He asked for and received permission to stay with "Jane Doe" while the doctor worked on her. Clearly concerned for the safety of the emergency-room employees, the doctor asked directly if there was any threat of harm to her staff.
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Chris shook his head. For whatever reason, the doctor believed him. She asked if he was armed and nodded curtly when he answered that he was.
She called for the supplies necessary to sterilize Eden's wound, and a local anesthetic. She ordered her staff, at Christs suggestion, to conduct themselves as if this woman had never been admitted at all. The doctor administered the shot of penicillin and then grilled Chris for the length of time it took to anesthetize Eden's flesh and place the stitches.
Watching Eden, seeing her wide gray eyes flutter open now, and again as she drifted in and out of consciousness, he indicated to the doctor that his witness was still very much a'target of the man who had hired an assassin to kill her.
He lied when asked where the shooting had taken place but told the' truth as to the' number of intervening hours. He admitted that he was not only without a means of leaving the hospital, he was also without the necessary transportation to get ]ais witness to safety.
The doctor grimaced. Her brow furrowed thoughtfully. He held Eden's thin, pale hand. His eyes were drawn again and again to the dozen or so small scratches from tree branches catching her in the face. He described the man who wanted her dead and the prodigious efforts of the Justice Department to defend her life.
The doctor placed the last of five stitches, then dumped the forceps and hook-shaped needle into a metal bowl. Stripping off her gloves, she discarded them into a bio-hazard waste container.
"Exactly how is it that this 'man, this... assassin," the doctor demanded angrily, "got to this woman if she was a Pr9tected witness?"
Chris shook his head wearily. "I don't know."
"That's not a very satisfactory answer, is it?"
He agreed again that it was not. '
"Well." The doctor stood back, removed her glasses to massage her eyes, replaced them, then breathed deeply. "I take it you do not trust' your cohorts and the prodigious resources of the Justice Department at this point."
He shook his head. "No."
She nodded. Turning back to hgr patient, she examined Eden's pupils with a penlight. Apparently satisfied, the doctor reached for a crus hable ampule and snapped it near Eden's nose. The scent of ammonia exploded in the air. Eden coughed a couple of times and squinted as her gray eyes opened.
Inclining her head toward Chris, the doctor asked Eden point-blank, "Do you know this man?"
Eden rolled her head on the pillow away from the doctor toward Chris, and stared at him. She blinked and coughed and kept staring. Agonizingly long seconds passed. He knew this was her best chance t escape him. All she had to do was let out a piercing scream. A whimper would do. A frightened swallow.
The doctor would give any such reaction every benefit of ~the doubt. He had no doubt that if that happened he could draw his machine pistol and, without ever firing a round, make his escape from the ER with Eden. But if she cried out her name or his, Chris would he screwed. Ta-foya would be on to them in less than twenty-four hours. Who knew if Broussard would beat Tafoya again?
So here was Eden Kelley's big chance, and he knew that despite her fever, she knew it, too.
"Well?" the doctor prodded.
He'held his breath. He couldn't remember a time when he gave a solitary damn whether another human being trusted him. Whether a woman trusted him. He hadn't gone out of his way to endear himself to Eden, but he'd done what he had to do to save her life.
And he'd kissed her. Held her. Her gaze went to his lips, reminding him. He couldn't breathe. Worn to her limits, sweaty with fever, fragile and dirty and scraped up and stitched, she struck a chord in him so deep he wanted to bolt.
She shut her eyes and turned her head away and murmured tiredly, "Yes."
He shivered hard.
"Is he responsible for the gunshot wound to your shoulder?"
"No."
"Has he harmed you in any way?"
"No." Eden seemed on the verge of fading out again, but she rallied for another few seconds. Her whisper was nearly inaudible. "He saved my life."
He stared at Eden, a little in awe. He wouldn't exactly call it trust or faith in him that motivated her, but whatever it was, if Eden Kelley still meant to escape him, she'd passed up one hell of an opportunity.
He felt somehow. pardoned, and dared breathe again at last.
The doctor sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, then fixed Chris with her stern look. "Is your badge legitimate?" she demanded.
"Yes." At least it had been before all this began. He thought the doctor would as soon not hear that reservation.
"Then I'm releasing " Jane Doe' to your protective custody and purging all records of her admission to this facility. " She opened the curtain and pointed to a hallway clearly marked Authorized Personnel Only. " Follow that hall to an exit off the next hallway to your left. " She took a clump of keys from her lab-coat pocket and began twisting a set of car keys off the solid-brass dolphin ring. " Outside you'll find an '85 Mustang. Maroon. See to it you don't mar the paint job. "
Chris took the keys and stared numbly at the doctor, not sure he understood her correctly, or if he had, that she meant what he took her to mean. That she was offering him a way out. "Why are you doing this?"
She looked down at her aging hands a moment, then met Chris's disbelieving gaze. "Your Jane Doe deserves a break." The doctor stuck her hands into her pockets. "God forgive you if she comes to any more harm."
