Aftershock & Others (29 page)

I also noticed that he wasn’t one to make contact with his good eye, and that his taxi didn’t look to be in the best shape. A warning bell sounded in my head—not a full-scale alarm, just a troubled chime—but I knew if I went looking now for another taxi, we’d almost certainly miss the plane.

If only I’d heeded my instincts.

Beth and I sat together in the narrow, low-ceilinged cabin amidships as the driver wound his way into the wider, better-lit Grand Canal where we were the only craft moving. We followed that for a while, then turned off into a narrower passage. After numerous twists and turns I was completely disoriented. Somewhere along the way the canal-front homes had been replaced by warehouses. My apprehension was rising, and when the engine began to sputter, it soared.

As the taxi bumped against the side of the canal, the driver stuck his head into the cabin and managed to convey that he was having motor trouble and needed us to come up front so he could open the engine hatch.

I emerged to find him standing in front of me with his arm raised. I saw something flash dimly in his hand as he swung it at me, and I managed to get my left arm up in time to deflect it. I felt a blade slice deep into my forearm and I cried out with the pain as I fell to the side. Beth started screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!” but that was all she managed before her voice died in a choking gurgle. I didn’t know what he’d done to Beth, I just knew he’d hurt her and no way in hell was he going to hurt her again. Bloody arm and all, I launched myself at him with an animal roar. He was light and thin, and not in good shape. I took him by surprise and drove him back against the boat’s console. Hard. He grunted and I swear I heard ribs crack. In blind fury I pinned him there and kept ramming my right forearm against his face and neck and kneeing him in the groin until he went limp, then I threw him to the deck and jumped on him a few times, driving my heels into his back to make sure he wouldn’t be getting up.

Then I leaped to Beth and found her drenched in blood and just about gone. He’d slit her throat! Oh Lord, oh God, to keep her from screaming he’d cut my little girl open, severing one of her carotid arteries in the process. The wound gaped dark and wet, blood was everywhere. Whimpering like a lost, frightened child, I felt around in the wound and found the feebly pumping carotid stump, tried to squeeze it shut but it was too late, too late. Her mouth was slack, her eyes wide and staring. I was losing her, my Beth was dying and I couldn’t do a thing to save her. I started shouting for help, I screamed until my throat was raw and my voice reduced to a ragged hiss, but the only replies were my own cries echoing off the warehouse walls.

And then the blood stopped pulsing against my fingers and I knew her little heart had stopped. CPR was no use because she had no blood left inside, it was all out here, soaking the deck and the two of us.

I held her and wept, rocking her back and forth, pleading with God to give her back to me. But instead of Beth stirring, the driver moved, groaning in pain from his broken bones. In a haze of rage as red as the sun just beginning to crawl over the horizon, I rose and began kicking and stomping him, reveling in the wonderful crunch of his bones beneath my soles. I shattered his limbs and hands and feet, crushed his rib cage, pulped the back of his skull, and I relished every blow. When I was satisfied he was dead, I returned to Beth. I cradled her in my arms and sobbed until the first warehouse workers arrived and found us.

Kim clutched both my
hands; tears streamed down her cheeks. Her mouth moved as she tried to speak, but she made no sound.

“The rest is something of a blur. An official inquiry into the incident—two people were dead, so I couldn’t blame the Venice authorities for that—revealed that the killer had overheard the hotel arranging our water-taxi ride. He borrowed a friend’s boat and beat the scheduled taxi to the pickup spot. The court determined that he was going to kill us, steal whatever valuables we’d bought or brought, and dump our bodies in the Adriatic. They suspected that we weren’t his first victims.

“I was released, but then came the nightmare of red tape trying to return Beth’s body to the States. Finally we brought her home and buried her, but my life was changed forever by then. The world was never the same without Beth. Neither was my marriage. Angela never said so, but I know she secretly blamed me for Beth’s death. So did I. Angela and I split a year later. She couldn’t live with me. Who could blame her? I could barely live with myself. Still can’t.”

“But you’re
not
to blame.”

“I had a chance to back off before we stepped onto that water taxi, but I didn’t take it. And Beth paid for it.”

We sat in silence then, each mired in our pools of private guilt. Gradually I realized that the flashes outside were less frequent, the thunder not quite so loud.

“I think it’s passed us by,” I said.

Kim glanced around, frowning in disappointment. “Damn. We’ll have to wait for another storm. That could be next week or next month around here.” She pointed to the steel pole. “Oh, look. It’s wet.”

Fine rivulets of water were coursing down the surface of the steel.

“So much for my caulking skills. I’ll see what I can do tomorrow.”

