K.J. Emrick - Darcy Sweet 12 - Death at the Wheel (8 page)

Wilson looked horrified at the thought of
Alan doing that to Lindsay, but then his expression melted into its serious police officer mask, and he pushed past her.  “He isn’t taking her anywhere,” he growled.  “I won’t let him.  I’ll go stop him.  Right now.”

That was so not the reaction that Darcy wanted from him.  “No,” Darcy told him, grabbing his arm with both hands to hold him back.  “We can’t confront him when he’s right there with Lindsay.  I don’t know what he’ll do.  We need Jon.  We need more help than just the two of us.  Listen to me!”

The echoes of her plea were punctuated by the soft thud of a door closing above them.  The door from the second floor.

Alan
Harlow leaned over the railing, looking down at them.  It was obvious that he’d heard most of what Darcy had just said.

Of course he had.  Why should it be simple?

Throwing off Darcy’s grip Wilson reached into the inside of his suit coat, going for his gun.

Alan
was faster.

From behind him his arm came up and over his head in a roundhouse motion, a long red cylinder flashing through the air and then hurtling down on them.  Part of Darcy’s mind recognized it as a fire extinguisher. 
One of the ones from the glassed in cubbyholes in the hallways of the hospital.

She threw herself to the side, pushing Wilson out of the way as she did.

The fire extinguisher projectile landed hard on Wilson’s leg.  Darcy heard a sickening, squishy snapping sound just before the cylinder bounced with a crash against the stairs and clattered away to the main floor landing below. 

Wilson screamed in pain.  His gun went off, so loud and deafening in the enclosed space that Darcy found herself down on her knees, her hands over her ears, sure she was going to be bleeding from both eardrums.

When she looked back up, Alan had disappeared.

The door to the second floor was just closing on its pneumatic slide. 
Alan would be going back for Lindsay.  No doubt he would try to grab her now and leave before anyone could stop him.  He knew he was found out.  There was no reason for him to stay any longer.

So much for calling in Jon and the cavalry and surprising
Alan before he could do anything stupid.  He must have come after her when she left Lindsay’s room.  Maybe he saw her looking at the wedding ring on his necklace.  Maybe she hadn’t kept her suspicions off her face as well as she thought she had.  Either way, Alan knew they were on to him now.

Lindsay’s life was in grave danger.

Wilson had dropped his gun and was holding his left leg with both hands.  Blood pooled on the dirty tiles of the stairs underneath him.  A vein at his temple pulsed and his jaw was clenched and Darcy could see how much pain he was in.  “I think it’s broken,” he said, gently probing the wound under his pants leg and then crying out.  “Yup.  Oh, yeah.  Definitely broken.  Darcy, we have to stop him.  Help me up.”

“Are you kidding?” she asked him.  “Wilson, I can’t carry you.  I don’t think you should move with your leg broken, either.  I’ll get help.  Just stay here, and call Jon!”

She left him there, racing up the stairs, having absolutely no idea what she was going to do when she caught up to Alan.

If she caught up to him in time.

The gun.  Wilson’s gun.  Why hadn’t she picked up his gun?

There were lots of reasons, actually, she reminded herself as she ran.  She wasn’t going to try to shoot someone inside of a hospital full of people, for one.

For another, she simply hadn’t thought of it in her rush to get back up to the ICU.

The main part of the second floor was busy with nurses doing rounds and patients walking slowly up and down the hall dragging IV poles with them. 
In other words, business as usual.  If anyone had heard the commotion in the stairs they hadn’t been concerned about it.  At all.  No one even knew anything was wrong.

That was about to change.

Darcy didn’t even bother going up to the counter at the main second floor nurse’s station to explain to the nice nurses and employees working there that they had a psychopathic murderer running around their hospital. 

She shouted it at them as loudly as she could as soon as she got off the elevator.

“Help!  My friend is in the stairway.  His leg is broken.  He’s bleeding and he needs help.  Call the police!  The man who broke his leg is in the ICU!”

She left several stunned faces watching her race to the double doors that sectioned off the ICU.  A few people started to move to the stairway.  She saw one nurse pick up a telephone.  Whether she was calling the police like Darcy asked or calling for security to remove the crazy lady that had just burst out onto the second floor, Darcy didn’t care.  Either way, help would be coming.

She had called Wilson her friend.  Not half an hour ago she’d been sure he was a crazed ex-lover capable of murder.  Now she knew different.

That man wasn’t Wilson.  It was
Alan Harlow.

Hand on the metal door to the ICU, Darcy hesitated.  What if
Alan was waiting for her?  What if he had armed himself with something worse than a fire extinguisher?  He’d already killed one man in a deranged attempt to get Lindsay for himself.  Without any hesitation at all he had broken Wilson’s leg, and that was only because Darcy had pushed him out of the way in time to keep him from having his skull crushed in.

She was scared to see what waited for her on the other side of this door.

