The Botanist (9 page)

Chapter 15

An hour later, the silent, desolate corner of desert was crawling with cops and emergency vehicles. The captain and other detectives had been awakened. When word got around about what was happening, many of the uniforms who’d come to Mt. Dessicate to help with the Shakespeare investigation had shown up as well.

One of only four ambulances in town had come to pick up Alex. A plump but capable paramedic whose nametag read “Bob” directed his much-younger partner in putting Alex in a c-collar and strapping her to a backboard. Cody held her hand, assuring her that he’d be right behind her, and the ambulance sped off for the hospital.

While the crime scene unit scoured the desert, Cody, Frank, Tom, Court, and the captain congregated around Cody’s jeep. They didn’t have to lower their voices; no one was close enough to hear them.

“Okay, Cody.” The captain’s hair pointed in every direction and the right side of his face still looked vaguely pillow-squished. “Let’s hear it from your lips. Tell us what happened.”

Cody recounted the night’s events for them. When he finished, they all gaped in stunned silence. Frank whistled.

“What do you think?” Cody wasn’t addressing anyone in particular.

“Well,” Tom finally ventured, “there’s the track from the tire. And she couldn’t have gotten so far from her car on foot in twenty minutes, so there must be another vehicle involved.”

“Yeah,” Court said, “but that doesn’t mean she didn’t orchestrate it somehow.”

Cody’s eyebrows had risen with Tom’s comment, but they jumped higher at Court’s. “You think she’s making this up?”

They all looked at him like
he
was nuts.

It was Tom that spoke again. “It’s quite a coincidence, Cody, if she’s not. She shows up, talking about a particular incident, and then she, of all people, just happens to blow a tire in the same spot, and have an encounter with the same man, who—by the way—no one else has ever laid eyes on? She seems pretty normal, but that stretches the bounds of the believable, don’t you think?”

Cody sighed. When put that way, he could see their point, but it hadn’t even occurred to him that Alex might be lying. Her terror had been too real. The whole thing had been so bizarre, so shocking. He tried to look at it from their perspective, but ultimately shook his head.

“I understand why it sounds strange, but I don’t think she’s making it up. I don’t think she has any more idea what’s going on than we do. You didn’t see her. She was petrified.”

“She could just be one hell of an actress,” Court put in, and when Cody looked at him, he put his hands up. “I’m just saying. We’ve seen them before.”

“Or maybe,” Frank added, “Cody wants to believe her because she’s pretty.”

Cody scowled at Frank. He wasn’t in the mood for his jokes. He endured them most days, but he’d been present when this happened. He knew what he was talking about.

“And she what? Beat the hell out of herself?” he asked.

“Actually, I think you helped her out on that count.” Frank grinned and, though Cody was in no mood to grin back, it made him less annoyed. Slightly.

“What do you think, Cap?” Tom asked.

The captain was scrutinizing Cody, but Cody met his gaze. He had nothing to hide.

“I think we ought to forego any concrete conclusions until we have the evidence to back them up. Maybe something very strange is going on here; maybe there’s an explanation. Maybe this has nothing to do with the Shakespeare case; maybe Alex is a little crazy. Let’s just take the evidence one piece at a time. Cody, go to the hospital and take a formal statement from both Alex and her doctors. Frank, Court, follow up with the CSI report first thing in the morning. Tom, go home. Your wife always gives me an earful about your heart condition when I keep you up all night. We’ll have a meeting tomorrow morning.”

“You mean
this
morning, Cap?” Frank asked, staring pointedly at his watch.

Cody glanced down. It was nearly three a.m.

The captain stared at Frank blankly for a few long seconds, then without a word, turned on his toe and walked to his car. The others headed for their respective vehicles.

Frank turned to Cody, hesitating. “Are you pissed at me?”

Cody sighed, letting his chin rest on his chest for a moment. “No. Sorry, man. Just coming down off an adrenaline high, I think.”

Frank grinned. “I been there. I don’t know how women do it every month.”

