Fear

TWENTY-TWO

The sheet felt cool on Celeste’s face. She lay in her bed like a corpse in the morgue. The crying was done; no tears left inside.

Allison was dead. The past twenty-four hours had been full of numbing grief, shock, denial. Celeste kept a gun in the house and she’d gone and picked it up twice and then eased it back into its drawer. I can’t, Allison would kill me. Then she’d cry and then she’d laugh, the good memories of Allison plowing through the grief.

She slipped out from under the sheet and sat at her vanity in the bathroom and, very lightly, touched the razor. She could cut herself, just a tiny nip. She knew cutting was a slide backward. She’d felt stronger in the past week, more sure of herself, than she had in many months. The razor’s edge gleamed; a perfect line. Like the line drawn in her life before Brian was murdered, before she died on the inside and she didn’t know how to resuscitate herself.

She pressed the tip down into the flesh of her upper arm, the pain kicked, up rose a bud of blood.

What are you doing? Allison’s voice rang in her ears. You really want to have a sharp edge be your answer to pain?

She put the razor down, stared at the blood, saw the dead face of her husband, the dead face of his killer in the crimson bubble.

Allison would be ashamed of her. She stopped the blood, dabbed antiseptic on it, covered her weakness with a bandage. She put the razor back in its sheath, tucked the sheath between two folded twenties in her purse’s billfold, and slid a fresh rubber band onto her wrist. She called it her cutting condom, the bit of rubber that was supposed to ease her off an addiction to pain. She started snapping the rubber hard against her wrist, again and again, until fatigue seeped through her and nausea claimed her stomach. But the urge to cut was gone. She curled back under the sheets.

Call the police. And say what? The afternoon before my doctor died, she showed up, acted odd, used my computer? Well, so what? All it would do would be to bring the media’s attention swinging back toward her, a blinding, inescapable light. She could imagine the headlines: ‘Former TV Star Linked to Shrink Death.’ She knew nothing; there was nothing to tell.

She stayed in her room when Nancy Baird, who did all her shopping and errands for her, came by with the twice-a-week grocery run.

‘Celeste? You okay?’ Nancy called from the kitchen.

‘Yes. I’ve got a cold, so I’m just staying in my room.’

Nancy opened the door. ‘I ain’t scared of no cold germs. You want me to run to the pharmacy and get you medicine?’

‘No,’ Celeste said from the sanctuary of the sheets.

Nancy, fiftyish and no-nonsense, came into the room and put a hand to Celeste’s forehead. ‘Not hot or clammy.’

‘No. It’s in my throat.’

‘Let me see.’

‘Oh, honestly, Nancy, let me alone.’

‘You got too much leaving you alone,’ Nancy said. ‘Get up and out of bed, girl.’

‘Just leave me alone!’ Celeste screamed. ‘Just unload the groceries and go.’

‘There’s no need for shouting,’ Nancy said, unruffled. ‘You want me to call Doctor Vance?’

‘No,’ she said, not adding, She’s dead, you must not read the papers. ‘No. I’m just…’

‘Sad and lonely,’ Nancy said. ‘You want to come home with me, have dinner with me and Tony?’

An invitation, always extended.

‘No, thank you.’ Celeste fought back fresh tears. ‘Nancy, Doctor Vance is dead.’ Shock blossomed on Nancy’s face. Celeste told her the news accounts.

‘My God.’ Nancy sat on the edge of the bed.

‘So the paper said it might be a gas explosion, but what if it wasn’t, what if someone wanted to kill her?’ Celeste got up out of bed, started pacing the floor. She showed up unexpectedly, she acted weird, she asked me to keep her secret. From the hospital. But she couldn’t tell Nancy about Allison’s request – Nancy would call the police, they would come, then the press… no. Never again. But she should call the authorities… tell them what Allison had said. What if it was important? What if Allison had been murdered? That thought, one she’d been keeping at bay, rushed at her like an avalanche.

‘Honey. Listen to me.’ Nancy put an arm around her. ‘It was an accident, I’m sure, no one would want to hurt Doctor Vance.’

‘She works with crazy people. We’re dangerous.’ Celeste paced the floor.

‘You’re not crazy, dear…’

‘Yes, I am, I am crazy, Nancy.’ Celeste stumbled to the curtains, leaned against the wall. ‘The price I pay for not saving my husband…’

Nancy steered her back to the bed. ‘Did you stab Brian?’

‘No… no…’

‘Then you didn’t kill him. Banish that thought from your mind. You’re not responsible.’ Nancy shook her head. ‘You’re not nuts. Nuts is thinking that how you’re living is normal, and you know it’s not. Now. You’re not going to hurt yourself, are you?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I won’t.’

Nancy glanced at the fresh bandage on Celeste’s arm. ‘I better stay tonight.’

‘No. You have a life. Go live it.’

‘I’m staying.’

‘I won’t hurt myself. I’d rather be alone. Really. Please. I’ll call you if I need you.’

‘You’re alone too much. Have you eaten today?’

‘Breakfast. Before I saw the news.’

‘Then I’m going to make you a pot of vegetable soup before I go. I’ll get you a plate of cheese and crackers to snack on while it’s cooking.’

‘Stop being so nice.’

‘Stop acting like you don’t deserve it.’ Nancy gave her a hug and Celeste let her, although she didn’t much like being touched.

