Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

Anne turned to Vince. Taking the gold necklace from the pocket of her torn, dirty pants, she pressed it into his hand, then pressed herself into his arms and turned herself over to him. As he held her tight and told her everything would be all right, she just pressed her ear to his chest and listened to his heart beat. For those few moments, everything else was just noise.

Closing her eyes, she slipped away from consciousness. The last thing she remembered in her mind’s eye: Tommy standing alone in a little red boat, his hand to his heart as he drifted out of view until all that remained was the faintest memory of his sad little smile.

Anne came to to the sound of hushed voices in the hall outside her hospital room.

“… broken ribs… collapsed lung…”

“… oh my God… we’re lucky she’s not d-e-a-d…”

“I can spell.”

Her voice was rusty and dry and didn’t carry very far, but it carried far enough.

“Hey, look who’s back,” Vince said with a soft smile as he came to her bedside.

“Oh, Anne Marie!” Franny exclaimed with a pained expression. “You look like a raccoon!”

Anne raised the head of the bed with the remote control, catching a glimpse of herself in the small mirror on the wall. Two black eyes. A fat lip. Stitches in her chin. Raccoons would have been offended by the comparison.

“Hey,” Vince objected. “You should see the other guy. They had to airlift him to LA. Our girl got a couple of good licks in. She knocked his eye out with a tire iron!” he said proudly.

Franny was horrified. “Oh my God!”

“Gave him a skull fracture, broke his nose…”

“Who are you?” Franny asked her, as if perhaps she had been possessed by some much-tougher entity than the one he thought he knew.

“I’m alive,” she said simply.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, melting. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“I’ll be sure to mark this day on my calendar,” Anne said dryly.

“I want to hug you, but I’m afraid you’ll hurt me. I was going to say that the other way around, but you beat a man’s head in with a tire iron, so…”

Anne tried to smile. She hurt everywhere. Her ribs hurt, her head hurt, her lungs hurt. She felt like she’d been run over by a truck.

“My dentist,” Franny said as it dawned on him. “A serial killer put his hands in my mouth!”

Anne looked at Vince. “Has he confessed?”

He shook his head. “He got a lawyer. We can’t touch him.”

“But he did this to Anne,” Franny said with his trademark outrage. “I don’t care if he hires F. Lee Bill-Me-Out-the-Ass. He won’t get off for this!”

“No,” Vince said. “He’s a slam dunk for this, and he knows it. I think he’ll try to cut a deal.”

“Fuck that!” Franny said. “Fry his ass!”

Vince patted him on the shoulder. “I like how you think, my friend. If that was an option…”

“But the murders?” Anne said. “And Karly Vickers?”

“Right now, there’s just not enough physical evidence. In fact, there’s almost no physical evidence. He didn’t make a mistake-until he went after you,” he said. “How did you get the necklace?”

Anne sighed at the sad irony of it. “Tommy gave it to me. He must have found it in their house. He thought he was doing something special, something sweet.”

His sweet gesture had set off the chain of events that led to his father being revealed as a monster. The Greeks couldn’t have come up with a better tragedy.

“Have you talked to Tommy?” she asked.

She knew the answer by the tension in his face.

“The mother won’t let us near him.”

He read her distress just as easily and closed his hand gently around hers. “There’s nothing you can do, honey. Let it go.”

A deep sense of sadness settled in Anne’s heart, almost as if she had lost a loved one. In a way, she supposed she had. Somehow she knew right then that she wouldn’t see Tommy Crane again. She didn’t say it. No one would have believed her, but she knew it in her heart. He was gone from her life.

“I brought you a get-well present to cheer you up,” Franny said, setting a colorful gift bag on the bedside tray.

Anne peeked into the bag, suspicious. She reached in with the hand not burdened by an IV catheter and plucked out a scrap of black silk and lace.

“Some people give flowers or candy. My friend gives lingerie.”

“Nothing says ‘Get well’ like a negligee,” Franny said.

“Always makes me feel better,” Vince confessed.

“See?”

Anne would have rolled her eyes if they hadn’t hurt so much.

Franny leaned down and found a square inch of cheek to kiss without causing her pain. “I’m going to let you rest,” he said, then gave Vince a big comic wink.

“He’s something,” Vince said, chuckling, as Franny made his exit.

Anne managed to arch a brow at the negligee. “Yeah, the two of you.”

“Seriously, now,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

She felt no need to try to be brave or analytical with him. The tears came high in her eyes as the emotions flooded through her, leaving her trembling. “I’ve never been so afraid in my life.”

Vince eased a hip onto the bed so he could put his arms around her.

“You should have seen me,” he murmured. “When I knew that bastard had you…”

“Will you just hold me for a while?” Anne asked him in a small voice.

“I’ll hold you all night long,” he murmured, stroking her hair.

“I don’t think they’ll let you stay past nine.”

“Let them try to get me out of here,” he said. “God hasn’t made a nurse mean enough to get me away from you. And that’s saying something.”

He kissed her forehead, and she felt herself let go some of the tension still trembling through her.

“I mean it, Anne,” he said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere. I might be a big dumb lummox from Chicago, but I know the real deal when I see it. I love you. I want to spend my life with you. Is that all right with you? Or is there a restraining order in my future?”

Anne smiled and shook her head. He was right. After looking death in the face, all of life’s other choices became so much simpler and cleaner.

Vince leaned down and kissed her lips, and she had never felt more safe or loved in her life.

In the days that followed, properties Peter Crane might have accessed using his wife’s lock-box key were searched, but no madman’s lair was discovered. Wherever Crane had tortured and killed his victims remained a mystery-along with any physical evidence that might have tied him to the crimes.

Karly Vickers had begun to recover from her ordeal. She had been taken off the ventilator and was breathing on her own, but communication with her was difficult. While she could speak a few words at a time in a hoarse whisper, she could neither see nor hear. She had not indicated that she knew the identity of her attacker.

Doctors had expressed hope of repairing some of the damage to her ears and possibly giving her back at least partial hearing. While that was good news, it was a long shot, and would be a long time coming.

Vince doubted the young woman would have much to tell them at any rate. He didn’t believe for a minute Peter Crane had made the mistake of leaving a victim alive. Karly Vickers was his masterpiece, his living tribute to his own criminal cunning and brilliance. She was Peter Crane saying, Look how much smarter I am than the cops. I give them a victim back and they still don’t know who I am.

Crane might have given her back, but he would have damn well made sure she wouldn’t be able to tell them anything.