Dead Secret (7 page)

Chapter 10

Diane pushed through the crowd of people hurrying over to Mike. A middle-aged man was trying to help him to his feet, but Mike was resisting. The whole scene looked odd, but she couldn’t see what was wrong.

“Mike, buddy,” she heard Korey say as he knelt beside him. “What’s the matter?”

Pain arced through Diane’s foot when someone stepped on it as she attempted to push through a clump of people. When “excuse me” didn’t work, she tried gently pushing the person away. She apparently had pulled a tricep muscle at the gym this morning climbing the rock wall, for she felt a twinge in her muscle.

“Move it, dammit,” she said, not meaning to say it as loud as she did, but it got the person’s attention. They muttered, “Sorry,” and moved.

Mike was still on his knees, leaning forward with a hand on the grass. The man—Diane thought she recognized him as a local businessman—was still trying to help Mike up, and Korey was arguing with him.

“Something’s wrong, man. Let him go.”

“He just fell, needs a little help up.”

“Mike?” Diane knelt beside him opposite Korey.

She put a hand on his back and immediately pulled it away. Her palm and fingers were bright red.

“He’s hurt,” said Diane. “Korey, help me get his coat off.”

The man let go of his arm. “Is that blood?”

Diane ignored him as she and Korey pulled off Mike’s dark suit coat. She heard several people gasp at the large wet red stain on his white shirt.

Korey looked wide-eyed. “Jesus, buddy, what happened?”

“I don’t know. I just feel funny,” whispered Mike.

The blood was near the right side of his waist and was seeping down into his pants. Diane carefully pulled up his shirt and looked at his wound.

“Someone call nine-one-one. Mike, I want you to lie down on the grass here and stay calm,” Diane said.
What the hell happened?

Diane heard Kendel giving directions. She must have already been calling.

“What is it?” asked Mike, as Diane helped him lie on his side.

“You’ve been stabbed.” Diane tried to keep her voice calm. All the organs and vessels in his lower back that could have been cut ran through her mind, and it frightened her.

“Stabbed? Jesus. How?”

“Just lie down. Help is coming.”

There was no blood on the front of his shirt, but she pulled it up just the same and checked him for any more wounds.

“Korey, stay with him.” She pulled a handkerchief from Mike’s suit coat and put it over the wound. “Put some pressure here. If the blood soaks through . . .”

“Got it covered, Dr. F. I took the first-aid training for our department.”

Diane had sent all the docents and a staff member from each department to take courses in first aid. She was glad Korey was the one who had gone from the conservation lab.

“I’m going to talk to the chief of detectives,” she said, and Korey nodded.

“Take it easy, buddy; we have help coming,” said Korey.

Diane stood up. Andie and Kendel knelt beside Mike, covering him with his coat. Diane headed for the chief of detectives, stopping first next to Vanessa’s son when she saw little Alexis standing with her parents, looking scared. Vanessa’s son looked at her hand and gave her a handkerchief to wipe off the blood. Her hand shook as she took it.
Who would do this—and why?
The fear that settled in the pit of her stomach made her nauseated.
Dammit, get yourself under control.

“What happened to him?” he asked.

“He was stabbed.”

Vanessa sucked in her breath.

“Take Alexis and your family home,” continued Diane. “Don’t talk about this with one another. The police will want to ask you individually what you remember. But for now, get your family home.”

He nodded and began to collect his family.

Diane took a deep breath and tried to find the objectivity she had at any other crime scene. She took her cell from her pocket and dialed her crime scene lab as she scanned the crowd and the cemetery. David Goldstein, one of her crime scene specialists, answered, and Diane briefly explained what had happened.

“What? At the cemetery?” said David.

“I want you and Jin to come and take a look around. There’ve been a lot of people here, so I doubt you’ll find anything right around where Mike was standing, but look behind the trees and large monuments in the area. Someone may have been standing, waiting for an opportunity.”

“How is Mike?”

“I don’t know. He’s conscious.”

“What about Neva?”

