What Doesn't Kill Her

by Christina Dodd

  There were a lot of different ways Kellen could respond. I’ve got a child and she’s like me. I’ve got a suitor and he loves me. Someone’s trying to kill me and I don’t know why. She chose the easiest. “Max and I are getting married.”

  Annie sighed deeply. “May you face all the years of joy and sorrow together.”

  Kellen wasn’t sure if Annie had blessed their union or cursed it.

  Annie kissed her head again, and her voice lightened. “I’m sorry, dear. That sounded less than enthusiastic. I’m thrilled. Leo is thrilled. But instead of thinking of my joy for you and Max, I was thinking about Leo and me.”

  “Problems?” God forbid they would have marital problems; they both laughed and declared they’d been married since the earth’s crust cooled and always seemed dedicated to each other.

  “You know how we feel about this place, and since I was sick last winter, I haven’t recovered as well as we hoped and I can’t do what I need to do.”

  Oh. Whew. Not marital problems exactly. Life problems, not less dire but more comforting for a prospective bride to hear. “You’re thinking about retirement?”

  “Talking about it, which is even worse. I knew this day would come. Leo is more excited than I am, of course. He wants to travel. And we will!” Annie smiled, but with an effort. She turned to the men who were conversing quietly beside the bar. “Leo, we need champagne. We must toast Max and Kellen’s upcoming nuptials!”

  Leo clapped Max on the shoulder, opened the floor-to-ceiling wine cooler and pulled out a bottle of Di Luca’s best sparkling wine.

  “You told her!” Max looked equal parts dismayed and pleased.

  Kellen got to her feet. “Should I not have?”

  Annie’s eyes widened in horror. “Haven’t you two told Verona yet?”

  Max shook his head.

  “Then we’ll have this champagne and pretend we don’t know why we’re celebrating.” Leo popped the cork and poured the champagne flutes full. He handed them out and lifted his in a toast. “May your love light the way for all the worlds and all the times.”

  They clinked glasses.

  Kellen blinked away unexpected tears.

  The house phone rang, and Leo picked it up, listened and hung up. “Kateri is here with Dr. Frownfelter.”

  Kellen’s tears dried and she drank her champagne in a rush. She took a breath, metaphorically girded her loins and waited, dreading the next few hours of conversations...and revelations.

  Sheriff Kwinault came through the door first.

  SHERIFF KATERI KWINAULT:

  FEMALE, 30? YO, 5'9" 140 LBS, FIT, BEAUTIFUL, HALF NATIVE AMERICAN. FORMER COAST GUARD COMMANDER, SWEPT OUT TO SEA WHILE BATTLING A TSUNAMI, BARELY SURVIVED. CARRIES A WALKING STICK. A LEGEND AMONG HER TRIBE. RESPECTED BY LAW OFFICERS. FRIEND OF MAX.

  Not many women made Kellen feel like an underachiever, but Kateri Kwinault could, if she tried. She never tried, and Kellen had developed a tentative friendship with her.

  Max hugged Kateri and handed her a flute of sparkling water. “Thank you for coming to meet with us.”

  “It’s not you, Max.” Kateri accepted the water and sipped. “It’s Kellen, and the opportunity to have a meal with Leo and Annie, created by their excellent chefs.”

  “Amen.” The doctor stepped through the door. “Best food within a fifty-mile radius of Virtue Falls.”

  “What about Virtue Falls Resort?” Annie asked.

  He chuckled. “Let’s not start a war.” He headed toward the bar where a variety of appetizers were laid out.

  Kellen had never met Dr. Frownfelter before.

  DR. WALTER FROWNFELTER:

  MALE, 70? YO, 6'2", 240 LBS, ALBERT EINSTEIN HAIR, RUMPLED WHITE COAT, RESEMBLES A BASSET HOUND. BRIGHT BLUE EYES; TOO OBSERVANT. TREATED WITH RESPECT; OBVIOUSLY WELL LIKED BY THIS COMPANY. LONELY.

  While speaking with him, Kellen reached the conclusion he was lonely; he talked to himself too much and looked at the past with too much longing. That was the reason why, after their pleasant dinner was over, she wandered out onto the deck with him.

