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  “Dom, I know you want to go see her, so I won’t take up any more of your time right now. Here’s my card. Call me if you think of anything that might help. I’ll be working on this case full-time and can use all the help I can get.”

  “Thank you, Detective. You’ll call me if you find out anything?”

  Detective Perry nodded. “You know I will. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Thanks again Detective,” he replied while starting towards the nurses’ station. “I look forward to hearing from you.”

  Detective Perry responded as he walked away. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Dom, but I’ll talk to you soon.”

  As he continued towards the nurses’ station, Detective Perry called after him.

  “Dom!”

  Dom turned around to face him.

  “No matter how small you think a piece of information is, it may be the piece that we need.”

  He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind, Detective.”

  Detective Perry walked out the door of the waiting room while Dom watched. It must be hard to see this kind of thing every day of your life, he thought. Even so, he wouldn’t mind trading places with Detective Kent Perry.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Upon approaching the nurses’ station, Dom asked the nurse in charge for Nina’s room number. The nurse put on her glasses to look for the correct information. Her glasses were rectangular-shaped, the kind you might find on the stereotypical eighty-year-old granny sitting in her favorite rocking chair on the porch, knitting a sweater. The glasses looked out of place on the fortyish, slightly pudgy nurse who sat in front of him. He was also shocked at the sound of her voice when she spoke. While he was expecting a deeper voice, what he got was a high-pitched, squeaky voice.

  “Mr. Maxwell, it looks like Ms. Dyer is still in intensive care. You can visit her for a little while, but then we must ask you to leave. If you like, you can wait in the waiting room for a while after your visit. If we have any news, we can keep you informed.”

  “Thank you, Nurse Sanders,” he said while squinting at her name tag. “How do I get to her room?”

  “Just follow the red line on the floor. She’ll be in ICU Room Three.”

  “Thank you.” Dom faltered as he turned and walked down the hall and out of sight of the nurse. He wondered if he was up to it. Just another chapter in my life, he thought, as he turned the corner and headed towards room three.

  He was heartbroken. His sister was what some people would call too nice. She never got angry, always had an upbeat attitude, and always looked at the positive side of things. He wished he could be a little positive right then.

  As he approached the door, he stopped and leaned his head against it. It seemed impossible to gather the strength to push the door open. He did not want to see what horrors would greet him on the other side. Anxious to see Nina, he shook off his trance-like state and collected his thoughts. Pushing open the door and stepping inside, he stopped, took one more step inside and let out his breath. He did not realize he had been holding it for quite a while. Long enough to make his lungs hurt.

  Glancing towards the bed, he saw Nina lying there, looking so helpless. An oxygen mask covered her face and an IV tube was connected to a catheter in her arm. A bag of clear fluid was being fed through the IV tubing. A monitor off to the side of the bed showed a steady heartbeat on the screen. Both of her arms were bandaged in various places and her face looked like it had many stitches in it. A cut on her left cheek appeared to be about three inches long, though the cut was closed up in a very professional-looking stitch job. Dom could not see what damage Nina had to the lower half of her body, because the blanket came to just below her armpits.

  It was all he could do to keep the tears back as they flowed into the corner of his eyes. Walking over to the chair by the bed, he sat down and held Nina’s hand, making sure to pick the side that the IV was not connected to. As he sat there, the display of the monitors keeping time with the beat of his sister’s heart, he closed his eyes and began to pray.

  Dom was not a “Bible-thumper” as some people called them. He wasn’t of any particular religion either. He preferred to categorize his beliefs into what he called Dom’s religion. Dom’s religion consisted of this: a belief in God, knowledge of right and wrong, with a desire to practice right, and a belief that God listened to prayer and answered it if it was his will. He did not go to church. He did not read his Bible and he didn’t walk around talking about God. But he did talk to God occasionally. Dom hated “religion” or what people classified as religion, because he felt that most of the people that were so-called “religious” were full of crap. There were way too many preachers that used God’s name to get a new Mercedes. Too many Jimmy Bakers in the world. Too many money-grubbing, false leaders and, of course, way too many hypocrites. One thing that he would not do was say one thing and then do another. He was a man of integrity.

  As Dom prayed to God that his sister would make it, he squeezed her hand even harder and willed life to stay in her body. All he could do was hope and pray. And of course wait. And wait.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After visiting with Nina for about twenty minutes, Dom made his way to the waiting room and sat down. It was the first chance he’d had to think all night. As he went back through everything that had happened that night, he suddenly remembered the dream. That oh so horrible dream. It seemed like he went from one nightmare, while sleeping, to a completely different one while awake, without missing a beat.

  He went back to the nightmare that he was having when his cell phone had rang and awakened him. In his nightmare, his parents had come up to him while he was walking through a mall. They strolled right up to him and said, “You did this to us.” What was unsettling was the fact that they were covered in blood from head to toe and their clothes were all ripped up. His dad’s right leg was twisted at a weird angle and the bone was sticking out through a tear in the knee of his pants. His mom had fresh blood all over her face and her right ear was partially torn off, dangling from her head as if it was barely attached by the earlobe. In addition, they both had multiple bruises on their faces and arms and too many cuts and abrasions to count. His dad’s head looked a little caved in on one side like it had taken quite a blow.

