The Children's Ward (21 page)

Eighty-six

At six o’clock, Abigail watched as they medicated Tessi for the second time that day.

Again, Tessi fell into a deep sleep although her right hand, freed from the covers, still twitched spasmodically. Her hair, damp with tears and perspiration, was stuck to her skin.

Abigail sat up in bed and watched Tessi sleep.

Across the room, Russell was also sitting, one arm looped through the trapeze.

She knew that he was upset, disturbed by the sight of Tessi’s panicked face while they waited for the nurse to come back with the needle.

Now he stared at nothing, a frown on his face.

Abigail realized that it was up to her.

All day she had searched with her mind, trying to locate Tessi’s mother, but was unable to find her. Now she probed tentatively at Tessi.

There was some resistance and Tessi became more restive as Abigail persisted, opening her eyes for one brief second and looking alarmed. But Abigail continued.

It was different from when she had joined in Courtney’s dream. Tessi’s thoughts were jumbled, disorganized. Even sedated, Tessi was profoundly afraid.

Abigail
.

Her name was not spoken but she heard it clearly.

She hesitated.

What are you doing?

She looked across the room at Russell, releasing her hold on Tessi’s mind.

Russell had reached into her mind.

Helping Tessi
, she answered.

Their eyes held for a time.

Abigail hid her intentions, burying them out of his reach. She knew that he was not as strong as she was, and that he could not find what she chose to hide.

Then Russell blinked and was gone. He resumed staring into space.

Abigail watched him for a minute, trying to decide how to proceed. She looked at Tessi and noticed that Tessi’s right ear was bleeding from where the earring had torn into the skin during what that doctor had called an anxiety reaction.

The perfect little earring was caked with Tessi’s blood.

With a last look at Russell, Abigail began again.

The medication was having more of an effect. Tessi did not resist the second entry.

There was so much more than Abigail had expected. Tessi was filled with memories, the clearest of which concerned the ranch.

The ranch
.

Abigail had not thought to look there. It was plain that Tessi’s mother despised the ranch from the tone in her voice when she had interrogated Tessi about it several days before.

Abigail thought it unlikely that the woman would go there, but she turned her mind toward it, feeling her powers weaken as she ventured so far from the source.

She had to stop.

She needed more strength.

She lay back on her bed, closing her eyes and breathing through her mouth.

There was power in this building. The source of the power, she didn’t know…yet…but the air was thick with it.

Abigail had seen it in her own dreams.

Blood was splattered on the walls and even on the ceiling. Great pools of it were on the floor.

He had killed the first with his bare hands with a strength that defied reason. While the others watched with dull eyes, he had struck and struck until his enemy was helpless on the floor. Then he had gouged out the eyes, his thumbs digging into the heat of the other man’s skull.

Someone was trying to pull him away.

He struck out again and heard the crack of bone breaking.

The smell of blood was upon him. He tore at her throat with bloodied hands and howled in victory when he felt her life seep through his fingers.

The others waited with vacant eyes.

Something shiny was on the floor.

A pair of scissors.

She was stronger now.

She had found the one she was seeking.

Eighty-seven

“It occurs to me that we’re probably the only people in this restaurant who are still having lunch,” Joshua said, looking with some surprise at the other filled tables.

Quinn smiled. “We started late.”

“Even so…” he glanced at his watch, “…a four-hour lunch is pushing it a little. Do you want to have dinner?”

She laughed. “No…I couldn’t eat a thing.”

“Neither could I. How many breadsticks do you think there were in the basket?” He held the empty basket up for her evaluation.

“A hundred,” she said with a slow smile.

“At least.” He looked around again. “Do you want coffee?”

“Yes, but not here.” She put the linen napkin on the table and stood up. “I’ll make the coffee,” she said, extending her hand. “Come on.”

“Are you sure it’s no trouble?”

“Making coffee? Just because I went to medical school doesn’t mean I don’t have moments of domesticity.” She switched on the front room light. “Make yourself comfortable. It’ll just take a minute.”

She went into the kitchen and had to look through the cupboards for her stash of instant coffee.

“Mildly domesticated, I’d say.” Joshua stood in the doorway watching her. “Instant coffee?”

“Caffeine is caffeine. I have regular coffee and cappuccino.”

“Do you have brandy for the cappuccino?”

She nodded.

“Then cappuccino.”

“A man after my own heart.” She filled the teapot with water and put it on the front burner. “This will take a little while.”

“I’m in no hurry.”

Her eyes searched his face. “Neither am I.” She walked toward him. “Come in the front room…where it’s warmer.”

