PART III
Ariadne
Luke was hunched against the curtained glass door with two of his fingers slightly parting it from the walls of the yacht in order to snoop on the conversation within. His face grew grim and stony as he recognized the smell of Helena’s exotic perfume and as he heard the rich timbre of her ringing voice. Nikolas hovered behind Luke with his hand on the man’s shoulder, holding his breath and willing his heart to stop pounding so fast so that he could hear his grandmother’s words.
Helena silently motioned to Andreas with her eyes rolling over to the side entrance, and an eyebrow arched in warning and wry amusement.
"Beef up the security tonight, Andreas. I’m expecting Luke Spencer to attempt another one of his silly amateur break-ins this evening, almost certainly while I’m asleep. That uncouth man certainly has a fascination for my boudoir." Helena sighed deeply and winked mischievously at Andreas. "Alas, he makes so many promises, but he never delivers. Perhaps he is not able. Such a tease. Unlike like you, my beautiful, capable Andreas." Helena stroked the side of Andreas’ face with her long, aristocratic fingers.
Andreas’s face creased with his broad smile, and he desperately tried not to laugh at the thought of Spencer overhearing their conversation. "Would Madam like to experience a real man?" he questioned lightly. "Let me run the water for your bath." Andreas nuzzled Helena’s neck and whispered in her ear, "Would Madam like me to kill Mr. Spencer now?" Helena shook her head slightly and narrowed her eyes to confer her refusal of Andreas’ offer.
"A hot bath with a delicious man sounds divine," Helena purred in response.
Luke scrunched up his face and pinched his nose with his fingers while Nikolas shook his head and looked aghast.
Helena paused on her stroll to the lavish bathroom. "Luke Spencer has a fixation about his son and my involvement in his troubles," she tittered delightfully. "And somehow the Ice Princess is the key?" She shook her head and waved away that idea. "The Ice Princess is hidden in a special place. It cannot possibly have an influence on Lucky Spencer. No matter. Luke will never see it again."
Luke’s grip on the Ice Princess tightened, and his eyes grew even more determined. He gently closed the side door shut and sharply motioned to Nikolas to evacuate the premises.
Moments later, Helena slid into the waiting bath after Andreas removed her light blue, damask silk robe. She happily nestled into the mountains of frothy bubbles that tumbled and effervesced. Her face set hard, and she commented to Andreas, "Luke is nothing but a common fool. He thinks he stole the Ice Princess! Of course we anticipated his move. Luke now possesses a stunning replica of the original." Helena sighed and closed her eyes as Andreas began sponging her back with a languid, fluid motion. "Dear Andreas, I’m beginning to think that he’ll never learn the game."
~*~*~*~
The only thing that he could decipher as he slowly floated to back to consciousness was the flashing, icy pain that traveled throughout his brain, like the worst, unrelenting cold on a subzero day or eating ice cream too fast, but one hundred times worse. He vaguely recalled waking up earlier and talking to Elizabeth. He couldn’t remember their conversation, but he still felt her warm, strong hand enfolding his and the forceful connection of her love for him. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t hold on to it. He felt all the warmth and goodness swirling away from him down into the drains of hell.
His swollen lips worked several times before the whispered sounds emerged. "Eliz…abeth…help…me." His face contorted with his efforts at hanging on, and his fingernails scraped tightly against the thin sheet covering his ravaged body. But, it was too late. He continued to struggle futilely until he drifted downward again into unconsciousness.
Frozen were his love, his personality, and his sanity. Any vestige of his unique humanity was obliterated by its presence. The vision of its deadly, flashing beauty nullified any other thoughts or feelings, and the harsh agony of his other injuries was lost to him. Only the rage remained, the rage that oozed out of every fevered pore on his body and that demanded to be soothed. A price must be paid for his freedom, a price that soon must erupt like an unstoppable volcano.
