Dead Air (Sammy Greene Thriller) (27 page)

“My own private duty doctor.”

“Almost doctor,” Reed leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I told you I was worried about you.”

“Worried I’d try to escape, you mean.”

Not sure she was joking, Reed simply said, “That too.”

Sammy peered under the bedcovers and realized she’d slept in her clothes. “Well, at least I see you haven’t taken advantage of my vulnerable state.”

“And I see the patient’s got her sense of humor back.” Reed smiled. “You were talking in your sleep.”

Sammy’s face clouded. “It was — I guess it was a dream.” She shuddered at the memory, still vivid in her mind.

“Want to share?”

Sammy closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. “No, I don’t remember it.”

Reed flicked his watch. The LCD digits read 6:45. “Jeez, I’d better get going. I’ve got to shower and change before rounds. Dr. Palmer’s a stickler for punctuality.” He was still wearing his white
pants and jacket, now badly in need of a wash and press. As he stood, he stepped into his loafers and pushed back the chair. “By the way, he wants to see you in Student Health at ten.”

“Palmer?”

“He examined you in the emergency room yesterday.”

“He was on duty?”

“No, I called him. I —”

“You were worried about me.”

Reed felt his face redden and turned away. “After you fell asleep last night I called and explained how you’d ‘checked out’ of the hospital. He suggested seeing you as a follow-up. Student Health has your medical records, and he has clinic this morning.”

Sammy sat up in bed. “You really admire him, don’t you?”

Reed shrugged. “Actually, I hardly know the man. He’s very private — serious. But I can tell you this. He’s a brilliant researcher and a great clinician. I’m lucky to have gotten this rotation with him. If I don’t screw up, I think I have a chance at the Mass. General residency.”

Sammy smiled. “You? Screw up? Not a chance.”

Reed sat down on the bed and gave her another gentle kiss — this time on the mouth.

Sammy threw her arms around his neck, burying herself in his embrace. “Have I ever told you what a
gitina shima
you are?” she whispered.

Reed sat back, wincing theatrically. “Why do I think that only means I’m a nice guy?”

“So?”

“So, I thought maybe after all this time, we could be more than ‘nice.’ ” He shook his head. “Sammy, not all men are going to abandon you — just ’cause your father did.”

“Since when was psychiatry your specialty?”

“Just trying to understand.”

Sammy leveled serious green eyes at Reed. “Listen, I’m sorry I’m not — I can’t. I’m just so overwhelmed right now. I don’t know how I feel about us.” She knew it was a poor excuse for her
inability — or unwillingness — to deal with where their relationship was going. “I guess what I’m saying is I could really just use a friend right now.”

Reed hesitated for a moment, then squeezed her hand. “Count on it.” He rose from the bed.

“Reed?”

“Hmm?”

“Why didn’t you tell me Bud Stanton was one of the students injured yesterday?”

“How did you — ?” Reed asked, then realizing the answer, said, “Well, of course, Ms. Super Sleuth. I should’ve posted a guard by your room.”

“I would’ve climbed out the window,” she returned, “and you didn’t answer my question.”

“I was advised by the FBI not to say anything,” he explained. “They’re investigating Stanton’s possible involvement in the bombing.”

“Bud? I don’t think he was involved with the Taft people.”

“Guess not.” Reed shrugged again. “At least, that’s what he told your friend Pappajohn.”

“Not
my
friend.” Sammy said. True, the man had saved her life and for that she was more than grateful. But it was hard to just put aside their frequent battles over the past two years. Sammy smiled to herself. If Pappajohn thought Stanton was part of this, she was sure he was barking up the wrong tree. She swung her legs over the bed and started to get up.

“Take it slow,” Reed warned, watching her closely. “If you get up too fast, you’ll get lightheaded. You could pass out.”

“I’m fine. Really.” Sammy was standing, though she had to admit, the floor seemed to be swaying gently beneath her feet. She was all right. She’d just been lying down too long. She raised and waggled her arms. “Look ma, no hands!”

Reed shook his head. “Look ma, no sense.”

Sammy ignored the remark, as she inched unsteadily toward her nightstand. She pulled open the drawer to retrieve the photos
Mr. Brewster had given her yesterday. She held them out to Reed. “By the way, any of these people look familiar?”

