Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (115 page)

Finally, I called Dr. Mortimer and left a message, canceling our meeting. However things turned out, I wouldn’t be up for it tonight.

I stepped out into the cool air for a minute, feeling a mixture of sadness and guilt.

I stood there waiting for Jesse.

But he didn’t come.

CHAPTER 33

I was the only one in the upstairs waiting room and it was quiet except for the television above my head, set on some national news station. The same generic stories were looping every few minutes. I couldn’t find the remote, so I eventually stood up on a chair and turned it off.

I sat back down and after a while started dozing off again. Once in a while, my phone would ring and wake me up. Ty called first and then Kate called back. David wanted to know if I needed anything.

“I’ll just drop by,” he said. “I’ve never been to St. Charles before.”

I couldn’t imagine that. It seemed like over the years, I had been at this stupid hospital a thousand times. They should have given me my own parking space.

“That’s a good thing you’ve never been here,” I said. “Don’t start now. I’ll see you tomorrow at work.”

It was the afternoon before I finally heard something. An older doctor with gray hair and a mustache came over and sat down next to me.

I took that as a bad sign but he quickly told me that Derek had pulled through, and that even though he was in critical condition, he had a “fair chance at a full recovery.”

“He still has a long road ahead of him,” he said. “These next few days are going to be especially tough.”

The doctor then pulled out a brochure from his coat pocket.

“Look, I’m not sure how close you are to Derek, but perhaps this might help. We usually give these out to family and friends of patients who may have dependency issues.”

He handed it to me. There was a sad-looking woman on the cover with the words “Helping Loved Ones Cope with Addiction” written across the top.

I asked if I could see him, but he told me that Derek was heavily sedated and wouldn’t be up to it for a few more hours.

“I just want to make sure he knows I’m here,” I said. “I don’t want him to think he’s alone.”

The doctor looked down at the chart and then back up at me.

“All right, fine. When he’s ready I’ll have someone from ICU come and get you. But you can only see him for a minute or two. He needs to rest.”

I had to see him. I had to tell him how sorry I was for not reaching him in time to keep him from falling. I realized that he probably had been living on the wild side for some time and that something like this was more or less inevitable, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had failed him.

I shouldn’t have collapsed in the snow like that. I should have been stronger.

His dog had failed him. And I had failed him.

But then it hit me. I hadn’t just been too weak to save him. I had been the one who brought the shadow up there in the first place. It had been hovering around Dr. Mortimer earlier in the evening and then it was up on the cliff, trying to kill Derek.

None of it made any sense.

I fell asleep, whispering Jesse’s name.

CHAPTER 34

When I woke up again, a line of drool was running down my face. It was dark outside. No one had come for me as far as I could tell. But as I sat up, I noticed I wasn’t alone. Dr. Mortimer was sitting next to me.

“Sorry about your friend,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder. “That must have been a horrible experience. It’s amazing he’s still alive. Are you ready to go see him? He’s awake.”

I shot up.

“Let’s go.”

We walked slowly down a long corridor, a familiar, nauseating blast of antiseptic sent my stomach reeling. It was the smell of death.

At the end of the hallway, Dr. Mortimer pushed the lever and the two doors swung open and we walked into the ICU.

“He’s in the last bed at the end,” he said softly. “I’ll wait here, Abby. We can talk after.”

I took my time, afraid of what I’d see. The sounds of heart monitors and breathing machines accompanied my every step. I really hated this place.

It was hard to even recognize him. His leg was elevated and covered in a cast. His face was cut, bruised, and swollen, and there was a bandage covering his right eye and part of his head. Tufts of hair poked out here and there.

I shuffled up to him quietly.

“Derek,” I said. “It’s Abby. You’re going to be okay.”

Staring up at the ceiling, his one good eye was half open and glazed over. He seemed pretty out of it. He showed no sign that he had heard me.

It tore me up to see him this way, but I blinked away the tears and forced myself to look on the bright side. He was alive. Somehow, he was alive. And as near as I could tell from the monitors, his vital signs were strong and steady.

I said his name again and touched his hand gently, but he flinched. He turned his head to face me and I could see his eye bulge out in horror.

“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s going to be all right.”

He tried to speak but it came out softer than a whisper. I couldn’t tell what he said.

“I didn’t hear you,” I said, putting my ear up close to his face.

I could feel his hand tremble.

“I didn’t tell them anything,” he said. “I swear. But why, Abby?”

“Why what?” I said.

I started to shake, too.

“Why did you try to kill me?”

***

I was grateful that Dr. Mortimer was still standing by the doors as I ran away from Derek’s room.

“Abby?” he asked, grabbing me and taking my hand.

I cried in his arms for a long time.

It was bad enough that I couldn’t save him and that I was responsible for bringing the shadow up there. But now Derek believed that I had intentionally tried to kill him.

After a while Dr. Mortimer led me back to the waiting room and we sat quietly.

“I know you’ve been through a shock. The accident, the waiting and worrying, and now seeing him that way,” he said, finally. “But his prognosis is positive.”

“You’re right,” I said, playing along. “He probably looks worse than he is.”

He didn’t know, of course, that part of the reason I was crying was because Derek thought I was guilty of attempted murder. That I was his Jack Martin.

“Wait for me,” I said, getting up. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I went to the bathroom down the hall and washed my face. I had to pull myself together. There were things I needed to do.

“We need to talk,” I said when I came back. “I need you to listen, Dr. Mortimer. Let me finish before you say anything. Let me say everything I need to say.”

I told him about what really happened on the cliff, including the black shadow. And I told him that Derek thought I was the one who pushed him. Dr. Mortimer took my hand and I could tell he wanted to say something. But he kept his word and didn’t interrupt.

And then I started from the beginning, going over some territory I had covered in the email I had sent him and expanding upon it to include more recent events.