“She’s not at the funeral. I think she’s at home. Would you call her?”

“Sure. You all right?”

“I’m trying to hold on. Come as quickly as you can.” Diane folded her phone and slipped it into the pocket of her jacket.

Douglas Garnett, the Rosewood chief of detectives, was asking all the people to go sit in their cars until someone could come talk to them. But news of what had happened was running through the crowd like an electric current, and people were already hurrying to leave. Andie and Kendel were making sure the exiting crowd gave Mike a wide berth.

“What can we do to help?” Diane heard Steve Taggart ask Garnett.

“Take your family to your car and wait for the police. Encourage others to do the same. Someone will come and interview you just as soon as we can get them there.” Garnett was looking out over the crowd of people leaving.

“Most of their names will be in the guest book,” said Diane. “But I doubt our perp signed it.”

“What kind of nut comes to a funeral and stabs someone?” said Garnett. “Does this guy—Mike—have enemies?”

“Not that I know of. It seems like only a nut would take a chance like this.”

“Just when I thought perps couldn’t surprise me anymore . . .” He shook his head. “I called the squad. Police and detectives will be on their way. What about an ambulance?” asked Garnett.

“One of my staff called nine-one-one. I’m going to ride with Mike to the hospital, if they let me. I want my crime scene people to come down here and look around. I thought Neva might want to meet us at the hospital. She and Mike are dating.” Garnett nodded. Diane let out a deep breath. “I also told the Van Ross family to go home. I’m sorry. I was thinking of the kids. I did instruct them not to talk among themselves.”

“Just as well. I think most of our people are going to go home anyway. The mayor and the governor’s man already left.” He paused, then asked, “Did you see anyone suspicious?”

“No. I’ve been scanning the crowd.” Diane shrugged in frustration. “There are just so many people I don’t know.”

At the sound of the ambulance she left Garnett to attend to the policing and she hurried back to Mike, who was trying to get up off the ground. Korey was still applying pressure to the wound, and Andie had a hand on Mike’s shoulder, trying to keep him still. Kendel went to wait for the ambulance so she could lead the paramedics to Mike.

“I’m feeling better,” Mike said.

“The ambulance is here,” said Diane. “Stay where you are.”

The ambulance parked on the grass shoulder of the roadway, and two paramedics hurried with their equipment to where Mike lay, shooing everyone out of the way. Korey stood back, blood dripping from his hand. Chief Garnett came forward and offered him his handkerchief.

The female paramedic, a black woman who wore her hair in waves tight against her head like a twenties blues singer, took Mike’s blood pressure and nodded to the male who began hooking him up to a drip.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Someone stabbed him,” Diane told her.

“At a funeral?”

“We don’t know who or why,” said Diane.

“What’s the world coming to?” She looked in Mike’s eyes with a light. “Can you talk to me, baby?”

“Sure, what would you like to talk about?” His voice was husky, and words trailed off at the end.

She smiled at him. “Do you have any allergies?”

“No.”

“What’s your name?”

“Mike Seger.”

“Okay, Mike Seger, we’re going to take you to the hospital and you’re going to be just fine.”

As they loaded him onto the stretcher, Diane gave instructions to Korey and the others to go back to the museum after they talked to the police.

“May I ride with him to the hospital?” asked Diane.

“And you are?” asked the woman.

“Yes, she can,” whispered Mike, reaching out his hand, which Diane grasped.

“My name is Diane Fallon,” she said as she walked down to the ambulance with them.

“Oh, the museum crime scene lady,” said the male paramedic, a blond-haired, blue-eyed guy who looked too young for the job, but Diane noticed that he was efficient and sure in everything he did. “Sure you can ride.”

Diane was surprised and grateful as she climbed in the back that he recognized her. She tried to stay out of the way as much as she could in the tiny space.

“He’s looking good,” the woman told her.

She must see how terrified I am,
Diane thought. She hoped Mike hadn’t noticed. She reached out and stroked his hair. “Good thing you stay in such great shape.”

