Murder 42 - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries Book 2) (20 page)
Read Murder 42 - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries Book 2) Online
Authors: Victor Methos
46
Light faded to dark and built up to light again.
Sarah was in and out, in and out. She answered questions, she felt people tugging at her, and she finally ended up in a recovery room. The blade had missed most major organs and pierced her stomach. Internal bleeding and infection were the major concern, and the surgeons went in to suture the wounds.
She couldn’t eat the first day, and after that she could only have ice chips. But it didn’t matter. She was on so much pain medication that she wouldn’t have been able to keep anything down anyway. Stefan came and saw her first. He sat next to her in a chair, and they watched television. Once, he reached over and held her hand. She was too loopy to say anything.
Then, one day, Gio came.
He stood over her, smiled, then leaned down and kissed her cheek.
“I missed you,” she said. “We never should’ve let anything get in the way.”
“No, we shouldn’t have.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Sarah.” He leaned over and kissed her again, a long time. She had never felt safer than in his arms. “Goodbye.”
“What?” she said. “What do you mean?”
And just like that, he was gone.
Sarah began to cry.
Eight days into her hospital stay she was coherent, and the pain medication was more a dull sensation of lightness in the back of her mind. It didn’t overpower her anymore. Stefan came in with a cup of ice cream and a smile on his face.
“You can finally eat something real,” he said.
“Gio’s dead, isn’t he?”
Stefan lost his smile. He set the cup down on the table and sat on the edge of the bed. “You were right about the apartment,” he said. “But it was too late.”
“How’d he die?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What did he do with him, Stefan?”
Stefan looked down at the linoleum floor. “He, um… cut him up. Cut him up really bad.”
Sarah was silent a moment. “He made a statue, didn’t he?”
Stefan looked at her. “Yes. Partly him, partly clay.”
She nodded. “I’ve seen it since I’ve been here. He wanted to capture Gio’s beauty. To never have it fade.”
Stefan stood up. “I can’t handle this shit. I don’t know if I… I don’t know what the next step is. I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”
“No, you’re good at this. Don’t let it stop you.”
“What?”
“That feeling that it’s overwhelming. That no matter how hard you work, nothing changes. It might just be a drop in the bucket, but if you didn’t do it, the bucket would have one less drop.”
“I don’t know… I don’t know.” He came to her side and kissed her forehead before heading to the door. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Enjoy your ice cream.”
When she was alone, Sarah turned her head to the window. Outside, the California sun shone down on the city brightly, illuminating everything. There would be dark corners where the light couldn’t reach, there always would be, but that was the secret of the sun: no matter how much darkness there was, it would always scatter to the light.
A tear rolled down her cheek. “Goodbye,” she whispered.
EPILOGUE
The recovery had gone well. Sarah had stayed in the hospital two weeks, far longer than she ever thought she would, and she was ready to leave. She could walk on her own now with little pain. Her doctor, a Persian woman named Guli, promised that she would be discharged in about an hour. Stefan was on his way down to take her to the best restaurant around for some real food.
As she sat on the bed to slip on her shoes, someone knocked softly at her door.
“Come in,” she said.
A man entered. He wore a black suit and had a deep tan, with long blonde hair that came down in a ponytail. He had bright eyes almost like crystals, and he smiled and sat down in a chair across from her. He folded one leg over the other and said, “Hello, Sarah.”
Something about the way he said it, as though he knew her intimately, struck her as odd. She let her shoes drop to the floor and held his gaze. “Who are you?”
“My name is Friedrich, and I’m here to offer you a position.”
“Position for what?”
“I work with a very special group of people—one that I believe would be interested in your very special talents.”
She was silent a second. “Who are you?”
He smiled. “I think we should talk about your future and all the great things you can do with your particular skill set, my dear. First, go have your meal with Agent Miles. Then, I’ll come see you again.” He rose and strode to the door. At the last moment, he stopped and turned to her. “Sarah, I know you feel like you’re alone, but you’re not. There are others in the world who are exactly like you. I’ll introduce you to them. But for now, go have some fun,” he said, winking at her.
When he was gone, she sat stunned a moment and then hopped off the bed and went out into the hall. She looked both ways, but the man was already gone.
“Excuse me,” she said to one of the nurses standing just outside. “Did you see where that man went?”
“What man, dear?”
“The man in the black suit who was in my room?”
The nurse looked at her other co-worker and back to Sarah. “I’ve been out here about five minutes, sweetie. Nobody’s been in your room.”
“No, just now. He left.”
“I’m sorry, you’re the first person to come out of your room that I’ve seen.”
Sarah stood there a moment, then took a step back, and leaned against the wall. She had a feeling her life was about to get a lot more interesting.
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Please note that this is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All events in this work are purely from the imagination of the author and are not intended to signify, represent, or reenact any event in actual fact.