"Gardner, Lisa - The Other Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Lisa)

The executioner taped up his eye sockets so there


would be less mess when his eyeballs melted, and stuck cotton balls up his nose to limit the bleeding.
Eleven-thirty p.m. The death squad left the room, and Russell Lee's "torture time" began. He sat, strapped to his death chair, surrounded by blackness and waited for the phone on the wall to ring, the phone connected directly with the governor's office. In the three viewing rooms across from him, others also waited. In room one were the witnesses--Larry Digger and four relatives of Russell Lee's victims who could afford to attend. Patricia Stokes had lost her four-year-old daughter Meagan to this monster's handiwork. Her husband was on duty at his new job, so she'd brought along her fourteen-year-old son instead. Brian's young face was immobile, but Patricia was sobbing quietly, her thin arms wrapped tightly around her tall, gaunt frame.
In room two, the executioner stood ready. This room contained the second phone connected directly with the governor's office. It also boasted three large buttons, an inch and a half in diameter, which jutted out of the wall. One main inducer and two backups. The state of Texas always got the job done.
Room three was for family and friends of the inmate. Tonight its only occupant was Kelsey Jones, Russell Lee's beleaguered defence attorney, who was wearing his best suit--a mint-colored seersucker--for the occasion. Kelsey Jones had a special assignment. He was to watch. He was to report Sack, Russell Lee's last consideration to the woman who had loved him. Then Kelsey Jones was to forget all about Russell Lee--a task he would gladly accept.
Eleven thirty-one p.m. The countdown began, and the many subterfuges and manipulations that had started more than five years before finally came to a head. All rooms were quiet. All occupants were tense. The man who was responsible sat in the chair with tape over his eyeballs and ground his teeth into the bite stick.

"I AM POWERFUL. I AM HUGE! His bowels let loose. And he gripped the end of the armrests so hard his knuckles turned white. Love you, baby. Love . . . you.
"code blue! code blue!" Josh simultaneously shouted orders and checked the little girl's pulse. "I need a cart, stat! We got a young female, looks to be eight or nine, barely breathing. Somebody call peds!"
Dr. Chen rushed into the room. "Where did she come from?"
"Don't know."
Staff and crash cart arrived at the same time, and everyone fell into a fast, furious rhythm.
"She's not on the boards," Nancy, the head nurse reported, grabbing a needle. The IV slipped in, followed by the catheter. Immediately they were drawing blood and urine.
"She's running a fever! Oh, we got hives!" Sherry, another nurse, had finished snipping away the cotton sweatshirt to attach the five-lead heart monitor and revealed the little girl's inflamed torso.
"STAND BACK!"
The chest X ray flashed, and they fell back on the patient, working furiously. The girl's body was covered with a sheen of sweat and she was completely nonresponsive. Then her breathing stopped altogether.
"Tube!" Josh shouted, and immediately went to work to intubate.
Shit, she was small. He was afraid he was hurting something as he bumbled his way around her tiny throat like a water buffalo. Then the tube found the opening and slithered down her windpipe. "I'm in!" he exclaimed at the same time Sherry whirled out of the room with vials of fluid for the CBC, chem 20, and urine drug screen.
"Pulse is thready," Nancy said.



He hit the main inducer button and 440 volts/10 ohms of electricity surged through Russell Lee Holmes's body.
The lights dimmed in the Death House. Three inmates roared and clapped while one curled beneath his cot and rocked back and forth like a frightened child. The relatives of the victims watched stoically at first, but when Russell Lee's skin turned bright red and began to smoke, they turned away. Except for Brian Stokes. He remained watching, as if transfixed, while Russell Lee Holmes's body convulsed. Abruptly his feet blew off. Then his hands. Behind Brian, his mother screamed. He still didn't look away. And then it was simply over. The doctor entered the death chamber. He'd wiped Vicks VapoRub beneath his nose to block out the smell. It wasn't enough, and his nose crinkled as he inspected the body.
He looked at the middle window, into the executioner's room. "Time of death is twelve-oh-five."
"I got drug screen results!" Sherry plowed through the door, and Josh grabbed the reports, just beating out Dr. Harper Stokes. "She's positive for opiates," Josh called. "Morphine," Dr. Stokes said. "Narcan," Dr. Chen ordered. "Point-oh-oh-five milli per kilo. Bring extra!" Sherry rushed away for the reversing agent. "Could she be allergic to morphine?" Josh quizzed Dr. Chen. "Could that be what caused the anaphy-laxis reaction?" "It happens."
Sherry returned with the narcan and Dr. Chen quickly injected it. They removed the breathing tube and waited, a second dose already in hand. Narcan could be repeated every two to three minutes if necessary. Dr. Stokes checked the young girl's pulse again, then her heart.
"Better," he announced. "Steadying. Oh, hang on. Here we go . . ."
The little girl was moving her head from side to side. Nancy drew a sheet over her and they all held their breath. The little girl blinked and her large eyes, a striking mix of blue and gray, focused.
"Can you hear me, honey?" Dr. Stokes whispered, his voice curiously thick as he smoothed back her limp hair from her sweaty forehead. "Can you tell us your name?"
She didn't answer. She took in the strangers hovering above her, the white, white room, the lines and wires sticking out of her body. Plump and awkward-looking, she was not a pretty child, Josh thought, but at that moment she was completely endearing. He took her hand and her gaze rested on him immediately, tearing him up a little. Who in hell drugged and abandoned a little girl? The world was sick.
After a moment her fingers gripped his. A nice, strong grip considering her condition.
"It's okay," he whispered. "You're safe. Tell us your name, honey. We need to know your name."
Her mouth opened, her parched throat working, but no sound emerged. She looked a little more panicked.
"Relax," he soothed. "Take a deep breath. Everything is okay. Everything is fine. Now try it again."
She looked at him trustingly.
This time she whispered, "Daddy's Girl."

ONE
Twenty years later
she was late, she was late, oh, God, she was so late! Melanie Stokes came bounding up the stairs, then made the hard left turn down the hall, her long blond hair whipping around her face. Twenty minutes and counting. She hadn't even thought about what she was going to wear. Damn.
She tore into her room with her sweatshirt half pulled over her head. A strategic kick sent the heavy mahogany door slamming shut behind her as she shed the first layer of clothes. She toed off her tennis shoes and sent them sailing beneath the pine bureau that swallowed nearly a quarter of her bedroom. A lot of things came to rest beneath the battered dresser. One of these days she meant to clean it out. But not tonight.
Melanie hastily shimmied out of her ripped-up jeans, tossed her T-shirt onto the sleigh bed, and hurried to the closet. The wide plank floorboards felt cool against her toes, making her do a little cha-cha-cha along the way.
"Come on," she muttered, ripping back the silk curtain. "Ten years of compulsive shopping crammed into one five-by-five space. How hard can it be to locate a cocktail dress?"


To judge by the mess, pretty hard. Melanie grimaced, then waded in fatalistically. Somewhere in there were a few decent dresses.
At the age of twenty-nine, Melanie Stokes was petite, capable, and a born diplomat. She'd been abandoned as a child at City General Hospital with no memory of where she came from, but that had been a long time ago and she didn't think of those days much. She had an adoptive father whom she respected, an adoptive mother whom she loved, an older brother whom she worshiped, and an indulgent godfather whom she adored. Until recently she had considered her family to be very close. They were not just another rich family, they were a tight-knit family. She kept telling herself they would be like that again soon.