Death in a Funhouse Mirror (43 page)

My head dropped forward onto my chest and my eyes closed. I forced it up, forced them open, but I knew I wasn't going to make it home in this condition. Not even the chilling realization that someone
must
have drugged my coffee brought an energetic response. I was losing the battle of mind over body and I had to get off the road before I hurt myself or someone else. Just ahead a sign announced the Wheeler Brook Conservation Land. I put on my blinker and turned down the rutty dirt road. The road, showing the effects of the rainy spring we'd had, was like a minefield. I finally bumped to a stop in a small parking area surrounded by trees. I got out, limbs shaking, and leaned against the car, my lungs dragging in the evening air in a desperate attempt to revive myself. My body swayed and trembled like an old chair with loose legs.

I stuck my fingers down my throat, trying to make myself throw up in case there was still more of the stuff in my stomach. It didn't work. I was too listless to try hard. Gradually my knees gave way until I was sitting on the ground beside the car. My eyes closed and I fell into a kind of stupor.

Through my eyelids I sensed more than saw the headlights bumping along toward me. I wanted to get up, to not be found here collapsed beside my car, but I couldn't get my body to cooperate. I heard a door shut, then footsteps crunching toward me. I tipped my head back, forcing my eyes open like one of those old-fashioned baby dolls that closes it eyes when you lay it down and opens them when it sits up. I instantly wished I hadn't. The figure coming toward me was dressed all in doctors' whites, including plastic gloves and a surgical mask. It raised a hand and shined a flashlight into my face. I put up my hands to shut out the beam and lowered my head until I saw only its feet.

"You'll get cold out here. Let's get you back in the car." A gruff, muffled voice. Two strong hands grabbed my arm, pulled me to my feet and pushed me into the car. "There, that's better. Don't go away. I'll be right back."

I fumbled with the ignition key, trying to start the car. The flashlight came down hard on my arm. "Don't do that." My arms and legs felt limp as overcooked spaghetti and my mind wasn't much better. I couldn't summon the energy for another try. I was helpless as a newborn and I was confronting someone who definitely meant me harm. The pounding of my heart was so loud it drowned out all other sounds. If I could have run, fought back, done anything, it wouldn't have been so terrifying, but my fear was compounded by my helplessness. Like poor Pauline tied to the railroad tracks, like a cornered mouse facing a grinning cat, I knew this person was here to kill me and there was nothing I could do.

A gloved hand, unreal, bloated and yellow-white, reached in and switched off the dome light. Then both hands grabbed my arm, roughly shoved up my sleeve and I saw the gleam of a knife blade. "This will only hurt for a minute," in the same gruff voice, faintly amused. One hand held my arm down while the other, with a quick slash, cut my wrist.

The pain was instantaneous, intense and terrible. A voice I recognized as my own cried out. The hands grabbed my other arm. I made a feeble attempt to pull it back. "Just one more minute and we'll be all finished." Doctor's office clichés. Meant to be reassuring. A gruesome, sadistic choice of words. The knife moved again, bit down and tore through my arm. This time I screamed.

A bloody hand tossed the knife into my lap. "Sweet dreams, McKusick." The door closed with a heavy thud. Warm sticky blood was soaking my lap and the seat underneath me. I could smell its faintly coppery tang. Was this the end? I was going to die here all alone in my car? I felt a small tongue of anger fighting the lassitude. I was not going to just sit here and let someone kill me without a struggle.

It was a pretty pathetic struggle. I gradually inched my way forward until I could reach the car phone, forcing my wounded hands to reach, to grasp. Oh God. The pain. Just play through, Thea, play through the pain. Keep going. Don't quit now. I coached myself. Pushed the right buttons. Got it on. And almost gave up. My bloody fingers kept slipping off the buttons. Too weak to push. I remembered one of the numbers I'd stored was Dom's. Pushed four. Someone answered. Rosie.

I tried to talk to her. My voice was barely a whisper. I inched closer to the phone. "Don't hang up, Rosie," I yelled. My yell wouldn't have frightened a mouse.

"Who is it?" she said. "Is someone there?"

"It's Thea. I need Dom." Speaking slowly, forcing the words out. Trying not to mumble.

"He's not here... no... wait, he's just coming now." I could hear the change in her voice. "Hold on, Thea. He's coming." She dropped the phone with a clatter and I could hear her calling, "Dominic, hurry! Thea's in trouble."