‘Thanks, Nancy.’

‘I don’t mean to sound insensitive to Doctor Vance,’ Nancy said, ‘but it might be wise to find another therapist.’

‘I don’t think I can face a new psychiatrist right now.’

‘Doctor Vance wouldn’t want your therapy to end.’

‘You’re right.’ She wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘I think I’ll go check my e-mail.’

‘You spend too much time on the computer. One day I’m gonna unplug that monster and wheel it to the street. Might get you out of the house.’ Nancy squeezed her hand and went off to the kitchen.

Celeste sat down at the computer. Allison had sat here; she’d seemed nervous. Skittish. Now she was dead, under extraordinary circumstances. Maybe one didn’t have anything to do with the other. Just because you had a weird day, then you died, it didn’t necessarily mean anything.

But the day Brian died had been off kilter. The coffeemaker broke; it gurgled in protest and wouldn’t brew. She dropped the egg carton pulling it from the refrigerator, spilling shells and yolks across the tile. So Brian said, I’ll run to the store and I’ll swing by Starbucks, babe, because now she got recognized everywhere she went in Atlanta, there was a checker there who always wanted to make a big deal about seeing the winner from Castaway. So Brian was gone when the Disturbed Fan she believed was a friend knocked on the door with his easy grin and she let him into the house because she trusted him, he was her fan club’s president, and then he pulled the knife and the gun and told her she and Brian were going to die, just as soon as Brian got home with the dozen eggs and hot coffee.

She closed her eyes, steadied herself in the chair. Brian walking in, her tied up and the Disturbed Fan starting to tuck the fabric between her lips, Brian calling, Babe, I got Sumatra, I hope that’s okay, and then it all ended, her life wadded up and thrown away.

She swallowed past the mountain in her throat. She hit the space bar on the keyboard, awakening her computer from sleep. She could dig around the system, see what Allison had done. Before Brian died, Celeste had been an accomplished programmer; now her computer was her only friend, aside from Nancy.

She checked the Sent Items folder in her e-mail program. Nothing unusual there; Allison hadn’t e-mailed anything from Celeste’s account. Next she dived to her Web browser and checked the history.

The list of sites the browser had visited yesterday scrolled down the screen. Odd. Celeste had spent much of Wednesday morning on Amazon, shopping for new books on PTSD, and those pages were cleaned from the browser’s history. But the sites she’d visited after Allison’s visit: Victor Gamby’s blog and discussion board for PTSD sufferers, CNN, and eBay, those sites’ addresses remained in the history list.

Which meant wherever Allison had gone on her Web browser, she’d then erased the entire history. She hadn’t wanted to leave a trail.

Celeste opened the various Microsoft Office programs, surveying the listing of recent files, to see if there was a file name she didn’t recognize. None. So Allison had not opened a Word document or spreadsheet, or she had cleaned out the history of files opened in those programs.

What had Allison said? Celeste frowned, trying to remember: I have all the programs I need on this disk.

‘Celeste, your snack is ready,’ Nancy called. ‘Come sit in here with me while I finish making your soup.’

‘All right.’ She wondered if there was a way to recover the cleaned-out history file. She’d have to research that once Nancy left.

The kitchen smelled of broth and chiles and she sat down to a plate of wheat crackers and grapes and Havarti cheese. Food. She needed this more than hours of crying in bed, although Allison deserved grieving. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome, sweetie.’

‘You’re right about finding another therapist,’ Celeste said. ‘Allison mentioned a Doctor Hurley at Sangre de Cristo. I’ll call him and set up an appointment.’

Nancy told her that was a good idea and took her leave. Celeste ladled out the simple soup into a bowl. It tasted wonderful; hot, spicy with green chiles. She ate two bowls of it and felt better.

She opened the Yellow Pages, found a number for Leland Hurley. She dialed the hospital, got connected to his voice mail, and left a message, asking him to call her regarding a doctor to take over her therapy. Then she added: ‘Allison acted… oddly the day she was here, Tuesday, and I need to talk to you about it.’ She felt disloyal but she knew Nancy was right; she couldn’t let her therapy stop. She wanted distraction, so she flopped on the sofa, powered on the TV, settled in to pass the time with an old Bob Hope comedy.

The doorbell rang. She clicked the TV to the channel that fed into the security camera on her front door. She didn’t know the man standing at her porch. He held up a sign to the camera, handwritten in block letters on white cardboard. It read I KNOW ALLISON’S SECRET.

She gaped at the screen in disbelief. The man gave the camera a polite wave.

She pushed the intercom button. ‘Who are you?’

‘Hi. My name is Miles Kendrick.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I believe you may have information relevant to why Allison died.’ He never let his eyes drop from the camera.

‘I don’t talk to people,’ she said. ‘Go away.’

‘I know you prefer to be alone. I understand. But I believe you’ll want to talk to me.’

‘How did you know Allison?’ she finally said.

‘She asked me for help.’ He produced another note, held it up to the screen. She read it; she knew Allison’s tight, neat handwriting.

‘How do you know what information I have?’ she asked.

‘Because Allison told me,’ he said, ‘that she was in trouble and that I could trust you.’

She studied his face for five minutes. Her hands trembling, Celeste got her gun, its weight unfamiliar in her hand, and opened the door.