Wicked Break

Seven

Warm dirt pressed against my face. Blood pooled in my mouth. My body throbbed. I felt tired, like I hadn’t slept in days. I slowly forced one eye open.

Sunlight glared against the brush.

Everything was sideways.

Where was I?

I coughed, spasms of pain ricocheting through my stomach and back, and spit out a mouthful of blood. I lifted my head, needing to see where I was. My neck shivered as it tried to support the weight.

Tumbleweeds. Dirt. Gravel. The desert?

I laid my head down again, the ground hot and rough against my cheek. The warmth of the ground made me want to close my eyes and go back to sleep.

I lifted my head again and twisted in the other direction.

More dried brush, more tumbleweeds, a body.

I twisted my torso in that direction.

I heard someone scream, the noise echoing in the distance, and realized it was me.

I got my elbows beneath me and pushed up and felt myself start to slide backward.

I was on a slope.

Slopes in the desert didn’t make any sense to me. Nothing made sense.

I stabbed my toes into the ground to stop the sliding.

Focusing on the body, I crawled toward it on my elbows, up the slope. My legs were stiff and heavy and I couldn’t get them to bend.

The body was only about ten feet away, but it felt like a hundred. My elbows ached. And bled. Nausea worked its way through my body like a current.

I laid my head down again, listening to my gasps for air. Everything was spinning slowly.

I forced my head up again.

Peter Pluto looked back at me, his eyes empty and his face devoid of any life.

I dropped my head down on the earth again and wondered if I was about to join him.

Eight

I tried to raise my eyelids, but they felt like they were sealed shut with concrete. My head pounded. I was on my back and I could feel my arms and legs, but they felt four times heavier than they should have.

I squeezed my eyes shut, then forced them to open slightly.

The bright lights of the hospital room shocked me and I shut my eyes again.

At least the son of a bitch hadn’t killed me.

I heard movement to my left and I rotated my head in that direction, the muscles in my neck feeling like taut rubber bands. I got my eyes half open.

Liz was sitting in a chair, looking at me.

“You awake?” she asked.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I swallowed hard and wondered who placed the invisible boulder on my chest.

I tried again. “Yeah.” My voice sounded distant and old.

“You don’t sound like it.”

I turned my head back to stare at the ceiling. “Awake. Not alive.”

“You’re in the hospital,” she said. “Mission Bay.”

“Okay.”

“You’ve been here about twelve hours.”

That surprised me, because it felt like just minutes before that Mo had been planting his fists into my body and I’d been lying somewhere with Peter Pluto.

I looked back at Liz. She wore her black running tights, a blue sweatshirt, and Nike running shoes. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

“You find me?” I asked, my voice coming back closer to my head now. I fumbled with the glass of water I’d noticed next to my bed and took a long drink.

She shook her head. “No. Couple of kids stumbled across you in a canyon in Clairemont.”

Not the desert. A canyon. That explained the slope.

My head felt puffy. I set the glass back on the table and looked at my arms. No tubes or wires hooked into me.

“They just beat the crap out of you,” she said. “No broken bones, no real bleeding. They knew what they were doing.”

I had learned that the hard way.

She leaned back in the chair. “What happened, Noah?”

I stared at the ceiling again, trying to gain some focus. Lonnie’s words were ringing in my ears. He wanted me to wake up. He wanted me to hurt. And he wanted me to feel afraid.

He won.

I closed my eyes.

“I’ve sat here for six hours,” Liz said. “Call came in to Wellton, he called me. Not because I was on duty, but because he thought I’d want to know. I hate that he was right, but he was.” She paused and folded her arms across her chest. “I’ve sat here, looking at you, worrying about you, trying to figure out why. I haven’t figured it out yet. And I don’t know if I’m going to. Ever. But there’s no way you’re going to lie there and not talk to me.” She bit her bottom lip for a moment. “So tell me what happened, Noah, because if you don’t, I am done wasting another second of my life thinking about you.”

