Murder Sends a Postcard (A Haunted Souvenir) (18 page)

I MADE IT TO THE TREE LINE, AND HUNKERED DOWN
behind a cypress tree. From my vantage point I watched the front of the house for a couple minutes. The door kept multiplying and then merging back into a single image, sometimes even holding together for several seconds.

Fatigue washed over me, buckling my knees. I tried to focus on the house, the door, but Lacey did not appear, and I worried what she might do to Buddy.

I had to keep moving.

I’d grown up here. I knew the area. All I had to do was stay behind the trees and head toward the county road.

Even if no one came along that road, it was only a couple miles to the highway. I was sure to find someone who could call for help once I reached the heavily traveled main road.

I staggered from one tree to the next, holding on to maintain my balance. I was still seeing double most of the time, and it slowed my progress as I dodged trees and roots that weren’t there.

I tripped over a long branch hidden in the tall grass, and fell heavily against a tree, scraping the side of my face.

My left arm ached with a weariness that frightened me. I’d broken Lacey’s needle, but not before she’d managed to inject part of the drug dose.

It wasn’t a happy thought.

Using my good right arm, I dragged the branch out of the grass and used it to reach in front of me. I swung it from side to side, the way I’d seen blind people use their canes.

I didn’t know exactly why they did that, but I guessed it would alert them to obstacles in their path. I hoped it would do the same for me.

I walked slowly, waving my makeshift cane, for what felt like hours. Each time I heard a noise, I stopped and listened, wondering when Lacey would catch up to me. How long before I felt that viselike grip on my arm, and the sting of the needle? How much time did I have left?

Even more worrisome, how much time did Buddy have?

At last, after an eternity of staggering through the trees, I came to the intersection with the main highway. I hadn’t seen or heard a single car on the county road, and there wasn’t a car on the highway either.

I wanted to turn toward town, but in order to do so, I had to leave the protection of the trees. Terror rooted me in place, refusing to let me move forward.

I gripped my stick in both hands, and forced myself out from the tree line. I limped toward the road, leaning on my makeshift cane.

A car came toward me. I fought the impulse to run and hide, fearful of who might be behind the wheel.

It wasn’t until after the car sped past without even hesitating that I realized what they must have seen. A woman with a scraped-up face walking along a deserted road in a bloody T-shirt, waving a giant stick.

I tried to tell myself I would have stopped to see if she needed help, but the truth was darker and more unpleasant. I wouldn’t have stopped, would have been afraid to stop.

But I would have called the police, and maybe they would, too. That would be enough.

The thought of calling the police worked its way through my addled brain, and I reached for my cell phone. Maybe I could focus enough to use it.

But my phone wasn’t in my pocket. I checked every pocket, even those far too small to hold my phone, then checked them all again. But no matter how many times I patted and prodded every opening, there was no phone.

When had I seen it last? I knew it wasn’t important; all that mattered was that I didn’t have it. But it was a puzzle I couldn’t leave alone, in the same way you can’t ignore a stray thread on a shirt.

I started walking along the road in the direction of Keyhole Bay. Even if no one was willing to stop, I had to keep moving toward town, toward help.

Toward someone who could rescue Buddy.

As I walked, I puzzled over the phone. I’d had it when I left the store; slipped it into my pocket just before I got in the truck.

I remembered a voice, telling me to hang up and dial again. When was that? Had I tried to make a call while I was driving?

I watched two more cars zoom past, and hoped one of them would call the police.

Where the hell was my phone?

The voice had come after a piercing noise, a noise that shot through my brain like a hot needle.

Needle! I’d used the phone after I took the needle out of my arm. In the upstairs bedroom where Lacey had attacked me.

I knew where I’d seen the phone last, but that knowledge did me no good. If it was in that room, Lacey had it now, and I wasn’t going back to look for it. All I could do was keep moving forward.

Perspiration stung my scalp, fat drops rolling down my neck. My T-shirt clung damply to my body, sweat mixing with drying blood and dirt from the swamp. I pulled on the neck of the shirt and wiped my face. I winced at the touch of the cloth against my scrapes. The feeling of momentary relief was quickly displaced by a fresh sheen of sweat.

I walked slowly, concentrating on just putting one foot in front of the other. Time didn’t seem to make any sense. I didn’t know whether I’d been walking for an hour or a week. It could have been either one.

Far ahead I could see buildings. I knew they were the motels and fast-food restaurants that dotted the fringes of Keyhole Bay, though I couldn’t identify them at this distance. I had no clue how much farther I had to go. Half a mile? A mile? Two miles?

Could I even see two miles away? I didn’t know, but the thought provided a welcome distraction. Anything was better than thinking about what could be happening in the empty model home in Bayvue Estates.

Double and triple images danced in the distance, and I abandoned the effort to make them merge. It hurt too much to force my eyes into focus, so I let my eyelids droop and my vision blur. The pain receded slightly.

I heard a car slow alongside me. Panic sent adrenaline surging through my exhausted body. Fight or flight, and I was too weak to fight.

