Nine Lives (20 page)

So Wilson was biding his time, parked across the street from the seedy hotel that was supposed to be Two-bit's place of residence. He had a free view of the front door, which was more than sufficient, since he'd already checked and found out that, while it was illegal, the back door to the place was chained and padlocked from the inside.

He was on his second cup of coffee in three hours when he saw a cab pull up to the curb across the street. He put the cup down and picked up his binoculars, adjusting the night-vision lenses for a clearer view, then began to grin.

Two-bit had finally come home.

Wilson waited until Sanders entered the building, then got out of his truck and started toward the door. The night was bitterly cold, but at least the streets were clear. After the weather they'd had recently, he wasn't going to complain.

The latch was broken on the entrance to the hotel. The chair that had been put in front of the door to hold it shut slid across the old linoleum, squeaking loudly as it went. Intentional, or not, it was a fairly decent warning system for this part of the city.

Wilson cursed beneath his breath as he paused in the shadows, waiting to see if anyone came out and challenged him. When he realized that everyone who came and went had to make the same sound, he figured the occupants were used to it.

Just to be on the safe side, he pushed the door shut, then set the chair back in place. Now all he had to do was find out which room belonged to Two-bit and pay him a visit.

A quick look at the book behind the desk showed that Morris Sanders was occupying room 400.

Great. Only four flights. At least this time the place wouldn't be on fire.

Wilson stayed in the shadows for just a few seconds longer, making sure that he was still unobserved, then started up the stairs. He was still breathing easily by the time he reached the fourth floor and gave himself credit for his repeated trips to the gym.

Only once before he knocked on the door to room 400 did he think of Cat, and then he made himself focus. It was stuff like that, that could get a person killed. He felt in his pocket for his gun, then re-checked the back of his belt for his handcuffs. Once he was satisfied that all was as it should be, he gave the door a thump with a doubled-up fist, then began mumbling loudly while stumbling and staggering around, giving the impression that he was just a drunk in the hallway.

 

Two-bit was popping the cap from a long-neck beer when he heard the thump against his door. Then, when he heard the mumbling and cursing and the shuffling feet, he took a quick swig before heading to the door.

Stupid bastard was going to wake up that Latino woman's baby across the hall, and if it woke up, he would never get any sleep. The brat was always crying, and the last thing he wanted was to finish out the night listening to it again.

He yanked the door inward with a curse on his lips just as Wilson stepped out of the shadows.

“What the—?”

Wilson popped Two-bit in the nose with his fist, then followed him inside as he staggered backward.

“Gotdabbit!” Two-bit shrieked. “Ju boke by nodes.”

“It's what you get for jumping bail again,” Wilson said calmly as he handcuffed Two-bit.

“I'b bleeding,” Two-bit whined.

Wilson looked around, saw a box of tissues and grabbed a handful. To Two-bit's horror, Wilson rolled the corners into a point and stuffed them up one side of Two-bit's nostril, then did the same thing with two more tissues, stuffing the other side, as well. He looked like a walrus until the tissue quickly turned to red.

“Hold your head back,” Wilson said, as he grabbed Two-bit's coat, draped it around his shoulders and headed him out the door.

“By door! By door! Bull it jut or dey'll rob be blind.”

Wilson shut the door behind them as they went, then aimed for the stairwell.

“Maybe next time you'll choose a better place to live,” Wilson said, as they started down the stairs.

“I can't breed,” Two-bit muttered.

Wilson smirked. “That's probably for the best,” he said, even though he knew that wasn't what Sanders was trying to say. “Just stop talking and breathe out of your mouth, and you'll be fine,” he added.

By the time they got out of the hotel, across the street and into Wilson's SUV, Morris Sanders was a subdued man. Wilson buckled him into the back seat, then shoved his head backwards until it was leaning against the head rest.

“Don't you, by God, bleed on my seats. Keep your head back. Do you hear me?”

“Jess, I hear ju,” Two-bit mumbled, and fixed his gaze up and out the back window. He could barely see the night sky for the street lights, but he looked long and hard, because it would be a long damned time before he saw it again.

 

Pete Yokum was on a high. It had been a while since he'd been this excited about anything, and he wondered if he'd been wasting his time being retired when there was this whole world of crime just waiting for him.

There was a rational side of him that knew he would never partake of that lifestyle, but just this once, he had the opportunity to prove to himself how good he would have been.

It was easy to get onto the Presley property. Their security system was at least fifteen years old and in serious need of an update. He was on the grounds and in the garage within five minutes of trespass.

A quick sweep of the vehicles inside led him straight to the cars that were obviously driven by a female and the ones that were not.

