More Than Life Itself (7 page)

Returning to the kitchen, he went through the ritual of preparing the "protein" shake, just as he had the night before. While he was waiting for it to mix together, he idly flipped through the contents of the kid's wallet. A Tennessee driver's licence in the name of Tony Romanto, age 22, confirmed his earlier guess regarding the boy's origins. The license had expired two years earlier, however, which meant the residency information was long out of date. Without a permanent address, it would have been impossible to renew the document, which meant once again that Lady Luck had been smiling on Sam when he'd come around that curve and seen the younger man by the side of the road. Aside from the licence, there wasn't much else of interest inside the wallet; a few scraps of paper, some long-faded receipts, a coupon for a free small fries from McDonald's, and an unused condom that looked long past its prime. The flimsy detritus of an otherwise uneventful life. Seeing it all laid out on the table before him convinced Sam he'd made the right choice.

At least this way, the boy's life had been worth something.

After throwing the wallet in the trash and disposing of the licence in the paper shredder by his desk, Sam headed upstairs to shower and change into a clean set of clothes. Then it was back to the hospital for round two of Jessica's miracle cure.

He was just steps away from her room when a voice spoke out of the darkness.

"Mr Dalton?"

Heart thrumming in his chest, Sam turned toward the sound.

It was the priest again. The one he'd confronted the day before. He was standing in the doorway of the room across the hall, his face half hidden in shadow. Sam could make out the whiteness of his clerical collar against the darkness of his shirt.

The man went on, without waiting for an answer. "I wanted to apologise. For my behaviour yesterday. It was rude and disrespectful, which I assure you wasn't my intent."

Sam shook himself, cast aside the fear of discovery that had momentarily paralysed him. Get rid of him, he thought. Say anything, just get rid of him. "No…no problem, Father. I should be the one apologising." He tried a smile, hoping that it would be accepted for sincerity. "I'm afraid you caught me at my worst."

"It happens to the best of us," the man replied, responding with a tired smile of his own. He looked off down the hall, suddenly lost in thought.

The change in the priest's demeanour from the day before caught Sam's attention. This wasn't the same confident individual that had confronted him in the hallway. This was a man burdened by grief, by doubt. Sam was all too familiar with the symptoms not to notice. And since it was after three in the morning …

The words left his mouth before he was even aware he intended to speak.

"Did something happen, Father? Is the boy okay?"

The other man started from his daze, his head coming up slowly and his eyes focusing on Sam's own. "The boy? Oh, you mean Arthur." He fumbled for words. "The cancer … spreading … not much time left." One hand waved in the air unnoticed, as if fending off the bad news.

For just an instant, Sam was overcome with the desire to tell him, to let him in on the secret. The boy doesn't have to die, he could imagine himself saying, there's this ritual, see, and …

Reality reasserted itself before he could do anything so colossally stupid. Instead, he whispered a heartfelt "I'm sorry" to the other man and turned away, unable and unwilling to voice the truth. The priest was still standing there, staring off down the darkened hospital corridor when Sam felt the door to his daughter's room close at his back, sealing away the grief.

He pulled the thermos from his pack and moved toward his sleeping child.

His daughter wasn't going to end up like that boy, not while he had something to say about it …

***

The third victim was a homeless man he caught sleeping out behind the wreckage of the old train station on Bellington. The man bled to death from his slashed throat with barely a protest, his eyes wide as Sam caught some of his fountaining blood in a carefully placed plastic bucket.

The next morning, Jessica's white blood cell count was back to where it was supposed to be, and the jaundiced look of her body had vanished as swiftly as if it had never been.

Victim number four collapsed from an overdose of horse tranquiliser, administered when Sam stabbed him in the shoulder as the man hunted through the dumpster behind the Jolly Roger Bar and Grill. The paralysing drug stopped the man's heart in seconds, and all Sam had to do was push him into his waiting trunk and drive away, with no-one the wiser.