Biting her lip, she pushed through anyway.  No matter what was waiting for her, Lindsay and Rosie needed her help.  That was all that mattered.

The door creaked open slowly on its hinges and then as Darcy stepped inside she let it swing back closed behind her.  The air displaced by its motion
whumphed around her.  It reminded her of swirling currents of mist, and she knew that she was right to be afraid.

It was eerily silent here.  She remembered from earlier how the place had been full of soft noises.  People talking, machines beeping, other sounds.  Now there was nothing but the hammering of her heart. 

There was no one at the nurse’s station.  Looking at the monitors that were supposed to be keeping an electronic eye on the three rooms here, she saw that their screens and electronic control boxes had been smashed.  The monitors that were still intact stared back at her like cold, dead eyes.

“No, oh no,” she whispered.  Those monitors would have let her see into every room, including Lindsay’s.  She could have found
Alan easily.  She could have known if Lindsay and Rosie were safe.  Now, she would have no way of finding—

Darcy stopped.  She had gotten close enough to the nurse’s desk to see that the station hadn’t been abandoned.  The nurse from before, with her painted nails and her scrubs with the motorcycle riding turtles, was slumped over the desk, eyes half-lidded, a bleeding lump raised up behind her left ear.  Her eyelids fluttered and her breathing hitched through her open mouth.

Alan had already taken care of this woman.  She wasn’t dead, but she wouldn’t be able to help Darcy either.  There was no way of knowing how long it would take any help to get here.  Obviously the medical staff and other hospital employees were keeping their distance from the ICU because no one had rushed to her aid. 

For now, she was on her own.

Doors faced her everywhere.  There was only the one long hallway here, three patient rooms on the one side, administrative offices and closets on the left, but closed doors had never seemed so scary in all her life.  Should she go straight for Lindsay’s room?  Wouldn’t that be where Alan had gone after bludgeoning the poor nurse at her desk and then attacking her and Wilson?  He’d be in a hurry.  He’d be ready to run at a moment’s notice.

Plus it was where Lindsay and Rosie were. 
Alan wanted to take Lindsay.  Rosie was a potential witness he wouldn’t be able to leave behind.  He would head straight there.

Right?

Room 2-C it was.

As quietly as she could Darcy stepped down the hall.  One foot in front of the other, she kept her eyes on the door to Lindsay’s room down at the end of the hall. 

Step, step.
 

She felt vulnerable and exposed.  She didn’t have a weapon or anything to fight
Alan Harlow with.  What was she going to do if he attacked her?  How could she protect Lindsay and Rosie? 

Step, step.

Maybe there was something in one of the supply cabinets that she could use, she thought.

Step.

She turned to her left, found a door marked “Custodian.”

Step…

Ahead of her the second patient’s room swung inward.  A man stood there, tall and threatening, and Darcy sucked in a long breath that choked off the scream that would have come pouring out of her.

“What’s going on?” the man whispered.  He was skinny, and elderly, now that Darcy’s mind could take a second to focus.  A full beard of white hair dropped low over his chest.

Not Alan Harlow.

“My wife needs her medicine,” the man continued, thankfully in that same soft voice.  “Why hasn’t the nurse come yet?”

“Get back in your room,” Darcy answered him in a whisper.  “I’ll make sure someone comes to see her.”

Apparently satisfied with that answer, the man nodded, stepping back inside to close the door to room 2-B.

Darcy took a moment to let her racing heart calm down.  The last two rooms down the hall were the ICU administrator’s office on the left, and Lindsay’s room on the right.

She gave another thought to the custodian’s closet.  Biting her lip, feeling the seconds tick past and slip away from her, Darcy figured the extra time it would take to arm herself with a mop handle or maybe even a utility blade would be worth it if it saved her life in the end. 
Hers, or someone else’s.

She caught hold of the round doorknob of the supply closet, making sure her grip was tight before turning it slowly.  It didn’t squeak.  That was what she had been worried about.  If
Alan didn’t know she was here yet, maybe she would still have the advantage.

The door opened outward, toward her, just as quietly as the knob had turned.  Her luck was holding out.

A hand reached out to grab her left wrist and yank her violently sideways, off her feet, slamming her into the wall and sending her in a piled heap to the floor.  Pain jarred up her arm, across her elbow, as her attacker kept an iron grip that clamped tighter and harder until she cried out in pain.

Alan
Harlow had her arm twisted up behind her head, forcing her to her knees, her free hand pawing at the wall to steady herself.  His left arm was wrapped around Lindsay’s throat, her neck in the hollow of his elbow.  She gagged and tried to pull at his sleeve with her one hand, kicking her feet, the hospital gown sliding down her shoulders as she tried desperately to get away.  Her right arm hung heavily in its cast.

“You couldn’t just leave us alone, could
you!” Alan yelled down at Darcy.  “You could have walked away.  You could have let us be!  This is my wife!  She belongs to me!”

