Melanie had offered him that blue drink, topping his glass off from a separate pitcher, then washed her hands as thoroughly as if she were preparing for surgery. She’d arrived in his hospital room, carrying his IV bag that she’d already prepared elsewhere, despite everything she’d needed, including potassium vials, being in the medication bins at his beside. She took his bloods, slipping the full tubes into her lab coat pocket without labeling them first. All little details, none of which proved anything, but every one of them giving his suspicions free rein.
He sat huddled in the bedclothes, stunned by all the unthinkable things that swept so easily to mind, now that his normal checks against imagining the worst about her were breached.
What about motive – a motive that would make her commit murder to stop his investigation?
It couldn’t be because she herself had killed Kelly.
That idea was lunacy. She’d had no reason to murder her. Of course there’d been jealousy on Melanie’s part, Kelly being such a star. But surely that wouldn’t have been enough to commit murder over. Besides, around the time Kelly was killed, Melanie had already begun to blossom as a doctor. It must have been months earlier when she aced the Bessie McDonald case that started to build up her confidence. So people were well into making a fuss over her and her own work by that summer. He vividly recalled how she’d basked in all the attention. At times she carried it too far, the way she evidently craved and reveled in adulation. Judging from her grandstanding with the residents these last few days, he could see that nothing had changed on that front. But back then, as far as he could remember, after achieving her own moments in the spotlight, she threw off the old resentments about Kelly. If anything, he remembered Kelly growing cool to Melanie. She also seemed to find Melanie’s newfound enjoyment of being in the center of things during teaching rounds a bit off-putting. But he’d never heard words about it between the two women.
Yet a vague pattern, a sense of déjà vu, a feeling of being on the verge of grasping an elusive link-it-all-together piece swirled as illusively as smoke through his thoughts.
He stared at the shadows cast by his night-light. They filled the end wall like ink blots, his own shape at their center, but failed to offer the revelations he sought.
He closed his eyes.
Images of Melanie at the foot of his bed putting on her show melded with memories of her strutting her stuff at teaching rounds twenty-seven years ago. They lasted but a second, only to be displaced by scenes of the intrusive Samantha McShane playing out one of her signature it’s-all-about-me performances.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered.
A dreadful sense of isolation enveloped him and filled his ears with a hollow ringing.
5:02 A.M.
Hampton Junction
Even in the shelter of the trees the snow fell so heavily it practically caused a whiteout, but Mark raced through it, slipping as he went, the previously made depressions in the trail already beginning to fill in. He ignored the noise of his boots crunching on the snow, thinking only of reaching Lucy. His breathing quickened more from fear than exertion, and he sucked in cold flakes with each gasp. They choked him, then burned at the back of his throat. Rounding the bend, he peered ahead to the swirling luminous opening that led to the clearing and poured on the speed.
His eyes accommodated to the darker forest, and he emerged to find the night cast in more visible shades of gray and silver. Immediately he saw two figures huddled side by side near the front of the building. They were peering down at something. His heart leapt.
“What’d you forget?” one of them called. Whether they glanced his way, he couldn’t tell. It was too dark to see their faces or clothing.
Which meant they couldn’t see his. But they’d obviously heard him coming. His making no attempt to hide his arrival must have inadvertently tricked them into assuming one of their buddies had returned. It gave him an edge. All this he realized in an instant. And his plan to exploit that edge came just as fast.
Bluff and get closer.
He gave a wave, as if signaling them to keep quiet, and started forward, his head down the way a man might walk in order to watch his footing. He had no strategy of attack other than cross the hundred yards and see what they were looking at, then trust to instinct and reflex. He tried to remember how his height measured against the two he’d left in the car. The driver at least had appeared to be tall, but there’d be no mistaking that Elvis suit of his. As soon as Mark got close enough to see details of their outfits, he’d have to make his move.
The pair kept their attention on whatever lay at their feet.
He quickened his pace, pulling the gun from his pocket.
He hated firearms of any sort, but as coroner he’d seen his share – enough varieties of weapons to find the safety on the one in his pocket. Feeling for it with his index finger, he clicked it off.
He’d closed the distance to about eighty yards when he made out a black shape at their feet. It appeared round and far too flat to be a body.
At sixty he could see it was an opening in the ground.
The well.
His stomach clamped down so tightly he almost threw up.
He broke into a run, watching their backs.
At forty he stopped and took aim. “Freeze,” he shrieked, all his rage at what they might have done to Lucy funneled into his voice.
The two men spun around.
“What the fu-”
“Shit!”
The one on the left grabbed for the inside of his jacket.
Mark shot him first, aiming for his legs.
The man screamed, grabbed his crotch, and doubled over. His partner immediately took off toward the building, dodging and weaving.
Sprinting forward, Mark fired on the run, still aiming low. Each shot sounded no louder than opening the twist top on a beer bottle, but the pistol gave a heavy kick. He missed every time. “Stop!” he yelled and drew a bead on his quarry’s back. Before he could pull the trigger, his target darted around the corner and out of sight.
The man on the ground continued to howl as he writhed in a ball. “You fuck! You goddamned fucking bastard!” The snow under him rapidly turned dark.
Mark knew he wouldn’t be causing trouble anytime soon, if ever. As for helping him – not even an issue until he had Lucy safe. He nevertheless paused to retrieve what the guy had been reaching for and dropped – a gun identical to the first – then raced by him. “Lucy!” he cried, sliding to a stop at the edge of the opening. Bits of snow dropped off into nothing as he teetered over the hole, and his stomach heaved to his throat. He snapped on his headlamp. Water gleamed back at him from forty feet below, the surface as shiny and black as oil. A white rope trailed into it from a large coil that lay half-buried in slush. He grabbed it up and started to reel it in, his worst fears lurching out of control.
But it came too freely. There mustn’t be anything on the other end. How could he get to her? Or maybe she wasn’t even in there-
It snapped taut, and he could barely haul it up any farther.
“Oh, God no.” He choked back a sob, tightened his grip, and strained to pull as hard as he could. But his hold kept slipping on an icy film that had coated the water-soaked nylon. He looped the rope around his hands, only to have it bite into his skin and cut off the circulation. Yet he raised the load, hand over hand, the effort making his head spin. Every few seconds he glanced over to the building for any sign of the man who had run off. He kept tabs on the whereabouts of the bleeder by his shrieks, though they were growing weaker.
His forearms vibrated as he taxed the limits of their strength, and he whispered, “Lucy!” over and over, as if calling her name could coax her to him, until the trembling stopped and he managed to pull some more.