He picked up the phone, breathing heavily as if he'd come from far away. "Thea, what's wrong?"

"They've killed me, Dom."

"Where are you?"

"In my car. Help me." I was almost out of words. Out of breath. Out of everything.

"Where are you?" Dom the Controlled, sounding frantic.

"Conservation land. Near Bartlett Hill. Come get me. I'm bleeding."

"Don't talk any more," he said. "I'm on my way. I'll come get you."

"Don't let them fool you," I said, "I didn't kill myself. Rescue the Viking. God, I'm a bloody mess here. Stop the killing, Dom."

I was losing it, floating away, babbling nonsense. The receiver slipped from my hand and I couldn't be bothered to pick it up. I lay slumped on the seat, listening to it buzz, to the odd series of noises phones make to themselves. It seemed very cold in the car. I pushed myself more upright. Crossed my arms on my chest, trying to keep my wrists up to reduce the bleeding. Holding back the red tide. Red sea. Seeing red.

Brief disjointed thoughts came to me, like someone was channel surfing with my brain. Mrs. Merriam would be depressed if she knew what had become of the nice clothes she'd helped me pick out. I was just one of those girls who are hard on their clothes. Always bleeding all over them.

My mother would never forgive me if I died and she had to bury two daughters in one year. They'd never get a white coffin for me like they had for Carrie. I was the black sheep. Too big anyway. They'd probably just throw me in an old trunk. Michael and Sonia would sneer and blame my death on my incompetence. Damn them. I'd live just to show them.

And it would spoil Suzanne's honeymoon. My poor friend. She'd feel she had to come back for my funeral. I hadn't left any instructions, either. How would they know what I wanted? Painfully, awkwardly, I fumbled with the tape recorder in my briefcase and I started talking, outlining, in my ancient, feeble voice, what I did and did not want. Told them what had happened. The last thing I managed to say, before my energy ran out like sand through an hourglass, was "tell Andre I love him." Sappy but true. He'd probably prefer a sappy message to none at all.

Where was Dom? I was cold as ice and running out of blood. I fell into a sort of trance, mesmerized by the buzzing and whirling in my head. The buzzing went from electric yellow to red and blue and then someone was bending over me, calling my name. I tried to open my eyes, but they were glued shut. Held down by rocks. The light came on and I tried again. It wasn't Dom but his partner, Steve Meagher. He tore his handkerchief in half. I heard the sharp sound of ripping cloth and then he wrapped it around my wrists and lifted me out of the car. Easily. All that weight lifting was good for something. Set me in his car.

"You're going to ruin your seats." My mother's daughter to the end.

"Don't worry about it."

"Am I going to die?"

"Tough girl like you? No way. You're going to be fine," he said, his voice calm and soothing. "I'm taking you to the hospital."

"I don't like hospitals," I said, irrationally. "Briefcase." He probably thought I was out of my mind. "Bring it."

"I've got it," he said. He wrapped me in a blanket and in seconds we were bouncing back up the road. I heard him talking into his radio but didn't focus on the words. I'd zoned out again. I opened my eyes once or twice on the way, and maybe everything was distorted by the drugs and the pain, but I had the impression we were traveling as fast as I'd ever been in my life. We pulled up at the hospital in true cop style, siren blasting, and he was out of the car and opening my door before the car even stopped rocking.

Then I was on a gurney and they were wheeling me inside. I looked back at him standing on the curb. The front of his white shirt was covered with blood. I realized he was wearing a suit and tie, too, and wondered where he'd been, what sort of evening had been interrupted to come and rescue me. He hesitated a minute, then turned off the car, left it where it was and followed me inside.

"I didn't like you," I murmured.

"I won't hold it against you," he said.

"Where's Dom?"

"Trying to get out of his driveway. I wouldn't want to be the asshole who parked his car there."

"Excuse me," a man in green with a stethoscope around his neck leaned over me and spoke to Steve, "you her husband?"

"Detective Stephen Meagher, Anson police," Meagher said.

"What've we got here? Attempted suicide?"

"Attempted murder, doc," he said.