Just to be on the safe side, he bugged all but the powder blue Jaguar, certain that it belonged to Mrs. Presley because of the way it smelled inside, and the bits and pieces of jewelry and makeup he'd found in the glove box.

Once he'd finished there, he found a window in the basement that was missing a small pane of glass. He opened the window and entered the house, then did a quick walk-through of the downstairs. He found the security system, but it was armed only for doors and the windows on the ground floor. It did have motion detectors, and he wondered why Mrs. Presley wouldn't activate them, since she was sleeping here all alone. Within moments, a large, long-haired cat with a bored attitude wandered into the foyer where Pete was standing and gave him the answer.

Because of the cat, they couldn't arm the motion detectors without guaranteeing that they would be going off all night.

He grinned. This kept getting better and better.

He began going through the downstairs rooms, eliminating possibilities for bugging as he went. When he came to the library, he found a cell phone in the drawer and quickly bugged it.

When he walked back into the foyer, he stood at the foot of the stairs, gazing up. The bedroom was bound to be up there, and it couldn't be overlooked.

It was when he started up that he began to get nervous. He had no way of knowing if Mrs. Presley was here, or if she was a light sleeper. He already had a mental plan for escape, should he get caught, so he was treading lightly by the time he reached the top.

He paused at the head of the stairwell as the cat suddenly darted past his feet. It was all he could do not to panic as the cat scampered down the hall and then disappeared into a room two doors down.

It occurred to him then that that was probably where Mrs. Presley was sleeping. A quick check assured him that he was right, only the room didn't appear to be a master bedroom. Just to be on the safe side, he quietly shut the door before moving back toward the stairs. The first door on the right was closed. If the pair were sleeping in separate rooms and if he was the man of the house, it was the room he would choose.

When he entered, he knew he'd been right. The closet was full of men's clothing. The drawers in the dressers were full of men's socks, underwear and handkerchiefs. He began going through the stuff with swift precision, bugging what he thought Presley might take with him, including a duffel bag on the floor of the closet and several pairs of shoes.

There was a money clip on the dresser but no way to conceal a bug, so he reluctantly left it alone. By the time he was finished, he was shaking. He hurried back into the hallway, standing quietly just outside the door to make sure everyone was still asleep, reopened Mrs. Presley's door so she wouldn't suspect anything, then bolted for the stairs. He made it through the rooms and into the kitchen, then down into the cellar in record time. When he finally crawled out through the open window, he was breathing easier.

After a quick glance around the grounds, he left the same way he'd come in and made a run for his car. He was laughing from the adrenaline rush as he drove away.

It would be more difficult to bug Presley's office. Not only was it inside a twenty-story company building, but the building had a security guard in the lobby. He decided to wait until daylight and go in as a repairman.

As he drove home, he stopped at an all-night diner, and picked up a slab of ribs and some coleslaw and fries. After all the work he'd done tonight, he was starving. By the time he locked himself inside his apartment again, it was nearly morning. He ate what he called his evening dinner with relish, then brushed his teeth, stripped buck naked, set the alarm and crawled between the covers. All he needed was a few hours of sleep, and then he would get up and finish the job before the sun set on Dallas again.

As he drifted off to sleep, his thoughts were of the Presleys' fuzzy-faced cat and of Mrs. Presley, who'd slept through his breaking and entering, completely unaware of the intruder in her house.

He didn't know if what he'd done would help, but if Catherine asked, he would do it again, and gladly.

I
t was twenty minutes before four a.m. when Mark Presley woke up. At first he was confused as to where he was; then he remembered that they'd moved him from the ICU the evening before, right after he'd had that visitor.

He could see the clock on the wall in a shaft of light from the bathroom. The shift wouldn't change for another three hours, and the hall was quiet. Although he hadn't been here long, he already had a feel for the floor. They'd checked him every hour on the hour since he'd been moved, so he had no reason to assume they wouldn't be back again, but there was something he wanted to try.

He was impatient to know if his mobility was impaired. The problem was that if he began to move around, would the machines record it in any way? Would they give away the little secret he'd been keeping? He couldn't go far, tethered as he was by tubes and leads, but he could try. With one last glance at the clock, he gripped the bed rails with both hands. He didn't know what would happen, but he was about to find out.

He pulled himself up, then sat for a moment, shocked at how light-headed he felt. But the longer he sat, the less dizzy he became. He reached down and ran his hands along the length of his legs, careful not to disturb the IV. Everything felt normal. He scratched an itch on his knee and then scratched himself beneath the hospital gown. It felt good to know that sensation seemed intact.

Now that he'd accomplished that much, he wanted down from the bed. But that presented a problem. The bed rails were up on both sides, and he wasn't sure how to lower them. And if he did, would he be able to get them back up undetected?

