Hook, Line & Sinker (Part IV)

Kelsie wanted to scream, but she couldn’t draw breath. The pillow was held so tightly to her face that inhaling wasn’t an option. She bucked her tired body. Her arms flailed and she kicked her legs out blindly. She needed to make contact.

Her fingernails dug into the backs of her would-be murderer’s hands. Skin bunched up beneath her fingernails. She heard a grunt. It sounded male, but she wasn’t sure. Her head was spinning from lack of oxygen.

Panic threatened to take hold, but she fought to tamp it down. The post-drowning brain fog was clinging to her mind. Focus slipped further and further away.

She felt around the bed for something she could use as a weapon. The remote with the call button on it was under her pillow. She grabbed it and swung like her life depended on it. A crack rang out when she felt it connect. The pressure of the pillow lessened by the smallest amount. That was all she needed.

Kelsie pushed herself up with all her strength and fell out of the bed. The IV was ripped from the notch in her elbow. Blood sprayed the floor. Her hand slipped in the red splatter as she tried to gain purchase. She tasted iron.

Her head snapped back when she tried to run. She felt herself being lifted into the air. Her back was pressed up against her attacker's chest. They covered her mouth and nose with a strong, callused hand. She felt their breath against the back of her head. A cough lodged in her throat. She swung her head backward and felt their nose collapse. She hit the ground hard. The wind was knocked out of her, but she still found the strength to run, gasping for air.

Adrenaline drove her forward. Her feet slid around as she raced through the tiled hallway. She wasn’t sure if the hospital socks would have been better or worse. The nurses' station was ahead, but she saw no one there. She dove behind the desks and pulled her knees into her chest. Her arm throbbed. She looked down and saw blood already pooling beside her. Her gown was streaked with red.

She tried to catch her breath. It wasn't easy to breathe quietly. Quick footsteps came in her direction. Her eyes darted back and forth. There were two entrances to the nursing station and she didn’t know which they’d choose.

The footsteps grew closer. She imagined them calculating their next move. Her anxiety was through the roof. She was in full survival mode.

Suddenly, the footsteps picked up speed. They were heading right for her hiding spot. The outline of a person appeared in the red glow of the emergency exit lights above. She held her breath. The shadow moved into a crouching position. Kelsie thought her heart would burst through her chest. She raised her fists; prepared to fight.

“Oh shit,” said an older curly-haired nurse.

Kelsie must have looked like a ghost. A bloody ghost with wild hair and bloodshot eyes. She was too scared to say anything. Her body started to shake.

“Oh, honey,” the nurse said. “Let’s get you back to bed, now.”

Relief hit Kelsie like a tidal wave. She wasn’t alone anymore. Tears welled up in her eyes and ran down her face. She couldn't hold it in any longer. The amount of adrenaline that had coursed through her veins dropped faster than a four-ounce sinker.

She needed to tell this woman that she was in danger. That she had just been attacked. That her room was a mess and she didn’t feel safe anymore. She wanted her phone, the police, and maybe a personal bodyguard.

“I—I…” she tried.

“You’re ok, now. Come with Althea, baby.”

“No. No, I—I need to—”

“You need to get back to bed, baby,” Althea said.

“No!” Kelsie said sternly. Althea’s face fell. She looked like she knew things were about to get ugly and was debating whether or not to call security. “There—” Kelsie cleared her throat. “There was someone—a man I think—in my room. They—he attacked me. He attacked me. We need to call the police.”

The look Althea gave her said she’d heard it all before. She was the late shift nurse. She’d seen all the weird the world had to offer.

“Luh—look,” Kelsie said. She was freezing all of a sudden. Her teeth chattered. “I kn—know th—this sounds crazy, b—but c—call security. Have th—them walk m—me to m—my room.”

Althea sighed. “If that will get you back to your room. You’re bleeding all over the place.”

The nurse picked up the phone to call security. When someone arrived, Kelsie let them both help her to her feet. Her knees buckled when she stood. The guard caught her before she collapsed completely. Althea rolled a wheelchair over to her. When Kelsie sat down the nurse wrapped her in a blanket and taped a thick square of gauze over the wound in her arm.

