Halos (24 page)

He jerked it into park. She started running before his door was open but heard him coming behind. Her legs were long, and fear compelled her. But she could hear his breath puffing as he closed the gap. He was big.

Lord, help me!
It struck her that she didn’t want to die, not like this, like the dog whose skull had made her think crazy things. He grabbed her, crashing to the ground on top of her. Her face dug into the snow, filling her mouth and nose. She sputtered and spit, writhing under his weight. He bent her arm and wrenched it back.

She tried to throw him off, but he increased the pressure and the pain. It would break! She stopped fighting. “What do you want? Leave me alone.”

“Oh no.” He stroked the snow from her cheek, slowly pulling her arm tighter, bringing pain she couldn’t hide. “You’re the one who does that.”

Does what?
What was he saying? “Please.”

“I saw your letter.”

“What letter?”

He jerked her arm and a searing pain filled her shoulder. “You should have stayed dead.” With his other hand he ground her face into the snow.

She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs burned and screamed for air. She thrashed, but he pressed his knee into her spine and jerked her head back by her hair.

She gasped a breath before he smashed it down again, laughing. “Let me hear you beg. Arf, arf. Don’t chop my head off.”

Oh, God!

He jerked her up and rolled her over, cramming his knee into her belly. Again she couldn’t breathe, though her airways were freed.

“Let me hear it. Arf, arf.”

She gasped, grabbing at his leg, then aimed a swing at his crotch.

He dodged and caught both arms, pressing them down into the snow. “For that, it’ll be slow.” He ground his knee harder, jammed it into her solar plexus.

Her diaphragm froze. Her head grew thick. Mom and Dad in heaven. She’d have a place there. But he lifted his knee, and her breath returned with a sucking groan.

He laughed. “Now you know what it was like. To be left with him.” Her chest heaved with panicked breaths. She wanted to cry out, but no words would come. She heard a car, something louder, bigger than her Mustang. He heard it, too, and with a look of pure evil closed his hands around her throat. She arched and thrashed, but his knee pressed in with all his weight and kept her pinned. Her senses paled. Why were her hands twitching?

Steve caught the red Mustang in his headlights and it all became clear. The car was real; Alessi was real. He’d believed, but not viscerally, as he did now. Something moved, a dark form on the side of the road.

It separated, and part rose up into a man running. The other part didn’t move.

Steve jammed on the brakes, shoved the gearshift into neutral and set the brake, then lurched out as Carl ran for the Mustang. Every killer instinct said chase him down, but he ran instead to Alessi on the side of the road. She lay like a discarded mannequin, and he dropped down beside her. “Alessi.”

She wasn’t breathing.
No!
He grabbed her up into his arms and shook her. “Alessi!”

“I don’t think I will grow old. I think both parents dying early is a sign, like a warning for me.”
He clutched her tight as the awful ache grew inside.

The light was more beautiful than any she’d ever seen, aglow with colors she couldn’t name, yet at the same time whiter than white. A longing so deep, a surety of love unsurpassed drew her forward, up and away from the fragile shell that had held her. She no longer needed it. She was lighter than air, swifter than wind. And love encompassed her, touching the places she’d been pierced with light like fire that sealed them shut and made them whole.

Nothing mattered anymore, nothing hurt. She soared, she flew, carried on balmy air, yet she didn’t need lungs to draw it in. The horror of not breathing left her. It was all right now. Nothing marred the perfect peace surrounding her. No sorrow, no fear. Yet she was alone. She searched the light, but though it seemed a tangible presence, it was at the same time empty of form. She was alone.

Thirty-Two

L
ET HER GO!” BEN WRENCHED HER from his arms and pressed her to the ground, shoving Steve out of the way. He watched, desperation mounting as Ben pressed his mouth to hers. Didn’t he realize it was too late? They were too late. Ben puffed and pressed as the moments passed. Was her windpipe crushed? Was there internal injury?

Tears burned Steve’s cheeks, and he wanted to punch Ben and scream “Leave her alone!”

A faint sucking wheeze. Air passing through her throat? Steve pressed in as Ben raised his face from hers. More wheezing. Not normal breath. But she was alive. Steve caught up her limp body. He chafed her face. “Alessi.”

No response. Her skin was freezing, but she didn’t shiver.

“Get her in the truck,” Ben said. “I’ll drive.”

Steve grabbed her up into his arms and carried her to the truck, terror making him strong. Ben opened the door, and Steve slid into the seat with her still limp in his arms. She might be breathing, but it was not right. Ben ran around to his side and jammed the truck into gear.

