Page 78 of Line of Sight (Second Sight #4)
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston MA
GARY OPENED his eyes, and his heart did a little jig to find Dan sitting beside the bed. “Hey.” He frowned. “What are you doing all the way over there?”
Dan chuckled, got out of the chair, and perched on the bed, covering Gary’s hand with his own. “Better?”
“It will be, as soon as you kiss me.” Dan leaned over and pressed his lips to Gary’s, and Gary breathed him in, Dan’s familiar scent mingling with a faint medicinal smell that told him exactly where he was.
Before he could confirm that, the door opened and a nurse entered. Dan was off the bed in a flash while she took Gary’s temperature, checked his pulse, and typed on her tablet.
“The doctor will be here to see you shortly. Try to rest. You’ve been through a lot.” Then she left as quickly as she’d arrived.
Dan sat back down, and Gary took in his surroundings. “Okay, now on to less important matters. I’m obviously in the hospital. What day is this?”
“Monday.”
He frowned. “What happened to Sunday?”
Dan sighed. “That’s a long story. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Going to the store. I think. It’s all kinda hazy.”
“Nothing after that?”
Gary did his best to recall any details, but nothing came to mind. “No.”
Dan nodded. “There’s a reason for that. You met Anthony King at the store, and I think he kept you drugged from that moment. They found fentanyl on him, but there were other drugs at the house. Rohypnol, for one. It could’ve been either of them.”
“House? What house?” Before Dan could answer, Gary hauled himself into an upright position. “Start at the beginning. And yes, I want the long version.”
He sat there listening as Dan recounted events from what sounded like twenty-four hours in Hell, leading up to finding Gary in the crypt.
“But King really is dead?”
Dan smiled. “To quote a line from one of my grandmother’s favorite movies, he’s ‘really most sincerely dead.’ Riley shot him, after a little misdirection from Lomax. I wish I could say the nightmare ended there, but he had one more surprise up his sleeve.”
Gary listened in silence as Dan told him about King’s final twist of a move.
“Is Matt okay?”
“The doc said without King there to stop it, the IV would have kept dripping, potentially delivering the whole bag of drug-filled fluid. So either that or the lack of oxygen would have killed him.”
Gary frowned. “But… he was going to kill you. What was the point of killing Matt too?”
“Who knows what went on in his mind?” Dan held Gary’s hand once more. “I counted on him being curious enough to want to know how much I could see, given the chance.” He huffed. “I don’t think he expected me to see everything.”
“What did you see?”
Dan looked him in the eyes. “Scott McCarthy wasn’t King’s first victim.”
“What? Who else did he kill?” Gary stared at him in disbelief. “He was only twenty-two when he killed Scott and Brad.”
Dan nodded. “And when he was eleven, he drowned his brother, Robert.”
“Then it wasn’t an accident.”
“I think King always had a feeling his parents suspected. His father at least. King was certain that was why he was sent to Canada. They couldn’t prove he’d killed his brother, of course, but he was sure they felt uncomfortable around him.
” Dan paused. “Which was probably why he had them killed too.”
Shock rippled through him. “But he was in Canada when they were murdered. An intruder killed them.”
Another nod. “A man he met at Logan, on his way to Toronto. King hadn’t even left the country, and he’d already arranged for their deaths.”
“Did he pay someone to do it?”
Dan shook his head. “ Strangers on a Train again.” He shivered.
“I will never read that book again, I swear it. Two guys meet, and they agree to swap murders. They exchange details before going their separate ways. Win-win. Except it didn’t work out so well for the guy who agreed to kill King’s parents.
Once King was back in the US, where he inherited everything, he couldn’t allow his coconspirator to live.
He knew too much. King wasn’t about to put his lifestyle in jeopardy.
So he tracked him down and… well, you can guess the rest.” He fell silent.
Gary knew the signs. “What’s on your mind?”
Dan’s brow furrowed. “You know we speculated on why he killed while he was in Canada? We thought he was trying to hone his skills, or maybe he simply missed the thrill of murder. But there is a third option. There might have been elements of both those motives, but I think four of those murders were there to detract attention away from the one that mattered. Remember one of the Canadian victims was called Amelia Hall?”
Gary nodded.
“Well, she was the wife of the man who killed King’s parents. I think he planned her murder first, then added the others just for the fun of it.”
“And Jennifer Sullivan and Senator Kelly are okay?”
Dan let out another huff. “One of Riley’s media sources tells him the senator has been offered a book deal.
A publisher has a ghost writer lined up to tell Senator Kelly’s version of events.
” Dan’s eyes twinkled. “Somehow I don’t think the good senator is going to accept their offer, do you?
Especially from a jail cell. I might not know much about the law, but it seems to me the police have enough evidence to arrest them and charge them with conspiracy to commit murder.
And having met those two, I’ll bet one of them will turn on the other to get a lighter sentence.
” Dan smiled. “Besides, imagine the reaction of his voters when they learn who was really responsible for his wife’s grisly murder. ”
“Then it really is over.” Gary sagged back against the pillows. “I think I need a vacation.”
Dan smiled. “Oh, and Travers says he expects you back at work tomorrow.”
Gary laughed. “There is one thing I’d like to make clear.” Dan arched his eyebrows, and Gary chuckled. “When you’re thinking of what to buy me for Christmas or birthdays? Leave thrillers off the list. I think I’ve had my fill of them.”
Dan clasped Gary’s hand and kissed his knuckles. “I hope wherever Brad is, he’s finally at peace.”
The dam burst, and Gary let his tears fall unchecked, Dan’s arm around him.
“I’ve got you,” Dan whispered. “And I’m never letting go.”