Midnight Caller (33 page)

S
he couldn't take her eyes off him. Rain held Trevor's hand, which felt cold and still within her own.

The surgeon forewarned he'd been placed on a ventilator to allow his injured lung to heal more easily. But she now realized she hadn't been prepared for the reality. A tube ran into his mouth, connecting him to the equipment next to the bed. Its rhythmic whooshing accompanied the beep of the heart monitor. Rain thought of Trevor's confession to her, about his terror when he'd awoken with a machine controlling him all those years ago.

His chest was bare, and another tube had been inserted between his ribs to drain fluid that had collected in the space around his lungs. She brushed her fingers over the ugly bruise where the vest had stopped the bullet.
The first time she thought Carteris had killed him.

More tubes went into his forearm, channels for IV drips that hung from poles, and still more traveled under the blue hospital blanket and into bags draped along the bed's frame. The surgery had repaired his nicked spleen, as well as the tear in the paper-thin tissue of his lung. But the biggest threat was the hypovolemic shock that had set in from the severe
blood loss. Even with transfusions, Trevor's blood pressure remained low, and medication was necessary to increase it.

Sitting in a chair at his bedside, Rain lowered her head to the sheets. She wanted to fall asleep next to him and let sweet oblivion drown out the hospital noise and antiseptic smells. But the ICU had a visitation policy of fifteen minutes every two hours, limited to family. She wasn't even supposed to be here, but Annabelle and Brian had insisted she go in first.

Rain stayed a few more minutes. Then she reluctantly rose to leave. Placing a kiss on Trevor's forehead, she turned to see Brian standing outside the door of the ICU bay. He touched her shoulder as she walked past.

In the waiting room, Annabelle and Sawyer sat together in quiet conversation. Sawyer's arm rested intimately on the back of the couch behind Annabelle's head. Cognizant they were no longer alone, Sawyer stood and offered to get a round of coffee from the vending machine, then excused himself.

“How does he look?” Annabelle asked as Rain sat down.

“Not good. I know they told us to expect that, but…”

“He's going to get through this.” Annabelle spoke with conviction. “I'm sending Brian home to get some sleep. You should go, too. If anything changes, I'll call.”

Rain shook her head. “I'm staying.”

“You've had a horrible experience yourself. Now that Trevor's out of surgery, don't you think you should see an E.R. doctor?”

Her wrist was swollen and painful, but that seemed trivial compared to what Trevor was going through.

“Rain,” Annabelle said quietly. “Did that man hurt you?”

She focused her gaze on the carpet. Carteris hadn't raped her, although what he'd done had made her feel violated. Her stomach clenched at the recollection of his scalpel cutting
into her. He'd held her down and lapped at the blood flowing over her skin. Had he been reenergizing himself for the night ahead? She'd pushed those memories aside, but now everything was beginning to resurface. Carteris had planned to re-create the night of Desiree's death, and Rain was aware of just how close he'd come to succeeding.

“There was a room…in back of the cabin,” she said, needing to give voice to the nightmare. “Carteris made it look like my mother's old bedroom. I remembered it from my childhood—it had the same furniture, the same bedspread. Even the stuffed animal on the bed was identical.”

Rain ran her hands over the thighs of the hospital scrubs she wore, avoiding Annabelle's eyes. “Carteris was going to kill me in that room. He was only waiting for Trevor to arrive. He wanted him to die knowing what was happening to me, but being unable to stop it. If Brian hadn't shown up when he did, that's exactly what would've happened.”

“How could he have known what your mother's bedroom looked like? You don't really think it's possible he was involved with her?”

“I don't know.”

Annabelle leaned forward and lowered her tone, although the waiting room was otherwise unoccupied. “Christian Carteris was on the board of directors at
this
hospital. I've seen him—his photo's in the lobby. That man couldn't have been more than forty or so, could he?”

Rain sighed. A rational answer eluded her. Not even plastic surgery could have turned back the clock for Carteris to that degree. And it went beyond his face—he'd been strong and quick, able to manhandle her as if she was a child. She thought of the human remains in the swamp. She'd told Sawyer about that, too.

