Ciji Ware (69 page)

“Jack, this is going to get you exactly nowhere,” Sim said. “You lost this battle. I’m sure you and Able Petroleum will manage to foil the good guys the next time around.”

“You’re smart, lover boy. You’re so smart, aren’t you, you two?” Jack said caustically. “You know, of course, don’t you Daphne, that lover boy, here, was schtuppin’ Miz Lawyer Lady up in Jackson this week?”

“Jack…” Daphne pleaded, abject terror coming over her as she noted the wild, erratic gleam in his eye. “Look… you did the best job you could for your company, but now we’ve found a compromise that—”

“Compromise!” Jack spat. “Capitulation. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it, Daphne? To pay me back for cuttin’ those stupid harp strings at your bastard brother’s wedding!”

“What I want is for you to be okay, Jack,” she said quickly. “If you just let us go home now, everything will be all right.”

Sim stared at Daphne in amazement. She gave a faint shake of her head, silently pleading with him not to intervene, and took a step closer to their captor.

“Cut the ‘sincere’ shit, Daphne,” Jack snarled. “I’ve had as much of you and your damned family messing with my life as I’m gonna take.”

“I can see why you’d be angry and frustrated over the way this has turned out, Jack,” she placated, “but let’s just all go home and—”

“You’re not goin’ home tonight, so shut up about it, will you?” By this time, Sim had taken hold of Maddy’s hand and moved closer to where Daphne was standing in the middle of the room. Jack, meanwhile, marched over to the bank of stainless steel shelves and seized a sharp, knifelike implement, waving it menacingly as he pointed toward a large door that looked something like a bank vault.

“But, you know what?
I’m
goin’ home all right.” He crossed to the heavy metal door nearby and pulled it open. “I’m leavin’ for Texas tonight.” Daphne could see it was a large, walk-in refrigerator with at least one shrouded occupant. “And I think I’ll just let y’all spend a night in the Ebert-Petrella Hilton with a few of our other guests. I’m sure one of the staff will see to y’all when they come in tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, good Lord,” Maddy gasped. She turned to Jack, begging, “Please, Jack! I can’t bear it.” She took a step closer, and pleaded, “Please,
please
, don’t make me go in there! It’s so sad… my memories are so, so terribly sad. Please!”

Daphne was alarmed to see that the more Maddy begged Jack, the more he wore a pleased expression and gestured, impatient for his trio of hostages to do as he’d ordered. The fragility of Maddy’s emotional state and the cruel pleasure Jack was deriving from seeing her suffer alarmed Daphne more than the man’s threats.

Meanwhile, Sim had moved to put himself between the two women and their abductor. Jack whirled and brandished his knife. “Stay right there,” he shouted, his voice high-pitched and frantic. “Or y’all are goin’ to get more than a bad night’s sleep, y’hear?”

“Jack,” Daphne cried. “This is absolutely crazy! You locked my brother into a cemetery crypt and were almost charged with a felony! Do something like this again and you’ll ruin the fresh start you’ve made. Just let us go now, and—”

“Get
in
there!” he screeched.

For a moment, he seemed unsure of what to do next and Daphne realized, suddenly, that this entire scenario was being ad-libbed by a man who had been pushed to his breaking point by another public humiliation. Sensing this, she decided to hold her ground.

“We won’t die in there, and there will be hell to pay when they let us out,” she declared quietly. “It’s not worth it to you, Jack. Just let us go and we’ll forget about all this. Nobody here wants to humiliate or hurt you. You’ve got to believe that.”

Jack kept the razor-sharp instrument extended toward Sim while he turned slightly to glare at her. “You’ve done
nothin’
but humiliate me, Daphne Duvallon,” he said between clenched teeth, “Since day one.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, bewildered. “
You’re
the one who’s—”

“Since that day you ran to your bossy mama cryin’ that Jackie had tried to diddle you in the embalmin’ room. Then, you had to run and blab it to everyone, didn’t you, bitch?”

