Seizure (41 page)

9:48
P
.
M
., Monday, March 11, 2002

 

For the duration
of several heartbeats, Daniel and Stephanie did not budge. When they did move, it was only to allow their eyes to engage each other after having been transfixed on the prone body sprawled at their feet. In their befuddlement, they did not even breathe, each vainly hoping the other would explain what they had just witnessed. With their mouths agape, their faces reflected a mixture of fear, horror, and confusion, but fear quickly won out. Without saying a word and unsure of who was leading whom, they fled by scrambling over the low wall to their left and ran headlong back the way they had come in the direction of the hotel.

At first, their flight was relatively controlled, thanks to the illumination provided by the ground-level display lights directed at the cloister. But as soon as they passed into the darkness, they encountered trouble. With their eyes now accustomed to the cloister's lights, they were like blind people rushing across an uneven, obstacle-filled landscape. Daniel was the first to trip over a low bush and fall. Stephanie helped him up but then fell herself. Both suffered minor abrasions, which they didn't even feel.

Marshaling their willpower, they forced themselves in their blindness to walk to avoid further falls, even though their terrified brains were screaming at them to run. Within minutes, they reached steps leading down to the road. By then, their eyes were beginning to discern details in the moonlight, and by seeing the terrain, they could up their pace.

“Which way?” Stephanie demanded in a breathless whisper when they gained the pavement of the road.

“Let's stick to the route we know,” Daniel hurriedly whispered back.

Hand in hand, they fled across the road and descended the first of the garden's many flights of hand-laid stone steps as rapidly as their slip-on dress shoes would allow. The steps' unevenness contributed to their difficulties, although on the intervening patches of grass, they sprinted full-tilt. The farther away from the cloister they got, the darker it became, but their eyes progressively adapted, and the moonlight was more than enough to help them avoid careening into any of the statuary.

After the third flight of stairs, their exhaustion slowed them to a jog. Daniel was more out of breath than Stephanie, and when they finally entered the sphere of illumination coming from the pool and what they felt was relative safety, he had to stop. Stooped over, he put his hands on his knees and panted. For a moment, he couldn't even talk.

With her own chest heaving, Stephanie reluctantly glanced back the way they had come. After the shock of what had happened, her imagination had them pursued by all manner of demons, but the moonlit view of the garden was as idyllic and peaceful as it had been earlier. Somewhat relieved, she turned her attention back to Daniel. “Are you okay?” she managed between breaths.

Daniel nodded. He still couldn't speak.

“Let's get into the hotel,” she added.

Daniel nodded again. He straightened up, and after a brief glance of his own back the way they had come, he took Stephanie's outstretched hand.

Permitting themselves to walk, albeit quickly, they skirted the pool and started up the flight of limestone stairs that led up to the Baroque balustrade.

“Was that the same man who assaulted you in the clothing store?” Stephanie asked. She was still breathing heavily.

“Yes!” Daniel was able to answer.

They passed the villas and entered the candlelit, deserted reception area of the spa, which also functioned as a pass-through into the hotel from the pool complex. After the shocking carnage they'd witnessed up in the ruined cloister, and the subsequent terror it had engendered, the spa's simple Asian aura, cleanliness, and utter serenity seemed otherworldly to the point of being schizophrenic. By the time they entered the Courtyard Terrace restaurant filled with smartly dressed diners, live music, and tuxedo-clad waiters, they felt even more discombobulated. Without speaking to anyone or each other, they passed into the hotel proper.

In the high-arched reception area, Stephanie pulled Daniel to a stop. To their right was the living room, with guests carrying on quiet conversations punctuated with muted laughter. To their left was the open entrance of the hotel, leading out to the porte cochere. Liveried doormen stood at the ready. Ahead were the individual reception desks, only one of which was occupied. Above, tropical fans turned lazily.

“Whom should we talk to?” Stephanie questioned.

“I don't know. Let me think!”

“What about the night manager?”

Before Daniel could respond, one of the doormen approached. “Excuse me,” he said to Stephanie. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” Stephanie responded.

The doorman pointed. “Do you know your left leg is bleeding?”

Stephanie glanced down and for the first time realized how bedraggled she looked. The fall she had taken in the darkness had soiled her dress and torn its hem. Her thigh-high hose were in worse shape, particularly below her left knee, where they were shredded. Runs extended all the way down to her ankle, along with a rivulet of blood descending from her knee. She then noticed that her right palm was also abraded, with tiny pieces of broken shell still clinging.

Daniel had not fared much better. There was a tear in his trousers just below the right knee, with an associated
bloodstain, and his jacket was peppered with broken shell fragments and had all but lost its right side pocket.

“It's nothing,” Stephanie assured the doorman. “I wasn't even aware I'd hurt myself. We tripped out by the pool.”

“We have a golf cart right outside,” the doorman said. “Can I give you a ride to your room?”

“I think we'll be fine,” Daniel said. “But thank you for your concern.” He took Stephanie's arm and urged her ahead, toward the door that would take them back to their room.

At first, Stephanie allowed herself to be led forward, but just before they got to the door, she pulled her arm free. “Wait a second! Aren't we going to talk to someone?”

“Lower your voice! Come on! Let's get to the room and get cleaned up. We can talk more there.”

Confused at Daniel's behavior, Stephanie let herself be guided outside onto the walkway, but after a few steps, she stopped. She again took her arm out of Daniel's grasp and shook her head. “I don't understand. We saw a man get shot, and he's seriously injured. An ambulance and the police have to be called.”

“Keep your voice down!” Daniel urged. He glanced around, thankful no one was in earshot. “That thug is dead. You saw the back of his head. People don't recover from that kind of injury.”

