Let Me Go (45 page)

Leo touched her cheek, and she gazed into his ice-blue eyes. She wanted to lean into his hand, to let him wrap his hand around her skull and pull her into him, but she didn't.

His hand lowered to her shoulder and he adjusted the strap of her sling. “Okay,” he said.

Okay?

Just like that?

Leo leaned close to her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. His lips were cool and soft. She heard him mumble something, but the bandage on her ear muffled what he'd said.

“What?” she asked.

He took a step back and smiled.

“I didn't hear you,” Susan said. She pointed at her ear. “The bandage.”

“It's nothing,” Leo said.

He turned and walked toward the door, leaving Susan standing by the window. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

Leo was halfway across the room when he stopped.

Susan's heart leapt. He was having second thoughts. He was going to turn around and profess his love for her, offer to make it work whatever it took.

“Can I have a caramel apple?” Leo said, pointing at the rolling tray.

Susan's eyes went to the plate of caramel apples Bliss had laid out. “Help yourself,” she said.

Leo picked up an apple by its Popsicle stick, leaving some caramel on the wax paper where the apple had been, and he left her.

 

CHAPTER

47

 

The first thing
Archie saw when he opened his eyes was a beautiful angel. She was dressed all in white, her silvery wings spread out behind her, and a gold halo hovered over her chestnut hair. Her round, sweet face was peaceful, and a gentle smile played on her rosebud lips. Her eyes were on the word search book she had in her lap.

“Hey, kiddo,” Archie whispered hoarsely to his daughter.

Sara's eyes brightened and as she hopped out of the chair, her halo bobbed up and down on the wire that attached it to her head of brown hair. “Daddy's awake!” she announced, as she scrambled to his bedside.

Archie's body felt like cold black water, like a lake. He lifted his hands to see the IV port taped there and the tangle of clear tubes. Images flashed in his mind as the night before pieced back together for him. Fresh white bandages covered his bare midsection.

Susan
. Panic cleaved through Archie's chest. “Susan?” he asked, trying to lift his head, his voice cracking.

Ben and Debbie came into view. “She's fine,” Debbie said with a reassuring smile, and relief washed over him. “Henry's here,” she added, though Archie couldn't see him. “He'll explain everything soon.”

She was alive. Somehow, she was alive
. Archie nodded. He blinked heavily at them, his eyes warm and full of grit. His body itched and his arms felt heavy.

“You're on the good stuff now,” Debbie said. “Morphine. So don't worry if you fade in and out.”

Archie fought to keep his eyes open, training his gaze on his son, who was wearing a black turtleneck, a black beret, sunglasses, and a fake goatee. “What are you supposed to be?” Archie asked weakly.

“I'm a beatnik,” Ben said, glancing to a corner of the room Archie couldn't see. “Henry lent me his bongo drums.”

Halloween. How could it still be Halloween?

“I promised I'd take them trick-or-treating after we leave,” Debbie said.

Archie tried to do the math, to figure out how long he'd been in that room, to sort through the memory fragments. It was all so disorienting.

“You were brought here early this morning,” Debbie said, reading his confusion. “You were in surgery for hours, but they say you'll make a full recovery.” She had done this so many times now, the hospital vigil—she was an expert at it.

“Gretchen?” Archie asked, and the name seemed to float above his bed and hover there.

Debbie's pleasant features hardened. “Missing,” she said. “I'm taking the kids trick-or-treating at the mall,” she added pointedly. “They've told people to stay inside tonight.”

The words condensed in Archie's brain like a clot. Gretchen had escaped. She was still out there. Somewhere. Archie could feel himself slipping away into oblivion again. He grasped for the angel's hand and touched her dress instead, the polyester smooth beneath his fingers.

*   *   *

“Susan?” Archie called
out. He was groggy. Where was he? He tried to sit up and felt someone stop him.

“You're in the hospital.” It was Henry's voice. “Easy.”

He was in a blue room. The sky outside the window was a dingy slate. “Is Susan okay?” Archie asked.