“Let’s go,” Althea said.

They followed Kelsie’s blood trail back to her room. Her heart rate started to climb as they grew nearer. She knew that her assailant wouldn’t be inside, but some part of her worried that he was. PTSD was no joke. She would hold onto this for a long time.

The security guard stopped just inside the room. The IV pole was on the ground and the monitors were beeping loudly. The bed was in shambles. Blood splattered the floor and a long streak of red ended in a smudged handprint. Kelsie’s stomach flipped. She worried the eggplant might make a second appearance.  

“Okay…” Althea said. “Maybe we should find you new accommodations…”

“And call the police,” she had stopped shivering thanks to the warm blanket. It felt like it had just come out of the dryer.

“I’ll get maintenance in here,” the security guard said.

“No! We have to call the police. Please, trust me,” Kelsie begged. “Ask for Officers Peretti, Shepherd, and Beaumont.”

Althea looked her up and down. She wasn’t sure what to make of the situation, but she said she would call anyway. Kelsie asked the guard for her phone, which had fallen on the floor in the struggle.

“If someone attacked you then you need to leave everything as it is,” he said. She looked up at him, “Retired police force.” She nodded in understanding.

When Althea returned she said the police were on their way. She closed and locked the door to the room behind them. “We’ll get your things later, honey,” she said.

The guard rolled her wheelchair across the hall to a new room. She stayed there while Althea made up the bed and cleaned up her wound. The tear in her skin was significant. She would need stitches. It was looking more and more like her fishing trip would be anything but. She groaned in frustration.

“I’m so sorry honey, did I hurt you?” Althea asked.

Kelsie sighed, “No,” she said. “I was just thinking about the lack of fishing I’ve done up until this point.”

“Well you’re not about to do more with your arm like this,” Althea said in a no-nonsense tone.

Kelsie knew better than to say anything back. This nurse meant business. She was there to protect people’s health and was probably tenured. Poking the bear was not a good idea. She let Althea tend to her in silence.

There was a knock at the door. Officers Shepherd and Peretti stood at the threshold. She was glad to see the two of them. Her head hurt too much to deal with Beaumont.  

“Hey there,” Shepherd said. “You ready to talk about this?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” Kelsie replied. Exhaustion coated her voice. Between drowning and running for her life, everything felt raw.

She told them what happened. Officer Baby Gap made an appearance at the end of her recounting. He was with the plainclothes officer who had attempted to go through her phone by the river.

“So, this was about midnight?” Plainclothes asked.

“Correct, Mister…”

“Detective Russell,” he said.

“That’s correct Detective,” she replied.

“And how do we know that for sure?” Beaumont asked.

“Because I deliberately checked the time. I had to use the bathroom and I was going to call for help. When I saw how late it was I decided not to. Mikayla, the nurse before Althea, had said she switched off at about midnight. I didn’t want to be the reason she left late.” She shifted uncomfortably. Her arm was in a lot of pain and the fatigue was becoming difficult to fight off.

Althea put her hand on Kelsie’s shoulder and gently guided her back. She rested on the raised part of the bed. The nurse had adjusted it so Kelsie could still see the officers without straining.

There were different bags of fluid lying on a cart next to her bed. She hoped one of those would grant her some pain relief because she had graduated from being at the Percocet level.  Her pain tolerance wasn’t high. Roughly average. If Althea handed her the chart Mikayla had given her she’d choose a well-rounded eight.

“Let’s wrap this up before she’s given pain meds,” Peretti said.

"I got clearance from the doctor for that, so you'd best talk quickly," Althea volunteered.

“How did you escape?” the Detective asked.

Kelsie reached for the remote that had the settings for the bed and the call button on it. “I hit him with this first. When he was holding me I kind of reverse-head-butted him. Hurt like a mother—”

“Language,” Althea interrupted. Everyone stared at her. The nurse was entirely unbothered.

Kelsie hid her amusement with a cough. “It was very painful,” she said.  

