by C. T. Adams
He was right. In the distance I heard the ding of the elevator bell and the crackle of radio static. The cavalry had arrived in the form of hospital security.
I glanced at my watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. Brooks was probably sitting in the van wondering what in the hell was taking me so long. I didn’t dare risk digging out my cell to call him. If I could hear the folks from Channel 4 News through the door, the reverse would be true as well. So I stood in the deep shadows of an empty hospital room and listened impatiently to the newswoman’s Academy Award-worthy performance and the guard’s unimpressed response. All in all it was almost thirty minutes before they were gone and I could emerge from hiding.
I stepped out of the room, and ran straight into Mike.
“What in the hell—” he spluttered.
“The team from Channel 4 arrived just as I was leaving.”
He made a disgusted sound. “Figures. Come on. When you didn’t make it out to the van in thirty minutes I decided to come looking for you.”
“Thanks.”
He didn’t answer, just strode down the hall at a brisk enough clip that I had to hustle to keep up with him. The squeak of my tennis shoes on the polished linoleum seemed amazingly loud to my ears, but Mike didn’t seem to notice. It was probably just nerves.
Mike hit the lever to open the door to the emergency stairwell. “You do realize that you’re eventually going to have to face the press. What you did—” I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed nervously. “It was just amazing. Nothing like that has ever happened before. I don’t know if Tom’s told you yet, but you had a message from Barbara Walters on your machine this morning.” I had started to pass him, but when he said that I just froze in place, my jaw hanging down somewhere around my navel.
“Barbara—”
“Walters wants to do a special interview with you and Bryan.” Mike made a shooing gesture with his hands and I started down the steps. I didn’t know what to say. I mean … holy crap. A Barbara Walters special? My nerves so weren’t up to this.
“Have you talked to Joe yet?” Mike’s words interrupted my thoughts.
I flinched. No, I had not talked to Joe. If Bryan hadn’t told me he’d been hanging around I wouldn’t even have known it. He hadn’t come in to see me. There’d been no card, no flowers. My throat tightened, and I felt the sting of tears. Damn it! A part of me knew I should probably make the first move, but he was the one in the wrong! Would it kill him to apologize first for once?
“I take it that’s a no.” Mike was angry. I knew it even before I looked at him over my shoulder. His face was flushed, his jaw set in an aggressive line. “Damn it, Kate. Joe loves you and he worries about you.”
“And I love him. But you and I both know that he can be an interfering, overbearing, bully sometimes. He was out of line. Would it kill him to apologize?”
Mike ran his free hand through his thinning hair. “I think it actually might.” He blew out an exasperated breath. “Between the two of you, I swear—”
We had reached the third floor. It was time to go out into the hallway and down to Mac’s lab. I really hoped I hadn’t gotten turned around. The directions he’d given me were from the elevator.
I needn’t have worried. Mike knew where he was going. He had one of those internal compasses that never let him get lost. I followed his broad back down a long bright hallway that smelled of antiseptic and other chemicals, the nylon bag bumping against my legs in an irregular rhythm.
We turned left and I found myself in a familiar corridor. He’d led me right to the hall with Mac’s lab. I took the lead again, going over to the security door they’d installed since my last visit and punching in the numbers I’d been given. Like magic the light on the mechanism turned from red to green, and there was a metallic click that let me know the door was ready to be opened.
Mike took the lead again, and I followed him through the empty corridor to the marked fire door. A few flights of stairs later, I had my hand on the doorknob, ready to go outside and make the short trip across open lawn to the employee parking garage.
Mike went first. I waited a couple of minutes, the door cracked open so that I could listen in case he called out. Instead, all I heard was the crunch of feet on frozen snow.
The wind sneaking through the crack of the open door was frigid. My breath misted in the air. I started swearing under my breath, wishing heartily for my heavy coat. I didn’t have it; wasn’t exactly sure what had happened to it. So I was left to shiver in my borrowed scrubs and hope to hell that Brooks had the heater on in the car. Otherwise I was in for a long, miserable ride.