Cody stared at Frank. “They don’t have
adrenaline
once a month, Frank.”

Frank shrugged. “Same diff. Anyway, I was just making a joke at your expense. I know you’d never jeopardize a case for a pretty girl.” With a floppy grin, Frank hurried toward his own car.

Cody smiled after his friend, but if felt forced, and Cody wondered why. Nothing was going on between him and Alex, so the jokes shouldn’t bother him. Feeling troubled, Cody got into his jeep and headed for the hospital.

Alex
lay on a gurney in the emergency room. IVs sprouted from both her arms and her shirt had been replaced with a hospital gown, though she still wore her jeans, which had a large tear in the front right thigh. At least the uncomfortable c-collar had been removed.

When Cody breezed through the swinging doors into the trauma room, she sat up.

“Please.” He put a hand up. “Take it easy.”

She croaked rather than speaking. “The doctors say I’ll be fine. No head or neck injuries.”

He looked relieved, but when he came up directly beside her, his frown returned, deeper this time. She knew why. After the c-collar had come off, she’d been allowed to use the restroom, which had a mirror. Under the harsh ER lights, her injuries looked more pronounced. Her eyes were both red and black-rimmed. The red was from crying. The black was because she had been beaten about the face, and developed raccoon eyes as a result. Redness, blemishes, and scratch marks covered her face, neck, and shoulders as well as her hands and arms. And finger-shaped bruises stretched around her throat.

Suddenly, Cody looked uncomfortable. “I’m here to take your statement, but if you want me to come back, so you can rest . . .”

She shook her head. “I should tell you now while it’s fresh.”

Cody found a stool underneath a fluorescent x-ray reader and dragged it noisily over to Alex’s bedside. “Tell me,” he said.

“I was sitting on the hood of my car, waiting for you.”

Cody pulled out his notebook.

“And he came up behind me in that ancient squad car.”

Cody’s thumb was poised to click his pen but it froze in the air above the clicker.

“He was in a squad car again?”

“Yes.”

“What did it look like?”

“Old, boxy, with a boat on the front.”

Cody thought about that for a moment before nodding.

“What is it?” Alex asked.

“That makes a bit more sense. This guy could more easily be impersonating a cop with an ancient cruiser. It wouldn’t be simple to steal and replace one that was being used. If he’s restored one that’s been out of commission for years, no one would miss it.”

She told him everything the cop had said, and how he’d fixated on her bracelet again, and finally, how he’d smashed her head into the window, knocking her out.

“Where were you when you came to?”

“In his car. I was in the front seat and he was driving.”

He nodded. “Go on.”

Alex came awake by degrees. The ground below her rumbled violently and an engine in desperate need of a new muffler roared in her ear. She had no idea where she was, but as her eyes slowly opened, she registered the dull throb in her head and the large vomit-smelling cop in the front seat. It all came crashing back to her.

She panicked, lunging for the car door. She yanked the lever back twenty times, but the door didn’t budge. Of course it didn’t. This was a police cruiser. The back doors were criminal proofed. There was no grate between the front and back seat, but whether because the older cruisers didn’t have that feature or because her assailant had removed it, she didn’t know.

Her next thought was to try to crash the car. She lunged for the wheel, and actually managed to grab it, but that was as far as she got. One gargantuan fist came around and hit her squarely in the face. The impact was enough to slam her against the back seat and keep her there for several minutes while the interior of the car gyrated around her.

When they came to a stop, she told herself to think rationally. She wasn’t even tied up, which meant he was confident she couldn’t get away. Considering the back doors of the cruiser, he was right to be cocky. The front doors, though . . .

She’d have to move quickly. Alex took a few deep breaths to clear her head, but she didn’t dare wait until it was entirely clear. The car was moving fast—probably thirty or forty miles per hour—and each second took her farther away from civilization.

She flipped onto her stomach and pulled her knees up under her, but kept her chest on the seat so that he wouldn’t suspect she was about to pounce. All in one motion, she threw herself over the seat and into the front beside him, lunging for the door.

