Fatal

CHAPTER 20

Matt spent the hours following his clash with Bill Grimes consumed by dread for the life of Nikki Solari. He was bone weary from a dearth of any healthy sleep, but over his years of training and medical practice, he had developed internal techniques for coping with that sort of exhaustion. What he was much less adept at dealing with than the lack of sleep was the lack of answers. He felt like a marionette, dancing to the commands of some deranged puppeteer. But who? Right now, the only viable candidate was Grimes. But why him? And how was he able to pull together the elements of Nikki's abduction from the hospital so quickly and smoothly?

This is Dr. Rutledge calling. I've scheduled Dr. Solari for an emergency MRI and arranged for immediate ambulance transport.

Smooth.

Matt had two patients in the hospital. One of them, an elderly diabetic recovering from an arterial bypass to her leg, was in the room across the hall from Nikki's. He was on the way in to see her when he stopped and, using the phone at Nikki's bedside, called information and got the number for Kit and Samuel Wilson. Kit answered on the first ring.

"First of all," Matt said after establishing that she knew who he was, "I want to tell you how sorry I am about your daughter."

"Thank you. The service yestiddy made everyone that knew Kathy feel jes a little better."

"I'm glad. Mrs. Wilson, I'm calling about Nikki Solari."

"Nikki? What about her?"

"I guess you haven't heard. I hate to be the bearer of bad news with all you have been going through."

"Please, what about Nikki?"

"Shortly after she left the church yesterday, two men ambushed her on Wells Road. She got away from them, but nearly drowned in Crystal Lake in the process."

"Oh, my God. Where's she now? She all right?"

"I'm afraid we don't know where she is right now, Mrs. Wilson. Someone — not me — called in an order in my name, sending her to Hastings Hospital for an MRI. Then they kidnapped her from the ambulance on the way."

"Oh, my God. How awful. Why'd anyone do such a thing?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. Can you remember anything from yesterday that might help us figure out what happened? Anyone she spoke to?"

"Not that I kin recall. She read at the service, then played music most a the afternoon. She never left the churchyard 'cept ta walk a spell with Sam an' me. She did speak with Chief Grimes for a time on the bench under the big willa 'cross the churchyard. Oh dear, this is jes terrible news. Nikki and our daughter were very close. Kathy was teachin' her ta play the fiddle."

Matt had heard what he needed to.

"Mrs. Wilson," he said, now anxious to go, "please call me if you or your husband think of anything, anything at all, that might help us figure this out. I promise to keep you posted."

"I begged her ta stay with us," Kit Wilson said.

Matt wandered out to his bike, lost in thought over the significance of what he had just learned. Kit Wilson's information certainly suggested that, although they might have spoken at some length, Nikki and Grimes were never in a place where she would have taken off her shoes. Assuming that, and knowing her feet remained covered when Grimes came to the ER, what was left? He must have seen the distinctive tattoo after she was abducted from the ambulance. No other conclusion fit the facts.

Also supporting that theory was something Kit Wilson did not say — specifically, that she already knew about Nikki. The news took her completely by surprise. Twenty-four hours had passed since the woman was nearly killed, and Grimes hadn't bothered questioning the Wilsons. True, he had been at the service and could have made his own observations there, but he should certainly have wanted to know if Nikki had said anything to Kit or her husband, or if they knew of any reason why someone might have wanted to harm her. The man was smarmy, but he was hardly dumb. The only explanation Matt could think of for him not bothering to call the Wilsons was that he already knew what had happened.

At an unobtrusive pace, Matt cruised through the lengthening shadows along Oak Street parallel to Main, heading across town toward the police station. Bill Grimes's love of flashy cars was commonly known, as was his latest trophy, a fire-engine-red Dodge Viper. Earlier in the afternoon, Matt had noticed it parked in the staff lot behind the station. From the corner of Oak and Waverly, Matt could see that it was still there. He backed up his bike until he could just see the car, then rested it on its stand and took out his tool kit, just for appearances. Twice over the next hour, while he was puttering around the engine, patients of his stopped to offer him a hand. Two cruisers left the lot, and later a minivan. Dusk settled in. The strain of staying fixed on the Viper only added to Matt's burgeoning fatigue.