Kim got on her knees and leaned forward to touch the wet surface and—

—the tower seemed to explode. I had an instant’s impression of a deafening
buzz
accompanied by a rainbow shower of sparks within a wall of blazing light; boiling water exploded from the galvanized bucket as multiple arcs of blue-white energy converged from the pole onto Kim’s outstretched arm. Her mouth opened wide in a silent scream while her body arched like a bow and shuddered violently, and then a searing bolt flashed from her opposite shoulder into me…

…the whiteout fades, as do the walls of the tower, leaving ghostly translucent afterimages, and I know which way to turn. I spot the tiny figure immediately, still in her yellow dress, standing so far away, suspended above the treetops. Beth! I call her name but there is no sound in this place. I try to move toward her but I’m frozen in space. I need to be closer, I need to see her throat…and then her hand goes to her mouth, and her eyes widen as she points to me. What? What’s the matter?

I realize she’s pointing behind me. I turn and see Kim’s ghostly figure on the floor…so still…too still…

I came to and crawled to Kim. Her right arm was a smoking ruin, charred to the elbow, and she wasn’t breathing. Panicked, I struggled upright and kneeled over her. I forced my rubbery arms to pound my fists on her chest to jolt her heart back to life—once, twice—then I started CPR, compressing her sternum and blowing into her mouth, five thrusts, one breath…five thrusts, one breath…

“Come on, Kim!” I shouted. I was so slick with sweat that my hands kept slipping off her chest. “Breathe! You can do it! Breathe, damn it!”

I saw her eyelids flutter. Her blue irises had lost their luster, but I sensed an exquisite joy in their depths as they fixed on me for a beseeching instant…the tiniest shake of her head, and then she was gone again.

I realized what she’d just tried to tell me:
Don’t…please don’t.

But it wasn’t in me to kneel here and watch the life seep out of her. I lurched again into CPR but she resisted my best efforts to bring her back. Finally, I stopped. Her skin was cooling beneath my palms. Kim was gone.

I stared at her pale, peaceful face. What was happening in that other place? Had she found her Timmy and the forgiveness she craved? Was she with him now and preferring to stay there?

I felt an explosive pressure building in my chest, mostly grief, but part envy. I let out an agonized groan and gathered her into my arms. I ached for her bright eyes, her crooked-toothed smile.

“Poor lost Kim,” I whispered, stroking her limp hair. “I hope to God you found what you were looking for.”

Just as with Beth, I held Kim until her body was cold.

Finally, I let her go. I dressed her as best I could, and stretched her out on the cushions. I called the emergency squad, then drove my car to the corner and waited until I saw them wheel her body out to the ambulance. Then I headed for the airport.

I hated abandoning her to the medical examiner, but I knew the police would want to question me. They’d want to know what the hell we were doing up in that tower during a storm. They might even take me into custody. I couldn’t allow that.

I had someplace to go.

I arrived in Marco
Polo Airport without luggage. The terminal snuggles up to the water, and the boats wait right outside the arrival terminal. I bought a ticket for the waterbus—I could barely look at the smaller, speedier water taxis—and spent the two-and-a-half mile trip across the Laguna Véneta fighting off the past.

I did pretty well leaving the dock and walking into the Piazza San Marco. I hurried through the teeming crowds, past the flooded basilica on the right—a Byzantine toad squatting in a tiny pond—and the campanile towering to my left. I almost lost it when I saw a little girl feeding the pigeons, but I managed to hold on.

I found a hotel in the San Polo district, bought a change of clothes, and holed up in my room, watching the TV, waiting for news of a storm.

And now the storm
is here. From my perch atop the Campanile di San Marco I see it boiling across the Laguna Véneta, spearing the Lido with bolts of blue-white energy, and taking dead aim for my position. The piazza below is empty now, the gawkers chased by the thunder, rain, and lightning—especially the lightning. Even the brave young
Carabinieri
has discovered the proper relationship between discretion and valor and ducked back inside.

And me: I’ve cut the ground wire from the lightning rod above me. I’m roped to the tower to keep from falling. And I’m drenched with rain.

I’m ready.

Physically, at least. Mentally, I’m still not completely sure. I’ve seen Beth twice now. I
should
believe, I want to believe…but do I want it so desperately that I’ve tapped into Kim’s delusion system and made it my own?

I’m hoping this will be my last time. If I can see Beth up close, see her throat, know that her wound has healed in this place where she waits, it will go a long way toward healing a wound of my own.

Suddenly I feel it—the tingle in my skin as the charge builds in the air around me—and then a deafening
ZZZT!
as the bolt strikes the ungrounded rod above the statue of St. Mark. Millions of volts slam into me, violently jerking my body…

…and then I’m in that other place, that other state…I look around frantically for a splotch of yellow and I almost cry out when I see Beth floating next to me. She’s here, smiling, radiant, and so close I can almost touch her. I choke with relief as I see her throat—it’s healed, the terrible grinning wound gone without a trace, as if it never happened.

I smile at her but she responds with a look of terror. She points down and I turn to see my body tumbling from the tower. The safety rope has broken and I’m drifting earthward like a feather.

I’m going to die.