Shadow of Perception (26 page)

Her goofy laugh echoed off the hallway walls as she moved toward the kitchen. Chuckling, he put on his jeans and realized he was finally seeing the real Eden. He’d already had it bad for her, but now that he’d discovered this playful, candid, tender, and devoted version of the woman he’d longed to have in his life again, he realized he might truly be a goner.
 

Tonight, she’d managed to break every barrier, and had infiltrated his heart and soul. If she left him again, he’d no doubt need car therapy. He’d rather work on that Corvette sitting in his garage for pleasure though, instead of using it to erase pain.
 

After he made his way into the kitchen, he watched her flutter around, setting the table and plating the food. Her bare butt peeked from beneath the sweatshirt, her long legs reminded him of how they’d been wrapped around his back earlier, and he realized he’d just have to make sure there was no pain. They’d started something tonight, and he didn’t plan to finish it for at least another sixty years.
 

Chapter 14

Dorothy Long lay on the rented hospital bed eating sour cream and onion potato chips, and watching a rerun of
The Golden Girls
. The show wasn’t as good as
Mama’s Family
, but she did love that spitfire, Sophia. Always telling the other women how it was, and meddling in their lives. Speaking of meddling…

For the second time in days, Dorothy wished she could leave her self-imposed prison and haul her sore ass off the bed. She wouldn’t mind looking around her house and seeing what Pudge had been up to. Drugs, she assumed. Why else would Pudge sleep until noon? The drugs would also explain the mood swings, the forgetfulness, the sneakiness. Pudge used to dote on her. When she’d asked for Happy Jax, Pudge would hand it to her on a Styrofoam platter. Now she had to practically beg for a damned snack cake.

 
Plus, Pudge had been keeping strange hours. Her darling child had also switched the ibuprofen yesterday and had given her sleeping pills instead. Pudge thought she was stupid, but Dorothy had figured out the deception earlier today after she’d asked for a couple more ibuprofens for her aching rear. The pills had been different from the ones she’d taken yesterday. Why Pudge would switch her pills, she couldn’t be sure. She’d slept like the dead all day yesterday and throughout the night. Had Pudge brought someone back to the house? Or had Pudge stayed out all night? Drinking, doing drugs…fornicating.
 

Lately, Dorothy had heard interesting and disgusting noises coming from both the bathroom and Pudge’s bedroom. She’d sworn Pudge had been with another person, had even thought she’d heard someone other than Pudge talking, but she hadn’t seen anyone else in the house.
 

She blew out a frustrated breath, set the chips on her stomach, then took a sip of her grape soda. Someone else could have been in the house and she wouldn’t have known. Pudge could have let them in through the back door off the kitchen, then snuck them into the bedroom without Dorothy knowing or seeing them. Damn it. If only she could leave the bed and see for herself.

Determined to learn the truth, Dorothy set the soda aside, then glanced at the clock. Half past seven. Pudge wouldn’t be home from the factory for hours. The agency that supplied her home nurse, Gretchen, closed at eight. After that, she would only be able to reach their answering service. She should call, and make sure Gretchen came by to see her tomorrow rather than next week. She liked Gretchen, and after she explained her suspicions of drugs and how Pudge had switched her pills, Dorothy was sure the nurse would snoop in Pudge’s room for her. If anything, Gretchen could notify the agency, and they could inspect the house.
 

But if they did find drugs, Dorothy could end up in a nursing home. Again, she didn’t want that. She’d lose what little freedom she had left.
 

Dorothy reached for the phone anyway. She’d have Gretchen come by, and explain the situation in confidence. Wasn’t there such thing as nurse/patient confidentiality? She wasn’t sure, but hoped her longstanding relationship with the other woman would help.

Minutes later, and satisfied with herself for taking the initiative and calling the agency, Dorothy reached for the bag of chips. The woman at the agency had assured her that Gretchen would visit tomorrow, and had promised to call Gretchen personally to confirm.