The days began to blend together, a kaleidoscope of images that sucked at Sam's sanity and tore at his soul, but there was Jessica, always Jessica, to think of. That kept him going when the guilt began to loom. Home from the hospital to dispose of the body, snatch a few hours' sleep, then back out of the door on the hunt for the next donor, the killing cycle starting all over again.

Victim number five offered to blow him in the back seat of his car for twenty bucks. He countered with an offer of a decent meal and a night's romp in his bed. Back at his house, she discovered she'd gotten more than she'd bargained for as he held her beneath the water in the bathtub and waited for her to drown. Sam felt a twinge of horror a short time later when he cut into her pretty blonde head with his band saw, but the feeling didn't last for long and, besides, the saw was the only tool powerful enough to take off the top of her skull, exposing her brain.

By mid-morning on Thursday, Jessica's headaches were gone and her demeanour was lively and spirited once more.

The doctors, of course, continued to praise their wonderful new drug cocktail, and patted themselves on the back for their brilliance. With her ability to eat and her appetite restored, they removed her IV and brought her medication in pill form once a day, which only made it easier for Sam to swap it for some harmless dietary pills instead. After all this time, the doctors trusted him to be certain Jessica took her medicine. They knew he wouldn't do anything to interfere with the marvellous success they were having with their current treatment.

Thursday evening's victim, number six, turned out to be the easiest so far. Running the elderly wino down in the dark alley with his car was child's play. Once back in his basement, he removed the man's left leg at the knee with the judicious application of a pair of industrial shears. Cleaning the flesh from the bone was not difficult, but it certainly was messy. He washed and then pulverised the bone with a hammer, breaking it into smaller pieces. These he ground up by hand in a mortar and pestle. The resulting heap of white powder mixed up in the blender quite nicely.

By Friday morning, Jessica's last remaining problem was confined to her liver. The doctors were concerned. The liver was failing, that was clear, and Jessica couldn't live without it. To make matters worse, they were afraid to attempt a transplant, given her weakened condition, but Sam wasn't worried about it at all. Just one more victim and everything would be all right for his little girl.

After disposing of the wino's corpse, Sam spent the afternoon looking at options. He finally came back to the idea he'd had on Monday afternoon; scope the bus station and hope he got lucky. It wasn't the best of plans, in fact it left a fair amount of room for error, but he was too tired to come up with anything new.

One more, he thought.

Just one more.

Friday Evening

The terminal was crowded, the bad weather keeping the majority of the customers inside and out of the rain. Sam stalked through their midst, hunting for just the right opportunity, just the right set of circumstances to put things in his favour. He found it at half past seven.

The girl had come off the last bus, the sum total of her belongings packed into a small suitcase that had clearly seen better days. She strode past Sam without looking up, and something clicked in the back of his mind. Somehow he knew, she was the one.

He followed her across the station at a discreet distance, watching. No-one came to greet her, no one seemed to care. She wasn't looking around for anyone, like so many of the other passengers were doing, either. She simply strode for the exit with resigned strides, her bag clutched in one hand.

Five minutes later, he pulled his car up beside her as she walked down the edge of the street.

"Need a lift?" he asked.

"No," she said, without turning to look at him.

The rain was still coming down steadily, and her thin clothes were already soaked through.

"Come on," Sam replied, "I don't bite. It's pouring out. You'll catch your death before you get to wherever you're going."

She glanced at him, but kept walking.

"Okay, suit yourself. I'm making a delivery to the soup kitchen and thought you looked like you could use a hot meal and a bed, but if you're not interested …" He started rolling up the window, letting the car drift ahead of her.

The offer of a hot meal was what did it.

She hadn't had one in more than a week, she said, once she climbed inside the car.

He let her prattle on for several more minutes, nodding agreeably where needed, until she let her guard down.

When she did, he clubbed her just above her left ear with his fist.

This time, it didn't work.

