Wicked Game

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Sister.”

The word was a sibilant sound searing through Becca’s mind.

“Ssssisssster.”

Oh, God, no!

Becca’s eyes flew open, the hiss of his voice still ringing in her ears. Her heart was pounding, her pulse racing from the terrifying nightmare. In the dark dream, she’d been running through rain and mud, vainly searching for Hudson, seeing the ghost of Jessie at every turn, feeling the hot breath of a nameless, twisted psychopath upon her neck.

Sister.

She blinked, but remnants of the dark nightmare persisted where a writhing wrought-iron fence separated her from hundreds of women, all with the same face. Jessie’s face! And there had been a baby crying, its pitiful, frightened whimper nearly obscured by the roar of the sea and rush of wind. Panicked, knowing there was danger at every turn, Becca had been running, faster and faster through the forest, following the ever-shifting fence line, searching vainly for the baby and Hudson…

She shivered.

Forced the damned dream away and tried to think clearly.

She was in a hospital bed in a room with stainless steel fixtures and a table at her side. A single narrow window cut into the wall overlooked a near-empty parking lot where security lights offered weak illumination of the rain that poured in gusting sheets while the limbs of the already crooked pine trees twisted in the wind.

The accident. It flooded back in a flash of mental pictures.

Not an accident, though. It had been intentional. Someone had forced them off the road. She could scarcely remember the ambulance ride to Ocean Park Hospital. What had the doctor said about Hudson? “Concussion. Contusions. No broken bones…” That was right, wasn’t it? Her memory was spotty, but she did recall she’d told the medical staff about her baby. Without thinking, she placed a protective hand over her abdomen and remembered the doctor saying there was no sign of miscarriage. But where is Hudson now?

Her heart was pounding irregularly, adrenaline and fear speeding through her bloodstream. She remembered well the feeling of doom that had been chasing her. The reason Renee had been killed was the same as the reason she and Hudson had been forced off the road.

Who is he? How am I connected to him?

She couldn’t just lie here in bed.

He would never be stopped. Not if she didn’t do it.

Though not a wimp, Becca had never been particularly brave, but now she felt a deep anger growing inside her. She had to thwart him. Stop him. Stop his murderous intent or he would eventually win-like he’d won with Jessie.

The answer lies at Siren Song. You know it. You felt it. That’s why you didn’t want to go.

The clock mounted on the wall said it was all of six-twenty in the morning, and from the sounds of rattling trays, carts, and gurneys coming from the hallway, the hospital was stirring. No time like the present.

She threw off the covers and sat up, pulling an IV taut in her wrist, one she hadn’t noticed. Her head throbbed.

“Good morning.” A woman’s voice caught her attention and she looked toward the door. A nurse armed with a stethoscope and thermometer was entering the room. Her name tag read Nina Perez, R.N. Though her dark eyes were kind, there was a presence to her that suggested she was used to being the boss. “How’re you feeling today?”

“I’ve been better.”

“A little sore?”

More than a little. “I’m okay.” Becca slid out of the bed, bare feet hitting the cool linoleum floor. “I need to find Hudson Walker,” she explained. “I…I think he’s here. A patient.” Unless he was taken to another hospital. She had to find him. “He and I were in an accident. That’s why I’m here and-”

“He’s here. Recovering.” Nurse Perez offered a steady, sincere smile and Becca felt a smidgen of relief. “You can see him soon.”

“But I need to talk to him now.” To see for myself that he’s really all right, that whatever horror I led him into, he’s now safe.

“You will. First let’s take your vitals.”

“No!” Becca snapped. “Really, I have-I have to see him.”

“No problem.” But, despite her words, Nurse Perez wasn’t budging. “I just need to check your temp and BP. See if your pulse is normal.”

Of course it’s not normal! I’ve been through hell and back. Someone’s trying to kill me, to kill my baby, to kill Hudson. There is no normal here. None at all!

