Necessary Evil (36 page)

I spent that night in the waiting room.
The hospital staff weren’t too pleased about it and kept trying to convince me
to go home and rest, but I flat out refused. My injuries had been mild and
easily tended to. Gregory’s were a different story: I’d heard the EMT’s talking
about head trauma and blood loss, and I told the staff, in no uncertain terms,
that I was not leaving until Gregory woke up and that was that.

“Are you family?” they asked.

“No. I’m his partner.”

They eventually accepted the situation,
and left me to make myself as comfortable as I could on the teal and pink
seats.

Aunt Susanna came around midnight,
carrying a backpack and a thermos of milky tea. She gave me a hug, then the
thermos, and sat in the chair next to mine.

“I brought you a change of clothes, and
his laptop and notebook,” she said, patting the backpack. “How is he?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. They won’t
tell me. I’m not family.”

As she sighed and looked at her hands, I
asked, “How’s Darlene?”

Darlene Winters was in our house when
everything went down. When she was told about the discovery of her daughter’s
body, she’d collapsed. Even ten years of speculation had not been enough to
prepare her for the reality of Allison’s murder.

Aunt Susanna had stayed behind to take
care of her while I accompanied Gregory to the hospital. As glad as I was to
have her with me, I was surprised that my aunt had left Darlene alone.

“She’s asleep,” Aunt Susanna said. “I
should get back to her. I don’t want her to wake alone.”

I nodded solemnly. “Yeah. I know what you
mean.”

She looked at me sharply, but I refused to
meet her eyes. My tears were starting, and sympathy from my aunt would be sure
to cause a deluge. I didn’t want to make another scene in front of the hospital
staff that night.

I could feel that she was about to ask me
another question, a question my composure might not survive answering. Before
she could speak, I said, “Poor Darlene. After all this time, all that waiting,
and she lost it all anyway.” A lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed hard as
Aunt Susanna stared at me.

I whispered, “Sometimes, it hardly seems
worth it.”

In the silence that followed, I struggled
with myself. I thought it odd that Aunt Susanna had not yet asked me about Joe.
She seemed to simply accept the situation, almost as much as I had.

The time alone in the waiting room made
one thing clear to me: my affection for Joe Tremonti had been as much of a
smoke screen as the Beaumont letter. I never really loved him. He was the
unobtainable lover - safe to obsess about because there was no risk of a real
relationship. As long as I told myself that I was infatuated with him, I could
keep all others at bay and preserve my heart from further trampling.

Like a lot of my other theories, this one
didn’t quite play out.

When I did look at Aunt Susanna, she was
studying her wedding ring, her face thoughtful. It was then that I realized
she’d come without her cane. 

“When your uncle died, I didn’t think I
would survive,” Aunt Susanna said softly. “It was so… wrenching. I didn’t know
I could be so lonely. If it wasn’t for you and your determination to see us
through, I don’t think I would have survived it.”

I was shaking my head, but she stopped me
with a look.

“
No
,” she said. “I mean it. You and
Darlene saved me. I would have given up. But once the initial storm had passed,
when I finally let go of the anger – anger that he left me, anger at those
who’d left the holes, angry at myself for letting him ride so recklessly - I
felt like I’d been cheated. Robbed. But once I let that go, I was able to
finally see clearly. I hadn’t been cheated. I was the luckiest woman in the
world. I had loved and been loved in return. I had a lifetime with the best man
I’d ever known. And while I would have loved to have more time with him…” She
paused and steadied herself, then smiled at me through tear-filled eyes. “I
have what most other people would give anything for. I have memories. And I
know that I’ll see him again, eventually.”

She reached out and squeezed my hand. “All
things considered, I came out ahead. Way ahead. Darlene has, too. Once she gets
through this, she’ll be able to treasure what she had with Allison. Her death
will leave a hole. Every death does. But it’s such a small price to pay for a
lifetime.”

She smiled, a motherly smile I knew so
well and had missed so much.

“It’s a funny thing,” she continued, “but
that old saying is right: it’s better to have loved and lost than never to love
at all. When I was your age, I didn’t believe it, but I know better now. It’s
worth the risk. If you believe nothing else that I have taught you, Maddie,
always believe this: love is worth the risk.”

                                                           
***

After she left, I barely slept at all. The
seats in the waiting room are comfortable enough for waiting a few hours with
an outdated magazine, but they are not constructed for a stubborn woman to get
a comfortable night’s sleep in.

By the time morning rolled around, I was a
sleep-deprived mess. I checked at the front desk and was told that Gregory was
doing fine, and that the doctors were with him. Visiting hours didn’t start
until ten a.m., but the desk nurse, whose name tag proclaimed her as
“Rosemary”, told me that she thought it would be all right if I went up
earlier.

“I’ll take you up myself,” she offered. “I
want to meet him anyway. We’re all fans of his work – it must have been
exciting, having him at your place.” She leaned forward. “I’m told that all of
his work is based on true-to-life experiences,” she whispered. “That he
conducts extensive… research, if you catch my drift.”

There was a sly expression on her face, as
though we were girlfriends exchanging a juicy piece of gossip. It confused me,
but I was too tired and too strung out to worry about it. I shrugged.

“Yes,” I sighed. “That’s entirely true.”

Her face lit up, and she slapped the
counter triumphantly.

“I
knew
it,” she said. “You can’t
write like that unless you’ve been there, right? Now, it’s none of my business,
but someone told me that you were working with him on the new book. Is that
true?”

“Yes,” I answered, and was startled by the
wide-eyed look of shocked delight that spread across her face. “Um, is there
some place I can get a cup of coffee?”

