Authors: Cindy Davis
Final Masquerade (12 page)
Paige dropped onto the dinette, gasping for air. Chris unrolled a wad of paper towels and helped her back to her feet. He dabbed away the blood and examined her injuries. “Got quite a gash there. I think I've got the bleeding under control."
His eyes moved up to her face. Was he really concerned? Or was he just worried about getting blood all over his truck?
"Wouldn't be surprised if you have a broken rib or two, though.” He took her arm. “Can you sit? I think I have an ace bandage somewhere in this drawer. I'll bind you up until we can get you to a hospital.” He rummaged a minute tossing aside razor blades and cotton swabs. “Here it is. I wonder if the clips are here or I'll have to use tape."
"Not ... the same Suburban? How many ... white S-s-s ... can there be? Same. Had to be."
He busied himself with the job of binding her ribs.
"Answer!” She winced and wrapped both arms around herself.
"What? Oh, the white vehicle. It wasn't the same one. The one on Route 40 had Oklahoma plates."
"Plates can be changed.” She raised her eyes to his face. “There was a dent in the passenger door where you rammed it out on the highway."
"Yeah, but I rammed it only a few minutes ago. The Suburban in the intersection had a four-foot long dent, with rust in it. I'm telling you it wasn't the same vehicle. This was all some kind of a spooky coincidence."
"Or setup."
"That's going too far."
"Then why did we drive away?"
"Because it took me this long to figure it out. I screwed up big time. In the past two days, I've broken about every law there is."
"Not murder."
"Not yet anyway.” He patted her knee. “There, this should hold you till I can get you to a hospital."
"No hosp—"
"Yes. Don't argue with me. We're going."
Chris drove directly to St. Edward of Mercy Hospital. The sprawling brick building portrayed a much newer facade than its advertised 1905 founding date. Updating and renovating had obviously taken place recently, in the form of new hardtop and landscaping. The building was a study in simple angles and square edges that blended crisply into the surrounding neighborhood of businesses and elderly tenements. Even the hospital's newer additions were design replicas of the original, difficult to tell where one began and the other left off. Only the telltale variations in brick colors gave the secret away.
Chris helped her step gingerly down from the truck, her arms laden with her possessions.
"Leave that stuff here."
"No way. I believe ... that Suburban's the same one. They ... know where I am."
"It stays.” He left her leaning against the fender and crammed the suitcase back inside.
Step by painful step the couple shuffled to the emergency room. A white clad ambulance driver, who was just about to leave the parking lot, pulled his vehicle to the curb and hopped out to help them the last thirty feet.
Inside the sliding glass doors, they maneuvered Paige into a wheelchair. Eyes of people seated in the emergency room, like cattle destined for slaughter, interrupted what they were doing to turn and watch Paige's arrival. Curious looks, not of concern for the bloody woman who'd just been wheeled through the doors, not of anxiety for her wellbeing, but expressions resulting from the knowledge that their turn in line was about to be shoved back another notch.
The ambulance attendant hollered, “Someone help this woman, STAT!” then whispered in Paige's ear, “That'll get you to the head of the line."
She squeezed his hand, unable now to gather enough breath to speak.
Contrary to many people, Paige was not repelled by hospital smells. She enjoyed the sterility and attention to detail in these environments. But today, she was not able to appreciate any of it. Barely able to draw a breath, she was swept quickly into a curtained cubicle.
While uniformed people tended to her, a nurse herded Chris back to the desk to collect her pertinent information. Paige watched him through a shifting screen of both male and female nurses.
Chris kept casting glances back over his shoulder. Was he worried about her? Or afraid she'd try to escape again? She didn't try to decipher any further. There was a much more pressing problem. How did Stefano's men keep finding her? How?
Paige, breathing easier wearing the oxygen mask, shut her eyes and tried not to breathe at all while the x-ray machine hummed, taking pictures of her insides. Clacking metallic sounds came from the leaden booth to her right.
Moments later, the attendant shuffled into the room wearing a heavy lead apron. He brushed kinky black hair off his forehead with the back of a hand. “You can relax a few minutes while your pictures develop. I'll take a look at them and if we don't have to retake them you'll be out of here in a flash. They're backed up behind you like traffic in the George Washington Bridge on Christmas Eve."