Henry took his hands off Archie's shoulders. “Her ear's all stitched up,” he said in an automatic tone that made Archie think they had had this conversation several times before. “Her arm's in a sling and she'll come see you as soon as she's discharged, I'm sure.”

Archie relaxed a little, his eyes taking in his surroundings. He was in a long room with a pale blue couch, and a crowd of chairs, as if extra seating had been brought in from other rooms. He saw the word search book and remembered his children being there, and Debbie. He could hear muted hospital sounds—intercom announcements, snippets of hallway conversation. A plastic tray of half-eaten food sat near where Henry had been sitting, and the room smelled faintly of green beans and chicken.

Fragments of memories began to form in his brain, seizing him by the chest. “The uniforms outside my apartment?” Archie asked, trying to sit up again.

“They're okay,” Henry said, gently pushing Archie back. “She drugged them.”

“Did you get Karim?” Archie asked.

“Gretchen killed him,” Henry said, pulling up a plastic chair and taking a seat next to Archie's IV pump. “We'll go through all the details when you're a little stronger.” He paused, scratching at the white bristles on his chin. “One bit of business we do need to go over,” he said. “Rachel's downtown. I had her held overnight as a material witness. You want her charged?”

Henry had gone to his apartment, just as Archie had known he would. He had found Rachel. She had told him everything. If Archie had had any shame left, he would have burned from the humiliation. But he was too tired, and Henry had witnessed his indiscretions before. “No,” Archie said. Where Rachel had been involved, he had been a willing fool. “But tell her to lay low for a while,” he said. “I don't think Gretchen would hurt her.” He saw Gretchen in his mind, the nurse's costume splattered with blood. “But I don't know.”

“Your dog is at my house, by the way,” Henry said. “The kid next door is staying with her. Last time I checked in, he said that she had chewed the beads off my Minnetonka moccasins.”

“Claire hates those shoes anyway,” Archie said. He tried to smile, but it took too much strength. “How many dead at the house?” Archie asked.

“Ten, including Jack,” Henry said grimly. “Eleven, if you count Lisa Watson. You're going to have to answer a lot of questions in the next few days.”

Archie thought of the chaotic trail of blood, Razor Burn slashed by Gretchen and then shot by Cooper. It would take a diagram to figure it all out. “Did Cooper make it out?” he asked.

“Cooper?” Henry pulled out his notebook and flipped through it. A tiny fragment of green bean was stuck to his mustache. “We didn't find anyone by that name, alive or dead.”

Archie smiled weakly. Razor Burn would have died anyway, but Cooper had saved Archie's life when he'd hastened the process.

“Should we be looking for him?” Henry asked. “Was it his gun you were using?”

Archie closed his eyes.

“Archie?” Henry asked from far away. “Should we be looking for him?”

*   *   *

Henry was in
deep discussion with Sanchez. For a moment they didn't notice that Archie was awake. Archie tried to overhear what the two men were talking about, but their voices were hushed and urgent and Archie's senses were blurred by drugs. The plastic tray was gone. The sky was denser, emulsifying into dusk. The word search book was gone.

Sanchez noticed Archie first. “Look who's up,” he said, and he and Henry both turned to Archie and headed to his bedside. Sanchez was in his FBI cap and bureau jacket, a badge on a lanyard around his neck, his weapon on his hip, and two BlackBerrys and a walkie-talkie clipped to his waistband.

“Nice costume,” Archie said. “You look like a real G-man.”

Sanchez looked down at his ensemble and grinned. “I was going to go as Hoover, but I couldn't find a feather boa.”

Henry sat down in the plastic chair at Archie's bedside. “Sanchez was just updating me on the manhunt,” he said. His eyebrows drew together. “Woman-hunt, whatever.”

Sanchez stood next to Henry, arms crossed over his chest. “Your girl is pretty slick at avoiding capture, but we're working with our international partners to make it as hard as possible for her.”

Archie was still trying to piece everything together. “How'd you get to us?” he asked Sanchez and Henry.

Sanchez rocked back on his heels. “The elevator was disabled right after you got down there,” he said. “The thing was reinforced with steel, Kevlar, and bulletproof fiberglass. There was no way to get down the shaft. Leo was the one who showed us how to access the tunnel. He showed us the supply cabinet with tools to get through the door. If it hadn't been for him, you'd probably still be thirty feet under that island.”