It took under ten minutes to get to the hospital. They carried Mike in, and Diane went to the waiting room.

The room had a shabby look to it, no doubt from years of use by thousands of people. The vinyl chairs were brightly colored either red, blue, green or orange. A large blond-wood coffee table with a pile of magazines sat in the center. She rifled through the magazines on the table, looking for something that might hold her interest long enough to pass the time. She picked up the same magazine twice and put it down. Her head was starting to hurt right in the middle of her forehead. Finally she went outside and called Frank on her cell.

“Hey, babe. I was just trying to get in touch with you. My partner’s meeting with a Rosewood detective today. He called me and said someone was stabbed at a funeral. Was it the one you went to?”

“Yes. It was Mike.”

“My God. Your caving partner Mike? How is he?”

“I don’t know. The doctor hasn’t come out yet. Frank, what kind of maniac stabs someone at a funeral, of all places?”

“I don’t know. I’ll come over when I get home. You doing okay?”

“I’m fine. All that adrenaline’s keeping me going, but I think it’s about to wear off. I’m getting a terrible headache.”

“Try not to worry. Mike’s a strong guy. Let me know when you find out something.”

“I will. I think I see Neva’s car pulling into the parking lot. I’ll talk with you later.”

Korey, Andie and Kendel pulled in beside Neva. They all piled out of their vehicles and headed toward Diane.

“I thought I told you guys to go back to the museum.”

“We were going to, but decided we’d rather be here,” said Andie. “Heard anything?”

Diane shook her head. “No, but it hasn’t been that long.” She turned to Neva, who was looking at her with wide, tear-filled eyes. “He was conscious and very coherent the whole time. He even joked with the paramedics. He’s going to be all right,” Diane said with more conviction than she felt.

“If he’s joking, that’s good.” Neva tried to smile. “Mike’s really healthy.” She nodded as if agreeing with herself. “He’ll be fine.”

“David and Jin arrived before we left the cemetery,” said Andie. “They want us to call when we know something about Mike.”

“Let’s go sit down,” said Diane. She put an arm around Neva’s shoulders and led them all to the waiting room. With the excitement wearing down, Diane was starting to have more aches and pains. There was a dull throb in her foot as well as her tricep muscle, and her head was getting worse. She was glad to sit. She dug in her purse for a couple of aspirin, spotting a water fountain. The pills were hard going down. She took several more sips of water before she went back to the others.

“You okay, Neva?” Diane asked, sitting back down in her red chair.

Neva nodded. “This is just so weird—and scary. Makes me wonder if it’s some serial perp who’s going to start showing up in public places stabbing people.”

“If he does,” said Korey, “it shouldn’t be too hard to catch him. I mean, how often would he be able to get away with something like that?”

“None of us saw a thing,” said Andie.

“We weren’t looking,” said Korey.

All of them sat in the colorful chairs and did the magazine shuffle that Diane had finally given up on, opting to stare at the rainbow-colored carpet instead.

“Did you have a chance to look at your witch this morning?” asked Korey. They all looked toward Diane with anticipation.

“No, but she has had visitors.” Diane told Korey, Neva and Kendel about the Wiccan and the Druid. They all listened with rapt attention, as if glad for the least distraction. Andie added a description of Caitlin’s shades of purple.

“And they actually thought you’d give the bones to them?” asked Kendel.

“Apparently that was their hope,” said Diane.

They all lapsed into silence after that. Diane was lost in her thoughts when the waiting room’s double swinging doors opened and a doctor in scrubs emerged.

Chapter 11

The doctor was a man about Diane’s age. He spoke to the nurse at the information station, and she pointed to Diane. She, Neva, Andie, Korey and Kendel all rose in one motion, as if connected, and walked over to him.

“We’re friends of Mike Seger. I’m Diane Fallon, his employer. We were with him when this happened. Can you tell us his condition?” asked Diane.

