Bones and Roses (22 page)

“Nothing says father-daughter bonding like a warm gun.”

Her voice turns hard. “Enough. No more games. Open up.” She starts hammering on the door with the barrel of her gun.
Thunk thunk thunk
. The sound is like an iron spike being driven into my skull.

I frantically rummage through the cupboards in search of a sharp instrument or blunt object. There's nothing but boxes of tissues and surgical gloves, tubes of ointment. I'm doomed. Dread fills my chest like the seawater that had me choking when I was a kid. Then, just when I've about given up hope, some instinct causes me to look up. The ceiling is the acoustical-tile kind, at one end of which is the access panel to a crawlspace: the
deus ex machina
of cheesy movies, a plot device so creaky I'd have been rolling my eyes had I been watching it on TV. Now it's the answer to my prayers.

Better yet, the panel is located above the built-in cabinet, where I'm able to dislodge it after climbing onto the countertop. That's as far as I get—try as I might, I don't possess the upper body strength to hoist myself through the opening. I'm panting with my efforts, cursing myself for not having taken advantage of my gym membership. Meanwhile the infernal hammering has given way to an even scarier silence that tells me Joan is getting ready to make her next move.

What now? I stand frozen atop the counter like a hood ornament on a speeding car headed for disaster. Sweat is pouring from my body in rivulets. My heart is pounding hard enough to crack a rib.

Use your head
. I hear the words in my mind as clearly as if she'd spoken them aloud. It was what my mom used to say whenever I whined to her that my homework was too hard. My panic recedes slightly. I look around me, thinking there must be something I could use as a step stool. The question is what? The lone piece of furniture is the chair bolted to the floor. Then it comes to me: the cupboard shelves could serve as a makeshift ladder if I angled my body the right way. I'm pulling off my sneakers so I can make like a monkey when I hear Joan call through the door, in a singsong voice, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” As if this were a game of hide-and-seek.

Come find me, bitch
. I knot the shoelaces together and sling them around my neck—I may need my sneakers later on. Hanging on to the open cupboard doors, I climb onto the lowest shelf. I reach up and grab the edge of the opening, as I climb the next “rung,” while simultaneously angling my body into position. It's an awkward position, to say the least, and the cupboard hinges groan ominously as the shelf creaks with my weight. I say a little prayer that both will hold a few seconds more, then, with a mighty push, launch myself backwards and up into the crawlspace.

It's so dark I can't see anything at first. The crawlspace is cramped and airless and stinks of dust, mice droppings, and disuse. I feel another panic attack coming on.
No time for that
, I tell myself. I start moving. Even with the flashlight on my phone to guide the way, it's slow going, an obstacle course of crossbeams to duck under and bundles of electrical cables to navigate around.

I estimate I've traveled roughly the length of the room when the stillness is shattered by a round of gunshots. I freeze, then, realizing I have less than a minute before Joan goes from blasting the door open to pumping holes in the ceiling, start scrambling as fast as my hands and knees will carry me. Just when I'm starting to think God has decided my sorry ass might be worth saving after all, despite the fact that it hasn't warmed a church pew in a while, I feel something sharp rip into my flesh below my right knee. I bite down on my lip to keep from crying out. It's more than a scratch, from the hot, painful throbbing in my leg and blood seeping into my jeans, but there's no time to stop and assess the damage. I clench my jaw and keep moving.

“Very clever, my dear! An ‘A' for effort! But you won't get far.” Joan's voice floats from below.

My panic gives way to anger. Drunks, even sober ones, tend to have a short fuse—put two belligerent drunks together in a bar and you're looking at a fight—and I'm no exception. Right now I'm mad enough to see myself morphing into the Incredible Hulk and crashing through the ceiling onto her head. It's not just that she threatened and bullied me. She tricked me. And there's nothing I hate more than being tricked. It's a reminder of all the years I spent fooling myself.

That candy-ass bitch doesn't know who she's dealing with.
I didn't go through hell to get sober so I could die young. I push aside the panicky thoughts crowding my head and think about my brother instead. How would he survive without me, in a world where the mentally ill are only marginally less misunderstood than in the Dark Ages? For his sake, if not my own, I need to make it out alive.

