Shiver (29 page)

“Is there anything you need?” the nurse asked.

“I’d like to get out of bed, use the bathroom.”

“Okay, hold on. You’re going for a ride.”

The nurse cranked up the bed till Wendy was in a sitting position, then lowered one of the side rails. She took Wendy’s hand and helped her get up. For the first time Wendy noticed that her palms were bandaged. She remembered shielding her face from flying glass when the windshield blew apart.

The semiprivate room had its own half-bath. Wendy found the nurse waiting for her when she emerged.

“I’m wide awake now,” she said. “I don’t need to go back to bed.” But as she took a step forward, she tottered with a wave of vertigo.

The nurse steadied her. “Looks like you do. The tranquilizer hasn’t worn off completely.”

Wendy allowed herself to be eased back under the sheets. She sat upright, a pillow at her back, fighting spirals of dizziness.

“Which hospital am I at, by the way?”

“Cedars-Sinai.”

“My home away from home.”

“Well, you can go back to your real home soon enough. I’m sure you’ll be discharged as soon as the Valium is out of your system ... and as soon as the doctor has had a chance to look you over, of course. In the meantime relax and take it easy.”

“Not much else I can do.”

“If you get bored, call your friends.” The nurse nodded to the telephone on the nightstand. “I’ll bet a lot of people will be anxious to hear from you.”

She shut the door on her way out.

Wendy sighed. She wished the nurse had been right. But with Jeffrey dead, how many people did she have in her life who cared about her? Was there anyone? Anyone at all?

My parents, she thought with a chill of concern. If they’ve heard the news ...

And they probably had heard by now. The Gryphon had been a national story; what happened to her must have been on all the morning shows back East.

She picked up the handset, dialed an outside line, and punched in a long-distance number with a 513 area code, charging the call to her phone-company credit card. The phone at the other end of the line rang three times before her mother’s voice answered. “Hello?”

“Mom? It’s Wendy.”

“You’re calling awfully early in the A.M.," Audrey Alden said in a dry, needling tone. “Must be six o’clock out there.”

“Yes. I ... I just got up.”

“Something the matter?”

They knew nothing, obviously. That was good. Better to learn about it over the phone than from a TV newscaster.

“Yes,” Wendy said carefully, “you could say so. I mean, there was something the matter, but it’s all right now.”

“Speak English, will you? What did we send you to that college for, if you can’t make yourself clear about the simplest things?”

“I’m sorry.” What was she apologizing for? “A lot has happened, and I guess I’m confused—”

“Boyfriend trouble, I’ll bet. That Jamie’s no good for you.”

“His name is Jeffrey, and you’ve never even met him, and—” And he’s dead, she wanted to add, but she couldn’t force the words out.

“Those photography people are all, you know, peculiar,” her mother went on, unhearing. “Of course I suppose beggars can’t be choosers.”

“What ... what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re not getting any younger, and with all the trashy sweet things out there in Hollywood sashaying around on Sunset Boulevard, you’ve got to settle for what you can get.”

Wendy shut her eyes, swallowed her anger. “I only called because I have something important to tell you. Last night—”

“It’s Wendy,” Mrs. Alden said suddenly, her voice muffled. “Yes, calling this early. Sounds half asleep, but then she always does. Pick it up on the extension, why don’t you?”

A moment later her father’s voice came on the line. “I’m on my way to work,” he said without greetings or preamble, “so I haven’t got much time. What’s the matter, darling? Short of cash?”

“No, I—”

He chuckled. “Figured you might be, what with that job of yours. How much are they paying you there? Twenty-five, is that it? Nobody can get by on twenty-five a year, not these days, not in the big city. There are jobs that pay a whole lot better, but a person’s got to have gumption to get ahead in this world, is what I say.”

“I make thirty grand a year,” Wendy said coldly. “Not twenty-five. And I’m not calling about money anyway. For Christ’s sake, don’t you people own a television set? Don’t you—”

“How dare you address your father in that tone of voice,” Mrs. Alden interrupted. “Taking the Lord’s name in vain—where did you learn manners like that?”

“Not from us, that’s for certain,” Stan Alden put in.

“From that Jamie, I’ll bet.”

“Shut
up
!” Wendy hissed. “Can’t you just
listen
to me for once? I’m trying to tell you—”

“Keep this up and you won’t be getting any money from us, daughter of mine,” Mr. Alden said darkly. “Not one red cent.”

“I don’t
want
any money. Why do you keep talking about money?”

“Ease off, Stan,” his wife told him. “The girl is upset. She’s got boy trouble.”

“No, I do
not
have boy trouble! That has
nothing
to do with ... with anything.”

Wendy was losing her composure. Suddenly she was a small child again, helpless, intimidated, being told what she thought and what she wanted and what was wrong with her, and being given no choice in any of it.

But I’m not a child, she reminded herself as she tightened her grip on the hard plastic shell of the telephone handset. Not anymore.

“Look.” She kept her voice low and even. “I got into some trouble last night, and I wanted you to know—”

“Trouble?” her mother interrupted, a strange note of eagerness in her voice. “What sort of trouble?”

“Whatever kind of jam you’re in,” her father said sternly, “it’s up to you to get yourself out of it. I’ll do what I can, but I can’t bail you out every time. I’m not made of money, you know.”

“Are you pregnant?” Audrey Alden asked. “Or is it AIDS? That’s it, isn’t it? AIDS? That Jamie—I knew he was one of those types. The artistic ones always are.”

“If you’d learn to keep your head on straight and not act like such a damn fool,” Mr. Alden said, “you might be able to take care of yourself for a change.”

