His Frozen Heart (16 page)

The clothes I was wearing were the
same ones I had thrown on in the dark. I had half a mind to ask the
officer to excuse me so I could put on fresh, but I would wait to
do that until I could grab a shower. When I had pulled up in front
of the house, a hot shower was all I could think of. I had never
considered more danger awaited me in my own safe haven. In addition
to the danger waiting, more danger pursued me. I shivered at the
thought of what might have happened if Mrs. Bavcock hadn’t been
watching out for me.

My hands shook as I looked around the
room. My whole life was tied up in this house, but if anything
happened to Libby, I knew I would never want to return. She had
been attacked, right here, while I slept. When we were younger, how
many times had she spent the night, and we stayed up giggling until
the sun came up? How many times had I been stressed out about
school or a guy, and it was Libby who picked up the pieces and told
me everything would be fine. Too many to count.

An image of her hooked up to tubes,
fighting for her life in a lonely hospital room, brought the
reality of the situation in living color. I grabbed a backpack from
my closet, stuffed it with clothes, and threw it over my
shoulder.

The officer who had stood by the door
cleared his throat, “Does anything look out of place?”

My eyes darted around the room. My
desk looked just as I had left it: school papers strewn in an
outrageously high pile, books from last semester piled up beside it
on the floor with gnarled up notebooks piled underneath. The
dresser, too, looked untouched, save for the neatly folded clothes
that I hadn’t noticed last night. I recognized them as Libby’s
handiwork – she folded t-shirts in this four-fold way that made
them practically wrinkle-free.

Beside my bed was a small table where
I charged my phone, with an alarm clock I never used other than to
see what time it was. A picture of my two sisters and I set behind
it – wait, the picture was missing. The frame was exactly where I
had left it, but it stood empty. The freak wouldn’t go after Carly
and Kim, would he?

The words shot out of me like
rapid-fire, “There on my nightstand, that frame had a picture of me
with my two sisters.” I went to reach for it, but the officer
stopped my hand in mid-air.

“
He might have left prints.
I’ll make sure it gets dusted.” From his pocket he produced a large
plastic bag, put a glove on his hand, and gingerly placed the frame
in the bag. Looking around the room, he asked, “Anything
else?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t see
anything else.”

The bathroom was at the end of the
hall. I grabbed my overnight make-up bag, toothbrush, toothpaste
and took a quick look in the mirror. The events of the last day
were wearing on me. I looked like I felt – like I’d been to hell
and back. Absently running fingers through my hair rather than
using a hairbrush did little to make me any more
presentable.

The policeman stood in the doorway,
“Anything here?”

Nothing looked out of place. I had
cleaned the bathroom yesterday morning, and it still smelled
faintly of bleach. “No. Nothing looks out of place in
here.”

I thought of something, “Hey, can I go
into Libby’s room to get something? I want to take it to her at the
hospital.”

He nodded and allowed me to lead the
way. I hesitated before turning her door handle. When her door
opened, the cologne she wore still hung in the air. The skimpy
outfit she had worn to the bar was on the floor beside her bed. I
tried to ignore it as I reached for the first thing I wanted her to
see when she woke up – the stuffed turtle I had given her for
graduation.

We walked slowly down the hall back
toward the stairs. I gave no explanation of why I wanted the toy,
and thankfully, the officer didn’t ask me. When she woke up, if I
wasn’t there when her eyes opened, her turtle would be there for
her – reminding her that she was tough, that no one could break
her.

“
Can I see where she was
attacked?”

His expression told me he wanted to
deny this request, but he reluctantly nodded. Both of us walked
slowly down the steps. In the daylight, the kitchen looked much as
I had remembered from yesterday. Dirty pans were still on the stove
from the manicotti she had prepared when she got back from the
grocery store while I was sound asleep upstairs.

Someone had turned off the television
that was on last night. I took a step toward the living room, but
the police officer stopped me. “Don’t go in. The forensic team
doesn’t want anything touched.”

