Sinful Suspense Box Set (49 page)

My stomach knotted. I swallowed back a bitter taste that was a mix of fear, adrenaline and the metallic scent of blood. Sugar, the name flashed through my brain like a bolt of light. Where the hell was Sugar?

The guy reached for my leg, and I turned on him. I pounded him. I was back in the locker room, plowing my fist into Alex Yardley’s face. Only this guy wasn’t a school bully.  He’d slit the throat of a woman, a woman who’d spent her work day trying to help others out of the ditches they’d dug for themselves, a woman who didn’t deserve the end she’d just been handed. My knuckles hit bone the first few rounds. Then it felt as if I was punching a bag of gravel. Then sand. Blood was smeared all the way up my arm to my elbow. I hit him over and over, even though he was as limp as a rag doll in my grasp now. I had to mentally yank myself out of the trance I’d sunk into, the dark state of mind where it seemed this guy’s death was the only appropriate response to Dr. Kirkendall’s violent murder. Sugar, I reminded myself. Make sure Sugar is all right.

I gave the man’s half-mutilated face one more hit. He slumped back against the chair and folded over to the ground. I had no idea if he was alive or dead. I didn’t give a fuck either way. My knuckles were numb from pummeling the guy and a sharp pain shot through my shoulder as I shook some of the blood off my hand.

I stepped into the hallway. It was quiet and deserted and clean, a complete contradiction to the horrid carnage I’d just left behind in the doctor’s office. I needed to find Sugar and get to Nurse Greene, so she could call the police. As I ran toward Sugar’s door, I heard that tiny muffled sound again. It was coming from the front room. Like in a nightmare, the hallway seemed to stretch on forever, and my feet felt as if they were filled with lead. I ran past the closed doors of the other residents, most of them sleeping peacefully in their beds, with no idea of what was happening right outside their rooms.

I glanced back to make sure the murderer hadn’t somehow miraculously recouped from the beating I’d just given him. My red shoe prints covered the white tile floor. I flew around the corner and my stomach tightened again. Nurse Greene was draped over her desk unconscious or dead. Blood stained the back of her head.

My own bloodied hand shook with fear and fatigue as I reached for her arm. It was still warm. Her back rose and fell with a breath. She was alive, but barely, it seemed. A whimper behind me made me freeze. Slowly, I turned toward the farthest corner. Frank’s big head jutted up above the top of a tall file cabinet. He stepped out. His massive hand was over Sugar’s mouth. He had a pistol pressed against her temple. Her eyes and nose were red from crying, and the color had washed from her face.

She clutched at Frank’s arm, but it was futile. He had an iron grasp on her.

My heart slammed against my ribs as I lifted my hands up in surrender. “Let her go, man. Whatever the fuck this is, she’s got nothing to do with it.”

“You’re both here, so you’ve both got something to do with it now,” he sneered. Apparently, Sugar and I had stepped into his murder plot and messed things up. What I couldn’t figure out was what the hell the motive might have been. Had Kirkendall crossed him at some point? That explanation seemed farfetched. He moved his hand from Sugar’s mouth but kept his arm around her shoulders. The gun stayed pressed against her head.

I looked at her and the terror in her face sent a jolt of pain through my stomach. “Tommy,” my name pillowed out from her lips on a wavering breath, and tears fell from her eyes.

“I’m here, baby.”  I tried like hell to sound reassuring, but it was hard. After seeing what had happened to Kirkendall, I knew these guys had already signed their tickets to life in prison. A few more bodies weren’t going to make a difference. “Look, switch me for her,” I suggested. “Put the gun against my head. Let her go. If you let her go, you’ll still have a chance to get out of here alive.”

Frank’s big face twisted with a cold laugh. “I’ll be getting out alive. I’ll just have to leave behind more victims than I’d planned.”

I stepped closer, and he tightened his grip on Sugar. I stopped and shook my head. “No, see, I wouldn’t be so sure.” I spoke calmly, and as pissed as I was that he had a gun against Sugar’s head, my humiliating stutter stayed in control. It wasn’t the time to show weakness of any kind, except for the weakness I had when it came to Sugar. That, I had no control over. “Because if you hurt her, I will fucking tear you apart. Long before you can turn that gun on me, I will have you bleeding out of those giant fucking ears of yours. If you don’t believe me, then go check in on your partner.”

The mention of his partner hit a nerve. “Where is he?” he barked.

“He’s probably where I left him, in Dr. Kirkendall’s office struggling to take a breath out of what was left of his jaw, since I basically dissolved his nose with my fist.” I lifted my bloodstained hand.

Frank’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a fucking liar,” he hissed.

“Really?” I looked back toward the hallway. “Then where the hell is he?”

His eyes flitted nervously toward the hallway. “Fuck.”

“Like I said, if you shoot her, I will kill you. I don’t care how big you are, you harm her, I will fucking pulverize every bone in that big ugly mug of yours until you can’t breathe, or swallow, or see, or hear. Your head will just be like a big, bloody blob of meat at the end of your neck. How do you think I ended up here in the first place?” I winked at him. “Anger issues, you know?”