She sipped the cappuccino, watching as he talked on the phone to the hospital.

“What are her vital signs?”

She studied the lines of his face. It was a good face; the chin firm, the jaw angled and masculine, an aristocratic nose, a sensitive mouth. Serious, intelligent eyes.

She was attracted to him, she couldn’t deny it.

His hands were strong and slim, the fingers tapered elegantly. It was astonishingly easy to imagine him touching her—

He hung up the phone and turned.

“Under control,” he said.

“How is Tessi?” It took a little doing to change her line of thought.

“Well, she had another anxiety episode…”

“I wrote a standing order for sedation p.r.n.”

He nodded. “They medicated her and she’s sleeping comfortably. All of her vital signs are normal.”

“How about the others?”

“I gather it’s been pretty quiet all afternoon. Courtney’s been sleeping most of the day, the nurse said.”

“That reminds me…I wanted to get a copy of Ian’s report on Courtney’s session with him. He said it’d probably be out of transcription by this afternoon.”

Joshua glanced at his watch. “I don’t think you’ll find anyone in medical records at this time on a Saturday.”

“And Emily Ballard.” She looked at him. “I’d better try and call her.”

“Now?”

“While I’m thinking of it, yes.” She reached for the phone.

“Simon was right,” he said, watching her dial.

“Right about what?”

“You’re dedicated.”

She made a face, listening as the line began to ring. “Did you ever meet Abigail’s grandmother?”

He shook his head. “Why?”

“I’m beginning to wonder if she even exists.” The phone continued to ring. “I’ve been trying to reach her for the past twenty-four hours.”

“Maybe she’s spending a weekend away from home…for the holidays.”

Quinn depressed the switchhook. “I suppose you’re right. But she was too ill to fly out here with Abigail…I’d hate to think that she was alone and too sick to answer the phone.”

Eighty-eight

Emily Ballard took her hands away from her ears.

That phone. It had been ringing periodically since…

She pushed the covers back and swung her legs out of the bed, testing the temperature of the floor.

It was snowing outside and the house drew the cold into it like a sponge soaking up water.

Where had she left her slippers?

She leaned over cautiously, looking down at the floor which at least had stopped moving.

She needed another drink.

There was one of the slippers, half-hidden under the bedside commode.

Holding onto the brass bedframe, she leaned over, reaching blindly where she judged it to be.

Luck was with her. She grasped the slipper and pulled herself back up, dizzy from the effort.

She closed her eyes and waited for her mind to clear.

She put the slipper onto her right foot. The inside of the slipper was damp and clammy since she’d been wearing it all day.

Now, where was the other one?

It would help to turn on the light, but she knew that the glare would only worsen the headache she’d been fighting off.

The other slipper was probably under the bed, out of reach.

She should have put in carpet years ago.

She grabbed the pillow and dropped it on the floor, then slowly lowered herself until she was kneeling on it. She scooted closer to the bed and then reached under, flailing her arm back and forth.

There. She’d knocked it closer to her.

She put the slipper on and then lurched unsteadily to her feet.

The bottle was in the living room and, one hand moving along the wall, she made her way there. As she passed the ugly black phone she narrowed her eyes.

She had never thought it worth the money to pay the phone company to come out and install new phone jacks. Since she couldn’t unplug it, the only way to keep it from ringing was to take it off the hook. But the sound it made then was even worse than the ringing.

She knew who it was calling her, anyway.

Sitting on the couch, she unscrewed the bottle lid and poured the clear liquid into the glass.

It burned on the way down and she closed her eyes gratefully.

It was the only thing in her entire life that had never let her down.

No wonder, she thought, no wonder.

Holding the glass with both hands, she lifted it again to her mouth, gulping greedily.

They were all fools.

Mr. Ballard, old Percy, had been forty-five when she’d married him. She was eighteen. It had taken him twelve years to impregnate her, an accomplishment of which he was absurdly proud. Like dogs didn’t do it every day.

Elizabeth, had been his pride and joy. They were inseparable. When Elizabeth was five, he retired from work and then it was like having two children.

When Elizabeth was twenty, and pregnant by a married man, Percy took to his bed in anguish. He refused to see his daughter, her belly swollen with child.

In the end, Elizabeth’s folly killed them both.

The man she thought would leave his wife and come to her after the child was born, did not.

The father she thought would always be there for her, was not.

In her sheltered life, Elizabeth had never learned about disappointments and disillusionments. Her father’s constant coddling had left her without resources to draw on to help her through.