“There was something about him that seemed…” But Rain couldn't find the right word.
Superhuman?
Unwilling to say
it aloud, she let the thought slip away as Sawyer returned balancing two coffees. He gave one to Annabelle and the other to her. He was a handsome man, with even features and thick, blond hair cut military short.

“As soon as you finish that, Annabelle says I'm taking you home.”

Annabelle sipped from her cup. “She needs to go to the E.R. first to get herself examined. Her wrist needs X-raying, and some of those cuts look pretty bad.”

“We'll take care of that, too,” he agreed. Annabelle gave her a look that dared her to argue, and Rain relented. The pain in her wrist was persistent, and her body shook with fatigue. She'd be no good to any of them if she collapsed on the waiting-room floor.

“You promise you'll call?”

“He won't be awake for hours. Go home and sleep. Have something to eat. You can come back in the afternoon.”

A little over an hour later, Sawyer held the door open for Rain as they walked outside. She carried a filled antibiotic prescription and wore a brace on her fractured wrist. Above them, darkness was giving way to the glow of early morning.

Television-news crews had set up in the hospital parking lot. Sawyer maneuvered her through the crowd, stopping only long enough to make it clear there was no official comment at this time. He shielded Rain with his arm, propelling her toward his green Ford Explorer as reporters called after them.

“This is big news—it's not every day a top cardiac surgeon turns out to be a serial killer,” Sawyer said as he helped her climb into the vehicle. Once he'd gotten in on the driver's side, he continued, “The D.A.'s office is conducting a press conference with the FBI and police this afternoon. The Bureau's VCU director is also flying in from D.C. Trevor should be
getting the glory—instead, he's probably going to get his ass handed to him for breaking protocol and going out there without proper backup, not to mention taking a civilian with him to assist in the rescue.”

He gave her a serious glance. “Things could've gone very wrong out there, Dr. Sommers.”

Rain fastened her seat belt. Her heart ached for Trevor. “I just want him to be okay.”

“Don't worry. Trev will pull through.” He smiled faintly and started the engine. “He's too stubborn not to.”

“How long have you been seeing Annabelle?” Rain asked.

“I've been seeing her for a long time.” Sawyer appeared thoughtful as he pulled from the parking lot. “Thing is, it's only lately she's started to see me.”

 

At home, after she'd had dry toast and a cup of tea, Rain wandered into her office. Dahlia rubbed against her ankles as she stood at the window overlooking the small courtyard garden. Celeste's delicate tea roses were in bloom, and a pair of mourning doves perched on the birdbath at the edge of the brick patio. Purple wisteria hung from the tree boughs. It would have been a peaceful scene, if not for the worry clutching her heart. Annabelle had been right to send her home, she admitted. But she'd nap for only an hour or two and then go right back to the hospital.

Turning, she noticed her computer was on. Its screen held notes from her sessions with Oliver Carteris. Trevor must have gone through them, looking for clues to her whereabouts. Searching her memory of her conversations with Oliver, she wondered if there'd been some sign she'd missed. Regardless, she had an inescapable feeling that she'd somehow failed to do her job.

Rain tried to will away her anxiety. She'd told the E.R.
doctor what Carteris had done to her, but he'd assured her any risk of HIV transmission through saliva was low. Thankfully, she'd been inoculated against hepatitis B as a precaution during her doctoral program, when she'd spent time working in a facility for troubled adolescents. Still, he'd given her a booster shot to put her mind at ease.

She took the ice pack she'd made in the kitchen and went upstairs to her bedroom. Sunlight slanted across the unmade bed, which was just as she and Trevor had left it the previous morning. Skimming her fingers over the rumpled sheets evoked vivid images of their lovemaking. She needed to think of that, and not Trevor lying bleeding and unconscious on the plane's floor.

The lack of sleep had caught up to her. Rain's limbs were sore and her eyes burned with fatigue. Too tired to even locate a nightgown, she shrugged out of the oversize medical scrubs and slid naked under the sheets. Pressing her face against the pillow where Trevor's head had rested, she hoped to catch some lingering scent of him. But there was only the light floral fragrance of the laundry detergent. Disappointed, she closed her eyes.

