Chapter Five

Behind the Curtain

VINCENT HAD WANTED some time alone to think since the attack, and now he had it, he wished for a distraction. Sam and Henry wouldn’t be back until the following morning, and after a dinner consisting of baked chicken, steamed rice, and green beans that he did little more than push around his plate, he had the whole night ahead of him to mull over his discussion with the detectives.

Not that there was much to it. Nothing was adding up, and he’d reached a point where he didn’t think there was anyone else left who could answer his questions. The idea made it hard to breathe—to think he’d never know what had really happened in those woods. That James would just disappear from his life. There and gone in a blink of an eye.

It wasn’t long before he called for his nurse to hand him the remote for the mounted TV beside the door. He flipped through the channels, searching for anything to pull his focus. Every show seemed so grossly detached from his reality it only made him feel worse. Plastic women screaming at each other in lavish mansions. Eager people answering trivia questions for more money than they probably made in a year. Hour-long dramas and half-hour comedies where order is restored and a lesson is learned in the confines of an episode.

All that was left was the local news, and the possibility that he might run across a story covering their attack compelled him to turn it off. The ensuing silence was even more unbearable. He looked around his room for something else to occupy his time. Sam’s bag was on the chair closest to him. He couldn’t reach it, but she had already shown him what was inside. A set of clothes to change into after he got his restraints off. A few schoolbooks in case he wanted to catch up on classes. His laptop. They all seemed to belong to someone from a separate life.

Vincent lay there, trying to breathe and think about a happy memory and all the other shit James used to tell him when he talked him down from panic attacks. Nothing worked. All his questions tugged at his mind like a child on a parent’s pant leg. He tried to get in a comfortable position to fall asleep, but between his ribs and the restraints, it was a fruitless effort. He was too restless to sleep anyway.

A distraction wasn’t enough. He needed something stronger. Something to bring him as close as he could get to oblivion without dying. A couple of blunts or a bottle of vodka would do the trick, but they weren’t exactly easy to obtain when shackled to a hospital bed. It didn’t mean, however, that the hospital didn’t have its own perks.

He called for the nurse, and when she showed up, he explained, “I’m in a lot of pain, and I can’t get comfortable.”

He resisted the urge to actively wince, which was probably a wise choice because his night nurse, an older, no-nonsense woman, didn’t look convinced. “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?”

He stopped himself from going right to ten. Or nine. “Eight.”

Her expression didn’t change. “Okay, I’ll have your doctor order something in for your pain.”

The nurse returned half an hour later. Three syringes like before. When she finished, he asked her to draw the curtains around his bed; then he was floating again. The volume of his mind had been turned down to a faint whisper. The relief was so intoxicating that going to sleep seemed like an utter waste.

He looked around him at the pea-green curtains and the halo of light pouring in from the gap between the bottom of the curtains and the floor. How beautiful—the way it glowed. He could almost feel the warmth radiating off it as if it were sunlight. Even when he shut his eyes to rest them, he pictured it in his mind.

 

THE WARMTH HAD dwindled when he woke up. He yawned and went to check the time, but the clock on the wall was obscured by the curtain around his bed. The light leaking under the bottom of the curtain was little help. The hall lights remained on day and night. He searched the gap between the curtain and floor for the warmth he’d found there when he’d been pumped full of pain medicine.

What he found was a piece missing from the ring of light at the bottom of his bed. Something blocked out the light from the hall. He blinked away the fog of sleep and focused his eyes. There was a pair of boots caked in mud. The sight was so strange he just stared at them for a moment before they moved, and their significance registered.

Someone was standing at the bottom of his bed.

Someone with muddy boots who wasn’t making himself known.

Oh God.

Their attackers.

One of them had found him. Tracked him down to finish the job the group had started in Panther Hollow. The boots moved around the bed toward him. Flakes of dirt littered the white linoleum in their wake. The curtain moved, hands searching for an opening.

He had to run. Jump out the other side of the bed and get help, his pain be damned. He went to sit up in bed, but the restraints pulled him back down. Fuck. His wrists were still cuffed to the guardrails on either side of his bed. He was trapped, his life in the hands of someone who’d already tried to kill him, and this time, he was alone and truly defenseless.

His heart beat so fast he was sure it’d explode at any second. He squirmed, trying to slip out of his restraints in spite of the knowledge that they wouldn’t break. He had to do something to prevent his inevitable demise. The curtain jumped as the intruder hunted for the opening. Tears filled his eyes. Vincent jerked his arms back as hard as he could in the hope of snapping the restraints, but all it did was make the guardrails shake and clatter against the bed.

