Kevin O'Brien - One Last Scream

She noticed once again the rusty crowbar on top of the table and snatched it up. She took a minute to catch her breath. With her gaze riveted on the swinging doors, Karen reached into her purse for her cell phone.

She had Roseann’s number on speed dial. Her friend answered after two rings: “Sandpoint View, this is Roseann.”

“Ro, it’s Karen,” she said, still trying to get her breath.

“Where did you disappear to? One minute, you’re with me working crowd control, and the next-”

“I’m in the basement,” Karen cut in. “I followed someone down here. I can’t explain right now. But could you send Lamar down?” Lamar was an orderly around thirty years old, one of the sweetest guys Karen knew. But he also had a linebacker’s build, a shaved head, and an ugly scar on his handsome face. With his formidable looks, Lamar would have made a good bodyguard. And that was what Karen needed right now, because she’d made up her mind to go back into that storage room.

“Tell Lamar I’m by the door to stairwell C, right across from the boiler room. And could you tell him to hurry, please?”

Karen clicked off the line, and stashed the phone back in her purse. She kept her eyes on the double doors, now motionless. She clutched the crowbar tightly in her fist, and waited.

“Are you going to call the police?” Lamar asked.

He’d given Karen his white orderly jacket to keep her warm, and she felt so small wrapped in it. They stood by a set of concrete steps leading down to a fire door to the convalescent home’s basement. The old door, with chicken wire crisscrossed in the fogged window, had had a fire alarm attached to the inside lever. But someone had managed to dislodge the mechanism. Karen and Lamar had found the door half open during their search of the storage room. Five overhead lights had been broken-and recently, too. Using Karen’s cell, Lamar had phoned Marco, the head of maintenance. Marco had been in the storage area shortly before going home at 2:00 P.M. According to him, all the lights down there had been working fine three hours ago.

The outside stairwell to the basement was nearly hidden behind a row of bushes on the side of the long, two-story, beige brick building. But from where Karen stood, she had a clear view of the parking lot. The black Cadillac wasn’t there anymore.

Lamar nudged her. “So, are you going to call the police, Karen?” He spoke with a very crisp Jamaican accent.

Frowning, she shook her head. Even with her old connections on the force, she’d sound pretty stupid trying to explain what had happened. She’d followed someone down to the basement, to the storage room. She’d seen a man, but couldn’t really describe him. She’d heard a woman whispering to him. It had sounded like they’d planned to attack her or kill her-she couldn’t be sure. And oh, yes, one more thing: the young woman she’d followed down to the basement was a client, and a friend of hers.

“So, do you think you might have a stalker?” Lamar asked.

“I–I’m not sure,” she said, shrugging. She was thinking about last Saturday, when she’d spotted someone who looked like Amelia in the corridor outside her dad’s room.

“It’s almost dinnertime,” Lamar said, gently taking her arm. He led the way through a break in the bushes to the parking lot. “They’ll need me back inside. Will you be okay?”

She gave him his jacket back. “Yes. Thank you, Lamar. I’m sorry to drag you down to the basement for nothing.”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t for nothing, Karen, not after what they did to the lights and the door. I think you were being set up. You watch out for yourself, okay? I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. You’re one of the nicest people here.”

“Well, thank you, Lamar,” she said. “Thanks very much.”

Biting her lip, Karen watched him lumber away toward the side door. She thought she’d been set up, too. But why?

It was getting dark out, and colder. Shivering, Karen glanced at her watch: 5:05. Poor Jessie had been waiting for her for fifteen minutes. While in the basement with Lamar, Karen had phoned Dr. Chang’s office. Apparently, Jessie was all right.

She pulled out her cell phone again, and dialed Amelia’s cell number. After two rings, she got a recording.

“Amelia, this is Karen,” she said, after the beep. “It’s a little after five, and I’m wondering where you are right now. Can you call me as soon as you get this? We need to talk. Thanks.”

She clicked off the line, and then shoved the phone back inside her purse. She wondered if she’d called that number twenty-five minutes ago while down in that gloomy basement storage room alone, would she have heard a cell phone ringing?

She remembered something Amelia had told her during their first session. She’d said, as a child, she used to talk to herself in the mirror a lot. She’d tried to make a joke of it. “So what do you make of that? Early signs of a split personality?”

Karen wondered if Amelia would claim to have had one of her blackouts this afternoon. Would she only remember fragments of this incident, too?

She thought she knew Amelia. She’d believed her incapable of killing anyone. She’d been certain about that.

But now Karen wasn’t sure of anything.

“I was sitting there with my blouse off in your Dr. Chang’s examining room for twenty-five minutes and for absolutely no reason, except maybe because I’m the youngest female patient he’s had since he started working there. If that isn’t pathetic, I don’t know what is.”

Karen kept checking the rearview mirror while Jessie, in the passenger seat, explained how her emergency checkup had been a total waste of time. Karen needed convincing that Jessie was all right. She also needed to make sure an old black Cadillac with a bent antenna wasn’t following them. But she couldn’t make out much in the rearview mirror beyond a string of glaring headlights behind her on Twenty-fourth Avenue.

She’d decided not to tell Jessie about the incident in the basement. No need to put any more stress or strain on her. At the same time, she hated to think she might be leading a pair of potential killers to Jessie’s home in the Beacon Hill district.

“You know, I don’t like leaving you alone,” Karen said, eyes on the road. “I mean, what if you have another spell in the middle of the night?”

“I highly doubt I’ll be wrapping my arms around another 170-pound man and repeatedly lifting him off his feet tonight. But if I end up doing that, the fella and I would like a little privacy, please.” She chuckled and waved away Karen’s concern. “Quit worrying. There’s nothing wrong with me except I’m old as the hills and big as a house.”

“Sure you haven’t been overworking yourself at the McMillans’?” Karen asked. Jessie had babysat, cooked, and cleaned at George’s house three days during the past week.

“Oh, it’s been a breeze. Those kids are so sweet. And Amelia’s been there practically every day, and she helps out a lot. By the way, I’ve been putting in a good word for you now and then with Gorgeous George. Just planting the seed for when he’s ready to start dating again.”

“You’re wasting your time, Jess. George doesn’t like me much. He thinks I’m a busybody.”

“Oh, phooey, where did you get that idea?”

Karen said nothing. She briefly checked the rearview mirror again.

She hadn’t seen George since the funeral three days ago, where she’d given him a brief, polite hello. Before that, he’d distractedly nodded and waved at her-while on the phone-when she’d stopped by his house on Sunday morning to drive Amelia to the West Seattle Precinct. Amelia’s much-dreaded interview with the police had turned out to be rather benign.