I dropped my stick and tried to run, tried to focus on the field beside me. To find a path away from the attack I knew was coming.

But without the support of my stick, my legs refused to cooperate. My knees buckled, and I fell.

Hard.

I crawled, dragging myself along with my good arm. It didn’t matter where I was going. I just had to get away.

“Glory!” I heard someone shouting my name.

I glanced over my shoulder, still trying to crawl away. The figure of a man, of several men, loomed over me. A hand reached down and clamped around my arm, pulling me to my feet.

A chill shot through me, and the world went black.

“GLORY!”

I heard my name again, from a long ways away. Somebody was shaking me, telling me to wake up.

I didn’t want to.

“Go ’way,” I said, swatting at whoever was jostling me. “Want to sleep.”

“I can’t understand you,” a man said. His voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

“Go ’way,” I repeated as forcefully as I could.

“Glory, look at me!” It was a command, and somewhere deep inside, an obedient child forced my eyes open in response.

A broad, khaki-covered chest floated in front of my eyes, dozens of dark buttons dancing across the layers of fabric. I looked up from the chest to the face, closing one eye in an effort to bring his features into focus.

“It’s Boomer, Glory. You know me.”

Relief flooded my eyes with sudden tears.

Boomer was here. I was saved.

“Buddy,” I said. My tongue felt funny in my mouth, and I tried again. “Buddy.”

Boomer’s face shifted and for a few seconds he had a single mouth, the corners turned up in a faint smile.

“Yep, I guess I am your buddy about now.” He slid an arm underneath me, and raised my head slightly. “Can you sit up? We need to get you out of here.”

He pulled me up. I grabbed at him, my fingers digging into his starched khaki shirt.

“Buddy!” I yelled. “Have to save Buddy!”

Boomer shook his heads. Head. I knew there was only one, in spite of what looked like two or three Boomers helping me to my feet. “That’s a nasty bump you got there,” he said. “How did you hurt your head?”

I raised my hand to my head, feeling for the bump he said was there. I didn’t remember hitting my head on anything. I’d fallen and banged my knees, and my arm felt funny. But I couldn’t remember exactly why; and I didn’t remember hitting my head.

I leaned heavily on Boomer. He had one arm around my waist, and my feet barely touched the ground as we walked back toward the sounds of traffic on the highway.

Boomer put me in the passenger side of his cruiser and went around to slide under the wheel. He pulled out, headed back to town.

“Stop!”

This time he understood. He pulled abruptly back onto the shoulder, the car rocking to a sudden stop.

“Glory, we need to get you to a doctor,” Boomer said, turning his head to look at me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated on forming the words he had to hear. “Must. Go. To. Bayvue.”

I opened my eyes, silently begging him to hear the words I was trying to say.

He nodded, two heads bobbing his understanding. “Why?”

“Buddy. Danger. Needle.” I had to work to produce each word as clearly as I could, to make my lips and tongue and teeth cooperate to form the precise sounds. “Hurt.”

“But you need a doctor.” He turned away, watching traffic.

“Go. Now. May. Be. Dead.”

His head whipped back around. “Dead?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

A siren, louder than I’d ever heard, stabbed into my skull. Colored lights flashed around me, and the car shot into traffic. The rear end squealed around in a high-speed U-turn, sending gravel showering across the road.

I was forced back into my seat as Boomer accelerated toward the county road. Whatever he’d heard, it had convinced him. Now all I could do was hang on and hope we got there in time.

Boomer flipped a switch on the dashboard, stabbed the brakes, and swung in a controlled slide around the corner onto the county road.

As he straightened out, he began yelling. “Need backup at Bayvue Estates. Code Three. Possible drug overdose. Request emergency rescue unit meet me there.”

For an instant he swiveled his head toward me then immediately back to the empty road ahead of him. “And send an ambulance. I have one casualty, unknown how many more are at the scene.”

Boomer cut the lights and siren as the brick gateposts appeared on our right. I thought we were going to fly right past them, but he swung wide and fishtailed into the deserted development.

I spotted my truck, still parked on the street. As we drew closer, the multiple images merged into one and held. I moved my head and they split apart again. But they had been one truck for several seconds.

I turned to look at the second house and held my head steady while my brain slowly pulled the image into focus. Buddy’s rental car sat in the driveway alone.

Lacey’s car was nowhere in sight, but I didn’t remember seeing it when I arrived. Was it hidden, or had she actually left?

Boomer threw his door open.

Moving slowly, I unbuckled the seat belt Boomer had put around me, and opened the door.

“Stay there,” Boomer ordered, reaching past me to pull the door closed. “I’ll check it out.”

“Wait.”

He hesitated.

“Lacey might be here.” The words came out slowly, but Boomer watched me as I spoke. “She had a needle.” I gestured to the bruise on the inside of my elbow where the needle had broken off. “She tried to give me a shot.”

Boomer closed his door and looked at me as though I was finally making sense. My efforts were paying off.

“Was there anyone else in the house?”

“Buddy McKenna,” I said. “He was bleeding.”