"You from New York?"
"Originally, but I've been here twenty two years."
"What time is it?"
"'Bout midnight."
"Where's my—er ... friend?"
"I didn't see him back here, so he must be upstairs in emergency."
A buzzer sounded from inside the booth. More clanking and banging and the attendant returned carrying a square folder and a can of Diet Coke. He opened the door and called to the waiting nurse that Ms. Wilson was ready to leave.
Paige was loaded back on the gurney, wheeled into the hall and parked against the wall. The jolting caused her to grimace and inhale sharply.
"Sorry,” whispered her male nurse as though he'd merely brushed against her in a crowd. He balanced the folder containing her data and x-rays on her shins.
Feeling like a painting on display in a museum, she stared first at the wall, which was painted a pastel green with a mousy brown stripe at what would have been at eye level. A black spot about a half-inch in diameter marred its smooth, satin finish. Paige resisted the impulse to pick at it, to see if it would come off. She turned her head, focusing weary eyes into the blur of activity in this lonely corridor in the bowels of the hospital, where time had no meaning until the individual's shift was over.
She stared at respective flashes of movement until they separated from each other, becoming individual scenes unto themselves. The puke green-color dissolved into an orderly pushing a gurney with a white-sheeted lump with blond hair. The white flashes distinguished themselves into nurses pushing wheelchairs, occasionally leaning over the patient's shoulder to listen or speak more clearly. The blue back and forth oscillation turned into cleaning women wagging mops along the green and white tiled floor, then propping yellow plastic WET FLOOR tents in the center. The pleasant aroma of disinfectant wafted through the corridor. She closed her eyes to block out the flurry of activity and breathe in the soothing, therapeutic aroma.
The movement of her gurney jarred Paige awake. She was in a curtained cubicle, not the same one as before because the cabinets and equipment were on the opposite side of the room. A squat, round man wearing a teal color smock had his back to her. He had a square head with a ring of black hair that made a dipping semicircle to the nape of his neck. The top of his pate absurdly mirrored the fluorescent bulbs above. He stood in front of a square box on the wall, one hand in the pocket of the doctor's coat. The box was backlit and some x-rays were clamped at the top.
Paige blinked, trying to focus in the bright light as the tip of the doctor's pen traced a path along what was obviously one of her ribs. What was on the other side of that curtain? Was Chris waiting just outside, or maybe by now Stefano's goons had relieved him of his duties. She had to escape. But how?
"Ah, you're awake. How are you feeling? Miss, um...” The doctor checked a chart on the counter, “Miss Wilson."
Paige smiled. “Better."
"Your gentleman friend is waiting anxiously in the waiting room. Should I have him come in?"
Paige's eyes grew round. “No!"
The doctor frowned first, and then the meaning of her words turned the frown into an expression of understanding. “I see. Do you want to tell me what happened? How your ribs got injured?"
"I fell,” she said, simply.
He nodded slowly and waited. Instead of elaborating, Paige turned her head toward the curtain. Someone moved on the other side, creating a rippled effect in the cloth.
"I see. Well, let's talk about your situation.” He walked to the wall and stabbed the nib of his pen at her x-ray. “You have a cracked rib, right here. Can you see this?” He tilted his head toward her. “No, you probably can't from there, but there's a hairline fracture right here.” He jabbed the ballpoint at the spot where she assumed her fracture was supposed to be located.
"What do you do about it?"
He smiled, revealing a pair of severely crooked front teeth. “We wrap you up like a birthday present and send you home. You'll have to take things easy for several weeks. I'll instruct the nurse to show you how to rewrap your dressing daily. Do you have someone to help you with it? Am I assuming correctly you don't want us to show
him
...” he gestured over his shoulder, “...how to do it for you?"
"Correct."
"All right.” He nodded again, the movement reminding Paige of the little bobbing headed dogs in the back of automobile windows. “I'll send the nurse in to tend you.” The pen scratched on a small white pad. “Here's a prescription for your pain. You'll probably need it for a few days. We'll send you home with a few sample packets you can use until your pharmacy is open in the morning. Get well.” He waved two fingers at her.