“Chambers City,” Steve rasped, though why he was giving directions was beyond him. Ben was the one thinking clearly. Steve had given up the moment he saw her lying there. The Chambers City hospital was small but the best they had. And there was at least one doctor he trusted. The woman who had seen his father through his last days. Was he bringing Alessi there to die?
Lord, no
. He clutched her tighter as Ben drove.
Hang on, Alessi. Hang on
.

Ben pulled up to the emergency entrance, left the truck running, and burst inside. Moments later the staff rushed out with him, and Steve surrendered her. They laid Alessi on a gurney and rolled her into the hospital, though she still showed no response. Steve stayed beside her as an IV was inserted, and he considered it God’s hand when Dr. Liz Deklin came in.

He clenched his hands and blurted, “She was attacked and strangled. She’s breathing, but it’s not right.”

The nurse handed over the chart with Alessi’s vitals. Dr. Deklin ordered a respirator. Steve paced. A respirator was not good news, but in Alessi’s condition … He glanced at Ben, thanking God one of them thought positively. Where he had assumed the worst, Ben had taken action. Steve kicked himself. He was the ranger; he had the training. But when it came right down to it, he’d collapsed.

“Steve.” Dr. Deklin laid a hand on his arm. “Go out to the waiting room.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“I need to assess her condition.” She pushed him out of the cubicle after Ben. They found their way to the waiting area. A vanilla-scented candle muted the antiseptic smell of hospital and fear.

Steve ran a hand through his hair. “Ben, I—”

“Good thing you woke up when you did.”

Steve stared at him. Sure, he’d played a part, getting them out to search. But Ben had saved her life. “You got her breathing. I thought she was gone.”

Ben nodded. “I thought so too.”

But he’d acted anyway. Steve pressed a hand to his eyes and rubbed his face. “You kept your head.”

“I’m not as close to it.”

What did that mean? But he knew. He wasn’t hiding anything from Ben. If he loved her, why wasn’t he the one to give her breath? He’d assumed she would be taken away. He always assumed the worst. What reason did he have not to?

Ben said, “I’m gonna call Dave. He’ll be wondering.”

Steve tried to focus on his words. Dave. Was he still driving the highway looking for her? Or had he gone back to the house? It didn’t matter. Steve paced the small room, waiting. What could take so long? Dr. Deklin was treating Alessi’s injuries. He had to be patient.

Ben spoke into the phone on the corner table. “Dave? Alessi’s been hurt. We’re at the Chambers City Hospital.”

A pause, then, “She’s hurt real bad.”

Steve snatched the phone. “Call Cooper and tell him … it’s Carl.” Steve hung up, shaking. He had guessed Carl and had been too weak to act on it, too insecure to believe his own intuition.

“Don’t go there, Steve. No one expected this.” Steve shook him off. “Why not?”

Ben tucked his chin. “We’re just ordinary folks.”

That didn’t excuse it. He should have known. Somehow. He went to the machine and got a cup of coffee.

Two bitter cups later, the doctor came out. Her face was grim. He did not want to see her face so grim. Her hair was soft gray curls around a square jaw, and her indistinct blue-green eyes were carefully guarded.

“Well?” Steve said.

“If there was something surgically or even neurologically that could be done, we would airlift her to a bigger hospital.”

He nodded. They could take Alessi anywhere as long as they helped her. Then he realized she had said if. Cold dread crept through his limbs.

“I’m sorry. She was too long without oxygen.”

He was suddenly airless himself. Dave rushed in as the doctor continued to speak.

“There is very little brain activity, only the most basic functions. We intubated her before we knew the full extent of the injury, or I might not have.”

Steve stared into her face. “Is she going to make it?”

She laid a hand on his arm. She had to have something more useful to tell him. “We’ve made her as comfortable as we can.”

She’d spoken those very words about his dad when there was nothing more they could do. But Dad had been seventy-three with hypertension and a weak heart, not a young woman with her whole life ahead. Not Alessi, who hadn’t even seen it coming, who had no resistance to cruelty. Not the madcap, crazy-haired girl who wanted to see his waterfall.

Dave looked from him to Ben, not comprehending the awful news he’d walked in on.

Steve squeezed his empty cup. “So what do we do?” The doctor must have some plan, some go-ahead formula.

Dr. Deklin studied him. “It may require a decision, but I doubt it.” Decision? What decision?

“I think she will drift away.”

That penetrated. He’d imagined her drifting away ever since she came. But not like this. Forever but not … from life. He swallowed the pain in his throat. It didn’t matter that Ben had made her breathe. She would still drift away.

Dr. Deklin had a hint of medicinal halitosis, a scent he associated with his father’s death and which he supposed would now be part of his memories of Alessi. “You can see her in a few minutes.” She squeezed his arm and included the others in her glance. “I’ve alerted the police. They’ll want a statement.”

And he would give it, the pact be damned.

After the doctor left, Dave cleared his throat. “What happened?”

