In the Arms of the Wind (27 page)

“Fucking bastards,” Danny said. He checked the rounds in his weapon, felt for the extra clip he carried in his pants pocket. He had no idea how many killers were on the fringes of the boatyard, but he doubted he had enough ammo to make it out of this alive.

“Gallagher! You wiping up the shit in your pants, pretty boy?”

“Fuck you!” Danny shouted.

There came laughter from at least three men, but the sound gave Danny an idea of where his assailants were located. He glanced behind him and snarled. He was at least fifty feet from the boat repair shop to which he and Barnes had come to question an informant—an informant who had set them up. There was no way he could make it across the open ground without getting a bullet in the back for the effort. He edged to the side of the stack of blocks and looked quickly around it. He saw two men sheltering behind live oak trees, each man with a carbine pointed straight at him. He was effectively pinned down. The only thing he knew to do was pray and he would have if the sound of crunching gravel behind hadn’t caused him to whip around.

He took the hit straight to the center of his chest. The hit felt like the kick of a mule to his breastbone and he looked down with shock to see a tranq dart sticking out of his body, the syringe buried almost to the tail piece. He tried to stand, to get away but his legs went out from under him. He fumbled at the dart but the needle was barbed and wouldn’t come out. His fingers slid from it as a powerful numbness began to creep over his extremities.

“Got him!” the man who had tranqed him shouted to his buddies.

Danny was fairly sure about what had been in the dart. The numbness, the sudden decrease in his heart rate and the beginnings of what felt like an out-of-body experience told him he’d been given a high dose of the animal tranquilizer ketamine. Already he was starting to hallucinate, watching the man coming toward him multiplying over and over again as he walked. The air was a silvery blue color and rippling all around him. He was sweating bullets, the salty liquid flooding his eyes. He had the sensation of floating—rising above his own body, watching as two men grabbed his arms and levered him from the ground.

With the ground beneath his useless legs undulating as they dragged him along, Danny couldn’t lift his head. The silvery blue air was like an inferno around him and in it he could see hideous faces covered with scales grinning back at him in his peripheral vision.

“Cuff him,” one of the monsters said, and Danny felt himself being flipped over to his belly, the press of a hard knee in the center of his back. His arms were dragged behind him.

“Wait a minute,” another monster croaked. “I want to teach this white boy some manners.”

The monsters shrieked with laughter and Danny was pulled from the ground, dragged into the boat repair shop and hell opened for him with such brutality he wished they had put a bullet in his brain.

But that was not to be. When they were finished with him, the last thing he remembered as one man opened the trunk of a car and the other two swung him into the musty interior was screaming in terror—his violent claustrophobia much greater than the hallucinogenic monstrosities that followed him into the darkness as the lid was slammed shut.

Unable to move, to do anything but scream, Danny felt the air being sucked from his lungs. His body felt as though it were on fire, pouring with sweat, and the worst kind of nausea was pushing at his throat. Without the ability to turn himself over, he was acutely aware he’d drown in his own vomit once the nausea erupted. Only one hand worked and its fingers scraped feebly at the dirty trunk mat that smelled strongly of fish. The distortion of perception caused by the ketamine brought the monstrous creatures from hell up close to his face—breathing sulfurous fumes into his nostrils—then the hideous nightmare visages were snapped away again, leaving behind cackling, crackling, popping noises that shook the car. He heard screams, the whine of a motor revving, the squeal of tires then…

Nothing.

He couldn’t move. Even his hand had ceased to function. He couldn’t breathe. The claustrophobia had finally stolen the air from around him. No silver blue vapors drifted around him in the darkness and the gruesome faces had melted to a runny red mass flowing down the sides of the trunk. He was dying and he knew it.

Kaycee
, he thought, and bitter regrets followed him down into unrelenting darkness.

Chapter Eleven

Kaycee shoved past the two guards who were striding ahead of her into St. Joseph’s emergency room. She felt Duncan’s hand slide off her shoulder as she darted past the other two men, heard him call out to her but she ignored him.

“Where is he?” she yelled at the woman behind the desk. “Where is Danny Gallagher?”

“Kaycee!”