“Christ, Liz,” I said, my tongue feeling lost in my mouth. “I’m trying to clear my head. Give me a second.”

I opened my eyes and kept them on the white ceiling, feeling the pangs in my chest each time I exhaled. I remembered her looking away from me at the apartment building.

“I thought you already were done with me anyway,” I said, looking at her.

She shifted in her chair, then glanced over me to the window. “I’m not here to talk about us. Now’s not the time.”

“Why not?”

“Because if we try that, I’d probably end up kicking your ass and I think you’ve had all you can handle for now.”

I wasn’t sure if it was what had happened to me or if it was just being near her again, but the ice had been broken on the freeze-out between us and I wanted it to continue to melt away.

“When’s the time gonna come, then?” I asked. “For us?”

She moved her gaze from the window to me. “I don’t know. I’m not sure it will.”

I stared at her for a moment, then went back to concentrating on the ceiling.

“Huge,” I finally said.

“What?”

“He was huge.”

“Who?”

“Mo.”

“Who’s Mo?”

“The mountain that fell on me.”

I told her about working for Peter Pluto, what I remembered about going to the house, about finding Lonnie and then Mo finding me.

“Skinheads?” she asked after I told her about the tattoos.

I tried to nod, but it came off more like a spasm. “Hard-core. Aryan Nations stuff.” I cleared my throat and tried to get my voice to sound normal. “I think they killed Pluto.”

Liz stood and came over to the edge of the bed. “They found a body with yours. No ID.”

The memory of crawling up next to him was still hazy, but I’d recognized him. “That was him.”

She nodded. “I’ll get John the name and we’ll check on next of kin. You know if this Peter Pluto was into that racist crap?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Well, let me know if you hear anything,” she said, as she came over and sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle me. “You’re gonna be okay.”

I looked away from her and toward the window on the other side of the room. “Yep.”

“None of it’s permanent. You’re gonna hurt like hell, but it’ll go away.”

I nodded. I knew that. It was the mental part that I had questions about. I couldn’t help wondering if I could’ve done something to avoid it all. Not taken the case, not gone to the house, not gone in without a gun. But all of those were things I normally did. I didn’t want to change because of this, alter the way I thought and the way I acted. But through all the pain I could feel something shifting in me, a combination of fear and anger that was shifting even as I tried to stop it.

“I called Carter a little bit ago. Didn’t know who else to call,” Liz said. “Got his voice mail, told him you were here.”

“Thanks.”

She stood up and I could feel her eyes on me. “I’m gonna go.”

I turned to her. “Okay. Thanks. For coming.”

“I’ll check on you in a couple of days.” She hesitated for a moment, then touched my hand quickly, covering it with hers. “There’s something else, though, Noah.”

“What?”

“You have your ID with you when you went in?”

I thought about it. “Yeah. My wallet. In the pocket of my shorts.”

Liz nodded. “I figured. But it wasn’t on you.” She paused. “They probably took it. Most likely for the money or credit cards.”

I knew what she was getting at. “But they know where I live.”

“If they wanted to know, yeah, they do now.”

It didn’t surprise me, but hearing it out loud made my stomach jolt.

“We found your rental, too,” she said. “Up in University City, a little beat up. I’m gonna talk to John and I’ll get your Jeep back to your place tomorrow.”

A tiny, selfish voice popped into my head. The guy who was supposed to pay me and for that rental car was dead. A couple of days in the hospital were sure to jack up my insurance premium. Money was the last thing I wanted to think about, but the concern was there like a fly that wouldn’t die.

“Okay,” I said.

“I’ll be in touch,” Liz said, giving my hand a quick squeeze, then heading for the door. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

I didn’t know that I really was, but I watched her go without saying anything, as the fear and anger in my body and in my thoughts continued to work themselves together in a gathering fury that I wasn’t sure how to handle.