Healing Waters (43 page)

“I had a placental abruption—where the placenta tears away from the uterine wall—and the doctor put me on bed rest. Chip nearly went out of his mind. I had some sick leave, but not three months' worth, and everything was falling apart around him.”

She swallowed so hard Sully could feel the pain in his own throat.

“So when the bleeding stopped, I thought I could at least get up and cook him some meals.”

No. Please, no.

“I was in the kitchen making lasagna—and I hemorrhaged. My baby died—and I—” The wall of tears she held back cracked through her voice. “The tear in my uterus was so severe and so infected they couldn't—I had to have a hysterectomy.”

“Lucia, how long ago did this happen?”

“Seven months,” she said.

Holy, holy crow.

Sully stretched his hand across the table. “Lucia, I am so sorry.”

“Don't, please. I don't want to cry.”

“Why? Why don't you want to cry when you've lost so much?”

“Because if I start crying, I'll never stop. I never will.”

“You'll never stop hurting,” Sully said. “You will stop crying, if you just go ahead and let it all out.”

Lucia nodded even as her face collapsed. She put her arms on the table and wept into them.

Sully's soul wept with her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

I
didn't know how long I'd cried when I finally pulled my face up from my arms, dripping snot and feeling like I'd just thrown up. Sullivan handed me a Kleenex and waited while I blew my nose. I thought I would have a hard time meeting his eyes now, but I found myself searching for them across the table. They were still kind, still safe.

“Is our time up?” I said.

“I stopped the meter a long time ago,” he said. “Let's just sit for a minute, let you get centered.”

I gave him what I was sure was a wobbly smile. “So I don't go break the mirrors?”

“People only break mirrors when they hold back.”

“I definitely didn't hold back,” I said. “I feel like I just vomited.” “Ding-ding,” he said.

At least, that was what I thought he said, before it was lost in the slam of a door. We stared at each other.

“Were you expecting somebody?” Sullivan said.

“No.”

We spoke in hushed tones, as if we were the ones who had just walked in uninvited. I could tell from the whiteness around his mouth that he was backpedaling from fear. I had already succumbed to it.

“Stay here,” he said. He stood up and handed me his cell phone. “Call 911 if—”

“Okay,” I said. “I think it was the door from the breezeway into the laundry room.”

Sullivan moved toward the dark kitchen with painful slowness. I stayed frozen on the bench until he disappeared around the corner. Then I thought of Bethany.

I had to get to her. If this was that man coming back, I had to be with her.

I started inching my way out of the booth, then stopped when I heard Sullivan's voice bark sharply into the silence.

“Stop right there! Do it! Stop!”

Another male voice swore in surprise.

“I mean it—stay right there!”

After that I couldn't make out words. Something heavy hit the floor—and the cabinets and the walls.

With Sullivan's phone still clutched in my hand, I lunged for the hallway to the foyer, where the stairs seemed miles away. So did Bethany.

Dear God, please—please—just let me get past the kitchen without
him seeing me.

I pushed away all the rest of the visions—including one of Sullivan being beaten to death—and focused on the foyer ahead of me. I had to get out of earshot to call 911. I had to get to Bethany. With my heart clawing its way up my throat, I made myself creep past the opening into the kitchen, forced myself not to look.

There was no need. Sullivan slid to my feet on his back. Someone else fell on him, one arm drawn back with his fist in a vicious knot. I couldn't see the man's face, but I knew the body.

“Chip! Chip—stop!”

He didn't until I screamed it twice more. Even then his fist remained suspended above Sullivan's face as he turned to look up at me.

He swore under his breath and drew back from the form he'd been pounding—and recoiled to his feet. Not, however, before I saw the cold, hard rage.

But the voice he finally spoke in was Chip's, though ripped at its edges. “Lucia, babe, are you all right?”

He reached out his arm, but I pushed it aside and knelt beside Sullivan, who still lay half-stunned at our feet.

“You okay?” I said.

“What is going on?” Chip said. “I come in here looking for you, and the guy jumps me.”

I examined the skin under Sullivan's eye, which was already swelling.

“Get me some ice,” I said.

“Lucia, who is this?”

“He's my therapist. Just get me some ice.”

“Aw, man.”

Chip dropped beside me and leaned over Sullivan.

“Man, I am so sorry. Are you hurt anywhere else? Can you move your—”

“I'm good,” Sullivan said. “Just let me up.”

I sat back on my heels and let him hoist himself to sitting. Chip offered his hand, but Sullivan ignored it.

“Chip Coffey,” he said. “I'm Lucia's husband.”

“This is Dr. Crisp,” I said.

Sullivan massaged one of his own hands with the other. His face was blotchy, as if it couldn't decide whether to register red-hot embarrassment or ice-cold anger.

“I would have told you who I was,” Chip said. “You didn't give me a chance.”

He stood up and backed toward the refrigerator, where he opened the freezer and pulled out a bag of frozen blueberries.

“Try this on your eye,” he said.

Sullivan planted it on the side of his face. He'd barely spoken a word yet, and when he did, I didn't hear the Sullivan Crisp I knew.

“You didn't act like somebody who was supposed to be here,” he said to Chip. “I'm sure Lucia told you we had a prowler here less than a week ago.”

“I saw it on CNN—which is why I came.” Chip looked at me. “We need to talk.”

“I'm going to go and let you do that.”

Sullivan stood up and tossed the frozen package on the counter. When he walked away from us, I saw him favor his left leg.

“You sure you're okay, man?” Chip said.

“Good night,” Sullivan said.