She spun around and saw her lover’s uncle beckoning her from a set of swinging doors. She ran to him, nearly colliding with the surgeon in her headlong rush to get to Danny.

“He’s gonna be all right but he’s a pretty sick puppy right now,” Uncle Mike told her. “They shot him full of ketamine and he’s tripping pretty high.”

He led her to a curtained cubicle where Danny lay on a gurney with his arms in restraints. His flesh was red-tinted and he was sweating profusely, his hair a sodden mess. An IV bag dripped a constant stream of fluid into his veins.

“Danny!” she cried out, hurrying to his side.

He looked up at her with glazed eyes, but there seemed to be some recognition in the look. His breath was heavy, ragged, loud, and as she watched, he strained as though he had to vomit. She reacted instinctively—sliding her hand under his neck and turning his head to the side.

“Give me an emesis basin!” Uncle Mike bellowed. “Now damn it!”

Danny heaved, gagging violently as Kaycee held her hand to his forehead to brace him. There was nothing but a thin thread of bile but he continued to gag, the dry heaves much worse than if he’d had something to relieve the spasms.

Father Sean came into the cubicle at that moment, his face pale, eyes worried. He was carrying the accoutrements needed to give Last Rites and when told by his uncle they wouldn’t be needed, squeezed his eyes tightly closed. “Thank God!” he whispered.

“Is Dad on the way?” Uncle Mike asked.

“Yes. He and our mother,” Father Sean replied.

“I’m waiting for a room for him. We had a pileup on 95 earlier this morning so we’re pretty full here. As soon as something opens up, they’ll come get him,” the surgeon said.

“How badly did they hurt him?” Father Sean asked.

“They shot him full of animal tranquilizer then shoved him into the trunk of a car.”

“Oh my God,” Kaycee said. “He’s claustrophobic!”

“Yeah, I know,” Uncle Mike replied.

“Where the hell were his bodyguards?” Father Sean’s profanity didn’t seem to faze his uncle, but it surprised the nurse lurking in the cubicle. “Why weren’t they watching him?”

“They were, Sean,” Uncle Mike said in a reasonable voice. “But they got a damned flat tire and had to stop to change it. It was Frankie Mulroney and Rickie O’Hara and they called for backup to go out to the boatyard where Danny and Barnes were headed. Luckily one of the crew got there and managed to take…” He stopped to give the nurse a pointed look. “See if you can find out what’s holding up my nephew’s room!”

The nurse bobbed her head and scurried away. When she was out of earshot, Danny’s uncle continued.

“He took out two of the men but the third got away. To give the boy his due, he was more concerned with making sure Danny was okay than chasing the other man. It was a good thing he did. By the time Frankie and Rickie showed up, the kid was giving Danny mouth to mouth. If he hadn’t, Danny might not have made it.”

“Find out for me who that kid is,” Kaycee said. “And give me a washrag please.” She looked up at Uncle Mike. “Can he have ice chips?”

“Sure,” the surgeon said. “I’ll get them. I want to order an antispasmodic for him.”

“It’s okay, baby,” she said soothingly to Danny who was still having spasms and trying to fight the restraints on his arms. “Try to take deep breaths now. Just slow, deep breaths. That’s it. You’re doing fine, babe.”

“He’s trying to touch you,” Father Sean said, pointing down to Danny’s hand.

“All right, sweetie,” Kaycee said, and slipped her hand into her lover’s. His grip was hot and sweaty but firm. “I’m right here.”

“Heads are gonna roll over this one,” the priest said.

“Why don’t you say a prayer for us, Father Sean?” Kaycee asked, wishing Danny’s brother was anywhere but there with them. She eased Danny’s head onto the pillow, smoothing his hair back from his eyes.

“Of course,” he said, and quickly made the Sign of the Cross.

Only half listening to the priest, Kaycee kept Danny’s hand in hers and stroked his forehead with her free hand. The man she loved was looking up at her with such a wounded, damaged look it broke her heart. She wanted to be alone with him, to crawl onto the gurney and take him into her arms, to hold him against her.

“Here’s the ice chips,” Uncles Mike said when he returned. He handed the plastic cup to Kaycee and moved to the other side of the bed to administer a hypodermic of Vistaril to his nephew to calm the nausea. He injected the med into the IV line. “It’s gonna sting, son.”