CHRIS PLANNED HIS ROUTE to Holyoke to avoid the toll roads and the Mass turnpikes. He stopped at a convenience store a few blocks away from the hospital for coffee, then headed north before crossing the Hudson River and going east toward Massachusetts, sticking to the secondary highways.
The coffee kept him functioning.
The drive kept him sane, soothing his jangled, caffeine-hyped nerves.
Eden Kelley kept him feeling.
He'd avoided that state of affairs for a very long time. The last thing he needed was to feel anything for anyone, least of all a witness to his wife's murder, a witness whose life was in his hands. A witness he intended to set up like a Sacrificial lamb to lure a mercenary, cold-blooded murderer. But in keeping with his determination to tell himself the truth, he knew it was already too late. He admired Eden Kelley and he cared what became of her.
He looked over at her sleeping fitfully in the passenger seat. The dash lights didn't adequately illuminate her face,
but he knew by the fine sheen of perspiration on her brow that the penicillin had not yet begun to work.
Killing off the infection would consume hours, perhaps days, even with the antibiotic, hours in which Tafoya would either track them down or lose their trail altogether. The same hours in which,. Chris had to assume, Broussard would be furiously tracking her, as well. His assassin had failed to kill her--assuming Eden pulled out of the life-threatening infection--but the attempt had succeeded in flushing her out into the open.
Broussard had his best chance now, before Eden could 'be relocated. He wouldn't waste the opportunity.
Chris pulled off the road at Great Barrington and sought out a public telephone not far from the main drag. He found one to the side of an automated teller machine and got out of the doctor's maroon Mustang, leaving the engine idling. He dropped the necessary coins in the phone, then dialed Margo's number in Holyoke.
If Ed Bancroft, her yuppie doctor husband answered, Chris w~s out of luck. Or one of the kids.
The phone rang once, twice. Half a dozen times before voice mail cut in. Cursing under his breath, Chris hung up, dropped in more change and dialed again. Someone was on the line, ignoring the Call Waiting.
He tried twice more, then went back to the car, thinking he would try again in Otis. He found Eden awake, sitting sideways in the s
eat, curled up like a child, her face resting' against the seat back, her eyes fixed solemnly on him.
Her lips curved, the barest shadow of a smile. He didn't know what to think or say. Didn't know how to respond because his chest tightened and because, exhausted and unguarded and like a child, she was looking at him with unutterable trust. She blinked a couple of times before her eyelids fluttered dosed again.
He wanted to kiss her. The need came on him just that fast. He wanted to reach for her and cradle her sweet, battered face in his hands. He wanted to feel her warm breath on his wrists and touch his lips to her fragile eyelids.
He had rarely regretted his vow of self-honesty as much as he did in that brief moment because~ the feelings sapped his will to answer violence with violence. To deliver real justice to Winston Broussard.
Instead, Chris found himself wanting to make both their worlds right somehow, his and Eden's. He wanted to create a space in each of them that all the ugliness and-violence and tragedy would never taint.
He wanted to make love to "Eden Kelley.
He exhaled. Hadn't even known he was holding his breath. He rubbed his eyes and clenched his jaw. HIS body hummed in the wake of the swift, fierce desire.
He shoved in the clutch and backed out of the parking area and picked up Highway 23 heading east. In Otis he stopped again to phone Margo. Parking where he could keep an eye on Eden, he left her in the idling car. His sister-in-law picked up on the first ring.
His shoulders sank in sheer relief. "Can you talk?"
He knew she would recognize his voice. She hesitated less than a second. "Let me get rid of my other call."
She clicked off. Chris stood there waiting. He watched a state trooper cruise by going in one direction, then a local cop heading the other way. His gut feeling was that they had nothing to do with him, but for the first time in his life, he had something to hide. Cops had a radar for fear like that. He took a deep breath and transformed his body language from the hunted to the hunter.
Margo came back on the line. "Chris? God, it's good to hear your voice. Where are you?"
He could hear her lighting a cigarette. "Knock off the smokes, Margo. They'll kill you."
"No. Eel is going to kill me. He's on one of his quiet lit-He rampages."
"Again?" Chris's hold on the receiver tightened. "Why?"
He heard her dragging on her cigarette. "Over the kids, of ~ourse."
He flicked the receiver to the ends of his fingers, making himself loosen up. He had to get a grip. He couldn't remember ever being so rattled.
Local cops cruising by had nothing to do with him. Neither did his sister-in-law's husband's tirades.
But Chris was dangerously tired and he had Eden Kelley's life in his hands and he couldn't afford mistakes, so every scrap of information entering his head filtered through the possibility of real danger~ however remote.
"I need a place to crash, Margo. Somewhere no one knows to look for me."
"Are you in trouble?"
"There is that," he said, breathing out.
"Hurt?"
