Blind Witness (23 page)

The tightness in his voice sounded almost like a combination of fear and pleading. All Rachelle knew was she couldn’t deny his request. She would go ahead with the surgery. She just prayed they’d realize the psycho was still out there. At least with the surgery coming, she figured it wouldn’t be hard to keep Britt with her at all times.

“Will you stay with me from now on? I want every second I can spend with you.”

“Every second, I’m yours.”

She felt a little relief. She would know the man if she heard him come close. She could at least be on guard until the police realized they had the wrong man.

Rachelle felt the lips brush against her cheek. They touched her lips and lingered. Her mind crept from the haze that still lingered in her body from the anesthesia. By the time she managed to work herself to be fully awake Britt was gone, but his scent curled around her, pressing away the sterile hospital smell. She felt peace.

She had been drifting in and out of consciousness for hours, aware of her surroundings but not really there. Earlier she had heard Britt and the doctors talking. They were saying that the operation went extremely well, that they were quite confident of the chance of success. They still cautioned patience, and they’d have to wait and see.

See, would she see? She clung to the possibilities. Waking up in the morning and looking over at Britt lying beside her, the sun streaming over his rich dark hair, across his shoulders. She wanted to watch her hands as they moved over him. She wanted to see him on horseback and walking down the street or hall. She hadn’t told him she could recognize him just by how he moved. He had a strong, confident stride that was amazingly quiet, and fluid. He wasn’t one of those men that clomped around but more like a panther gliding through the jungle. Yes, a panther was an apt description of Britt. She always had a thing for the large powerful cats. She remembered as a child she had asked for one for Christmas. Her parents had given her a stuffed one. Well, now she had a real one of her own.

Rachelle tried to tell herself not to get her hopes up too high, but it was as impossible as trying to stop the earth from turning. Her heart burned. She wanted to see if Britt’s face shown with the love she felt in his touch.

She heard someone slip into the room, and the nurse checking the monitors beside her. It was funny how she could remember the sounds after all these months. But sounds were what she had clung to. Sounds, her mind locked on the word and went deeper to voices dissecting into tones and patterns, flow, pitches. They had been what she relied on. She knew them. And she knew that Carlton might have tried to kill them, but he hadn’t been the caller. She had talked to him, heard him behind the words.

She wondered how she could convince the police that it wasn’t him. She had tried several times over the last day and a half. The problem was there had been no other calls or trouble, and they had found a small piece of the explosive cord that had been used on the lobby windows in Carlton’s car.

Britt tried to tell her not to worry about it. That the police would handle it and all she was to be concerned with was her surgery and where she wanted him to take her after it was over. His focus had shifted to her the last few days. She knew he was worried about her. He tried to be positive, but she could hear the fear that the surgery wouldn’t be successful in his voice. Not that he was worried that he might be stuck with a blind wife, but that she would be disappointed all over again.

She wasn’t sure how to convince him she’d be all right if she didn’t recover her sight. She wanted to see again. She dreamed of it, but she would be all right. She no longer worried about fitting in Britt’s world being blind. His love had taken her past that. In fact, now she realized that her blindness had been a blessing in a way. It put her in position to meet Britt. And if she had to have her choice between getting her sight and Britt, it would be Britt. She would tell him that when he came back.

The thought was just through her mind when she heard the door open again. It seemed too soon for the nurse to be back, and she caught the smell of sweat. Whoever it was, it was not Britt. The smell was definitely not right for him. It was pungent to her. She couldn’t place the smell to anyone she knew off hand, but there was something that tingled familiarity.

Rachelle heard the door pressed closed then the sound of something shifted on the floor. She almost decided that it must be the cleaning person then realized there was no smell of the heavy cleaner that usually accompanied them.

“Who’s there?” Fear burst within her. She groped for the call button, but the controls on the bed were unfamiliar to her. Before her fingers found it, a hand clamped down on her wrist.

“You’re awake. I didn’t expect that.”