Something sharp dug into her shoulders and arms as she went over, and she had the far away thought that perhaps the grate had been cut out after all, leaving behind tiny, biting nails.

Her blitz action took him by surprise. He inhaled sharply and leaned away from her.

As soon as her torso found the front seat, she reached up and grabbed the lever on the door, swinging it wide open, while simultaneously kicking with her feet. She grabbed the metal that made up the top of the door and used it to pull herself toward the exit, until her head and shoulders were outside the car, looking across the roof.

By then, Psychocop had recovered and wrapped his right arm around her knees. His grip was as uncompromising as cement. She could still kick with her feet but her knees wouldn’t budge. She kicked as hard as she could, and even connected with flesh a couple of times, but the hold around her knees remained locked. Her fingers were slipping on the metal.

With a sharp yank he pulled her back into the car. Reaching over with one long arm, he wrapped fat, solid fingers around her throat. He was trying to pinch off her airway, to make her pass out again.

Alex wanted to put her thumbs through his eyes, but his arm was too long, and she couldn’t get her hands anywhere near his face. She lashed out with her feet and landed a solid kick, which made him release her throat, but her legs were still practically across his lap. She twisted around on the seat, pulling herself toward the door, then around again so she could see him. She did a one-two punch with her feet. The one he evaded easily; the two connected solidly with the nape of his neck, throwing his head into the steering wheel. The horn let out a staccato
honk.
It was enough of a distraction for Alex kick her way out of the car.

The next step was letting go. During their struggle, the car had slowed considerably, but it was still moving faster than she would have liked. If she broke a leg, she’d never get away from him. For some reason, it didn’t occur to him to use speed to keep her in the car.

The next moment he lunged across the seat, trying to grab her again. She hung onto the top of the door, feet dragging on the ground. If he grabbed her again, her chances of getting away were slim to none.

He lunged for her. She let go.

She didn’t so much feel the impact of her body on the ground as of her organs against her ribs. The thump was solid and jelly-like at the same time, and left her stomach heaving.

For an instant, the black star-strewn sky became a brilliant white with shades of gray at the corners. As it faded back to black, Alex knew she needed to run. She couldn’t remember why, only that she did.

The sound of tires braking on gravel spurred her into action, and she rolled onto her stomach. It took a few seconds to get to her feet, but once she did, her head cleared almost immediately, and she found herself sprinting.

She ran along the foot of a dark, towering mountain for perhaps a hundred yards before his harsh headlights threw her shadow out in front of her. She was on foot; he was not. There was no way she could outrun him.

Then, off to her left, she saw something: bobbing lights. Headlights! Another car. She didn’t know who was in it—she didn’t dare hope it was anyone coming to her rescue—but she didn’t think anyone could be worse than the guy that had just abducted her. It could be campers or thrill seekers out for some midnight four-wheeling.

Whoever they were, they could help her. She had to get their attention.

With a new goal and possible salvation in mind, Alex found a second wind and ran with everything she had for the lights. She knew she wouldn’t reach the path the vehicle was on in time to signal them. She could only hope that perhaps she would get there at the same time and manage to slap the back window.

To her surprise, she did make it out in front of the vehicle—not a four-wheeler after all—and had to jump up to avoid braking her knees on the front of the car. She did, and went up over the hood and across the driver’s side window.

Another sickening thump. When she looked up, it was into the eyes of Detective Cody Oliver.

“And he didn’t say
any
thing?” Cody asked.

“In the car? No. He was sort of . . . eerily silent. But before . . .”

Cody quirked an eyebrow. “What?”

“He called me Cordelia. I’m pretty sure he did that four years ago, too.”

“Why would he call you that?”

“You think I know?”

“That wasn’t in the report.”

“I’m sure I didn’t tell you. I didn’t register it before, but when he said it tonight, I remembered him saying it last time. Do you think he’s mistaking me for someone else?”

“It’s possible,” Cody admitted. “Though probably not in the way you’re thinking.”