Chapter 14: Hero's Complex
Cheryl had just finished putting the call through on the radio when Mark suddenly seemed to stiffen beside her. His face had blanched of all color, and he sat stunned, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He clutched the phone so tightly that his knuckles shown white against his skin.
A shiver of fear arrowed through her, sending her heart into her stomach. Before the thought had fully formed to ask him what happened, he began yelling into the phone.
"Steve! Steve, are you there? Steve answer me!" His voice trembled with a panic totally uncharacteristic of his usual optimistic nature.
"Mark! What happened? What's wrong?!" His reactions only sharpened her worry. But Mark didn't seem to hear her, and continued to try to get a response from Steve.
Cheryl focused the emotions that were edging toward panic. This was no time for falling apart. Things could happen in an instant, she'd learned that from long years on the police force, and those experiences served in helping to gain control of the situation.
"Mark, I need you to tell me what happened." Her voice was calmer. And though she was inclined to pull to the side of the road, she pushed her foot harder into the accelerator, instead. She also turned on her grill lights, alerting the rest of the light traffic that she was a police woman on a mission. There was really only one thing that she could think of that would send Mark into such a state. And if something bad had happened to Steve, she needed to get the both of them to him as soon as she could. Every second counted. She was still several minutes from the beach house, and judging from the information that Steve have given her, he was a little beyond it and moving fast in the opposite direction.
"Steve . . . ." Mark's next attempt to get his son's attention was spoken more softly, and there was a shuddering, defeated quality to his voice.
Warring with her own fear and worry, and trying to keep an eye on the road ahead, she reached a hand toward Mark's arm. "Dr. Sloan, please tell me what happened? What happened to Steve?" She hoped that the professional title would help him to refocus.
He looked toward her, his blue eyes stark against his pale face. "I think he just when off a cliff. My son just drove off a cliff." He sounded like he didn't quite believe it himself.
Cheryl didn't want to even pretend that it was possible. Nothing against Mark, but she needed more than a father's fear. She needed proof. "When? How could you tell?" The words came out more sharply than she intended, but Mark didn't seem to notice.
He muttered the answer in a dazed voice as he stared down at the phone. "I could hear it. I heard a sound like the phone dropping, then a metal crunch and more rustling sounds and then complete silence. Then I heard Steve say 'oh God' and then there was a continuous loud crash that went on until the connection went dead."
Cheryl tried not to panic, but Mark's fear was contagious. She knew how treacherous the coast roads could be. And what Mark had described didn't sound good at all. "How can you be sure it was a cliff, and not just an accident?"
"Because you said Arrowhead Point!" Mark insisted. "There is a sheer, three hundred foot drop onto the rocks at Arrowhead!"
She might not be completely familiar with Malibu, but she knew what Steve had told her. It wouldn't make sense for him to tell her that reinforcements should be sent where he already was if they were trying to trap Findley between them. "He wasn't there, Mark! He said that the highway patrol should start there so they could back track to meet him."
It took a moment for those words to soak in, and Mark seemed to calm a little by small measures. Some of the strain seemed to drop away as a bit of hope entered his expression. "Maybe it was the Dunstan Curve then," he said softly, thoughtfully. "It's not far from the beach house."
Cheryl nodded. "How close are we?"
"We should see it in about a minute." Mark was significantly more together, but his voice was still tight with worry. The phone was still clutched in his hand, the last link that he'd had to Steve.
She urged him to call in medical assistance, just in case. If she was wrong, she would take the heat. If she was right, she might be buying a person very dear to her more time.
~*~
His first real sensation was a ballooning pain in his head that rapidly seemed to echo through the rest of his body. It felt as if he had been battered from the inside out. The next was the wetness. Something was dripping on his forehead, something warm and smelling of decay. The smell got his eyes open, despite the mild spinning sensation that had existed even when they had been closed.
He squinted against the eerie lighting, and took a careful breath, hoping that by moving as little as possible he could keep the nausea and pain at bay. For the first few moments he was unable to comprehend where he was. The world seemed out of kilter and the wrong color entirely.
Then he realized that he was in his truck, and that the vehicle itself must have been lying on its side with the driver's side toward the ground. The windshield hadn't broken out of its mooring, but the glass had splintered and fractured in several places. It was covered with greenish, algae-filled water and bits of sand, making what light shown into the cab tinged the color of creamed spinach. Not exactly his favorite food. It only added to the roiling edge of nausea that plagued him. Water was dripping along what now acted as the roof, falling onto his head. A slight stinging along his scalp registered with the next drop.