Reed shuffled through the pile, stopping at one. “That’s Katie Miller,” he said, handing it to Sammy. “She’s the student who was killed. I don’t know the guy standing behind her.”

Sammy stared at the girl in the picture. “She’s the one who told me Taft planned to sabotage Nitshi Day.”

“You’re sure?”

Sammy nodded, stunned. So hard to believe Katie was now dead. Another person she’d touched, gone.

Reed slipped the photo into his jacket pocket. “I’ll give this to the cops during rounds this morning.”

“Sure.” Her voice was thin, remote.

Reed glanced at his watch again. “Don’t forget your appointment at ten.”

“No, I won’t.”

At the door, he turned and added, “If you need me this afternoon, I’ll be at the Nitshi Building. Dr. Palmer’s asked me to check on one of his experiments.”

Sammy waited until the door closed before allowing herself to cry.

Sammy was rinsing her red eyes in the bathroom sink twenty minutes later when her telephone rang. Grabbing a towel, she rushed to answer it. “Hello?”

“Hi, Bill Osborne here. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, Dr. Osborne, I was up.” Her voice sounded hoarse.

“Well, I wasn’t sure you’d remember. Last night we made plans to meet this morning.”

“Oh. Uh, yes.” The truth was she’d just as soon forget most of last night.

“I have a cancellation at nine,” Osborne reported. “How would that work for you?”

Sammy hesitated, considering all she had to do that morning. She planned to talk to Larry, then meet with the fire chief and
Pappajohn. She owed it to Brian to find out what happened — and why. “I don’t know.”

“Sometimes our hardest task is to give to ourselves,” Osborne said, acknowledging her conflict.

If only I could, Sammy thought. A moment to unburden herself, to comfort herself, to rest. She checked the clock on the night-stand. It read 7:05. Still early. Perhaps —

“I guess I can make it.” She surprised herself by agreeing to the session. In fact, the Psych Department was just around the corner from Student Health. She could see the psychologist at nine and still make her ten o’clock appointment with Dr. Palmer.

Two hours later, Osborne ushered her into his office.

The room was pin neat, its decor surprisingly opulent.
Definitely not university issue
. Framed Impressionist paintings covered pale blue walls. Thick, plush carpeting softened her entering footsteps. Several rows of psychology reference books were organized by author in a rosewood bookcase behind a matching rosewood desk and credenza. No papers or files cluttered the desk’s polished wood surface — only a Mont Blanc pen and pencil set, letter opener, and letter tray, precisely arranged.

Sammy also noted the absence of the traditional family desk photos. Osborne probably wanted to keep his personal life separate from his professional world. That made sense.

“Please, have a seat.” Osborne waved at several chairs and a couch opposite his desk.

Sammy chose a comfortable armchair across from him.

Osborne settled into his own high-backed leather chair. Clasping his hands, he touched his fingers to his lips and smiled at Sammy. “So, how are you doing?”

Sammy exhaled slowly. “Physically, I’m okay.”

“And emotionally?”

“I’m fine,” Sammy said, though her lower lip trembled.

Osborne leaned forward and looked across at her. “What happened yesterday was horrible. I know you must be hurting terribly.”

Even as he spoke the words, Sammy could feel the ache rise within her, powerless to control it as her emotions took a free fall. “Yes,” she acknowledged, expelling a fresh gush of tears.

Osborne reached over to his credenza, pulled a tissue from the box, handed it to her, and waited until she was composed again.

“Brian was a friend. A real friend.”

“They’re hard to find. And harder to lose. I know.” Osborne’s voice was almost a whisper.

Sammy looked at him. It seemed as if his eyes were glistening with unshed tears. Even therapists are human, she thought, realizing that he must have felt the same way about Conrad. “How do you stop feeling responsible?” she asked.

“Is that what you’re feeling?”

She nodded. “Last night, I had this dream.”

“What happened? Can you recall?”

Haltingly, she began to tell him what she couldn’t seem to share with Reed. She was at Professor Conrad’s home. “It was last Saturday morning,” she began, “but this time, instead of finding Conrad dead, he was alive — hurt, bleeding, from his head.” Sammy’s hand touched the bandage on her own forehead. “His hands were stretched toward me. He was pleading for help. But I turned away. For just a second. When I looked back again, his face belonged to Brian McKernan — burning, like a candle.”