“And…and the baby?” She needed to be reassured.

“You’re still pregnant,” the nurse said. “No sign of trauma. Your arm wound is the worst of your injuries.”

Becca glanced at the bandage over her bicep. Her arm was sore.

“We do need to monitor you.” Perez’s voice was firm, her hand steady as she shepherded Becca back to the bed and inserted a thermometer under her tongue.

Becca didn’t argue. She wasn’t going to risk the baby’s health, but she felt anxious. Edgy. “I need to see Hudson,” she insisted once the nurse had read the thermometer, then taken her pulse.

“You will.” She slid a blood pressure cuff onto Becca’s uninjured arm. Once she was satisfied that she wasn’t going to stroke out, she unwrapped the cuff, then removed her IV and said, “Okay. I’ll see what I can do. But you have to be careful. A concussion isn’t anything to take lightly.”

Becca nodded, but as soon as the nurse slipped out the door, she searched for her shoes.

Her need to visit Hudson, to see for herself that he was all right, was pressing. She frowned at the state of her clothes, hung in a tiny closet, still damp and stained with mud and blood. Stripping off her hospital gown, she stepped gingerly into her grimy jeans.

But she had no purse.

No makeup.

No ID.

No credit cards.

No cash.

Not a damned thing.

Nurse Perez popped her head through the open door. “Mr. Walker is in room 212,” she said, then eyeing Becca’s outfit, frowned. “No other clothes came with you…”

“It’s all right. But I do need my purse?”

“I think we have that in a locker. Got it from the sheriff’s department early this morning. You can’t leave the hospital until you’re released. I just talked to the doctor and he’ll be by in about an hour, but it looks like you’ll be on your way. I’ve already ordered release papers.”

“Thanks. 212?” she repeated and at the nurse’s nod Becca hurried out, albeit a bit stiffly. Two orderlies pushing patients in wheelchairs were at the elevator, so she took the stairs, wound around the carpeted corridor, then found Hudson’s room. She walked inside and saw him sleeping upon the bed. His head was bandaged, his face already bruising, an IV and some kind of monitor hooked up to him, snakelike tubes running in several directions at once.

“Can I help you?” a tall, lanky male nurse asked.

She introduced herself and explained that she’d been with Hudson in the accident. He took her at face value, giving out some basic information. None of Hudson’s injuries appeared to be life-threatening, though he was still sedated and sleeping. Aside from bruised ribs, a slight concussion caused by the blow over his right ear, and a separated shoulder that had already been reset, Hudson, in time, would be fine. “It’s best if he rests,” the nurse concluded, so Becca only took the time to touch Hudson’s hand and give it a squeeze before leaving the room. “Come back in a few hours.”

“I will,” she promised and, ignoring her own throbbing head, hurried to the discharge desk where she was reunited with her purse. When she asked about her overnight bag and clothes, she was told that everything in the car, aside from the purse, which the police had already looked through, was considered evidence. “I’m sure they’ll get it back to you soon.”

Becca wasn’t about to wait. She couldn’t.

And she wasn’t about to leave Hudson. She pulled out her cell phone, realized it had been turned off, and checked for incoming messages. There were six. All from Detective Sam McNally, all asking her to call him. Vaguely she remembered him saying he’d been trying to reach her. She phoned him now but was sent directly to voicemail. She left a message, giving him the name of the motel she and Hudson had stayed at the last time she’d visited this hospital as to where he could find her. She trusted him now. Completely.

Funny how a few weeks and a couple of murders changed her perception.

She placed a few other calls, including a local rental car company advertising “cheap, slightly worn cars,” her insurance agent, and her own answering machine at her house. Mac had called there once and Tamara had left a “Just checking in, call me,” message.

Not now, Becca thought.