My heart leaps when I spy another access panel just ahead. Presumably it leads to another treatment room. I yank it open and toss my sneakers into the darkness below, then drop down through the opening, bracing myself for a hard landing and praying I won't break a bone. But instead of a hard surface, I land on a solid mass that gives slightly with my weight.

I shine my flashlight, and find myself face-to-face with a dead man.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I clap a hand over my mouth to muffle my scream. The body is that of a man in uniform, fortyish, thickset, with a mustache and curly brown hair. The night watchman. Joan must have lured him from his post on some pretext, then … No, wait, he's not dead. He's still breathing, thank God. No blood, either, that I can see. Judging from the egg-sized lump on his head he was knocked unconscious. Possibly drugged for extra measure, because he didn't so much as stir when I landed on him (and believe me, I'm no featherweight). Even when he regains consciousness he's not going anywhere. His wrists and ankles are bound with duct tape. I'm sure Joan intended to pin that on me as well. Why not? I couldn't defend myself in court if I were dead.

But I'll attend to him later—if make it out alive—right now there's not a moment to lose. I hobble over to the door in my bare feet, teeth gritted against the lightning bolts of pain shooting up my leg, and open it a crack, peering into the hallway. I was hoping to see my way clear, but instead I see Joan walking slowly in my direction, in no hurry because she knows there's no getting past her.

I know it, too. Gone is the tiny flame of hope I'd nurtured. I ease the door shut and lock it. Now what? I'm trapped, and this time there's no way out. A heavy sense of futility settles over me, and that scares me more than anything. Because to surrender means certain death. I give myself a mental shake.
No fucking way.
If I die, it won't be as a sitting duck. It's not the meek who shall inherit the Earth. It's the stubborn—people like me who never say never, who fight to the end.

I flip the switch for the overhead. The room, with its peach walls and museum poster of Monet's
Water Lilies
, its padded table and chair, looks familiar. I've been here before. I remember when, and start to laugh. I rock in silent laughter, leaning into the door, until tears roll down my cheeks.

Then I get moving.

I search for something I can use to defend myself, but this room is even more spare than the one I was in before. The only built-in is a floating desktop with a couple of drawers, one of which holds the disposable sterile nozzles that get discarded after each use (and that could only be used to inflict pain if Joan were tied down). There's nothing in the small, adjoining bathroom other than a sink and toilet. The one chair, sadly, isn't bulletproof, nor is it heavy enough to use to bludgeon anyone larger than a small child. I'm feeling the walls start to close in when I spy the coat hook on the back of the door. It gives me an idea, not the hook itself but the end that's screwed into the raised panel. It won't make for much of a weapon, but it's bound to be sharp at least.

A bullet tears through the doorjamb as I'm wrestling with the hook, narrowly missing me. This time, Joan didn't bother to knock. I flatten myself against the wall next to the door where I'm out of range, my heart knocking in my chest as she continues to blast away. So much for her cover story that she caught me breaking in and mistook me for a burglar. How is she going to explain the wreckage to the cops when they get here? Clearly she's parted ways with reality altogether.

My eyes frantically scan the room. There's
got
to be some other option. I can't die like a cornered mouse. My gaze falls on the machine mounted to the wall facing the padded table. I remember it all too well from my last visit: the equivalent of water-boarding disguised as alternative medicine. It has hot and cold valves and a flexible hose. Acting purely on instinct, and fueled by adrenaline, I race over to it and crank open one of the valves, while at the same time seizing the hose and directing a blast of water in Joan's face as she comes bursting through the door.

She screams, and only then do I realize the water is scalding hot. She clutches her face, which is red and kind of boiled looking. But she quickly recovers and throws herself at me as I'm making a run for it. She must work out with weights in addition to all those walkathons, because not only is she quick on her feet, she has serious upper body strength. I'm no match for her physically in my weakened state. The one thing I have going for me is that I'm royally pissed.

“You fucking
bitch
!” I deliver a kick to her shin.

She lets out a yelp and reflexively loosens her grip. My next move, which I learned in a self-defense class some years ago and which I haven't had occasion to practice since, surprises me as much as Joan. I break free while simultaneously grabbing her arm and twisting it behind her back. When I have her pinned, I wrest the gun from her hand. I might have even have gotten away with it if she hadn't hip-butted me, sending me staggering backward. I trip over the prone figure of the night watchman and go down, hard, dropping the gun as I fall onto my backside in a sprawl of limbs, my injured knee shrieking in protest. I see a blur of movement out of the corner of my eye as Joan dives to retrieve the gun. And I do mean dive: The puddle of water on the floor causes her to slip, sending her flying through the air before she lands facedown with a wet smack.

