Sweetheart (34 page)

“That’s okay,” Gretchen said. “Pull back on the plunger a little.”

Susan pulled back on the plunger. A tiny squirt of red entered the syringe. “I see blood,” she said.

“Good,” Gretchen said. “That means you’re in a vein. Now make sure the bevel is still up and push the plunger in.”

Susan checked the bevel and then pushed the plunger in. She’d done it. She’d given him the drug. She wanted to laugh and cry and dance around the room. Then she caught sight of Henry’s grave face, his gun still leveled at Gretchen’s head. Susan pulled the hypo out of Archie’s arm. She didn’t have anything to stop the bleeding at the needle site so she bent his elbow and held it.

Archie’s color immediately started to improve.

“Now, give me the key to the handcuffs,” Gretchen said.

Susan got up and got the key and came back. She told herself that she had to do what Gretchen said. Gretchen still had the gun trained on Henry. Susan put the little key into the lock on the cuffs and turned it. The cuff sprang open and Gretchen was free and in that moment Susan reached into her back pocket and with a movement faster than she thought possible she plunged the knife into Gretchen’s torso, below her rib cage. It was easier than she thought it would be. The knife slid in past the gristle with a series of knotty pops, bouncing off bone, then sliding below her ribs like it was going into hard cheese. When Susan withdrew her shaking hand, the knife was still there, driven into Gretchen’s silk blouse to the hilt, a ring of dark red around it.

She hadn’t even come close to the jugular.

But it was enough. Gretchen’s eyes widened and her mouth formed an “oh,” where a tiny sigh escaped as the knife penetrated her. Henry seized the opportunity and lurched forward, connecting his forearm with Gretchen’s elbow. Susan lost sight of the gun behind Henry’s frame as he dove for it, wrestling it from Gretchen’s hand and then sending it skidding across the carpet.

As Henry scrambled to recover the weapon, Susan watched as Gretchen slid her hand down her side, her fingers folding around the knife Susan had plunged into her.

“The knife,” Susan managed to say, as Gretchen pulled it out with a pop of her elbow. The silver blade was slick with blood. Gretchen held Archie’s head up by a fistful of hair, and pressed the knife to his throat.

“I like knives better anyway,” Gretchen said.

There was smoke in the house. It was just enough to soften the focus of the room. Susan wasn’t even sure that Gretchen or Henry had noticed it.

The wind had changed direction.

Gretchen slid backward on the floor in a modified crab walk, one arm now around Archie’s chest, the other holding the knife to his neck, pushing herself along on her elbows and haunches, dragging Archie with her like an animal with prey toward the open glass door to the deck.

“No,” Henry said. He was lying on the carpet on his side, his arms extended, gun raised, pointed at Gretchen.

“Have you ever killed a chicken, Henry?” Gretchen asked sweetly, pressing the knife against Archie’s flesh. “Some people use a chopping block. But you can also use a metal cone.” She smiled. “You tie the bird’s feet and stretch the neck through the hole at the bottom of the cone. Then you cut its neck.” She moved the knife along Archie’s neck, the blade turned on its side so it didn’t cut his throat. “The key is to sever the jugular, so it bleeds out. But you want to avoid the windpipe.” She winked. “They say it’s stressful for the birds.”

“Not another inch,” Henry said. “You don’t escape from this.”

“His body’s been through a lot,” Gretchen said. “How much blood do you think he could stand to lose?”

Henry sat up, the gun still level at Gretchen’s head. And then, slowly, he stood. “You won’t do it. He’s too important to you.”

Susan thought she saw Gretchen falter. Her eyebrows flickered and she held Archie closer, pressing her knees on either side of his torso.

Henry was right, Susan thought, gaining confidence. She wouldn’t kill Archie. She’d just saved him. Again. She needed him alive. Henry took a step toward her, gun raised.

Gretchen cut Archie’s throat. The knife pressed into the flesh, and it opened gently like the skin of an eggplant. Blood seeped from the wound, darkening Archie’s neck and chest.

Susan felt woozy from adrenaline and shock and fear. She wished she’d kept hold of the stick so she could have jammed it into Gretchen’s eye. It might not have killed her. But it would probably have gotten infected. And at the periphery of her consciousness she thought she heard the faint sound of sirens.

Gretchen’s eyes blazed at Henry. “Don’t ever think you can know what I’ll do,” she said. The knife and her hand were covered in blood, her hand like a red glove. Gretchen licked the blade and grinned. “I like a man with a damaged liver,” she said. “The blood is so sweet.”

Every vein in Henry’s head bulged. Susan thought she could see his pulse, racing, threatening to burst through his skin. His hands gripped the gun like it was Gretchen’s neck.

“Not yet,” Gretchen warned him.

Archie was still alive. He was bleeding. But there wasn’t any splatter; she hadn’t hit an artery. His color was pale, but he was still sweating. Dead people didn’t sweat, did they?

“Keep pressure on the wound,” she said to Susan. “Tell them he was in liver toxicity. He took about forty pills about three hours ago.” Her lips were smeared with the blood from the knife.

She whispered something in Archie’s ear, kissed him on the cheek, leaving a bloody lip print, and then laid his head gently on the floor and was gone out the door to the deck. Henry fired a shot in Gretchen’s direction and then launched himself after her. Susan heard him fire three more shots into the woods.