Finally, just as he was considering packing it in for the night, Grimes came striding through the gloom to his car. Matt stowed the tool kit, mounted the Harley, and waited until the door of the Viper had closed before punching the electric starter. The powerful engine rumbled to life. His pulse racing, he felt instantly energized and alert. Grimes was single and could have been headed home or on a date or out for dinner. But without any better options, Matt was determined to play this one out.

Instead of turning left toward Main, the Viper, lights on, swung right, directly toward the corner where Matt was waiting. He had only time to pull on his helmet and lower his face before the car sped past no more than thirty feet away. His Harley was as well-known around town as the Viper, and Grimes was certainly a keen enough policeman to have noticed him. Clearly he was distracted. Matt's tension increased a notch. Grimes lived south of town, on the banks of the Belinda River. Now, in addition to being preoccupied, he was driving north, into the hills. This wasn't a purposeless evening jaunt.

Matt stayed as far back as he dared. The waning evening initially provided enough light for him to see, but with his headlight off, he had serious doubts any oncoming drivers could see him. Fortunately, for nearly ten minutes, there were none. The roughly paved road angled steeply upward. It was one Matt had ridden when he was much younger, but rarely since then. To the best of his recollection, it turned into gravel, then dirt, and eventually petered out in the forest. Its final incarnation was as a narrow, heavily rooted trail favored by dirt bikers.

Shadows from the dense woods brought the night on prematurely. The lights of the Viper were still fairly easy to spot in the distance, but the soft shoulders were invisible and posed a constant threat. Matt didn't dare flick on his lights or take his eyes off his quarry.

From time to time, on one side or the other, a rusted mailbox or a rutted dual path marked the entrance to a dwelling that could have been fifty feet into the forest or five miles. It was into one of those driveways that Grimes suddenly turned. Had Matt been looking down at the road, he would have missed the move completely, but as it was, there was a brief jounce of the taillights just before they began moving at right angles to the road. By the time Matt reached the drive where he thought Grimes had turned, the lights were gone.

Helmet off, he rolled cautiously through the ebony forest. Though he was keeping the RPMs down, his engine noise still reverberated like heavy equipment. Had Grimes stopped? Had he set up an ambush somewhere up ahead? Matt cut the engine and listened. Nothing. For a time, he tried pushing the heavy bike ahead. Finally, realizing he really had no choice, he hit the starter and rumbled forward, his legs stretched out off the pegs for balance. The Kawasaki would have been a little quieter and easier to maneuver at slow speed, but he had needed the storage capacity of the hog for all the drugs and equipment he had brought out to the Slocumbs.

For five minutes he rolled on, every fiber tensed against a voice, an attack, or a gunshot. Then, flickering through the trees up ahead, he saw light. He turned the Harley around and with some difficulty backed it into the woods, far enough so it seemed undetectable from the road. Then he cut off some pine boughs with his Swiss Army knife and laid them across the chrome of the handlebars, gas cap, wheels, and engine. Cautiously, he advanced up the road.

The Viper was parked alongside a Land Rover in front of a dilapidated cabin. The cabin, rough-hewn with a small porch and chimney, occupied the center of a clearing that was surprisingly large — maybe four or five times the footprint of the structure itself. Two windows, both illuminated, faced the driveway, and there were more on the side.

Staying within the tree line, Matt made his way around to the side of the cabin. A shredded screen hung off one of the two windows, and several panes of the other appeared to be missing. He held his breath and tried unsuccessfully to make out the voices from inside. Then, on his hands and knees, he ventured out from his cover and across forty feet of dirt and pine needles, flattening his back against the wall of cabin. Painstakingly, he rolled over onto his knees again and pushed himself up so that he could just peer inside. Initially, he could see nothing other than the denim-shirted back of a massive man. From beyond the man he could hear Bill Grimes's distinctive pseudo-twang.

"I know what you're telling me, dear doctor," he was saying, "but I don't know if you're telling me the truth."

