Zenith Rising (14 page)

Chapter Nine

Erica ignored Spencer over the next few days.
She was tired of him, his attitude towards her, and his assumptions
about her. She ignored four calls from Roy, who was trying to
apologize. As if she’d forgive that! And especially for someone she
wasn’t even in love with. The problem was: she usually wasn’t in
love with the guys she dated. Perhaps that was why the last few had
wandering eyes that eventually wandered away from her.

“Dr. Heathersby?”

Erica was doing paperwork at her desk and
looked up at the sound of Tamira’s voice.

“Yes?”

“I finished the insurance claims we talked
about. Do you think I could take off an hour early today? I’ve got
a date.”

With Spencer? The question hung in the air
between them, fully initiated by Tamira’s eye lock. Erica sighed.
She was much too tired and annoyed by these games, and too old to
compete with a twenty-year-old girl. She was also too old to have a
boyfriend who would screw someone else in the coat room of a major
hotel.

God help her, she felt so old, and so
exhausted with dating, as well as all the little games women
played.

She had grown weary of men who threw so many
different signals, she needed an air traffic controller to try and
make sense of them. She almost told Tamira to “have at him.” Take
Spencer. Good luck with that emotional blunder. That emotional
train wreck, who trusted no one and had no faith in anything. He
hated his fate. He hated his life. And he hated people who had
their lives more or less together.
Yeah, go enjoy that,
Tamira
.

Instead, Erica said, “Sure. Have fun.”

“Well, I just didn’t want my personal life
interfering here where I work.”

Erica gave her a fake smile. “No, Tamira.
Everything is fine.”

“Good. Great. Did you know Spencer and I are
thinking of moving in together?”

Erica quit writing and set her pen down as
she stared across her desk at the short stature of Tamira. Tamira
was outright lying. Obviously. Erica knew that. She had been with
Spencer enough lately, at his home even, and knew for a fact Tamira
wasn’t usually anywhere near him. There was no way Spencer would
live with Tamira, or vice versa. But the girl was… what? Trying to
warn her to stay away? Or could she seriously be that delusional?
It could be either, as Erica well knew.

“No, I hadn’t heard. Does he know?” Erica
asked gently.

“Well, sure. It was his idea.”

No. No, it wasn’t. Erica saw a burgeoning
problem there, but had no idea what to do with it. Or with Tamira.
Pain shot through her head and she pressed her hands to her
temples. Tamira had been her patient for close to three years now.
After only a few visits, Erica guessed someone was hurting Tamira.
Someone close to her. Eventually, Tamira got pregnant. That was
last year.
She was pregnant with her father’s baby
. Needless
to say, Erica aborted the fetus, and sent Tamira to counseling. She
begged Tamira to press charges, move out, and get help. But Tamira
didn’t. Then Tamira reappeared nine months later, freshly trained
in medical billing, and all with the end goal of working for Erica
in her office.

Erica didn’t know that was Tamira’s plan and
felt like she’d been pushed into a corner. She was flabbergasted
when Tamira showed up there, ready to work, as if Erica had already
offered her a job. Still, she knew Tamira’s fragile, awful history,
and felt nothing but total compassion for the screwed-up, lost
girl. So she allowed her to work here.

And soon regretted it as the months went
by.

Then Spencer entered the picture. Erica
wanted to warn him that Tamira was emotionally disturbed. She was
not ready for casual sex in any way, shape or form. Tamira
strangely attached herself to the fantasy relationship she made up
in her mind with Spencer.

Tamira appeared young, fun, and excited about
her life and starting her job. She appeared normal, or as normal as
any other twenty-year-old. Only Erica knew that she wasn’t. She was
definitely not well, but Erica wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.
Especially Tamira’s dates.

“Tamira, are you still seeing Dr.
Kellerston?” She was the counselor that helped Tamira with her rape
and pregnancy.

“No. I’m feeling much better now. ‘Bye Dr.
Heathersby.”

Better? Or crazier? Erica sighed, and pushed
her glasses higher on her nose in frustration. Stupid job. Stupid
conscience that insisted she hire Tamira. She was so stupid for
caring at all about her. She needed more objectivity with her
patients. And… with Spencer.

