Paveeth fell to the floor, Shannon falling with him and landing hard on the cult leader’s chest. Paveeth was still grabbing for his gun hand. Shannon lifted his right arm as much as his injured shoulder allowed and punched Paveeth in the face. He did it again and again, each time only being able to lift his hand a few inches above the cult leader’s face before striking down.
Paveeth let out a whimper and quit his struggling. Shannon didn’t notice. As he stared at the cult leader’s face, the image dissolved into a sea of redness. He felt nothing but numbness as he lifted his fist the several inches his shoulder allowed and slammed it into Paveeth’s face over and over again. Then someone was pulling him off, and through the red haze he could see Maguire, his friend’s eyes like silver dollars as he took in the room.
“Jesus, Bill, you’re going to kill the dude,” Maguire was saying.
Shannon felt very cold then. So cold. He let himself be pulled off. Then he lay down. Consciousness flickered off and on. He was aware of being loaded onto a stretcher. Then nothing but blackness until he opened his eyes and saw Daniels staring at him with concern.
“How’s Susan?” he asked.
“She’s going to be okay.” Daniels tongue flicked out and licked his lips. “That.38 snub nose… Wake up, Bill, goddamit, open your eyes! That.38, you got it off one of the cult members here, right? Just nod your head, okay?”
Shannon nodded. The room tilted sideways and he fell into a deep blackness again.
When he opened his eyes, he felt groggy and his shoulder throbbed as if nails had been hammered into it. After a dazed moment, he realized he was in a hospital bed. His shoulder was heavily bandaged, so was his right hand, the one he ripped open on the fence. As he became more aware, he felt a small hand holding his undamaged hand. He moved his head to the side and saw Susan, her eyes and nose both red. She broke into a big lopsided smile. Then the dam burst open and tears streamed down her cheeks as she laughed and cried at the same time.
“Bill, I’ve been so worried about you.”
Shannon tried to ask her if she was okay, but his throat was too dry and his voice came out as a hoarse whisper. Susan fought back her tears and held up a glass of water. Shannon drank a little of it through a straw. He tried again, asking her how she was.
“I’m okay, Bill. They didn’t hurt me.”
“All I could think when I saw you tied up like that…”
“I know, hon. Please, don’t think about it. I’m fine, I really am.” She tried smiling. “Guess who came by and donated blood for you?”
Shannon didn’t say anything, his mind still too fuzzy to think clearly and guess the obvious.
“Eli. You have two pints of his blood in you now.”
“Shit. I’ve got blood from a Yankee fan coursing through me? Damn, he’ll try anything to bring me over to the dark side. He didn’t get me a Derek Jeter tattoo while I was out?”
Susan choked up as she shook her head, her eyes filling up with tears. The emotion was too much for her, and she started weeping again. Shannon watched helplessly, wanting to do something to comfort her.
“You lost so much blood, hon,” she said when she could, showing him the saddest clown smile he’d ever seen. “The doctors told me most people wouldn’t have made it, but you fought hard and you’re going to be okay. But I came so close to losing you.”
“You’re not going to lose me. Darling, you’re lucky, but not that lucky.” He winced. It felt like more nails were being hammered into his body. “My shoulder…”
“I know. It hurts. They had to reconstruct it. But they told me it should be as good as new someday. If you need to, you can press that button for more morphine.”
Shannon saw the button Susan was pointing out. He pressed it several times.
“What about Anil Paveeth -”
“They arrested him.” She brought his undamaged hand to her mouth and brushed her lips softly against it. “Let’s not talk anymore. Just close your eyes and rest for now.”
Shannon did as she asked. He felt Susan slide into the hospital bed next to him and drape his good arm around her while nestling her head against his shoulder. Her face was so wet with tears that it got his hospital gown wet, but he didn’t mind. Even with his wounded shoulder throbbing away, he felt at peace. With the morphine kicking in, he drifted off into something warm.
At some point he became aware again of the dull throbbing ache in his shoulder, and when he opened his eyes Susan was gone. He glanced sideways and saw Daniels standing to the side of him with his arms folded and his face set in a morose frown. When he noticed Shannon’s eyes had opened, he pulled up a chair next to the bed and sat down.
“Where’s Susan?” Shannon asked.
“She’s giving me a few minutes so we can talk privately.” Daniels forced a smile. “What a day yesterday, huh?”
“Yeah, what a day.” Shannon reached up and found the button controlling his morphine flow and pushed it several times. “What happened to the great almighty Vishna?”
Daniels smile turned hard. “He doesn’t look all that almighty now. You did a good job revealing what was behind the curtain, and an even better job bruising that sonofabitch up. I think you even knocked him out for a few minutes. If your shoulder hadn’t been shot up you would’ve killed him.”
“But you arrested him?”
“We will. Right now we’re holding him, and he’s giving the impression of cooperating with us. Your friend, Mike Maguire, told us about the porn films you found. That sex shop has been shut down and all the DVDs confiscated. The Feds are involved now.”
“Paveeth admitted to making those porn films with Carver and Linda Gibson?”
“Yeah, he has, but he’s denying any knowledge of their murders. Maybe when you get out you can sit in on some of the questioning.” Daniels lowered his voice, edged closer to Shannon. “He’s claiming he had nothing to do with that dungeon-that those Russians took over once Carver and Gibson were killed and started making their own films without his knowledge.”
“That’s bullshit. What did he think that dungeon was for?”
“Discipline.” Daniels shrugged in response to the look Shannon gave him. “His word, not mine.”
“Yeah, right, he was shooting the video when I went down there.”
“I know. I saw the video and it clearly shows that you acted in self-defense. No charges are going to be brought against you.”
“Thanks. What do you know about the Russians?”
“According to Paveeth, Carver brought them in to distribute their films. Supposedly they used the opportunity of Carver being killed to take a more active role in the operations. To hear Paveeth tell it, he was a virtual prisoner to them.”
“Any idea yet who they are?”
Daniels shook his head. “I’ve got a feeling the Feds do, but they’re not saying anything. My gut’s telling me that they’re part of some nasty international porn ring.” He paused, rubbing a thick hand across his jaw. “Bill, we found other videos they made. As sick as you can possibly imagine. These bastards were making rape and torture videos. In three of them they killed the girls. Those videos are enough to get Paveeth a lethal injection, but we’re keeping quiet about that for now. He’s trying hard to sell those two dead Russians down the river and pin the whole works on them and we’re letting him think we’re buying it, see if we can get more out of him about Carver and Gibson.”
A dull throbbing started behind Shannon’s eyes knowing what they had in mind for Susan. He asked whether one of the women killed was a redhead who could’ve looked like a young Meg Ryan.
Daniels thought about it and nodded grimly.
“She had tried to leave the cult,” Shannon said. “She complained to someone I know that Paveeth was a false prophet. I guess they found her. What about the other cult members?”
“A few of them scattered, including Alvin Guthrop. We’re looking for him now. Duane Sweenski’s here in the hospital. They’re trying to see how much of his face they can save. We’re going to be charging him with whatever we can when he gets out. We’re holding the women we picked up as material witnesses. Most of them are in pretty rough shape and being held here in the psych ward. I’ve talked to the DA and we’re going to consider them victims, regardless of where they were in the hierarchy.”