“Typical shrink,” Chip said when Sullivan had let himself out. “Cold as a fish.”

“How friendly did you expect him to be after you beat him half to death?”

Chip's eyes startled. “He came at me first, Lucia. What was I supposed to do?”

“You were the one coming in unannounced. We thought you were that guy coming back.”

“Attack first, ask questions later.”

“If he attacked you, why did he end up on his back on the floor with a black eye and who knows what else?”

I snatched up the bag of berries and flung them back into the freezer. When I turned around, he stared at me.

“When were you going to tell me you were in therapy?” he said. “I don't know,” I said.

“This guy must be pretty good. He does personality transplants. You're not the same Lucia.” He took a step toward me. “Or are you?”

A smile spread across a face grizzled with a day's growth of beard. His eyes, faded blue and sagging with fatigue, crinkled at the corners.

“I've missed you, babe,” he said. “Come here, would you? I want to hold you.”

I didn't, so he came to me. I let him put his arms around me and stood with my face in his chest. The musky man smell wasn't there. He seemed clammy and stale.

“Why did I have to find out from TV about somebody trying to break in?” he said into my hair. “Did Dr. Crisp tell you not to tell me?”

“He doesn't tell me what to do.”

“I'm teasing you. I gotta say, it scared the crap out of me.” He held me away from him so he could look into my face. The rage had vanished. “This whole thing has gotten out of control, Lucia. I want you to come home with me. Now. Tonight.” His fingers squeezed my shoulders. “I can't sleep—I can't eat—I can't concentrate thinking about you here with some crazy still trying to take Sonia down.”

“She's already down,” I said—for lack of anything to say that actually made sense. My mind careened.

“It's obviously not enough for this person that she's lost her whole ministry and pretty much her mind,” Chip said. “He's obviously after something else.”

“Like Bethany.” I yanked myself away from him. “And you think I'm going to leave her here to cope with that?”

“We'll get her into state care. She'll be safer there.”

“No.”

“You can't protect her—you and Dr. Wisp.”

“No. I am not putting that baby in foster care.” I forced myself not to press my hand to my chest, where my heart threatened to hammer its way out. “I have to stay until Sonia comes home and is well enough to take care of her.”

“Now that just makes me feel infinitely better.” Chip shoved his hand across the top of his head, where the usually spiky hair was flattened in thin clumps. “Sonia coming
home
—right here—where all the targets will be sitting like ducks in a freaking shooting booth!”

“The FBI is watching the house.”

My breath caught. If they were, why didn't they see Chip barging in?

He grabbed my arm and held on. “You have no idea what you're dealing with here, Lucia. The way this whole thing has gone down—it wasn't some ticked-off former employee who put this together. This is the work of pros. I lived with guys like that—I
know
. They don't stop until they get what they want. You want to hire a whole SWAT team for Sonia and Bethany, be my guest, but you are coming home with me.”

Until then I'd been too stunned to pull away. Now I wrenched myself out of his grip and backed away, putting my hand up before he could step toward me.

“You're telling me what I'm going to do?” I said.

He gripped the back of his own neck the way he'd clamped onto my arm. “I'm just half out of my mind over this. I can't control what Sonia does, but—”

“You can't control what I do either.”

We locked eyes for as long as it took for Chip to begin to breathe. I never looked away.

“Apparently not,” he said finally.

“I'm going to check on Bethany,” I said.

“I'll make us some coffee. When you come back down, we'll come up with something.”

“I'm done talking for tonight,” I said. I was already halfway out of the kitchen.

“Tomorrow, then,” he said. “Lucia.”

I didn't look back at him.

GH

Sully took a shower and was in the leather chair with a bag of ice on his face before he remembered that Lucia had his cell phone. He was in no mood to talk to anybody anyway, and he thought his jaw might be broken.

He hadn't been in a fight since the sixth grade, when Billy Blakely had jumped him on the playground for beating him at Pac-Man. Now he'd been in two in a week's time.

Sully shifted the ice. Wiry little Kick Boxer had been one thing. All that guy had wanted to do was get away. The hulking Dr. Coffey was a different story. If Lucia hadn't intervened, Sully would have been lucky to get out of there without several broken bones and a brain hemorrhage. The dude was strong—and angry.

Sully gave a grunt. Why did it always seem like the wrong half of the couple was the one getting the therapy?

Not that Lucia wasn't benefiting. He hadn't even had a chance to process what she'd told him. He'd been busy being processed by her husband. When someone knocked on the door, he was sure it was Chip now, coming over to finish off the job.

“Who is it?” he said from the chair.

“It's Lucia.”

Sully dumped the ice bag on the floor and hobbled to the door on his throbbing leg. Maybe the guy
had
fractured a bone. In any event, if Lucia had come to apologize for Chip, she and Sully had further to go in therapy than he thought.

“I'm okay,” he said, even before he had the door all the way open.

She just put out the hand that held his cell phone.

“I didn't have a chance to give this back to you,” she said. “I probably would have forgotten, but it rang, so I thought you might need it.”

“You okay?” Sully said. “I'm asking you as your therapist—do you feel safe?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Weirdly enough.”

Sully felt his face soften, even around his throbbing eye. “Maybe it's not weird at all. Maybe it's just progress.”

When she was gone, he dropped back into the chair, retrieved the ice, and looked at his missed call.

He sat up and gripped the phone. Cyril and Una's number. He glanced at his watch and saw with a groan that the crystal was broken. Another casualty of tonight's episode of
WrestleMania
. He could still see that it was only nine o'clock. Too late? He'd waited thirteen years. He could probably wait another ten hours.