Infinity Lost by Harrison S

Author:Harrison, S. [Harrison, S.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Skyscape
Published: 2015-11-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

I’ve never seen a dead body before. Her face is expressionless; her pale-blue eyes are glassy and distant, like a doll’s. Drops of blood dot the tiny photograph on the ID tag pinned to her chest. In it she’s smiling, blonde, and pretty. A name is printed clearly beneath the picture in bold black letters. Her name is Vanessa Hope. Or at least it used to be.

“Oh my god,” I gasp, covering my mouth with both hands.

Carlo creeps forward, carefully avoiding the huge, dark-red puddle.

“Don’t touch anything, Carlo!”

He slowly leans over her. “There’s something in her neck. It’s a knife.”

I gingerly walk to her body. I peer down and see a leather-bound handle jutting from a slit in the side of her throat.

“That’s not a knife. I’ve seen that before. That’s Nanny Theresa’s antique letter opener.”

Carlo and I look at each other at exactly the same time. Without speaking, we both turn and run down the west-wing hallway toward Nanny Theresa’s room.

There are patches of blood spattering the carpet all along the hallway, and red handprints smear the wall like gruesome signposts leading the way to the open door of Nanny Theresa’s bedroom. I run in right behind Carlo. The bed is empty, the blanket and sheet strewn aside. There’s a small white machine on a stand with buttons and flashing lights lying tipped over on the floor, a thin hose snaking out of its side leaking a small trickle of blood onto the carpet. One long constant tone drones from a speaker on its back. There’s more blood, a thin streak sprayed across the far wall. Judging by how tall the nurse was, it seems to be exactly the same height as her neck. The spray has speckled across the face of the life-size painted wooden carving of Nanny Theresa’s distant relative, General Hartigan. On the rare occasions that I would sneak into her room, I used to admire the statue. Now it catches my attention for an entirely different reason. The gun that used to be in the holster around its waist is missing. I always thought it looked real, but I never imagined that it actually was.

It’s not hard to figure out what happened here. Nanny Theresa murdered that nurse, stabbed her so hard in the throat with a letter-opener that it almost came out the other side. And now she’s wandering the house somewhere. With a gun.

“We have to find her,” I say to Carlo.

“She can’t have gone far in her condition,” he replies.

I turn, stride out into the hallway, and head back the way we came, Carlo following right behind me.

I grab a heavy brass candleholder from a small table in the hall and swing it from side to side, testing its weight. She’s already killed one person today. I sure as hell won’t be next.

“Is that really necessary, Finn? She’s a frail old woman.”

“Tell that to the dead nurse out there.”

We walk back into the foyer. “Where could she have gone?” Carlo asks from behind me.

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