For her there was no answer but death.

Percy followed soon after.

That left her with the child. Abigail.

She wondered why Elizabeth hadn’t just smothered the child as an infant and made the best of it.

It was what Emily would have done.

Now they were hounding her, calling her, wanting her to be
responsible
.

But she was too tired. She was only sixty but what looked back at her from the mirror was far more ancient.

She was not interested in anything anymore but the sweet relief of oblivion. She poured more gin into her glass and raised it to her lips.

Eighty-nine

For some reason, Frank Delano could not stop thinking about his son.

It wasn’t unusual for him to think about Russell, but, since he’d gotten into his truck for the long haul to El Paso, it was all he could do to keep from turning and heading back to home.

His boy needed him.

It was a strong feeling and he was uneasy about it.

The last time he’d had a feeling this strong was when he had kissed his wife goodnight at the hospital and had known that he’d never see her alive again. She had died during the night, a night when he’d been half-crazy with a loss that hadn’t yet occurred.

When the phone rang, early that morning, he hadn’t wanted to answer it.

Now there was this feeling about Russell.

It wasn’t quite the same, of course; he didn’t think that Russell was going to die. It was more like his son needed him for some kind of reassurance or…

He gripped the wheel of the truck tightly, slowing down. Ahead the traffic had come to a crawl, and he almost hadn’t seen it, he’d been so involved with his thoughts.

Fine lot of good he’d do his son if he wound up in the hospital because he hadn’t been paying attention to the road.

You could do a lot of thinking on the road, especially long-haul. Stretches of highway where for miles and miles you had only yourself to keep you company. That was part of what kept him driving.

The other part was if he wasn’t home so much, he was less likely to turn around in a room and expect to find her there.

But Russell…

Maybe he could pull off in a few miles and find a phone to call his son.

He lost so much time in the traffic jam that he needed to make it up, so he kept driving, thinking each time that he passed a truck stop that at the next one he’d pull up and call.

When he finally did stop, it was past ten p.m. and he knew from experience that they wouldn’t put calls through so late unless it was an emergency.

So he got a cup of coffee and ate a hamburger he could have used to grease his axle, then got back in the truck to drive on.

Ninety

Joshua was standing, looking out the window, when she came back into the room with more cappuccino.

“It’s raining again,” he said.

She put the cups on the coffee table and walked over to his side, pulling the drape back, looking first outside and then up at him.

He leaned over and, hesitating for a heartbeat, kissed her softly.

“I’ve been wanting to do that all day,” he said.

She smiled and let the drape fall back into place.

The cappuccino grew cold on the table.

They were not surgeon’s hands, they were lover’s hands and they stroked her with a touch that made her ache with desire.

She gave herself over to sensation, not thinking of anything except for the way his body made her body feel.

She caressed him, running her fingers over the hard lines of his shoulders and back, while she kissed the hollow of his neck.

She breathed him in, the scent of soap and clean perspiration. She tasted his warm skin.

He pleasured her and she wrapped herself around him, trying to get closer, closer.

He smiled at her and kissed her gently and she moved her hands to his head, pulling him down to her hungry mouth.

She lay on her side, head propped up in one hand while the other moved lightly across his chest.

“Are you awake?” she asked.

As an answer he reached over and touched her face.

“You look beautiful…”

She took his hand and kissed the palm. “Thank you.”

“Come here,” he said and she moved close to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Joshua,” she said after a minute.

“Hmm?”

“This is all right, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve never talked about our personal lives…you’re not seeing anyone, are you?”

“Would it make a difference?”

“It would to me. I’m very territorial; I would never want to be the other woman.”

“No…there’s no one else. But what about you?”

“Me?”

“The dashing Dr. Campbell?”

“Ian?”

“Yes, Ian.”

She laughed. “What made you think—”

“A man knows these things.”

“A man does…what exactly are these things you know?”

“That he finds you attractive. That’s enough.”

“I hardly know him.”

“Some people would say you hardly know me,” he said, turning his head to kiss her, “and look what’s happened.”

“Thank goodness,” she said and kissed him back.

She sat in bed, sheet pulled around her, and watched him as he dressed.

“You don’t have to go, you know.”

“Sadly, I do. This is a small town. Only one answering service in town, and if I check out all night to this number, which they know is your number…”

“That’s a little parochial, isn’t it?”

“A little,” he admitted.

“It is the twentieth century…”

“It’s 1984 and big brother is watching.”

She laughed.

“Besides,” he said, “we’ve got all the time in the world.”