The Deathtaker Read online

  Krista had almost forgotten their presence.

  “Sure thing. Two more sweet teas please,” one of the men replied. “I’m about to capture his queen.”

  “You most certainly are not!” the other retorted. “I’ll have you in check-mate before you could ever get near my black beauty. I am the chess master,” he added with a laugh.

  “Chess master my ass,” his friend replied. “If anyone is the master, I am.”

  Opal went over to the table to retrieve the chess masters’ glasses. On her way back to refill them, the door swung open. Krista smiled, thinking that the bells clanging against the glass didn’t sound nearly as loud and jarring as she had imagined when she’d opened the door.

  “Hey, Ben,” Opal called out to the man who’d entered the diner. “Daddy’ll have Marlene’s dinner ready in a jiffy. He made her favorite today, chicken noodle soup with garlic butter biscuits.”

  “Thanks, Opal.” Ben Richardson, the deputy Adeline had told Krista about the night before, walked up to the counter and stood beside her. “She’ll be happy to see that soup and those biscuits, Jim. Don’t know what you do to them to make them so good.”

  Jim poked his head through the opening. “It’s the love.”

  Ben smiled. It was a smile that took effort; a tired, worn smile. “Could you pack up enough for her to have some for lunch tomorrow, too? Give her something to look forward to. My poor girl’s been down lately. That doctor she sees told her she’d be able to manage her symptoms better than this.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Ben. I’ll pack up enough for you, too.”

  “Appreciate that.”

  Krista inhaled deeply, taking in the scent that poured off of the man beside her; no one could detect it but her. It was the smell of death. Marlene’s sickness clung to her husband’s clothes, his hair, his skin. It wafted over to Krista’s nose from the tips of Ben Richardson’s fingers while he moved his hands in the air as he spoke. His wife didn’t have long, a few months at most. Her doctors probably weren’t even aware of the decline in her health yet. It was something Krista hated, being accosted by that smell. There wasn’t a place she could go without crossing paths with someone who lived with a person nearing his or her last breath. It called out to her, taunting her with its presence. The scents varied, but the base note was always the same. Death.

  Kristanta Jessmina Vita knew all about sickness; all of the females in her bloodline did. Krista knew sickness and death every single time she inhaled the scent of it. It was sour and stale, decayed and desperate; sickness grew and multiplied until it destroyed and consumed its host. Oh yes, a Vita woman knew sickness quite well.

  “I think you should take your wife back to the doctor,” Krista suggested.

  Ben glared at her with a hard stare. “I think you should keep your opinions to yourself.”

  “Mind your manners, Benjamin. This girl’s a nurse. She’s just giving you a medical opinion. I know Marlene’s a touchy subject, but that’s no cause to be downright rude,” Adeline scolded him.

  Krista shook her head. She knew better than to interject with her opinion. “I’m not a nurse, exactly. Assistant to a nurse, an NA.”

  Adeline set her mouth in a straight, matter of fact, line. “You’ve been around enough to offer a sincere opinion, I’m quite sure.”

  Ben hung his head and closed his eyes. “Sorry, Adeline. I’m just over tired.” He opened his eyes and looked at Krista again. “You’re probably right. I said the same thing to my wife, just this morning. ‘We need to take a drive over to Greenville,’ I told her, to the hospital so we can get her checked out again, by someone different. Miss…?”

  “Ben, this is Miss Vita. She’s making a pit stop in our town on her way to… well, I don’t think even she knows that yet,” Adeline introduced Krista to the deputy.

  “The over-tired driver from last night, I suppose,” Ben said, extending a hand.

  “Guilty.” Krista shrugged her shoulders before shaking Ben’s hand. “Word sure does spread fast around here.”

  “Albert and Adeline are squawkers,” one of the chess masters called over his shoulder.

  “Oh, you, hush,” Adeline scoffed with a wave of her hand.

  “You are and you know it. Two peas. It’s the twin thing.” Opal winked at Addy as she placed a large white bag on the counter. “Here you go, Ben. Please give Marlene a big hug from me. I miss seeing her smiling face, but I understand that she’s been too tired to get out much lately.”