Even now, as Spencer’s words filtered through
her head, she realized he might be right. She might have been
trying to fix him. But it was hard to resist pointing out the
obvious to him. It didn’t seem unreasonable to suggest he seek a
job in the business at which he so excelled. It seemed like a
logical suggestion. But apparently, to Spencer, she was butting in
and expecting too much.

Erica gave up trying to work, and twenty
minutes later, locked her office and headed for the stairway. She
hoped any extra exercise might take off some of her unwanted
inches. Halfway down the stairwell, she heard the squeaking of a
sneaker behind her. She moved towards the side of the stairway, to
let the person jogging down the stairs pass by her. Glancing over
her shoulder, she missed a stair in unexpected shock.

Then… the world went upside-down as her legs
were violently pushed out from under her, and her head forcibly
smacked into the stair behind her. She landed with unstoppable
force on the concrete stairs. Then the world went black.

****

Erica felt her body before she could open her
eyes. She was sprawled out on cold, hard concrete. She opened an
eye, but a blinding, nauseating pain stabbed her forehead. She
finally opened both eyes fully and found herself lying unnaturally
on her side across the stairs she was previously descending. The
bags in her hands lay below her. She shook her head and tried to
remember what happened. What made her fall down the stairs?

Then she remembered hearing the noise, and
seeing someone in black. A faceless person who came at her so
quickly, she couldn’t even raise an arm up to protect her face.
She’d been hit. And rather hard. Her legs were pushed out from
under her and her head collided with the stairs. She put a hand up
to the spot on the back of her head and felt the growing lump.

What happened to her? Why?
Leaning
heavily on her right hand, she grabbed the handrail to pull herself
up, and adjust her crooked glasses. Then she gasped at the shooting
pain in her ankle.
Holy. Shit
. Something wasn’t right with
her left ankle. It couldn’t support her weight, not without
gut-wrenching pain. Looking around, she gasped again with surprise.
Bile climbed up her throat from trying to stand up, and her altered
equilibrium, but mostly, from what she saw lying around her.

Ten dolls lay scattered on the stairwell
around her. Cheap plastic dolls, like the ones sold at markets or
dollar stores. All were headless with red bellies. Paint or blood?
She put a hand over her stomach. What the hell was going on?

She pulled her cell phone out, but her hands
shook so hard, she could barely read the screen. No signal in the
stairwell. She groaned. She would’ve run down the rest of the
floors, but her damn head was spinning so fast, she felt unable to.
She found the two-way radio on the side of her phone. It worked
whether the cell had a signal or not.
Spencer.
She could
call him. He was connected to the clinic’s service.

“Spencer?” Her voice was panicked as she
pressed at the radio button.

She waited. Nothing. “Spencer?”

Nothing. “Spencer, please. It’s Erica.” This
time, she was practically screaming into the device and her hands
were slick with sweat.

Finally a crackle. He sounded like he was
pressing on the button, while talking to someone else. “Can’t talk
now.”

“Spencer! It’s an emergency!” She was holding
the stupid phone now between both hands, and shaking
uncontrollably. Her frustration nearly made her cry as she pressed
the button to speak again. “Someone just attacked me in the
stairwell. I think my ankle is broken.”

Pause. “At work?”

“Yes,” she nearly screeched with relief now
that she had his attention.

“I’m coming.”

Erica sat down, her legs shaking. She wanted
to move, but couldn’t. She felt too confused. Too woozy. Too
frightened. She was afraid whoever did this to her would return. Or
might be waiting on one of the other floors for her to come
stumbling out.

One of the metal doors opened from below, and
footsteps raced up the stairs. She tensed, then let out a relieved
breath, and tears filled her eyes when she recognized Spencer. He’d
taken the stairs two at a time, wearing cargo pants, a white
t-shirt, and his hat on backwards. There was sweat on his brow.
He’d probably been working outside. But no one ever looked so good
to her. He stopped short and checked her over.