“No, she’s not,” Darcy argued before she could think better of it.  “You aren’t her husband.  That isn’t your ring!  That tradition of wearing the ring around your neck didn’t come from your family.  It came from
Jarred’s family.  You’re trying to steal your way into her life!  You aren’t Lindsay’s husband.  You killed her husband!”

Darcy could just see enough over her shoulder to see the way Lindsay’s eyes widened even further, the way her mouth worked to form words she either couldn’t find or couldn’t get out past
Alan’s horrible grip.  Poor woman, Darcy thought with pity.  She has no idea of what’s going on, or why she had become the object of this psychopath’s attention.

“I am Lindsay’s husband!” 
Alan bent down to scream that in Darcy’s face, racking her shoulder almost to the breaking point, and taking his prisoner off her feet so that Lindsay dangled from his constricting hold.  “I know what’s best for her!  I loved her the moment I met her and I love her now and it should have been me who came to Misty Hollow with her!  That man was not her husband!  He stole her from me.  He took her away and pretended to marry her and made her tell me to leave her alone.”

His voice had gotten lower and quieter in a way that chilled Darcy’s blood through the pain he was inflicting on her.  His green eyes burned with an inner fever, dark pools of burning emotion, and they were focused on something besides Darcy’s face.  Something only he could see.

“Alan,” she said, sweat beading on her face from the sharp dagger of pain lancing through her shoulder.  “Alan, listen to me.  You need to stop this.  You’re hurting Lindsay.”

And me, she might have added, but she knew it would be better to keep his attention on Lindsay.  Obviously, he had fallen in love with her at some point, after she ran away from her mother’s home here in Misty Hollow.  Lindsay hadn’t wanted his attention but in his warped mind, she belonged to him.  He cared for
her, even if it was a possessive love that was dark and ugly.  If Darcy could get him to see how he was hurting her, then maybe she could get him to stop.

A quick thought for Rosie flashed through her mind.  What had happened to her to keep her from being out here with her daughter?  One more worry to add to the list.  Right now, she had to help Lindsay.

“Look at her, Alan,” Darcy said, wincing and trying to twist her torso a little to ease the strain on her shoulder.  “Look at her!”

He blinked, mouth hanging open, but did turn his head to look at his captive love.  Lindsay’s bare feet kept slipping against the floor tiles and she hung from his arm like a marionette, trying to keep her windpipe from being crushed.  Darcy saw the crack in her cast now, all the way around the elbow, and she wondered if
Alan had broken her arm all over again.

Alan
‘s face softened.  A little focus came back into his eyes and he seemed to finally understand that he was hurting Lindsay.  He gasped in shock and loosened his grip.  He didn’t let Lindsay go, but he did put her back on her feet again.

He let go of Darcy to wrap his arms around Lindsay and hold her close.  “I’m sorry,” he said to her.  “I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to scare you. 
Shh.  Shh, now.  I’m sorry.”  He began stroking her hair and backing away, still holding her tight, and Darcy had no idea where he thought he was going or even if he realized what he was doing anymore.

All she knew was that she was free.

Her left arm fell limp.  She could feel the blood pounding in it, painful and sharp, so she figured that was a good sign.  She just couldn’t move it.  Pain shot up her shoulder and into her skull with each beat of her heart.  Was it broken?  Like Lindsay’s?  She didn’t know.  There wasn’t time to figure it out, either.

Lindsay’s face was turning purple. 
Alan had shifted his hold on her until his hands were around her neck as he stood behind her, her head at his chest.  He tensed his fingers, squeezing the life out of her.  “You can’t leave me,” he was saying, over and over.  “You can’t…leave me.”

As he held her in death’s embrace her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted and her hand fell away.  She couldn’t fight anymore.

Darcy tried to stand up.  A shouted warning from the ICU entrance told her to stay where she was.

“Darcy, get down!”

She had just enough time to realize it was Jon’s voice that was calling out to her before the thunderclap echo of a gunshot drowned everything out.

Alan
was rocked back hard as the bullet took him in the right shoulder.  He stumbled until he fell into the wall, his upper body breaking sizable holes in the plaster.  His arms pin wheeled.  Blood made a crazy Rorschach pattern behind him.

His hands released their hold on Lindsay’s neck.

Down on the floor in the fetal position, Lindsay sucked in a hard breath and then she was breathing and crying and coughing all at the same time.  Darcy heard Jon running up to them, and then he was there, oh thank you God he was there, his gun pointed in Alan’s face.

“Try something,” Jon warned him, “and you won’t live to see what I do to you.”

Darcy knelt next to Lindsay.  She took Lindsay’s one good hand in her own, her left arm still dangling and useless, Lindsay’s arm limp in its cast, and together they crawled away to safety.  Jon was taking out handcuffs.  Alan was crying, sobbing and babbling that he had to help his wife.  His wife needed him, his wife loved him, his wife wanted them to go away together.