Disbelief was writ large on the doctor's face but he didn't say anything, just went to work in a cool, impersonal way, still without speaking to me, treating me like a bothersome piece of meat. Ordinarily that would have brought me right up off the mattress, but I was too tired and too dizzy to put up any sort of a fight. They were sticking needles into me, taking my temperature and blood pressure. Establishing for the record that I was alive, at least when I arrived. Weren't they supposed to pump my stomach? I tried to tell Steve but he wasn't there so I tried to tell the doctor. He told me to lie still and be quiet. For the second time I felt completely helpless. Unable to stop the person who did this to me and now unable to get the help I needed.

Suddenly Dom was there, his warm hands on my shoulders, leaning down to talk to me. "How could they do this to you, Thea? What happened?"

"It was the coffee. Put something in my coffee. Couldn't stay awake." My voice was weak but I was articulate. I could get out about every third word. "Must have followed me." I wanted to hold his hand, but they were doing something to my hands and I couldn't. I was awfully sleepy but I was afraid if I went to sleep I'd never wake up. "I'm cold. Am I going to die?"

"You're too tough to die. Who was it?"

"Don't know. All in white. Gloves, mask like a doctor. Thought it was funny. Talking like in a doctor's office... you know... this will only hurt for a minute... it still hurts. I..." I struggled to tell him before I went into the soft darkness that beckoned to me. "... couldn't fight back. Drug made me weak. Helpless. You know how I hated it."

Trying to organize my words was like trying to collect thistle down. They floated away whenever I got close. "Make him pump. Doctor. Stomach," I said.

"Any idea what sort of drug they gave her?" he asked the doctor.

"Drug?"

"Of course drug," Dom said, "you don't think she just sat there and let someone do this to her, do you? She was drugged and then her wrists were cut."

The doctor shrugged. "I just assumed..."

Dom went ballistic. I felt it through his hands the way they gripped my shoulders. "Assumed! You could be assuming this girl right into a grave!" There was a steely anger in his voice that made the doc pay attention. "Someone tried to kill her tonight. What are you trying to do, help out?"

"Get a grip on yourself, Detective," the doc said, shifting uncomfortably, "or I'll have to ask you to leave."

"You and whose army?" Dom said, and I loved him for it. "What are you going to do? Call the police?"

"Give him hell, Florio," I whispered.

Ignoring both of us, the doctor said something to one of the nurses. She disappeared and came back with something in a cup. The doctor waved it at Florio with a sort of malicious pleasure on his face. As I'd discovered in my recent, unpleasant journeys through hospitals, doctors and nurses hate having their authority questioned. They like you passive and grateful. Well, I was passive enough, and I'd be very grateful if I came out of this alive, but I couldn't help resenting them for making incorrect assumptions and I couldn't help being grateful to Dom for being my champion.

"You want to help out, Officer, why don't you prop her up so she can drink this?"

"Detective," Dom said. He lifted me up—I was just like a rag doll—and a nurse held something to my lips. It was nasty going down and didn't stay there very long. When it came back it tried to bring my stomach with it, an effort it sustained for fifteen or twenty minutes. He held me the whole time, resting my limp body against his shoulder. Holding the bowl while my body was wracked with nausea and gently wiping my face afterwards. Finally the nurse announced that I was probably done and he could put me down. He eased me back onto the table. I lay there, reamed, hollow, shivering, and waited for the next torture.

A tall, graying man with a hawkish face and deep-set dark eyes came in, examined my wrists gently with warm fingers and spoke to me. His voice was calm and kind. "Mrs. Kozak, I'm Dr. Danczyk. I'm a plastic surgeon. I'm going to try my best to repair your wrists while minimizing the scarring. I know you've had a very frightening night and I'm sure you're very tired. I'll try not to hurt you but you will feel things—pricks and pressure and tugging. Sometimes it's easier to handle if you know what's happening. If you can do it, the best thing would be to go to sleep."

They had wheeled up a small table alongside the gurney and the nurse took my arm and started to pull it onto the table. The image of other gloved hands pulling on my hand and the knife gleaming in the darkness flashed across my mind. Panicked, I tried to pull my arm back, struggled to get up, get off the table, get away. "No! Don't touch me," I screamed. "Don't touch me. Leave me alone. Please, Dom, help me! Don't let them cut me."

Hands were grabbing at me, pushing me back down on the table. Someone was trying to tie me down and I was struggling against them.