Stalker (39 page)

Cindy saw the copters close ranks, hovering above until she felt the breeze of the rotors as well as the heat of searchlights. If she squinted to avoid the glare, she could actually make out the faces of the sharpshooters in position. The sound was deafening, almost blasting out the roar of the upcoming sirens. Almost…but not quite.

Seconds later, she could hear words coming through the
megaphone! They were surrounded, he should let go of her and give himself up or they’d shoot—something like that. Perhaps that’s what she thought they should say from all the movies she had watched. She really couldn’t understand anything too well because not only was she stunned by the fear that prevented her brain from processing too much, but also the orders were coming fast and furious.

Tropper paid them no heed. Successfully reaching the car, he yanked opened the driver’s door, shoving her inside first, then slid behind the wheel. Within moments, he gunned the engine and sped deep into the forest.

The helicopters’ searchlights continued to follow them through the overgrown maze of flora, streaking like comets through the sky. Ironically, the illumination made it easier for Tropper to see in the dark. He depressed the accelerator, causing the car to fly forward. Cindy screamed as the car skidded, barely keeping contact with the soft dirt road that was more like a hiking trail. In the rearview mirror, she could make out the blue and red strobic blinks from the cruisers’ bar lights, the beacons inside going around and around and around. They remained several car lengths behind.

Tropper increased the speed, trees whizzing by them. One wrong move and they’d be smashed beyond recognition.

“Oh my God!” Cindy panicked as her heart beat out of control. “Oh my God, oh my God—”

“Shut up!” Tropper snapped back.

Her eyes darted to the control panel of his CHP car. The speedometer needle kept climbing—forty, fifty, sixty. Tropper was wearing his seat belt (funny how some habits are permanently affixed in the brain) but not tethered by the restraint, she was bouncing around the interior. To make matters worse, her hands were tied. If he crashed, he’d have the air bag and the seat belt; she would be hurled through the windshield, her face sliced up like bologna, and she wouldn’t even be able to use her palms for protection. The car continued to rocket forward, scraping against
brush, skidding when the tires hit rocks, stones, and oversized roots. One part of her wanted to close her eyes; the other part refused to let her tune out.

“You’re going to get us both killed!” she screamed. “
GIVE IT UP
!”

A second later she screamed again as the car’s front tire hit a felled log and went flying forward. The car landed with a thump and continued on.

“Oh my God!” she cried out. “Oh my God, oh my God—”

“Shut up—”

“You shut up!”

“You shut up!” Tropper swerved to the right, then to the left, and seconds later he was back on the main mountain road—a narrow two-lane highway, but at least it was paved. By this time, a caravan of police cars was behind them. The air units followed from above.

Again, Cindy’s eyes landed on the speedometer’s gauge. He was going over sixty, taking the turns at race car speeds. The cruisers had fallen back even farther, forced to reduce their speeds even as Tropper accelerated. But the air units kept them in the spotlight.

Twisting and turning, Cindy felt her stomach lurch at each turn. Bile spewed out of her stomach and up through her throat. Sweat poured onto her clammy brow. If she was scared before—facing Tropper and a sledgehammer—she was terrified now. If he kept this up, she was definitely going to die.

Her stomach weakened further and she vomited.

Tropper sniffed the puke in disgust. To show his displeasure, he depressed the gas pedal until it was flat with the floor of the car.

Going into a hairpin turn.

Missing it by just a fraction of an inch.

Cindy screamed as the car plunged through the railing.

Being hurled forward through millions of needles of pain.

Soaring through the star-studded heavens.

If she hadn’t been in so much pain, it would have been beautiful.

The last thing she heard was a deafening explosion.

The last thing she saw was the eruption of intense, bright light.

The last thing she felt was warmth from a sudden wave of heat.

And then it was all gone!

Dark…cold…silent.

Mom was venting
again; this time the scapegoat was Dr. Heinz, one of the primary ER physicians who had treated Cindy when she had initially been brought in. Not that Cindy remembered Heinz, or a damn thing about that night, even though people had told her that she was talking when the paramedics had wheeled her through the Emergency Room doors.