  They were fourteen stories up. It was dark. They could hear the beastly roar of the ocean waves, smell the salt, the seaweed, the damp sand and up here, feel the truth of all the days of the world.

  “I’m the reliable old Virtue Falls physician. Everybody likes me.” Dr. Frownfelter made fun of himself in a rough, gravelly voice. “But I suspect I was brought here for more reasons than to fill my belly. You’ve got quite a scar on your forehead.”

  Maybe he had been warned. Probably he had noticed. He’d been brought here for her, and instinctively she trusted him, so she told him everything about the bullet, the scar, the gray.

  When she was finished, he contemplated the great darkness at the edge of the world where the ocean roared and chewed at the land. “I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I would suggest that you’ve had one medical opinion, from Army doctors. They think that bullet’s going to move, and you’re going to die.”

  “That’s right.”

  “With all due respect to my military colleagues, I think you’d be wise to seek a second opinion. Medical technology improves every day. And the military medical establishment has different priorities than civilian medical establishment has—triage if possible, but nothing fancy.”

  “Right.” She had suspected that, but the Army had been in such a hurry to get rid of her, and had given her such bad odds for surgical extraction of the bullet, she hadn’t been in a hurry to get that second opinion.

  Dr. Frownfelter continued, “Here in the States, sometimes a doctor is such a good specialist, she can change your diagnosis and save your life.”

  “Sounds like you have someone in mind.”

  “I might. In Portland.” He heaved a sigh that made his broad belly rise and fall. “It seems like, with a daughter and a husband, finding out exactly what could happen with the proper surgery is the right move.”

  “Instead of just dying?” She rubbed her arms. Up here, even in the summer, the wind off the ocean chilled her.

  “We’re all born with an expiration date, but God doesn’t print it on the side of our milk cartons.”

  She shouldn’t laugh, but it was funny. And true. “But if surgery doesn’t work, if I go into a coma and don’t come out...you doctors won’t let me die in peace, and I’m not going to live the next forty years hooked to an IV and a breathing tube, without motion or mind, while the world goes on around me.” That was her nightmare, to be trapped in a living death.

  He patted her arm. “It’s all in the paperwork. Let’s get you checked out and see what the specialists think. Then you can make an informed decision.”

  “I won’t be a burden on Max and Rae.”

  “But Max and Rae are who you’re doing this for.”

  “Yes.” Yes. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Don’t think too long, Kellen.” He looked closely into her face. “The decision needs to be made soon.”

  She wanted to ask him what he saw, but Max opened the door. “Kellen.” Just the one word, but he wanted her inside.

  She walked past him into a room of grim faces. “What is it?”

  “I finally spoke to the right person at the Portland hospital,” Sheriff Kwinault said. “Roderick Blake is dead. Overdose of morphine.”

  “Tampering is suspected,” Max added.

  “Dead like those other men on the mountain.” Kellen shivered, still chilled from the balcony. “Who is doing all this? And why? There has to be a reason.”

  The next morning, Max decided to drive the winding coastal highway toward Portland, a short distance with many turnouts and high views of the Pacific Ocean where the sun glinted on the eternally rolling waves. He said they needed some stress-free moments, although she noted that he kept an eye on the rearview mirror and observed e
very car and every driver. That last sniper shot had left them both wary and watchful.

  Still, she relaxed and enjoyed watching him drive. After her years in the military, directing transport, she appreciated a man with driving skills. He took the turnouts when she asked, smiled at her when he thought she didn’t notice, and best of all, he was easygoing enough that he only swore at one slow tourist.

  The closer they got to Portland, the more he suggested they stop in to see the specialist Dr. Frownfelter had recommended. He revealed that Dr. Frownfelter had called in favors and got her an appointment late that afternoon. She would have every kind of exam, every test, and before the morning, they’d know what her chances were to survive an operation to remove that bullet from her brain. To survive, and more important, to recover.

  She didn’t want to go. She wanted more time to think, to make a decision about whether to welcome the gray unconsciousness into her life.

  Max put his hand on her thigh and shot her a quick smile.