The guy was obviously stunned at how badly this whole thing had gone. It seemed from the small tic in his cheek as he looked at me, he was trying to decide if I was full of shit or actually capable of grinding him into cake flour.

“Look, I’ll make it easy.” I put my hands behind my head, a position of surrender I knew well, unfortunately. “Just switch the gun over to my head and let her go.” I had no idea where the situation would go from here, but taking Sugar out of the line of fire was all I cared about. I’d be able to think clearer, maybe find a way out of this.

He tightened his hold on Sugar as I moved closer to him with my hands behind my head. I worried for an icy cold second that he was going to go for it, shoot Sugar and see how quickly he could take me out too.

The guy was even bigger up close. “Turn around,” he ordered.

Without dropping my hands, I shuffled around to face the hallway. It was still serene and quiet as it might have been on any long summer night. The only thing that stood out as wrong was Nurse Greene collapsed over her desk. If not for the blood stain on the back of her head and tiny river of red staining her white coat, she could have just been sleeping.

The hard metal rim of the gun barrel pressed against my temple. “You’ve got me. Let her go to her room. There are no phones inside, so she can’t call anyone.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw his big arm drop down. Sugar pushed free. Her face was smooth and white as she spun around to look at me.

“Go, Sugar.”

“Uh, no you don’t,” Frank said, twisting my skin in the gun barrel as he ground it against my head. “If you run, I shoot him.”

I looked at her hard, as if we were standing in a room alone and there was no gun against my head. “Get out of here.”

She shook her head. “I won’t leave you, Tommy.” Her whole body shuddered as she spoke.

I looked at her, trying to speak with my eyes, my expression, telling her to get the hell away, but she didn’t budge.

“It’s only a matter of time before someone else comes out of their room for a snack or an aspirin. What the hell are you going to do? Kill everyone in your path? Your accomplice isn’t going anywhere that an ambulance can’t take him to, I promise you that. He’s toast. Get the fuck out of here. We’ll give you a head start before we call someone.”

His breath smelled like beer as he laughed, the gun tapping my head with the movement. “That’s fucking funny, the guy with the gun against his head is giving the orders.”

I closed my eyes for a second, wishing that when I opened them it would all be gone, that Sugar and I were back in my room finishing that kiss that never got started.

Sugar wrapped her arms around herself. It did little to stop the shaking. Tears rolled from her blue eyes.

“Sugar,” I lowered my voice as if that would keep the man who was standing next to me from hearing, “baby, please go. It’ll be fine.”

I winced as Frank ground the gun against my temple. “I’ll shoot his head off with your first step.”

We stood there in a deadlock that would have to end with someone dead or hurt badly. My mind darted back and forth looking for a solution, but the dick standing next to me was lacking compassion and common sense. Or maybe it was common sense telling him he was screwed either way, so he might as well shoot the jerk standing at the end of his gun.

“Why Kirkendall?” I asked, deciding that buying time was our only chance. “I mean why murder her?”

“That’s what happens to overly curious people,” Frank said tersely. “People like you who don’t mind their own fucking business.”

A noise in the hallway made us all freeze. He pushed the gun harder against my head. I shut my eyes wondering how much pain I would feel when my skull blew apart. I opened them again. My throat was dry as I spoke. “Sugar, if he pulls this trigger, you fucking run.” My voice broke.

“Tommy,” she cried.

“Do you fucking hear me? You r-r-run and get the hell out of here.”

The lights went out. Blackness sucked into the room. The lack of sound meant the power was down. It was my chance. I swung my hand back and knocked the gun from my head. It clanged against the file cabinet and smacked the tile floor. Out of the shadows, Frank’s massive arm came at me with a balled fist. He clipped the side of my head as I ducked out of the way. I stumbled sideways and caught myself on the cabinet.

Even in the dark, my target was hard to miss. He was coming at me like a brick wall. I kicked out and my foot made contact with his leg. He grunted in pain. I’d managed to hit his knee or shin because it stopped him short. As my eyes adjusted to what was a complete lack of light, I saw Sugar’s thin silhouette standing nearby. I reached for her hand and dragged her out of the room before Frank could recover from the kick.

It was fucking dark, but we knew the place well enough to fumble our way through the blackness. Pushed by adrenaline and the utter shock that we had just been saved by an unexplained power outage, we ran down the hall and past the grisly scene in Dr. Kirkendall’s office. I could only assume that her murderer was still lying there in his own pool of blood, unconscious or maybe even dead.

I knew by distance when we’d reached my room. Sugar had a tight hold of my hand. As I reached for the door, I sensed someone come up behind us. I spun around and shoved Sugar behind me. A tiny light flicked on. Julian’s shadowy face appeared in the faint glow. He was holding a penlight. His laptop was tucked under his arm.

