Finding Sky (18 page)

‘I don’t know.’ My eyes turned to Zed. ‘You locked me in the boot of your car. Why did you do that to me?’

Zed looked shocked.

‘No, I didn’t, Sky. Is that what they did to you? Oh God, baby, I’m sorry.’

‘We’d best get her checked for concussion,’ said the medic. ‘Keep talking to her.’ She signalled for a stretcher to be brought over. Zed untied my legs.

‘I shot you,’ I told him.

‘No, you didn’t, Sky. The men were shooting at us, remember?’

I gave up. ‘I don’t know what to think.’

‘Just think that you are safe now.’

I had an image of an orange-skinned man in a suit swooping into the hospital to save me. Who was that?

The two medics lifted me onto the stretcher. Zed kept hold of my uninjured hand as I was wheeled out to the ambulance.

‘I’m sorry I shot you,’ I told him. ‘But you were attacking me.’

Why would my soulfinder attack me?

I could see other Benedicts gathering around my stretcher. They were evil, weren’t they?

Zed wiped the blood from my cheek. ‘I wasn’t attacking you and you haven’t shot me.’

The last I saw of the rest of the Benedict family was a grim-looking Saul as I was loaded into the ambulance. Zed tried to get in but I shook my head.

‘I shot him,’ I told the medic seriously. ‘He can’t come with me; he hates me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the woman told Zed. ‘Your presence is upsetting her. Where are her parents?’

‘They’re booked into a hotel off the Strip,’ said Saul. ‘I’ll let them know. Which hospital are you taking her to?’

‘The Cedars.’

‘OK, I’ll stay away, let her calm down if you think that best,’ said Zed reluctantly releasing my hand. ‘Sally and Simon will be there. You hear that, Sky?’

I didn’t reply. As far as I could remember one or other of us should be dead. Perhaps it was me. I closed my eyes, my mind so overloaded I had to check out for a moment. Then I was gone.

 

It was the sounds that first alerted me to the fact that I was in hospital. I didn’t open my eyes but I could hear the hushed noise in the room—a machine humming, people murmuring. And the smells—antiseptic, unfamiliar sheets, flowers. Surfacing a little more, I could feel the pain, dulled by drugs but still lurking. My arm was bandaged and I could feel the pull of a dressing in my hair and the itch of stitches. Slowly, I let my eyes flutter open. The light was too bright.

‘Sky?’ Sally was at my side in an instant. ‘Are you thirsty? The doctors said you must drink.’ She held a beaker out, her hand shaking.

‘Give her a moment, love,’ Simon said, coming to stand behind her. ‘Are you all right?’

I nodded. I didn’t want to speak. My head was still messed up, full of conflicting images. I couldn’t work out what was real and what was imagined.

Supporting the back of my head, Sally held the water to my lips and I took a sip.

‘Better now? Can you use your voice?’ she asked.

There were too many voices—mine, Zed’s, a man saying he was my friend. I closed my eyes and turned my face to the pillow.

‘Simon!’ Sally sounded distressed.

I didn’t want to upset her. Perhaps if I pretended I wasn’t there, she would be happy again. That sometimes worked.

‘She’s in shock, Sally,’ Simon said soothingly. ‘Give her a chance.’

‘But she’s not been like this since we first had her. I can see it in her eyes.’

‘Shh, Sally. Don’t jump to conclusions. Sky, you take all the time you need, you hear? No one’s going to rush you.’

Sally sat down on the bed and took my hand. ‘We love you, Sky. Hold on to that.’

But I didn’t want love. It hurt.

Simon switched on the radio and tuned in to a station playing soft classical music. It flowed over me like a caress. I’d listened to music all the time during the years in a succession of foster and care homes. I’d only spoken by singing strange little half-mad songs I’d made up myself, which had led the carers to assume I was crazy. I suppose I had been. But then Sally and Simon had met me and seen that they could do something for me. They’d been so patient, waiting for me to emerge, and gradually I had. I’d not sung a note since. I couldn’t put them through that again.

‘I’m all right,’ I rasped. I wasn’t. My brain was a junkyard of bits and pieces.

‘Thank you, darling.’ Sally squeezed my hand. ‘I needed to hear it.’

Simon fiddled with an arrangement of flowers, clearing his throat several times. ‘We’re not the only ones who want to know you’re OK. Zed Benedict and his family have been camping out in the visitors’ lounge.’

Zed. My confusion increased. Panic zapped through me like an electric shock. I’d realized something important about him, but I’d slammed the door closed again.

‘I can’t.’

‘It’s all right. I’ll just go and tell them you’ve woken up and explain you aren’t up to visitors right now. But I’m afraid the police are waiting to talk to you. We have to let them in.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Just tell them the truth.’