“I’m Dr. Nolan. The knife nicked a vessel and his colon, but he’s going to be all right. He lost a lot of blood, but I didn’t have to transfuse, and that’s good. He should be able to go home in a few days if he progresses as well as he is now. I understand this happened at a funeral?” The doctor looked at them as if expecting them to tell him he had been misinformed.

“Yes. We don’t know who or why. First thing we saw was Mike falling to his knees.”

Chief Garnett came through the waiting room doors and joined them, introducing himself to the doctor.

Diane had expected a detective to show up soon. She wasn’t surprised that the chief himself was taking the lead. It had become a high-profile case, not because of the victim, but because of where the crime had taken place. At least Mike would get their undivided attention.

“Can you tell us anything about the weapon?” he asked the doctor.

“It cut clean like a scalpel—very sharp. Given the depth of the wound, however, whatever kind of weapon did this, it was longer than a regular scalpel.”

“Has he said anything?” asked Garnett.

“No. He’s in recovery now, just coming out of the anesthesia.”

Chief Garnett took hold of Diane’s upper arm, and she yelped at the sudden pain. Garnett quickly withdrew his hand and looked down at his palm. He frowned at her.

Damn, that hurt,
she thought. She must have torn the muscle.

“You’re bleeding.”

Diane shook her head. “It’s Mike’s. My arm is just sore because I pulled a muscle at the gym this morning.”

The doctor walked around her and looked at the back of her arm. “I don’t think so. That blood looks too fresh. Let’s get your jacket off and take a look.”

The doctor and Garnett slid the jacket off her shoulder. She heard Andie and Kendel gasp.

Diane felt his fingers on her upper arm just beneath the short sleeve of her blouse.

“You have a deep laceration in your arm.” He turned to the nurses’ station. “Nurse. We need to get Ms. Fallon into an examination room.”

Diane looked at the expressions of surprise on all their faces. She imagined it matched her own. She handed Andie her purse and asked her to give her insurance information to the receptionist. She tried to look at her arm.

“Let’s not move too much. You’re starting to bleed again,” said Dr. Nolan. “Chief Garnett, this looks like a scalpel wound. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was done by the same weapon.”

The nurse led her to the examination room, then helped her change into one of those embarrassing backless hospital gowns. She had Diane lie down on the examination table on her good side.

A few minutes later, the doctor came in, washed his hands, then slipped on a pair of latex gloves. He examined the wound. She flinched several times as he palpated the area on the back of her arm.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m trying to be as gentle as I can.”

What the shit is this about?
she wondered. Since hearing that Mike was out of danger, her fear had been replaced by anger.
Dammit, who in the hell goes to a funeral and stabs people?
She wondered if anyone else was stabbed.

The doctor stepped around the table and stood where she could see him.

“We need to irrigate the wound before I can sew it up. It’s going to be uncomfortable, but nothing you shouldn’t be able to handle.”

“I’m fine. I just want to get this over with and go home.” Diane suddenly remembered the pills she’d taken. “I just took a couple of aspirin.”

“That’s probably why it started bleeding again.”

“Why didn’t I feel anything?”

“You felt nothing?”

“A twinge when it happened. I just thought I had injured a tricep when I was rock climbing at the gym this morning. I often pull muscles when I’m climbing. But I didn’t feel like I had been stabbed.” Diane felt incredulous that this had happened to her. She could imagine how Mike must feel.

“Probably all the adrenaline in your system’s been giving you some pain protection. When did you first feel the twinge?”

“Just after I saw Mike fall to his knees at the cemetery. I was pushing through the crowd to get to him. I remember someone stepped on my foot, and right after that I felt a sharp pain in my arm. As I said, I thought it was a pulled muscle.”

Dr. Nolan moved to the end of the table and examined her feet.

“There’s no bruising. Flex your toes. Does that hurt?”

“Just minor soreness. It wasn’t that hard. It was just pinned to the ground for a moment.”

“Any other pains or sore spots anywhere that you didn’t have before?”

“No, nothing else. Just the arm and the foot.”