The rental car, an ancient dented Chevy, was delivered, thankfully, and she drove to the motel to secure her room, then to a local outlet mall where she picked up a change of clothes, some toiletries, PowerBars, and a six-pack of juice. Back at the motel she showered and changed into clean clothes, then downed one of the PowerBars and a couple of pain relievers and put together a pot of decaf coffee from the pre-measured packet provided by the management. Once fueled, she returned to the hospital, determined to run Hudson’s doctor to the ground, but she was waylaid by two detectives, a man and a woman, from the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department, who also wanted to speak to him.

Hudson was still asleep, but the detectives, who were waiting at the door to his room, realized who she was and decided to interview her first. They’d gotten some information the night before, but they wanted something more to go on in order to find who had run her off the road, then chased her through the dark forest.

They all sat in a waiting area not far from the second-floor nurses’ station and Hudson’s room. Aside from a few scattered plastic chairs, a fake plant, and a coffee table littered with old magazines, the area was empty. As the woman detective, who introduced herself as Marcia Kirkpatrick, took a few notes and asked questions, her partner, a husky silver-haired cop in his fifties, Fred Clausen, studied her intently, only interjecting a few questions of his own for clarification.

“You didn’t see your attacker?” Kirkpatrick asked. She was trim, fit, with sharp features and thin, unpainted lips.

“I saw him, or his form,” Becca said, “but it was dark in the forest and raining, no moonlight. I caught a glimpse of him in the headlights once, but he was dressed in black or dark blue and wearing a hood.” She thought about the image she’d seen in her visions, superimposed it over those of the man who had chased her to the ground the night before, and thought it was her assailant. But that picture was all in her mind and had no merit. She wasn’t comfortable enough with these two cops to admit that she “saw” things. They’d dismiss her as a nutcase. Hands clasped between her knees, she said, “All I have are impressions.”

“How tall is he?” Kirkpatrick asked.

“Six feet, maybe six-one. Big.”

“Heavy? Slight?” Reddish eyebrows lifted as she skewered Becca with her gaze.

“Neither. I know that he was fit. Never seemed to get winded…” She called up his dogged pursuit, the cold terror that had consumed her. “It seemed that he was athletic. I can’t tell you how old he was, but not a kid, nor an old guy. He moved too quickly. Was too strong.” She remembered the pure hatred she felt emanating from him. “He wanted me dead.”

“How do you know?” Clausen asked.

Her stomach roiled and she thought she might be sick. “Because I’m the target. This might sound like I’m reaching, but something like this happened a long time ago. About sixteen years ago, not far from the same place. I was forced off the road…I think it’s the same man.”

“You think the same guy was chasing you then, nearly twenty years ago, but you’ve been living in the Portland area ever since and he hasn’t bothered you?” Kirkpatrick was understandably skeptical.

“He failed the first time.”

Clausen exchanged a look with Kirkpatrick, who twisted her pen, then clicked it several times. “But he hasn’t accosted you since.”

“Not until last night. But that’s because of Jessie.”

“Who’s Jessie?” Clausen asked.

“Jezebel Brentwood. She was a friend of mine in high school.”

“The girl whose bones were just discovered,” Clausen said, his interest piqued. “The one the Laurelton cop McNally was here asking about.” He was nodding now. “McNally thinks there’s a relationship between her death and Renee Trudeau’s.”

They were catching on quickly now.

“Renee is-was Hudson’s sister.” Becca hitched her chin toward the door to his room.

“If you’re the target, then why kill her?”

“I don’t know. I think…I think it has something to do with Jessie’s murder.” Becca went on to explain the links, as she saw them, that Renee was digging into the past and had riled up the murderer, who then focused on her.

It had sounded so much more solid before she said it aloud. It was impossible to explain.

“Back to last night,” Kirkpatrick said, her eyes narrowing. “This guy who chased you, did he say anything to you?”

“He called me ‘sister.’ Said he was God’s messenger.”

“Hmmm. Maybe ‘sister’ as in the ‘we’re all sisters and brothers’ communal sense?” the woman cop suggested.