Simon went out to give the Benedicts the news. I gestured to Sally that I wanted to sit up. I now noticed that her face looked strained and tired.

‘How long have I been here?’

‘You’ve been out for twelve hours, Sky. The doctors couldn’t explain why. We were very worried.’

Something made me glance up. The Benedicts were leaving the hospital. Zed slowed by the window in the corridor that looked into my room and our eyes met. I had a horrible sensation in the pit of my stomach. Fear. He stopped, placing his hand on the glass as if to reach for me. I clenched my fists on the cover. Deep inside I could hear a ringing note, discordant, violent. The water jug on the bedside table began to judder; the overhead light stuttered; the buzzer to summon the nurse jumped off the rail and crashed to the floor. Zed’s expression became darker, the sound harsher. Then Saul came up alongside and said something softly in his ear. Zed nodded, gave me a last look and walked on. The note stopped, snapped off; the vibrations ceased.

Sally rubbed her arms. ‘Strange. Must have been a tremor.’ She returned the buzzer to its original position. ‘I didn’t know Vegas was in an earthquake zone.’

I couldn’t tell if it had been me or Zed. Was he so angry at me he wanted to shake me? Or had that been my fear trying to push him away?

Feeling numb, I let Sally brush and plait my hair for me.

‘I won’t ask you what happened, darling,’ she said, taking care not to pull the hair around my cut, ‘as you’ll have to go through it for the police and FBI, but I just want you to know that whatever happened wasn’t your fault. No one will blame you.’

‘Two men died, didn’t they?’ My voice sounded distant. I felt I was watching myself go through the motions of talking to Sally while really I was hidden deep inside, hiding behind so many doors and locks that no one could reach me. It was the only place I felt safe.

‘Yes. The police and FBI arrived at the same time acting on separate tip-offs—it was a massive mix-up in communications, the left hand not knowing what the right was doing. The two men were killed in the exchange of fire.’

‘One of them was called Gator. He had a curly ponytail. He was nice to me.’ I couldn’t remember why I thought that.

‘Then I’m sorry he is dead.’

There was a cough at the door. Victor Benedict stood in the entrance with an unfamiliar man in a dark suit.

‘May we come in?’ Victor was looking at me with particular intent. The tremor had not gone unnoticed and he looked, well,
wary
of me, as if I was an unexploded bomb or something.

‘Please.’ Sally got up from the bed and made space for them.

‘Sky, this is Lieutenant Farstein of the Las Vegas police department. He’s got a few questions for you. Is that OK?’

I nodded. Farstein, a sun-bronzed, middle-aged man with thinning hair, pulled up a seat.

‘Miss Bright, how are you?’ he asked.

I took a sip of water. I liked him—my instinct was that he was genuinely concerned. ‘A bit confused.’

‘Yeah, I know the feeling.’ He pulled out a notebook to check his facts. ‘You’ve got the police departments of two states and the FBI in a spin, but we’re glad we found you safe and well.’ He tapped the page thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you’d best start from the top—tell us how you were snatched.’

I strained to remember. ‘It was getting dark. I’d been skiing—well, falling over on skis really.’

Victor smiled, his face reminding me so much of Zed when it took on a softer expression. ‘Yeah, I’d heard you were taking lessons.’

‘Tina’s car had a problem.’

Farstein checked his notes. ‘The mechanic discovered that someone messed with the leads to the battery.’

‘Oh.’ I rubbed my forehead. The next steps were shaky. ‘Then Zed and Xav persuaded me to get in a car. They locked me in the boot. No, no, they didn’t.’ I pinched the bridge of my nose. ‘I can see them doing it but it doesn’t feel right.’

‘Sky.’ Victor’s tone was low and insistent. ‘What is it you’re seeing?’

Farstein cut across him. ‘Are you saying, Sky, that two of the Benedict brothers were responsible for your abduction?’

Something clicked in my head. The pictures flowing easily, smoothly, without pain.

‘They pretended to be my friend, wanted to hurt me.’

‘You know that’s not true, Sky.’ Victor was furious, his lips compressed.

Farstein shot him a quelling look. ‘Agent Benedict, you should not interrupt the witness. And bearing in mind your relationship to those she’s accusing, I suggest you step outside and send in a colleague who can listen impartially.’

Victor stalked to the door, his back to the room, but didn’t leave. ‘What she’s saying is impossible. I was with my brothers, lieutenant; they had nothing to do with her kidnapping.’
Sky,
why are you saying this?

I looked frantically to Sally. ‘He’s talking to me in my head—tell him to stop.’ I pressed my fists to my temples. ‘It hurts.’

Sally took my hand, standing between me and Victor. ‘Mr Benedict, I think you’d best go: you’re upsetting Sky.’