Caution suggested he wait, but he hadn't gotten where he was in this world by being cautious. He felt along the bed rail until something gave and the rail began to move. When it came to a stop just below the level of the mattress, he swung his legs off the side of the bed and let them dangle.

His heart was pounding so loudly that he felt dizzy. As he sat, he broke out in a cold sweat, fearing that if he stood up, he would go crashing to the floor.

It was ten minutes to four in the morning.

Suddenly a voice came over the intercom and into every room. Someone was calling for a nurse to Room 206. It sounded serious. He heard a shuffling of chairs and feet, and realized he wasn't far from the nurses' desk. Since he didn't know what room he was in, he panicked. What if his heart monitor had registered some huge spike? What if they had seen him? He hadn't thought about the room being monitored by a camera. What if he was about to be debunked?

He sat motionless, waiting for them to come bursting into his room, but no one came. Instead, he heard footsteps running to the other end of the hallway and decided that luck was on his side after all.

Confident that whatever was going on in 206 would keep the nurses busy for a time, he grabbed the head of his bed with one hand, then slid sideways, letting the toes of his right foot touch the floor.

Nothing happened. There were no sharp pains. No feelings of weakness. He could feel the cold floor against the bottom of his foot. It was the best thing he could remember feeling in a long, long time.

His confidence grew as he slid the rest of the way off the bed and then stood, testing how it felt to be upright. There was no dizziness, no feeling of an impending blackout. His legs didn't feel rubbery or weak, and there was sensation in all his limbs.

He would have tested his mobility a little better, but there was the heart monitor, a catheter up his penis, and the IV needle in the back of his left hand. Still, he considered his experiment successful.

He knew something about himself that no one else knew.

He could walk.

The seizure or the breakdown or whatever they chose to call what had happened to him hadn't paralyzed him. And, not that it mattered, he'd been so drunk when he'd gone to bed that he had no memory of the hours afterward or what had caused his seizure. All he needed now was to find a way out of the hospital and this mess he was in.

As reluctant as he was to lie back down, he knew he was pushing his luck. He scooted back up on the bed, positioned himself much the same as he'd been and pulled up the guard rail. Satisfied that it was safely locked into place, he lay back down, dragged the covers up to his chest, then shifted them around a bit so they wouldn't look too neat. When his bedclothes looked properly messy, he closed his eyes, willing his heart rate to settle. His mind was still racing when he heard the door to his room open. Before he could prepare himself not to react, the light came on. He flinched.

He heard a nurse gasp, then hurry to his bedside. She grabbed his wrist and began to take his pulse. He knew his heart rate was too rapid for someone who was supposed to be comatose, but he'd had no time to relax and let it slow down.

“Mr. Presley? Mr. Presley? Can you hear me?”

He didn't answer.

The nurse reached above his head and hit the intercom. A few moments later, he heard another nurse answer the call.

“Yes?”

“I need help in 220.”

There was a brief moment of silence and then an answer.

“On my way.”

Seconds later, another set of footsteps entered the room and he heard a second woman's voice.

“What's wrong?”

“You take his pulse.”

“Why?”

“I want to make sure I'm not imagining things.”

“Is there a change?”

“Yes.”

“For the better?”

“Look at the monitor.”

“Oh my.”

“Go ahead…take his pulse, then tell me what you think.”

Mark felt fingers moving along his other wrist. When they stopped, he knew the nurse was counting heartbeats. He'd been made, and all because he'd been impatient to see if he could get out of bed.

“You're right! I'll call the doctor while you get the rest of his vitals.”

Damn it,
Mark thought.
I've got to figure a way out of this without alerting the police that I've regained consciousness.

“Mr. Presley? Can you hear me? Open your eyes.”

He wanted to curse. Of course he heard her. She was yelling in his ear. It was all he could do not to slap her face.

He felt a blood pressure cuff going around his arm, then heard the machine humming as it automatically tightened. Just when he thought the damned thing was going to pop, it began to go back down.

He heard water running. Before he knew what was happening, there was a wet wash cloth on his face.

What the hell is she doing? Does she think just because I'm waking up I need my face washed?

Not since the night his father died had he felt so helpless. Everything was out of control. If only he could go back and relive the last six months of his life.

 

Penny Presley was dreaming about needing to go to the bathroom when the telephone beside her bed began to ring. Her arm slid out from under the covers before she opened her eyes. Her voice was shaking as she answered the call. At this time of night, it could only be bad news.

“Hello, Presley residence.”

“Mrs. Presley, this is Dallas Memorial. I have—”

Penny started to weep. “Oh my God, he's dead, isn't he?”