I talked about the dream I had at Christmas, about seeing him and Nathaniel as little boys playing with a chemistry set under a Christmas tree. I could tell by his expression that it had really happened, that it was one of his own memories. At one point his mouth dropped open and I thought I heard him let out a gasp.

I told him what Nathaniel had said about coming back for him. And I told him about the ghost dog and how that was the real reason I was out there looking for Derek. That I knew he was in trouble.

I finished with the shadow, how it hovered around him at the house the night before and then followed me to Tumalo Falls.

I let out a long sigh when I was through. I hoped that he would believe at least part of it, if not the entire story. I knew he didn’t like hearing about my visions or talking about Nathaniel. But I had to make him understand.

Because if I was right, Dr. Mortimer was the next one in line.

But what he said surprised me.

“I need to talk to you too, Abby,” he said, his eyes wide and scared. “I think I need your help.”

CHAPTER 35

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

We walked past the indoor water feature and the large plants trying to bring life into the sterile building. I checked my phone for messages and noticed that it was 7:23. I had lost all sense of time. Derek had been brought in more than 12 hours earlier.

I slid into the passenger seat of the black Audi and buckled in.

“How about Starbucks?” Dr. Mortimer said. “I need some decent coffee and we can talk there.”

As we turned right from Neff onto 27
^th
, we went back to talking about Derek.

“It’s lucky that he wasn’t killed,” Dr. Mortimer said. “His injuries could have been a lot more severe. You’d expect to see the head involved with a fall of that nature, but his brain functions all seem normal. What was he doing out there at that time of night anyway?”

“I don’t really know. I guess he just wanted to see the falls again and think.”

“But he wasn’t suicidal?”

“No,” I said. “He wasn’t there to jump, at least not when I reached him. In fact, I hope it wasn’t just the whiskey talking, but he said he had a breakthrough up there, like some sort of epiphany. He said he was going to turn his life around. I want to believe him.”

I sighed.

“You know, Abby. He was really out of it just now. He’s heavily sedated but still probably in a lot of pain. He can’t be sure of what he thinks he saw up there. I’m sure he didn’t mean what he said.”

“I hope that’s true.”

While I still couldn’t believe Derek thought that I had tried to kill him, I realized that he must have felt something pushing him backwards on the cliff. When he was better, I would try to explain it to him. What really happened.

I wondered if the black entity might be connected to Nathaniel in some way. It made sense to a point. How it was floating around Dr. Mortimer. But I didn’t understand why he would want to hurt Derek. Nathaniel was a cold-hearted killer, but all of his victims were related to his medical research. There was a method to his madness. When he was alive, he didn’t murder people randomly. Why would death change him?

“Give him some time,” Dr. Mortimer said, pulling into the parking lot. “You shouldn’t even go back to the hospital tonight. Let him rest. And you go home and get some rest. Things will make more sense in the morning.”

I leaned my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes. The thought of my bed, so often a place of insomnia and dark dreams, seemed strangely comforting at that moment.

“I think that’s a good idea,” I said.

As I got out of the car, my legs buckled but I caught myself. They were stiff and sore from the night before, and sitting around the hospital all day hadn’t helped any. As I shuffled toward the door, I felt more dead than alive.

Dr. Mortimer took my arm as we walked inside.

He ordered coffee and muffins while I sat in the back. I was glad that it wasn’t too crowded.

“You want cream in yours?” he said a minute later.

I gave him a thumps up.

After I stirred in a couple of packets of sugar and put the lid back on, I waited for him to start.

“Okay,” I said when he didn’t say anything. “Tell me what’s been going on.”

He looked at me and took a deep breath.

“You know how I feel about ghosts, Abby,” he said. “I don’t believe in them. I’ve lived my life by science and the things that I can see and touch.”

“Yes, I seem to recall that,” I said.

“I’ve always found that there is a logical explanation for those things, if people look hard enough. Maybe it’s fear of the unknown. I don’t know. But too often people seem desperate to believe in something fantastical. You look at the variables and find the link. All of it can be explained by science. That’s what I’ve always known to be true. Well, until…”

His voice trailed off.

“But now you’ve changed your mind?” I said.

“Let’s just say that some things have happened to give me pause.”

He picked up his coffee, but didn’t take a drink. He looked out the window at the darkness and then back at me.

“I’m so sorry for all the pain he caused you,” he said.

“I’m doing well now, Dr. Mortimer. My life is good, better than most. I’m one of the lucky ones. Remember, I’m your poster child. I’ll always be grateful to you for what you did. If you hadn’t arrived on the island when you did, I have no doubt I would have died there.”

I saw him shudder.

“I’d like to think that Nathaniel wouldn’t have done that, Abby. I know I looked the other way, especially at first. But I’m not a fool. I know what he was, what he was capable of.”

I could see the waves swirling around him in dark circles. He reached over and patted my hand.

“Seeing you like this has helped me so much,” he said. “It makes me incredibly happy to know that you’re doing well.”

“I survived him. And I know you probably couldn’t tell back there at the hospital tonight, but it’s made me stronger. I don’t have any regrets about any of it. And you shouldn’t either.”

He stared into his coffee lid for a moment and then smiled weakly.

“You know, since he died I’ve been trying to understand it,” he said. “But most of the time nothing helps. I can’t get him out of my head. Sometimes I can’t stand living with the fact that I…”

He swallowed hard.

“Dr. Mortimer, you were a good brother. Better than he deserved. Even with all the bad things he had done in his life, you were still there for him. There was nothing more you could have done.”

He sighed heavily and looked off to the side.

“I’m not sorry that he’s gone,” I said. “He hurt a lot of people, and now he can’t hurt anybody ever again.”

I hoped that last part was true, but I had a growing sense that it might not be.