She directed me to the cafeteria. I
stopped at the bathroom to try to tidy up as best I could, then got a cup of
coffee and a granola bar before returning to the waiting room.

I drained the coffee and nibbled at the
bar distractedly. Behind the desk, the nurses were chatting. Rosemary gestured
to me, causing the two women to giggle confidentially.

I was already feeling a little foolish,
waiting in the hospital all night. I resolved, though, not to let their
behavior get to me. I really didn’t want to leave until I’d seen Gregory.

Finally, Rosemary told me to follow her.
She led me down a maze of corridors, chatting the whole time about how she
loved to read and was always at book fairs and, by the way, how frightening was
it that I had been attacked on my own property?

“That is just
so
scary,” she said,
as we strode down the hallway. “I wouldn’t go back home either, just so you
know.”

“I didn’t stay here because I was scared,”
I growled.

She nodded understandingly.

“You were lucky to have a rescuer,” she
said. “The night nurse told me he was calling your name during the night, while
he was unconscious. You must be…” and here she grinned slyly again, “…very
close.”

Before I could respond, she reached for a
door, and threw it open with a cheerful, “And how are
we
feeling this
morning?”

I pushed past her and found Gregory laying
on top of the bedclothes, dressed in a robe and hospital gown, his head swathed
in bandages. A pair of drug-store mini-glasses was perched on his nose, and he
was reading a battered scientific journal. There was an I. V. stand near his
bed, but he wasn’t hooked up to it. The knuckles on his left hand were bruised
and swollen and his eyes, when he looked up, were red and strained.

But he was awake, and he was alive, and
that was enough for me.

He sat up quickly when he saw me, only to
fall back, holding his head.

I stepped forward, but Rosemary was
faster, scolding, “Now, now, you can’t move that quickly, not for a few days
yet, you know.”

He brushed her hands aside, his gaze fixed
on me.

“Warwick!” he said, happily. “You’re a
sight for sore eyes. Have you brought my glasses?”

I’d taken another step forward - torn
between wanting to rush to him, and my need to maintain my restraint in front
of Rosemary. The sound of his voice was enough to make me want to dance, while
his use of “Warwick” and the impersonal request made me want to stomp my feet
with impatience.

His spare glasses were in the front pocket
of the backpack. Aunt Susanna had thought of everything. I handed them to him,
and he tossed the cheap glasses aside, rubbing his eyes while Rosemary went
about straightening the room.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Like I’ve been hit over the head with a
shovel,” he said wryly, pulling on his glasses. He blinked through them, then
smiled broadly at me.

“Ah,” he said softly, and his eyes caught
and held mine. “Now, that’s better. Warwick, you look like…”

“Like she spent the night in the waiting
room?” Rosemary’s voice bisected the moment. She stood by his nightstand,
holding his chart, grinning at us like she had the inside scoop on a delicious
secret.

When Gregory glanced at her, she nodded
eagerly. “That’s what she did, you know. Flat out refused to go home until she
knew you were all right.”

“
Really
?” He looked at me with
amused interest mixed with feigned shock. “Why, my dear Madeleine, that’s so
sweet
.”

“I shouldn’t have bothered,” I muttered,
and gestured at Rosemary. “It seems you were in good hands.”

“Oh, the very best,” Rosemary hastened to
assure me. She turned to Gregory and gushed, “You have a lot of huge fans here,
you know. I’ve read all your books.”

“Have you? How very gratifying! Did you
hear that, Warwick? She’s read every single one of my books.”

“Awesome,” I said.

“You know,” he said, leaning closer to
Rosemary, “the nurse before you told me the same thing.”

“Louise is a huge reader, like me. I can’t
wait until this next book comes out. I think you are brilliant.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Why, thank you,” Gregory said and grinned
at me. “It helps when you enjoy what you do for a living. But I can’t take all
the credit for the next book. Maddie’s been my right hand in all of the
investigation and she’s going to help me to write it. Surprisingly enough, she
has quite a flair for this kind of work. Almost as good as myself.”

I looked at him in surprise. Rosemary
surprised us both by giggling like a school girl, and she blushed when we
looked her.

“Oh,” she said, and giggled again. “Oh, I
wouldn’t want to ask about that. Oh, no, I wouldn’t – though I guess I’ll be
reading all about it soon enough, won’t I?”

She slapped her side and then pulled
something out of her scrubs pocket. “My goodness! I almost forgot! Can you
autograph this for me? I just got it the other day and I can honestly say, it’s
your best yet.”

He took the paperback. “Absolutely.
Warwick, do you have a pen…”

The words faded from his lips. He stared
at the book. He looked so surprised that I went around his bed to check it out.

On the cover, a man and a woman grappled
with each other. Her dark hair flowed over her bare shoulders, her hands flat
on his impressive chest, resisting his passionate embrace, though not enough to
break away.

The title was
Her Lord and Master
.
The author was Gregorianne Vincent.

Rosemary was saying, “My friend, Delia
Fontaine, told us about you, Mr. Vincent. I hope you don’t mind that she passed
it on to me about you and your, um, research assistant.”

She winked at me.

I pointed to the book. “You think
he
… That I… That I’m…”

Rosemary shrugged primly, but grinned
again.

My face went hot.

“I’ll say this for the artist,” Greg said.
He was studying the cover with exaggerated fascination, his mouth tight from
restrained laughter. “The eyes are the wrong color, but he’s captured the real
you, Maddie. The essence of the character, the bow-like mouth, the firm…”

My face was flaming now. I snatched the
book out of his hands and smacked him across the shoulder with it before
tossing it back to the nurse. She caught it, her eyes wide.