I don't think I'll be able to even go to their funerals. I'm afraid I would just turn into a puddle and melt right there in the church.”

“You'll be okay, Rodney. We all will. I'll be praying for you.”

“Oh, can you pray right now?”

Anna did.

When he left, Nurse Daphne came in with another pill for her to take, one eyebrow raised at the departing Rodney. “Who was that?” she asked.

“A good friend of mine.”

When Deputy McCabe came in a few minutes later he presented her with a bouquet of bright, saucer-size mums.

“Thank you,” she said. “They're beautiful.”

He studied them. “They are kind of nice. They're from Bette. She heard what happened and wanted you to have a couple of her prize mums.”

So they were from Bette and not from him.
She didn't know why she felt such a sudden disappointment. After all, why should she expect flowers from the police officer who was questioning her?

“I'm living at Bette's resort now,” she said. “For the time being, until I find a place of my own. It's beautiful there. Bette is such a fine gardener. I've been savoring the fall colors in her many gardens.”

“Actually, I think it's her son, Ralph, who does most of the gardening.”

She nodded. “I've seen him out there. It's been such a peaceful place for me to live. It's been a good place for me to get some rest and get my act together.” Yesterday, during the questioning, she had told them so much about Peter. Her life was an open book as far as the police were concerned. It made her feel vulnerable in front of this man about whom she knew nothing. He could be engaged for all she knew. And why should she be thinking about him in this way?

Deputy McCabe sat in the chair recently vacated by Rodney. “How are you, Anna? How do you feel this morning?” It really seemed like he was concerned for her, the way he was looking at her. She felt herself blushing under his intense gaze. She looked over at her right arm in its awkward and heavy cast. “I'm going
to run a marathon this afternoon, Deputy McCabe. You want to come?”

He grinned. “Why don't you call me Stu.”

“Okay, Stu.”