Bloodchild (19 page)

Reis nodded. "Do you have any pictures of her? Relatively recent ones?"

"I don't know…" He thought a moment. "I have something from last Christmas. She hasn't changed much. Actually she's quite a good-looking woman for her age."

"Well, why don't you give me that. I'll take down all the physical details you can add and we'll pass the information along so all our people can look out for her. At this point we have no evidence of any foul play. Just that slipper out here, but we can't make much of that. It could have been dropped from a bag or something. I wish I could do more for you, considering all you're going through right now with your wife and sister," he added.

"Thanks. I appreciate whatever you can do. I don't know what's wrong with my sister. Maybe she
did
see something; maybe she just had the location wrong."

"I don't know. Is there a basement in this house?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'll look through that, and I'll look around the neighborhood a bit, knock on some doors, and we'll see. In the meantime, if you think of anything else or anything else comes up…"

"Right. Okay, I'll show you the door to the basement and go get you that picture."

"Fine," Reis said.

They met fifteen minutes later in the entryway of the house. Lieutenant Reis said there was nothing unusual in the basement.

"Certainly no evidence of any foul play or any dead bodies."

"This is ghoulish, but I don't know what to think."

"We always think the worst," Reis said. "I see it all the time. Fortunately, what we think is not often the case."

Harlan nodded and handed him the picture taken last Christmas. It had been taken in the living room. Dana and Jillian were standing by the tree.

"A fine-looking woman," Reis said.

"That she is," Trish said, looking over his shoulder. "I can't believe anything's happened to her… and on this street."

"Well, let's hold together, miss. The worst thing we could do is panic everyone on the block. Then we won't learn anything."

"He's right," Harlan said.

"I won't say anything," Trish said. "Except to Barry. My husband," she added.

"Good," Reis said. "All right. I'll call you if I learn anything, but in any case, I'll call you late this afternoon."

"Thank you," Harlan said. "Impressive guy," he added after the detective left. "I like the way he didn't just laugh everything off or tell us this was nothing to worry about. That's what they usually do in the movies."

"Right," Trish said. "God, Harlan, what you're going through! Go sit down. Rest for a while."

He looked at his watch.

"I will, but I'd better call the hospital and see how Colleen's doing. Thanks for everything, Trish."

"I'll call you later," she said. After she left, he headed for the kitchen.

The doctor told him that there were no traces of drugs in Colleen's body and that she was still under sedation. They agreed once again that it would be best for the hospital psychologist to have a session with her. Harlan thanked him and told the doctor he would be up at the hospital later in the day.

After he cradled the phone, he sank into the nearest chair and stared at the wall. What the hell was happening? he wondered. And why was it all happening so fast? His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. Hoping it had to do with Jillian, he shot up out of the chair and hurried down the hallway to the front door. He opened it and stepped back as though a gust of wind had driven him away from the opening.

A tall, stern-looking, but strangely attractive woman stood before him. She wore a dark red wool jacket over a nurse's uniform and carried a small suitcase in her right hand. Her coal-black hair was pinned up behind her head and her cap was pinned to her hair. She had jet-black eyes and fair skin, with just a tint of scarlet at the surface of her cheeks.

"Harlan Hamilton?" she said.

"Yes?" He looked past her and saw there was no car in the driveway. Someone had just dropped her off.

"Dr. Claret sent me."

"Pardon?"

"Your wife called Dr. Claret."

"My wife?"

"It's all right, Harlan," he heard, and turned around to see Dana at the top of the stairway. "She's come to help me. The doctor suggested it."

"Huh?" He turned and looked at the nurse.

"May I come in, please?" she said with an air of annoyance.

"What? Oh, sure." He stepped back.

"Dana?" the nurse said.

"Come right upstairs and I'll show you where you'll stay," Dana said.

"Stay?" Harlan asked. He looked from Dana to the nurse and then back to Dana.

"She's going to stay with us for a while, Harlan. I'll pay for it."