  Dom turned and ran as they came after him. The other shoppers and passersby in the mall didn’t seem to notice that anything was out of the ordinary. They just went about their business and paid no attention to him.

  As he ran away from his parents, he kept hearing them yell things like, “We can’t believe you did this to us!” and “Murderer!” As Dom neared the exit of the mall, he almost ran over someone that was entering. Turning towards the person to mumble a quick apology, he saw his brother standing there before him. He had a hole in the left side of his head from which a small trail of blood oozed.

  Dom couldn’t believe this was happening to him, but he was also in awe to see his brother standing there. When he stopped and whispered “Phillip?” his brother started to speak.

  “How could you do this to me? You are my brother!”

  Dom stood there in awe as Phillip turned his head; he just about gagged. The whole right side of his head was blown off and a flap of skin was hanging from the side of his head. He could see where part of the brain used to be lodged, but mainly, he just saw a big void. As he stood, transfixed, he watched as maggots started crawling out of the inside of his brother’s head, first a few of them, and then hundreds started streaming out of the cavity. While Dom struggled to hold onto his insides, Phillip turned towards him and he just stood there, unable to move. That’s when he heard a noise behind him and, as he whirled around, he saw his parents less than ten feet away. Just as he was about to let out a scream, his cell phone rang, ripping him from the clasp of the demented dream. The telephone call, of course, was the reason that he was at the hospital.

  Looking back at the dream, he could make no sense out of it. Dom loved his family more than anything and woul
d do nothing to hurt them. Why then would he have such morbid dreams? He had no answer to that question and he wasn’t sure that the reality around him was such a wonderful sanctuary from his nightmare.

  As he was getting up to stretch, the head nurse came in to the waiting room and told him the first good news of the night.

  “Mr. Maxwell, your sister’s condition has stabilized and we are going to move her out of intensive care and into a private room. She is still in a coma, and we have no idea when she will come out of it, if ever. I suggest you go home and get some rest. There is nothing more that you can do for her by being here. We’ll call you if there is any change in her condition.”

  “Thank you, Nurse,” Dom replied.

  He hadn’t realized just how tired he was until he had left the hospital. As he walked out to his truck, he thought about the chance that Nina might make it. It was the one hope he clung to as he drove home through the almost deserted streets of Glendale, Arizona.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Upon arriving home, Dom got out of his truck and headed towards the front door. He had neglected to turn on the outside light, but he had left a light on inside. The closest street light was five houses down and it was just bright enough to cast a few shadows onto his front lawn.

  Not sure why, he quickly walked to the door and unlocked it. He hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Rather, he had felt an uneasiness that he could not describe. Stepping inside, he locked the door behind him and started searching the house for any signs of an intruder. Again, he had no reason to think that anyone had broken into the house. He just felt uneasy.

  After thoroughly searching the house, Dom was satisfied that he was alone. Whoever had attacked his sister could possibly come after him. He had no doubt that Nina’s attack was related to the other deaths of his family members and loved ones. The only thing that he could not figure out was why. Why was somebody killing everyone that he loved? And why not him? Was it to torture him? He had gone over these questions a million times inside his head. Just when he would start to get his life back together, just when enough time would pass that he would start to heal inside, he lost someone else. If Nina died, there would really be no one left to lose. His life would be empty. He hoped he would not have to deal with losing her, but only time would tell.

  Going to the refrigerator, Dom pulled out a Mountain Dew and popped the tab. He was what Billy had referred to as a Dewaholic. That was his main substance in life. Breakfast was a Dew. When he was thirsty, he drank a Dew, not milk, water, or cola.

  As far as alcohol, he liked beer. But for some reason, he only drank it when he went out with his friends or to a party. When he was alone, he never drank. This, he was proud of, because he knew far too many people with alcohol problems.

  Flipping on the tube, he surfed through the channels, looking for something to take his mind off things. “Bruce Springsteen said it best when he sang 57 Channels and Nothin’ On”, he said aloud. Finally he had to shut the TV off because it was depressing him more.

  Swallowing the last of his Dew, he went into his bedroom and pulled off all of his clothes. He was too exhausted to put his clothes in the hamper and so they stayed where they landed, in a heap on the floor. As he crawled into bed and turned off the light, he realized that life was not going to be the same anymore. Not knowing where these thoughts were coming from was disturbing, but Dom believed that something big was going to happen.

  As he slipped over the edge of consciousness, he knew that the day held more than he could ever imagine.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dom awoke to the sound of the trash truck outside emptying the large garbage cans that lined the street. His bed was near the window and he craned his neck to peer out. He saw the neighbor’s trash being emptied into the truck by way of a huge hydraulic arm that lifted the cans up and over the top of the truck, turning them upside down in the process.

