Part 12 (1/2)

Time seemed to stand still, and I hesitated, inching forward. It was like a freeze-frame in a movie. A hyperaware ness had kicked in. I was suddenly aware of the crickets chirping in the hibiscus bushes in the front garden, the sweet fragrance of the magnolias drifting into the hallway. And the hammering of my own heart in my chest.

Everything seemed normal, and yet different. I took another look, squinting in the semidarkness, my heart beating like a rabbit's. Yes, the door was definitely open. A fraction of an inch.

I remembered I had left the radio on, tuned to an oldies station, and the melancholy sounds of ”Moon River” were wafting under the door. My heart lurched as I tried to make sense of the situation. I was the last one out; had I simply forgotten to pull the door shut?

The wood on the doorjamb is warped from the Florida humidity, and it takes a pretty hefty tug to close it properly. I must have been careless when I barreled down the steps with Mom, Lark, and Pugsley. That was the only logical explanation. In my eagerness to get to Sweet Dreams, I'd stupidly left the door unlocked.

Nearly giddy with relief, I felt my pulse ratchet down and I gave the door a tentative little push. It swung open immediately. The first thing I noticed was that the living room was a little darker than usual. Funny. The table lamps were turned off and the only source of light was the bright overhead fixture in the kitchen. Lark calls it the ”operating room light” because it casts a harsh white glow over the breakfast table, tingeing everything a fluorescent blue. I thought I remembered leaving a reading lamp on, the big ginger-jar one next to the sofa, but I wasn't really sure.

I shut the door quietly behind me, taking stock of the situation. Everything looked normal, the dinner dishes still sitting in the sink, the sliding door opening onto the balcony, Pugsley's chew toy lying on the Navajo rug.

And of course, the silky notes of ”Moon River” drifting out from the radio.

I was fumbling for the light switch when suddenly a figure clad all in black dashed out of the bedroom and rushed straight toward me. Instant panic. A scream froze in my throat as my mind scrabbled in a million directions, trying to come to terms with the unthinkable.

I was going to die. Or suffer horribly, or be torn apart, or maybe even be eaten alive. (I'm embarra.s.sed to say that being threatened with death tends to bring out the drama queen in me. It would probably take years of a.n.a.lysis to explain this annoying personality quirk.) Images of every slasher flick I'd ever seen flipped crazily through my mind, like I'd uncovered a giant Rolodex of B movies. Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, all whizzed by at twenty-four frames a second.

The intruder leapt toward me like a panther. My heart lurched as I jumped to one side, but I was too slow and I slammed my knee against the sharp edge of the end table. It was like being trapped in one of those awful anxiety dreams when you try to run but your legs have suddenly turned to concrete and you flail helplessly, rooted to the spot.

I felt a powerful body pinning me against the wall, and then I dimly saw a hand raised in the air, followed by a cras.h.i.+ng blow to my head. A stick? A baton? A baseball bat?

Whatever it was, it hurt like h.e.l.l.

I was down for the count, my nails scrabbling the length of the wall as I crumpled to the floor. I was vaguely aware of the front door opening and shutting.

The intruder had left. I knew that I had to get up, find the phone, and dial 911. But somehow, it all seemed like too much trouble, and I could feel my eyelids fluttering like b.u.t.terflies as the darkness started to close in on me, warm and comforting.

As I drifted into oblivion, the song played on, the lyrics blending with my scattered thoughts, just below the level of consciousness. Who had just broken into the condo? Who had hit me over the head? I took shallow breaths, kept my eyes tightly shut, and listened to the final stanza of ”Moon River,” trying to figure out the puzzle. It's a beautiful song, but Andy Williams was no help at all, crooning about dream makers and heartbreakers.

Because whoever had hit me over the head certainly wasn't my huckleberry friend.

”OhmiG.o.d, ohmiG.o.d, ohmiG.o.d,” I could hear Lark chanting. I was still flat out on the floor, and she was bending over me, while Pugsley swiped me with his fat tongue, treating me to a blast of doggie breath. ”Maggie, are you all right?” she shrieked.

”Of course she's not all right,” I heard Mom say. ”She's got a lump on her head the size of a golf ball. Somebody must have really walloped her.”

I made a halfhearted motion to sit up and was immediately hit by a wave of dizziness and nausea. ”Just stay still, Maggie,” Lark implored as she eased me back down. ”The paramedics will be here any minute.”

”Para . . . ?”

”Paramedics.”

”Don' need para, para, whatever you said,” I mumbled. My voice sounded as thick as if I'd been on a weekend bender, and I could hardly get my tongue around the words. I gingerly touched the tip of my tongue to the roof of my mouth and tasted blood. Was I missing any teeth? Maybe my jaw was dislocated. I had a sharp pain on the left side of my face, and it felt like someone was jamming me in the ear with a screwdriver, the remnants of an old TMJ problem.

”Who could have done this?” Lark wailed. ”Maggie, did you see who it was? Was it just one person, or was there a gang? And how in the world did they get in?”