Wham.
I'm on her before she can lift her head off the floor. I straddle her back, holding her pinned with my weight while I grab a handful of her hair to restrict her movements. Escape is the furthest thing from my mind just then. I want revenge. “You thought you could get rid of me? Think again. You're going down, lady, and I'll be with you all the way—as the star witness for the prosecution. Oh, and another thing, you know that vase of yours that's missing? It was me that broke it. I was going to replace it, but something tells me you won't need it where you're going.”

She bucks and writhes beneath me. She lost her headband in our earlier scuffle and her hair hangs in wet tangles over her face except the handful I'm clutching. “Get. Off. Me,” she grinds out.

“Or what, you'll fire me? Don't bother. I quit.”

She utters a string of expletives.

I cluck my tongue. “Such language. And I thought you didn't believe in swearing.”

This elicits more curse words, ones so vile I wouldn't utter them myself.

“Dear me, what would the other ladies think? Though I don't suppose they'll be visiting you in prison. You'll be hanging with a whole new crowd. Ladies with tattoos and bad haircuts who don't lunch.”

I'm pulling out my phone with my free hand when she breaks loose with a violent, twisting motion. In the blink of an eye she slithers across the floor to grab hold of the gun.

Once again I find myself at the wrong end of the barrel.

“Don't come near me! If you touch me again, I'll scream!” she shrieks in the high-pitched voice of a young girl. She's looking at me but not seeing me; she's somewhere else in her mind.

“Joan, no …” I make an attempt to get through to her. “It's too late for that. Don't you see? You'd have to kill him, too.” I gesture toward the prone figure of the night watchman who's starting to come around—I can hear him moaning and his eyelids are fluttering. “And you're not going to do that. What would be the point? Nobody would believe your story. Not with all this wreckage.”

“He's a bad, bad man,” she says in her little-girl voice.

“No, he isn't. He didn't do anything. And you don't want to spend the rest of your life in prison for murder. If you let us go, you're only looking at five to ten years max.” I don't know whether or not that's true, but that's what they always say on TV crime dramas. “Now, give me the gun …”

“You can't make me. I'll tell. This time I
will
, I swear,” she whimpers, not hearing me.

My blood turns to ice in my veins. It sounds as if she was sexually abused growing up, possibly by one of her foster dads. Which is horrible, of course, but no surprise given her history. But now she has me or the night watchman, or both of us, confused with whoever hurt her. Which means there's no reasoning with her. It would take years and a team of shrinks, and even then … who knows? All I know is, it's over for me and probably the poor guy lying next to me. For his sake I hope she gets it over with before he regains full consciousness. Because it's no fun watching your life flash before your eyes, let me tell you. Especially when yours has been less than exemplary. I burned too many bridges, hurt too many people, including the people I love the most. And it sucks to know I won't live long enough to truly make up for all that. There's a joke in AA that goes, “Poor me, poor me … pour me another one.” Suddenly it's not so funny. I close my eyes and say a final prayer.
Dear God, look after Arthur when I'm gone.

“Drop the weapon!”

The sound of McGee's voice cuts through the roaring of blood in my ears. I open my eyes to see him standing in the doorway striking a two-handed cop stance as he takes aim with his Glock 9mm. Rock solid and dead sober. I've never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life. Though I think it's safe to say Joan doesn't share the sentiment. She shoots him a withering glance as though he were a workman who'd tracked mud all over her nice, clean carpet. I don't wait for her to drop the gun—she's incapable of acting rationally—I throw myself at her while she's momentarily distracted. I manage to knock her down, but she maintains her grip on the gun. I see a petite, curly-haired figure dart past McGee as he's closing in, and a child-sized foot in a black Adidas sneaker stomps down on Joan's wrist while I hold her pinned to the floor. I look up to see Ivy poised over us, staring in shock at the woman she belatedly recognized as Joan.

“Mrs. Trousdale?” She turns to me with a look of confusion after I've pried the gun from Joan's cold but far from dead hand and McGee has her subdued. “Tish, what in God's name is going on?”

“Long story,” I gasp.