I had more respect for Dano now, and a bit more feelings too. I could feel myself blush as I walked into the lounge at TLC.
Jagger was sitting on the couch with Jennifer. My mind tried to head toward jealousy, but then I thought of Dano, and that Jagger and I were coworkers and there was damn Airbrush Lady to think about. Guess I’d purposely put her out of my mind.
Suddenly my name was called over the intercom. I had a helicopter run to take. Almost glad that it’d get me out of here and my mind off Dano’s absence, I waved to Jagger and walked out the door.
At the helipad, I put on my helmet and noticed someone already in the back, strapped in. Mario, taking a catnap yet again.
Sky was at the controls and turned to wave at me as I got in. Over the microphone he told me about the case, and I stepped into the back and sat down, grabbing my harness from the wall. With Mario along, I figured I need not worry about Sky’s guilt or no guilt.
We picked up the patient at Saint Greg’s and safely dropped him off at Yale New Haven Hospital.
Mario never took his helmet off, and I guessed he was now fast asleep next to me. A little nap wasn’t such a bad idea. But then I saw him looking at me, and I gave him a thumbs-up.
Wait a minute. Mario didn’t have such long skinny legs. He was more muscular. Hmm. I leaned over to him. “Hey,” I said into my microphone.
“Hello, Miss Pauline.”
Buzz Lightyear.
Oh, geez. I only hoped this wasn’t going to be a repeat of yesterday. I mean, bumping a cement bollard with an ambulance was one thing, but would darling Buzz bring bad luck to a flying tin can that had rotary blades only held on by one “Jesus nut?”
Thank goodness we’d gotten the patient safely to his destination. I had no idea that Buzz did helicopter runs, but figured, what did I know? I hadn’t been at TLC all that long.
After a few prayers that we’d stay airborne, I leaned back in my seat and shut my eyes. A seemingly uneventful trip, even with Buzz Lightyear aboard. I started to relax.
While in my groggy state, I felt a thud. My eyelids flew open and my heart now thudded. “What’s going on?” I yelled.
But Sky didn’t answer. He didn’t say a thing as to why we had just landed on a beach. It looked like Long Island Sound!
For a few seconds, I sat there and told myself I must be dreaming. I blinked several times and the scenery didn’t change.
The helicopter, in fact, sat on a beach. I knew it was Long Island Sound now, but a rather secluded section. No cottages nearby. No boardwalk like at Hammonasset State Beach. Not sure where we were or why, I unhooked myself and saw the door already open.
I stepped out onto the sand and called, “Sky? Buzz? Sky? Did we break down or something?”
Over my helmet microphone I heard, “You had to ruin everything. She was going to make me rich. She owed me.”
What the hell?
Despite the static, I figured out the voice belonged to Buzz. Rich? She?
“And how the hell…What the hell did you do to Mario?” Sky asked.
I froze.
“Just a matter of a little left-over medication from a psych teen yesterday. He’ll sleep it off in the locker room.” Buzz laughed…eerily. “No one will pay attention since Mario sleeps so much.”
Oh…my…God!
I got back in the helicopter to call 911 on the radio. When I grabbed the microphone, the entire wiring system came with it.
Someone had pulled it out.
Buzz.
I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket, but it said No service. I frantically pushed buttons to no avail. Shoot!
“Sky?” I yelled. I started to take off my helmet so I could go find someone to help. But before I lifted it all the way off, I recognized Sky’s voice again.
“I loved her, you loser. She’d never do shit for you. She should have given you up for adoption at birth. You loser-”
I heard shuffling and no more voices. Before I could turn and run, I noticed Sky and Buzz near a sand dune. Buzz had something that sparkled in his hand, and I ran toward them and screamed, “No!”
And while they scuffled, he plunged it into Sky’s back!
“Stop that!” I picked up a piece of driftwood and ran at him swinging it like a star baseball player. “Leave him alone! What is wrong with you, Buzz?”
When he turned, I knew.
It was clearly in his eyes. Hatred. Mental illness. A mind that had snapped.
The clumsy, lovable Buzz Lightyear had turned into a monster. The crisp, clean-cut guy who had looked as if he’d stepped out of a brand-new toy box had vanished, and now a villain stood holding a bloody knife-and Sky lay on the ground.
From here I couldn’t tell if he was breathing, but the wound was in his shoulder, much higher than any vital organs. Hopefully he was just playing dead or had passed out from shock and pain.
Buzz was on me in seconds. He tackled me to the ground and held the knife at my throat before I could run for help.
I had this thing about anyone touching my throat.
I hated it.
Just as much as I hated knives.
And now I knew that I hated a knife at my throat.
“Buzz, hon, let me get up and help Sky. I’m sure it was just an accident. Like the ambulance yesterday. No one will blame you.” That is if I lived to tell them.
He looked at me and laughed. “You are one smart nurse, Sokol, but dumb as shit for a broad.”
I lifted my knee with as much force as I could, landing it in his groin, but he merely cursed and pulled the knife across my neck.
“Oh!” The pain wasn’t as bad as the fear. My first instinct was to reach up and touch the cut, which was merely a flesh wound. But I felt the warm blood and trembled. He could have cut deeper, but didn’t. Most likely to just scare me.
Buzz Lightyear was no one to take lightly.
And, yeah, I was scared out of my mind, but knew I had to keep in control of myself in order to live and save Sky.
“You killed Payne,” I said, learning from past cases that the murderer always liked to brag before he…finished off his victim.
Buzz laughed. “The asshole deserved it. He was never the father he should have been.”
Father. Father? “Payne was your father?”
“And Pansy, the sicko, my mother. She’ll rot in hell with him when I get done with her.”
He was so nervous at the hospital because he must have come there to finish her off. That’s why he’d stayed behind. When Lilla and I had made a noise, it scared him off and saved Pansy’s life.
“But the woman at your house-” I said, trying to distract him and get as much information out of him that I could. I only prayed that I’d be alive to tell someone.
“She’s my housekeeper. I pay her extra to play the role of mommy. She gets a kick out of it-if you know what I mean.” He grinned. An evil grin.
I swallowed hard despite my neck and thought that human behavior would never cease to amaze me.
Evil was pure evil.
“But Pansy and Payne were brother and sister.” As if that’d make it impossible to have a child. Well, in my Catholic conscience it did.
He looked at me. “Don’t be stupid, Sokol. Incest between those two crazies was a given. I mean, they were like shadows of each other. No wonder they produced a weirdo like me!” He laughed.
But I felt his pain. What a life it must have been for him growing up. The theory that siblings produce mentally challenged offspring was valid in my eyes, no matter what the studies said.
“But why kill them?”
“I didn’t kill Mommy…yet.” He pushed the knife into my neck a bit more.
“Did you make threatening phone calls to me?”
He laughed. “I used you as a guinea pig since you were new, but then I lost interest when the opportunity arose for me to complete my plan. I told Mommy you were bad and that you knew about the fraud. That’s why she didn’t trust you.”