Steeling myself, I opened the door. The wind hit me like a full-body slap, cutting through the thin cotton as if I weren’t even wearing it. I took off at a run across the frostlimned grass. The breath coming into my lungs was clean, but sharp as broken glass.
Mike was waiting by the back door to the garage. I slowed to a stop and pulled Miles’s identification card from my pocket. I swiped it through the locking mechanism. Once again a green light flared and I heard the mechanism click.
Mike opened the door, holding it open for me.
“Damn it’s cold.” I blew on fingers that had gone red.
“I should have thought to bring you a coat. I’m sorry. At least the van will be warm.”
“Thank God for that!” I stepped through the door. I’d expected to see a rental mini-van. Instead, an old white work van was parked right where it was supposed to be. A thin wisp of gray smoke trailed from its tailpipe, adding to the prevailing smell of gasoline and exhaust that permeated the concrete structure.
The van door slid open as I ran toward it. Bryan was inside. The minute he saw me his face lit up. His grin was just as open as it had been before, but there was a spark of knowledge in his eyes, in his body language, that showed just how much the healing had changed him. Individually the differences were so minute that I couldn’t pinpoint them. Collectively it made all the difference.
“Hey, Katie, ‘bout time you got here!”
He took the bag from my hands and scooted out of the way so that I could climb in. He slid out of his brown leather bomber jacket and threw it over my shoulders. “Here. Wear this. You look like you’re freezing.”
“I am.” I managed to say it through chattering teeth. The metal floor was cold through the thin fabric of my trousers, but the jacket helped. Since Bryan was wearing a heavy fisherman’s sweater he could afford to lose the coat, even if people saw him through the window. I watched as he pulled the side door closed as Mike climbed in to the passenger seat and strapped on his seatbelt.
“Hey, Reilly.” Brooks turned to look over the driver’s side seat. “Good to see you up and about.” He turned to the front of the vehicle and made minute adjustments to the rearview mirror. “We’ve had a change of plan. Rob called. I’m supposed to let you know that he and Dusty will take care of Blank for you. I’m also supposed to tell you that the Channel 4 News crew just showed up at the church. They’re looking for you and Bryan, or at least to talk to Mike. They figure he knows where the two of you are.”
Brooks put the van in reverse. It jerked into gear. I wasn’t prepared and wound up sliding a couple of inches across the floor.
“Why would they think that?”
Brooks laughed. “All they had to do is talk to someone you know. Anybody who’s ever met you knows the first person you go to when you’re in trouble is Mike.”
I thought about that for a minute. He was almost right. I’d been relying on Michael O’Rourke since we were kids. He’d been the one who helped me through my parents’ deaths, through my breakup with Dylan. But he wasn’t the first person I ran to any more. Tom had taken that place in my mind, in my heart. I wasn’t sure exactly when things had changed, but they had. The knowledge made me both happy and oddly sad.
Mike turned to meet my gaze. His look made me wonder if he knew what I’d been thinking. He often did. He gave me a wistful smile before turni
ng to face the front.
“So, what’s the plan?” Bryan asked. It was the tone that startled me. His voice had a confidence and aggression that had been missing for years. I wondered if I would ever be able to take the changes in him for granted. Would it always surprise me? Or would I eventually become so used to him being back that I forgot the hollow shell he’d been for so long: the empty eyes that stared back at me with no recognition whatsoever.
Brooks answered Bryan’s question, but his eyes met mine in the mirror, checking for my approval. “You could use my mother’s … old place.” There was an odd tone to his voice, and it occurred to me that his mother must be the reason for his sympathy leave. He’d just lost one of his family, and I’d never said a word. But he kept going, his voice getting stronger with each word. “No one would think to look for you there. We haven’t even started boxing up her stuff, so you should be comfortable, and I didn’t like leaving it empty anyway.”
