Erica Spindler - Dead Run

“You were drugged. Probably given a combination of something like ecstasy and LSD, a drug cocktail designed to elicit the responses you describe. You aren’t responsible for what happened.”

“They mean to kill me, Liz.”

“Did they say that? Did anyone verbally threaten you?”

“They know what I was up to. Somehow they know.”

“But how?” She frowned. “Mark, you’ve had a shock. You were given God only knows what combination of narcotics, ones that influenced your reactions the other night and how you feel mentally and physically right now. If they planned to kill you, they would have done it then.”

“The Lord was there with me, Liz. He protected me. He sent Stephen into the garden for me.”

Liz didn’t know what to say. The truth was, her young friend was frightening her. The fanatical light in his eyes reminded her of the way Tara had looked that day in her office, when the girl had relayed the story of the Blessed Mother’s appearance here at Paradise Christian.

He leaned toward her. “Do you believe, Liz?”

“I believe you wouldn’t lie to me, Mark.”

“Not my story, that’s not what I mean. Do you believe?”

“Are you talking about God?” she asked. “About believing in God?”

Mark nodded, his teeth beginning to chatter. “In heaven, hell and all their power. In Satan and his army of darkness, in Jesus Christ and his eternal light and promise of forgiveness? He is the light, Liz. Without him we’re doomed.”

“You’re upset,” she murmured, reaching out to lay her hand on his forehead. “It’s going to be okay. It’s-”

“It’s not!” he cried, pushing her hand away. “You don’t get it. It’s happening. The battle is being waged now.”

Liz cleared her throat, frightened. “Mark, if you calm yourself, we can talk about what to do-”

He grabbed her hands, holding them so tightly she winced. “The outcome isn’t a given, Liz. Too many people take for granted that good will win out. We can’t do that.” He released her hands. “The darkness is powerful, more powerful than we ever imagined.”

He broke down then, sobbing like a baby. Liz took him in her arms and held him while he cried. She heard a sound and looked up to find Stephen in the doorway, gazing at Mark with affection and concern.

And fear. She drew her eyebrows together. Had they known each other before this? she wondered. The depth of emotion she saw in the caretaker’s expression suggested they had, but she hardly thought it possible.

As if becoming aware of her scrutiny, Stephen shifted his gaze to hers. They stared at one another a moment, then he backed silently out of the doorway.

Liz returned her attention to Mark, who had gone still in her arms. “Are you all right?” she asked softly.

He nodded and drew away from her, wiping at his cheeks, obviously embarrassed at having broken down that way in front of her.

“I can’t get them out of my head,” he murmured, voice thick from his tears. “I can’t get the Beast out.”

Satan. Beelzebub. The Angel of Darkness.

Liz searched his expression, alarmed. In some people, drugs like LSD and mescaline proved the kindling for a prolonged psychotic event. Typically those people had either a biological or emotional predisposition to mental illness. For example, buried issues they had never dealt with or a family history of schizophrenia. The stress of the acid experience could psychically break them open. Some never recovered, their delusions persisting like the never-ending “bad trip.”

Delusions involving Christ, the devil or other religious figures were common.

“I have to get you to the hospital, Mark. A doctor needs to look at you.”

“No!” He jumped to his feet, expression panicked. “They’ll know. They’re everywhere. They see everything.”

Rachel had said they were listening. That they were everywhere.

Liz shook her head against the thought, not knowing what to believe, what was fact and what was nightmare brought on by the drug cocktail. Frequently, schizophrenics heard voices and felt they were not only being watched but were in mortal danger as well.

She had to get him medical attention. She wasn’t a medical doctor. She knew little about drug interactions or antidotes. She feared for his health. She told him so.

“They’ll kill me, Liz! I know they will.”

She opened her mouth to reassure him that the police would protect him, then closed it. They wouldn’t protect him. According to what Rick told her, they thought Mark killed Tara. They thought the Horned Flower was a figment of her and Mark’s imagination. They needed a suspect and had decided Mark was that man.

She thought of Rick. What did he believe? If she told him she was with Mark, would he turn him over to the police?

She feared he would. She couldn’t allow that to happen.

The two of them were on their own.

Liz reached up and caught Mark’s hand. “All right,” she murmured. “No doctors and no police…for now. But no promises about tomorrow.”

Monday, November 19

2:45 a.m.

Rick sat alone in the empty bar, his cell phone on the table beside him. Libby had left several minutes ago. They had finished closing, but Rick wasn’t ready to leave, not yet. He needed the quiet to think, to untangle his thoughts.

Too much had happened in the past twenty-four hours. His and Liz’s lovemaking. Val and Carla’s visit. The things they had told him. His visit with Daniel and the discovery that Tara ’s tattoo and the drawing in Pastor Rachel’s notes matched.

Mark a serial killer? The good-natured, conscientious Christian boy who never even took a drink? The young man he had not only trusted and relied on but had come to respect?

The seasoned guys in his squad in Miami had seen it all. They used to laugh that really bad shit was perpetrated by the ones you least suspected. The quiet ones. The handsome, smart or educated ones.

Not the penny-ante crimes. Not the everyday street crimes. But the really bad stuff. The serial killers. The drug lords. The high-tech, big-bucks operations.

Rick had seen their theory play out, time after time.

But Mark? Something, some instinct buried deep inside him, told him it wasn’t true.

Everything else told him it was.

That Val and Carla believed Liz was a target terrified him. He shifted his gaze to the cell phone. He wanted to call Liz. To hear her voice. To reassure himself she was all right.

So why didn’t he call? He’d gotten her number from information hours ago and had dialed it a dozen times. And had never pressed Send.

He brought the heels of his hands to his eyes. Why the hesitation? Why the knot in the pit of his gut? Guilt, he acknowledged. The feeling that he had betrayed Jill, their wedding vows.

Jill was dead. She had been gone for more than three years.

No, he admitted. She wasn’t gone. She lived in his heart. She always would.

A knot of emotion formed in his throat even as a feeling of peace moved over him. He bent his head, vision blurring.

I love you, Jilly. I always will.

Love you, too, babe. It’s okay to move on.

He didn’t believe in ghosts or the spirit world; he knew she hadn’t spoken to him. But he felt as if she had. He felt as if she were with him now.

Without examining that feeling further, he snatched up his phone and punched in Liz’s number.

It rang a half-dozen times, then her machine picked up. He listened to her message, heart beginning to thunder.

He racked his brain for an explanation. She was sleeping and hadn’t been able to get to the phone in time, he told himself.

She had a phone beside her bed. He had seen it.