“It seemed more personal, but…” She shrugged.

“He say anything else?” Clausen asked.

She closed her eyes, remembered. “He called me the ‘Spawn of Satan,’ I think, then later said ‘Jezebel and Rebecca.’”

“Did any of it seem to make sense?” Kirkpatrick asked.

When Becca shook her head, Clausen said, “Sounds like he talks to God, or is doing the Big Guy’s bidding.” Clausen kept his expression neutral.

Kirkpatrick’s eyes held Becca’s. “Would you recognize his voice?”

“I don’t know,” she said, but as she remembered her struggle and panic, she nodded. “I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup, but I think I would recognize his voice.” And the thought of it made her shiver. She prayed she’d never see him again, never hear the horrid, snakelike sound of his whispered curses.

“But you don’t remember anything that would make him identifiable? No tattoos or scars or facial characteristics.”

Becca shook her head. “I didn’t see him, but I do know that I knocked him good with that rock. He staggered and it gave me time to run. He may have some damage. A black eye or bruised forehead or something.”

“Anything that would send him to seek medical attention?” the woman detective posed hopefully.

“No.”

“Doesn’t sound like that kind of guy, even if he needed it,” Clausen agreed.

After a few more questions about her confrontation, hoping to learn something more about her attacker, anything that might help, they gave up. Clausen promised to return to speak with Hudson when he awoke. “If you think of anything else, call,” Clausen insisted and handed her his card.

“I think you’d better see this.” Gretchen, subdued for her, waved Mac over to her desk.

“Just a sec.” He headed for the break room and a cup of coffee before wending his way back to Gretchen through the maze of desks where cops were already on phones, booking suspects, going over notes, and shuffling paperwork.

Even the Homicide Department was cranking it up. Aside from the regular caseload there had been a fight in one of the local watering holes. Another drug deal gone bad, and one twenty-three-year-old had been stabbed and died on the way to the hospital. Another couple of kids had been drag racing on 26. A bad accident, one kid in the hospital, not expected to make it, another dead. The driver, of course, suffered a few cuts and a broken leg.

Gretchen was seated at her desk, printouts spread upon the neat surface, her computer screen glowing.

“I’m not here long,” he said, yawning, stopping close enough to look over her shoulder. He was driving back to the beach after a perfunctory appearance at the station. He’d been up half the night after dealing with Hudson and Becca’s accident, and he’d been back and forth on the phone with the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department and rereading the notes he’d taken.

He’d dropped off Levi and Ringo with Connie on his way to work this morning and Connie, in her gracious way, had said, “This is emotional blackmail, telling Levi that he can keep the dog here when you know I’ll be the one taking care of it.”

“For a day. I should be back tonight.”

“Should,” she repeated. “I know you, Sam. You’ll get caught up in this case, this same damned case involving that Brentwood girl, and you’ll lose track of time, or have to go…investigate something somewhere and you’ll leave me holding the bag again.”

“One. One day. That’s all.” Over her shoulder he saw into her house, warm light glowing softly, the corner of a modern green couch, the smell of cinnamon and some other spices wafting from the kitchen. “You just have to keep the dog one day. He belongs to a victim. As soon as she’s out of the hospital she’ll want him back.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of the damned pound? Isn’t that where strays are usually kept?”

“He’s not a stray.” Mac’s patience was thinning.

“And one way or the other, I end up the bad guy. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.” Connie’s face was getting redder by the second.

“I’ll be back tonight.”

“Tom’s allergic,” she said, folding her arms under her breasts and looking imperiously down from the doorway, but Mac was already halfway to his Jeep.

He’d known she would keep the dog. Not for him. But for Levi.

Now Gretchen pointed to one of the copies of documents she’d dug up. “You tell Rebecca Sutcliff that Jessie Brentwood’s her sister?”

“Haven’t had a chance yet.”