She shut her eyes tight, hoping to erase the horrifying memory. “I started running toward him, but he just kept getting farther away. I kept running and running and finally, I was so tired.” Sammy’s voice cracked. “I couldn’t do anything.” She moved her finger up and down her forearm as if tracing an old scar. “I — it was my fault!”

“No, Sammy. Your mother was already dead when you found her. So was Professor Conrad and your friend at the station.” The psychologist’s voice was gentle, soothing. “You couldn’t have helped any of them.”

Sammy opened her eyes. There was a knot in her chest and she could barely swallow. “You’ve explained that, but —”

“But it will take time for your subconscious to accept what your
conscious mind understands,” Osborne interpreted. “For you to accept here,” he tapped his breastbone, “what you understand here,” he touched his temple. “You’ve held in your feelings about your mother’s passing for close to fifteen years. That’s a long time to build up walls, defenses.”

“It still hurts. Here.” She pointed to her chest. “I should be over that by now.”

Osborne shook his head. “There’s no schedule for survivors. And seeing a student your age and then a professor you knew take their own lives brings it all back again.” Then he patiently went over the same ground he’d covered the other night at dinner. “You still have a great deal of unresolved guilt. You’ve survived, they haven’t. You have to keep telling yourself that it’s not your fault. Your mother, Sergio, and Connie all made a choice — their choice. There’s nothing you could or should have done.”

“I wish I could say that about Brian.”

Osborne frowned. “The Fire Department feels his death was an accident. How could you have helped? The poor young man was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Sammy chewed on her lower lip, struggling to articulate the conflict within her. “But he wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for me.”

“Sounds like magical thinking, Sammy,” Osborne said.

“What’s that?”

“Very common among youngsters. You feel as though everything that happens is under your control — that you’re directly responsible for other people’s actions — and what happens to them. As adults, we know that’s not true. We have little control over —”

“I just need to make sense of it all.”

“Sometimes it all makes no sense.”

“You think I’m off base to want other explanations?”

“Not if finding the answers will finally put your doubts to rest,” Osborne assured her. “I am curious, though. I thought after we talked on Tuesday, you were comfortable that Dr. Conrad’s death was a suicide.”

Sammy took a deep breath. “Yes, but there’s a lot I didn’t tell you then, and a lot that’s happened since.”

“Can you tell me now?” he asked.

Sammy hesitated, then sensed that Osborne was the only one she could unburden herself to — a best friend who would understand — who could be a valuable ally in helping to bring Conrad’s killers to justice. He would believe what Reed and Larry and Pappajohn passed off as “magical thinking.”

“I don’t have any proof,” she began slowly. “Brian didn’t get a chance to tell me what he discovered. But it’s just putting everything together.” Relieved to have someone to confide in, she quickly reported her near hit-and-run, the man with the mustache, the stolen photographs, the missing brown envelope, her primitive analysis of the static-filled tape. Describing her research trip to the office of Contracts and Grants, she laid out her theory about Taft and the Nitshi Corporation. “Brian discovered something on the tape I gave him that would have proven Professor Conrad was killed that night. And now,” she shuddered at the thought, “now Brian’s dead, too.”

“Well, that’s quite a story.” Osborne leaned back in his chair. “Have you shared any of this with the police?”

“No, I — You’ll probably think I’m really paranoid, but I’m not sure Pappajohn isn’t part of a cover-up. Last year I researched Taft’s organization. After the anti-abortion riots.”

“I remember that well,” Osborne commented. “A volatile concentration of antisocial impulses.”

“Taft instigated the violence,” Sammy said. “I was there.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you know that the one hundred fifty thousand dollars of property damage was amortized by a gift from several alumni — all members of Taft’s congregation? And the OB nurse who got hurt and ended up in the ICU? I learned that someone from Taft’s Traditional Values Coalition paid her medical bill.”

“You don’t say?”

“Uh-huh. You never heard about that, did you?”

Osborne shook his head.

“Neither did anyone else. I told Pappajohn about the connection. You’d think he would’ve tracked down my lead and blown Taft’s machine sky-high.”

“And he didn’t?”