Snake Skin

by CJ Lyons

  "CAT scan. They wouldn't let me go with her." He stood.

  "CAT scan? Why? What's wrong with her?"

  "The doctors said it was just a fainting spell. But she had a fever again when we got here—"

  "A fever? Didn't you check her before you went out?" She hated the anger that bled into her voice but was powerless to stop it. She had to lash out at someone and Nick was her only target.

  "Of course I did. She was fine." His voice was irritatingly calm. "They need to do more tests before they know for sure what's going on."

  "Tests? You mean they don't know what's wrong with her?" Panic wove into the anger.

  Nick approached her. Wrapped his arms around her. Held her tight, too tight. Despite his level voice, she felt the waves of tension cascading from his body. "They said," his voice cracked, "they said one of the things they're checking for is cancer."

  "Cancer? Jesus, Nick! Why didn't you call me? No, it can't be—" The word struck her harder than a slap, suddenly there were tears in her eyes, the room spinning out of control, collapsing around her.

  "They're not sure, said they just want to rule it out. Be on the safe side. I did try to call you but my phone died and by the time—" He stopped, a puzzled look on his face as he pushed her bangs away from her forehead. "Is that blood? Christ, were you hurt?"

  She feathered a hand through her sticky, plasticized hair. There was a goose-egg forming where she'd head butted Ivan but she didn't feel any bleeding. "I'm fine. How long before they bring Megan back? I want to talk to the doctors—"

  He kept a hand on her waist, steering her away from the bed and into the bathroom. "They've been very good about updating me as soon as they know anything. Your charging in isn't going to help."

  She squinted in the bright lights; there were flecks of dried blood on her face and forehead. Wordlessly, as if she were a child, Nick ran a washcloth under water and began to wipe her face clean of blood and layers of sweat-caked makeup. She released herself to his attentions, too shaky and agitated to make a good job of it herself.

  "What happened?"

  "A subject got a little frisky so I broke his nose." She edged her hips onto the countertop, avoiding his gaze, but couldn't block out the sound of his sigh as his fingers found the swelling on her scalp. "With my head."

  "I thought the whole idea behind this move and your promotion was that you'd be supervising, out of danger."

  "Nick—" They'd had this conversation too many times in the last three months. She was in no mood to return to it now.

  "Lulu, I can't be worried about both you and Megan." His voice dropped to a low rumble, his Virginia accent stronger. It was the closest to upset Nick ever came.

  She intertwined both her hands around his, ignoring the wet washcloth pressed between their palms.

  "Hey," she said, tilting her head to face him dead on. "I promise. You don't ever have to worry about me. Everything I do is so I can come home to you and Megan."

  A small furrow of doubt creased his brow, making his boyish features appear suddenly older and wiser than his thirty-nine years. She kissed his forehead, her lips following the trail of freckles down the bridge of his nose, finally coming to rest on his mouth. The washcloth fell to the sink with a splash as his arms wrapped around her.

  This was why she did what she did, why men like Burroughs were distant shadows compared to Nick. Their bodies pressed together, a silent communication of need and sharing, two hearts racing, vibrating in concert, draining her fear away.

  Her jaw released its death grip, her head stopped its throbbing, her shoulders relaxed their hunched posture. Nick was her touchstone, her anchor. When she was with him, she could face anything—they could face anything.

  Fourteen years and it hadn't changed. Their very first kiss had sparked this same passion, a passion that if anything had grown over the years.

  When they parted a few moments later, she felt more in control than she had since getting his message. She clung to him, cherishing his strength as she assessed the situation. "Does Megan know?"

  Nick made a sound that was half way between a chuckle and a sob. "She's the one who asked the doctors," he said, his chin resting on her head, his fingers pressing into her shoulders. "They took her blood but then came back talking about more tests—I was blind, all I could think about was that they wanted to stick her again and I got angry that they had to do it again. But Megan, she looks up at them and says, 'if I have cancer can I shave my head before my hair falls out?' Just like that."