“No, no, Mrs. Presley. Quite the contrary. The doctor wanted you to know that we think your husband is waking up.”

Penny's emotions shuddered to a stop.
Not dead? Not dead after all? Waking up? What the hell was all this about?

“You say he's waking up?”

“Yes, ma'am. The doctor wanted you notified immediately.”

“Yes, well, that's wonderful news, I'm sure. Is he speaking?”

“No, ma'am. That's a little premature. But he's exhibiting all the signs of coming out of his coma. We knew you'd want to be here when he woke up.”

That's what you think.
But Penny couldn't voice her true feelings.

“Are you saying I should come right now?”

“I'm just delivering the message, Mrs. Presley.”

“Of course,” Penny muttered. “I'll be there as soon as I can get dressed and drive over.”

“All right. Oh…sorry, but you'll have to come through the Emergency Room doors. The front door doesn't open until seven a.m.”

Penny stifled a sigh. “Thank you for reminding me,” she said, and hung up the phone.

She sat on the side of the bed with her bare feet firmly on the thick Berber carpeting and tried to maintain a sense of calm. No need to let her emotions get the best of her. It wasn't as if this was a disappointment, exactly. Still, as she got up to get dressed, she couldn't help but think how much simpler this all would be if he'd gone ahead and died. Now the police would get involved, and there was nothing she could do to separate herself from the mess that was bound to come.

 

Joe Flannery was sleeping like a baby, dreaming of the tall blonde cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys football team, the one who usually stood in the middle of the front row. It wasn't like he was committing adultery, even though he was married. A man couldn't control his dreams, so there was no need to feel guilty.

Still, when the telephone suddenly rang at the side of the bed, he reacted by raising his arm over his head, as if to protect himself from an oncoming blow.

When the phone rang a second time and his wife elbowed him, he began to come to.

“Joe! Phone! And you may as well get it, because we both know it's not for me. Not at this God-awful time of the night…or morning…or whatever the hell it is.”

Joe rolled over, then reached across her to pick up the receiver. In all their married life, the phone had been on her side of the bed, although he was always the one to answer. Someday maybe he would mention the oversight and rectify the situation. In the meantime, he put the phone to his ear.

“Flannery.”

“Flannery, this is Captain Henry. We just got a phone call from Mrs. Presley. Mark Presley is waking up. I need you to get over there as soon as possible and get a statement from him.”

Flannery groaned beneath his breath as he sat up on the side of the bed, trying to collect his thoughts. Damn this phone call. He'd been about to nail the cheerleader. So close and yet so far away.

“Now, sir? It's just past four in the morning.”

Henry cursed. “I know what time it is. They woke me up, too, remember? And yes, now. We got word the DNA from Marsha Benton's fetus matches Mark Presley's DNA.”

“Damn. So Catherine Dupree was right about that.”

“That's why I want you taking Presley's statement. She might be right about the whole damn thing. He'll lawyer up soon enough, but for the hell of it, see what he comes up with before that happens.”

“Yes, sir. I'm on my way.”

Flannery hung up the phone and hurried to get dressed. It was still dark by the time he got to the hospital, but it wouldn't be long. Already he could see a change in the night sky on the eastern horizon.

 

Cat woke before daybreak and couldn't go back to sleep. Even though it was so comfortable and warm beneath the covers, she had the feeling that everything was about to change. She didn't know whether it would be for the bad or the good, but she knew she needed to be prepared.

Reluctantly, she got up and made a quick trip to the bathroom, turning on lights as she went, so she wouldn't be tempted to lie back down when she came out. A short while later she emerged, showered, hair shampooed and dried, and feeling a strong need for caffeine.

She dressed without thought, choosing clothes that were warm and comfortable, and headed for the kitchen. As she was making coffee, the telephone rang. Somehow she knew as she went to answer it that it was connected to what she'd been feeling.

“Hello?”

Wilson momentarily closed his eyes, letting that whiskey voice wash over his senses.

“Cat, it's me. Wilson. I'm sorry to be calling so early, but—”

“It's okay. I was up. What's wrong?”

“It's all in how you look at the news, but I doubt you're going to call it wrong.”

Cat's focus shifted from thinking about how it felt when they had sex to what he was saying.

“Mark Presley! Something's happened to Mark Presley.”

“You could say that,” Wilson said.

“What? Did he die?”

“No. He's waking up.”

Although Cat was unaware of it, her grip tightened on the phone. “You're sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“How did you find out?” she asked.

“I know one of the nurses who works night shift in the ICU. I asked her days ago if she would let me know if there was a change in Presley's condition. Although it's against the rules, she agreed, but only if I keep her name out of it.”