~*~*~*~
How much had he seen? Sure, he was in intensive care, and perhaps he wouldn’t survive his grievous injuries. But those brilliant blue eyes had flickered open at the most inopportune time. Did they see the young girl struggle and flail her arms about in surprise and horror? Did he see the braids wind tightly around her neck until they became a deathly vise grip designed to cut her off from life? Did he hear her desperate cry of recognition and feel the thick, dripping fear invading the elevator and leaking from her dying body?
A hand creaked open the door to Lucky Spencer’s ICU room. Narrowed, determined eyes reviewed the room with a quick, casual cunning motion. Heart monitor, oxygen, blood, IV. The cold eyes took in all of the possible avenues of murder. A hand fiddled with the IV for a moment, but instead chose the extra pillow lying on the chair in the corner of the room. Fingers caressed the smooth surface of the pillow and slowly tightened around it until the soft object became a designated weapon of death. The boy was barely conscious if at all. He wouldn’t feel it. Not really. And if he did, oh well, he’d be in heaven soon singing with the angels.
It only took the murderer seven careful steps to reach his bedside. The murderer bent over his restless, twitching form. The boy looked like he was in great pain with his rapid breaths and desperate facial expressions. This would be for the best. The hands swiftly pushed the pillow downward, onto Lucky’s face. Harder and harder they pressed down until the boy’s breathing was cut off and oxygen stopped flowing into his bloodstream. The boy jerked desperately. His legs extended straight out and thrashed, and his body rolled violently from side to side, but the murderous hands held the pillow firmly over his face. The boy was too weak from his injuries. Soon he would succumb.
After minutes, the legs lost their rigidity and floated back down onto the bed with a soggy plop. The arms stopped jerking and grasping at the pillow to rest quietly beside the body with outstretched palms, and the face stopped pulling for life-giving oxygen, ground down under the weight of the killer pillow and pushed into the side of the bed in defeat. The cardiac monitor sounded its warning with the shrill, monotonous sound of a flatline.
The murderer’s head whipped up in alarm as the ears heard the sounds of shouts and running feet on the linoleum in the hospital hallways. The hands quickly deposited the pillow back on the chair, and the feet ran to hide behind a curtain and wait. Lucky’s room flooded with medical personnel shouting orders, and a flurry of activity descended on the young man as they raced to save his life. A crash cart arrived, and jewels of electricity pounded through his chest to his heart through the paddles placed on his prone body. His body jerked frantically and rose from the bed with each electrical shock, but the cardiac monitor still registered a flat line. "Give me the epinephrine!" ordered Dr. Ian Thornhart. He shoved the long needle of a syringe directly into Lucky’s heart in an attempt to get it started beating again.
"We’re losing him!" a voice alerted. The hidden murderer grinned wickedly behind the tan curtain. Die, Lucky Spencer, die.
~*~*~*~
Felicia leaned comfortably against Scott’s broad shoulder as the two snoozed in adjoining chairs. Scott’s tossled, blond head leaned way back on the edge of the chair, and a loud, rumbling snore emitted from his parted lips on a regular, jarring basis. Felicia was more restless and squirmed around until her head found a comfortable spot on Scott. She wrapped her hands around his arm as if it were a pillow. Just when she was starting to drool on Scott’s sweater, the code blue alarm was called, and the two woke up in a startled daze with a flurry of scrambling arms, legs and hands. Felicia grew uneasy as she looked over at Scott and saw how closely entwined they’d become. Scott glanced at the petite blond beside him and flashed her a smile. Felicia creased her brow and scooted further away from Scott, pausing to wipe off the sleeve of his sweater with an annoyed motion of her slender hand.
Laura never relaxed the whole time that Luke was away on his latest excursion onto Helena’s yacht. Now she was worried about Luke and Nikolas as well as Lucky. How was their plan proceeding? What if Helena captured them? They must prove Lucky’s innocence! Laura had paced nervously back and forth and around the regular rows of waiting room chairs, as if the constant motion of her tense body would protect and shield her loved ones from harm. She stopped dead in her tracks when the code blue was called, and when she saw the crash cart and medical personnel racing down the hallway she felt as if her heart had stopped.