  "Sometimes I think she's smarter than both of us," Lucy confessed, wiping her tears on his shirt. It was his favorite white broadcloth, butter-soft from being washed so many times. And now it was stained by tears and cheap mascara.

  "Well, the good news is the doctors said that there are a lot of other things it could be besides cancer. Said that was near the bottom of their list, but they need to be certain, so they're checking everything."

  "Megan was okay with that?" Lucy asked because she sure as hell wasn't.

  "Yeah. After the doctor explained that the CAT scan didn't involve any more needles, all she was worried about was soccer."

  Typical one track mind. Sometimes Lucy worried Megan took after her a little too much. She slid from the countertop, her butt wet from the splashing water. Another few breaths and she could trust her voice. "Megan will want her pj's and clothes, maybe her iPod—"

  "Your mom's at the house now, packing bags for all of us." He followed her back into the main room.

  Oh Lord. Her mother poking through all their things? Not that she had anything to hide from her mother, but still—a pang of long-instilled childhood guilt chimed through her as she tried to remember if she'd picked up her dirty clothes from last night. Almost laughed at the automatic thoughts, the least of her worries. She slumped onto the edge of the bed. "So there's nothing to do except wait."

  That coaxed a smile from Nick who was all too used to her essential lack of patience. He sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and nuzzling the still wet skin behind her ear. "We could always neck some more."

  He wasn't serious, but the mere fact that he could try to joke made her feel more confident that Megan truly would be all right. Before she could respond, a wheelchair pulled up to the door.

  "Mom," Megan called out as the attendant pushed her into the room. An IV was attached to her left hand, clear plastic tubing connected to a machine on a pole with wheels. Her color was a little pale, but other than that she looked fine. Better than Lucy, in fact. "What on earth are you wearing? You look like Ashlee Simpson."

  From Megan's look of consternation and her shrill tone of disapproval, Lucy concluded that this was not a compliment.

  "How are you doing, kiddo?" she asked, rushing to help but feeling hopelessly inept as the attendant efficiently transferred IV tubing and plugged a wire into the monitor. He lowered the bed to a suitable level and smiled at Megan.

  "All right now, you ready to hop out of that chair?"

  Megan's nose wrinkled as she grinned. "Come on, just one more lap around the block. I'll race you."

  "Sorry, no can do," the attendant replied, bending down and wrapping the arm without the IV around his neck as he leveraged Megan to her feet then in one smooth motion pivoted her onto the bed. "You take care now, Miss Megan."

  "Thanks for the ride." Megan slumped back and began playing with the bed controls. Lucy rushed after the attendant.

  "Thank you," she told him as he handed a binder with Megan's name on it to a clerk at the nursing station. "Did the doctors say how soon it would be before they had the results? Did they say anything about how the scan looked?"

  He gave her a kind smile, shaking his head. "Sorry, ma'am. I'm sure they'll let you know as soon as they have any information. Take care now."

  He wheeled the empty chair down the hall to the elevator bank. Lucy pitched her head back as an exasperated sigh escaped her. Neon smiley faces grinned down at her from the ceiling tiles.
She thought about the need to decorate the ceiling, visualized kids trapped in beds, trapped in their bodies like Bobby Fegley.

  She straightened, reminding herself that no news was good news.

  "Hi, I'm Megan Callahan's mom," she introduced herself to the ward clerk, an older woman who was juggling a phone and several charts. "When you have a moment, I'd really appreciate it if you could page Megan's doctor. I need—I'd like an update on her test results."

  The clerk smiled and nodded. Lucy returned to the room. Megan was perched on a throne of pillows, had commandeered the TV remote and was bossing her father as she directed him in moving the TV to the perfect angle. Nick was smiling, his hand never far from touching Megan's arm. Lucy joined them, sliding onto the bed beside Megan.

  "So, you've had quite an adventure," she said, burying her face in Megan's hair and hugging her hard. An alarm began to beep, its shrill soprano pitch making Lucy reach for her weapon. Nick calmly punched a button on the monitor, silencing it.

  "Did I do that?" she asked.