  He was so patient, so generous. Smart, kind...and he loved her. Through all the years and the trials, he loved her.

  And she loved him. She was going to marry him. They were going to live together until the end of their days...

  * * *

  Kellen opened her eyes and stared into Max’s frantic face. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  “You were gone. Just—” he snapped his fingers “—gone.”

  She looked around. He’d pulled the truck off the pavement and he had her stretched out in the sun on the rough grass beside the road. Just over the horizon, the Pacific Ocean roared and crashed, sending its salty scent high into the air.

  It was the Pacific that had pulled her back through the membrane between the endless gray and consciousness; that blustering wind, that writhing beast, that womb that constantly produced life, took life and re-created it again.

  Sitting up, she smoothed her hair back from her face. Slowly, she nodded at Max. “Okay. Let’s go see the doctor. And when the time comes, I’ll have the surgery.”

  43

  Two days later, Max and Kellen drove into the Di Luca Winery in the old truck, right into the middle of what appeared to be a private party. A blue-and-white canopy lifted its twin peaks on the lawn between the tasting room door and the picnic tables. Beneath the canopy sat a grand piano and a bar selling glasses of wine, crusty bread and charcuterie and cheese plates.

  The pianist, an older man with a sharply pointed beard, waxed mustache and upward-pointed eyebrows, was playing “The Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera. A handsome woman about his age was dropping a twenty into his tip jar. Under the broad white oak trees, smiling people sat around new, brightly painted picnic tables. Customers wandered out of the tasting room carrying wrapped wine bottles and gift shop bags.

  The scene was so counter to the winery’s usual quiet dignity Max came to a stop in the middle of the driveway and stared.

  “Who are these people?” Kellen asked.

  “I haven’t got a—”

  Behind them, a horn blared.

  Max let up on the brake, drove into the lot and parked next to a silver Lexus NX Hybrid. “Right before I left for the mountains, I did hire a new winery manager and gave him free rein to do what he wished and hire, at least temporarily, who he wanted.”

  Kellen looked at Max across the seat. “I believe he may have taken you at your word.”

  “I believe you’re right.” He opened the door and hurried around to help her out.

  She eased out of the seat and onto the running board, and stood looking down at him. “I’m perfectly capable.”

  “I know.” He helped her step onto the ground, taking special care of the still-healing wound on her arm, hidden under a light long-sleeved T-shirt. “That makes me like to help you even more.”

  How could she argue with that? Especially when he held her hand and smiled into her eyes, and she felt the not-quite-familiar rise of warm passion. She leaned into him and kissed him. She loved his scent, his heat, his taste, the scrape of his dark beard across her chin.

  A cry from the house interrupted them. “Max!”

  Max waved one arm at his mother. “We’re back safe and sound!”

  Verona ran down the porch steps and across the gravel lot.

  Kellen pulled back so Verona could hug Max.

  Verona did, and hugged Kellen, too, although without the fervent joy of the first hug. Still, her voice was vehement when she said, “Thank heavens you two are back and all right! You gave us quite a scare.”

  “I promise that wasn’t our intention. Where’s Rae?” Max kept his voice casual, but Kellen heard the intense undercurrent of concern. The events of the last week had scarred him.

  “I insisted she go to camp. We paid the money. She is underfoot all day when she’s here. She has done nothing but talk about ThunderFlame and LightningBug and draw pictures and tell me about the bicycle ride and the giant cobweb and the...the shootings.” Verona had been complaining about her granddaughter, until she mentioned the shootings. Then the color washed out of her face.

  Kellen eased a hand under her arm. “LightningBug is home safe where she belongs.”

  “ThunderFlame had better stay here, too,” Verona said severely. “We expected you yesterday.”

  “ThunderFlash. She’s ThunderFlash. We took a detour to Yearning Sands to get a shower and then to the hospital to get Kellen’s stitches removed.” Max lifted Kellen’s arm and showed his mother the slash the bullet had left behind. He mentioned nothing of the MRI and the specialists whom Dr. Frownfelter had called in.

  Verona looked them up and down. “Where did you get those clothes? Don’t tell me—at the resort. Dressed like that, you’ll fit in with the tourists. I’ll fix a special meal to welcome you home.” Verona’s expression grew deeply thoughtful. “Yes, I think a celebration dinner is called for!”