Standing in the doorway, the evidence
of the brutality was everywhere. Blood splatter was on the walls
and pooled on the carpet. A lamp was on the floor, the glass
smashed and the metal base bloody. The tan sofa was soaked in blood
where she had been lying as I left for work. My stomach turned at
the scene. I ran for the front door, grabbed hold of the railing
and retched off the porch. The officer grabbed hold of me, holding
me in place as a second wave of dizziness and nausea consumed me.
After my body settled down and the frigid air cooled my burning
face, he helped me back into the house and ushered me to a kitchen
chair. The officer placed a cool glass of water in front of me. As
I took a sip, his cell phone rang.

He pursed his lips as he looked at the
display and answered, “Officer Bivens.” His brows furrowed as he
listened to who had called him. He looked back toward the front
door, then answered, “Understood. I’ll make sure she is
aware.”

He took a seat beside me at the
kitchen table. “That was Dave Brewer’s escort. He escaped custody.
It’ll only be a matter of time before we apprehend him, but I think
it’s time you get back to your neighbor’s house. We’ll post a
patrolman outside until the two men are in custody.”

Adrenalin pulsed through my body. Dave
was loose? Without finishing my water, I stood up, gathered my
backpack and my overnight bag, and hurried to the front door,
worried I might lose it again. Officer Bivens walked me all the way
to Mrs. Bavcock’s house. He stayed at Mrs. Bavcock’s house until
another squad car pulled up. His eyes were kind as he said, “We’ll
keep an officer posted on the street. Stay inside. I promise I’ll
call you with developments.”

I should have been dead on my feet,
but I wasn’t. Mrs. Bavcock had made chicken soup while I was
gathering my things, but I wasn’t hungry. I was restless. I lay
down in Mrs. Bavcock’s guest room, counting the faded yellow
flowers on her wallpaper, but sleep refused to find me. Grizzly
images of my living room haunted me. I glanced at the happy turtle
on top of my backpack. I wanted to go see Libby, to be there if she
woke up.

After over an hour my body was more
frazzled than when I had arrived. I excused myself and promised I’d
be back later this afternoon. Mrs. Bavcock didn’t try to dissuade
me when I told her I was going to the hospital. I took my backpack
with me. She eyed it hung over my shoulder, but ignoring her eyes,
I didn’t offer any explanation. Somewhere deep down I knew I
wouldn’t skip town without Libby, but if the worst happened and she
didn’t wake up, I would never return to my house or this
street.

Images of the blood in the living room
were waiting for me each time my eyes closed. Libby had to be okay.
She had to pull through. I delayed long enough to let the police
officer parked outside know where I was going and to ask him to
keep an eye on Mrs. Bavcock. He told me he had been assigned to
keep watch on the neighborhood but would be watching her house
closely. I tossed my backpack in the backseat of my car and ignored
Dave’s car still parked right behind mine.

When I arrived, a different nurse was
at the station for ICU, but the doctor had put me on Libby’s
visitor list, so I had no problem getting inside. A second nurse
gave me a set of scrubs and walked me through the procedures for
visiting someone in ICU. I was told my visit would be limited to
ten minutes.

A chair set beside her bed. I put the
happy turtle on her nightstand and sat in the chair.

The only sound in her room was the
sound of machines helping to keep her alive. The humming and
periodic beeping were a little hypnotic. I sat for a full five
minutes before I noticed the hum of the machines was making my eyes
heavy. I didn’t want to fall asleep, so words began falling out of
me.

“
I don’t know if you can
hear me. I brought you your turtle. I’m sure it’s against the
rules, but I put him where the curtain kind of hides him.” My voice
was unsteady, “Your doctor is a hottie. If I were you, I’d pretend
to be in bad shape for as long as you can get away with it. But if
you want to wake up early and get out of here, I got his
card.”

