The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [90]
“Sounds fine,” David said with little enthusiasm.
“Do you good,” Ben added. “Besides, Amy has this sister …” He smiled, then suddenly the two of them were laughing. David couldn’t remember the last time he had.
“You’re losing it, Shelton,” David said as he paced through the apartment. “You’re losing it and you know it.” The two hours following his departure from Ben’s office had seemed like ten.
Outside, the steady rain continued, punctuated now and then by the muted timpani of distant thunder. One minute the three rooms felt like an empty coliseum, the next like a cage. It was becoming harder and harder to sit, more and more difficult to concentrate—to focus in on anything. Call someone, he thought. Call someone or else ignore the rain and go run. But stop pacing. He picked up his running shoes and stepped to the window. Sheets of rain blurred the somber afternoon sky. Then, as if in warning, a lightning flash colored the room an eerie blue-white. Seconds later, a soft rumble crescendoed and exploded, reverberating through the apartment. He threw the shoes in his closet.
This is how it felt; he recognized it. After the accident. This is how it all started. Still the restlessness increased.
Is there anything in the medicine chest? Didn’t Lauren always keep something here for her headaches? Just in case the pacing won’t stop. In case the loneliness gets too bad. You don’t need anything, but just in case. In case the sleep doesn’t come. In case the night won’t end.
He paced from one end of the hall to the other, then back. Each time he paused by the bathroom door. Just in case …
All at once he was there, reaching for the mirrored door of the medicine chest. Reaching, he suddenly realized, toward himself. He froze as his outstretched hand touched its reflection. His eyes, glazed with fear and isolation, locked on themselves and held. A minute passed. Then another. Gradually, the trembling in his lips began to subside. His breathing slowed and deepened. “You’re not alone,” he told himself softly. “You have a friend who has learned over eight hard years to love you—no matter what. You have yourself. Open that door, touch one fucking pill, and lose him. All those years, and he’ll be just … gone. Then you will be alone.”
His hand dropped away from the mirror. Resolve tightened across his face, then pulled at the corners of his mouth until he was smiling. He nodded at himself—once, then again. Faster and faster. He saw the strength, the determination grow in his eyes.
“You’re not alone,” he said as he turned from the mirror and walked to the living room. “You’re not alone,” he said again as he stretched out on the sofa. “You’re not …”
Twenty minutes later, when the phone rang, David was still on the sofa. He skimmed over the last few lines of the Frost poem he was reading, then rolled over and picked up the receiver.
“David, I was afraid you hadn’t gotten home yet.” It was Ben.
“Oh, no, I’m here,” David said. He smiled, then added, “I’m very much here.”
“Well, enjoy your free time while you have it,” Ben said excitedly, “because I think within a day or two you’ll be back to work.”
David felt an instant surge. “Ben, what’s happened? Talk slowly so it registers.”
“I just received a call, David, from a nurse at your hospital. She said that she can positively clear you of the murder of Charlotte Thomas. I’m meeting her at a coffee shop in a couple of hours. I think she’s for real, pal, and if I’m right, the nightmare’s over.”
David glanced down the hall in the direction of the bathroom. “Thank God,” he said, half to the phone and half to himself. “Ben, can I come? Shouldn’t I be there?”
“Until I know what this woman has to say I don’t want you involved. Tell you what. Expect me at your place at nine—no, make that nine thirty—tonight. I’ll fill you in then. With luck, our dinner tomorrow night will turn out to be a celebration.”