“You’re sure it’s okay?” I had to ask. Having someone else in her place, so soon … well, I would’ve had a hard time with it. “I’m sorry about your mom, Brooks. I should have said so earlier.” Mike and Bryan murmured their agreement with my condolences.
“It’s fine,” Brooks answered. I heard the click of the turn signal and felt the van shift left as he took a corner. “She was sick for a long time, and in a lot of pain. It was time.”
An awkward silence descended on the car. I’m Catholic. I truly believe in heaven. I’d never met Brooks’s mother, but I’d be willing to bet good money she’d gone there. Her son seemed more a man who embraced his past than overcame it.
The van slowed and lurched, sending me sprawling sideways as we turned into a rutted driveway. I winced as the spot where the IV had been slammed against the seat’s floor support.
“We’re here.”
I slid open the side door and climbed out to see a small, neat house with green shingles, the trim and front porch painted a pure white that gleamed in the moonlight. The porch light was on, casting a warm golden glow over the pair of old-fashioned metal chairs painted a green only slightly darker than the house. There was a braided rug on the floor in front of the door in place of a welcome mat. The floorboards of the porch creaked as we walked across them and the hinges of the wooden screen door squealed in protest as Brooks opened it. I recognized the neighborhood as one at the very edge of Denver, in a little triangle of confusion where three cities met. On the plus side, since nobody was certain of the boundaries, a 911 call usually brought instant response from all three cities.
Pulling keys from his pocket, he unlocked the main door and held it open with one hand as he reached in to turn on the light switch with the other.
The minute I stepped through the doorway I felt an abiding sense of home. It felt right somehow. Old hand-painted lamps cast a warm glow over well worn, but lovingly tended furniture. One corner of the room was dominated by a huge upright piano that had to be an antique. Its dark wood gleamed from years of polish. A lace cloth had been spread on its top with a collection of family photographs arranged in an attractive display. I saw pictures of Brooks as a child, playing catch with a young man in front of this same house; pictures of his graduation from high school and the police academy. It was obvious he’d been an only child and that his parents had been very proud of him.
I moved away from the photographs, turning to look at the rest of the room. A brick fireplace took up most of the north wall. Built-in bookcases flanked both sides up to chest height, the leaded glass wavy with age. The finish was old-fashioned varnish, not polyurethane, and while it was less practical, it gave the cabinets a glowing warmth that the newer finishes never quite seem to match. Mrs. Brooks had been a mystery buff, the cabinets were mostly filled with paper- and hard backs by the masters of mystery fiction. The entire bottom two shelves of one cabinet were filled with a set of familiar yellow covers. I walked over to check. Sure enough, the entire collection of Nancy Drew mysteries had been set out in numeric order.
He cleared his throat as I took in the room, smiling. “The fireplace works. I had it cleaned just a couple, months ago, and there are some of those chemical logs in a bin on the back porch. You should probably crack open one of those if you decide to use it.” Brooks gestured to the small windows on either side of the chimney.
“The bedrooms are back this way.” Bryan and I followed him down a narrow hallway. There were two bedrooms. The largest was probably twelve by twelve. It was wallpapered in a pattern I’d never seen before, but liked very much—a cream background overlain with tiny bunches of flowers in white, gold, and vivid crimson. The dark wood bed and dresser were a matched set of antiques, with delicately carved leaf designs on the head- and footboards matching the design above the dresser mirror. A matching end table had a lace doily under a large reading lamp. Heavy crimson drapes-covered the large windows on two of the walls, exactly matching the fabric and pattern of the spread on the bed.
“I figured you could sleep here. Mom would have insisted. There are fresh sheets in the linen cabinet in the bathroom.” Brooks stepped back into the hallway and gestured at a closed door.