"Lucky!" she cried out in panicked fear. Laura breathlessly ran away from the waiting room and in the direction of Lucky’s ICU room to make sure her son was alright.
"I suppose I should go follow her," Scott intoned with a sigh.
"I don’t know. Maybe it was a false alarm or someone else is dying," replied Felicia sleepily as she drew her hand across her eyes and tried to stifle a big yawn. She craned her neck and frowned as she looked around the waiting room. "Where’s everybody else? I know where Luke is, but where are Liz and Audrey Hardy? I thought they were still here."
Scott made a garrumph noise and rose to his feet, stretching and cracking his joints. "Audrey and Liz found a room to sleep in – they had the right idea," he added as he groaned with fatigue and soreness. "I’d better go find Laura and see if she’s still in one piece – Lucky, too."
Felicia shot to her feet. "Well don’t leave me all alone here!" she whined. "Not when there’s a vicious killer on the loose!" Felicia shivered and widened her eyes.
"Come on then," growled Scott as he draped his arm around her shoulder. "Let’s go."
~*~*~*~
Dr. Ian Thornhart emerged from Lucky’s room, and the medical personnel filed out with their equipment. He wiped his sweaty brow with his muscular arm and stepped out further into the hallway. While his back was turned to the doorway, the murderer peeled out of the room with shoes in hand, in order to make a silent escape in the opposite direction that the medical personnel headed.
The murderer thought frantically while rounding the corner. I’ll never get another opportunity as good as that one to shut that kid up. How am I going to get back into that room next time without arousing suspicion? I have to think of something. He must die tonight!
~*~*~*~
Laura burst into tears when she saw Dr. Thornhart standing outside of her son’s room. "What is it? Was that code called for Lucky? Is my son okay? What’s going on? Tell me!!"
Ian looked worried and frowned. He was about to answer Laura when four people ran in his direction. Luke and Nik flew in from the left, and Scott and Felicia hurriedly joined them from the right side of the hallway.
There was a confusion of shouts, questions, tears and exclamations. Ian held his hands to his head as if he were being assaulted.
"Quiet now!" he growled. "This is a hospital. Patients need their rest. Let’s go over here to discuss Lucky Spencer - quietly."
~*~*~*~
Audrey rose from her bed and walked over to Liz, who appeared to be sleeping soundly, curled up on her side with her fist clenched and held to her chest. She gently smoothed the girl’s hair away from her face carefully so she wouldn’t wake her. Audrey was glad that she had some pull at the hospital so that she and her granddaughter could rest while they waited for news about Lucky.
"Everything will be okay," she crooned softly in her sweet voice. "No one is going to hurt you anymore. Your grandmother will take care of you."
Liz’s eyes opened at the sound of her grandmother’s voice, but she waited until her grandmother left the room, and then slowly rose from the bed with a smile. She’d only pretended to sleep. With everything going on, there’s no way that she could possibly relax. Her grandmother had been restless, too. Liz remembered her rising from her bed and leaving the room several times.
Audrey left the room and continued down the hall to the nurse’s station. She might as well get some work done for the Ladies’ Auxiliary since she was certain she wouldn’t be sleeping for the rest of the night.
"Hello Jill," she said cheerily as she entered the nurse’s station.
"Mrs. Hardy, what are you doing here?" asked a surprised Jill. "I thought you’d still be asleep. It’s been a terrible night for you."
Audrey sighed. "Yes, it has, dear. It’s been an ordeal. I can’t sleep, so I decided to work on my wreaths for the Nurse’s Ball. Can’t start on those crafts projects too early, you know." Audrey smiled and reached for the bag under the counter. She pulled out a wooden hoop and yards of brightly colored ribbon. There were spool of electric blue, hot pink, white and red polka dots and silver and gold stripes.
Audrey hummed a light tune under her breath as she pulled lengths of ribbon from the spools and cut them with a large pair of crafts scissors. Jill overlooked her work over Audrey’s shoulder. "Oh, Audrey," she complained. "You’re so talented. I can’t even tie my own shoes right. And look how beautifully you do that. You certainly have the magic touch."