"No--but there's a woman with me who is. I'm going to need some of Ed's stash of drugs. Penicillin."
"My God, Chris! Can you get here? Should I come get you?"
"No." God bless her, he thought, for not requiring endless explanations. "I can get there. I'm just not sure how to get to the guest house without coming through the front drive."
She lowered her voice. "Remember the private road--the rear access to our property? It's... let me think. Half a mile past the sign that says Holyoke Five Miles if you're coming north. It's paved but hard to see. I'll have to shut off the alarm syslem zone. How soon will you he here?"
"Inside an hour." He thought about making sure he didn't run into Ed or the kids. He was crazy about Tiller and Jake. He was the one who took them ice-skating for the first time, the one who gave them their first hockey sticks. But the boys were only eleven and five and Chris couldn't risk their knowing he was there. "Margo, I don't want you to have to get into it with Ed over this--there'll be hell to pay if he finds out"
"There's always hell to pay with Ed," she interrupted wearily. "I don't even care anymore."
"I know, Margo." He stared at a beetle plodding along on the sidewalk under the street lamp. Neither one of them had made the most brilliant marriages, but Catherine was dead and Ed was very much alive. Utterly capable of making Margo's life even more miserable, Ed Bancroft wouldn't hesitate for one heartbeat to rat on Chris, either. "Still--stay away, okay? If you haven't seen me, you haven't seen me, you know?"
"Okay." She dragged on her cigaretteagain: "I'll bring some g[oceries and pills in the morning. Shall I just leave them on the porch?"
"That'd be great, Margo."
"Chris, are you okay? You sound terrible."
He swallowed and asked' himself for the first time how likely it was that he'd succeed without getting himself or Eden Kelley killed.
Chapter Nine
"I've been better."
"I hear you." Margo gave a troubled sigh. "In case I can't make it down to the guest house, the key is under the mat."
Chris shivered. His eyes felt gritty. If he had ever been more worn out, he couldn't remember the time. "Might as well leave the key in the lock, Margo." He knew she would take the rebuke for teasing, which might reassure her that he really was all right.
He would he, once he got there. The periphery of the estate was wired into a high-tech alarm system. And for a while, he would be able to keep Eden Kelley alive.
He hung up and got back into the Mustang. Eden was sleeping. He followed'seconda~roads for another twenty-five miles and found the back entrance to the Bancroft es-tare, though the wild foliage nearly concealed the turnoff. He doused the headlights and drove by the light of the moon. He parked the Mustang at the rear of the small brick guest house beneath a canopy of oak and ash trees and satisfied himself that the car could not be seen from the main house.
The cottage was dark, and as Margo had promised, he found the key beneath a welcome mat with a goose on it.
He vetted the place in under two minutes without turning on any lights, then returned to the car and lifted Eden out.
She snuggled close, curling into him. He shoved the car door shut with his foot and told himself that it was the fever. That she didn't know what she was doing. A part of him wished she did.
"Where are we?" she murmured.
He could feel her warm breath on his neck. "Somewhere safe, Eden." Carrying her, he strode into the house, over the hardwood floor to the bedroom, and put her down, praying she'd fall asleep again. She. got up to use the bathroom, washed her face and came out wearing only her panties and camisole~
Chris managed to get~ her tucked in beneath the covers, then went off to takea cold shower. He shaved for. the first time in several days, then fell onto the bed beside her and finally--finally--slept.
Eden floated in and out of consciousness for almost * forty-eight hours. Margo brought him a plastic bag of penicillin tablets and a sack full of groceries the first morning, after Ed had gone off to the hospital and before the kids were awake.
Eden had small. chunks of time when she was lucid, when she remembered vague images of what had gone on after they went over the wall. The wail of the ambulance. The antiseptic smell of the emergency room: The prick' rag sensations. The smell of the leather seats in the doctor's maroon Mustang. If she remembered telling the doctor Chris had saved her life, she didn't speak of it.
The first time she woke for more than a few minutes, Chris had been sleeping on the bed next to her for several hours. He came instantly alert, helped her to the bathroom again and got her to swallow a couple of the penicillin tablets.
She lay back down in bed, watching him for a moment as he sat sprawled in an overstuffed chaff, then put her hands together like a pillow beneath her cheek.
"What does the X stand for?"
He'd answered the question countless times so he knew she wa
s asking about his name. "Xavier."
Her eyes were still too bright. She smiled and murmured something that sounded more like "savior" than' Xavier, then "fitting." He felt sucker-punched.
She drifted off and slept another five hours. Chris paced. He knew how to sit still for hours on end. How to keep a vigil without going nuts. How to put a thing, even a woman, out of his mind, how ~o keep his nerve intact, his attention pitched and his goal in mind.
Watching over Eden Kelley shredded all that. He couldn't sit still for more than an hour at a time. He'd ~ forgotten how not to go nuts. He didn't remember how to put everything nonessential to the moment from his mind:
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