Susan ran back to the bar, grabbed a plaid dishtowel, then ran back to Archie and held it against the wound in his neck. “Don’t die,” she said to him. She used the sleeve of her shirt to gently rub the bloody kiss off his cheek. “You better not die.” Outside, the sound of sirens got louder.

Y
ou’re still alive,” Henry said. “And she got away.”

There was a sprinkler head directly above Archie’s hospital bed. This was the first thing he saw. The second thing he saw was Henry, standing over him. Then Debbie, sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed, a magazine open in her lap.

Oh, God. Debbie.

“She fled into the fire,” Henry said. “There was a lot of smoke.” He ran his hand over his head. “We’re still searching the area. She might have gotten caught in the fire. But I won’t believe it until we have remains.”

Archie closed his eyes again and curled onto his side. His skin burned with sweat and his whole body hurt. He shifted on the bed, trying to find a tolerable position. The movement made his gut cramp. His hands shook so violently he clamped them between his knees. He opened his eyes. Even the light hurt. “What’s wrong with me?” he asked weakly.

“Withdrawal,” Henry said. “You’re on an antinarcotic called naloxone. You OD’d. The naloxone blocks your opiate receptors. So it’s cold turkey, friend.”

Archie searched his memory for any clue as to what had happened and came up with nothing. The bedsheets were cold and wet with his sweat. His last memory was of Gretchen, holding him. A wall of pain shuddered through his body like electricity, and Archie curled further into a fetal position. They had found him too soon. But he didn’t understand how she had gotten away. Then he felt the deep ache in his throat and reached up a trembling hand and let his fingers trace the rough bandages around his neck. He didn’t know how that had happened. But he knew this: She’d escaped. It was all for nothing.

He started to laugh.

“She used you as a hostage,” Henry said. “She used the naloxone to save your life. Then she cut your throat.”

“I slept with her,” Archie said. It was half the truth.

The magazine slid from Debbie’s lap and slapped onto the linoleum floor.

Henry leaned down over Archie and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t ever say that out loud again,” he said.

“I just thought you both should know,” Archie said. He swallowed hard, causing his neck to throb. “I don’t suppose I could get some pain meds for my throat,” he said.

Debbie’s hands were fists, the knuckles white, like it was all she could do not to throttle him with her bare hands. He didn’t blame her. He wished she would try. He wished she would put a pillow over his head and suffocate him. It would be the humane thing to do.

“It’s not real,” she said. “Whatever you think you have with her.”

He had to concentrate to talk. Every muscle in his body felt starved for oxygen, cramping in pain. Over the past few years, he had thought about what withdrawal might be like.

This was worse.

“I thought I could catch her,” he said helplessly.

A nurse appeared in peach-colored scrubs. She adjusted the drip on Archie’s IV. “This will help you sleep,” she said.

Archie nodded gratefully.

Henry pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maybe let us in on the plan next time.”

They both knew Henry could have stopped him.

“You let me go,” Archie said. “You let me go to the bathroom by myself. That wasn’t like you.”

Debbie turned and looked at Henry.

Henry glanced at Debbie, then back at Archie. “I would never let you use yourself as bait,” he told Archie. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

Lucky to be alive. For what? What had it all been for?

“You found the confession?” Archie asked.

“Yeah,” Henry said.

There was that at least. He’d accomplished that.

“You can close it,” Henry said with a grunt. “You can close that one case. Fourteen years old. A runaway without any family. And you closed it. Was it worth it?”

Archie closed his eyes and smiled. He could feel the sleep drugs hit his system. It was a small measure of relief. “Yes,” he said.

He must have drifted off because when Archie came to again Henry was standing over him on the other side of the bed. Debbie was gone.

Archie leaned over and gagged. Henry got a rose-colored plastic bedpan in front of him and he vomited into it, his body shaking. When he was done, he lay back in the bed, chest heaving.

Henry disappeared into the bathroom with the bedpan. Archie heard a toilet flush and the faucet go on and then Henry returned with the empty bedpan and set it on the tray next to the bed.

“You about done?” Henry asked.

Archie didn’t know what Henry was talking about.

“You’ve been vomiting for the last hour,” Henry said. “You don’t remember?”

Archie curled on his side. “No,” he said.

“Rosenberg came to see you,” Henry said. “And Fergus was here,” he said. “Remember that?”

Archie shook his head. He was covered with blankets, and he was still cold. He pulled the blankets up to his shoulders. His arms and legs were shaking. It felt like his bones hurt.

“He said you make it twelve hours on the naloxone, they can give you more pain meds. Taper you down.”

“How much longer is that?” Archie asked.

Henry looked at his watch and raised his eyebrows. “Seven hours,” he said.

Archie felt more acid rise in his throat and he turned over on his side and lifted his knees to his chest. “Keep talking to me.”

Henry sat down. “Susan was with me,” Henry said. “When we found you.”

Archie winced. He hadn’t meant for Susan to be put in danger. But he had known, when he gave the clue about Heather Ger-ber, that if she figured it out, she’d see it through. There was no way she was going to let Henry follow the lead by himself. If he’d gotten her killed, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. “She okay?” he asked.

“She’ll want to talk to you,” Henry said. “I told her she could write about all of it. If she keeps some details out.”

Henry proceeded to tell Archie about Susan’s escape from carbon monoxide poisoning and Bennett, who was still in a coma one floor up, and then about Susan identifying the other park bodies.

Archie thought of John Bannon and Buddy Anderson. “I need to talk to her,” he said. “But first,” he said, his gut cramping, “I’m going to need that bedpan again.”