“If one more person calls her
lucky
, I’m going to
strangle
someone!” Mom had reached the breaking point, and then some. “Winning the lottery is
lucky
! Breaking the slots in Vegas is
lucky
! Being stalked, kidnapped, beaten, and falling down a drop of God knows how many feet is
not lucky
! I daresay that isn’t a definition of lucky in any culture of the world, including tribes that mutilate themselves in the name of beauty!”

The doctor’s eyes shifted from Mom to Alan, who had taken on the role of Mom’s long-suffering husband, and then again to Mom. He returned the outburst with a patient smile. Cindy understood her mother’s frustration—and even agreed with it—but still, she could show more restraint. On top of being embarrassing, Mom’s speaker-busting volume made Cindy’s head throb. She could hear it through the bandages that encased her skull and wrapped around her ears. At the moment, most of her upper body was packaged in bandages, constricting her chest, making it painful for her to breathe. Of course, the broken ribs sure weren’t helping.

Her eyes closed. If she didn’t move, she looked as if she were sleeping—the image she wanted to foster. When she slept, nobody bugged her, and the pain wasn’t as pronounced. But it was hard to sleep when Mom was yelling. So Cindy rested, monitoring the standoff between parent and doctor through hooded eyes.

It was hard for Mom to look at her. It was equally hard for Cindy to look at her mother, whose eyes held constant tears, always on the
brink
of breaking down. Cindy longed to tell her to get over it, but she wouldn’t do it, no matter how much the pain bit her wracked body. Over the years, moms had earned themselves some cheesy rights, including the right to look pitiful and scared when their only daughters (in this case, only child) fell down hundred-foot drops. It would have been an even bigger descent if Cindy hadn’t had the good fortune to land in a tree. Leaves were softer than packed dirt, and the arbors saved her from another hundred feet of accelerating G-forces.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” the doctor was saying. “We physicians fall prey to thinking from a medical point of view. I say she’s lucky because broken ribs mend very quickly. The collarbones have incomplete fractures. And the single break in her right arm radius is clean. The rest of her long bones are miraculously intact.”

Mom regarded him with steely eyes. “Dr. Heinz!” She enunciated very clearly. “My daughter is not a specimen! She is a person! Just…look at her!”

“I understand, ma’am—”

“No, you
don’t
understand!” Mom protested. Again she regarded her daughter with those awful wet eyes. This times, the water overflowed. “You don’t understand at all!” Sob. “I’m grateful that she’s here…but the situation isn’t at all
lucky
!”

Leave it to Dad to choose this Kodak moment to walk into the hospital room. Mom gave him a granite-hard glance, quickly swiping at her eyes, then composing just enough to give her exit line with drama. Arising from her vigil by Cindy’s bedside, she marched toward the door,
saying something about being downstairs in the cafeteria, drinking the awful coffee
if
anybody needed her.

Alan quickly followed. Before he left, he said, “She’s a bit overwrought.”

“It’s completely understandable,” Dr. Heinz answered.

“Yes, it is.” He looked at Cindy, then at Decker and repeated, “Yes, it is.”

After they had gone, Decker said, “Am I interrupting anything medical?”

“I was just going over her chart,” Dr. Heinz answered. “The most recent tests. Everything looks good, Lieutenant. Her vitals are still very strong.”

Cindy raised her arm an inch off the bed and twirled her index finger in the air.

The doctor stifled a chuckle. “I have duly registered your opinion, Officer Decker.” He smiled. “Feistiness is a good sign. It indicates recovery. It will get better, I promise you.”

With her eyes still closed, Cindy mouthed, “Thank you.” Through some miracle, she managed to vocalize the same words.

“Why, you’re very welcome! I’ll be back later.”

Decker forced a smile on his face as he stood up and shook the doctor’s hand. “Thanks for everything.”

“Glad to be of service.” Heinz pumped Decker’s hand. He placed Cindy’s chart in the slot mounted on the hospital door, then left. Suddenly, Decker was alone with his daughter. Panic shot through him. This was the first time he had come in when she was already awake…not only awake but conscious enough to make a feisty gesture…and Decker didn’t know what to say to her. He envied his ex-wife’s anger and her capacity to express it. He looked around the hospital room, trying to find a clue as to how to behave. All he saw were robotic, beeping machines along with dozens of floral and/or balloon arrangements anchored down with teddy bears and other absurdly cute stuffed animals.

