Merry Jones - Elle Harrison 02 - Elective Procedures (37 page)

Oh God. Had Alain deliberately killed her? Had his guilt about killing her driven him to incorporate her identity and kill women he cared about, depriving himself of love, punishing himself. And, in a way, avenging her death. Like our intruder had said: “
Quiero la venganza
.”

Had that intruder been Alain?

Susan was still talking. Telling me that I’d had a traumatic week and it had affected my thinking. Advising me to see the therapist when I got home. Assuring me that not everything was as bizarrely awful as I seemed to think. That not everyone was a maniac like Melanie had been. That Alain was a decent, reputable guy who’d taken an interest in me, though God alone knew why.

I tried to listen. Susan stopped when Jen came in from the balcony. “What’s going on?” she plopped onto the sofa beside me, smelling like coconuts. “You guys look deep.”

Susan’s eyes remained on me. “Alain called,” she said.

I tensed, opened my mouth to stop her, but she went on. “He won’t be by until this evening. Something came up at the clinic, and he’s been delayed.”

“Why’d he call your cell and not mine?” Jen pouted. “Does he think you’re our fucking mother?”

Susan was still watching me. “Well, he wouldn’t be far off. Someone needs to take care of you kids.”

Jen picked up a pineapple slice. I leaned back against the cushions. Susan thought I was going crazy. Charlie winked from the kitchenette. Maybe I was.

Becky’s eyes were red and swollen, her nose stuffed. She came into the bedroom while I was folding clothes to put in my suitcase.

“Want to talk?” I asked.

She shook her head, no. “I’ll just cry more.” Her chin wobbled.

I hobbled over to her, put my arms around her. Gently, she pushed me away.

“Don’t be nice to me. It’ll make me cry. I’ve got to stop. It’s so stupid. All I do is cry.” She turned away, opened a bureau drawer. Pulled out a souvenir t-shirt. Stared at it. “I can’t do this.” Tears spilled down her face. “I can’t.”

Oh Lord. Becky usually went through men like a shark through water. No, that was too harsh. More like a dolphin. Men were drawn to her and she liked them, at least until they got serious, and then she discarded them lightly. This time, though, she seemed smitten. Chichi, just as Madam Therese had predicted, had captured her heart.

I took her hand. “Can I do anything?”

She bit her lip. Shook her head. Looked at me and opened her mouth. “Elle, you look terrible.”

I nodded. “You do, too.”

We looked at each other, both disheveled, miserable messes. And even as tears dripped off her face, we burst out laughing. Neither of us could stop.

“What a vacation,” she could hardly get words out. “I fell in love with—” She had to stop and catch her breath. “With the pool guy.” She sat on the bed, convulsing as if she’d just said the funniest thing ever. “And you—”

“And I nearly—” This time I paused for breath. “—I nearly got killed.”

“Twice.” She held up her fingers because she was laughing too hard to talk.

Twice, yes. How hysterical. Uproarious. My ribs raged, but Becky and I rocked, howled, stopped only to inhale. We looked at each other and started laughing again. When the fits finally subsided, we lay side by side on Becky’s bed, spent.

“What the hell was that?” Becky wiped her eyes. “A case of the opposites? I’m so unhappy that I laughed?”

“Catharsis.” I stared at the ceiling. “A release of pent-up emotions.”

“So we should feel better now?”

I didn’t answer. My body throbbed and my head was empty.

“Because you know what? I kind of do.”

She did?

“I do. Yes. It’s not like I’m over Chichi or anything. It’s just that I feel emptied out. Like I can’t cry anymore, at least not right now.” She looked at me. “How about you?”

Me?

“Do you feel better?”

I thought about it. Did I? Looked over at my half-filled suitcase. In one day, we were leaving. Going back to cold weather. Christmas. In a few weeks, my semester off would be over. I’d be back at work, teaching second graders. My leg would be healed, my scabs gone. This place and everything that happened here—love, adultery, obsession, murder, and attempted murder—would be just memories, shared among friends.

“I do,” I told her. And I did.

We got up and packed. Aromas drifted in from the next room where Susan was cooking steak fajitas. The four of us would have dinner together. Life was beginning to feel normal again.

All we had to do was get through one more night.

We ate on the balcony, looking at the ocean. Jen was upset that she was still sore, and her swelling and bruises hadn’t completely disappeared.

“You’re healing fine,” Becky said. “You’ll look perfect in a couple weeks.”

“A couple of weeks?” Jen pouted. “I want to be perfect tomorrow. When Norm sees me, I want him to be frickin’ blown away.”

“Oh, trust me. He will be,” Susan said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he’ll be blown away. He’ll think you were hit by a truck.”

Jen sipped sangria. “Damn. I bet you’re right. Especially if he sees Elle and me together.”

Everyone made comments about what Norm might think if he saw us together: We’d been in a pileup on the alligator slide. We’d slammed into each other water skiing in opposite directions or been mistaken for piñatas. Bottom line: we both looked like escapees from a trauma ward. I looked a lot worse than Jen. As the day went on, the scabs on my cheeks and arms became darker and crustier. But at least my injuries had been free.

Becky chattered about Chichi, about saying good-bye. Jen and Susan gave her useless advice. She left us to be with him one last night.