He made to reach for his head, only to find that his body, still buckled into the seatbelt, was pressing against his left arm. The attempted movement was a bad idea as it caused a bolt of pain to shoot through the appendage.
Memories began to return. He remembered that after his truck had gone over the edge at Dunstan Curve it had rolled a bit to the side before it splashed down into the reservoir. He wasn't sure of all of the events that had taken place after that. But he couldn't forget the horrible gut- wrenching feel of the vehicle flipping over before hanging suspended on two tires. He didn't remember it completing its journey to come to a stop with the driver's side pressed into the muck. Muck that was creeping slowly into the cab beneath him. He needed to get out of the truck.
Sluggishly he reached for the unlocking mechanism on the seatbelt. Something hard was settled against it. He knew immediately that it was his gun. And then he remembered something else that he needed to do.
Grabbing onto the gun, he carefully unwrapped the restraining harness from around his body and then looked upward at the passenger's side door. That was his only way out. So, holding his left arm rigidly to the side, he began the arduous task of working his legs out from beneath the dash. Motion awakened new pains, as the entire left side of his body objected strenuously. But he pressed on, continuing until he managed a standing position on the driver's side window. Trying to ignore the unstable feel of the door beneath his feet, he slipped his gun into his holster and reached upward.
The passenger door was harder to push open as gravity, and a whole host of other natural laws weren't on his side. But he managed it, climbing up and through the opening. He was panting by the time he reached the top. There was nothing to do but to jump down into the muck then. The landing was exceedingly unpleasant. His legs would not hold him and he splashed face first into the stagnant waters and came up coughing, which sent fire through his midsection and the nausea into overdrive.
Great, just great. He knew without a doubt that he had suture issues again. Jesse was going to kill him. He waited, just a moment, on one trembling hand and shaky knees, for both the rushing sound in his head and the queasiness to settle down a bit. Thankfully, the darkish water was only elbow deep in that position.
Then he looked up and out and froze. Findley's truck was near the edge of the small natural watery reservoir, having come to rest just yards from the edge. Dunstan Curve overlooked the area which was little more than an acre sized oasis of water, greenery and sand. The greenery consisted of small trees, bushes and grasses which grew just off the road and down a step hill which dropped to a level where waters gathered in a natural depression of sand. Beyond the sand, rock was visible before dropping steeply off into the ocean. If ramming Findley's truck hadn't slowed him, he might have landed on the rocks and tumbled over the sheer fall into the Pacific.
The thought only increased his nausea. As it was, Findley's truck had only just missed the less forgiving rocky portion of the area. But it was completely upside down, and the front end was buried in the water. Suddenly there was moment as Findley's head appeared from beneath the surface of the water, followed by weak coughing and sputtering.
Adrenaline flooded Steve's system as he pushed himself to his feet, then almost immediately collapsed again when his left foot seemed indifferent to his brain's demand to stand. He tried again, only slightly more slowly, and succeeded in limp/staggering the distance to Findley's side, where he sank onto his knees in the waters.
Findley's eyes were closed, and his skin was parchment white, but he appeared at least partially conscious as he was propping himself up out of the water with one elbow. Steve didn't need to be a doctor to know that the man was in a lot worse shape than he was. His breathing wasn't good, and he was sure that the man wasn't going to be able to hold his position for much longer.
For a second he wasn't sure what to do. Suspecting a crush injury, and who knew what else, he knew that moving him before legitimate medical help arrived was a bad idea. Letting the man drown seemed an even worse one.
Maneuvering himself carefully, he settled into the liquid and eased his right leg beneath Findley's head, allowing the man to at least breathe without the fear of inhaling water.
At his touch, Findley's eyes creaked open, slightly glazed, but intense. "My legs . . . trapped."
Steve opened his mouth to respond, but found instead that Findley seemed to split into doubles and everything faded out for a second and then re- resolved. Steve shook his head to clear it. "I can't help you with that right, now," he managed after a second. "If I move you're going to drown."
"Let me . . . . It's only . . . fitting."
Steve didn't agree. Findley was going to face justice for his crimes if he had anything to do with it. "Vincent Findley, you are under arrest for the murder of Adam Michaels and Tessa Cohen. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right . . . . " He made it through the recitation of the Miranda Rights on auto-pilot. With the decrease of adrenaline, his own injuries were making themselves known again.
The entire left side of his body was on fire. A myriad of cuts along that portion of his body sang out against the dirty water that was seeping into them. He also suspected that he might have done some sort of damage to his left foot. The ache there was constant, and the pain in his abdominal region was intensifying. He had a sinking feeling that it might be a little worse than problems with sutures. Sitting stiffly upright wasn't helping the situation.