Cindy saw him staring at them. “Give them to Hannah.”

Decker turned and focused on his daughter. “What, sweetheart?”

Cindy sighed. Her mind was clear, but her speech wasn’t. “The teddy bears…ted-dy bears.”

Decker’s eyes squinted in confusion.

Cindy pointed to the arrangements.

“You want to smell the flowers, sweetheart?” Decker asked.

Cindy shook her head, closed her eyes, and went quiet.

Decker felt his body tense up with frustration. He couldn’t even understand his own daughter. He felt like screaming! He felt like smashing something! Like taking a hammer to the place and razing it to the ground. Instead, he sat like a lifeless stump, trying desperately to figure out his next move.

Cindy reached out for his hand.

Thank God
! Decker thought. Something he could do. He took it, he stroked it, he kissed it. It was crisscrossed with dozens of splintery scratches. Her face was covered with them as well. Some were scabbing over, some were still red and raw. There were creams and ointments over cuts, but the doctors had elected to keep her face exposed to the air. She looked awful in the main, but pretty well intact considering what she had gone through.

Besides the baby cuts, she had come away with several deep slashes and jagged wounds. One traversed the back of her hand—a stitched-up, Z-shaped laceration that was still pink and puffy, but had finally stopped oozing.

Despite Jan’s protests, Cindy had been lucky. Being ejected through the windshield meant she hadn’t been inside the car when it had exploded on impact. She had also had the good fortune to be dropped into a large, leafy sycamore that slowed her fall with its thousands of auxiliary newly leafing branches, but cradled her in the crook of its boughs. They had a hard time finding her, a hell of a time getting her down. She had been pricked by hundreds of microscopic pieces of glass, sliced up by large, lethal shards, and had been bleeding from every conceivable sur
face area of skin. She had been on the verge of shock. But by the grace of God, she was alive and conscious. Not only that, even as they drove her in, as she shivered and trembled and moaned and groaned and cried out in agony, she could move every finger on her hands, wiggle every toe on her feet. It had only taken three days for her to go from the ICU to a regular hospital bed.

The wonderful, recuperative powers of youth!

Again, Decker attempted light conversation. “Beautiful flowers, princess. Lots of them. You must have lots of fans out there.”

Many more detractors
, Cindy thought. Instead, she gave her father’s fingers a gentle squeeze.

“I like those yellow roses especially.”

Cindy managed a nod. They were from Scott. Some of the cops at Hollywood had come to visit out of obligation, but Oliver had come out of genuine concern. She appreciated his thoughtfulness, his caring, and his kind, encouraging words. And she knew he had been instrumental in rescuing her. But when he left the room, it was as if he had never been. She rarely thought about him, knowing that the deep feelings just weren’t there yet—if they came at all. (Did he sense it as well?) Whatever the relationship was, it was definitely
not
the romance of the century. A bit sad, now that she thought about it.

Sad, but not at all tragic.

Tragic was Armand Crayton’s calculated ruin and death, all of it planned by Bartholomew and executed by Tropper, all because of Crayton’s sexual indiscretions with Dexter’s wife. Tragic were the injustices she had suffered via Tropper’s hand. Tragic did not define the end of a brief, albeit enjoyable, romp with a good-looking guy whose self-esteem was defined by how many young girls he got into the sack.

She closed her eyes. She knew she was short-changing Oliver—that there was sincerity lurking in his being—but right now, she was far too stressed out to be fair. Cindy realized that anger was not a beneficial emotion. Prolonged, it festered into boils of raw, naked venom, poison
ing each and every social encounter. But right now it beat the hell out of depression!

A white-capped nurse appeared, breaking into a smile when she saw Decker holding his daughter’s hand. “That’s so sweet!” she cooed. “She is one lucky girl!”

It was good that Cindy couldn’t talk. She didn’t trust her mouth if her thoughts were any indication of what she would say.

The nurse, whose name tag defined her as M. Villa, told her it was time for her pain medication.

Decker kissed his daughter’s hand. “Well, that should help you, right, sweetheart?”

Even Dad was sounding dorky. But she squeezed his hand back to show she loved him.