"I've told you all I know," Nikki said, her voice weary and hoarse. "If you don't believe me, that's your problem."

"Correction, my friend. That's your problem."

The huge man moved aside, and Matt dropped beneath the window. When he inched up again, he was looking into a grungy bedroom, no more than ten feet square. The ceiling was unfinished pine, and the walls unadorned. The gargantuan was still obstructing the view of the doorway where the chief was standing, but now Matt could see Nikki. She was unbound, dressed in green hospital scrubs, lying supine, eyes closed, on the bare mattress of a metal frame bed. Two pillows without covers were bunched under her head, and a grimy sheet was thrown over her legs. She looked gray and uncomfortable and absolutely spent, but he could see no evidence she had been beaten.

"I want to go over this one more time," Grimes was saying, "starting with the funeral. Who did you talk to there besides me? Well?"

Matt heard a scraping to his right moments before a man appeared. He was tall and wiry, wearing a cowboy hat and boots. A pistol was jammed beneath his broad belt at the small of his back. Matt dropped to his belly and forced himself against the cement foundation of the house. He was still in plain sight, though, no more than twenty feet away. The man tapped out a cigarette and lit it with a kitchen match he struck on his zipper. The smoke instantly wafted to where Matt lay in the shadow of the house. Desperately, his mind sorted through possible responses should he be spotted. None of them made any sense.

The smoker took a few paces away from the house, tilted his head back, and blew a cloud up toward the dark sky above the clearing. Matt steeled himself. The angle between them had changed. Now, as soon as the man turned back toward the cabin door, it would be over. Matt prepared to bolt into the trees as soon as he was spotted. At that moment, from the woods beyond the cowboy and to his right, there was the crunching of brush and rustling of branches. Seconds later, a small, white-tailed doe burst through the undergrowth and loped across the clearing, not fifteen feet away. The man took several steps in pursuit, at the same time fumbling for his gun.

"Larry," the cowboy hollered. "Larry, get out here, quick!"

Matt could hear the huge man thump onto the porch.

"What? What?"

"Biggest fuckin' deer yew ever saw jes ran by close enough to lick the snot offa my nose. If my gun hadn't got stuck in my belt, we'd be eatin' venison right now."

"Verne, you are just a total jerk," Larry said, with essentially no mountain accent. "Get on in here. The chief wants you to drive him to town an' back. You an' me are gonna stay here tonight with the bitch. We need some coffee an' toilet paper an' shit to eat. The chief has some stuff he wants to get from the station, too — stuff that'll make her sing like a canary. Now get in here."

Matt held his breath until the two had disappeared into the cabin, then scrambled back to the safety of the forest. Grimes and Verne-the-Cowboy would be taking a ride to town and back. The trip would be twenty minutes each way, maybe twenty-five, allowing for time in the store. During those forty or so minutes, he had to find a way to overpower a man the size of a bus and get a barely conscious woman onto her feet, secured on the Harley, and away to safety. He regretted now that he had rejected the notion of stashing one of the Slocumbs' many pistols in his saddlebag. But in truth, he had never felt comfortable around guns of any kind, and he feared that this ineptness, coupled with his unpredictable temper, was a recipe for disaster.

He tried playing out a scenario wherein he somehow drew Larry outside, then knocked him out with a piece of wood or a wrench from his tool kit. The chances of actually disabling the beast with anything less potent than a hammer seemed slim, and there wasn't one in his tool kit.

What, then?

Grimes and Verne were crossing the porch, headed toward the Land Rover, when Matt began considering the saddlebags on his bike. The two large side bags and the carryall mounted behind the passenger seat were loaded with, among other things, drugs — his well-stocked house-call and emergency pharmacy, hastily augmented by a variety of medications purloined for possible use on Lewis Slocumb.

Matt suspected that he wasn't beyond killing a person to save his own life or that of someone close to him. But he also knew it wouldn't happen easily, and the internal consequences would be severe. Besides, the only drug he could count on to kill Larry was a muscle paralyzer like curare or Anectine, and he wasn't at all sure he had packed any. He needed something with a rapid onset that could be given intramuscularly and would disable Larry without killing him. Then he had to find a way to get it into the brute without being torn apart.