“All the more reason to call the police. We witnessed a murder, for God's sake, right in front of our faces.”

“True, but we sure as hell didn't see who did it, nor do we have the slightest clue who could've done it. There was a shot, and the guy fell down. We saw nothing except the victim fall: no people and no vehicles! We were eyewitnesses only to the fact that the man was shot, which certainly will be clear to the police without our help.”

“But we still witnessed a murder.”

“But we would not be able to add anything from having seen it. That's the point. Think about it!”

“Hold on here!” Stephanie said, trying to organize her chaotic thoughts. “What you are saying may be true, but as I understand it, it's a crime not to report witnessing a crime, and we definitely saw a crime.”

“I have no idea whether keeping quiet is a crime or not
here in the Bahamas. But even if it is, I think we should take the risk of committing it, because at this moment in time, I don't want us to be involved with the police. On top of that, I have zero sympathy for the victim, which I suspect is your feeling as well. Not only was he the one who beat me up, he was threatening to kill me, for Christ's sake, and maybe you too. My worry is that if we go to the police and get drawn into a murder investigation, which we will not be able to aid in any way, we'll risk putting the Butler project in jeopardy, and we are so close to finishing. The long and short of it is that we'd be risking everything for nothing. It's as simple as that.”

Stephanie nodded a few times and ran a nervous hand through her hair. “I suppose I see your point,” she said reluctantly. “But let me ask you this: You thought my brother was involved when you were beat up. Do you think he was involved this time?”

“Your brother had to be implicated in the first instance. But this time, I have my doubts, since the thug didn't keep you out of it like he obviously did on the previous occasion. Yet who's to know for sure?”

Stephanie stared off into the distance. Her mind and emotions were a jumble. Once again, she felt conflicted concerning what she should do, thanks to a strong sense of guilt. Ultimately, she felt responsible for involving her brother, who had involved the Castiglianos, who certainly had now proved themselves to be mobsters.

“Come on!” Daniel urged. “Let's go to the room and clean up. We can talk some more if you'd like, but I have to tell you, my mind is made up.”

Stephanie allowed herself to be guided along the pathway toward their suite. She felt almost numb. Although she was hardly saintly, she'd never knowingly broken the law. It was a strange sensation to think of herself as some sort of miscreant because she failed to report a felony. Equally strange was the thought that her brother was involved with people capable of murder, especially since such an association gave a whole new meaning to his racketeering indictment. Adding to her agitation were the residual physiological effects of having witnessed violence. She could feel herself trembling, and her stomach was doing flip-flops. She had never seen a dead
person, much less one killed in front of her in such a graphic manner.

Stephanie shook off a wave of nausea at the horrid image now etched for life into her memory. She wished she was anyplace but where she was. From the moment Daniel had suggested surreptitiously treating Butler, she had thought it was a bad idea, but never in her wildest imagination did she think it could have gotten as bad as it was. Yet she was caught in the affair as if it were a bog of quicksand, sinking in deeper and deeper, unable to get out.

Daniel was feeling progressively more confident about his decision. At first he'd not been so sure, but that had changed when his memory of Professor Heinrich Wortheim's prophecy of disaster came back to haunt him. Daniel had vowed from the outset that he was not going to fail, and to avoid failure, Butler had to be treated, meaning entanglement with the police had to be avoided. Since he and Stephanie would be the only leads associated with the murder, if not outright suspects, even a slipshod investigation would invariably involve what they were doing in Nassau. At that point, Butler would have to be apprised of the situation, because after his arrival, his involvement would most likely be discovered in the course of the inquiry, which would ignite a media firestorm. With the threat of such a scenario, Daniel doubted Butler would come at all.

When they got to their suite, Daniel keyed open the door. Stephanie went in first and turned on the lights. The turndown service had come and gone, and the room was the picture of tranquility. The drapes were closed, classical music issued softly from the bedside radio, and the beds were prepared, with candies on the pillows. Daniel secured the door using all the locks.

Stephanie lifted her dress to look at her knee. She was relieved that her injury wasn't as bad as suggested by the amount of blood, which by now had run all the way down into her shoe. Daniel checked his own knee by dropping his pants. Similar to Stephanie's wound, he had an abrasion the diameter of a golf ball. Both injuries had some embedded seashell fragments, which they knew had to come out or there would be an infection.

“I feel awfully jittery,” Daniel admitted. He stepped out of his pants before holding out his hand. It shook as if he was shivering. “It must be the adrenaline rush. Let's open a bottle of wine while we draw a bath. We should soak these abrasions, and the combination of wine and bath should calm us both down.”

“Okay,” Stephanie said. A bath might help her think more clearly. “I'll run the tub. You get the wine!” She turned on the hot water full-blast after adding some bath salts to the tub. The room quickly filled with steam. Within minutes, the aroma and the soothing sound of the rushing water had a calming effect on her. When she emerged from the bathroom in a hotel robe to tell Daniel the bath was ready, she felt significantly recovered. Daniel was sitting on the couch with the yellow pages open on his lap. There were two glasses of red wine on the coffee table. Stephanie picked one of them up and took a sip.

“I've had another thought,” Daniel said. “Obviously, these Castigliano people were not as impressed as I hoped about the reassuring conversations you've been having with your mother.”

“We can't be sure my brother told the Castiglianos what we wanted him to.”

“Whatever,” Daniel said with a wave of his hand. “The point is, they sent this thug down here to do me in and maybe you. They are unhappy people, to say the least. We don't know how long it will take for them to learn that their henchman isn't coming back. Nor can we guess what their reaction will be when they do learn it. For all we know, they'll think we killed him.”