Dorothy crunched a couple of chips, and decided Pudge didn’t need to know about the call or Gretchen’s upcoming visit. She smiled and used the remote to raise the volume on the TV. Pudge needed to learn Dorothy could be sneaky, too.
 

Yeah, no one messes with Mama.

*

Sweaty and panting, Michael Morrison stepped away from the opened minivan and tried to catch his breath. Even though he’d parked the van in the steel garage near his OR, trying to haul Dr. Leonard Tully from the van proved to be quite the challenge. The doctor had him by at least one hundred and fifty pounds, and because he remained unconscious, he was dead weight.
 

Michael propped his hands on his hips, then looked around the garage for something to help him remove the man from the van and onto the surgical table. The Mechanic’s Creeper he’d bought from Sears a few years ago to change the oil on his minivan caught his attention. Michael brought it to the van. He set the Creeper next to the opened door, locked the wheels, then rolled Tully from the floorboard onto the contraption. The doctor hit the metal with a thud.

While the Creeper could hold up to a thousand pounds, it was only forty-four inches long and seventeen inches wide. As he used Tully’s legs to roll the Creeper closer to the OR, the doctor’s arms and fat hung, and dragged along the floor.
 

Once in the OR, Michael glanced to the doctor, who reminded him of a beached whale riding a surfboard, then to the surgical table. “This isn’t going to work,” Michael said to the unconscious man when he realized there was no way in hell he could heave him onto the table. “Considering our options, though, we’ll just have to improvise.”

Thirty minutes later, Michael had the doctor stripped to his satin boxers and duct taped to the Creeper. Between the blow to the head, and the sedative he’d given Tully, Michael wasn’t sure how much longer the man would remain unconscious. Because time was of the essence, if he were to have the DVD on Eden’s doorstep by morning, Michael rearranged his medical supplies to fit the new situation. The height of the Creeper could only be raised six inches. In order to ensure a smooth surgery, he made sure everything he needed had been placed at kneeling level. He then checked the Shop-Vac, the wet/dry all-purpose heavy-duty vacuum he’d tweaked especially for Dr. Tully’s procedure. Once sure all was well in his OR, Michael rose, then headed for the office.
 

A fresh bottle of Wild Turkey sat on the desk. Before he reached for the bottle, he turned on the old TV and DVD player. After both devices came to life, he hit PLAY on the remote, then opened the Wild Turkey. He took a long swallow, then another, and another as the home movie began, and Eliza’s short life played on the screen.
 

“Help,” Tully screamed from the OR.

Michael shoved off the desk, and still holding the whiskey bottle, ran from the office. When he reached Tully, he stopped, then circled the man.
 

“What is this?” Tully demanded. “Who are you and where the hell am I?”

Michael took a long swallow of the whiskey, then bent down to Tully’s level. “You doctors sure ask a lot of questions,” he said, then stood. After setting the bottle on the regular surgical table, he reached for the duct tape. “I’ve got to finish my movie before we begin your procedure. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to kindly shut the hell up.”
 

As he was about to place the tape over the other man’s mouth, Tully screamed like a two-year-old melting over a stolen cookie. When the doctor finished, Michael said, “All done?”

“No,” Tully rasped. “I demand that you release me. I’m a very important person. People will search for me and you will—”
 

Michael slapped the man’s fat face. “Stop,” he shouted, then stood and covered his ears as the other man blubbered and wailed. “Stop, stop, stop.” He paced the OR. The guilt, the rage, the shame blended together and made his head spin. The image of Dr. Thomas Elliot, lying on the surgical table, with crudely sewn stitches covering his new, maggot-filled chest crowded his mind and mingled with Dr. Brian Westly’s gory perma-grin. Running his hands through his hair, he gripped the strands by the roots and tugged. The pain didn’t blot out the men’s screams, the blood…oh God, what the coyotes had done to the bodies.
 

“Listen to me,” Tully said in a now calm, soft, and understanding tone. “I’m sure you’re a good person. If you let me go, I won’t tell anyone about this. I promise you. Just let me go, and we’ll get you the help you need.”

