that would be."
"Please hurry."
"What's the nature of your emergency?"
"Oh, shit! Just come! There are dead people out here!" I said, and hung up. Stupid man. That would bring them, though the Granberrys might not be dead. Hurt bad, surely that would qualify.
"Here's Hayden," Regina said, her voice almost a coo. I scarcely looked at him. If I'd said, "So?" Regina might've shot me. All my energy was bent on lasting, staying upright, until I could see Martin again. "He looks fine," I said. My voice came out more like a whisper. I was feeling more like my old self every minute, Aurora Teagarden the librarian, whereas Regina seemed permanently transformed into Iron Woman. But maybe I would never be my old self, I reflected after a moment, since I seemed to be able to ignore Luke's moaning.
I thought of getting the keys and driving Margaret's pickup or Luke's Bronco into town, to save time, but then I had to admit to myself that I would probably pass out along the way. I sank into a chair and put my head on my arms. Regina sat next to me, holding her son, and together we waited for the sirens to get closer.
They even searched Hayden, to make sure he wasn't packing heat in his diaper, I guess.
"Take me to my husband," I said, and I said it to every officer who came in the door.
It pleased me that they believed us pretty quickly, after they'd been down in the basement and seen the evidence of our imprisonment. But believing isn't the same as releasing, and it was all too long before the sheriff himself decided to drive me into the little hospital in Corinth.
"They're going to transfer Mr. Bartell to Pittsburgh when he's stable enough," the sheriff told me.
"He had a heart attack?" I asked.
"Yes," the sheriff confirmed, his wide Slavic face looking so sorry for me that my heart sank.
I made myself ask about Karl.
"He's in critical condition, but he lasted this long," Sheriff Brod told me. "Karl Bagosian is a tough bird. He hasn't been able to tell us exactly what happened. Would you like to tell me?"
"My husband and Karl were standing in the kitchen with my niece's friend, Rory," I said wearily, staring out the squad car window at the frozen fields. To me, it was an alien landscape. The cold sun made it gleam like the white linoleum in the Granberrys' kitchen. I saw the blood against it, heard Luke moaning again like an animal.
I got through the account of what had happened, yet again. I could tell the sheriff had a hard time believing I'd started Margaret down the stairs. I was a librarian, for God's sake. I reached up and touched the dreadful bruise and swelling on my forehead. I'd gotten a good look in the Granberrys' bathroom mirror. Even touching as delicately as possible, my head rang with pain.
"You need to get checked out at the hospital," the sheriff said. He was a big man, wide faced and heavy.
"After I see Martin," I said, and didn't speak again until we were there. "I just want you to know, ma'am, that the deputy that questioned the Granberrys last night... well, he won't go without an official reprimand." I shrugged. It didn't matter anymore.
Somehow I was in a wheelchair going down corridors freshly painted in a glossy beige. The rubberized flooring was a dark chocolate brown. The place smelled like a sure-enough hospital, the sharp odors of disinfectants and medicine and the bland smell of hospital food vying for supremacy. Through the doors marked ICU we went, the nurse pushing me not offering any comment no matter how many questions I asked her. The tiny ICU unit had room for six patients, and Martin and Karl were the only two. Cindy was in Martin's glass-sided room, and she stepped out when she saw me coming. She started to say something to me and then thought better of it. Her eyes were red.
The nurse wheeled me right up to Martin's bed. I looked at him in horror. His face had lost all its normal color, and everything that could be hooked up to a tube was. He looked twenty years older.
"He hasn't said much," the young man in the shadows of the room told me, and I saw that it was Barrett.
I knew then that Martin was going to die.
"Sweetheart," I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. "I'm here." I stood and took his