I turned tear-filled eyes to Farstein. ‘I shot them, didn’t I?’

‘No, Sky, you weren’t responsible for the deaths of those men.’

‘Zed and Xav are dead?’

Farstein threw Sally an anxious look. ‘No,’ he said carefully, ‘the two men who staked out the warehouse are dead.’

‘Gator and O’Halloran,’ I repeated, remembering them. ‘The savant.’

‘The what?’ asked Farstein.

Which one, Sky?
asked Victor urgently.

‘Go away from me!’ I pulled the covers over my head. ‘Get out of my head.’

Farstein sighed and closed his notebook. ‘I can see we are doing more harm than good here, Mrs Bright. We’ll leave Sky to get some rest. Agent Benedict, I want a word with you.’

Victor nodded. ‘Down the hall. Take it easy, Sky. It’ll come back.’

The two men left. I lowered the covers to find Sally watching me with fear in her eyes.

‘I’m going mad, aren’t I?’ I asked her. ‘I can’t remember—and what I remember feels wrong.’

She brushed her thumb over my knuckles. ‘You’re not mad. You’re recovering from trauma. It takes time. We think the people who did this to you are probably dead, killed in the shootout. The police are just trying to tie up the loose ends.’

I wish someone would tie up the loose ends in my brain. My thoughts were like ragged bunting from some abandoned party whipping about in the wind—no purpose, no anchor.

‘If Zed and Xav didn’t kidnap me, then why do I think they did?’

Thanksgiving came and went, the only sign the turkey dinner in hospital. My mind was no clearer. I felt like a beach after the passing of a tidal wave—odds and ends thrown up on the shore, all out of place, smashed to pieces. I was aware of the passage of great emotion through me but I couldn’t sort it out, what had been real, what had been false. I’d let something loose inside and not controlled it—the result had been devastating.

Zed and his brother were cleared of all suspicion by the Las Vegas police department. So why had I accused them? I was racked with guilt that I had involved them in this, too embarrassed to see any of the Benedicts. I made my parents promise that they wouldn’t let them in—I couldn’t face them. I wasn’t able to keep Victor out though; he came several times with Farstein to see if I remembered any more. I apologized to him, and the policeman, for getting it wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Victor hated me now.

‘Nightmares, Miss Bright—that’s what they are,’ Farstein said in a practical tone of voice. ‘You’ve gone through a terrifying experience and your mind got muddled.’

He was being kind but I could tell he dismissed me as next to useless in his enquiries. Everyone agreed that I’d been kidnapped, but no one could prove that anyone beyond the two men in the warehouse had been involved. I was the key but I wasn’t opening any doors for them.

Farstein brought me a pack of cards and a bunch of flowers on his last visit. ‘Here you are, Miss Bright, I hope these help you feel better.’ He split open the packet and shuffled. ‘I imagine you must be bored stuck in here. My city is a good place to visit for most folks; I’m sorry you had such a bad time with us.’ He cut the cards and dealt me a hand.

Victor was hanging back, watching us from the doorway. ‘You’re not corrupting the girl, are you, Farstein?’

‘Can’t leave Vegas without taking one gamble.’

‘I don’t know many games,’ I admitted.

‘Let’s keep it to Snap then.’

‘If I win?’

‘You get the flowers.’

‘If I lose?’

‘You still get the flowers, but you have to give me one for my buttonhole.’

Farstein left with a carnation pinned to his lapel.

Victor stayed behind. He stood looking out of the window for a moment, his disquiet clear.

‘Sky, why don’t you want to see Zed?’

I closed my eyes.

‘He’s really cut up. I’ve never seen him like this. I know he blames himself for what happened to you, but it’s knocked him off his stride in a major way.’

I said nothing.

‘I’m worried about him.’

Victor was not one to confide in someone outside the family. He really must be concerned. But what could I do? I could barely find the courage to get up in the morning.

‘He got in a fight last night.’

A fight? ‘Is he all right?’

‘From the brawl? Yeah, it was more words than fists.’

‘Who did he fight?’

‘A couple of guys from Aspen. He went looking for it, Sky. And in answer to your other question, he isn’t all right. He’s hurting. It’s like he’s bleeding inside, somewhere he thinks no one can see.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘But you’re not going to do anything about it?’

Tears pricked the back of my eyes. ‘What do you want me to do?’

He held out a hand to me. ‘Stop shutting him out. Help him.’

I swallowed. There was a streak of ruthlessness to Victor that wouldn’t let me duck behind the excuse of my confusion—it was both scary and challenging. ‘I’ll … I’ll try.’

His hand curled into a fist before he let it drop. ‘I hope you do, because if something bad happens to my brother, I’m not going to be pleased.’