A Gift of Time (Tassamara) (25 page)

She licked her lips, trying to remember from her limited psychiatric experience how to work with a patient displaying psychotic symptoms. All that came to mind was the rule she’d learned on her first ER shift, though: if you think you’re in danger, get help. That sounded like a lovely idea to her.

Where the hell was Colin? Shouldn’t he be riding to the rescue right about now? He’d always shown up when she needed him before, always.

“Yes, we can fix it,” she said, keeping her voice soothing. “You’re right. We can make this better.” Never argue with a delusion, she remembered that much.

“Yes. Better,” Thompson agreed fervently. “Cleanse the world of sin. The Lord made us to suffer here that we might rejoice in heaven, that we might be exalted unto Him.”

What else, what else? Orient the patient to reality. Date, time, place, people—remind him of their shared world, break into the inner obsessions. Slowly, too slowly, the bit of experience she’d had was coming back to her.

“I’m a doctor, Mr. Thompson. Natalya Latimer. I don’t think you recognize me?” Her chin lifted as she said the words, but her voice was as steady as ever.

“No,” he said, sounding apologetic. “No, I don’t. We’ve met?”

“Mmm.” Natalya didn’t want to invent specific details lest Thompson catch her in the lie, so she kept her confirmation vague, hurrying on to say, “I work with Community Family Services.”

“The agency?” Thompson tensed, his shoulders hunching, his hand tightening on the gun. “They can’t know. They mustn’t know. Annie—she weeps for the sorrow of it all. The wages of sin made manifest. For whosoever causes a child to sin should have a great millstone tied around his neck and be drowned in the sea. Drowned. But that’s no child. She is the seed of Satan.” With each word he spoke, he grew louder, the fire of his mania heating his tone.

Natalya swallowed, her mouth feeling dry as sandpaper. Oops. Mentioning the foster agency, not a good plan. She wouldn’t be doing that again.

As Natalya spoke to Thompson, she’d been aware, out of the corner of her eye, of Travis shuffling to the side, one furtive whisper of motion after another. She thought he might be signaling something to Jamie, but she didn’t dare look at him. She didn’t want Thompson to turn his attention to the boys.

“Mr. Thompson, I’d like to help you. I think if we can get Jamie to a hospital, the doctors there will be able to help you. To get back to the way it used to be.”

“Doctors,” Thompson grunted. “Useless. And expensive. Can’t afford doctors. No. Cleanse the sin, it’s the only way. Mary was a good girl before the evil took her.”

“She’s still good,” Jamie said from behind her. Natalya twitched, startled, and pushed her hand down toward him, fingers spread wide, gesturing him to be quiet. If he saw the gesture, though, he ignored it, continuing, “If she’s alive, that is. Did you kill her?”

Natalya winced as Thompson’s gun swiveled from her to the boy on the floor. What did Jamie think he was doing?

“Kill her?” Thompson sounded authentically confused. The gun in his hand lowered. “She didn’t come home. Just like last time. I went there, where you told me, I went and I waited, but she wasn’t there. Thought you mighta lied to me, boy, but her things were there. I took ‘em home.”

Natalya relaxed slightly. She’d been deliberately trying not to wonder if Thompson had already murdered one person. Not that it mattered—if he’d killed, it was in the grip of a psychotic episode. Either way, he wasn’t rationally assessing the risk to himself and his family.

“Where is she then?” Jamie demanded.

“I don’t know,” Thompson growled back at him. “I know how to find her, though. Kill the Satan spawn. She’ll come back then.”

“She loves Mac. She’d never forgive you for hurting her.”

Natalya wanted to tell Jamie to be quiet, not to antagonize Thompson, but Jamie knew the man better than she did. Maybe this was the right tack.

“She’s blinded by evil. It’s in the eyes, you know. You can tell by the color.” Thompson sounded almost reasonable, as if he were explaining how to change a tire.

“Mac’s not evil,” Jamie protested. “She healed me. I was really hurt and she helped me get better.”

Natalya pressed her lips together, trying not to show her dismay. Would Thompson realize what Jamie had revealed? She looked over her shoulder in time to see Jamie trying to get to his feet and Travis’s scowl of frustration as he also recognized what Jamie had done.

“The devil’s work,” Thompson breathed, before raising his voice and saying in a roar, “Suffering is man’s lot in this world. Where is the demon spawn?” He lifted the gun again, pointing it directly at Jamie. “I know she’s here. Tell me or face the consequences.”