It appeared that Archie owed Sanchez an apology. “Sorry I thought you might be dirty,” he said.

“Never said I wasn't,” Sanchez said. “Leo thinks I am. Carl was worried about him, his allegiances. So he got my name on a list he knew would find its way into Leo's orbit. He wanted to see what the kid would do with it.”

“He reported it,” Archie said. “So he passed the test.”

“He reported it to you,” Sanchez said. “He was supposed to report it to Carl.”

“Maybe he couldn't get his Ouija board to work,” Archie said. It occurred to him that it had only been three days since Carl had been murdered. It seemed like longer. “What's the status of that investigation, anyway? Are there any suspects?”

Henry and Sanchez exchanged looks.

“What?” Archie asked.

Henry scratched his eyebrow. “It was Thor,” he said.

Archie waited for the punch line. Henry leaned back in his chair and glanced up at Sanchez.

“As in the god of thunder?” Archie asked.

“He also goes by Ralph Huntley, when it's not Halloween,” Sanchez said.

Henry shrugged. “Ralph thought Carl was flirting with his girl,” he said.

“She was dressed up as the Enchantress,” Sanchez added, “so, it's within the realm of possibility.”

“Turns out Ralph has some anger management issues,” Henry said. “The Enchantress dropped a dime on him—told detectives where to find the Beretta with his prints on it. He confessed this morning.”

“You're saying that Carl's murder had nothing to do with Leo or Jack or any of it,” Archie said.

“Doesn't look like it,” Henry said.

Archie thought about all that Carl's murder had set in motion—it had sent Archie to Leo, and because they'd been seen together, Leo had been taken back to the island, Susan had been taken to keep Leo in line, which had drawn Archie to the island, which in turn had led Gretchen there. So many were dead. All due to a pass that may or may not have even happened. But at least one good thing had come of it. “I'm just glad that Leo is out of there,” Archie said.

Henry made a coughing noise.

Sanchez looked at his fingernails.

“Leo's staying,” Henry said.

It took a moment for Henry's words to register through Archie's morphine haze. “You're shitting me,” Archie said, narrowing his eyes at Sanchez.

“Leo's idea,” Sanchez said. “Not mine. He wants to take down the entire international syndicate,” he added. “He might be able to do it, too.”

“What about the whole underground narcotics warehouse thing?” Archie asked. They couldn't just pretend they hadn't seen it, not that kind of quantity.

“Oh, the DEA confiscated the dope,” Sanchez said. “They're not crazy. But that shit's on Jack. And as you know, he's toes-up. So Leo takes over the old man's shop and the DEA has an agent in the catbird seat.”

“What about you?” Archie asked.

“I'm done,” Sanchez said. “That interagency cooperation business went out the window about the time I started protesting the decision to leave Leo in the game. The kid just lost his father. He's using drugs. I don't want him getting killed on my watch. Anyway, I think I have enough on my plate.” He exhaled slowly. “I have the feeling that Gretchen Lowell is going to be keeping me very busy,” he said. Sanchez glanced at his watch then and straightened up. “I'm supposed to be giving a press conference with the chief in fifteen minutes. We want to get the word out that you're still kicking.” He nudged Henry's shoulder with his elbow. “You told him, right? How much worse it could have been?”

Henry's jaw tightened. “Not yet.”

Sanchez beamed at Archie, apparently tickled to get to deliver the news. “Doctors said that if you'd had a spleen you would have definitely bled out,” he said. “You'd be dead. The fact that she had already taken it out saved your life.” Sanchez shook his head in disbelief.

Just perfect.
“Lucky me,” Archie said.

Sanchez eyeballed his watch again. “Either of you want to give me a statement to release to the media?” he asked Archie and Henry.

“Just make something up,” Archie said. Then he remembered what Debbie had said. “Are they really telling everyone to stay indoors tonight?” Archie asked.

“The city is crawling with jokers wearing masks,” Sanchez said. “She could be any one of them. The fewer people in costume, the better.”