"Do you understand these rights as they've been explained to you?" he asked, slightly breathless as he moved his gun from its holster and shoved it into the back of his pants.
Findley looked up at him. "Yes," he whispered. He seemed to look off at nothing before focusing back on him. "She's holding . . . the light . . . for me."
Steve frowned down at the man, wondering if he had suffered some kind of brain injury that was impairing his mental faculties. He couldn't tell either way by looking into the intent gaze. He looked up and around, and as if on cue, he heard the sound of sirens and distant voices.
He could make out flashing lights up on the highway. He couldn't be sure, but he thought two of the people moving past what remained of the guardrail looked liked his father and Cheryl. They both started down the side of the decline and began weaving their way through a profusion of bushes and trees.
"Help is coming," Steve looked down and told Findley.
"Have to save her . . . " Findley replied.
"What? Save who?" That seemed an odd thing to say. Even delirious. Had someone else been in Findley's truck? But as the man continued on, Steve put the words down to just ramblings.
"Had to make you stop hurting her!" Findley accused. "Had to . . . slay the dragons." He continued to mumble words that Steve had trouble making out. But what he did catch was enough to convince him that Findley might be a couple crayons short a whole box.
"Is that why you decided to kill Jarvis?" Steve asked. The vague idea played in the back of his mind that he might somehow have discovered that Jarvis had hurt Maeve, and that it had set off the string of murders. Jarvis had been the first one to die, after all.
As Steve looked down at the man awaiting a response, he began to feel disconnected. He noticed that the man's lips moved, but he couldn't make out what the words meant.
He focused dazedly up, hoping for some point of reference. But the rushing sound was back, and seemed to be growing louder and louder. His head began to feel heavy and weave as if his neck was made of rubber and could no longer support it. The brightness of the day yellowed around the edges.
He could just make out the blurred images of Cheryl and his father hurrying toward him. They seemed so far away, yet their faces seemed close and taut with concern. He couldn't wrap his mind around precisely why that was. He only knew that they were fading away. And then everything tilted. He thought he saw the sky careening past, the quick initial buoyancy of a splash into water, and then green closed in around him as he inhaled something sharp and acrid.
Cheryl had just finished putting the call through on the radio when Mark suddenly seemed to stiffen beside her. His face had blanched of all color, and he sat stunned, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He clutched the phone so tightly that his knuckles shown white against his skin.
A shiver of fear arrowed through her, sending her heart into her stomach. Before the thought had fully formed to ask him what happened, he began yelling into the phone.
"Steve! Steve, are you there? Steve answer me!" His voice trembled with a panic totally uncharacteristic of his usual optimistic nature.
"Mark! What happened? What's wrong?!" His reactions only sharpened her worry. But Mark didn't seem to hear her, and continued to try to get a response from Steve.
Cheryl focused the emotions that were edging toward panic. This was no time for falling apart. Things could happen in an instant, she'd learned that from long years on the police force, and those experiences served in helping to gain control of the situation.
"Mark, I need you to tell me what happened." Her voice was calmer. And though she was inclined to pull to the side of the road, she pushed her foot harder into the accelerator, instead. She also turned on her grill lights, alerting the rest of the light traffic that she was a police woman on a mission. There was really only one thing that she could think of that would send Mark into such a state. And if something bad had happened to Steve, she needed to get the both of them to him as soon as she could. Every second counted. She was still several minutes from the beach house, and judging from the information that Steve have given her, he was a little beyond it and moving fast in the opposite direction.
"Steve . . . ." Mark's next attempt to get his son's attention was spoken more softly, and there was a shuddering, defeated quality to his voice.
Warring with her own fear and worry, and trying to keep an eye on the road ahead, she reached a hand toward Mark's arm. "Dr. Sloan, please tell me what happened? What happened to Steve?" She hoped that the professional title would help him to refocus.
He looked toward her, his blue eyes stark against his pale face. "I think he just when off a cliff. My son just drove off a cliff." He sounded like he didn't quite believe it himself.
Cheryl didn't want to even pretend that it was possible. Nothing against Mark, but she needed more than a father's fear. She needed proof. "When? How could you tell?" The words came out more sharply than she intended, but Mark didn't seem to notice.
He muttered the answer in a dazed voice as he stared down at the phone. "I could hear it. I heard a sound like the phone dropping, then a metal crunch and more rustling sounds and then complete silence. Then I heard Steve say 'oh God' and then there was a continuous loud crash that went on until the connection went dead."