"I'm not worried about who's paying for it. I just didn't know, and…"

"Well, now you do, Mr. Hamilton," the nurse said. She extended her hand to him. "I'm Miss Patio, Rose Patio."

"How do you do," Harlan said. He took her hand. Her fingers tightened with surprising firmness around his. He brought his eyes up, and she met his gaze with a smile that began around her eyes and then rippled down her face to settle at the corners of her mouth. He felt his heartbeat quicken and a warmth travel across his chest, as though the blood there had been instantly pumped to the surface.

"I know you're having some problems," she said. "I'm an experienced maternity nurse," she added. "I hope I'll be of some help."

"Of course." He looked up at Dana.

"Thank you, Harlan," Dana said. "Right this way, Miss Patio."

"Rose. Call me Rose," she said, and started up the stairs. Harlan watched until she reached Dana, and the two looked at each other for a long moment before heading down the corridor. He stood there staring at the empty stairway until he realized what had surprised him.

It wasn't that Dana had agreed to take on a nurse for a while; many women did that when they first brought a baby home. And it wasn't that she had done this without discussing it first with him. With all that was going on that morning, it was actually good that Dana had taken control of something through a discussion with her doctor. He was happy about all of that.

What bothered him was a different realization.

The realization that she hadn't asked about his sister, nor had she asked about her mother.

And this realization left him cold and instinctively certain that Colleen had indeed seen something terrible. He felt it was only a matter of time before he would too.

Just before returning to the hospital to see how Colleen was doing, Harlan went upstairs. He had been waiting for Dana to ask him to bring up the foldaway bed from the basement and place it in the baby's room for the nurse. But after Rose Patio went upstairs, Dana never called down to him. In fact, the house became rather quiet, and he saw neither of them.

He found Dana asleep in their bedroom and the door to Jillian's room closed. The nurse was not in the baby's room. He was disturbed because Dana obviously had placed the nurse in Jillian's room without finding out what had happened to her. Dana's indifference was inexcusable. Just so much could be attributed to her condition, he thought. Now, driven by an uncharacteristic overt anger, he woke her.

"I want to know what's going on here," he demanded, standing by the side of the bed. Dana looked up at him, blinking rapidly, as if she were trying to remember who he was. Her look of confusion annoyed him. "Dana, do you hear me?"

Without replying, she moved farther away and turned her back to him, intending to go back to sleep, but he wouldn't be rejected. He went to the other side of the bed and shook her shoulder again. This time she moaned but with such force and in such a deep, unrecognizable voice that he actually stepped back.

"Dana!"

She opened her eyes more forcefully and confronted him.

"What do you want? I'm trying to get some rest. Nurse Patio says it's very important. She says I'm emotionally exhausted."

"Where is this nurse? Why is she in Jillian's room? I thought you would ask me to bring up the foldaway and we would put her in the baby's room," he said rapidly.

"Foldaway? You expect her to sleep on a foldaway? Don't you know how important she is now? Don't you understand anything? If I'm not well, the baby will suffer. Don't you care?" she asked, her face twisting with disgust.

"Me? Care? How about you? What about your mother? You haven't even asked about her, not to mention Colleen. How can you give some stranger your mother's bed when we don't even know what's happened to her?"

"She left," Dana said, and closed her eyes. Then she opened them again abruptly, as if remembering something. "We had an argument."

"What?" Harlan asked. She didn't respond. He stepped closer to the bed. "What did you say?"

"I said," Dana responded, speaking with what obviously took great effort, "we had a fight."

"You and Jillian? Why, I never once saw—"

"I'm telling you what happened, Harlan. We had a fight and she ran out of here, threatening to leave. So she left. It's probably better, anyway. She wasn't able to handle my breast-feeding Nikos. It bothered her. And you really don't know my mother, Harlan. She has a low toleration level. She's spoiled. My father spoiled her, and she remained so, even after his death. She lives like some kind of princess in that lavish Florida home, and if anything is in any way distasteful to her, she can't take it. Understand? So she used our argument as an excuse to leave."

"But she didn't take her things. They're still in the room," he protested.