“Get in your room,” he said in a confident, authoritative tone that sparked me into action. The three of us ducked inside. There were simple locks on the doors, but for safety reasons, staff members had the master key. There was no way to keep Frank out if he wanted in. I hoped he had been smart enough to run, but now, of course, he had witnesses to testify against him in court.

Sugar held onto my arm with cold, trembling fingers as if she would never let it go. Julian opened his laptop for some light. He still had on his hat, but the solid, grim expression had gone. He was focused and alert, almost as if the prospect of danger and intrigue had snapped him out of the dark mood.

“I came around the corner and saw Nurse Greene draped over her desk.” Julian looked at me. “Was she dead, Tommy?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Frank hit her on the back of the head with the butt of his gun,” Sugar’s voice broke on the last word. “I threw the popcorn away. Then I heard a sound coming from the front desk.” She sniffled. I took my arm from her grasp and put it around her. She was shaking almost uncontrollably. “I thought I would go say hello to Nurse Greene. As I stepped around the corner, Frank hit her. That’s when he grabbed me.” She wiped at the tears on her cheek. “I didn’t know Dr. Kirkendall was dead.”

Julian’s mouth dropped. It was rare to see his face rich with emotion, but it was there, even in the mostly dark room, I could see it, shock, horror, possibly even sadness. “Dr. Kirkendall is dead?”

“Stabbed to death. I beat the murderer senseless, but Frank is the one with the gun. What should we do?” It was strange. Julian’s moods sometimes shifted from kidlike to cranky old man, from manic to grim, from calm to paranoid, and yet, I wanted his direction. I knew he would consider the facts and come up with something. Because, underneath the complicated layers of personality, the guy was fucking brilliant. He’d seen us in trouble and in seconds had come up with a plan to help. He’d turned off the lights. That was all it took to get us out from under Frank’s deadly plan.

“At the moment, we’re sort of in a post-apocalyptic situation. I cut off the power to blind our attacker, but it has also cut us off from the outside world, and help. I knew that man was dangerous the first moment I set eyes upon him. He seems like a fool too, but stupid and dangerous is the worst combination. The gates are unlocked. We need to get out of here, and quietly, so we don’t wake anyone else. If someone else stumbles out into this mess, they’ll be in danger too.” He was logical and calm and analyzing the situation with ease, enthusiasm even. We’d stepped into a computer game, and he was amped up about winning. 

I grabbed my wallet from my nightstand and plucked my sweatshirt off of the chair. I handed it to Sugar. She pulled it on. I went to the door and poked my head out. All was calm, as if we’d all just been imagining this whole thing. Frank was nowhere in sight, but we couldn’t be sure that he had fled yet. Julian doused his light and Sugar took hold of my hand.

We crept down the empty hallway. Adrenaline pumped through our veins like three kids who’d just stepped into one of those make-believe haunted houses where you were just waiting for a monster to jump out from the dark and grab you.

The acrid smell of blood wafted out from Kirkendall’s office. I wondered briefly if she had any other family besides the dad she’d mentioned. I hoped there were more people to mourn her than the people at Green Willow, who she’d tried to help.

I led the way and Julian had taken up the rear, with Sugar sandwiched in between. This whole evening, starting with the moments alone with her in my room, before any of this nightmare had begun, had solidified in my head that we belonged to each other. We were connected now more than ever. In these few short months of knowing her, I had not just fallen in love with her, she’d become part of my soul, my existence.

Then, as if my earlier visions about the haunted fun house had come true, a bloodied figure stepped out of the office. Sugar gasped. It was Kirkendall’s murderer. Looking eerily similar to a character from a zombie movie, he groaned through gritted teeth and lunged at me.

He was unstable and had lost a good amount of blood. One shove with both hands sent him flying back into the office. A thud and grunt of pain followed. We continued toward the doors. Sugar was huddled so close to me, her shoes kept tapping my heels.

Frank hadn’t come back for his accomplice. It seemed he had fled, which was the best scenario we could hope for. Julian pointed his tiny light at Nurse Greene’s desk. She was still there in the same position. I didn’t need medical training to know that wasn’t a good sign.

I stopped before we reached the doors. “Maybe we should find a phone. I think Frank is gone.”

Julian glanced around as if he had figured out the key to night vision. “Right. The cell phones are behind a padlock. Stupid rule and I’ve mentioned that to my father more than once.” He slid out the laptop from under his arm and opened it up. After the complete darkness, the light from the monitor was harsh enough to make him squint at the screen. “I’ll turn the power back on.”

“I’m going to check on Nurse Greene.” Sugar started walking toward the nurse’s station but stopped suddenly. She spun back around. “He’s still here!”

I grabbed her hand, and we ran toward the doors. From the corner of my eye, just before Julian closed his laptop, killing the light, I saw Frank emerge from the back corner.

We pushed through the doors and out into the yard. The night sky was clear, and the stars and half-moon gave off enough light that we could find our way easily. Unfortunately, it also made us clear targets for a man with a gun.