Cheryl tried not to panic, but Mark's fear was contagious. She knew how treacherous the coast roads could be. And what Mark had described didn't sound good at all. "How can you be sure it was a cliff, and not just an accident?"
"Because you said Arrowhead Point!" Mark insisted. "There is a sheer, three hundred foot drop onto the rocks at Arrowhead!"
She might not be completely familiar with Malibu, but she knew what Steve had told her. It wouldn't make sense for him to tell her that reinforcements should be sent where he already was if they were trying to trap Findley between them. "He wasn't there, Mark! He said that the highway patrol should start there so they could back track to meet him."
It took a moment for those words to soak in, and Mark seemed to calm a little by small measures. Some of the strain seemed to drop away as a bit of hope entered his expression. "Maybe it was the Dunstan Curve then," he said softly, thoughtfully. "It's not far from the beach house."
Cheryl nodded. "How close are we?"
"We should see it in about a minute." Mark was significantly more together, but his voice was still tight with worry. The phone was still clutched in his hand, the last link that he'd had to Steve.
She urged him to call in medical assistance, just in case. If she was wrong, she would take the heat. If she was right, she might be buying a person very dear to her more time.
~*~
His first real sensation was a ballooning pain in his head that rapidly seemed to echo through the rest of his body. It felt as if he had been battered from the inside out. The next was the wetness. Something was dripping on his forehead, something warm and smelling of decay. The smell got his eyes open, despite the mild spinning sensation that had existed even when they had been closed.
He squinted against the eerie lighting, and took a careful breath, hoping that by moving as little as possible he could keep the nausea and pain at bay. For the first few moments he was unable to comprehend where he was. The world seemed out of kilter and the wrong color entirely.
Then he realized that he was in his truck, and that the vehicle itself must have been lying on its side with the driver's side toward the ground. The windshield hadn't broken out of its mooring, but the glass had splintered and fractured in several places. It was covered with greenish, algae-filled water and bits of sand, making what light shown into the cab tinged the color of creamed spinach. Not exactly his favorite food. It only added to the roiling edge of nausea that plagued him. Water was dripping along what now acted as the roof, falling onto his head. A slight stinging along his scalp registered with the next drop.
He made to reach for his head, only to find that his body, still buckled into the seatbelt, was pressing against his left arm. The attempted movement was a bad idea as it caused a bolt of pain to shoot through the appendage.
Memories began to return. He remembered that after his truck had gone over the edge at Dunstan Curve it had rolled a bit to the side before it splashed down into the reservoir. He wasn't sure of all of the events that had taken place after that. But he couldn't forget the horrible gut- wrenching feel of the vehicle flipping over before hanging suspended on two tires. He didn't remember it completing its journey to come to a stop with the driver's side pressed into the muck. Muck that was creeping slowly into the cab beneath him. He needed to get out of the truck.
Sluggishly he reached for the unlocking mechanism on the seatbelt. Something hard was settled against it. He knew immediately that it was his gun. And then he remembered something else that he needed to do.
Grabbing onto the gun, he carefully unwrapped the restraining harness from around his body and then looked upward at the passenger's side door. That was his only way out. So, holding his left arm rigidly to the side, he began the arduous task of working his legs out from beneath the dash. Motion awakened new pains, as the entire left side of his body objected strenuously. But he pressed on, continuing until he managed a standing position on the driver's side window. Trying to ignore the unstable feel of the door beneath his feet, he slipped his gun into his holster and reached upward.
The passenger door was harder to push open as gravity, and a whole host of other natural laws weren't on his side. But he managed it, climbing up and through the opening. He was panting by the time he reached the top. There was nothing to do but to jump down into the muck then. The landing was exceedingly unpleasant. His legs would not hold him and he splashed face first into the stagnant waters and came up coughing, which sent fire through his midsection and the nausea into overdrive.
Great, just great. He knew without a doubt that he had suture issues again. Jesse was going to kill him. He waited, just a moment, on one trembling hand and shaky knees, for both the rushing sound in his head and the queasiness to settle down a bit. Thankfully, the darkish water was only elbow deep in that position.
Then he looked up and out and froze. Findley's truck was near the edge of the small natural watery reservoir, having come to rest just yards from the edge. Dunstan Curve overlooked the area which was little more than an acre sized oasis of water, greenery and sand. The greenery consisted of small trees, bushes and grasses which grew just off the road and down a step hill which dropped to a level where waters gathered in a natural depression of sand. Beyond the sand, rock was visible before dropping steeply off into the ocean. If ramming Findley's truck hadn't slowed him, he might have landed on the rocks and tumbled over the sheer fall into the Pacific.