  “I’m starting to think it’s more than fibromyalgia. I’ve looked on the Internet, read all about it. She’s just so tired.” He breathed out a sigh, picked up the bag, and walked out of the diner.

  Krista shook her head. It wasn’t fibromyalgia. It didn’t smell anything like that.

  “What is it, dear?” Adeline asked, touching Krista’s arm.

  “It’s nothing. I hope they get a second opinion. Isn’t there anyone closer they could consult with?”

  “Of course there is. The Cedar Creek Medical Center is right around the corner. Doctor Baker takes care of our general health, minor ailments, and pediatric care. He can stitch us up, set a break, and prescribe what we need. Patsy is our resident doula in charge of the birthing center, for those women who prefer to stay close to town. She’s actually better at birthin’ than the doc so he’s happy to have her in charge of that area. But everything major gets a referral to a doctor in Greenville; all the specialists are in the city. Doc Baker can usually hit the nail on the head and send you off to see the exact one you need. But Marlene didn’t ever want to be seen by Doc Baker, she insisted that they go straight to a city doctor. Said they’d know more. Bad decision if you ask me. Doc Baker knows what’s what.”

  “He sure does,” chess master number one piped in.

  “Without a doubt,” chess master two added.

  “Abe and Eli share a brain,” Adeline whispered into Krista’s ear. “They’re Cedar Creek born and bred; been here all their lives. They’re partners in the hardware store, and they’re good men. Hard headed men,” she added, raising her voice so they could hear her. “But good solid Cedar Creek boys.”

  “We like you, too,” either Abe or Eli told her. Krista wasn’t yet sure which one was which.

  Krista finished her sandwich and pushed the plate back with a satisfied sigh. “It’s a shame that some people don’t understand the insight that a general family doctor can have. They see all types of illnesses walk through their doors and are more than capable of a correct diagnosis, or can at least point their patients in the right direction. My great-grandfather was a family doctor. My grandmother sang his praises all my life. He’s one of the reasons I chose my job. I just want to help people… to ease their pain.”

  Addy nudged Krista with her elbow. “And that’s what makes you good people. I can hear the truth in your words and the sincerity in your voice.”

  Opal set a plate down in front of Krista. “You have the Adeline seal of approval. That’s usually hard to come by. Caramel Apple pie with fresh vanilla whipped cream. It’s the most requested pie on the menu.”

  “It looks amazing.”

  “It is,” Abe and Eli chorused.

  Once the pie had magically disappeared – well not so much with magic, more like good old-fashioned food inhalation – Krista paid her bill. Adeline had gone back to the motel to ready the rooms for the guests that were expected to arrive later that evening. Opal had begun to busy herself for the dinner crowd, popping into the kitchen with her father as soon as Adeline had made her departure. And Krista needed to stretch her legs, so she decided to take a walk after she’d polished off every single crumb of food that had been placed in front of her.

  About half an hour later, Krista ended up back at the motel. She needed to plan her next move. She wanted to pick a city, check the job listings, and get on her way. With her laptop open, she connected to the motel’s Wi-Fi and attempted to settle on a destination. Krista decided that she didn’t want to dr
ive more than another twelve hours; but that didn’t do much to narrow her search. She pulled up a map and hoped that one of the city names would call out to her. But she was quickly distracted by a video of a fluffy white jumping cat, because she had a bad habit of clicking on anything in her peripheral vision, and she’d opened a new browser window.

  There was a knock on the motel door.

  Assuming that Adeline had come to ask her more questions, Krista set her laptop down on the chair she’d been sitting in and went to the door. But instead of finding Adeline outside when she swung the door open, she found Santa. Well, not the real Santa – unless Santa was a trim man with a neat white beard, silver hair, and wore jeans, a white shirt, and a red velvet vest.

  “Miss Vita?”

  “Yes.” Krista nodded. She took a step outside the room and leaned her back against the doorframe.