“I’m putting her on Dilaudid now," Althea said to the room. "Finish your questions. She needs to rest. The doctor will be around.” The no-nonsense tone was back. Kelsie bit back a smile. This woman had no problem whipping a whole room into shape.

“Now hold on a minute,” Beaumont tried. His hand made a gesture as though it was cutting through the air.

The look Althea shot him could have melted steel. He stepped back and looked away from her. The Detective closed his notebook. Peretti nodded at Kelsie and left the room. Beaumont and Russell followed behind.

Shepherd stepped forward and handed her a card. “That’s my card,” she said. “Should have given it to you before. I’m sorry that I didn’t.”

“I’m just glad you’re here now,” Kelsie said.

A forensic technician walked into the room. They handed her phone to her without even a hello. It had been dusted for fingerprints she realized. She held the phone with a thumb and forefinger to keep from getting the powder all over herself.

Althea rolled her eyes at the tech and held out her hand for Kelsie’s phone. She said something under her breath in annoyance, but Kelsie didn’t understand her words. When she returned her phone was clean and smelled like disinfectant.

“Wow! So much better. Thank you,” Kelsie said. The person in the white jumpsuit clasped their hands together and bowed. Kelsie’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

The technician motioned for her hand. Kelsie placed her hands in theirs and the technician took out what looked like a manicure set. She snatched her hands back protectively.

"Sorry," a nervous feminine voice said. The person reached up and pulled back the hood that encircled their face. Then she dropped the facemask for long enough to let Kelsie look her over. "I'm here to see if there's DNA beneath your fingernails."

Kelsie's mind flashed back to dragging her nails across the skin of her attacker. A shiver ran down her spine at the memory. That feeling of helplessness. She didn't want anyone else to feel that way. She gave her hands back to the technician.

"There's our brave girl," she said to Kelsie.

"She's not five years old, Kowalski," Shepherd said to the tech.

"Sorry," Kowalski's cheeks went red. She did her job quickly and left.

“Well, that was awkward,” Shepherd said.

“Little bit,” Kelsie added. She was starting to feel better. The pain relief was so dramatic that she thought she might be able to sleep after all. She did worry that residual fear would keep her awake, however.

Shepherd left, but Althea stood by her bed until the doctor came in. Kelsie barely remembered the interaction with the doctor. All she recalled was being stitched in the arm and a very bright light. She was told by someone that there was a guard at her door, too, which made her feel protected. Her eyelids slid closed without her say-so.

“She should be dead,” she heard someone say through the haze of pain relief, blood loss, and exhaustion.

“I know. Amazing she survived that,” Althea replied.

“It is. Listen, can you tell me if you saw anything unusual in the hospital last night or this morning? Did anyone or anything strike you as out of place?” Kelsie recognized Shepherd’s voice, then. She had returned to talk with Althea. Having seen the Dilaudid administered she probably assumed Kelsie would be asleep.

Althea paused before answering. It felt like it took a long time for her to respond, but Kelsie’s sense of time was skewed by her recent traumatic experiences. She said, “I do remember seeing a truck speeding out of the staff parking lot when I was walking inside. The tires screeched when it turned onto the road. They barely slowed down.”

“Could you describe the vehicle?” Shepherd asked.

“There was a sticker on the bumper,” she said.

“Could you tell what the sticker was or was it too far a distance?”

“Something outdoorsy. There was one on the glass, too. A fish jumping, I think."

There was the sound of pen scribbling on paper. Shepherd was taking notes. “Good to know, thank you. Is there anything else you can think of?" the officer asked.

“Not at the moment,” Althea responded.

“No problem. I appreciate your time. Here,” the conversation paused. “This is my card. If you think of anything else don’t hesitate to call or shoot me a text.”

“I will do that, thank you.”

The officer left the room. Althea’s soft footsteps followed behind. Before she closed the door she said, “Rest well. You are safe, now," and as though by magic, Kelsie drifted off to sleep.

(To be continued...TUNE IN NEXT MONDAY FOR PART V!)

Copyright © 2024 by Kate Johnston

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