Steve’s voice had rusted. “She left.” That was the crux of it. She had walked out.

Dave shook his head. “Why would she leave?”

And then the searing started. There was a reason, always a reason. He just couldn’t ever find it. Why did his mother leave? The strain of a two-year-old? Regrets about marrying a man twice her age? Poison coursed, then passed. Had she been broken herself? Confused, insecure, unstable? He would never know. Might never know Barb’s reason either.

She had said she felt stifled in the backward town. Hated the way people looked at her. He’d been so focused on keeping his word to his father, grieving the few moments they’d shared before his death. Maybe she left because he pulled away.

Ben said, “We can go in now.”

They went into the ICU cubicle where Alessi lay with a machine breathing for her and wires attached to her head. Steve clenched his hand, wanting to smash something.

Dave looked at her and swallowed. “What happened to her?”

All he could think to say was evil. But while that was true, it told Dave nothing. “Carl strangled her. He had her Mustang.”

“Carl Welsh?”

“Or Hansen.” Steve glanced up. “Duke’s son.”

Waves of agony crashed upon him as he thought of Alessi’s terror. Ben sank into the metal chair as though the reality was only now hitting him as well.

Steve’s throat worked against the lump. He dropped to the rolling stool beside the bed and reached through the rail to her hand. Too long without oxygen. If they’d gotten there sooner, just minutes sooner …

Her hand was cool but not as icy as it had been. He held her wrist and found a pulse. Her heart pumped; circulation warmed her. He could believe strength returned. What did the doctors know? But the electrodes on her skull told the story. Her brain was dying. Her wonderful, fanciful mind.

Tears came, and he didn’t stop them.
Lord God
. Is this what Charity’s pact would cost them? A life for a life? Carl Hansen had seen his father fall, watched Charity’s citizens bludgeon him to death. Whether he loved or hated his father mattered little. He was already twisted inside. He must have been.

And the rest of them? They’d become righteous, gnawing the pact like a holy bone until a stranger’s misfortune became her death. He dropped his head and stroked Alessi’s fingers, which had placed the pieces on his chessboard, moving her pawn forward in a dogged but futile attempt to reach the end. In the same way she had pushed forward, trying to find her car, the one thing she had in the world, and no one had seen the move coming where Carl took the queen. Steve rubbed his face and sniffed.

Ben spoke softly. “The police are here.”

Steve and Ben told what they’d seen, whom they’d seen. It would be a blow to Burton and Madeline and all the others who believed. But making the statement felt good. He wanted them to suffer. And then he didn’t.

The police left, and Steve wondered who had jurisdiction, control of dark empty roads at night. He pictured Alessi crumpled on the snowy ground and waves of fury smothered him. He shook.

Dave had pulled an extra chair in from the empty cubicle next to theirs. “I just don’t know why she’d go.” He glanced at Steve as though Steve had chased her off again. Maybe he had.

Ben said, “She was probably scared. We shouldn’t have told her about the pact.”

Dave shifted in his seat. “We should have gone to Cooper.”

“I did,” Steve snapped. “The old fool wouldn’t listen.”

Dave shook his head. “She would have been safe with us.”

They stopped talking. What else was there to say? They could beat themselves up and try to figure out Alessi’s motives forever. It wouldn’t change anything. They sat as the night passed and dawn must be breaking outside on a grim Christmas morning. Alessi had promised to stay through Christmas. Steve clung to her fingers and whispered, “We had a deal.”

The others stirred and shared a glance. The dawn should have been a beacon of hope and promise. A fresh start. Instead … Steve lowered his head and continued his vigil.

Some time later, Ben crossed over to him and squeezed his shoulder. “We ought to go to the church.”

Dave nodded. “Get everyone to pray.”

Steve scowled. Hadn’t they heard the doctor? There was nothing to be done. Her brain was dying, dead except for the most basic functions. Prayer did not bring people back from the dead.

“It’s Christmas. Everyone’ll be there.” Dave looked like he might find a miracle in his stocking. As though the pact were still real. And they had power and victory.

Steve wanted to knock their skulls together. “So go.”

Again Ben’s hand on his shoulder. “Come with us, Steve.”

“I’m not leaving her.” All that was left was for him to be there. Then Dave cleared his throat. “She doesn’t know we’re here.”

Steve shot a glance and saw the tears in Dave’s eyes. They were hurting too. Did they really think there was something they could do? Maybe they needed to believe that. Maybe he needed it too. He rubbed a hand over his face. “All right.”

Ben drove them to the church in the truck. He had kept the keys, and Steve didn’t argue. Already people were gathering for the Christmas service. Had Burton been informed? Steve looked at the pastor’s house tucked back behind the church. Other lives were shattering today.