“I warned you about Jamie, but did you listen?”

“All it takes is the sense God gave a goat, but sometimes I think that’s more sense than you’ve got.”

Wendy took the phone away from her ear, looked at it for a long moment, then raised the mouthpiece to her lips.

“Mom,” she said quietly. “Dad.”

There was something in her voice, some quality of steely hardness, that silenced them.

“For twenty-nine years”—she listened to herself from some great distance, wondering what she was about to say—“you’ve been taking out your problems on me. Giving me grief because it’s all you’ve got to give. Making me crazy.”

“We never—” her mother protested, but Wendy cut her off.

“I don’t want to hear it. Any of it. I’m not putting up with your bullshit anymore. You hear me? I’m through being treated like a nobody. Because I’m not a nobody. And if you can’t understand that, then it’s your problem, not mine.”

The line was quiet save for the buzz of the long-distance connection.

“Is that what you called to tell us?” her mother asked finally in a small, oddly subdued voice.

“Yes,” Wendy said after a moment’s thought. “As a matter of fact, it was.”

“Then what was all this guff about the trouble you’re in?” Her father sounded as if he didn’t know whether to be hurt or angry.

“You can read about it in the paper,” she said coldly. “On the front page.”

She hung up before they could say anything more.

Then she threw her head back on the pillow and marveled at what she’d done.

I told them off, she thought, astonished. I let them know exactly what I think, how I feel. I got them off my back. At last.

The accomplishment seemed as significant as surviving the Gryphon’s attacks last night.

She shut her eyes, her lips parted in a tremulous smile. She felt light and free.

“Good morning, Wendy.”

Her eyes flashed open. Sebastián Delgado stood in the doorway, watching her.

“Oh. Good morning. Detective.”

He stepped into the room, closing the door. She noticed he was wearing the same brown suit she’d seen last night. Dark crescents bruised his eyes. She remembered the cot in his office and doubted he’d had the chance to use it.

“The nurse down the hall told me you were awake,” Delgado said. He pulled up a chair and sat at her bedside. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Not bad. A little woozy from the Valium they gave me.”

“Nothing more serious than that?”

“Uh-uh. Apparently the paramedics did their job.”

He nodded. “They reached you almost immediately. There’s a firehouse only half a mile from the scene of the ... the accident.”

“Believe me. Detective, it was no accident.”

Delgado smiled. “I didn’t think it was. You ran him off the road, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” She remembered herself screaming obscenities as she slammed the Camaro into the squad car again and again.

“He stole the patrol car and pursued you after you escaped from the house?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you get a look at him?”

She thought about it. “No,” she said finally, “I never did. In the house it was dark, and when he was chasing me, there was too much going on.”

“I can imagine.”

She took a breath. The next question had to be asked, even though she knew the answer. “Jeffrey is dead. Isn’t he?”

“Yes, Wendy.” He spread his hands and let them drop in his lap. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded.

“I should have protected you better,” he said softly. “I should have posted more than two men outside the house. But I didn’t think the Gryphon could find you there. And I assumed that, if he did, two men would be enough to stop him. I was wrong on both counts.”

“I’m not blaming you. Detective. Nobody is.”

He made a noncommittal sound. It was clear he was blaming himself.

“What about Porter?” she asked. “And Sanchez?”

“Porter’s body was found in the brush across from the house, where the car was parked. He got out of the car for some reason, and the Gryphon ambushed him. We haven’t found Sanchez yet, but we don’t hold out any hope for him either. His body is probably in the wreckage of the car.”

“Probably? You mean you haven’t looked?”

“We’ve been unable to get near the car. When the fuel tank exploded, it ignited a brushfire. The winds spread the flames pretty fast; in a Santa Ana condition, that dry chaparral is like tinder. The whole mountainside was set ablaze. The fire department is still damping down the last of the hot spots.”

“Was anyone hurt in the fire?”

“No. It was contained before it could threaten any homes.”

“But if you can’t get to the car, you don’t know for sure that he died in the crash.” She heard the mounting panic in her voice but couldn’t quell it. “What if he got away somehow? What if he’s still out there?”

Delgado leaned forward and took her hand. “Believe me,” he said quietly, his voice as gentle as his touch, “there is no way anyone could have survived that explosion.”

The red flower of flame bloomed again in her mind. “I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I am. I’m a cop. I’m always right.” The words were spoken lightly, but she could see the sudden bitter self-reproach in his eyes, the brief, ugly twist of his mouth, and she knew he would not forgive himself for the mistakes he felt he’d made.

Wishing to reach out to him as he’d done for her, she raised her free hand and ran her fingers over his knuckles. “It was sweet of you to come see me.”

He shrugged, a shade too casually. “I was in the area, so I thought I’d drop by the hospital and check on your condition.” He glanced in the direction of the bureau. “When you’re ready to go home, look in the top drawer. You’ll find a set of clean clothes from your closet. I had one of my officers—a female officer—pick out some items for you.” He smiled. “I thought you might be tired of wearing pajamas.”

She returned the smile. “Are you always so solicitous toward the civilians you deal with?”

His eyes met hers. “Not always.”

She felt the shiver of a spark between them. They both broke eye contact at once.

“Look, I’d better get going,” Delgado said briskly. “The mop-up operation on the mountain must be nearly done by now.” He released her hand and rose from his chair. “Later I’ll take your statement about what happened last night. The ladies and gentlemen of the press are rather eager to know the details as well. For the moment we’re keeping them at bay; nobody except staff members is being admitted to this wing of the hospital. But I’m afraid I can’t hold them off forever. Before long you’ll have to face the media.”