Fear flared to terror. Rachelle felt as if her heart would stop. This voice was the voice she knew. This was the voice that wanted to destroy Britt. It was him. The cry almost made it out, but his other hand cut it off, leaving only a whimper.

“I know you’re not surprised to hear me. You never believed I was dead, but they wouldn’t believe you. They were so easy to fool. They’re all fools thinking they could stop me. They can’t. I’m going to destroy Clairbourne, and you’re going to help me. You’re going to be at the center of the final blow. He’s going to watch you die before I kill him. He will beg for me to kill him.”

Rachelle clawed at the hand on her mouth, and tried to hit but there was no power or coordination behind her movement. Her strength faded within seconds.

“Now, now, Angel Voice, you’re going to hurt yourself.” He dropped her hand, and she tried to pull away as she felt his hand stroke her cheek. A shiver of revulsion ran through her, and she felt tears slip free.

“You’re crying. That’s good. Aubrey cried for him. She wanted him to come for her. You want him to come for you too, don’t you? You think he can save you but he can’t. You should never have turned to him. You should have never given yourself to him. I know you’ve been with him. I’ve been there all the time. Just outside the door when he took your innocence. You should have listened.

“Why do angels fall? Aubrey, she wasn’t an angel. She liked to do wicked things, but you weren’t like that. He turned you. He has to die. I’m going to stop him. I’m sorry you have to die too. You never should’ve turned to him. You never should have fallen.”

The hand ran over her cheek again. Rachelle tried to knock it away. She slapped his hands. There was the sound of tape being pulled free. For an instant the hand over her mouth disappeared, but before she could get a sound out it was covered by a wide piece of duct tape, trapping her mouth closed as firmly as his hand did.

There was another sound of tape being pulled free. She pictured the strips attached to his pants. When he grabbed her wrist, she tried to jerk it free but he just pulled it back. The sticky material stuck to her skin. Rachelle held her other arm out so he couldn’t grab it. Bumping the side railing, she tried again for the call button. He just hit her hand away. Instead of grabbing it and taping her wrists together like she thought, he taped one wrist to the bed then reached for the other.

“We need to take this out.” She felt a tug on the tape holding her IV. There was a stab of pain in her wrist from it. “Now, don’t fight. I know what I’m doing. I had lots of training. Isn’t it funny, they train you how to take care of life as well as destroy it? Did you know I was the one that responded when my bomb missed you?”

The shiver Rachelle felt was not from the sting of the IV as he slid from her arm. She tried to pull back but he held it firm applying pressure to the swab before he put a strip of tape over it with what almost seemed excessive care.

“I was glad it missed you, but yet I was mad. You stayed with him. Why? I warned you. I would have cared for you. But you were helping him trying to find me; trying to find my voice.”

Rachelle couldn’t help but jerk at his words. He knew she could find him from his voice.

“What’s wrong? Does it surprise you that I knew? I told you I knew everything. I was always there, watching over both of you, protecting you from myself.” He let out a low laugh, and she felt sick. It all came together. He was protecting them, he was everywhere. He was a security guard.

“Yes, you understand now. Sometimes it was hard not to talk around you because everyone else might have noticed if I sounded plugged up with allergies when I hadn’t been earlier. Then again, maybe they wouldn’t, but you would have recognized my voice if I didn’t talk like this.” His voice changed, and she knew who it was. The security guard from the main desk, the day they found the bomb outside Britt’s office, the one with allergies. Ward . . . Warren that was it. He had been around other times too she knew. He was one of the guards at her apartment and the hotel.

“I got the idea from Carlton. He was always complaining about allergies. Isn’t it funny that he would try to kill
Clairbourne? I couldn’t let him do that, though. Only I can kill Clairbourne. Only I can.”

On that, he fell silent. Her hand was released from the bed then trapped so fast she hardly knew it happened. Rachelle tried to scream when he lifted her from the bed. No sound made it past the thick tape. She felt the wheelchair under her, and she experienced a rush of hope. He wasn’t going to kill her here, now. And there was no way he could get her out of the hospital without being seen and stopped. He paused to slip booties on her feet before raising them to the footrests. Rachelle kicked out in defiance. He simply caught her ankle, holding it down while the tape was wrapped around her ankle fastening it to the chair.