  "Got to watch out for the pulse ox," Megan said, waving her finger with an air of authority. Attached to it was a piece of tape with a glowing red spot. "It sends waves of light through my skin and can measure the amount of oxygen in my blood. See," she gestured to the monitor, "it says 100 now, that's the best you can get."

  "So your oxygen is the best ever. How's the rest of you?"

  Megan pursed her lips, considering. "The IV kind of hurt and then I had to get more blood work, but I was really brave, wasn't I, Dad?"

  "You sure were, princess." Nick leaned down to plant a kiss on her forehead.

  "And my tummy was upset, but that feels better now too. So can I go home now?"

  "Not until they find out what's wrong with you."

  "But soccer's tomorrow—"

  "Megan," Lucy snapped, then immediately regretted allowing her frustration to leak into her voice.

  Megan didn't flinch, instead that sly smile returned and Lucy knew she was being played. By a twelve-year-old. Again.

  "No soccer until the doctors say it's all right."

  "Hmm," Megan said, fluffing her pillows, "well, if I'm stuck in bed, guess I'm going to need some video games to play. Or a laptop computer, one with a DVD player and—"

  "Megan Constance Callahan, where did you get the idea that being sick meant you got presents?" Lucy asked.

  Nick blushed and looked away and she had her answer.

  "If you're here longer than overnight," might as well hope for the best until she knew otherwise, "I'll stop at Joseph Beth and pick up the new Evan Bedard book you wanted."

  "I don't have to wait for it to come out in paperback? Very cool," Megan said, rubbing her hands together. Mission accomplished.

  A knock on the door came and an aide appeared, wheeling a large cart with a TV bolted to the top. "I'm Melody from Child Life services," she chirped. "Your nurse told me you might like to play some video games." She parked the cart at the foot of the bed and handed Megan a futuristic looking remote control/toggle switch/keyboard that rivaled anything NASA had. "Do you need help working it?"

  Megan shook her head, bouncing up and down on the bed with delight as she clicked the unit on and found a game she liked. Music began blaring from loudspeakers.

  Lucy followed the aide back out to the nurses' station. "Any word from my daughter's doctors?"

  "Sorry, Mrs. Callahan," the clerk said. "Dr. Scott is tied up in the ICU but he did say that he was still waiting for Megan's test results and that he'd be up to speak with you just as soon as he could."

  Lucy's smile strained her facial muscles as she forced herself not to take out her frustration on the clerk. The ice picks and sledgehammers played chopsticks on the nerves around her face, pain shooting through her jaw and down her neck. She leaned against the counter, fingers shoved in both ears, trying to relieve the pressure. Glanced back up at the bright yellow smiley faces and reminded herself that her daughter was the one shrieking with delight in the room across the hall, not lying in an ICU.

  The thought didn't help, because suddenly she was filled with a vision of Megan in the ICU, fighting for her life, sallow and wasted, her hair gone, her eyes sagging shut as she struggled for every breath.

  The vision wasn't conjured from imagination. It was exactly how her father had appeared when he died.

  Panic seized her heart, holding her breath hostage, as fear gagged her. She stumbled down the hall to the public restroom, nausea blurring her vision, falling to the floor in front of the toilet, cradling her head between her knees. With the door shut, it was dark except for a nightlight illuminating a nurse's call button. Acrid hospital smells assaulted her: bleach and tile cleaner and soap and fake vanilla deodorizer. But they couldn't mask the odor of tobacco smoke—someone had obviously snuck in here for a cigarette.

  The stench was the final straw. Cigarette smoke had made Lucy violently ill ever since she was a child and realized what she had done to her father. All those secret missions to the market, buying him and his fellow patients cigarettes, never realizing that a man missing most of his right lung and all of his left one due to lung cancer was using his addiction and his daughter to hasten his death sentence.

  Overwhelmed by her fear and the memories and the smells, Lucy leaned forward and vomited. When she was done, her body shook uncontrollably as she curled up on the cool tile floor, not caring what kind of microbes might have taken up residence there.