  “Doctor Baker,” he stated, in introduction. “Addy sent me over. She said I needed you, and you needed me. Does that sound about right to you?”

  “Um… I’m not quite sure what that means.”

  “I need some extra help at the medical center. You are currently without employment and without a permanent residence. Correct?”

  “Correct,” Krista answered slowly, as her brain tried to quickly process the information. Why would Adeline be trying to find me a job in town? she wondered.

  “Excellent. Come see me tomorrow. And bring your qualifications.” Doctor Santa turned to leave.

  “But you don’t even know me. Adeline doesn’t really know me. You haven’t even talked to me. You don’t know anything about me.”

  He stopped to face her again. “Do you have a habit of repeatedly saying the same thing, but rearranging the words?” he asked. “I don’t know you. You are correct.”

  “I could be an inept, fumbling, wreck of a health care worker.”

  “Well, are you?”

  “No, of course not. I’m quite competent. But…”

  “But?”

  “I wasn’t exactly planning on staying here.”

  “You come see me tomorrow, and then you can decide if you want to stay here or not,” Doctor Baker clipped. “Adeline seems to think you want to stay and you just don’t know it yet. I’d rather interview you, otherwise I’d have to convince someone to drive in from Greenville.” He spun on his heels and began to walk away. “Nine-thirty in the morning. I usually have a few moments of down time around then,” he called over his shoulder.

  “I guess… I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” she mumbled to herself, as the doctor continued on toward the road. He hadn’t waited for a response and was too far away to hear her at that point anyway.

  Krista stepped back into the room, shut the door, picked up her laptop from the chair, and sat back down. She closed the window with the map displayed on it and let the next cat video load.

  Chapter Three

  It had been nearly a week since Sheriff Tucker had pulled Krista over as she’d entered the town of Cedar Creek. In that time she’d taken a trial position at Cedar Creek Medical Center and negotiated a weekly rate at Adeline’s motel because she wasn’t ready to move into anything more permanent. Adeline had offered Krista a closet for the boxes she needed to store somewhere, until she’d made up her mind whether she would stay. But after she’d unpacked a few of them in the motel room, there wasn’t that much to store. She’d also eaten at the Downtown Diner every single day. Her clothes wouldn’t fit for much longer, if she didn’t start shopping for her own groceries, soon. Jim and Opal plated up extra-large servings of their daily specials every single time she stopped in.

  Within those first couple of days in town, she’d also met nearly one quarter of the Cedar Creek residents, in addition to a few outliers that lived on self-described “homesteads” farther south. The reason Krista had made such a large number of introductions was all due to Adeline and Opal, and their insistence that she attend the grand re-opening of the Cedar Creek Library with them. The library had been closed for nearly a month while it was remodeled, thanks to a large, not so anonymous, donation from Abe Webber and Eli Kaufman, the chess masters themselves.

  The two men had insisted on the addition of a plaque at the entrance to the library, with chess pieces flanking their names. Abe and Eli were glowing with a sense of achievement and had huge smiles on their faces at the ribbon cutting ceremony. Those boys were quite proud of their contribution to Cedar Creek’s legacy.

  Krista was surprised at how smoothly she transitioned from stop-sign-running-visitor to temporary-medical-center-worker. Doctor Baker told Krista that he’d give her a month to make her final decision, because if she didn’t want the job he really must find someone else; the center needed the extra help. As much as she was enjoying Cedar Creek there was something that pulled at the back of her mind, something that told her Cedar Creek was one of those places that would change her life forever. Krista wasn’t sure if she was willing to give up the routine of the mobile life that she’d begun to carve out for herself. Even though it was ever changing, in her mind it was stable. It was what she knew.

  On her sixth day in Cedar Creek, and a few days after she started at the CCMC, as Krista had dubbed the medical center, Ben Richardson walked through the door, supporting his wife tightly against his body, almost carrying her. Marlene was barely able to walk on her own.

  “You’ve gotta help me,” he called out as he entered the waiting room. “I need Doc Baker to see Marlene. Right now.”