She reeled from the blow, but didn't lose consciousness. When Sam raised his fist to strike at her again, she stabbed a penknife into his side, just beneath the third rib.

"I knew it, you motherfucker!" she screamed, stabbing him again.

The pain was excruciating. Sam turned away from the road, using both arms to fend off another attack, and was forced to take his foot off the gas. The car slowed noticeably.

That was all she needed.

She stabbed at his face, forcing him to turn away, and as he did so, she threw open the door and tumbled out into the rain. As the car continued on, Sam looked back through the mirror in time to see her climb to her feet and charge off into the night.

They were in an industrial part of town, surrounded by empty offices and vacant lots still under construction. Chances were that no-one would see or hear them, no matter what happened. With only a few hours left before his deadline, Sam decided he couldn't afford to let the girl escape.

He pulled the car off the road, threw it into park and chased after her on foot through the vacant lot into which she had disappeared.

If she'd been quiet, she might have gotten away. The rain and the darkness made it difficult for him to see. All she'd had to do was to keep down, out of sight, and she'd probably have been able to slip away into the gloom, never to be seen again. But instead she was screaming for help at the top of her lungs, and that made it easy for him to catch up with her.

The crowbar he'd taken with him from under the front seat did the rest.

Dragging her unconscious form back to the car, he threw it into the trunk and drove off.

If anyone had seen them, so be it.

After tonight, he was done anyway, he thought with grim satisfaction. No matter what, he'd saved his daughter, and that's all that mattered in the long run.

The stab wounds in his side hurt, but he knew they weren't serious. He'd lost a little blood, and would need to take care of them when he got home, but he certainly wasn't in any danger of bleeding to death. He passed the rest of the ride alternating between cursing himself for getting cocky and grunting in pain whenever he twisted his body in the wrong direction.

Fifteen minutes later he pulled off on the exit ramp, and shortly thereafter reached his home.

He triggered the garage remote as he pulled the car into the driveway, expecting to drive right inside, but nothing happened. The door stayed shut and he almost drove into it, so great was his surprise.

He stopped the car, shook the device and then tried again.

Nothing.

"Damn it! I don't need this!" He smacked the remote sharply against the dash and then gave it another try.

Still no joy.

Enraged, Sam threw the device against the passenger door, eliciting another flash of pain from his wounds, and then got out. He'd have to open the garage from inside the house.

A glance at his watch told him he was running horribly behind. He had only four hours to remove the organ, mix it into the shake, and get it over to Jessica.

He didn't think it would be enough time.

"Damn well gonna have to be enough, because I'm not starting this all over again!" he muttered under his breath as he got out of the car. He slammed the car door and stalked up his front stairs.

In his anger, he didn't notice that the deadbolt was disengaged or that the key turned too easily in the lock.

He moved swiftly down the dark hallway, intent on reaching the kitchen and, through it, the garage. As he passed the living room, he caught a sense of motion out of the corner of his eye.

He turned.

A large, shadowed figure loomed there, larger than he was.

He experienced a moment of stunned surprise when a hard, gun-like object was pressed against his chest, but that was quickly obliterated when the taser went off, sending twenty-five Watts of power jolting through his body.

Then, darkness.

***

When Sam came to, he found himself blindfolded and tied to a chair. His mouth was dry and the back of his head hurt where he had been struck, but he seemed otherwise uninjured. He struggled against his bonds, but soon gave up the effort; they were just too secure.

"Hello? Anyone there?" he asked.

The answer was immediate, as if they had been waiting for him to speak. It was a woman's voice, full of sorrow and regret.

"I'm sorry you've had to go through this, Mr Dalton. Very sorry. About all of it. But I didn't have a choice."

"Sorry about what?" Sam asked, but the woman went on speaking as if she hadn't heard.

"I know it was difficult for you. Losing your wife couldn't have been easy. But we did what we could to make it quick without breaking the rules of the game. We do have some compassion, after all."