"Thank you."
A tall buxom nurse entered. She had a frizz of bleached hair that looked stiff and unyielding. Below the frizz, limpid blue eyes scowled. “Let's get you upright.” She grasped both Paige's arms and pulled.
Pain shot through her. “Take it ... easy, will you?"
"I'd say you're used to that kind of treatment. Don't know why you women take it. There's plenty of nice men out there."
"Is that right? Where, pray tell?"
"All over. Just stop looking for them in barrooms and singles joints."
"What makes you think ... Oh, never mind."
The nurse, whose nametag stated she was Freda, opened a box about the size of a pair of pantyhose then withdrew an ace bandage. She unwound it and rewound it tightly around Paige's ribs. As she bent forward, the deep vee in her uniform displayed a cleavage the size of Rhode Island. She wrapped, reaching around Paige in a grotesque hug, demonstrating just how tight it should be to inhibit improper motion, which might delay healing time. “You should replace the bandage with a new one every few days to keep the elasticity new. Understand?"
"Yes."
"Okay, we're finished here."
"Is he still waiting?"
"Yes."
"Is there another way out?"
The nurse smiled, an expression that Paige thought must be alien to her, an expression that did nothing to improve the sour mood Freda emitted.
Freda thumped a palm on Paige's thigh. “That's what I wanted to hear, dearie. Tell you what I'll do. I'll tell him we want to keep you overnight for observation. It's a common occurrence and won't make him suspicious. I'll tell him we're getting your room ready and he'll be able to see you in about an hour. Will that give you enough time?"
Paige placed a hand on the nurse's arm. “That will be plenty. Thank you so much, Freda."
"If you have nowhere to go, there's a woman's shelter a few blocks away. I could call you a cab."
"Please. Would it be possible for you to get my bill, and for me to pay it from here?"
"I think we could make that exception."
The cabbie ran around the taxi and helped Freda off-load Paige into the back seat. Dawn was just creeping over the black-shadowed mountains in the near distance. A pastel yellow and gray light shone between two peaks, which Paige was certain had names, but their identities were unknown to her.
Freda gave the driver the address of the home on Wiltshire Road. On the way out of the parking lot, Paige asked the driver to first stop at the big yellow bumblebee, praying he was still waiting patiently in the emergency room.
Paige stepped painstakingly out of the taxi. From the pocket of her jeans, she withdrew Chris’ keys. They got her inside the cab to retrieve the suitcase containing the hundred thousand dollars she needed to begin her new life.
She settled herself in the taxi's back seat, and the driver moved into the road. Paige wanted to, but couldn't turn to glance back to see if Chris had followed. The cab wound through the streets of Fort Smith, taking corners carefully, considerate of her condition.
The memory of her last cab ride thrust her into a state of agitation and dismay. She couldn't shake off the vision of Habib on the pavement, with the mealy-skinned Davenport lying on top of him, forcing out Habib's last breath in a rush of bloody froth. Her stomach rolled and complained and the need for a bathroom embraced her.
Paige swallowed twice, willing the bile to stay down. When it refused she leaned forward as much as her taped ribs would allow and tapped on the separating glass. “Could you find me a bathroom, quickly?"
"I can take you back to the hospital right away,” he offered.
"No, I don't need to go back there. I just need a bathroom. Hurry."
In a grimy stall at the rear of a Texaco station, Paige sat, letting her fear, worry, and remaining energy drain away. She drummed her fingers on the toilet paper roll wondering if ditching Chris had been the right decision. If he was one of Stefano's men, she was right where he wanted her. If he wasn't, they'd surely hurt or kill him, just like they did Habib.
Paige leaned her head against the grimy wall and sighed a small sigh because she couldn't inhale enough air for a large one. She suddenly realized how bone tired she was, and almost wished they'd insisted she remain in the hospital. The escape had exhausted the last of her limited supply of energy. And she still had to seek out a motel. Unable to let the taxi driver know where she was headed, she'd have to dig down deep, and do it on her own.