Read Online Child of Silence by Abigail Padgett - Free Book Online
Authors: Abigail Padgett
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momentarily confused by the darkness and the empty bed. The figures were backlit from the hall, mere silhouettes. One appeared stocky, the other shorter, and thin. They turned toward Rudy and the boy. Rudy remained silent, watching. Whoever they were, they didn't seem to know what the hell they were doing.
“Aw, fuck!” the shorter one drawled, and pushed the thick one aside. He seemed nervous, in a hurry. Then he pulled something from under his jacket. Something dully silver reflecting the hall light, with a black cylinder attached to it.
In less than a second, thirty years of experience, countless nights in jungle muck trusting nothing beyond his field of vision, registered in Rudy Palachek. With his right foot he pushed hard against the empty hospital bed. It was a gun, he realized just before the chair went over. It was pointed at the sleeping child in his arms!
A muffled pop, like a truck tire blowing out under water.
The chair splintered under his back as it fell. The child began to scream his peculiar scream as running footsteps filled the hall outside.
“Hey! What's going on?”
It was the orderly, running past the door of 323 toward the stairs. His voice, Rudy noticed, was shrill with fear, but it hadn't stopped him from doing his job.
Then another shot.
Children crying. A woman screaming “Oh, my God!” over and over in the hall.
A nurse appeared at the door of 323 and switched on the lights, followed closely by a bewildered security guard. The nurse went pale and then regained her color as Rudy rolled out of the splintered rocker and got to his feet. He still held the screaming child, petting the wiry hair, humming so the boy could feel the sound.
Rudy clenched his teeth over mute rage.
“Call LaMarche,” he told the nurse. “And seal this room until the police get here.”
A jagged crater disfigured the wall behind him. Rudy looked at it with distaste, and then with renewed fear. In the seven-inch crater was the barest silvery film. Its almost imperceptible sheen caught the light and glistened. Rudy shuddered. The guy had meant business. The sick bastard son of a bitch was a bona fide killer. The silver sheen, Rudy Palachek knew, was mercury.
A hollow-point bullet packed at the tip with a poison so toxic to the human nervous system that a flesh wound could kill. And the deadly package had missed them both by less than two inches.
10 - Another Bad Night
Something woke Bo, although she couldn't identify it immediately. An odorous ringing. Her bedroom smelled like colcannon, the buttery combination of potatoes, cabbage, onions, and cream that her grandmother had loved to concoct. The scent washed her in nostalgia. And it kept ringing.
Bo shook her head. Nobody'd cooked colcannon for her in fifteen years. And the ringing was a phone!
She'd gone by the university psychiatric clinic late in the afternoon. Had the initial bloodwork done, got the lithium. It was a safety net, and she'd decided she needed it. Things were getting too haywire, like this potato-scented sound that brought tears to her eyes with its memories. Crazy. She felt the loss of her grandmother as though the feisty old woman had just died. And her parents. And Dr. Bittner. Laurie. AIDS victims. Baby harp seals dead on Canada's frozen coasts. The Black Forest in Germany withering in acid rain. An overwhelming sadness. A bitter, insurmountable loss.
In a psychiatric setting, she mused, somebody would write, “Inappropriate affect, tearful for no reason. . .” on her chart. But there were plenty of reasons, always. And always it was best to block them, keep them from flooding your mind. If you could. The damn lithium, already in her bloodstream, would take three weeks to have any effect.
“It's a quarter of one,” she snarled into the bedside phone. “This had better be important.”
“Ms. Bradley? This is Andrew LaMarche.”
It was going to be bad news. She could tell from the
“Aw, fuck!” the shorter one drawled, and pushed the thick one aside. He seemed nervous, in a hurry. Then he pulled something from under his jacket. Something dully silver reflecting the hall light, with a black cylinder attached to it.
In less than a second, thirty years of experience, countless nights in jungle muck trusting nothing beyond his field of vision, registered in Rudy Palachek. With his right foot he pushed hard against the empty hospital bed. It was a gun, he realized just before the chair went over. It was pointed at the sleeping child in his arms!
A muffled pop, like a truck tire blowing out under water.
The chair splintered under his back as it fell. The child began to scream his peculiar scream as running footsteps filled the hall outside.
“Hey! What's going on?”
It was the orderly, running past the door of 323 toward the stairs. His voice, Rudy noticed, was shrill with fear, but it hadn't stopped him from doing his job.
Then another shot.
Children crying. A woman screaming “Oh, my God!” over and over in the hall.
A nurse appeared at the door of 323 and switched on the lights, followed closely by a bewildered security guard. The nurse went pale and then regained her color as Rudy rolled out of the splintered rocker and got to his feet. He still held the screaming child, petting the wiry hair, humming so the boy could feel the sound.
Rudy clenched his teeth over mute rage.
“Call LaMarche,” he told the nurse. “And seal this room until the police get here.”
A jagged crater disfigured the wall behind him. Rudy looked at it with distaste, and then with renewed fear. In the seven-inch crater was the barest silvery film. Its almost imperceptible sheen caught the light and glistened. Rudy shuddered. The guy had meant business. The sick bastard son of a bitch was a bona fide killer. The silver sheen, Rudy Palachek knew, was mercury.
A hollow-point bullet packed at the tip with a poison so toxic to the human nervous system that a flesh wound could kill. And the deadly package had missed them both by less than two inches.
10 - Another Bad Night
Something woke Bo, although she couldn't identify it immediately. An odorous ringing. Her bedroom smelled like colcannon, the buttery combination of potatoes, cabbage, onions, and cream that her grandmother had loved to concoct. The scent washed her in nostalgia. And it kept ringing.
Bo shook her head. Nobody'd cooked colcannon for her in fifteen years. And the ringing was a phone!
She'd gone by the university psychiatric clinic late in the afternoon. Had the initial bloodwork done, got the lithium. It was a safety net, and she'd decided she needed it. Things were getting too haywire, like this potato-scented sound that brought tears to her eyes with its memories. Crazy. She felt the loss of her grandmother as though the feisty old woman had just died. And her parents. And Dr. Bittner. Laurie. AIDS victims. Baby harp seals dead on Canada's frozen coasts. The Black Forest in Germany withering in acid rain. An overwhelming sadness. A bitter, insurmountable loss.
In a psychiatric setting, she mused, somebody would write, “Inappropriate affect, tearful for no reason. . .” on her chart. But there were plenty of reasons, always. And always it was best to block them, keep them from flooding your mind. If you could. The damn lithium, already in her bloodstream, would take three weeks to have any effect.
“It's a quarter of one,” she snarled into the bedside phone. “This had better be important.”
“Ms. Bradley? This is Andrew LaMarche.”
It was going to be bad news. She could tell from the
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