  Max and Kellen watched her turn and hurry toward the house.

  “It’s only noon. What’s going to take her six hours?” Kellen asked.

  Max laughed deep in his chest. “Are you challenging my mother?”

  “Not at all! It was more of a rhetorical question.” She deliberately bumped her hip into his.

  He deliberately bumped back. “Want to help me shower?”

  “I don’t know. When we tried sharing a shower at Zone’s, we got stuck.”

  Max cackled. There was no other word for it. He cackled. Then he sighed. “Oh, hell. Here comes Arthur. Arthur Waldberg, the new winery manager.”

  ARTHUR WALDBERG:

  MALE, 5'7", 140 LBS, DESCENT: MEDITERRANEAN? MIDDLE EASTERN?, DARK CURLY HAIR, BROWN EYES. DRESSED FOR BUSINESS IN NEW YORK CITY. MOOD: CONFIDENT, PLEASED WITH HIMSELF.

  Huh.

  “Sir! You’re back!” Arthur hurried up and extended his hand.

  “Call me Max.”

  “Of course, sir.” Arthur offered his hand to Kellen. “You’re Rae’s mommy. Miss Adams, I’ve heard nothing but your praises sung since my arrival.”

  Kellen lifted her eyebrows at him.

  “From Rae,” he qualified. “The two of you have had quite an adventure.”

  “We’re glad that it’s over,” Kellen replied.

  “I’m not so sure Rae would agree,” Arthur said.

  Max and Kellen moaned in unison.

  Arthur laughed. “My children aren’t the least adventurous. Thank heavens they don’t take after their father.”

  Kellen added a note to his dossier.

  ARTHUR WALDBERG:

  BELIEVES HIMSELF TO BE ADVENTUROUS. SEEMS OUT OF CHARACTER WITH APPEARANCE.

  “What do you think of the changes?” Arthur waved at the winery. “I plunged right in, hired reliable help to replace the staff you lost to Whistling Winds Winery. Temporary staff, of course, pending your interview and a
pproval. Your vintner agreed to take on a talented young person as his apprentice.”

  “You convinced Freeman Townsend to take on an apprentice?” Max was incredulous.

  “Not me. The apprentice convinced him with a combination of talent, fresh ideas—and lavish admiration.”

  “Wow. I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “Her. Jessie Glomen.”

  Max shook his head in disbelief. “A female convinced that old misogynist to... Now I really can’t wait to meet her.”

  “Not a problem, sir.” Arthur waved his hand toward the path that led around the winery building and toward the sheds that held the huge stainless steel and smaller oak casks. “We’ll start the tour there.”

  “Perhaps on the grounds, first.” Max really couldn’t keep his eyes off the changes.

  “Very good, sir. The staff and I can’t wait another minute to show off our improvements. You’ve already seen what we’ve done with the outside. Here, let me introduce you to the splendid young designer who created this warm and welcoming atmosphere.” Arthur led them toward:

  WARREN GOLOKIN:

  MALE, CAUCASIAN ANCESTRY, MIDTHIRTIES, 5'10", 150 LBS, BROWN HAIR (STIFF POMPADOUR), BLUE EYES, BLACK EYELINER. FLAMBOYANTLY GAY. ACCENT: NEW JERSEY. IMMACULATELY DRESSED. THRILLED AND NERVOUS.

  Max complimented Warren on the layout.

  Kellen asked where he had found the artistically painted picnic tables, and on discovering he’d done them himself, suggested they start a shop for his works.

  Warren wrung her hand in an outpouring of thankfulness and confessed fabulously decorated, utilitarian furniture was his passion.

  Kellen talked to him about the objets d’art she’d seen in Afghanistan, about the hidden libraries and the labyrinth of caves filled with wonders of a bygone age, and the two of them would have gone on for hours, but Arthur caught Warren’s eye and Warren broke it off.

  “Miss Adams, I hope in the future we can sit down and discuss what you saw—the colors, the designs, how they made you feel. But for now, I know you want to meet the rest of the staff.”