“What kind of incident, like a fire?” She sounded nervous at the prospect.
Fire … fire makes her nervous, thought Mitch.
“Probably more like a fight,” he said, thinking the truth would be less alarming than a blaze. “There are guards on duty, it’ll be handled.”
Hospitals had security, so Ruby didn’t seem to mind that explanation. While Mitch was looking at his notes, readying his questions, the door to the therapy room—one he didn’t lock in case a guard needed access—flew open. Shock replaced surprise on Ruby’s face, a look that Mitch shared as his gaze traveled to the doorway and he made sense of what he saw there.
Darla, looking strong and sturdy as a tree trunk in her Edgewater greens, filled the doorframe to the therapy room with her substantial girth. Her face was a knot of rage, mouth twisted and snarled, hair wildly upended. She glared not at Mitch but at his patient, pressing her sizable hands against the doorframe, leaning her body into the room.
“You,” Darla said in a growl, pointing at Ruby. “You slept with him, you bitch!”
Mitch half expected the blast of adrenaline that hit him might have sent Ruby scurrying away to make room for Eve, but no, the sharp-edged voice that answered retained an English accent.
“What do you mean I slept with him? Who are you?”
“You know who I am,” said Darla. “Don’t play games with me, missy. I don’t care who you say you are. Penny, Eve, whatever—you’re a piece of shit whatever your name is.” Foamy spittle flew from Darla’s mouth. “You had sex with my Charlie and now I’m going to rip your head off.”
Darla removed her hand from the doorframe, and that’s when Mitch saw the knife. It was a crude weapon, long and thin like a needle—a shank, as it’s known in prison parlance, fashioned from scraps of metal that she’d acquired from who knows where.
Out of instinct, Mitch hit the panic button as he rose from his chair and came around the desk to confront Darla head on. The gap between them was now no more than seven feet, a distance she could travel in under a second. The sight of Darla’s eyes swimming with madness tightened Mitch’s chest in what he could only liken to a heart attack.
He managed to get out two words—“Darla” and “no”—before the full weight of her body crashed hard into his. Mitch saw the shank in Darla’s right hand come at his left side, the blade slightly stained with blood. Did she stab a guard to get here?
Swiveling at the waist, Mitch moved reflexively in the opposite direction of the knife attack. Thankfully, the shank caught a flap on the inside of Mitch’s tweed blazer, causing it to rip as he lost his balance. With the blade stuck in the coat fabric, the weapon pulled free from Darla’s grasp as Mitch fell to the floor. A sharp stab of pain blasted into his right shoulder, but it wasn’t severe enough to keep him out of the fight.
She may have called herself Eve in here, and had switched to Ruby before this attack, but in Mitch’s mind it was still Penny who Darla had come to kill. With one long stride, Darla stepped over Mitch to get to her target, who was slow to react because of the ketamine. In no time at all, she had her hands wrapped tightly around Penny’s throat, and Mitch heard the strangled sound that followed.
Momentum from Darla’s forward burst carried enough force to tip Penny’s chair backward. It balanced on two legs before it went over, and Penny went with it, Darla landing on top of her. Somehow, Penny managed to stay seated when she hit the floor, but with no leverage to wiggle free, Darla’s weight advantage kept her pinned in place. Strangled noises from Penny were quiet at first, but became increasingly desperate as Darla’s hands tightened around her throat.
Rolling onto his stomach, Mitch pushed to his hands and knees, getting off the floor with a grunt of effort. He needed only a single step to grab hold of Darla’s green uniform at the shoulders, bunching the fabric into two little balls as he pulled with all his might. She didn’t budge, so he let go with one hand to start hammering heavy blows against Darla’s back with a closed fist.
“He’s my husband … you had no right! No right to sleep with him. You whore! You bitch!”
“Darla,” Mitch screamed. “Stop!”
This began a desperate tug-of-war, Mitch pulling on Darla, Darla pulling in the other direction so she could keep her hands white-knuckled on Penny’s throat. Kicking wildly, bucking with her hips, Penny tried desperately to free herself, but to no avail. Darla came into this fight phenomenally strong, and rage had made her even more formidable. She was crazed, snapping her head back at Mitch with her teeth bared like the fangs of an angry dog. Penny could not hold on much longer.