”Shhh,” Mom said, kneeling down next to me and taking my hand. ”She's not supposed to talk.”

”Why noth?” I gurgled.

”Well, because . . .” Mom shot me a quizzical look. She thought for a moment, idly rubbing my hair back from my face. ”That's what they told us on Stolen Pa.s.sions. I played a nurse and Marco was brought into the ER with a concussion, remember? I said to him, 'Don't try to talk.' ” She used her throaty television voice and played the line as if she was doing a final taping. ”It was just one line, but I put my heart and soul into it.” She paused for effect. ”Don't try to talk.”

She looked at me. ”I said it just like that, with that exact intonation.”

”Tha.s.s amazing. How dith you rumembah dat?” I said with an effort. ”The parth 'bout not tawking if you haf a concuss'n.”

”Rumembah? Oh, remember. You always remember your first line in the business, dear,” she said cheerfully. ”Three years of waiting tables and finally my big break. A speaking part in a soap!”

I tried to get up but sank back to the floor. It was easier to think lying down, I decided. At least the living room had stopped twirling like a Cirque du Soleil dancer on a silk streamer, and I could feel myself drifting off to sleep.

It was only later, when I was being lifted into an ambulance on a stretcher, that I realized Lola was still holding my hand, her face a mask of worry. ”Sho whah happened to Mahco in the hoshpital?” I said gamely, trying to lift her spirits. ”On Shtolen Pas.h.i.+ons. Did he evah talk aftuh you ashed him not to?”

Mom smiled. ”Mahco?” She looked blank. ”Oh, Marco. No, dear, Marco never talked again. Well, not after Rinaldo broke into Seabrooke General and shot him in the head.” She turned to the paramedic, who was a dead ringer for Edward Norton. ”Memory loss,” she said in a stage whisper. She tapped her own temple to demonstrate postconcussion amnesia. ”Could be the sign of a head trauma, you know. Probably something you'll want to mention to the doctor.” He nodded, hopped in after me, and closed the ambulance doors behind him.

Just before I drifted off to sleep again, I saw Mom waving a hanky at me through the window.

When I woke up half an hour later, I was in Mayberry.

There was Opie at my side, staring at my IV pole. Just the two of us. I blinked twice. Yep, he was still standing there, in full cop regalia, looking a little pale around gills, his freckles standing out like a bad case of chicken pox against his white skin. Either I looked worse than I imagined, or he just had a thing about hospitals.

Then I realized we weren't alone and we probably weren't even in Mayberry. The hunky-yet-annoying Rafe Martino was standing in the corner of the cubicle talking to Mom and Lark, who seemed to be hanging on his every word.

Then I heard a soft woof and glanced down at the floor. Pugsley! Sitting in his oh-so-chic yellow and black tartan dog carrier, a knockoff of an Abercrombie and Fitch model I saw at a doggie boutique at the Sawgra.s.s Mills. He was pawing at the mesh door to get out, his little feet tapping a sharp staccato that set my teeth on edge.

”How'd you get the dog in here?” I said slowly. Every word was an effort. I was surprised to find that my voice was thin and hollow, hardly more than a whisper. I sounded like I was a hundred and ten years old. I felt strangely distant from everything, one level removed, as if I was watching a not-very-entertaining movie.

And I wasn't really in a hospital room, I realized, doing a quick survey. But it was definitely some sort of medical center, maybe an emergency room. It looked like a holding area, because I was lying on a hard metal table with a canvas curtain drawn for privacy. From the horrible sounds coming from outside the curtain, I'm glad I didn't have access to the visual. I heard a series of piercing wails, a few m.u.f.fled Spanish curses, and what sounded like somebody coughing up a lung.

”The dog,” I repeated in a stronger voice. ”What's he doing here?”

This time three faces turned to me, and Mom rushed over to cover my forehead with kisses. ”You're awake! Thank G.o.d! We've been so worried about you. They think you might have a concussion.”

”The dog,” I said with great effort. ”How did you ever sneak Pugsley in here?”

Mom looked puzzled. ”Well, we didn't have a choice. We had to bring him with us,” she said, glancing at Martino, ”because your whole apartment is a crime scene. Just like on CSI.”

”A crime scene?” I vaguely remembered being hit on the head. Maybe I had a brain injury.

And it must have been a h.e.l.l of a wallop, because I couldn't stop thinking about Andy Williams.

She couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice. ”They have people dusting for fingerprints and looking for trace evidence.” Trace evidence? She lowered her voice as if she was about to reveal the secrets of the universe. ”I overheard them talking. They're doing a BOLO on a guy in a Ford Mustang. BOLO means 'be on the lookout for.' It's cop talk.”

I nodded. ”That's nice.” I had no idea what she was talking about.

”Your neighbor, Mrs. Higgins, saw the Mustang parked down the street. And she's never seen it there before so we think it might belong to the perp.”

I tried not to smile. The perp? What perp?