“Bryan, this is the other bedroom.” Brooks pushed open the door to reveal a smaller room that had been painted a shade of sky blue. This was the first room to have carpeting rather than hardwood floors, and it was a thick plush the intense dark blue of a midnight sky. The walls were trimmed with wide baseboards painted bright white. There was one window. The curtains on it were white with navy and powder blue stripes crossing to form a loose plaid. The twin bed was black and had a metal tube construction on its head and footboards. The bedspread was a white chenille. In the corner a four-drawer chest of drawers stood. It had been painted a glossy black that looked good with the bed. A pair of shelves had been mounted on the wall. They held an assortment of ribbons and sports trophies—the only remnants of the childhood Brooks must have spent in this room.
The three of us trooped back to join Michael in the living room. Brooks was still talking. “You’re welcome to whatever is in the pantry, but you’ll need to go to the store for perishables.”
“I can’t tell you how much we appreciate this, John.” Bryan said. It seemed strange that Bryan felt free to call him by his first name, but I never had.
“It’s no problem.” His eyes flickered as he had an idea.
“If you really want to thank me you can start cleaning out the garage. It’s filled with old junk. The real estate agent says the house will show fine with the furniture, but the garage is a disaster.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Bryan promised with a confident nod. He flexed muscles that Mike had made certain were toned through hard work and frequent exercise.
“Thanks. You can just take it all out to the dumpster in the back alley. The city comes around to empty it every Friday morning. I’d stay inside as much as possible for a few days. Maybe take things outside after dark. People here know me, but they don’t know you, and I don’t want to walk around knocking on doors tonight. I’ll explain things in the morning. The neighbors are the Neighborhood Watch sort.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a set of keys. He tossed them to me. “Here. The one with the pink plastic ring on it is the front door key. The little one is the padlock to the garage. The car keys are to the Oldsmobile parked out front. You can use it all you want.”
“Brooks—” I was at a loss for words. He was being incredibly generous.
“Don’t thank me until you see the garage.” He joked. “Padre, you ready to hit the road?”
“Any time you are.” Mike stepped forward and gave me a hug. It felt … odd. We’ve been hugging each other comfortably for years. But this time he gripped me fiercely, tight enough to take my breath away. He buried his face in the silly black wig and whispered in my ear. “Good-bye, Katie.”
“Mike?”
He pulled back abruptly and nearly dived out the front door. Brooks and Bryan both gave me an odd look. I shrugged. I had no more clue
as to what was wrong than they did.
“I’ll talk to him.” Brooks started toward the door, but stopped with his hand on the handle. “I almost forgot to tell you. Henri Tané is dead, but Antonia and Emily are both fine. We can’t be sure about Digby Wallace. Nobody’s seen him for a few days, but that’s not unusual. One of the cops in the nearest town volunteered to go out and check on him. So it looks like it was just good, old-fashioned nightmares.”
“You’re sure?” I couldn’t keep the relief from my voice.
“Sure as we can be. Still, I warned everybody about what you saw, so they know to be careful. I’ll call you when I hear from Australia.” He left then, without saying good-bye. The screen door slammed shut behind him.
“So,” Bryan said. “I’m starved. What do you say we check out that pantry?”
I rolled my eyes, but followed him into the kitchen.
It was a small, neat room. The white painted cabinets had old-fashioned silver handles. The kitchen table was one of the old-fashioned ones with chrome legs and a wide chrome band around a smooth gray-flecked top. The chairs had chrome legs and metal seats and chair backs that had been painted fire engine red. Imitations of this exact set were being sold for ridiculous amounts of money at high-end furniture stores and galleries, but this was the real thing. The stove and refrigerator were both older models that had been top of the line back in their day. They were sparkling clean, without so much as a fingerprint or scorch mark marring the surface.
The floor was covered in scarred red linoleum that was probably loaded with asbestos. It had been waxed until it practically glowed. And on the wall, hanging above the stove was a white metal sign with bright red letters that read “The kitchen is the heart of any home.”
There was pancake mix in the pantry, unspoiled eggs and milk in the refrigerator. In no time we were eating scrambled eggs and pancakes, while I answered Bryan’s questions and caught him up on what had been happening in the big, wide world.
No surprise that he was most interested in the advancements in … video games.