The sun was setting, the air chilling. Alain was expected shortly. I told myself not to be nervous about it. Even if he’d murdered his wife—which he probably hadn’t—it wasn’t my problem. His wife, dead or alive, had nothing to do with me. And neither did he, really. I was leaving. Our relationship—if I could even call it that—was over. Susan had been right; I’d been traumatized, overly suspicious. I’d invented sinister motivations and exaggerated the significance of details when, in fact, I should simply have been flattered that Alain had been interested in me. Hell, because of Alain, my vacation hadn’t been a complete wreck. He’d stitched my wounds after Melanie. And he’d been the first man I’d slept with after Charlie.

Charlie. I thought of him as I watched the ocean, the rosy glow of sunset. Recalled how he’d come to me when I was drowning, declaring his love. I drank sangria. Drifted. Saw Luis strolling near the pool, his arm around a matronly woman. He nuzzled her neck. A pelican flew overhead. At some point, someone knocked. Not Alain. A nurse, explaining that Alain had sent her. She went with Jen into the bedroom.

And then, while Susan made coffee, Alain finally arrived. He
didn’t ask for Jen. Didn’t talk to Susan. He came directly to the balcony, carrying a couple of Coronas, looking for me.

“Are you all right?” He looked haggard.

“Of course.” I leaned against the railing. “Don’t you need to see Jen?”

“I will. She just needs a discharge signature.” He opened a beer, handed it to me. “What happened, Elle? I got worried when Ana said you’d gone.”

I didn’t answer. Looked at the ocean. Swallowed some Corona.

“As it turns out, it was just as well you didn’t wait for me. I had to be at the clinic all day.” He moved closer, took my hand. Kissed me.

For a minisecond, I grimaced. Alain didn’t seem to notice because I caught myself and covered my reaction, overdoing it, returning the kiss a little too enthusiastically. It didn’t matter, though. It was just a kiss. I’d already kissed him dozens of times. One more wouldn’t matter.

We stood at the railing, silent for a moment. He pulled on his beer.

“Elle—” he began just as I said, “Alain—”

We smiled, exchanging “you go first,” and “no, it’s okay, go ahead” until, finally, he began.

“Has Sergeant Perez been in touch?”

I grabbed the railing. “No. Why?”

He took a breath. “There was an incident at the clinic today. He thought there was a connection to what happened.”

An incident? “Was someone killed?”

He waited a beat. “Someone was hurt. Actually, two people.”

Two of his post-op patients had been attacked much the way Jen had. While they were sedated, their bandages had been ripped off, dressings messed with. He’d spent the day fixing the damage, calming patients, talking to Perez.

“Did the staff see who did it?”

“No one saw anyone who didn’t belong there.”

Of course they hadn’t. Because they wouldn’t be surprised to see Alain. Doctors would be expected to check in on sedated patients.

“It must have happened early this morning, after the night nurse made rounds.”

Alain had gone in early. Stop it, I told myself. The man wouldn’t attack his own patients. Even if he had, would he simply scrub up and fix them again? Would he be able to change so quickly from his wife’s persona back to his own? Wouldn’t he remember what he’d done? Wouldn’t it frighten him? I eyed him, looking for signs of remorse or fear. Saw only exhaustion. A tired man drinking a beer.

“I found the maid’s uniform.” I hadn’t planned to say that, it just came out.

“Sorry?”

“In your wife’s room. There’s a maid’s outfit. From the hotel.”

He seemed impatient. “Elle? I don’t see what that—”

“Why would there be a maid’s uniform in there?”

“I don’t know.” He paused. “Maybe it’s Ana’s.”

Of course. Ana’s.

“Tell me about her.” I persisted, pushing to see if he’d snap.

“My wife? You want to know about Inez?” He cleared his throat. Stalling? Planning what to say? “Honestly, I’ve had quite a day. Can we just relax?”

“Her name is Inez?” I’d never heard it before.

Alain’s eyes shifted, became flat and stony. “I—honestly, I don’t like to talk about her. Okay, fine. What do you want to know?”

I faced him. “What’s she like?”

He smiled, staring into air. “Beautiful. Inez was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”

Was? As in, she isn’t anymore? Because she died in the crash?

Alain chugged his beer, finished it. Looked out at the water. “Elle, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never said to anyone.” He paused. Reconsidering? About to confess? “The women I work on—the hundreds of noses, chins, cheeks, breasts, eyelids, lips—whatever. All of them are modeled after Inez. That’s how beautiful she was. I take average women and turn them into copies of her.”

What? “I don’t understand.” Didn’t want to.

“I try to reproduce the perfect ratios and symmetry of her features. Or course, none of them end up comparable to her. They never get the whole package—not her bone structure or alignment. Most get only one or two of her elements.”

I couldn’t speak.

Alain’s eyes were on me but he wasn’t seeing me anymore. He smiled sadly, shook his head. “It’s a terrible joke, isn’t it? All the women I’ve treated. I’ve gotten rid of scars, erased wrinkles, improved figures, created exquisite faces. But when it came to the woman I cared about most, I could do nothing. I couldn’t repair her.”

He clutched his empty beer bottle, his jaw rippling. I took a step back. Had I been right? Had Alain been so devastated about his wife that he’d taken on her persona? Become frustrated with the women he’d molded to look like her?