Audrey tittered lightly and shrugged. "Practice, my dear," she replied. "It takes years of practice." Her fingers expertly moved the ribbon rapidly around, over and under as she tied bow after bow, pausing occasionally to glue them onto the hoop.
"Ouch!" she exclaimed out loud, dropping a bright bow onto the counter. She gingerly rubbed the knuckles on her right hand. There were several bruises on her hands, and a slight pressure had caused her pain.
"What’s the matter?" asked Jill in a worried tone.
Audrey waved her hand in dismissal. "Oh, it’s nothing, dear, just a touch of my usual arthritis. I’ll have to start taking some of that glucosamine supplement. I hear it does wonders for aging joints."
~*~*~*~
Angeloltye
Laura looked back over her shoulder as Luke led her away from Lucky’s room. She shuddered at the recently assigned, uniformed policeman who stoically stood guard outside the room, reminding the mother that her son was an accused murderer. Down the hall, Ian stood taking question after question from Lucky’s frenzied family. The Irish doctor’s own frustration over Lucky’s condition was just as mind boggling.
"What happened, Doc?" Luke demanded
angrily. "You said Lucky would be all right in the long run. What the H*ll just
happened in there?"
"Did his heart stop?" Laura cried anxiously. "I thought you said he was out
of danger."
"He was fine. You said he was fine," Nikolas intoned in a stunned monotone.
"He was fine," Ian insisted, finally getting a word in edgewise. "I don’t know what triggered this complication. Lucky went into both cardiac and respiratory arrest. We had to put him back on the respirator. I’m hoping it will be for a short time. It could be due to the blood loss. Maybe we were too optimistic. We’ll keep a close eye on him."
"That’s what you said last time, Doc," Luke retorted. "Maybe we should get a second opinion."
"Get all the opinions you want Luke," Ian snapped back, finally losing his patience, though he was the professional and he knew the people in front of him were stressed beyond belief. "Lucky’s condition is stable, and I still believe he will come out of this. Now if you’ll excuse me I have orders to write. I’ll be close by until we can finally wean Lucky off the respirator for good." Luke started after the doctor, but Laura pulled him back. Felicia and Scott could see they weren't needed. They went outside of the ICU, leaving Luke, Laura and Nikolas behind. The trio walked back to Lucky’s room. Their hearts were heavy with fear, heavy with the knowledge that even if Lucky lived he might end up in prison for the rest of his life or worse. They stepped into the room as a team. They would do whatever they had to, to save him. Whatever it took. No matter what…
~*~*~*~
He heard the hissing of the respirator. It’s rhythmic pumping was pushing air into his lungs almost against his own breathing. It was difficult to feel the muscles move, and know that he wasn’t really taking the breaths. He wanted to breathe. When the darkness was over his head, the smothering feeling cutting off his air, that’s all he had wanted was to breathe, to suck in oxygen that would let him live, and yet…
He had been almost asleep, fighting his rage, fighting the icy coldness that was entering his heart again, the image of the Ice Princess gripping his heart, shattering it with a fury he didn’t want to sense, when he’d felt something being placed over his face. The pressure was sudden and instantaneously horrific. He couldn’t open his eyes, couldn’t fight what he knew was happening. While his body struggled wildly, his adrenaline rushing through him in a basal instinct to survive, his spirit screamed for release. If he had truly pulled on his reserves, he might have thrown off the suffocating object that let death whisper in his ear. Instead he had started to seek the peacefulness of oblivion. Even as he let the machine breathe for him, Lucky Spencer knew he was twisted. The homicidal rage that fought with his conscience gave way to darkness, but in the inky blackness that surrounded him, Lucky accepted that he was bent. He also accepted that he had no idea how to control the insanity that consumed him.
