Jack Kilborn: Killers

He dragged a chair over from underneath the television set and unbuttoned his black jacket as he eased down into the chair.

Lucy studied him through the opiate fog.

He was lanky with short, dark hair.

A perfect shave.

Underneath that suit, she would’ve bet he owned a pair of thin, muscular arms. Wiry strength. Scrappy. A fighter when it came down to it. God, she would’ve loved to have encountered him in a hotel bar. She’d have marked him as a lawman right away-he had superficially cold eyes from his training. From the Academy and possibly a few years in state law enforcement. Maybe law school. From toting that big badge around and all the bullshit respect he’d convinced himself he deserved. But there wasn’t real ice underneath. Just a thin, crusty layer that she could’ve shattered in about thirty seconds.

In her entire life, she’d only seen real ice, deep ice, in a handful of people.

“Special Agent Raymond Nash,” he said, flipping open a black, leather wallet and flashing his credentials.

“Hi, Special Agent Nash.”

“Are you cogent enough to speak with me?”

“I think so.”

“Do you know why I’m here?”

Lucy smiled. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t know why I’m here. Like how I got here, I mean.”

“You have no memory of the accident?”

“No sir, Special Agent Nash.”

She thought her voice sounded all right-a husky girlishness, her just-woke-up voice, the kind of voice Agent Nash would probably imagine begging him to stop while he turned her over his knee and spanked the eighty-five percent of her bottom she could still call her own.

He stared at her through those hard, unblinking eyes and said, “You were found at the bottom of a ravine, chained to the back of a car. You’d been dragged for two miles down a rough country road. The car crashed through a guardrail and took you and another man for a three hundred-foot ride down a mountainside.”

In an instant, it all returned to her.

Donaldson -now there was a man with ice eyes. Deep ice eyes.

She recalled the car ride.

His trick seatbelt.

Drugging him.

Hiding from him.

Overcoming him.

Helmeting him.

She’d had him all set to go for a nice little road trip, but he’d handcuffed her leg at the last second and then the parking brake on his cheap-ass Honda had failed.

A smile came at the memory of the pain.

Two of the longest miles of her life.

Her last memory-striking the guardrail at thirty miles per hour.

Nothing after.

“Who was I with, Special Agent Nash?” she asked.

“Just Agent Nash is fine.”

“You aren’t special?”

He didn’t acknowledge her playfulness, only said, “You don’t remember?”

“No, sir. Doctor Lanz told me I suffered a hairline fracture to my skull and that maybe it gave me amnesia or something.”

If this frustrated Nash, he didn’t show it.

“You were with a man named Gregory Donaldson. Do you know him?”

“I don’t know anyone by that name. Was he injured, too?”

“Yes.”

“Badly?”

“I would be in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act to disclose any information regarding his condition.”

“We wouldn’t want that. Can you at least tell me if he’s, like, alive?”

“He’s alive.”

Lucy realized there was a question she should have asked the moment the agent had come into the room, wondered if Nash had noticed that she hadn’t.

“Why am I handcuffed to the bed?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk with you about. The man you were with, Mr. Donaldson-he’s a killer. The car that you were dragged behind was in his name, and we found evidence of multiple crimes inside.”

“Crimes?”

“Murders.”

“Do you think he was trying to kill me?” She let her voice wander up an octave. “Could that be why I don’t remember? Because I was, like, traumatized and stuff?”

“You didn’t have any identification on you when the paramedics arrived.” Nash fished a notepad out of an inner pocket of his jacket and clicked a pen. “What’s your name?”

“Lucy.”

“Lucy what?”

“I don’t remember.”

Nash just stared at her for a moment.

“Are you being straight with me?”

“Yessir.”

“Because this is a serious situation we got here. See, I’m what they call at the Bureau, a soft touch. But my partner, Penington, isn’t. He’s, to be blunt, kind of a dick. My point is…you want to be dealing with me, Lucy. And I want to help you, but I can’t if you lie to me. Penington deals with the liars.”

Lucy shut her eyes and thought about her father.

When she opened them again, a sheet of tears had formed across the surface of her eyes.

She waited five seconds, and then blinked.

Two trails started down her cheeks.

It only lasted for a second, but she saw a flicker pass across Nash’s face-a millisecond of softening.

Compassion.

So he had a heart. But then again, most people did.

She had him.

“I’ll be back here tomorrow,” Nash said.

I won’t.

He rose, buttoned his jacket.

“You better start remembering some things, Lucy.”

“I’ll try.”

He gave her a curt nod and strode out the door into the hallway, where he muttered something in passing to the deputy. Lucy let her mind drift.

Donaldson.

She smiled, wondering how badly he’d been injured. God, she hoped he wasn’t in a coma. That would be absolutely no fun at all. Vegetables didn’t feel fear. You couldn’t look in their eyes and watch the life leave or the pain come.

Lucy thought about her guitar case, wondering if they’d found it. If she had any luck at all, the thing had been destroyed in the wreckage. Under the velvet lining, there were photographs-she was even in a few of them. Then there was that weathered copy of Andrew Z. Thomas’s novel, The Passenger, signed to her and referencing that Indianapolis mystery convention she’d attended fourteen years ago as a young girl.

Great convention-she’d met Luther Kite and Orson Thomas there, two men who’d forever changed her life.

If a smart lawman saw that book, they’d make the connection.

She had to get out of this room.

Deal with Donaldson.

Escape.

Lucy pressed the NURSE CALL button, and fifteen seconds later a rail of a woman breezed into her room.

She checked the IV bags and heart monitor before turning her attention to Lucy.

“I’m Janine Winslow,” she said. “What’s going on, sweetie? You in pain?”

“My catheter hurts.”

“Really?”

Lucy nodded.

“You’re staying on top of your morphine pump?”

“Yes, but it really hurts,” Lucy lied. “It burns.”

Winslow furrowed her brow. “Dr. Lanz gave you your nerve block less than two hours ago. You shouldn’t be feeling anything at all.”

“What’s a nerve block?”

“A combination of lidocaine, corticosteroids, and epinephrine. Without a shot every twelve hours, you’d be in agony.”

“I thought that’s what the morphine pump is for.”

“That’s just to take the edge off. The nerve block is what’s keeping you from screaming hysterically.”

“Can you take it out?” Lucy asked.

“Take what out?”

“The catheter. So I can use the bathroom.”

“You can’t walk to the bathroom with the condition your legs are in.”

“I’m sure I can make it.”

The nurse swept her hair out of her eyes. “Lucy, you haven’t seen your legs yet, have you?”

“No, why?”

Winslow bit her lip.

“Why?” Lucy asked again.

“I have to change your bandages anyway. I’ll show you.”