Shadow Dancer (The Shadow Series Book 1) (27 page)

DiNolfo continued scanning the apartment, careful not to touch anything. She opened the bathroom door and ripped back the shower curtain, but there was no one there. Her senses had risen to an alert state. She listened intently, trying to determine if she was alone. She could hear construction workers talking outside. A bird chirping on a telephone wire. She could hear her heart beating and her lungs taking in the stale air. She was definitely alone. A bit more relaxed, she moved to the door at the back of the apartment. She assumed this would lead to a bedroom. She was right. A barren room with no furniture and black-out curtains. This was so bizarre.
Who lives like this?
She pulled a curtain to allow the sun to shine in, giving the room some light. Finally, she turned around and shock hit her like a ton of bricks.

All across the far wall of the bedroom nearest the door was a collage of pictures. From floor to ceiling, photographs of a dark haired woman. DiNolfo approached the wall slowly, suddenly realizing that it wasn’t just pictures of Catherine on the wall, but pictures of Tristan too. Hundreds of pictures cut out and pinned on the wall. Scanning the wall, she stood in disbelief. Bernard Kendricks was a Grade A stalker, and he wasn’t just obsessed with Catherine. She wished she had remembered her camera now. She now knew, without a shadow of a doubt, whom they were looking for.

* * *

Tristan was still staring out her hospital window when the orderly arrived. She took in the black messy hair that fell around his face, wire rim glasses over his eyes, not really bothering to take in his face. She had more important things to worry about.
The man didn't say a word, just pushed her slowly down the hallway to the double doors of the Emergency Room. He pushed a red button on the wall, and the doors swung open. Quietly, they maneuvered the hallways, the sound of rubber wheels moving steadily against the dated linoleum floor. Tristan allowed her thoughts to relax. She would be safe now… wouldn't she? She did the impossible. She got away, and Dr. Branson did seem awfully sure of his hospital's safety standards. Maybe it was okay to finally relax. She closed her eyes and let the repetitive sound of the wheels send her mind into a calmer state.

Several minutes had passed and they were still maneuvering through the hallways.

How far was the Radiology department?

She looked to her left at the sign on the wall that read Radiology with
an arrow pointing left. This must be a really large hospital. But then, when the hospital bed continued going straight, she began to worry.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Just around this corner,” the orderly said in a hoarse voice.

“Radiology was back that way.”

“We have to go this way first.”

Tristan laid
back down on her bed, and decided to trust the orderly. It was not his fault that she was on edge. She closed her eyes trying to relax again, but for some reason, her body wouldn't allow it. Sure, she had been through a lot, but there was something her subconscious was trying to tell her. It was screaming at her: “Wake up!”

Suddenly, Tristan opened her eyes and looked up at the orderly. He looked familiar, and she couldn't pinpoint from where. She stared up at him, pretending to look at the ceiling. She watched as the orderly continued to push her down the hallway, a serious look furrowing his brow. At one point he reached up with his right hand to scratch his nose. Concealing his face, it was his eyes that caught her. She knew those eyes, and no disguise, no matter how drastic could hide them. Behind the tinted contact lenses, hair dye, and fake tan, Tristan Morrow saw right through Bernard Kendricks’ disguise.

She leapt off of the hospital bed, pushing it towards Kendricks, knocking him over as she limped as quickly as she could down the hallway. She yelled for help, but she now noticed that he had led her to a section of the hospital that was under renovation. The construction crew was out to lunch, apparently. How convenient for him. She continued limping down the hallway, until she couldn't bare anymore weight on her leg. She hid behind a quiet corner far down the hall, foolishly hoping he had given up the chase. She knew he wouldn't, but she could still hope. She stood there quietly for a moment just listening, but the sound of her heart was the only audible thing she could hear. Slowly, she crept to the corner hoping to get a glimpse of the hallway, hoping that he was still on the ground where she left him. She grabbed the edges of the wall with her fingers and pulled herself so that she could peak around the corner. She would not get the glimpse she sought. The second she looked around the corner, he was there, his hand over her mouth, his other around her midsection dragging her swiftly down the hallway and towards the exit door that glared violently with sunlight at the far end of the corridor.

Try as he might to conceal her scream, a horrible shriek escaped from her lungs. It bounced off of everything, from floor to ceiling, echoing down the corridor and into the other arteries of the hospital. Though lessening with power with each square inch, the sound reached the person she intended.

* * *

Jack continued to sit in the waiting room in agonizing, excruciating pain. He hated to wait, but waiting to see his daughter after such an ordeal was absolute torture. He sat there, flicking through an Adventurer Travel magazine, not paying any mind to the words just glancing at the pictures and flicking the pages loudly, hoping to catch the eye of a sympathetic nurse or doctor, but none of them paid him any attention. He continued flicking through a feature about farmers in Sweden when he heard the sound. A bone-rattling, teeth-clenching death curdle of a scream. He had heard this scream only once before, when Tristan had broken her leg when she was thrown from her horse a few years back. He recognized her voice immediately, even at maximum register. Tristan sounded desperate. She was in trouble.

Tossing his magazine onto the floor, Jack ran as hard and as fast as a six-foot five-inch man could run with arthritis of the knee. He barreled down the hallway towards the source of the scream. A security guard followed behind him, walking quickly, with his hand on his belt.

“Sir! You can't go back there!”