She snorted. “Look at this. Rebecca Sutcliff…I’ve done a little digging on her. Remember that bone spur we found on Jezebel Brentwood’s skeleton?”

“Yeah.” He was interested.

“Rebecca Sutcliff has one, too.”

“You have her medical records?”

“Ummm. You heard her tell the paramedics she was in an accident sixteen years ago. Same kind of thing, run off the road. Guess which road.” She looked up at him.

He was lifting his cup to his lips but hesitated. “You’re shittin’ me.” He knew what she was going to say before the words crossed her lips.

“I’m definitely not. She was run off the road not far from Elsie on Highway 26, but taken to a hospital in Portland.”

“Ocean Park wasn’t much then,” he said, wired by the new information and looking closer as she moved from one computer screen to the next.

“Anyway, I got the medical report. She was relatively unhurt, but pregnant and lost the baby.”

“Shit.”

“And there was a report of a bone spur…same spot as Jezebel Brentwood’s. And so I did a little more checking, pulled military records on her father, medical records on her mother, and here’s the kicker. They both have O positive blood; Rebecca Ryan is B neg.”

“They aren’t her parents,” he said flatly.

“Not biologically.”

“So she and Jessie have the same parents, but they’re not the Ryans.”

“Both of ’em must have come through the same adoption agency, or attorney, or whatever.”

“In Portland? How’d they both end up at St. Elizabeth’s?” Mac wondered.

“Coincidence, maybe. Jessie was a runaway and had burned through a lot of schools by the time she was sent to St. Lizzie’s.”

“The Brentwoods don’t like to talk about her. Don’t want to mention her adoption or anything about it.”

Gretchen gazed at him through her narrowed Siamese cat eyes. “Think the asswipe that ran Sutcliff and Walker off the road last night knows something about this?”

Mac actually grinned at her. “You’re starting to think like me, Sandler. Making connections out of nothing.”

“Not such a leap. You think he’s the same guy who stabbed Jessie.”

“He’s certainly a person of interest.”

As he headed for the door, she yelled, “Bring me back some saltwater taffy this time, cheap ass.”

Becca hung around the hospital and waited. She’d just grabbed a cup of decaf tea and a newspaper at a kiosk in the lobby when her phone rang. She caught the glare of an older woman with a fluff of white hair piled high on her head who silently dared her to answer. The woman’s gaze moved to a sign stating the hospital was a “cell phone free zone” and Becca took the hint as she checked Caller ID. Seeing the number was Sam McNally’s, she answered as she walked across a carpeted hall and through the automatic doors of the main entrance to the outside.

She wasn’t alone. Another man was nearly yelling into his phone while he paced back and forth and smoked.

“Hello?” she said. “Detective.”

“How are you doing?”

“Okay, everything considered.”

“And Hudson?”

“He’s going to be fine. How’s Ringo? And your son?”

McNally brought her up to date quickly on where Ringo was and how Levi had surprised him by rising to the “animal responsibility” level so fast. They were both with his ex-wife for the day. At least Ringo was safe, she thought as the rain slowly let up and the guy who’d been nearly screaming into his phone had walked back inside.

“Where are you?”

“Still at the hospital.”

“Wait for me. Coming your direction. It won’t be more than fifteen minutes.”

“Sure.”

She hung up and walked back in to check on Hudson, who was groggily coming to. He managed a faint grin at the sight of her. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

“And-?” His gaze drifted to her abdomen.

“Baby’s fine.”

Some of the tension left his face and she wondered how she’d have broken the news to him if she’d lost their unborn child. Like before. How will you ever tell him about the first baby? About the accident, so like this most recent one, that caused the miscarriage?

She looked into his eyes, heavy with pain and medication, the scruffy stubble on his chin barely hiding bruises already forming. Today wasn’t the day to bring up an old sadness.

“Hey,” she said, leaning over and brushing her lips across his forehead.

Hudson reached a hand up and kept her close to him. “Did they find him?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet. McNally was there.”