  She remembered her father laughing as the other two men in his hospital room blew smoke rings through their tracheotomies. She'd been fascinated by them and their mechanical voice boxes, they sounded like the Wizard of Oz.

  Her father had sent her out for his special "treats" everyday—right up to the very last day when he had collapsed while they had been watching Gilligan's Island. One minute he'd been laughing at Mr. and Mrs. Howell and the next he'd been coughing up bright red blood all over her and the starched white sheets. She'd been so scared, so very scared.

  She helped him lie back, not realizing that in his weakened state that position left him drowning in his own blood and fluids, while she'd run to get help. The nurses raced back with her, only to find her father lying perfectly still, eyes slitted half shut, arms stretched out as if reaching for her. Dead.

  One minute laughing, the next dead.

  Chapter 23

  Sunday, 9:51 am

  Burroughs found himself humming as he waited in the lobby of the federal building. Someone, hopefully Guardino, was on their way down to escort him. Visitor pass and fellow law enforcement officer or not, the government didn't let just anyone wander alone through their sacred hallways.

  He snuck a still warm Krispy Kreme from the box he'd picked up on the way over. Usually after a night with Cindy he'd be beat, spend the next day recuperating. Not today. Today he was jazzed, bouncing on his feet, couldn't wait to get a jump on the Ashley Yeager case.

  Was it the case or Guardino? He had his answer when the elevator doors slid open and found Walden waiting for him. Well shit. He slumped against the elevator wall, barely nodding a greeting to the Special Agent.

  "Brought you guys some donuts," he said as if Walden couldn't detect that from the green and white box he carried or the tantalizing odor emanating from it.

  Walden merely arched an eyebrow and made a "hmpf" type of noise. "Lucy isn't here."

  "Did I ask?" Burroughs straightened, not liking the proprietary tone in the other man's voice. He and Walden were the same height, but he had a good ten pounds and five-six years on Walden. He could definitely take him.

  Walden didn't seem to agree. He squared off, staring Burroughs in the eye. "You didn't have to. That's the point."

  "Come on. Don't try to pretend like you never thought of it yourself. Working all day with perverts, being forced to watch all that porn—I'll bet she keeps you up at night."

  Walden stood motionless except for the veins bulging at his neck. "I'd highly suggest that you keep your ey
es, your hands, and your imagination focused elsewhere."

  "Hey, I don't need this shit. You all invited me here to help out, remember?"

  The doors slid open before Walden could reply. The agent stalked away, opening the first of the locked doors, forcing Burroughs to put an extra bounce in his step in order to catch up before it slammed in his face.

  Jeezit, you'd think he was one of the bad guys or something. Oh well, more donuts for him.

  Burroughs made himself at home at an empty workspace. Most of the techies looked like they'd spent the night, slept in their clothes if they'd gotten any sleep at all. Taylor, the ADD poster boy, was hyped about something, bouncing back and forth between two workstations. Walden took his seat and began working the phones.

  Burroughs grabbed his own phone and checked in with the Zone Five guys to see if there'd been any sign of the elusive Mr. Tardiff. No joy. He began following up on calls that had been tagged by the folks manning the hotline.

  One woman in Murrysville reported seeing a girl wearing a blonde wig and fishnet stockings driving in a white Escalade with a "big, fat, black man" adding that they were "obviously up to no good" and that the girl had given her the finger.

  Another reported seeing suspicious lights dancing in her back yard—she lived a block away from the Yeagers, so Plum had sent a car over, but found nothing.

  Those were the most promising of the bunch. He sighed and reached for another donut. Between the sugar, the Viagra he'd been popping all last night, and the exercise Cindy had provided, his blood sugar would be haywire, but hell, you only lived once.

  As he chewed, he remembered everything he and Cindy had done last night. But somehow, other women's faces kept superimposing themselves on top of Cindy's. Kim. Guardino. Kim.

  "Hey, Burroughs," Taylor called right when Burroughs was getting to the good part of his morning fantasy. "You were with LT when she cleared that Fegley kid, right?"

  Burroughs spun around in his chair, pulling it in closer to the desk. "Yeah, why?"