Jack ignored him, hell-bent on finding where the noise came from. It was faint, so it wasn't from her room, or the radiology department which was directly down the hall. Being an expert hunter, he was used to memorizing sounds, tracking patterns, determining the source of a sound. He allowed this part of him to take over, not allowing anyone or anything to slow him down. He had a guard and a nurse chasing behind him, trying to stop him from going into the restricted area that was considered a hard hat construction zone.

“Sir, please! Let us check the noise out! It's too dangerous!”

Jack continued to ignore them, plowing through the double doors that led to the temporarily closed psychiatric ward at St. Benedict’s Hospital for the Infirm. All of them, even the guard, halted at the doors, and watched as Jack ran down the hall towards a strange silhouette just under the exit sign.

“Let her go!” Jack said, grabbing his gun out of his holster.

Kendricks had a firm grasp on Tristan, holding her across her collar bone with one hand, and the other firmly holding his pistol in the air with the other, as he hid his body behind Tristan's.

“Not a chance.”

“Let her go before you get yourself shot!”

Kendricks raised an eyebrow as a laugh escaped from his mouth.

“Let go of my daughter!” screamed Jack. Kendricks, no longer smiling, bolted for the door, dragging Tristan along. She kicked her good leg, and attempted to bite Kendricks on the arm that was secured across her collarbone, but it did no good. Kendricks refused to halt until he heard an ominous sound from behind him. Jack had cocked his gun, aimed right at Kendricks' head. He would just need to squeeze his trigger finger an eighth of an inch, and a bullet would be lodged in Kendricks’ skull.

Kendricks called his bluff. Swiftly, he squeezed his trigger before Jack could, sending a bullet flying, whirring and blurred through the hallway, and square into Jack's right leg, effectively shattering his knee cap, rendering him momentarily useless. He didn't even wait to see Jack's grimace or see him fall to the ground, he bounded through the exit doors, hauling a crying and screaming Tristan behind him.

“No! Dad!!!”

Tristan couldn't breathe. She watched as her father fell to the ground, his leg blown out from underneath him, his face grimacing in pain. Still, he tried to get to his feet but couldn't, screaming Tristan's name as she was dragged against her will through the exit door, taken from him again. The nurse and the security guard had begun to make their way back to the security desk to contact the police when they heard the sound of the gun shot. Wide-eyed and afraid, they looked at each other, and the nurse ran to call the police, as the security officer ran towards the sound of the shot.

Jack mustered every ounce of strength in his body as he pushed his body to the wall. Pushing up with his arms and good leg, he got onto his feet, slowly moving forward, gun in hand, pushing forward towards the double exit doors. Each movement was excruciating; each second felt like an eternity. Finally, he got to the double doors and pushed them open violently, as blood gushed from his leg and the color escaped from his face. He watched as Kendricks brutally shoved Tristan in the backseat of an old gold Nova, yelling at her to shut up and get down as she tried to fight back. Jack couldn't move any further. He was losing too much blood, and he felt dizzy and as if he would faint at any moment. As Kendricks slammed the driver side door to the Nova, Jack let out a murderous scream, “I will find you, and I will kill you! I will break every bone in your body! If she is harmed, you will wish you were never born!”

Kendricks watched Jack from his rear-view mirror, as his death threat was made, a dread took over his heart, despite the nonchalant look on his face as if he was unfazed. He watched as a monstrous look grew across Jack's face. Shaking the unpleasant feeling, Kendricks kicked his weight into the gas pedal, and Jack watched as the gold Nova fled from the parking lot with his daughter, who was pounding on the glass, hoping to break free as tears streamed down her terrified face.

Chapter Sixteen

Escape Artist

Somewhere on I-80, Western Pennsylvania

October 9, 1997
 

“
I don't know why you insist on making things so difficult, Catherine...” said Kendricks in a calm and charming voice that did not fool Tristan. She rolled her eyes at the name, only becoming more agitated by the second. She sat in the back seat of the Nova bound at the wrists, now dressed in a pair of ratty jeans and blue t-shirt with paint spatter that she kept in the coat closet at school for art days. Kendricks had taken the clothing from the coat room on his last day at Steeplechase, fully aware of what he planned to do in the early morning hours of October the eighth.

Anger raged inside of Tristan. She was waiting for the perfect moment to strike. She had no idea where he was taking her, but she became more nauseated with each passing mile marker on the highway. The car was barreling westward on I-80, and Tristan had been listening to his neurotic rambling for some time now.

“My name is
not
Catherine.” Tristan said, gritting her teeth.

Ignoring her, Kendricks continued, “We could have been all settled in by now. South Dakota is a lovely state, you know. Lots of wildlife and open space, quite like Fox Hollow, but without all the distractions.”

“I'm not going to South Dakota, and my name is not Catherine!” Tristan insisted, getting angrier with each passing second.

“You will of course have to decide what your name will be when we get there. He will look for us, of course. At least for a while. He will eventually give up. And while I love your name, Catherine, I must insist that we take on new identities. For our own protection.”

Tristan, scratching at her sore wrists and aching leg, had about enough of Bernard Kendricks’ psychotic ramblings. Did this lunatic actually think she was her mother? Slowly, she had begun to cut through her bindings using the sharp edge of the rusted track under the driver's seat. She did so slowly, and before they left the state line, she would make her move. She had to.