Confused, Daphne shifted her gaze to Sim and shook her head as a signal that she didn’t understand what Jack was saying. Then an old, long-repressed memory came back with a rush.

The Ebert-Petrella Funeral Home. Her mother making another flower delivery. Young Jack Ebert taunting her and dragging her by the hand into a storeroom next to a room like this one, and then, with the crudity of an incorrigible nine-year-old, trying to fondle her pre-pubescent breasts. When she’d attempted to wiggle away, he pinched her nipple hard and pressed his knee between her legs.

She remembered, now, pushing against his thin chest with all her seven-year-old might, and when he couldn’t manage to get past her protests and protective stance—he’d roughly shoved her against a wall…

“I fought you, didn’t I?” she said hoarsely. “I kneed you in the groin that time and ran away and locked myself in Mama’s car again,” she said, almost gasping. “I was just a little kid! Of
course
I told my mother. And guess what, Jack? She refused to believe me. Your nasty little secret was safe as safe could be! She managed to convince me I’d made it up just to get attention.”

A jolt of pure adrenaline was coursing through her veins, and for a second, she nearly leapt upon Jack with intent to pound him into the floor.

Her captor, however, took a step closer, and said belligerently, “You were a big crybaby and you blabbed to my mama, too, and my daddy gave me a whippin’ and put me in there all night,” he shouted, pointing at the refrigerator. “‘Teach you a lesson, boy,’ he said to me.” Jack gestured again with the scalpel. “I’ll teach
you
a lesson, Daphne Duvallon. I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget!” He turned and glared at Sim, who stood not two feet away from the sharp instrument in his hand. “You first, lover boy.
Get
in
there! Now!
” He lifted his chin in Maddy’s direction, and yelled, “And you, old lady! Go, go,
go
!”

Sheer survival instinct governed Daphne’s next move. Before either Sim or Maddy could take a step, Daphne quickly moved sideways until she stood next to a wheeled gurney, placing its length between Jack and herself.

“No!” she shouted. “No, we
won’t
!”

“Daphne, don’t!” Sim yelled.

Jack turned, and growled, “You little cu—”

Before Jack could finish his sentence, Daphne grasped the gurney’s cold metal, about to send it careening straight for her captor. Then she saw the scalpel hurling in her direction and flinched to her right, as if she were the target of a knife-throwing act at some macabre circus. Jack grabbed for the gurney, and for an insane few seconds they engaged in a tug-of-war.

Sim sprang forward and tackled Jack around the waist, and the two men crashed to the floor in a flurry of grunts and epithets. Madeline Whitaker had flattened herself against a wall in terror while Daphne looked on, helpless to assist Sim in any way. The combatants rolled on the polished cement until Jack suddenly scrambled to his feet. He dashed back to the shelves on his side of the room and seized a strange pincerlike instrument from the tray.

Daphne was still holding on to the gurney for dear life when Jack advanced toward Sim with a murderous look. She knew what he intended to do as surely as if he’d shouted it aloud. In a lightning move, she pushed the wheeled stretcher with all her might. The force of the gurney hit Sim’s attacker squarely in the stomach and sent Jack hurtling backward into the tall metal shelves laden with instruments and the soldier’s row of gallon-size amber glass bottles full of chemicals.

For the rest of her days, Daphne would remember Jack’s screams when several large bottles of caustic chemicals pitched off the shelf and shattered against each other, midair, raining down an acid mixture, along with the lethally sharp glass shards, directly onto Jack’s head.

Sim raced forward to where Jack lay on the floor, bloody and writhing in pain.

“
Sim
,” Daphne screamed. “The chemicals! Don’t touch him!”

“Where’d he put the door key?” Sim demanded to know.

“In his pocket, I think, but be careful!” she cried. Sim glanced around the room and located a pair of thick, brown rubber gloves stacked neatly on the drain board and swiftly donned them. Meanwhile, Daphne spotted a wall phone and dialed 911.

***

The Natchez police and paramedics arrived in record time, met by Sim at the back door of the funeral home.