“Mr. Thompson, please.” Natalya’s legs trembled, but she stepped closer to the angry man, blocking his view of Jamie. “I can see how upset you are. I understand you’re a deeply religious man. You want to do the right thing. That’s admirable.”

Half her attention was on her words and Thompson’s face, but the other half was trying desperately to kick her foresight into gear. Surely she’d know if she was about to get shot? It would hurt like hell. She ought to remember it if it was going to happen. Unless she died instantly? But even this close, he’d have to get an incredibly lucky shot, maybe sever a major aorta or her spinal cord, for her to die so quickly she didn’t have time to notice.

“Blue eyes,” Thompson muttered, staring directly at Natalya.

She kept her gaze steady on his, hoping Jamie was taking his chance to move out of the line of fire. If Travis helped him, maybe she could distract Thompson long enough for both boys to get away.

“The devil’s in your eyes, ma’am.” Thompson shook his head. “I see it in the blue. You’re one of his tools, aren’t you? Getting in the way of a man and his duty.”

Natalya blinked. He had dark eyes himself and all the boys had brown eyes. But Kenzi’s eyes were blue, as were Natalya’s own. She suspected the odds of her getting shot had just skyrocketed, but her precognition still wasn’t telling her anything at all about the next few minutes.

“Your duty cannot be to hurt a child,” she said, voice soft. “No God would ask for that.”

“Abraham and Isaac. This is a test, a test the Lord demands of me. I must not fail.” Despite the chill in the air, beads of sweat dotted Thompson’s forehead. His face was flushed, his hand trembling as he held the gun.

Behind her, Jamie gasped in pain. “I can’t, Trav, I can’t.”

“All right, man, it’s okay.” Despair filled Travis’s voice. Natalya risked a glance. He was helping Jamie back to the ground. Jamie had one arm wrapped around his chest, the other clutching Travis’s arm. Kenzi might have healed the internal bleeding, but she hadn’t mended his broken ribs.

Travis straightened again, his expression resolute. Natalya tried to caution him with her eyes, widening them in a glare she hoped said, ‘run away, run away,’ but he stepped up beside her.

“Mac ain’t evil,” Travis said flatly. “You are.”

Natalya bit back her groan. What the hell was wrong with these boys? Did they have to provoke Thompson?

“I don’t want to hear no backtalk from you, boy,” Thompson warned him, his gaze unwavering, his gun not shifting away from Natalya.

“I’ll say anything I like to you, old man. You’re a redneck, shithead, motherfucking, son-of-a—”

Natalya’s eyes widened as Thompson turned red with fury, but as Thompson turned in his direction, Travis exploded into action, grabbing the arm with the gun and forcing it up and up, over his head. Thompson fired, the crack of the shot ferociously loud in the enclosed space.

“Run,” Travis shouted. “Run!”

The surprise had Thompson stilled for a second, but not for long. Travis was hopelessly outmatched as they struggled for the gun. The older man outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds. Even with both of Travis’s hands pushing Thompson’s right arm up, Thompson was managing to get the gun back down.

Natalya didn’t hesitate. She grabbed Thompson’s left arm as he swung it around to hit Travis. Digging her thumb into the sinewy muscle directly below the inner elbow and her fingers into the Golgi tendon organ above and outside it, she found the pressure point and squeezed as hard as she could. In automatic reflex, his arm straightened, his chin swiveled, and the fingers on his right hand opened up. The gun fell to the floor with a clatter.

“Grab it,” shouted Travis.

Natalya tried to hang on to Thompson’s arm, but her sock-clad feet were slipping on the floor, the force of his push sliding her backward toward the window.

“No!” The piercing shriek came from Kenzi, appearing out of the dark kitchen like a mini-avenging fury.

Natalya nearly sobbed in frustration. Why couldn’t these children do as they were told? Kenzi could have stayed hidden. She would have been safe in the cupboard.

Thompson roared with satisfaction, but Travis dropped the arm he held and rammed his shoulder into Thompson’s midsection, driving the man backward. “Mac, no,” he shouted, as she reached the tall man and began hitting him with the flashlight she held. “Run.”

