Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [59]
Minutes later, he was walking up Broadway fast, watching gray people, gray cabs, and grayer-than-gray New York City buildings. He missed Jane with an ache that felt life-threatening, a terrible pain deep in his chest. He wondered what she was doing, if she was okay. Had his plan worked?
Finally he couldn’t bear it anymore: He called her apartment. After listening to the phone ring several times, he heard Jane’s voice. “This is Jane. Please leave a message. It’s important to me. Thanks.”
God, he loved her voice.
Near Lincoln Center he barely avoided being hit by a motorcycle that was making a perfectly legal right turn. “Wake the fuck up, asshole!” the driver shouted. Good advice. He would love to wake up out of this horrible nightmare.
He walked another block, determined to keep moving, and suddenly it struck him: I’m going somewhere, headed to a specific place!
But where?
Northeast, it seemed.
At last he realized that some outside force was making him move. And then he knew, at least he thought he did.
Now he was running.
His eyes filled with tears, and then the tears wouldn’t stop. People were staring, and a few offered their help. Michael kept running. He definitely knew where he was going now.
New York Hospital.
And he knew what he was going to find there.
“Oh God, Jane! Don’t let this be happening.”
I wish, Michael thought, that I had kissed and hugged Jane more.
I wish that I had stayed on Nantucket.
I wish —
Seventy-three
YORK AVENUE AND 68TH STREET, finally. Michael was almost there.
He burst through the front doors of New York Hospital. Ironically, he’d been to this unfortunate place before, when Jane had her tonsils out as a kid. He went right past the front desk, remembering where the elevators were.
Down the long hallway, to the right.
He was supposed to go to the seventh floor.
Room 703.
Ahead of him, people streamed into the elevator. Two nurses with their hands linked, a doctor, some visitors, a little girl who was crying for her grandfather. Why was all this suffering permitted to happen? Suddenly he was filled with questions.
“I don’t think we can squeeze anyone else in here,” a doctor said to him.
“Sorry,” he said. “We can squeeze, we can fit. You’d be amazed what we’re capable of.”
We, he’d thought, and said. We.
The people in the elevator exchanged glances, the kind of nervous looks that seemed to say: We’ve got a crazy on board.
The doors finally closed, and the car began to move upward.
“I shouldn’t have left her,” Michael muttered to himself. I should have stayed with Jane no matter what. And now look what’s happened. His foolish plan hadn’t worked. He’d caused her pain for no reason. He’d been so stupid!
The elevator finally arrived at the seventh floor. Michael pushed out first, then raced past the nurses’ desk. He slowed down as he approached room 703.
The door was open a crack. He pushed his sweaty hair back against his head and wiped his face on his sleeve. He needed to look calm and in control. But he wasn’t calm. His heart felt as if it might blow apart. He’d never felt tightness in his chest before, and now it was pretty extreme.
He finally opened the door, and his eyes took in the room. A nurse sat by the side of the bed, watching a heart monitor.
What he saw next took his breath away. His hand went up to his mouth, but a gasp escaped anyway.
He wasn’t expecting this, not at all. But it made sense to him; it made sense of everything that had happened. There had been a plan after all.
Seventy-four
SOMEBODY ELSE was in the hospital bed.
Not Jane. Not what he’d been expecting, and dreading.
It was Vivienne.
At first, Michael didn’t understand, but then he did, and some of the puzzle pieces seemed to fall into place for him. It was Vivienne who was dying. Vivienne who he was supposed to help.
She lay there motionless. He’d never seen her like that. Her face was unnaturally pale beneath her tan, and she wore no makeup. Her hair was loose and her white roots were showing. But in a way, she looked serene and