The Laughterhouse
Page 39
“And Mrs. Whitby?”
“Stevens says the scene is still sealed, but it might be called a suicide. He said there’s a chance Mrs. Whitby was found with the gun in her hand. He says there’s a chance she killed herself because she felt bad about what she had done, that all of this was her fault.”
“You happy to accept that?”
He shakes his head, but then says, “Yeah, I’m happy. We saved the girl, right? The world is down one evil old lady, so yeah, I can live with it,” he says, but I’m not so sure he can, and Stevens’s plan also comes down to how quiet they can keep Cole.
“And Stanton?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. It’s not up to us, Theo. Stanton stabbed an unarmed man on national TV. That’s for the lawyers to figure out. I’m going home,” he says, “before my wife fires me too.”
I watch him heading down the corridor. I figure Katy, Cole, and Stanton-all of them are going to be okay. I figure that’s a good omen, but then I think about the balance that Schroder was talking about earlier, and how that balance is going to be my wife. I stare at my cell phone for a few moments, then finally make the call, already knowing what I’m going to hear-when was the last time anybody called me with good news? I call Dr. Forster back and he answers after the second ring and I say nothing as he talks to me, I just listen, absorbing the information.
Bridget isn’t dead. She isn’t in a coma. She’s alert and conscious but there is another problem. He tries to explain it to me, but I can’t make sense of it. I turn in the corridor trying to orientate myself, trying to figure out the floor my wife is on and how to get there from here, and after I turn a full circle I drop down to my knees and throw up. The doctor who looked into my eyes a few minutes earlier sees me and rushes toward me, but I get back up and step into the elevator. The doors close in front of him and I make my way up a few floors.
By the time I make it to my wife’s room, I can barely walk straight. At first I think half of the lights have been turned off, but then I realize it’s me, that I’m struggling to see. I open the door and Bridget looks at me. A smile bursts onto my face, but then the floor comes rushing up toward me, my head crashes into the side of her bed on the way down, and the thing inside my head lights up the rest of its distress flares. I lie on the floor realizing that for something good to have happened, the city has to give something bad. That’s the balance Schroder was talking about. Cole, Stanton, my wife-I’m the balance for them surviving.
I can hear the door opening behind me, somebody rushing in, somebody saying “there he is,” and crouching over me. I hear “Christ, this is going to be close,” and then it all fades away-the lights, the pain, my wife, and I can feel the tears on my cheek and then I can’t feel a thing.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-28895e-28f7-c14d-64be-3794-5092-a71c91
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 11.09.2013
Created using: calibre 1.1.0, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Paul Cleave
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