Into the Inferno - Earl Emerson [17]
I would give anything to deliver her out of this.
Maybe I’d been wrong to dust her off. Maybe I really was the heartless heel her sister thought I was.
I couldn’t get over the astonishing coincidence that Joel McCain and Holly Riggs were both bedridden. Two people who’d been close to me. Had Stephanie told me the truth in the cul-de-sac outside Joel’s house, I might have learned of their fate within minutes of each other.
What were the odds, I wondered, that these two situations would be almost identical?
It freaked me out.
9. POOR BABY, TELL AUNT MARGE
A few minutes later, clad in a svelte navy business suit, Margery DiMaggio swept into the room as if she were about to accept an Oscar from the Academy, which, to the best of my memory, was how she swept into most rooms. DiMaggio was Holly and Stephanie’s aunt, sister to their deceased mother.
I’d met her twice before, and each time we’d gotten along famously.
“God, this is all my fault,” she said melodramatically. “If I was a Catholic, I’d confess to a whole roomful of priests. If they could tear themselves away from their little altar boys. Oh, what a detestable thing to say. I’m sorry, Steph. I just get so depressed coming here. I thought she was happier in the hospice. They played that music. I know you didn’t like it, but it was soothing.”
“I didn’t mind the music, Marge. Or the hospice. We needed to run more tests. This was the place to do it.”
As they hugged, the remnants of a family standing over its youngest living member, Stephanie looked over the older woman’s shoulder at the ceiling before her eyes lowered to me. I’d been brought here for interrogation and retribution, and now my presence had become offensive. Stephanie had used me the way she’d accused me of using her sister. Worse, for I’d never intentionally set out to hurt anyone. If people got hurt because of my actions, it was strictly on account of my own ignorance, stupidity, or lack of grace or because of their unrealistic expectations. Stephanie, on the other hand, had planned this assault like a four-star general.
I started for the door.
“Oh, Jim, honey,” DiMaggio said, speaking as if we’d last seen each other only yesterday. “Good of you to come. You didn’t hear what I said, did you? I hope you’re not Catholic.”
“I’m not anything. I’m sorry the circumstances have to be so . . .”
“I feel like it’s all my fault. She came to Washington because of me. This is my fault. Every bit of it.”
“Aunt Marge, don’t be silly,” said Stephanie, glaring at me. “It’s not your fault.”
“I feel so bad for you,” Marge said. “At least I can go home. You have to go back to Holly’s little place, where you’re surrounded by her things. Even her cat. This whole experience must be so dreadful for you.”
“I like being surrounded by Holly’s things. In fact, I’ve been wearing her clothes just to feel closer to her. It’s Holly we have to be concerned for. Getting her back to her old self.”
“You’re not still hoping for a miracle?”
“Of course I am.”
Two months ago when Holly and I had been seeing each other, I’d met Marge DiMaggio at an auction to raise money for muscular dystrophy research, an affair for which I’d had to dig up my tuxedo from the darkest part of my closet. Marge DiMaggio had been thrilled to death to see her niece out on the town with, as she’d put it, “a handsome and eligible fireman,” describing me in terms of marriage, the way so many women described men, as if that was our primary function in life, to be married to them. Marge liked me from the moment she set eyes on me. I guess she thought she was looking at a future nephew-in-law, though you’d better believe she didn’t get the idea from me.
Even though she was twenty years older than I was, Marge had flirted with me and with every other male that night, a mannerism I attributed at the time to habit and alcohol rather than ambition and inclination; she’d gone on to belie her flirtations with self-deprecating remarks about being too busy to think about a private life. Marge was chic, smart, candid, and seductive in a sophisticated