The Hidden (18 page)

E P I L O G U E

N E W  Y E A R ’ S  DAY

T
HIRTY-SIX HOURS NOW,
every one a blur.

Shelby sat in the waiting room at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, drinking coffee to stave off fatigue and remain alert. As far as she knew Jay was still in the OR—it seemed like he’d been in there half the day. The head staff surgeon who was performing his bypass operation had been cautiously optimistic. Jay’s coronary had been relatively mild; the damage to his heart didn’t seem to be as severe as it might have been given his night prowl through the lag end of the storm. But any number of things could go wrong during major surgery, and there was always the chance they might find further blockage that hadn’t been revealed by the tests.

That kind of thinking wasn’t making the wait any easier. She made an effort to blank her mind, or at least to shift it into a state of semiawareness. No good either way. The concern for Jay kept intruding. So did the dulled memories of Wednesday night.

Some of the details of what she’d endured between the time of Jay’s heart attack and his arrival at the cabin had already begun to fade. She’d been over them so many times she’d lost count, with various law officers and the first wave of media vultures, and yet it was as if it had all happened months ago. A form of mental self-protection, she supposed. The more awful an experience, the quicker the mind sought to bury it under layers of scar tissue.

The rest of that long night was a little clearer in her memory—for the present, anyway. A time of organized chaos. Douglas’s term for an intense Saturday night in ER. (Douglas. Her feelings for him still uncertain and unresolved. But this wasn’t the time to be thinking about them. Or about anyone except Jay.)

But yes, organized chaos was just what it had been. Jay holding the shotgun and telling her how he’d found her while she taped Joseph’s wrists and ankles. Joseph lying with his face turned away from them, as docile as if he’d been drugged … no, as if he were a resigned prisoner of war who wanted as little as possible to do with his captors. Helping Jay out of his wet clothes, then getting him comfortable in the bedroom while she checked his vital signs. Using the radio in Ferguson’s cruiser to report the situation and ask for medical assistance. Cutting the semiconscious deputy loose and tending to his head trauma as best she could. Finding out from Jay that it was Brian Lomax, not Joseph, who’d killed Gene Decker; that Claire was hiding somewhere in or near the cottage, and why. Waiting for what seemed like hours, but was only about thirty minutes, for the Basic Life Support ambulance operated by the Seacrest Volunteer Fire Department to arrive, along with a caravan of sheriff’s department and highway patrol officers.

Watching a bundled-up Jay and the wounded deputy being whisked away toward Fort Bragg in the BLS ambulance because the weather was still too poor for a medevac helicopter to land at Seacrest. Answering a seemingly endless string of questions before one of the deputies finally drove her to Fort Bragg. By then the BLS ambulance had rendezvoused with an Advanced Life Support ambulance at Albion, Jay had been hooked up to a cardiac monitor and had an IV started and been fast-driven to Mendocino Coast District Hospital, which had a landing pad that allowed helicopters to land even in stormy weather, and then transferred by Reach 1 to Santa Rosa Memorial’s cardiac care center.

Another string of questions for her at the Fort Bragg sheriff’s office. An interminable two-hour car ride to Santa Rosa. New rounds of Q&A with the staff at SR Memorial, with Lieutenant Rhiannon at the local highway patrol office, and then, briefly, with the members of the media swarm she wasn’t able to avoid. Four hours of restless sleep in a motel room, all she could manage despite her exhaustion, and back here to the hospital for more waiting.

One long continuous blur. It was a wonder she could remember any of it, think clearly at all.

If Jay came through the surgery all right—and he would, he would—the worst was past. Something else was past, too, or she was pretty sure it was: her fear of the dark. If that hellish night hadn’t cured her nyctophobia, nothing ever would.

But it would be a while before the authorities and the media let them alone. She hadn’t looked at TV or read a newspaper, but she could imagine the headlines:
SOUTH BAY COUPLE CAPTURE COASTLINE KILLER AFTER NIGHT OF TERROR
. She didn’t want any part of it, and she was sure Jay wouldn’t either, but like it or not they were temporary celebrities. It wouldn’t last long, though. This kind of thing never did. There was always a new and different piece of sensationalism for the newshounds and the public to feed on.

She got up to use the bathroom. Came back, wondering if she could stand to swallow any more coffee—and the surgeon, still in his scrubs, was waiting for her. The small tired smile he wore told her everything she needed to know.

Everybody kept telling Macklin he was lucky to be alive. Shelby, the North Coast EMTs, an ER doctor at Santa Rosa Memorial, the surgeon who performed his triple bypass surgery. As if he needed confirmation of the fact. Nobody knew it better than he did.

But he was thankful for an even greater piece of luck—that he’d had enough stamina to do what he’d set out to do, that Shelby was alive and unharmed. One of the nurses called him a hero for risking his life to save his wife’s. Bullshit. Heroes were cut from a whole different variety of cloth than Jay Macklin. The kind of cloth Shelby had been made from—she was the real hero here. He was just a man who’d finally stepped up, finally proved to himself—and if he was lucky, to her—that he wasn’t a failure or a loser after all.

Shelby was there with him before he went into surgery, and at his bedside when he came out of the anaesthetic in ICU, but not when he woke again later, more or less clearheaded, in a private room. That was because his surgeon and a nurse were there instead; she was waiting outside. They’d let her come in as soon as they were done checking him and the tubes and monitors he was hooked up to.