  Krista jumped up from the chair at the front desk and ran around the counter to assist Ben. “Let’s get her into a room immediately. I can grab a wheelchair.”

  “You’re working here now?” Ben shook his head. “I guess Albert did mention it. No. No chair. I can carry her.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” Marlene breathed. “I can make it just fine. You’re making a big deal out of this.”

  “No. We need to be here and you need to let me take care of you,” he insisted and swooped her legs up, cradling her against his body.

  “Let’s go in here and I’ll check her vitals,” Krista told Ben as she led the way toward the first examination room. “Doctor Baker just stepped out. He said he’d be back in ten, and that was like five minutes ago, so you won’t have to wait long. I promise.”

  Being in the same room as Marlene was an assault to Krista’s senses. She had never before been face to face with Ben’s wife, but during the few times she’d crossed paths with him she had caught the scent of the dying woman. Ben placed Marlene on the examination table as soon as Krista maneuvered it into a sitting position.

  “There you go, hun. The doc’ll be back soon.”

  Marlene looked at Ben with annoyance. “I heard her just fine when she said that a second ago. My ears are working perfectly, thank you very much.”

  Ben blinked at her, shocked at the sudden harsh words.

  Krista swiped a thermometer across Marlene’s forehead. “Did you ever go back to Greenville?” she asked the woman.

  Marlene slowly moved her head back and forth. “No, I didn’t. And I suppose everyone in town is aware of this; my husband can’t seem to stop talking about me.”

  “I wanted to take her to the hospital there, but she wouldn’t let me. She’s been seeing this guy, Dr. Moon. She told me he’s some holistic doctor that somebody in one of her health nut chat groups recommended. Well, I hate to admit it, but I haven’t actually been to any of her appointments. I drive her to town, but then find something else to do after I’ve dropped her off. I finally looked this Dr. Moon quack up, because she hasn’t been improving, only getting worse, and I found out that he isn’t a doctor at all. He just calls himself one. The man has no degree from anywhere!”

  “Ben,” Marlene whispered. “His medicines have done wonders for me.”

  “Who knows what’s in those capsules he gives to you!” Ben yelled in frustration. “You said they were natural medicines, they could be ground up candies for all we know! Have a pepper
mint, it’ll cure your high blood pressure,” he mocked. “Here’s a jellybean for your migraines.”

  Marlene turned her head away from her husband.

  “Ben, I need you to step outside while I finish up with your wife. Just go back to the waiting room. Pete is busy with another family right now, but if he finishes up, or if Doc Baker comes back, bring either of them in here right away. I need you to go and look out for them, so Marlene can be seen as quickly as possible. Okay?”

  “I want to stay with my wife.” Ben voiced his objection.

  “If we’re both in here, then how will we know when the doctor gets back?” Krista tried to reason.

  Ben closed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair. He breathed out a very slow breath, bringing himself under composure. “You’re right. I’ll go out and wait for Doc.”

  It was a good excuse to get rid of him. Marlene was in no immediate danger, that much Krista knew. She could finish the vitals with Ben in the room and then step out to get Doctor Baker when he returned, but Krista really wanted to be alone with Marlene for a few minutes while she tried to zero in on the woman’s medical issues. Illness spoke to Krista. It was so proud of the destruction it could do, it sang out from whatever body it was devouring. And Krista’s body could feel that proud but sorrowful song.

  “Go, Ben. I’ll be fine,” Marlene said in a voice that was somewhat louder than her previous whispered words. She was regaining some of her strength. “I just panicked when my heart was racing so fast and I couldn’t catch my breath. But I’m feeling a little better now. I promise.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

  “I’ll be fine. Go,” she assured him.

  “I’m right outside if you need me.”

  Marlene smiled sweetly. “I know, Ben, my love. You are always looking out for me. Thank you.”

  Once he was gone from the room, Krista moved to Marlene’s side to take her blood pressure. “So, I heard shortness of breath, and increased heart rate. Are there any other symptoms you’ve been experiencing?”