The babbling continued for several
minutes until the words I needed to say rushed out of me. “I’m
going to find this guy. I promise you, I’ll find him.” My hand took
hers: it was cool and a little clammy. I rubbed her hand using both
of mine to try to warm it up. “You need to keep fighting. I need
for you to get better.” Reaching across the bed, I took her other
hand in mine and did the same thing. “I promise if you get better,
I’ll never give you a hard time about rent again. We can get
another roommate, so you can live in the house for free, okay?
You’re never going to shark again because of rent or food. We’ll
figure out a different way to pay the bills, I promise.”

The tears that rarely came even in the
worst situations were now cascading down my cheeks. My voice was
unintelligible, but I choked out the words anyway, “I can’t go back
home if you aren’t there. It isn’t home without you, Libby. So wake
up.” The sobs took over as I bent forward and rested my head
against her mattress. “Just wake up. Don’t leave me.”

Unsure how long I stayed in this
position, a nurse gently shook my shoulder. I had stayed well past
the ten minute limit. I nodded to the nurse and gave Libby one more
sorrowful look. I leaned down to her ear and whispered, “Keep
fighting.”

I returned the scrubs to the used
laundry hamper and left the ICU. The waiting room which had been
nearly empty last night was full of long faces and tears. I didn’t
want anyone’s comfort, but it felt better to be around others in as
much pain as I was.

I found an overstuffed chair away from
the others, by a window looking out across the city. My stomach
growled. No matter how hard I tried to stop the memory, the events
from last night crashed in on me as I fell into a fitful sleep in
the waiting room. I woke up abruptly, looking around the waiting
room in a daze. The reality of where I was, and the events of the
last twenty-four hours poured over me. I stood up and stretched. I
felt awful. My watch told me I’d been asleep for nearly two
hours.

The light from the window that I had
fallen asleep beside was diminishing. It was going to be dark soon.
I needed to get back to Mrs. Bavcock’s house and get some real
sleep.

Chapter 11

The fine hairs at the nape of my neck
prickled. Someone was watching me. There was a policeman posted on
the ICU floor, positioned behind the same desk as the nurse who had
welcomed me when I arrived. He hadn’t been here earlier, so I
wondered if he had been assigned here along with the patrolman on
my street. I turned in a complete three-sixty, but no one seemed to
be paying any attention to me in the waiting room. I felt eyes
watching, but from where? I was still groggy from my nap and needed
more sleep. I had caught a quick nap between 9 PM and midnight last
night, and a couple hours just now, but I had been on a two-day
stretch before that. In the last forty plus hours, I had had just
shy of five hours of sleep.

That had to be what I felt. My body
was overreacting to all the stimuli. I had once stayed awake for
almost three whole days and nights. Remembering that it had taken
days to recover afterwards, my body was telling me it needed some
down time. I didn’t want my body to melt down like that again, but
I wasn’t confident that I could calm myself enough to sleep anytime
soon.

Larry was sitting in a chair on the
other side of the waiting room, but he hadn’t been paying much
attention to me. As I made my way over to him, he looked up and
seemed glad to see me. “I just woke up. Has anything
changed?”

“
No. No change.”

“
How long have you been
here?”

“
I left for a little while
early this morning, but when I got to work, I couldn’t stop
thinking about her, so I came back. I must have been in the
cafeteria when you came in.” I had never thought much of him when
the two were dating: he gave off clingy vibes or something, but in
this moment I started to think he might be okay. I was glad he was
here for her. If she gets better – scratch that, when she gets
better, if Libby decides to let him hang around, I’ll do my best
not to get annoyed with him so easily.

Light from the window was nearly gone.
The short days of winter were here; it was dark most days before 6
PM. I needed to make my way to Mrs. Bavcock’s guest room. With any
luck, when I woke up tomorrow morning, I would be able to stomach
school again. I had already decided I would park two streets over
on Maple and walk through the easements to get to Mrs. Bavcock’s
house. I didn’t necessarily expect either Dave or the shooter to
come back to my street, but as much as my car stuck out, I wouldn’t
tempt fate, either.