Verne started up the Rover and flicked on the headlights. As soon as they were headed down the drive, Matt switched his Timex to timer mode and began the countdown.

Forty minutes.

Ticking off the features of the drug he needed, he raced back to the bike, located his penlight, and rummaged furiously through the medications in the carryall, discarding one after another into the woods.

Thirty-eight minutes.

Calm down! he shrieked to himself. Just cool it. He stared down at the vial he had actually been about to throw away, and caught his breath.

Ketamine — 100 mg/c

Ketamine, a first cousin of PCP and nitrous oxide, was used pre-operatively to induce a state called dissociative anesthesia — dreamy helplessness. Matt had tossed it in with the other meds just in case Lewis required any kind of minor surgical procedure. From what he remembered, given intramuscularly, the drug had a very rapid onset. The usual dose was lOOmg, but of course, Larry was no usual specimen. The vial held lOccs — a total of 1,000 mg. Was a thousand enough to bring down such a beast, or was it enough to do even more than that? There was only one way to find out. Matt fished out a lOcc syringe; twisted a large-bore, inch-and-a-half-long needle onto the end; and drew up every drop in the vial. If there was any chance for the drug to work, it would have to be injected into muscle, not into fat, where the circulation was minimal and absorption would be ineffectively slow. Larry was like a planet that was covered 90 percent with fat. Matt selected the occipital muscle at the base of the skull, and mentally played through how he was going to get the needle in and the plunger depressed without getting himself killed. He checked the time again. Thirty-four minutes before Verne and Grimes would be back. The issue now was how to get Larry outside without having him on red alert with a gun in his hand.

Fire!

Verne had carelessly tossed his butt aside when the deer dashed past him. Larry's first thought upon smelling smoke now would be to blame the man he had just called a jerk. At least that was what Matt was counting on. He took a book of matches from the carryall, then reached deeper down and removed one of the two flares he carried, and a box of gauze pads to use for kindling. Next he made his way back to the woods opposite the cabin. Cautiously, with agonizing slowness, he hauled several armfuls of brush across to the corner of the porch. Pausing for a few seconds, he chanced looking through the window. Larry, a bolstered revolver tucked under his massive left arm, had settled onto a slat-backed chair at the foot of the bed. Nikki lay on her back, sleeping deeply, her right hand twitching rhythmically every few seconds.

Another time check showed nineteen minutes.

Matt chose the Viper for cover. With any luck, Larry's back would be to him when he made his move. If not, Matt had reason to believe he'd be dead before he had injected even a drop of the Ketamine. He knelt by the brush and jammed the paper-wrapped gauze pads into place. Next he lit the paper in several places and made certain it was blazing. Just in case, he inserted the flare unlit. Setting it off at this point might be too much noise.

Keeping low, the syringe tucked in his right hand, Matt raced around to the far side of the Viper, flattened out, and watched underneath the car as the brush pile began, ever so slowly, to burn.

Come on, baby. Burn, for crying out loud! Burn!

One twig caught, then another. He should have chanced the noise of packing the brush down a little, or maybe even set the flare off. The twigs were taking way too long to catch.

Fourteen minutes.

He hoped the odor and sound of the fire would be enough to get Larry outside. Failing that, plan B was simply to make some sort of nonspecific noise and hope for the best. It was a plan with little chance of success and a potentially lethal downside, but time was running out. He was preparing to make some sound when he smelled smoke. Risking a peek over the hood of the Viper, he saw that the cardboard box from the gauze pads had caught, and branches all around it were going up. There was crackling from the pile now, too.

Okay, Tubby. Wake u-p and smell the bonfire.

"What the — ?"

Larry clomped across the porch, down the single step to the fire, and began kicking at it with the toe of his shoe.

"Fucking Verne," Matt heard him say.