The hand that came out of the darkness to brush back her hair frightened her. The gauze he wrapped around her jaw to match the one over her eyes terrified her. He tucked a light blanket around her, covering her legs and draped over her arms.

She heard the shifting sound over by the door again, then his voice.
“Now to get the nurses out of the way.”

The second the words were out, the emergency beeper went off outside at the nurses’ desk. She heard the nurse rush past her room. There was a second wait.
“So easy. Time to go.” He opened the door and simply wheeled her out.

Five minutes later, she sagged in defeat. She couldn’t believe he had just rolled her out of the hospital into a waiting medical transport van. He secured the chair and drove off. She had a brief hope in the elevator when someone must have motioned to her. Warren had made the comment of taking her down to the patio to enjoy the evening air. Rachelle tried to draw attention, but it had been no use. The elevator doors opened, and he just strolled out with her.

Rachelle couldn’t believe she could have fallen asleep, but the next thing she knew the van pulled to a stop. Her mind screamed ‘no’ but the words couldn’t make it out. The not knowing what was happening was agonizing. Tears slipped from her eyes dampening the bandages. He was going to kill her. She knew that and she didn’t want to die, but worse, he was going to use her to draw Britt into a trap to kill him.

Pain as she never knew filled her. She didn’t want Britt to die. She wanted to see him and live. She didn’t know how much time passed before Warren came to move her again, this time out of th
e van and up the elevator.

When the doors opened, she knew that they were at
Clairbourne Industries. Keys rattled and a door opened. She caught the scent of Britt in the air. Britt’s office, her brain accepted that as logical. This was where it had to end, the point that it was spiraling down to. And all she could do was cry in silence, in darkness, as insanity moved around her preparing his evil plan.

Rachelle could only guess, but she was certain he positioned her by Britt’s desk in front of the large window. She wanted to scream, but there was no way to do it with the bandaging.

“Are you crying? Why are you crying? This was your choice.” There was a childlike tone to his voice. “I tried to warn you. I would have kept you safe, but you turned to him. I would have loved you. I would have.” He placed something in her lap. Rachelle tried to buck it off, but a strong hand pushed her back in the seat. There were more sounds of tape, this time being torn off the roll. He wrapped it around her waist and the chair, securing what she guessed was a bomb her. Again, the wrapping over her eyes soaked up the tears. The waiting for Britt to come started.

****

“Mr. Clairbourne, I’m sorry to have to ask you to come here tonight.” Detective Todd greeted Britt with a handshake at the door. “I understand you were at the hospital with your wife. How is she doing?”

“It went well but she’s still groggy from the anesthesia. She’s highly reactive to it. I want to get back as soon as I can.”

“I understand, but believe me this is important. It looks like your wife was right. There’s no way your brother-in-law could be behind the bombings. At first, when we couldn’t find where he had any knowledge of explosives, we turned to the preface that he hired someone to do that, but we still couldn’t make it connect. Now we think he decided that the caller wasn’t going to kill you or that we would catch him first, so he decided to kill you himself while he had someone to blame it on. And to be honest, if it weren’t for your wife’s conviction that we had the wrong man, we might not have looked so deeply. She’s very convincing, and she never missed identifying any of us.”

“So Carlton isn’t behind the bombings.”

“No, and there’s more. The medical examiner thinks he was thrown off the catwalk.”

Britt couldn’t keep back the breath that rushed from him.

“There was skin under his nails and other signs of a struggle, but from what you and your wife said, you didn’t have any direct contact with him, and since there were no scratches evident on you when you were checked out, that supports that. But, from the angle he fell it looks like he had help.”

“So you think that the caller killed him? Why?”

The detective nodded. “I talked to Dr. Lamb. She said it would be a strong possibility that our guy would stop Carlton from killing you because he would want to do it himself. As she said, ‘like a jealous kid with a toy.’ You are his, only he can kill you. It goes to the power thing he has going.”