  Watching the truck work its way down the street reminded him that he’d forgotten to put out the garbage again. That meant that he would have to wait another week before he could have it picked up. Somehow, it didn’t really matter to him as the events of the previous night seeped back into his head.

  After getting out of bed, he stopped to pick up the clothes that he had thrown on the floor when he had returned home. He kept a pretty orderly house and tried to keep everything neat and picked up. He wasn’t a clean freak by any means, but keeping his space clean was his way of keeping some organization in his life, when society was in total disarray.

  After taking a shower and pouring a quick bowl of cereal for breakfast, he got dressed and called the manager at the electronics store. Dom was still working there after all these years mostly because Burt Thompson, the manager, had made him the assistant manager of the store shortly after Billy’s death. Hopefully, Mr. Thompson would understand the situation and grant him the time off that he needed.

  On the fourth ring, Burt Thompson picked up the phone. After telling him about his sister, but not mentioning any more than he had to, he asked for a couple of weeks off. Even though Dom taking time off would leave him shorthanded, Mr. Thompson agreed to cover for him for as long as he needed to be away. This was what he needed. Dom thanked him and hung up the phone.

  While he did not actually sit down and work out any type of plan, taking time off of work was the first action of something that was forming in his mind. The script wasn’t written; it seemed as if his brain was writing it as he went. He was a little surprised he was taking the time off of work, and at first he was not sure what he was going to do with it, but after the call was done, the next step he had to take automatically popped into his head. It was almost as if it was programmed for him to do so. Deep down inside, even though he didn’t quite realize it yet, he was scared. It would not be long before his brain put the rest of the plan into place. As it developed, he was surprised himself.

  Dom called Southwest Hospital. After checking with the head nurse on Nina’s floor, he found out that Nina was still in stable condition, but was also still in a coma.

  After making the nurse promise to call him if Nina’s condition should change, he hung up the phone and called Detective Perry. After going through three people and finally getting him on the line, Dom greeted him.

  “Good morning, Detective. This is Dom Maxwell.”

  “Good morning, Dom. How are you holding up?”

  “I’m hanging in there. Listen, I just wanted to check with you and see if you have any leads in the case.”

  “Not really, I’m sorry to say. The only thing we’ve determined that we didn’t know last night was that your sister wasn’t robbed or burglarized at all. There were a lot of valuables and money in the house and none of it was touched. The drawers weren’t gone through and nothing seemed to have been moved or appeared missing. It looks to be a straight-out case of attempted murder. By the way, how is your sister this morning?”

  “Stable,” Dom replied. “She’s out of intensive care, but she is still in a coma.”

  Detective Perry was silent for a moment before responding. “Well at least she is stable now. All we can do is hope that she comes out of her coma.”

  “I’m hoping she will too. In the meantime, all we can do is wait. By the way, I hate to spring this on you, but I need to go out of town for a couple of weeks. I will definitely give you a call every couple of days to find out if you have any new information,” Dom informed him.

  “Whoaaaa, back up Dom,” Detective Perry fired back. “What’s going on? We’re in the middle of an attempted murder investigation. Your sister is lying half-dead in a hospital bed. We haven’t even gotten any information from you about your sister and her life. Right now, you are the only avenue we have to pursue this investigation. You just can’t up and leave town.”

  “I have to,” Dom replied. “I know I need to be here, but I will be in touch by phone. I have to get out of this town. There are no other options.”

  He waited for a response, but all he
could hear was an uncomfortable silence. When the detective finally spoke, his tone of voice had changed from puzzlement to a sternness that made him very uncomfortable.

  “Dom, I am ordering you not to leave town without my permission. Right now, you do not have it. You are the only one that can help us presently. You are also acting very suspicious right now. I need to ask you to come down to the station for questioning. Don’t bother to drive down. I’ll have a car pick you up.”

  Detective Perry’s tone was no nonsense and very firm. Dom knew there was no getting him to change his mind. The most that he could do was agree with him and possibly buy some time. What he didn’t want to do was send out any warning signs that would make the officer arrest him or hold him, thus keeping him from leaving town. Not that they had any reason to arrest him. He knew he was acting suspicious, but he couldn’t help it.

  The truth of the matter was that he was scared. Very scared. It was just a feeling, but he felt that he was in grave danger. He didn’t know from whom or what, he just knew that someone or something was coming after him. There was no way he could prove this or even substantially back it up. To even mention it to Detective Perry would make him suspect Dom even more. He would think Dom was looney toons and definitely keep him from going anywhere. He couldn’t take that chance. To be passive was his only hope. With no other choice to make, he agreed.

  “Okay, Detective. I guess you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided to leave town. You need me. Nina needs me. Why don’t you give me time to shower and get ready? Could you have someone pick me up in a couple of hours?”

  Detective Perry answered, seemingly calmer. “That would be fine, Dom. It’s ten-thirty now. I’ll send someone over around one. Is that enough time?”