Danny gasped as the fiery payload spread up his arm.

“Wouldn’t it have been better to give it to him in his butt?” Kaycee asked, looking down at Danny when he made a strange, whimpering sound.

“No,” his uncle snapped.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I get migraines and I know how bad Vistaril stings.”

“My wife gets them too,” the surgeon said.

“Doctor?” the nurse asked. “They’ve got a room ready for your nephew now so we’re ready to transport him upstairs.”

“Good. Kaycee, will you grab his clothes? They’re over in that plastic bag.”

Kaycee retrieved the bag and stood back as two orderlies came in to roll the gurney to the elevator. She wasn’t at all surprised to see Dermot and Duncan, Frankie and another man she assumed was Rickie O’Hara waiting at the swinging doors.

“Would you wait a minute?” Uncle Mike asked, reaching out to take Kaycee’s arm to prevent her from following the gurney. “Sean, go on up with him, will ya, and see he gets settled in?”

“Sure, Uncle Mike,” the priest agreed.

Wondering about the tight hold Danny’s uncle had on her arm, Kaycee was drawn along with the surgeon into one of the triage rooms. He closed the door behind them and turned to her.

“I know I didn’t have any right questioning you, Dr. Gallagher,” she said.

“Uncle Mike,” he corrected her, “and that’s not why I need to talk to you, Kaycee.”

“Was it the Malones?” she asked, delaying his words—words she suspected would hurt.

“Actually no,” he replied. “But the bastards who set the trap for him were going to sell him to Malone’s people. That’s why they didn’t kill him outright like they did Barnes.”

“You know for a fact it wasn’t Malone?”

He nodded. “One of the guys lived long enough to tell Frankie who was behind the hit. It was the guy who got away, the one Danny and Jack were trying to bust for a series of home invasion killings last year.”

“So Danny knows the man?”

Uncle Mike nodded again. “Yeah, he knows him.” He pointed to a chair. “Kaycee, sit down, will ya? What I’ve got to say isn’t going to be easy for you to hear.”

“Just tell me,” she said. Her heart was racing and she clenched and unclenched her hands, her palms suddenly sweating.

Danny’s uncle put a hand on her shoulder. “The black guy, the one who got away, hurt Danny,” he said. His gaze held hers. “He hurt him, Kaycee.”

Kaycee frowned. “Hurt him how?” She could hear the blood rushing through her ears. She could tell Uncle Mike was having a hard time spitting the words out and when he looked away from her to say them, she tensed, expecting the worst.

“The bastard raped him.”

The words slammed into Kaycee like bullets. Her lips parted in shock and she ceased to breathe.

“I gave him a baseline test to document he isn’t HIV positive. I want to start him on antiretroviral preventative drug treatments as a precaution but he may not cooperate. The baseline test will have to be followed up in three, six and twelve months. Additionally, he’s going to need an STD test within ten to fourteen days to rule out the transmission of syphilis or gonorrhea.”

“Oh my God,” she said, staggering back, putting up a hand to ward him off when he stepped forward. She sat down in the chair and stared up at him in horror.

“There’s no reason to believe he’s contracted anything, but I’d rather err on the side of caution. The man who raped him spent time in prison so we don’t know what his status is.”

“Why do you think Danny wouldn’t cooperate with you about the drug?” she asked.

Uncle Mike hunkered down in front of her. “I hope to God you’ve never been raped.” She shook her head in denial. “You know how traumatic such a thing can be for a woman. For a man, it’s just as disturbing, if not more so. Just as many women who have been raped feel, he might blame himself for what happened.” He held up his hand when she would have protested. “He might, Kaycee. I’m not saying he will, but he might. Under the influence of the ketamine, he was already hallucinating so if he ejaculated during the assault—a normal, involuntary physiological reaction, by the way—he might view it as an orgasm. Thinking he enjoyed having that done to him could be very crippling to a man like Danny. Add to that the instinctual belief he should have been able to protect himself from something like this having happened in the first place, I’m afraid he’s going to really have difficulty coming to terms with this.”