The Lucky Ones(95)

“Children are dead because of you.”

“Don’t you understand how it works? Someone has to be the first. Like them,” he said, raising a thin arm to point to his cases of medical antiques. “The first to saw off a leg to save a soldier’s life. The first to drill a hole in the brain to relieve the pressure. The first to cut a womb open to rip out a baby. Look,” he said, shuffling over to the cases. He opened a door and pulled out a large steel object, something like a saw with some kind of hand crank on it. “You know what this is? Guess?”

She shook her head, too scared to speak.

“A rib-spreader. You cut open the chest and pry the ribs apart with it. This is one of the first ever used in a hospital in America. It’s demonic. Look at it. It pries the chest open. It’s a serial killer’s toy. But it’s saved lives. It’s saved thousands and thousands of lives. Roland killed a little girl, Allison, and didn’t bat an eyelash about it. Zero remorse. Zero empathy. Rachel would have been the first of many if I didn’t help him. But I did help him. I helped all of them... I loved all of them...”

The rib-spreader fell out of Dr. Capello’s hands as he collapsed onto the floor.

“Dad!” Allison cried out, and ran to him. She knelt on the floor next to his body slumped against the filing cabinet.

“Are you all right?” she asked him. He lifted his hands and put them on her shoulders as if he wanted to try to stand but couldn’t.

“I saved them,” he said. “I saved them and you’re going to destroy them.”

“You’re losing it. I’m going to call 911.”

“I can’t let you,” he said. “I won’t...”

He wrapped his hands around her throat.

Allison let out a scream of utter shock before his hands clamped so hard on her throat she could no longer make a sound. She tried to jerk away but couldn’t. He had little strength left in his body, but what he had left was concentrated in his hands clamped around her neck like an iron collar.

His face contorted in effort and his hands squeezed the breath from her body. She tried to scream but nothing came out. In the faraway distance she thought she heard someone calling her name, but she couldn’t answer. Stars swam in front of her face. Her lungs ached and burned. She beat her fists against Dr. Capello’s chest but couldn’t get him off her. So she kicked against him, kicked against anything she could find. The filing cabinet fell over, crashing into the display cases. Glass shattered, wood splintered, but nothing would break Dr. Capello’s vicious grasp from around her throat.

Frantically she grabbed at her pocket until she felt it, the can of pepper spray Deacon had given her. She pulled it out and let it fly, right into Dr. Capello’s eyes.

He screamed and collapsed on the floor in agony. The whole attic shook like a great fist was beating against the walls of the house. Was someone trying to save her? Or was that sound nothing more than the final beats of her dying heart?

She heard the voice again, someone shouting her name, and she tried to answer. Once free of the death grip on her neck, Allison could breathe again, but she couldn’t speak. She swallowed huge gulps of air, wheezing as she breathed, nearly vomiting in her panic and her pain. She fell onto her side. Through her watering eyes, she saw Roland yank his father to his feet and slam him back against the wall.

“She was going to kill you,” Dr. Capello said, his eyes bloodred and streaming tears. He coughed so hard it sounded like he was trying to vomit. Roland pushed his father away and ran to her, broken glass cracking to powder under the soles of his boots.

“Allison? Allison?” Roland knelt in front of her. He touched her face, stroking it gently.

“I’m all right,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

She struggled to her hands and knees. Her neck ached and her lungs were on fire but she could breathe, she could move. She was alive. Everything that happened next was a blur. She heard Roland calling his father’s name. She saw Dr. Capello trying to flee out the door. She heard the sound of a body falling down stairs. Allison grabbed the wall and used it to stand. She hobbled to the top of the narrow attic staircase and saw Dr. Capello at the bottom, sprawled on the ground, either dead or unconscious. Deacon appeared, falling to the floor, screaming, “Dad! Dad!” over and over, running his hands over his father’s body, trying to find the wound or the heartbeat. Thora stood by Deacon’s side, not touching her father, not touching Deacon. She looked up at the stairs and Allison met her eyes. Thora said nothing. She didn’t have to.

Dr. Capello was silent.

Roland took her into his arms and held her. She looked past his shoulder and saw the door hanging off the hinges. Someone had taken an ax to it.

And close by and growing closer came the sound of sirens.

Allison closed her eyes and didn’t open them again for a very long time.





Chapter 27

When Allison came to, she wasn’t sure if ten minutes had passed, ten hours or ten days.

She lay in her bed in her room, a white afghan over her. She blinked herself into awareness and tried to raise her head.

“Don’t move.” It was Roland speaking to her. She turned her head despite the order and saw him sitting in the white wicker chair at her bedside, the little bedside lamp glowing softly.

“I’m all right,” she said. “I think.”