The thought only increased his nausea. As it was, Findley's truck had only just missed the less forgiving rocky portion of the area. But it was completely upside down, and the front end was buried in the water. Suddenly there was moment as Findley's head appeared from beneath the surface of the water, followed by weak coughing and sputtering.
Adrenaline flooded Steve's system as he pushed himself to his feet, then almost immediately collapsed again when his left foot seemed indifferent to his brain's demand to stand. He tried again, only slightly more slowly, and succeeded in limp/staggering the distance to Findley's side, where he sank onto his knees in the waters.
Findley's eyes were closed, and his skin was parchment white, but he appeared at least partially conscious as he was propping himself up out of the water with one elbow. Steve didn't need to be a doctor to know that the man was in a lot worse shape than he was. His breathing wasn't good, and he was sure that the man wasn't going to be able to hold his position for much longer.
For a second he wasn't sure what to do. Suspecting a crush injury, and who knew what else, he knew that moving him before legitimate medical help arrived was a bad idea. Letting the man drown seemed an even worse one.
Maneuvering himself carefully, he settled into the liquid and eased his right leg beneath Findley's head, allowing the man to at least breathe without the fear of inhaling water.
At his touch, Findley's eyes creaked open, slightly glazed, but intense. "My legs . . . trapped."
Steve opened his mouth to respond, but found instead that Findley seemed to split into doubles and everything faded out for a second and then re- resolved. Steve shook his head to clear it. "I can't help you with that right, now," he managed after a second. "If I move you're going to drown."
"Let me . . . . It's only . . . fitting."
Steve didn't agree. Findley was going to face justice for his crimes if he had anything to do with it. "Vincent Findley, you are under arrest for the murder of Adam Michaels and Tessa Cohen. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right . . . . " He made it through the recitation of the Miranda Rights on auto-pilot. With the decrease of adrenaline, his own injuries were making themselves known again.
The entire left side of his body was on fire. A myriad of cuts along that portion of his body sang out against the dirty water that was seeping into them. He also suspected that he might have done some sort of damage to his left foot. The ache there was constant, and the pain in his abdominal region was intensifying. He had a sinking feeling that it might be a little worse than problems with sutures. Sitting stiffly upright wasn't helping the situation.
"Do you understand these rights as they've been explained to you?" he asked, slightly breathless as he moved his gun from its holster and shoved it into the back of his pants.
Findley looked up at him. "Yes," he whispered. He seemed to look off at nothing before focusing back on him. "She's holding . . . the light . . . for me."
Steve frowned down at the man, wondering if he had suffered some kind of brain injury that was impairing his mental faculties. He couldn't tell either way by looking into the intent gaze. He looked up and around, and as if on cue, he heard the sound of sirens and distant voices.
He could make out flashing lights up on the highway. He couldn't be sure, but he thought two of the people moving past what remained of the guardrail looked liked his father and Cheryl. They both started down the side of the decline and began weaving their way through a profusion of bushes and trees.
"Help is coming," Steve looked down and told Findley.
"Have to save her . . . " Findley replied.
"What? Save who?" That seemed an odd thing to say. Even delirious. Had someone else been in Findley's truck? But as the man continued on, Steve put the words down to just ramblings.
"Had to make you stop hurting her!" Findley accused. "Had to . . . slay the dragons." He continued to mumble words that Steve had trouble making out. But what he did catch was enough to convince him that Findley might be a couple crayons short a whole box.
"Is that why you decided to kill Jarvis?" Steve asked. The vague idea played in the back of his mind that he might somehow have discovered that Jarvis had hurt Maeve, and that it had set off the string of murders. Jarvis had been the first one to die, after all.
As Steve looked down at the man awaiting a response, he began to feel disconnected. He noticed that the man's lips moved, but he couldn't make out what the words meant.
He focused dazedly up, hoping for some point of reference. But the rushing sound was back, and seemed to be growing louder and louder. His head began to feel heavy and weave as if his neck was made of rubber and could no longer support it. The brightness of the day yellowed around the edges.
He could just make out the blurred images of Cheryl and his father hurrying toward him. They seemed so far away, yet their faces seemed close and taut with concern. He couldn't wrap his mind around precisely why that was. He only knew that they were fading away. And then everything tilted. He thought he saw the sky careening past, the quick initial buoyancy of a splash into water, and then green closed in around him as he inhaled something sharp and acrid.