Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense (27 page)
Read Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense Online
Authors: Lee Goldberg
At that instant Dan stabbed the knife into Mark's upper right shoulder, drawing the blade slowly down towards the center of his chest. The pain was intense and yet, at the same time, distant. For the moment, the inability to breathe was a blessing to Mark. The light-headness caused by the oxygen deprivation dulled the pain, made it feel apart from him, from his consciousness. He was aware of the ripping flesh, of the blood on his skin, but the agony was separate. It wasn't sinking in.
"No, no, no. You want to be awake, old friend. You want to appreciate this."
Dan set down the bloody blade and gave Mark some more air. With the oxygen came the pain. Deep, sharp, and intense.
"That's more like it." Dan smiled as he straightened up, Mark's blood on his scrubs. "And we're only getting started. You may even live long enough for me to show you your own heart."
He picked up his blade and Mark braced himself as best he could for the torture to come. As the point of the scalpel pierced his flesh again, there was a deafening explosion and Dan dropped from view.
For a second, all Mark heard was the ringing in his ears, all he saw was the recessed light on the kitchen ceiling. And then the darkness washed over his senses again. His limbs went cold. He felt buried alive, his body a coffin he could never escape.
A blinding light blasted away the darkness. The hot intensity of pain obliterated the cold. As his dry, stinging eyes focused, he saw the recessed light again before it was blocked out by Steve's worried face.
"Hold on, Dad. I won't let you die."
Steve gave his father mouth-to-mouth, straightened up, and pressed a towel to Mark's wounds to stop the bleeding.
"It's over," Steve said. "You're safe. You're going to survive. I promise you."
He leaned forward, gently closed his father's eyes, and gave him more air.
Mark was on a bed in the ER, propped up in a sitting position, as Dr. Jesse Travis checked the bandages on his shoulder and chest.
"I had a plastic surgeon do the suturing," Jesse said to Mark. "It was a clean cut. The scarring will be barely noticeable."
"Where's Steve?" Mark asked hoarsely, his throat ragged from the intubation.
He'd learned that Steve had kept him alive with mouth-to-mouth for fifteen minutes until the paramedics arrived and took over with an ambu bag. In the ER, Jesse immediately intubated Mark and put him on a ventilator until the effects of the succinylcholine wore off. He was also put on an IV of painkillers and he drifted off into sleep.
This was the first opportunity Mark had had to speak since Dan had thrust the needle into his back.
"He's on his way in," Jesse said. "He had to stick around at Dan's house until the officer-involved shooting team arrived to take his statement. You know how it goes. Amanda is out there, too, doing her ME thing."
Mark nodded. He was still in a state of shock, physically and mentally, and he knew it.
He was stunned that he'd survived. He'd never been so close to death. He'd never experienced such fear.
Despite what he'd been through, Mark still found it difficult to accept that the man who did this to him was the same man he'd considered a close friend for more than forty years. The man who had raised a family, who was a loving grandfather, and who was beloved as the hospital's Santa Claus in the children's ward at Christmas.
How could Dan have been such a monster? How could he have hidden it so well from everybody?
And with the knowledge of Dan's true nature came a deep sense of betrayal. Dan Marlowe betrayed everything in his life. He betrayed his wife, his children, his grand children, his profession, and in his last act, Mark Sloan.
All those years, Dan blamed Mark for stopping him from indulging his passion for murder. He used his own fatal illness as one last opportunity to kill again and to make Mark suffer for depriving him of his gruesome pleasure for so long.
Mark couldn't help believing that although he'd survived, ultimately Dan had won.
Dan had escaped punishment for his crimes. The punished were the loved ones of his victims and his own family, who would always be haunted by the atrocities he'd committed.
And so would Mark.
"Dad?"
Mark looked up to see his son standing in the doorway, his shirt stained with his father's blood.
Jesse slipped out quietly, giving Mark and Steve some privacy. Steve approached his father's bedside.
"How are you feeling?" Steve asked.
"Alive," Mark said, his voice unsteady. "Thanks to you. I owe you my life."
"Now we're even," Steve said with a smile. "Besides, I couldn't let you die, at least not until you give me the recipe for Chocolate Decadence a la Sloan."
Mark smiled and gave his son's hand a squeeze. "I've never been so relieved to see anybody in my life. What were you doing at Dan's house?"
"I saw him with Muriel and Joanna in one of Whittington's 'home movies.' I realized why the killings had started again and why Joanna was murdered. When I tried to reach you, Amanda told me you'd gone to see Dan. I knew you were in danger."
"I wish I'd known that I was," Mark said. "I didn't realize it until it was too late, until he gave me the injection."
"At least it's over now," Steve said.
It was and it wasn't.
As Mark lay there on that kitchen counter, his son giving him mouth-to-mouth, he realized the full implication of something Dan had said, something that would torture him more than anything Dan had planned to do to him.
"I think this kill is going to be the best ever because you understand what's happening to you in a way nobody else ever did. Not the nursing students. Not my wife. Not your cat. Not anyone..."
It raised a deeply troubling question, the answer to which Dan took to his grave.
Did Dan Marlowe murder his own wife?
If so, it had terrifying implications for Mark Sloan.
Because Mark had never owned a cat.
But he was married to a wonderful woman who died too young.
Katherine Sloan died of a heart attack. Some people called her "Kat."
Mother Nature was schizophrenic. After drenching Los Angeles with rain, she baked the city with temperatures in the eighties. The storm washed the smog from the sky, leaving the city looking crisper, cleaner, and brighter than Mark could remember seeing it in years.
He felt renewed and refreshed as well. Somehow coming so close to death had made him appreciate every detail of each day since then. Like the feel of sand between his toes, the taste of a good cup of coffee, the smile on his son's face, the company of good friends—all of which he was enjoying today.
Mark stood on his deck cooking shish kebabs on the grill, while on the beach below Amanda and her son made sandcastles, Steve and Jesse tossed a football back and forth, and Jesse's fiancée, Susan Hilliard, sunned herself on a chaise lounge.
Whatever malaise Mark had been feeling over the last few weeks was gone, surgically removed when Dan Marlowe cut him open. He was healed, physically and emotionally.
Life was good.
Of course he'd made mistakes and he had regrets, just like any man. But he knew he was so incredibly lucky, in so many ways, that he had no excuse for being depressed or worried about the future.
Mark was a rich man by every measure, but what he treasured most was his close relationship with his son, which would endure no matter where Steve lived. The relationship might change, but the deep connection they shared would never weaken.
He realized now that getting old wasn't something to be feared. It was to be embraced and enjoyed. He might be losing his youthful vitality, but age and experience only deepened and enriched his appreciation of life.
Mark had lost people very dear to him. Loved ones and old friends. He would lose more. Steve could get married and move somewhere else. Amanda and Jesse could leave someday, too, to pursue new relationships and opportunities.
It would be painful and yet, at the same time, those changes could invigorate his life in unforeseen and challenging ways. And that was what would keep him forever young—that was what would keep life exciting.
Yes, things were changing, he thought. And he couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next.
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