“Jesus, Doc, what happened?” He knelt down
beside her, brushing her hair away from her face and observed the
scene around her and the headless, blood-splattered dolls. His jaw
worked back and forth before his eyes met hers.

“Someone came up behind me. I thought he was
running and wanted to pass me, so I moved over to the side. The
next thing I knew, my legs were kicked out from under me and I fell
backwards, hitting the back of my head. I must’ve been knocked
unconscious for awhile. A few minutes, at the most. Right before he
hit me, I saw someone in all black, his face covered by a ski mask.
It happened so fast. Startlingly fast. Then I awoke to this. These
dolls. My phone doesn’t work, but I remembered the radio. And
you.”

His hand went to the back of her head and he
felt around, gently touching the bottom of her skull. She winced
when he located the tender spot. Then his eyes went to her feet.
His hands felt down her leg, pushing the hem of her pants up, and
onto her ankle. She winced at the slight pressure and his eyes came
back to her face.

“Can you get up?”

“Yes. I think so. I just got scared. I
couldn’t think straight.”

“Can’t blame you. This is freaky. Can you
walk?”

“Maybe.”

He put his hand under her elbow. He had long
fingers with a strong grip and pulled her up next to him. Her head
seemed to swim. She took a step, but nearly missed it. Spencer
grabbed her, wrapping an arm around her waist. Being suddenly in
his arms, she looked up. She couldn’t focus her eyes, but felt
startled at being so close to him. His body was warm around hers
and the twinge she felt that seemed to rise up from her gut, wasn’t
just from the attack, or the bump on her head.

He suddenly lifted her up and she gasped. The
earth moved under her again. She braced herself, but this time,
landed on Spencer, resting against his chest, and her arms
automatically clung to his neck. And there she was, being carried
in his arms. Her face was so close, she could see the slight growth
of stubble on his chin, and the way his lips pressed tightly
together before his eyes met hers. The look he gave her was very
dark, and… what? She didn’t know. Her mind was too fuzzy to
remember her own name right then.

“You can’t carry me.”

“You can’t walk.”

“I can walk.”

“Not up or down three flights of stairs.”

“No, I mean, you really can’t carry me. I
weigh too much.”

He smiled as he jiggled her. She felt his arm
muscles moving, bunching, letting her go, and grabbing her again
with all of her weight on him. He carried her as if she were a
child.

“I can handle you, Doc, unless you’d rather I
leave you here with the dolls of the dead while I find help?”

She didn’t want to sit there for another
moment with the headless dolls around her. Her eyes met his, and he
looked down at her face. He was so close, she could see the nearly
bottomless depths of his warm brown eyes that were the color of
dark, melted chocolate. His skin had the same dark glow. She shook
her head. “No. No, I don’t want that.”

“I figured as much.” He started his ascent,
carrying her up the three flights of stairs. Once he was upstairs,
he somehow got all the doors open, and took her back into her
office. All the while, he juggled her as his hand grabbed the
various door handles underneath her knees. After he went inside her
office, he gently laid her on her couch, setting her down as
carefully as if she were fine china.

He came back in a moment with two ice packs
he got from the break room. He wrapped one in a paper towel and
placed it on her ankle, and handed the other one to her. She took
it and put it behind her head. The contact was excruciating. She
looked up to find Spencer staring down at her, frowning. He was
watching her and appraising her condition.

“I’ll call the police.”

She nodded. Of course. The police. Why hadn’t
she thought of that? Probably because she’d never so much as even
had a fender bender with another person. She never received a
single parking ticket. She never had any occasion to call the
police for herself and felt somewhat shaken at the idea. The
reality was someone had attacked her. In her own office building.
At work. In the daylight.

“Why would anyone throw those dolls around me
like that?”

Spencer was at her desk, her phone in his
hand. His eyes never left her. “You mean, like why would someone
hand out specious pamphlets about you?”

She paused and closed her eyes. How could she
not have realized that right off?
Oh God. Baby killer
.
Someone thought she was a baby killer. Someone like that preacher,
Don Ortiss, of the New Trinity Faith and Hope Center. But attacking
her? Really? A paper pamphlet discrediting her was one thing, but
physically attacking her?