The fabric went still, and the boots stopped in their tracks. Vincent froze. The intruder’s heavy breaths filled the silence. What was he waiting for? Did he think Vincent was asleep or something? If so, Vincent wasn’t sure why that mattered. Awake or asleep, he was helpless, and the intruder could kill him long before someone could get to his room to help him.

Vincent sank back in the bed. Maybe it was for the best. To end his torment. If James was really gone, he wouldn’t survive this anyway. His death would be the more humane thing to do. Like putting down a suffering family pet.

The only problem was that whoever was on the other side of the curtain wasn’t compelled by humanitarian intentions. His death wouldn’t be a quick or painless end, especially after he’d had the audacity to survive their first attack. The intruder would make him suffer. Torture him until he could only hope for the relief of death.

No.

He needed to do something and do it quickly. The man resumed his search, pushing into the fabric in a more hurried, frantic manner. He’d find the opening any second. Running wasn’t an option. Neither was fighting. Vincent could scream for help, but that could make the intruder end his life long before anyone reached him. After all, it took less than a second to pull a trigger.

An idea hit him then. The call button. He could press it, and his nurse could be on her way before the intruder realized he was calling for help. The last time he had seen it, the remote was wrapped around his guardrail, but now it was nowhere to be found. Gone. Just fucking gone. He must have knocked it off the bed in his sleep.

The curtain grazed against his arm, and he stifled a scream. Only then, mouth clamped shut, did the pieces fall into place. Drawing attention to himself might make the intruder kill him faster, but the intruder didn’t want to make a scene. Why else would he search so quietly for the opening and stop when he thought he’d woken Vincent?

They weren’t in a secluded park at night. They were in a hospital full of patients, workers, and security guards around the clock. A gunshot would draw attention. The intruder probably planned on killing him in his sleep and sneaking away before anyone noticed he was dead.

But Vincent wasn’t going out quietly.

He took in a deep breath and squeezed the plastic railings to fight the pain that erupted in his chest from filling his lungs with air. And then he screamed—a broken, guttural scream that filled the room. Hands pushed through the curtain, searching for his neck to strangle him. He wildly thrashed his body and continued to scream despite the pain and fear and hands demanding his stillness and silence.

The next thing he knew, the curtains were ripped back with a metallic screech and light flooded his bed. Someone was screaming at him. A feminine voice. Vincent stopped fighting and focused on the figure who stood over him. Not one of his attackers, but his nurse. “You have to calm down and tell me what’s wrong if you want me to help you!”

“He—was—trying—to kill me,” he said between breaths.

Her wrinkled face didn’t fill with shock or horror. It softened. “You must have had a nightmare.”

“No, this was real. I swear.” He searched the room to no avail.

“Talk to me. What do you think happened?” If her raised eyebrow wasn’t enough to ensure him she didn’t believe a word he said, the way she phrased her question confirmed it.

He probably sounded insane, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t imagined or dreamed it. This was real. He was positive. His intruder must have run from the room before his nurse got there. “He was trying to kill me.”

“Who was trying to kill you?” She spoke in such an exasperated manner Vincent might as well have told her the sky was falling.

Doubt stabbed at him, but he scoured the room for any evidence of the attack. The intruder couldn’t have escaped without a trace. He spotted a trail of dirt running from his bed to the hall, and despite the knowledge that his attackers had found him and intended to kill him, he took solace in this confirmation of his sanity.

He pointed to the dirt. “Whoever left that.”

 

VINCENT WAS SO used to being questioned and dismissed that, even staring right at the proof of his intruder’s presence, he was surprised they believed him. His nurse remained by his side until security arrived. He must not have hidden the pain that riddled his body too well because she asked if he needed anything for it. He did, but he told her he was fine. If he’d been out of it when the intruder arrived, then he’d be dead. He had to keep his wits about him.

After he talked to the security guards, the police were called, and within another hour, Ralbovsky—eyes puffy, hair askew, shirt untucked—and Tillman—looking as clean and professional at four in the morning as she had the previous afternoon—were at his bedside.

Ralbovsky didn’t take notes. His hands were wrapped around a thermos. “So, the guy just slowly walked around your bed?”

“Like I said, I think he must have assumed I was asleep. As soon as I screamed, he tried to strangle me.” Vincent made an effort to keep his voice level, even after Ralbovsky refocused his attention on his coffee midway through his answer. He should have known clear proof would do little to convince that idiot of anything he said.