The nurse started injecting something into Cindy’s IV. It took very little time for Cindy to feel warm and fuzzy. Moments later, Rina burst into the room, her hands carrying a stack of magazines. She unceremoniously placed them at Cindy’s bedside. “I brought lots of gardening magazines because they have pictures. I figured you might be tired of TV and too wiped out to read.” She stared right at Cindy’s face. “Look at you. You’re scabbing over already.”

Cindy muttered, “Does it look bad?”

“What?” Decker asked.

“She asked if it looked bad,” Rina interpreted. “Well, the facial scratches don’t look deep at all. I’d say give it a few weeks. By then you can hide whatever is left with foundation. I know you use foundation. You do it well, too. Sometimes, I hardly see your freckles.”

Cindy nodded.

Rina said, “Your face will be fine. Just don’t look in the mirror. It’s like weighing yourself after you’ve had a baby. Hannah drew you several pictures. Do you want me to tape them up on the wall?”

Cindy nodded yes. “Give her the teddy bears.”

“What teddy bears?” Rina looked around the room. “Oh, from the flower arrangements. Later. Right now, you keep them. When Hannah comes to visit you, she can play with them. Where’s your mother?”

Decker said, “Jan’s in the cafeteria, drinking bad coffee. Why?”

“No offense meant to her, but I’m probably the last person she’ll want to see. My main concern is that Cindy has some peace. It’s hard enough with people walking in and out, sticking and poking you.” Again she stared at Cindy. “I can’t get over how fast you’re healing. It seems almost hourly. The boys want to visit tonight. I told them to hold off for a few days.”

Cindy nodded. The pain medication was making her woozy and very happy—the joys of Demerol.

“Hannah’s a different story,” Rina went on. “Kids aren’t squeamish.” She turned to Decker. “Remember when my mother had shingles in her eye three years ago. The entire left side of her face was swollen, bumpy, and red. It was very strange in contrast to her perfectly normal right side. Hannah just went over to her, kissed her good side, and said, ‘Omah, read me a book!’ She wasn’t even polite about it, just demanded to be read to. Didn’t give a second thought to her grandmother’s feelings or her face.” Rina laughed. “If you want to see her, I’ll bring her for a few minutes. More than that, she’ll exhaust you.”

Cindy said, “Bring her.”

“Okay.” Rina stood up. “I’m going to go now.” She kissed Cindy’s forehead. “I’ll see you later. Get some sleep.”

Cindy nodded. “I am tired.”

Decker arose. “I’ll walk you to the elevator.” He waited until they were at least fifty feet from the room. Then he whispered to his wife. “How in the world can you understand her?”

“It comes from raising kids,” Rina answered matter-of-factly. “Not the little ones. They’re easy to understand. They shout and scream whatever’s on their mind. It’s the teenagers! Either they mumble a lot, or I’m truly going deaf because I can’t understand a word they say.” She smiled. “I meant what I said. It’s miraculous how good she looks. Her lip is whole, and her nose will look better than it ever did.”

“She always wanted a nose job.”

“Well, she got one. I just hope the doctor didn’t make it too small. Cindy had a patrician nose…very stately in contrast to all these California button noses. It gave her…class.”

Decker sighed. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“Be so…so upbeat without being phony. You’re so sure of yourself. When you tell Cindy that she’s going to be fine, I can tell that Cindy believes every word you say. When I’m around her, I feel like such an oaf. I don’t know what to say or what to do! I’m her father, for goodness’ sakes.”

They reached the elevators. Rina pushed the down button.

Decker said, “I can’t talk to my own daughter! What the hell is wrong with me?”

“That’s precisely it, Peter. You’re the father, but I’m only a stepmother. I love Cindy dearly, but because I never nurtured her, I still can drum up some objectivity. If this were Hannah,
chasvachalelah
, I’d be a basket case.”

The elevator dinged. She faced her husband and reached out her arms to him. They went from a simple hug to a deep embrace as Decker drew Rina to his breast. She felt his fingers go under her beret and weave themselves into the strands of her hair. She heard him take deep, short breaths, felt his chest heaving. They stood there for a while, letting elevators come and go. When she finally looked up, his eyes were wet and red, but his cheeks were dry.