"She left in a highly emotional state. She doesn't need those things. She has dozens of replacements. I'm really upset about it, Harlan. I'm just trying to ignore it so that it doesn't bother me."

"And you're not helping her one bit," the nurse said. He spun around. She had entered the room behind him as silently as a shadow. Now she stood between him and the doorway, the flush in her cheeks and her neck so vivid, she looked as if she were suffering from some kind of rash. Her dark eyes were larger, her gaze more intimidating. When he had first seen her in the doorway, he had thought her a tall woman, but right now she seemed to swell right before his eyes. Her shoulders lifted and her bosom rose, so that the bodice of her uniform looked as though it were under some strain.

Yet she wasn't ugly or grotesque, even though her sexuality seemed in some way threatening to him. He felt that the clinging white uniform gave her figure a deceptively antiseptic and safe appearance. It didn't neutralize her and make her asexual the way some uniforms made women. Instead he felt that this uniform was worn as a disguise. Beneath it throbbed a hot, passionate body, one that was eager to consume. He was drawn to her with the same fascination a young boy has for the center of a small candle flame. He would tease himself by bringing his finger dangerously close. Perhaps he would pass it through the flame rapidly and escape being burned. It was a thrilling call to pain and danger.

There was something in the nurse's eyes that told him she knew and understood his feelings. She had seen it in men before. He felt exposed, embarrassed, and had to turn away.

"Why didn't you tell me about this before, Dana?" he asked. He heard the way his voice trembled. He felt the nurse's indignant stare on the back of his neck. Her presence was too strong to be ignored.

"I was hoping she would return and not act like a child," Dana said, and looked past him at Nurse Patio, who had come up on his right. Out of the corner of his eye Harlan thought he saw her nod.

"This is incredible."

"Mr. Hamilton," Rose Patio said, moving closer. "Dr. Claret has sent me here because your wife has undergone a considerable amount of emotional strain. It is essential that we keep her isolated from any further excitement. Do you understand?" she asked. She was inches from him now. He thought he could feel the heat radiating from her body, but he chalked that up to his imagination.

"How could he make any diagnosis without seeing her?" Harlan asked.

"He will see her today. In the meantime it doesn't take a medical genius to prescribe rest, does it? Considering what she had gone through, that is."

"Please, Harlan," Dana said. She closed her eyes. He stared down at her for a moment.

"All right," he said, feeling very insecure. Maybe he was complicating things. Maybe he was causing more problems.

"I'm going to see how Colleen is doing. You know she's in the hospital, and—"

"Mr. Hamilton…" Rose Patio said. She touched his arm. He was sure he felt great warmth at the tips of her fingers. They seemed capable of burning through his shirt sleeve and singeing him. He actually stepped away from her. She gestured toward the door. He looked at Dana once again, saw that she was already going back to sleep, and headed out of the room. The nurse followed. She closed the bedroom door behind her softly and stepped into the hall with him.

"What is going on here?" he demanded.

"Look, Mr. Hamilton, I wouldn't tell your wife any more about your sister just yet. She's on the edge of a nervous breakdown as it is. You can imagine how it was for her, being the one who was here when your sister was hysterical. Under the circumstances Dana handled things quite well. But all of this has taken its toll," she added, pronouncing each word slowly, carefully, as if she were talking to a complete idiot. "I've seen the symptoms hundreds of times, Mr. Hamilton. She's in a very fragile state. With the loss of her baby, the problem with her mother, her own sensitivity… she has enough to contend with. Let's wait until she's a little stronger before we lay any more on her, okay?" she said, finally reaching a reasonable tone of voice.

He looked back at the closed bedroom door. Somehow Miss Patio had made him feel as if he were harming Dana simply by talking to her. He was the one who was looking unreasonable now. There was no question, however, that he—and even Jillian—had felt Dana was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Perhaps this nurse was not altogether wrong. After all, she had come at a doctor's behest.

"Yes, I understand," he said. "It's just that everything seems to be happening so fast."