“We’ll get you fixed up. I’ll come back when the nurse has cleaned your wound. Is your tetanus up-to-date?” Diane nodded. “Good. I’m going to give you some powerful antibiotics,” he continued. “And we’ll have to take precautionary blood tests for possible infections, but I don’t see any reason you can’t go home right away.”

“I’d like to see Mike before I leave.”

“He should be awake by then. Now this is going to sting. . . .” The doctor stuck in the needle to numb her arm.

Damn, she was pissed at whoever did this.

Neva and Korey were waiting for Diane when she walked back into the waiting room after the doctor had stitched her muscle and skin back together. She was surprised anyone was still there. It seemed like it had taken several hours. Neva said she had taken Kendel and Andie to the museum and had come back.

“What did the doctor say?” asked Korey.

“Just a few stitches and minor muscle repairs. They’re letting me go home. How is Mike?”

“Mike’s doing okay,” said Neva. “He had me go to his apartment and bring him some things. I left him asleep, but if you’d like to go see him he may be awake. I’m going to stay the night. . . .”

“Don’t worry about coming to work tomorrow morning. We’ll call if we need you.”

Mike was asleep when she, Neva and Korey entered his room. Diane and Korey turned and started to leave.

“Hey, guys.”

Diane turned around. “You awake?”

“More or less,” Mike said, sounding a little groggy. “I think we must have really pissed someone off in an earlier life. Neva said you were getting sewn up.”

Diane shrugged and sat down in the chair Neva had pulled up for her. “The doctor said I’ll live.”

Mike moved and winced in pain. “What the hell happened? Who’s doing this?”

“I don’t know. Do you want me to call your parents?”

He shook his head. “They were so worried when I was shot; I’ll tell them myself when I’m not feeling so out of it.”

“Do you know of anyone who doesn’t like you?”

“Enough to stab me? No. That detective—Garnett—asked the same thing. Graduate school can be cutthroat, but not literally. Besides, that wouldn’t explain why they went after you.”

Diane deeply hoped that this was not somehow her fault, that it had nothing to do with the crime scene lab. She would never forgive herself if it did.

“Hey, Doc. Don’t look so glum. This isn’t your fault.”

It was as if Mike had read her mind, but she guessed he had merely read her face.

“How are you feeling?” she said.

“Actually, pretty good. Got me hooked up to some sweet painkillers. But I don’t think I’ll be able to go caving this weekend.”

Diane gave him a weak smile and lifted her arm. “Me either.”

“They have to test my blood,” he said. “They said the knife might have been contaminated with other blood or something. . . .” He let the sentence trail off and looked at Neva. She kissed his forehead.

“I know,” said Diane. “Mine, too.”

“Shit. I hate that son of a bitch,” said Mike.

“We’ll get through this.” She grasped his hand and squeezed it.

Mike looked at her and smiled. “Sure, we will.”

“I’m going home and getting a long night’s sleep. I’ll come by in the morning before I go to the museum,” said Diane.

“Don’t worry about me, Doc. I’ll be fine.”

“You take care, buddy,” said Korey.

“Sure. Nothing can happen to me in the hospital, right?” He laughed weakly as they went out the door.

Korey drove Diane to her car at the museum parking lot. “I’ll take you home and pick you up in the morning,” he said. “It’s not out of my way.”

“Thanks, Korey, but I can drive. Look, I appreciate your staying at the hospital so long. It must have been boring.”

“No problem. Glad I could be there for you guys.”

“See you tomorrow.” Diane got out of his car and into her SUV. It felt good to be going home.

She drove slowly, not quite trusting the use of her right arm, relieved when she pulled into the parking space in front of her apartment building. The building was a huge old Greek Revival house subdivided into apartments.

She wished it had an elevator as she climbed the stairs to her apartment. Just as she got inside the phone rang. She picked it up.

“Hey, it’s me,” said Frank. “How’s Mike doing?”

“Good. They expect a full recovery. I spoke with him before I left.”