“Where?”

“He was coming from the beach, and if he hadn’t shown up, I don’t know what would have happened.” She filled him in on the events of the night before that he’d missed, brushing over some of her own terror, though the way his blue eyes bored into hers, she didn’t think she was fooling him.

“I’m going to kill that son of a bitch. The next time he messes with us, I’m going to rip his damned head off.”

“I think Jessie would agree with you,” Becca said lightly. “That’s what she’s been trying to tell me: justice. She wants justice.”

“You saw her?”

“And so did he. He called us by name, Jezebel and Rebecca.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

She heard a soft cough behind her and turned to find the two detectives from the sheriff’s department in the doorway. “Looks like you’re wanted,” she whispered. “I’ll be back later.”

While the detectives entered the room, she headed down the stairs. Her cell phone jangled and she picked up to hear Tamara’s worried voice on the other end of the wireless connection.

“Are you all right? What about Hudson? O-my-gawd, I just heard about your accident on the news. That you were forced off the road. Just like Renee!”

“We’re okay,” Becca assured her and lingered in the hallway near a side door. “I mean, I am. Hudson’s going to be out of commission for a bit.” She sketched out the details of the last twenty-four hours, but she omitted the part about Siren Song; no need to go into that. She didn’t even know what it meant yet herself.

Her one-sided conversation was interjected with Tamara’s remarks. “Are you kidding me…But who’s after you…Do you think it has anything to do with Jessie…You know, she was right, there does seem to be a damned curse…Don’t you need, like, police protection or something?”

“I just need to figure out what’s going on,” Rebecca said and thought about Siren Song. Her earlier fear and aversion to the place had been replaced by an overriding anger. Like Hudson, she wanted to nail the son of a bitch.

“Don’t you think you should come back home?”

“Not without Hudson,” she said and left it at that. She couldn’t confide in Tamara, couldn’t confide in anyone. Not until she had more answers.

She stepped through a side door where the wind tugged at her new hooded sweatshirt and the air was heavy with moisture. She was just wondering what was holding up McNally when she saw the detective heading toward the front door of the hospital. He veered toward her and they met on a cement path that led to an adjoining building that housed other clinics.

“Glad you showed up last night,” she said seriously.

His hands were in his pockets and he looked as if he’d aged ten years in as many hours. Unshaven and rumpled, a bit of gray showing in his hair, dark smudges under his eyes-clearly he hadn’t slept much. But then, neither had she. She wasn’t too interested in holding a mirror up to her face.

“Look,” he said, “is there somewhere we could go and talk privately?”

“There’s a coffee kiosk in the lobby and some tables. I don’t know how private it is…”

“It’ll do.”

They walked through a set of automatic glass doors behind a couple of nurses, heads bent against the wind, their uniforms visible beneath their coats, who were deep in conversation. “I’ll buy,” McNally said, and Becca asked for decaf black coffee.

A few minutes later he joined Becca at a table she’d chosen because it sat away from the rest a little bit. He handed her one of the paper cups and gazed at her soberly.

“What do you want to tell me?” she asked, suddenly scared. “Oh, God, did someone die? Another wreck?”

“Nothing like that, trust me, and your dog is fine. Getting excellent care.” He paused, then said, “Tell me about your parents.”

“My parents,” she said blankly. “What do you want to know?”

He frowned. Hesitated, then looked her squarely in the eye. “Your blood type doesn’t match to either Barbara Metzger Ryan or James Ryan. It would be impossible for you to be their biological child.”

Rebecca just stared at him. “Where is this going?”

But she knew. She knew. She belonged with those people, as did Jessie. They were connected. Both of them. Connected to him!

Her mind spun backward to the night before. “Sister,” the beast had called her. Sister. Had he meant it-literally?

She was trembling.

“You look like one of them,” the old lady had said as she’d placed her gnarled fingers over Becca’s flat abdomen. “Siren Song.”