Holding the syringe like a dagger, with his thumb on the plunger, Matt got some purchase for his back leg against a root and sprang ahead. At that instant, the flare ignited with a burst of light and heat that sent Larry stumbling backward several steps, holding one arm up to shield his eyes. He was two or three inches taller, but Matt had his move planned. He leapt from several feet away, slamming against Larry's back and hooking his left arm around his throat. Simultaneously, he jammed the needle to the hilt at the base of the giant's skull, and an instant after that pressed down the plunger. Larry, who had staggered forward only a step from the force of Matt's assault, bellowed and swung around with the power of a steam shovel. Before the Ketamine load could be fully delivered, Matt and the syringe were sent flying.

Nostrils flared, eyes wide with surprise and fury, Larry charged. Matt rolled over once, then again, but he wasn't quick enough to avoid being kicked in the belly. The hulk was winding up again when Matt made an awkward half somersault and scrambled to his feet. Larry lunged for him, but missed short. He was fumbling for his gun when Matt took off, zigzagging down the drive in an effort to make himself less of a target. There was a shot, then another, but they sounded strangely far away. Matt kept pounding ahead, into the protection of the darkness, but he was reluctant to get too far from the cabin. He checked over his shoulder. Larry had broken off his pursuit and was standing at least fifty yards back, hollering something Matt couldn't make out, but probably could have guessed.

The stopwatch was at thirty-five minutes now. Only five minutes or so remained before Grimes was expected back.

The Harley was just a few yards away. If Larry decided to come after him again, he might not get the bike uncovered and started before he was in range. Still, it seemed worth a try. He had blown things big-time. There was little chance now to get past Goliath to Nikki. The only option that made any sense was to race into town and try to get help. But by the time he returned — if he returned — she would certainly be gone, and Grimes, Larry, and Cowboy Verne would have bullets marked for him.

What a screwup!

He threw aside enough branches to expose the ignition, then jumped aboard and burst through the brush onto the driveway, prepared to dodge gunfire. Instead, he saw Larry standing motionless right where he had been, a hot-air balloon silhouetted against the light from the cabin. Matt stopped the bike and watched as in slow motion the behemoth cross-stepped gracelessly from one side to the other, then flapped his arms in the air once and collapsed. Wary of a trap, but feeling there was room to speed past the man and around the cabin, Matt rolled up to where he lay. The whale was beached, his head lolling impotently from side to side. The snub-nosed revolver lay a few feet away. His eyes fixed on Larry, Matt bent over, picked it up, and dropped it into the carryall.

"Sweet dreams," he said, knowing that fearsome nightmares often accompanied the awakening from Ketamine sleep. Sweet dreams,

He slipped the clutch and spewed a rooster tail of dirt as he sped to the cabin. The brush was still burning. In fact, a corner of the structure was smoldering and beginning to flame. His stopwatch was passing forty-four minutes as he raced inside.

"Hey, you, time to wake up," he said, taking Nikki's hand in his and gently cradling her head.

Nikki blinked dreamily and actually smiled up at him before suddenly remembering where she was.

"Matt, it's Grimes, he — "

"I know. Listen, we've got to get out of here. Grimes'll be back any moment. Can you walk okay?"

"I'm a little wobbly and my head is still pounding, but I think I can walk."

"Hurry, then. I'll help. My bike is outside."

"Bike?"

"Motorcycle. Please."

She let him pull her upright, then used his arm for balance.

"Sit up in front of me until I'm sure you can hold on," he said. "Just keep your feet right here, away from the engine, or you'll be burned. Hold on to my arms or the handlebars. Ready?"

"Ready. How did you — ?"

"I'll explain everything after we're out of here."

Headlight off, Matt accelerated. He slowed briefly as they passed Larry.

"Is he dead?" Nikki asked.

"I don't think so. He's taking a voyage on the good ship Ketamine."

"Matt!"

"It's them."

Ahead, the dirt drive swung sharply to their right. Through the trees, they could see headlights bobbing toward them. Matt waited until the approaching high beams were just about to reach them, then he threw on his own high beam and accelerated. Before a startled Verne could react, the motorcycle had sped past. Matt caught enough of a glimpse of Bill Grimes in the passenger seat to see his recognition. Through the rearview of the bike he saw the Land Rover make a rapid two-part U-turn.

"Hold on tight, Nikki," he said. "This isn't going to be easy."