Captain Quad (45 page)

The two women stepped into Peter's room, bits of shattered glass crunching under their feet. The intern knew the history in this case, knew of the steadfast devotion of the young man who stood with his back to her now, and felt a great weight of pity in her heart. Pity and admiration. What courage it must have taken to free through death his brother's tortured soul. What selfless valor. She met eyes with the nurse, and in one of those extraordinary moments that could only be described as telepathic, a conspiracy of silence was born. Obviously a pact had been made between the brothers, a contract against the horrors of quadriplegia. Peter had held out for as long as he could—Six years, Hanrahan thought, shuddering in the wintry air—but now it was over, and there was no sane reason for what had happened here tonight ever to leave this room.

Hanrahan glanced at the wreckage around her and guessed that in his grief Sam had stampeded through the room in a guilt-ridden rage. He'd pitched something heavy through the window, a chair, maybe, and that queer blue light had been nothing more than an electrical discharge from the shattered TV.

In her mind the intern filled out the certificate of death—cause: respiratory arrest, resuscitation unsuccessful.

Hanrahan advanced into the room and placed a hand on Sam's shoulder. Sam didn't react, only stared at his brother's body.

"It's all right," the doctor murmured. "Your secret is safe with us. Why don't you come away from here now? We'll take care of all this."

Sam didn't reply. He stood there a moment longer, staring. Then he turned and ran out of the room, the pillow still clenched in his fist.

The duty officer in Emerg looked up tiredly from the chart he was working on. A tall, red-faced young man bolted through the department with a pillow in his hand, then burst through the ambulance entrance and disappeared. Curious, the doctor followed at a fast walk, reaching the dispatch ramp in time to see the man grab a uniformed driver and lead him toward an idling ambulance. He spoke urgently to the attendant, but his words were lost to the inquisitive physician. A few moments later, the white and orange van was ripping up Paris Street, dome lights flashing.

Shrugging, the doctor went back inside. He'd find out soon enough what the trouble was.

"Down the hill!" Sam cried, running ahead. "Hurry!"

The paramedics followed, picking their way carefully through the patchy snow cover, a stretcher casting a thin dawn-shadow between them.

Sam sped surefootedly down the hill. He could see her in the gathering light, an unmoving hump by the edge of the lake. When he reached her, he hunkered beside her, expecting the worst. He shook her briskly, got no response, then probed her neck for a pulse. It was there, thin and erratic. His fingers came away bloody.

"Hang in there, kid," he said, and then called "Down here!" to the paramedics.

When they reached Sam and Kelly the paramedics set down the stretcher and promptly began assessing the damage.

"Oh, boy," the first man said, two fingers pressed to Kelly's wrist, "She's hypothermic. Feels like atrial fib."

"Let's get a move on," his partner said.

And they bundled Kelly onto the stretcher.

Cold. So cold. . .

She could hear her teeth chattering, could feel the cramps in her frozen muscles. . . but there was a comforting hand on her head, stroking her, and she knew that she would be okay. There were urgent voices, too, and a terrible wailing noise, but these things seemed unimportant.

She concentrated on the hand.

Now there was a quick stab of pain in her arm and her eyes flew open. Blue light strobed across the low, white ceiling and in a panic Kelly tried to sit up.

"Easy," Sam said, continuing to stroke her hair, which was clotted with tiny icicles. "You're okay. They're starting an I.V."

"But the light. . .” Kelly rasped. It trailed across the ceiling again. . . and then she understood. She was in an ambulance. The light was the dome light, nothing more. She looked up at Sam.

"Is it over?" she said in a small, frightened voice.

"Yes," Sam said. "It's over."

Kelly took his hand and blacked out again.

And the ambulance peeled into the dawn.

"They're not going to keep me," Kelly said. They were at the University Hospital, in the emergency room holding area. Three hours had passed. Kelly's lips were still blue and she was shivering, but she'd kept down some tea and she felt a lot better. She sat up on the stretcher and looked at Sam. "What time is it?"

"Almost ten," Sam said hollowly.

"God, I hate the thought of going back to that house," Kelly said, needing to say something, anything. She felt numb, shell-shocked. "It's a mess. . .” And Chainsaw's still there. She shuddered, a brief, jolting spasm. "I guess I could go to my mom's, but I'm not sure I'm up to her just yet."

"You could spend a few days at my place," Sam said in that same inflectionless tone. "There's plenty of room."

Kelly touched his hand. "I'd hate to impose, especially now. . .”

"Nonsense," Sam said, flinching noticeably at her touch. "You'll be good company."

"Well, thanks, Sam. I believe I will."

"Then it's settled. Come over as soon as they let you go."

He drew her a map on the back of a public health pamphlet, then left the hospital for the last time.

The morning's cool light inched its way through the apartment like an alien anthropologist, patiently unearthing the debris of an extinct society. It crept under the coffee table and revealed a dusty bottle of Jack, drained to the last sour drop and lying dead on its side. It stripped the obscuring murk from the couch where Leona had lain, reshaping it from a formless gray hump into the swaybacked ruin that it was. It extracted from its masking bed of shadow the dormant reel-to-reel. . . and Sam switched it on.

There was a moment of static-laced silence. Then those first haunting chords drifted out, evoking a different age, a different set of possibilities.

He lifted his chin and remembered.

The shrine was still there, framed in a crisp oval of sunlight on the piano's white lid, and as he listened, he walked over to inspect it. After a few lingering moments, he removed the photo from its circle of adornments and turned it facedown on the lid.

And the music played on, scratchy with age but still sweet, so bittersweet.

He sat on the edge of the piano bench, a tall, strongly built lad with a pockmarked face and a tendency to slouch. He sat and listened to the music, his dry gaze settling on the orderly rank of keys. . . and now a strange, lopsided grin tugged at his lips and he plunked a single key.

Middle C.

The note was clean and perfect, like the day outside.

He hunched over the keys and began to play along with the tape—flawlessly, as he always had. His grin never faltered.

And when the piece was done and the tape commenced its infernal flapping, there came a hesitant knocking at the door.

Aren't you going to let her in?

He didn't move.

The voice was like a cancer in his heart.

Come on, Sammy. We're going to have to learn to share.

When the knock came again, Sam got up to answer the door.