The slow fall of footsteps interrupted her drowse. Rain sat up, drawing the sheets over her breasts. She called out, fearing a response, and was relieved when she heard only silence in return. After a short while she brushed her hair from her face and lay back down, chalking it up to her clattering nerves.

Rain was just falling asleep when she heard the strains of music coming from downstairs. Desiree's husky voice floated up to her on the rich melody. Fear tingled along her skin. She wasn't alone.

She dashed to the door with the intent of slamming it closed and locking it, but a towering frame filled the threshold. Carteris's green eyes behind his spectacles held a mocking glint.

“You thought you could kill me that easily?”

He carried her backward in one swift movement and fell with her onto the bed. Rain tried to scream, but his weight crushed the air from her lungs.

“We have unfinished business, little one.” Grabbing her hair, he forced her head back and bared her throat. Rain's eyes widened as his mouth opened to reveal long, pointed incisors. His head drove down, his teeth sinking painfully deep into her neck. Carteris's grunting sounds of pleasure echoed in the room as he fed.

Paralyzed, Rain felt herself dying. The warm, sticky wetness of her blood poured over her throat and chest, soaking the mattress under her.

She awoke to the phone's ringing. The sheets twisted around her were soaked with perspiration, and her voice when she answered came out breathless and unsteady.

“Rain?” Annabelle was on the other end of the line. The clock on the nightstand indicated it was nearly three in the afternoon. The ice pack she'd brought from the kitchen had melted into a mess beside her on the bed.

“I overslept,” she said, instantly panicked. “What's happened?”

“He's awake.” Annabelle's words held a tremor. “He tried to pull out his breathing tube. They're trying to calm him down, but it's not working.”

Rain phoned for a taxi and left the house.

 

The nurse at the monitoring station called after her, but Rain kept going until she reached the windowed ICU bay. Two orderlies were exiting the area. She inhaled sharply at the sight of Trevor's wrists enclosed in padded restraints against the bed rails. Annabelle bent over the bed, talking to him in a soothing tone. Although his eyes were closed, tears leaked
from under his dark lashes. Rain could see anxiety etched on every millimeter of his face.

“Trevor,” she whispered, moving closer.

He opened his eyes at the sound of her voice and Rain offered him a gentle smile. His pupils were dilated, overpowering the stormy blue-gray of his irises, and his gaze appeared glassy and fevered.

She ran her fingers through his sweat-dampened hair and spoke to him softly. “I know you don't like the ventilator, but you have an injured lung and it needs time to heal. That's all it is, a tiny little tear in your lung. Everything else is fine, I swear.”

She wasn't sure if he understood her. But when she slid her hand into his, Trevor's fingers clutched hers tightly, as if she was his lifeline. Moisture welled in her eyes.

“This is just for a few days, until your lung is stronger,” Rain urged. “Just rest. Let the machine do the work for you.”

She continued stroking his hair until his eyes closed again. The rapid beep of the heart monitor slowed to a steadier pace. After a minute or so, she felt his grasp loosen. He'd drifted back to sleep, but she didn't dare move. Rain looked at Annabelle. She stood at the foot of the bed, her arms wrapped around her stomach.

“They sedated him through his IV line, but it hasn't had much effect,” she said quietly. “They don't understand it. The doctors don't want to put him all the way under because his blood pressure is so low already. But they said if they had to, they'd medically induce a coma.”

Her voice broke on the last word. “I don't know how he has the strength to fight.”

“He has a strong will,” Rain murmured.

“He's remembering the last time he woke up on a ventilator, isn't he?”

Rain hoped Trevor hadn't done any damage when he'd attempted to extubate himself. The surgical tape that held the breathing tube in place concealed the scar that ran along the base of his chin.
War wounds. Trevor had a lifetime of them.
Even in his weakened condition, it was possible he was having a flashback of emerging from his coma years ago. Rain thought of the difficulties Trevor had gone through then, trying to rebuild his strength and regain his verbal skills. What if he feared the same thing had happened to him again?