Michael reached for the whiskey. He nodded, then took a drink. The Wild Turkey burned his throat, and calmed his nerves. He looked down at the doctor. The guilt and shame disappeared the moment he saw the lies in Tully’s eyes. Had the doctor looked at his Eliza with those same deceitful eyes as he’d talked her into the unnecessary liposuction? Rage stripped him of any remaining shreds of decency. Morality might have a place in a hospital OR, but not in his.
 

His OR was for the corrupt.
 

For the depraved.
 

For the evil bastards who had stolen his daughter’s will to live.
 

And Dr. Leonard Tully had been one of those bastards. Now it was his turn to understand the pain he’d caused Eliza.
 

Calmer and more clear headed, Michael knelt next to the doctor. “I appreciate your concern, Dr. Tully, but I’m okay now. Just a case of pre-surgery jitters.”

“Surgery.” Tully frowned, and his eyes widened with fear. “I don’t understand. Who’s surgery?”

 
“Yours.” He slapped duct tape over Tully’s mouth. “Now, I realize you’re probably anxious to begin, but I really must finish my movie. So be a good patient and relax. I’ll be ready for you in a few minutes.”

He checked the doctor’s restraints again, then grabbed the whiskey bottle and returned to the office. “Damn,” he muttered when he realized he’d missed most of the home movies. He’d intended to watch the DVD before each surgery to help remind him of his purpose and his goals. The DVD had also helped him cope with the guilt and the shame of torturing and mutilating another human being. After his mini breakdown in the OR, he realized he didn’t need the DVD to help him through
this
surgery, though.
 

Once he’d looked into Tully’s shit brown, deceitful eyes, the regret had disappeared and had been replaced with hatred. The pig disgusted him. He’d told his daughter she was too heavy to even consider a modeling career, and that liposuction would take care of the fat pockets stored in her legs, stomach, and hips. By the time Tully had finished with her, instead of smooth skin, she’d been left with hollowed indentations and dimples along her thighs. Her stomach and hips had become lumpy and lopsided.
 

As the home movie moved to the end, Michael hit the PAUSE button on the DVD player. The still shot of the police photo, taken when Eliza had been found dead in her bedroom, filled the TV screen. She’d never shown him what Tully had done to her body.
 
He stood, then moved closer to the TV. Only when he’d seen this picture had he understood. Only then had he witnessed the butchery Tully had performed.
 

He curled his hands into fists, then looked to Eliza’s letter.
 

Make them pay, Daddy.

 
With vengeance on the brain, and three quarters of a bottle of whiskey in hand, Michael stormed from the office. When he reached the OR, he stared down at Tully.
 

The man’s eyes widened and watered as he stared at him with terror. He whimpered against the duct tape and attempted to move his big body. The Creeper remained locked, giving Michael confidence that the contraption would stay secure during the operation.
 

Slightly buzzed, he set the whiskey on the regular surgical table. He’d have to wait to drink the rest of the Wild Turkey until later. After the surgery, he’d have to make the ninety minute drive to Eden’s townhouse to drop off the DVD. Speaking of which…

Michael collected the video equipment, then moved it closer to the Creeper. After making the proper adjustments, he changed into his scrubs, put on the surgical cap, and then tied the mask around his neck. When he reached for the vial of paralytic, he hesitated. He had enough for two procedures if the patients were of an average weight. Tully’s girth was beyond average, and his body would require more of the drug than Michael was willing to give. After all, he still had another surgery scheduled.

Skipping over the vial, Michael grabbed the scalpel, then the hose attached to the Shop-Vac. He knelt next to Tully, then ripped the tape for the man’s mouth.

Tully released a girly scream, and tears rolled down his doughy cheeks. “P…please,” he stuttered. “Let me go. I promise I won’t tell. I promise I—”

“Grow a set of balls, Doctor,” Michael ordered. “Now listen closely. I want to give you a head’s up on what I have planned. In a few moments we will begin your surgery.”