“I’ll need statements from all of you,” the police lieutenant declared loudly. Jack’s howls of pain could be heard above the incessant wail of the security alarm all the way to the parking lot and the waiting ambulance.

“Cut the wires on that thing!” shouted the lieutenant.

“Please,” Daphne begged Sim, “we can’t just send him off like this.” Tearfully, she turned to address the officers. “I’ve known Mr. Ebert since we were kids. He’s… he was…”

Blessedly, the alarm suddenly fell silent.

Daphne had started to tremble uncontrollably and couldn’t speak. Explaining the long, dark tunnel of Jack’s life was too overwhelming to put into words.

“What I think Ms. Duvallon is trying to say,” Sim said quietly, “is that Mr. Ebert has had a history of emotional problems. I suggest we follow you guys in my car and we can answer your questions at the hospital.”

Daphne cast Sim a look of eternal gratitude.

“Let’s go,” the lieutenant said gruffly. “This is one story I ’spect I can’t even guess at.” He looked kindly at Maddy. “Miz Whitaker, I’ll let one of my men drive you home and take your statement there, if that would be easier for you?”

“Oh, you are kind,” she replied gratefully. She turned to Sim and Daphne. “Are you sure you two are all right?” she asked anxiously.

Sim put his arm around Daphne. His strength felt like the Rock of Gibraltar. “Speaking for myself,” Sim said with a grim smile, “I’ve had better days, but I think we’re okay… thanks to Wonder Woman, here.”

***

Jack’s cries of pain echoed across the emergency room. Daphne sat beside his bed in the curtained cubicle, awaiting the surgeon who would make the decision whether or not to operate immediately. When the ER attendants had put Jack on the bed, his face had been a red, swollen mass, as were his shoulders where the corrosive chemicals had rained down on him.

“Mr. Ebert, we’re going to give you something more for the pain,” the intern declared loudly over Jack’s continuing screams.

Daphne bent toward Jack’s ear. “Just hold on…” she said soothingly. “You’ll feel much better soon.” The metallic sound of the curtain being pulled back revealed Libby Girard. Jack’s cousin halted and stared, slack-jawed, at his condition.

“I came as soon as I got Mr. Hopkins’s call,” she whispered, her expression horrified. “He told me what happened. I’ve called Jack’s mother, and she and his father are drivin’ up from New Orleans right away.” She nodded in Jack’s direction “How is he?”

Daphne turned her head toward Jack, whose cries had become low, ceaseless moans in the wake of the medication he’d just been given.

“Pretty bad,” she murmured. She rose from her chair. “Could you sit with him for a while?” she asked, suddenly weary to the marrow of her bones. “I need a break. I’ll just step outside for a minute.”

“I’m amazed you’d come within a thousand yards of the guy,” Libby said harshly under her breath. “From what your friend just told me, Jack could’ve killed you.”

“He could have,” Daphne said, her heart heavy with the sad futility of Jack’s life. “But he didn’t, and now he can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

Libby lowered her head and whispered into Daphne’s ear. “He’s gonna be blind, isn’t he?”

“We won’t know for a while,” Daphne replied softly. “But the first people who saw him said the odds are ninety percent he’ll lose all or most of his sight and he’ll be badly scarred.”

Libby dutifully took Daphne’s seat in the chair next to Jack’s hospital bed. Daphne drifted out of the cubicle to the ladies’ room, then took a long, deep drink from the water fountain at the entrance to the ER. Sim was still talking to the cops when she quietly slipped back inside the enclosure and sank wearily into a second chair at the foot of the bed. Her body felt as if it were made of lead.

Jack’s pitiful cries filling the curtained room began to gain intensity until Daphne wondered sleepily why Libby didn’t go for help. A long, attenuated keening rent the air, and still no one rushed into the cubicle voicing alarm. Louder and louder the cries became, rising to a harrowing pitch. Such piercing shrieks couldn’t possibly be Jack’s, she thought groggily.

Suddenly, the atmosphere around her appeared charged by an eerie force that reverberated with the anguish of a woman’s broken heart and the torment of her tragic destiny.

Chapter 30