Tillman took the reins. “How do you know he was a man? Did he say anything?”

“He was breathing heavily. And they were all male. In the park.” This wasn’t exactly rocket science.

Ralbovsky tipped the thermos back, and coffee ran down his chin and onto his shirt. “Ah, shit.”

He went to the bathroom and didn’t shut the door in his rush. He pulled a handful of paper towels from the dispenser, ran them under the tap, and scrubbed his shirt, swearing under his breath.

“Anyway,” Tillman said, “what makes you think it was one of them?”

The more questions she asked, the more Vincent wondered if she and Ralbovsky were a perfect match for each other. “I don’t know anyone else who wants to kill me.”

“But you didn’t see or hear anything in particular that made you think it was one of them?”

“The boots,” Vincent said, a little louder to ensure that Ralbovsky heard him as he walked back over to his chair. “The trail was muddy that night.”

Ralbovsky plopped down beside Tillman. “Did the boots look the same as one of theirs?”

“I don’t know, but they were covered in dried dirt.” The shit was all over his room, and his nurse, the security guard, and the detectives had trudged through it. He expected a forensic team to try to lift a shoe print or something off it, but apparently, this didn’t warrant such care.

“It’s been jumping between rain and snow the last few days. Everything is a little muddy by this point.”

“And the attack happened a week ago,” Tillman said. Vincent’s expression must have somehow conveyed his sentiment of “so what?” because she added, “The mud on their shoes has probably been cleaned or fallen off by this point.”

Ralbovsky got to his feet. “Think about it. In the meantime, we are going to go talk to some workers and check the security footage, and we’ll be back to talk to you soon.”

Tillman said something else to him before they left, but Vincent wasn’t listening. The security cameras. They would have caught the intruder coming into his room. How could the detectives dismiss what was so clearly an attack after they saw the footage of it happening? They’d probably come back with their tails between their legs, cursing that they didn’t get someone to examine the dirt before everyone, themselves included, ruined the evidence.

They returned far sooner than he expected. Within half an hour, the pair sat beside his bed, Ralbovsky clutching a few sheets of paper. Tillman explained that the person who they believed came into his room nearly knocked over a phlebotomist and her cart down the hall when he fled.

“She didn’t get a good look at him, but she said he seemed disoriented and confused,” Tillman said.

Vincent supposed anyone who ran into someone would seem disoriented, but he kept that to himself. “What about the security cameras?”

Ralbovsky flipped through the pages in his hand. “With her description, we believe we have footage of the guy entering and exiting the hospital. But he doesn’t fit any of the descriptions of your attackers.”

Before Vincent had the chance to ask for the photos, Ralbovsky laid them down across his lap. The blurry black-and-white photos showed a man with a hoodie on that made his face impossible to see at the angle of the camera. He was too thin to be the stocky man, too short to be the tall man, and too solid to be the kid. They were right; he didn’t fit the descriptions of any of the assholes who’d landed him in the hospital.

That didn’t mean, however, that they didn’t have another friend who shared their views on gay men. Maybe they hired him to finish the job, knowing that, whether they succeeded or not, they risked being identified.

Looking at the photograph, Vincent couldn’t shake the feeling that the figure looked familiar. Like he knew those broad shoulders, those toned arms, those long legs. It was only a feeling, and one he knew would make him sound insane if he vocalized it, but it colored the events of the night in a far more sinister light.

“Given your description of the events as well as those of the workers who came across him, we think it may have been a troubled or unstable individual who you were unlucky enough to come across,” Tillman said.

Ralbovsky collected the photographs. “Maybe a former patient or someone who was looking for a loved one.”

Vincent couldn’t believe they had somehow managed to explain this one away. “Doesn’t that seem like an awfully large coincidence?”

“Just as a precaution, we will have a security guard outside your room to ensure that you don’t get any more unwanted visitors,” Tillman said. “Feel free to call us if anything else comes up or if you remember more from that night.”

They got up and left with a few halfhearted comments about getting sleep and feeling better. They walked right through the dirt on the floor on their way out, crushing any remaining hope of getting some useful evidence out of it.

Even with the security guard sitting in a chair just outside his room, Vincent was awake for the rest of the night. What little faith he had in the detectives had broken apart into useless pieces like the dirt on the ground that a custodian swept away in the morning. Someone was after him. Someone who was probably connected to the fuckers who had attacked them but also somehow looked familiar. Whoever the intruder was, the night had made one thing crystal clear in Vincent’s mind.

He was on his own.