~*~*~*~
"Luke, you don’t know how the Ice Princess works," Nikolas said as Luke took the giant, perfectly formed diamond out of his pocket. Laura stood by Lucky’s bedside, gazing at his face. She shook her head. Even in sleep he seemed tortured somehow. The respirator was sustaining his life, but what was sustaining his soul, she couldn’t help wondering. Then she wondered where such an innocuous thought came from. Shaking her head, she turned to her ex-husband and her son, marveling how Lucky’s predicament had brought these two former enemies together.
"I know I don’t, Prince," Luke replied with a disdainful look. He pulled the bedside table over to the easy chair that sat on the side of the bed. Laura sat on the arm of the chair, while Nikolas stood by Lucky, his heart breaking at the sight of his brother. He turned, leaning against the bars on the bed, and watched his mother and ex-step-father.
"What happened?" Laura wondered as Luke put the Ice Princess on the table. Nikolas walked over to hide the dazzling diamond from anyone walking past the room. Luke moved it in his hands, trying to find a focal point, anything that would set Lucky off, or give him back his sanity.
"We barely missed the old bat and her
paramour," Luke reported grimly. "The Prince here shouted our presence to the
world."
"I did not. She didn’t know we were there," Nikolas protested.
"Only because I got us out fast enough."
"Who knew about the side entrance?" came the countered reply. Laura rolled her eyes.
"For heavens sake, stop it, both of you. You had no business being on the yacht. You don’t even know if you succeeded."
"We got what we were looking for didn’t we? Angel, we have to save our son."
"At what cost?" Laura cried. "You didn’t know if Helena would discover you or just plant a grenade in her safe to stop you." Luke looked from Nikolas to Laura in surprise.
"I didn’t think of that," he admitted wryly. He looked down at the Ice Princess. He believed the jewel carried the secret of how to control Lucky’s mind. "If I could just figure out how this works, maybe we can save Lucky from himself."
"Luke, a stone cannot control a mind," Laura told him. "I know you think it can, but it can’t. Taggert is wrong. Lucky was set up. He wouldn’t hurt anyone."
"You didn’t see him, Darlin," Luke told his wife. "His eyes weren’t even real. I’m telling you, Helena’s got him programmed to kill."
"Glad you agree, Spencer," came the ragged, hate filled comment. With a sweep of his hand, Luke scooped the Ice Princess off the table. Nikolas, Laura and Luke all turned to see Taggert step into the room. Luke stood up, pushing the bedside table back towards Lucky’s bed. Nikolas drew his mother close as Luke stood a few feet from Gia’s brother.
"You implying something, Lieutenant?" Luke said snidely.
"I’m implying nothing. I’ve just come to do my duty. Get out of my way, Spencer, or you’ll be next." Luke didn’t move. The tension in the room flared. Taggert got in Luke’s face. Realizing what was about to happen, Nikolas grabbed his stepfather’s arms behind him, locking the older man’s limbs away from the front of his body. Luke struggled, shocked by the strength Nikolas possessed.
"Stupid Prince," he yelled indignantly. "Let me go." Taggert smirked.
"You know, Spencer," he taunted. "That position totally complements you. Nikolas, you might think about joining the police force. Then you can help me make sure your brother never hurts innocent girls like my sister again." Nikolas was tempted to let Luke go as Luke struggled, but he held him tight.
"Taggert, I suggest you leave," Nikolas said. "I know you’re upset about Gia. So am I. I loved her." Nikolas took a breath, knowing he couldn’t hold on to Luke much longer.
"Yeah, you loved her so much, you’re protecting her murderer. I’m telling you, Nikolas, Lucky Spencer killed Gia. He strangled her to death with her own braids, then tied those braids into a bow. He’s insane."
"He’s not!" Nikolas yelled back, finally letting Luke go. Suddenly released, Luke started towards Taggert with Nikolas right behind him, and Laura wringing her hands, wondering how the entire situation could get worse. In the background, the respirator hissed, pumping air into Lucky’s lungs while the young man listened and knew that Taggert was right. He knew he was a murderer, a murderer whose spirit was truly begging to be freed.
END OF PART THREE