Kenzi ignored him, but even with the weight of the flashlight in her hand, her blows didn’t hold enough force to slow Thompson down. He swung for her. Natalya leaped on him. Already off-balance from Travis’s hard shove, he fell backward, landing hard on the carpeted floor, Natalya on top of him.

“Kenzi, heal Jamie,” Natalya ordered. “As much as you can. Hurry!” Thompson was fighting to get up, but Natalya was no lightweight. She might not be strong enough to do damage, but she could hold him down. And then he managed to get in a hard crack on her cheekbone. She grunted with the pain of it as she was knocked to the side, half on, half off him. Travis jumped into the fray, dropping to fall across Thompson.

Seeing stars wasn’t just a metaphor, Natalya realized. Flashes of light burst in front of her eyes as an agonizing heat radiated through her face and down her jaw. She shook her head, trying to clear it.

The gun was on the floor next to her. Natalya reached for it, trying not to sob from the pain. Her fingers closed around the metal and she rolled away from the battling Travis and Thompson, sitting up and scrabbling backward toward the windowed wall.

She’d never held a gun before. It was heavier than she would have expected it to be, smoother in her hand, but holding it felt natural, her fingers dropping into place on the grip and trigger automatically. She pointed it at Thompson.

And then she took a deep, shaky breath. Her face hurt. She was terrified for the children. She wanted nothing more than to get all of them safely away from here.

But she was still a doctor.

She flicked a glance at Kenzi and Jamie. Kenzi was swaying, her eyes closing, her skin translucently pale, her lips fading to blue, but Jamie was sitting up, his bruises gone. He touched his side, pressing the skin over his broken ribs, his expression awed.

“Take her and go,” Natalya ordered, through lips that already felt swollen.

He looked at Travis and Thompson struggling as he scrambled to his feet. “But…”

“Go,” she ordered again, glaring at him. “Get her to a safe place.”

Jamie nodded once. He scooped up Kenzi and ran for the stairs. Natalya turned her attention back to the fight. Travis was losing, she could see it. She could tell him to back off. She had the gun. But a gun was only as useful as the person holding it made it. And Thompson wasn't rational. A threat wouldn't be enough to stop him.

Could she shoot someone? Could she shoot Thompson?

The answer was as clear to her as if it was written in neon across the sky.

No.

A gun in her hands might as well be a hammer.

Turning, she looked at the windows. A bullet hole surrounded by a spider web of cracks marred the wall high above her. She stood, shaky, face throbbing, and hit the glass with the gun. Once, twice, three times, four times, until finally, finally, the glass broke, pieces shattering, falling out the window frame.

“No,” Travis shouted. “What are you doing?”

Natalya threw the gun out the window.

A gun was only as useful as the person holding it made it.

Colin pushed the box of tissues closer to the weeping woman sitting at the table across from him. Her tears were the quiet kind, her eyes simply overflowing in a steady stream dripping down her face, but they seemed endless.

“So the boys went camping,” he prompted.

“I told you this already.” Her voice shook.

She had, several times. Twice at her home, where her husband had been nowhere to be seen, and now at least three times at the station after Colin requested she join him there. But Colin recognized a lie when he heard one, at least when it was as badly delivered and as implausible as Anne Thompson’s lies.

“What sort of gear did they take with them?”

“The usual stuff.”

“Sleeping bags, tents?”

“Of course.” She sniffled loudly and took a tissue from the box, patting at her face, her head down.

“What about a camping stove?”

“Yes.”

“And food?” Colin interlaced his fingers, folding his hands on the table in front of him. He wanted to shake her, to reach out and grab her by the shoulders and demand she tell him what she knew. Instead, he kept his voice gentle and his hands still.

“Yes.” She knotted the tissue in her hands, twisting and bunching it up.

“How much food?”

“I—what?” She looked up, her watery brown eyes meeting his.

“You do the grocery shopping for the household, don’t you?”

“I… yes, of course.”

“How much food did you pack for your husband and the boys?”

She dropped her head again, staring at her lap. She didn’t answer the question.

Colin leaned back in the uncomfortable interview room chair. Outside the interrogation room, phones were ringing off the hook, a blitz of volunteers and suspected sightings and reports from teams in the field. People were flowing in and out of the station like cars in a rush hour the likes of which Tassamara had never seen. He wanted to be out there, managing the chaos, not in here.

“Ma’am, if I get a search warrant for your home, how many sleeping bags will I find there?”