How was he feeling? Like I just lost a long race with a turtle, Macklin thought. But all he said was, “Okay.” The surgeon had told him in ICU that the operation had gone well, but in case the patient had been too groggy to understand he repeated it again now. All his vital signs were good. Barring any unforeseen complications, he should fully recover and be able to lead a normal life.

Normal. Meaning average, ordinary, reasonably sane and moderately productive. He’d settle for that, all right; he’d hang on to it with both hands and never let go.

They left finally and let Shelby come in.

So pale and tired looking … but she was smiling, and for him the smile was as much life support as the tubes and monitors. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but the first words that came out were inane: “I guess I’m still lucky, huh?”

“So far so good.” She drew a chair over close to the bed and sat down. “You look a lot better than you did Wednesday night.”

“Didn’t think I was going to make it?”

“On the contrary. I knew you would.”

Little white lie, so he told one to match. “Me too.”

“The doctor said ten minutes, then you need to rest.”

“Ten minutes … How’s Ferguson?”

“Severe concussion, but he’ll be all right.”

“Claire?”

“They found her hiding in the woodshed at the cottage. Pretty badly frightened but otherwise okay. As far as I know she’s still in custody, but I don’t think they’ll bring charges against her.”

“Better not. It was all Lomax’s doing—he deserved what he got.”

“That seems to be the general consensus.”

“They find out who the blond guy is?”

“Joseph Marshall. Army corporal, served two tours in Iraq. Halfway through the second he had a stress-related break. Spent time in a combat stress clinic, then was given a medical discharge. I guess the army doctors didn’t realize how seriously disturbed he was or he’d never have been released.”

“Another casualty of that fucking war.”

“And five collateral casualties—six if you count Lomax. Marshall hasn’t confessed to any of the shootings yet; he’s not talking to anybody. Name, rank, and serial number.”

Macklin’s eyelids were growing heavy from the painkillers and other drugs they were pumping into him. “Getting sleepy already,” he said. “There’s something you have to know and I better get it said while I’m still coherent.”

“It can wait until later—”

“No, it can’t. Too important. I’m not the same person I was before we went up to Ben’s cottage.”

“Neither of us is,” Shelby said.

“Not at all in my case. I know why I’ve been so closed off most of my life, why I kept shutting you out. It’s all explained in that nightmare I kept having. My subconscious finally puked it up after the heart attack.”

He told her about the nightmare, in detail, and the words came easily. “It always embarrassed me,” he said, “one reason I could never talk about it. Kid’s fantasy monster. Only it wasn’t a fantasy. Distortion of something that actually happened when I was a little kid, six or seven.”

“Repressed childhood trauma?”

“That’s it. My mother and Tom were away visiting my aunt; I had a cold so I was left home with my father. Loud night noises woke me up and I went down the hall to see what they were. My old man … he was in bed with a woman he must’ve sneaked into the house after I was asleep. One-night stand, or somebody he’d been cheating on my mother with all along … no way I’ll ever know. They were screwing, but I had no idea that’s what I was seeing. In my kid’s mind it got twisted into something a lot more horrible.”

Shelby said, “A monster feeding on something still alive.”

“Right. I must’ve made a noise because he saw me, reared up off the woman, and started yelling. I ran and he chased me, caught me trying to hide in my bedroom closet, dragged me up by one arm—must’ve felt like the arm was being torn off. I was so scared I peed all over myself. What he was screaming at me … my subconscious turned it into whispers because the words were too terrifying. Something like ‘Forget what you saw tonight. You ever tell your mother or anybody else I’ll rip your fucking head off, I’ll chew you up like hamburger.’ ”

“My God. Six years old … no wonder you repressed it.”

He was starting to lose focus, to drift and fade. He said quickly, “The fear he put into me built a mental block: Don’t ever confide anything to anyone, keep it all locked away inside. But the block’s gone now, I’m done hiding.”

Shelby didn’t say anything. Still skeptical.

“Give me the chance,” he said, “I’ll prove it to you. Will you?”

The nurse picked that moment to come in and call for an end to the visit.

Shelby got to her feet.

Macklin gave her a pleading look. “Will you?”

“Heart melter,” she said softly.

“What?”

“Never mind. I’ll think about it.”

“… I love you, Shel.”

Almost under now, his eyelids so heavy they wouldn’t stay open. He didn’t see her face when he heard her say, “Yes, I know.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’m indebted to Sam Parsons, former EMT, South Coast VFD, for sharing his expertise.

Thanks also to George Gibson of Walker & Company and my agent, Dominick Abel, for their ongoing support. And to Marcia, for all the usual reasons.

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

Bill Pronzini is the author of more than seventy novels, including three in collaboration with his wife, the novelist Marcia Muller, and is the creator of the popular Nameless Detective series. A six-time nominee for the Edgar Allan Poe Award (most recently for
A Wasteland of Strangers
), and two-time nominee for the International Association of Crime Writers’ best novel of the year, Pronzini is also the recipient of three Shamus Awards and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. He lives in northern California.

Also by Bill Pronzini

Blue Lonesome

A Wasteland of Strangers

Nothing But the Night

In an Evil Time

Step to the Graveyard Easy

The Alias Man

The Crimes of Jordan Wise

The Other Side of Silence

Copyright © 2010 by Bill Pronzini

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Walker & Company, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Published by Walker Publishing Company, Inc., New York

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR.

ISBN: 978-0-8027-1800-6 (hardcover)

First published by Walker Publishing Company in 2010
This e-book edition published in 2010

E-book ISBN: 978-0-8027-7836-9

Visit Walker & Company’s Web site at
www.walkerbooks.com