“That’s a relief. Look, babe, I’m sorry but I’ve got to stay in Atlanta for the next couple of days. We have a development in a case.” Frank worked in Atlanta, but lived in Rosewood, and he often stayed in Atlanta when he was working on a case instead of making the ninety-minute commute. She couldn’t blame him.

“Sure. I’d like to get to bed early, anyway.” She hoped the depth of her disappointment didn’t sound in her voice.

“I know this has been a rotten day. I really wanted to be with you tonight.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll see you day after tomorrow for sure and take you out to dinner. We’ll do a movie.”

Maybe we’ll bring dinner and a movie home,
she thought. Somehow she couldn’t imagine feeling any better in a couple of days than she did now. “I’ll look forward to it,” she said, trying to force some enthusiasm into her tone.

“Take care,” he said, and was gone.

She didn’t tell him that she had also been stabbed. It would only make him feel worse about not being there. She decided to take a Percocet and go to bed early.

Diane awoke feeling just as angry as she had when she went to sleep. Her arm hurt, and it pissed her off that she was going to have to get a series of blood tests to make sure she didn’t catch anything nasty from the knife. Damn that guy.

She wanted to call Garnett and see if he was making progress, but it was only six and he was most likely still at home. On top of all the other worries about herself and Mike, Diane also felt guilty, and she wasn’t sure why. But a free-floating sick feeling had come on her like a constant pain in her stomach. “Get a hold of yourself,” she said out loud to her empty bedroom.

She took a bath, taking care not to get the bandage wet, got dressed and drove to the hospital, eating a nutrition bar on the way. She wanted to see how Mike was doing, and she also wanted to ask him a question that had been nagging at the back of her mind since her near fall in the cave.

A nurse was just carrying out his breakfast tray when she entered Mike’s room. He was alone and sitting up with several pillows behind him.

“Hey, Doc.” He grinned at her.

“You look good,” she said, pulling up a chair. He actually looked better than she felt. The sight lifted some of her depression.

“I’m doing okay. How’s your arm?”

“Sore, but mending. Where’s Neva?”

“She went home to get a shower. She’ll probably be back any minute. She stayed here all night sleeping in that chair.”

Diane was silent for several moments, feeling a little foolish for her concerns about the cave, trying to come up with some small talk.

“Got something else on your mind, Doc?”

“Mike . . .”

“Uh-oh, that either sounds like we’re breaking up or I’m getting fired. Since we aren’t going together and technically I work for the university . . .”

Diane smiled. “It’s something that’s been nagging at me since I nearly fell in the cave, and I need your opinion. Was I reckless? As I was crawling through that tunnel, my mind was on the new opening. . . . I lost track of the moment. You can’t do that in a cave.”

“No, but we all have. Reckless? No. You’re like me. Safety is automatic. You just didn’t recognize the danger. While you were off on vacation enjoying yourself, I did some experiments on a piece of wood with a hole drilled in it. I poured gravel on the board to see if the rocks that got caught in the hole made any recognizable pattern.”

Diane raised her eyebrows. “How scientific of you.”

Mike smiled, showing his dimples. He tried to stretch and winced from the pain. “Son of a bitch.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just a little pain. If I get my hands on the guy who did this . . . Shit. Anyway, the experiment—I thought maybe we could recognize the formation if we ever ran across one again.”

“Can we?”

“Maybe—if all we saw was the plug. The rocks shift toward each other when they get stuck. You can sort of recognize it. But with other breakdown on top of the plug, the pattern was hard to see.” He shook his head. “You weren’t reckless. What brought this on?”

“It was just something I was thinking about.”

Mike squinted his eyes at her. “There’s something else that’s bothering you.”

“Just trying to make sense out of things. Why us?”

“I’ve been thinking. You know, there is one person who would like to do us both in.”

Diane lowered her eyes, then brought her gaze back up to Mike’s intent look. His light brown eyes still looked sleepy, but he had a strength in his voice just now when he talked about a killer that got away, almost taking their lives with him—the one who left Neva to die.

“I’ve thought of him too. But he’s dead. He has to be.”

“Does he?”