“McKenna? The McKenna woman’s brother? That’s who you were talking about.” I half expected to see a lightbulb go off over Boomer’s head. “He was here?”

“Upstairs. Closet in the back bedroom.” A deep sadness welled up in me as I thought of Buddy left alone in that closet. “I couldn’t wake him up.”

“I know how that feels,” Boomer muttered as he opened his door again. He slid out, crouching behind the open door.

He stayed there for a minute or two, then darted quickly toward the house, flattening himself against the front wall. I saw him turn his head, and heard his voice speaking softly through the radio in the car.

“There’s a second victim reported to be upstairs,” he said. “I’m going to check.”

I could hear sirens coming in our direction, growing louder.

“Backup is on the way,” the dispatcher said from the radio. “Hang on, you’ll have help in two minutes.”

I could see Boomer moving toward the front door, crouching down below the windowsills and sliding along the front of the house.

He reached the door just as the first car slid to a stop behind the cruiser where I waited. An officer in a protective vest, his gun drawn, jumped from the front seat and sprinted across the bare clay of the yard.

Together, the two men entered the house. Boomer provided cover for the armored officer, then followed him inside.

Another car pulled in ahead of Boomer’s and two more officers spilled out. The radio crackled with questions and terse answers as the two men inside made their way through the house.

Repeated calls of “Clear” marked their progress as they checked for signs of life.

As Boomer radioed that they were starting up the stairs, a rescue unit slammed to a stop in the middle of the road. Two paramedics piled out and began pulling equipment cases from the back of the truck.

“Pool of blood in the upstairs hall, and blood on a cabinet door,” Boomer reported. “But no one here.”

I felt a grim satisfaction at their discovery. I remembered a solid thud of the cupboard door as it hit Lacey. I felt certain the blood was hers.

Payback.

I listened as they made their way through the bedrooms, calling out each time they verified a room was empty. They cleared the master suite, and the second bedroom, without seeing anyone. All that was left was the back bedroom.

The place I had last seen Buddy.

A familiar car lurched to a stop next to the cruiser, blue and red lights strobing from a portable flasher. A tall figure burst from the door.

Jake.

He threw open the cruiser door and pulled me into a tight hug.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “I got here as quick as I could.”

“Yes,” I answered, my face buried against his chest. “I’ll be fine, just as soon as I stop seeing double.”

Jake pulled back and immediately started inspecting my head. He found the lump on my left temple, gently pushing aside my hair and inspecting the injury.

“You need to see a doctor,” he said. “Why did Boomer bring you back out here instead of taking you directly to the hospital?”

“I told him to.”

“And he did what you told him, not what he should?” Anger tightened Jake’s voice.

I started to explain, when Boomer interrupted me. “Second victim,” he said over the radio. “Head wound. Possible drug overdose. I need the paramedics up here now!”

Jake released me. “Sure you’re okay?”

I nodded.

He sprinted across the front yard and disappeared into the open front door. Seconds later I heard his voice on the radio. Calm and confident sounding, he repeated information from the paramedics to the hospital emergency room and the incoming ambulance.

But he didn’t sound like a volunteer repeating the words of others; he sounded like someone in charge. Someone who knew and understood exactly what was going on. Someone with more training and experience than Keyhole Bay could ever provide.

The kind of person who read the things I’d seen on his bookshelf.

But there would be time to speculate on that later. Right now I wanted to know about Buddy.

The house was clear. Boomer had assured everyone of that in his last transmission. No reason I had to stay in the car.

I opened the door and got out. For the first few seconds the ground tilted and swung around me as I clutched the door frame to steady myself. But eventually the world righted itself and I was able to let go of the car.

Stepping with exaggerated care, I made my way to the front door and went inside. The staircase stretched in front of me, triggering memories of my last trip down it, clinging to the handrail and half crawling, half falling to the bottom.

I tried to grip the rail with my left hand, but my arm still didn’t cooperate properly. Instead I leaned my good right arm against the wall and inched my way up.

I was still a couple steps from the top when Boomer found me.

“I told you to stay put,” he said, taking my hand and helping me up the last two steps. “Don’t you ever do what you’re told?”

“I waited,” I said. My words came quicker now, but I still had to concentrate. “Until you said the house was clear.”

“That doesn’t mean it was safe for you to go walking around,” he answered. He turned my back to the wall and gently pushed my shoulders down, forcing me to sit at the top of the stairs.

“Is Buddy . . .”

“They’re still working on him,” Boomer answered the question I couldn’t finish. “They’ll get him stabilized before they take him to the hospital. But the paramedics seem to think he’s going to make it.”

That was the good news.

“And Lacey?”

Boomer shook his head. “No sign of her. But we have four states on the lookout for her car. She won’t get far.”

I nodded and closed my eyes. “Can I sleep now?” I asked.

“Fifteen minutes,” Boomer said. “You almost certainly have a concussion. I’ll see if I can find you some ice. And you have to wake up every fifteen minutes until the doctor says different.”

I heard his rapid footsteps go down the stairs as I faded.