Fear itself

8

The next time Pender’s cell phone rang, Dorie rolled over sleepily and patted his cast. “It’s okay, I’m up.”

More or less-she dozed, drifting in and out of a pleasant Vicodin haze, comforted by the sound of Pender’s voice and the solid, grounding presence of his big body beside her in the bed. They hadn’t made love yet. Once they were actually in bed together last night, broken-boned, drugged, and exhausted, common sense had kicked in-or was it maturity? It was going to happen, though, maybe soon-Dorie was as sure of that as she’d ever been about anything.

“Who was that on the phone?”

“First call was McDougal, my boss. He’s putting Linda Abruzzi in charge of coordinating the investigation. Second call was Pool.”

“Who’s Pool?”

“She runs the FBI. I figured Abruzzi could probably use a few pointers getting this thing off the ground. But to get McDougal to put her in charge, I had to promise to stay out of it.”

“But what if you’d stayed out of it before? Where would…Where would that…”Where would that leave me? Dorie couldn’t bring herself to finish the question, probably because she knew the answer: in Simon’s basement.

“Sid Dolitz says there’s an old Yiddish expression that translates: ‘In the land of What-If, all travelers are unhappy.’ Of course, being Sid, he might have made it up. How’s your nose?”

“I think it probably hurts something awful, but I took a Vicodin when I woke up and another one when I woke up the second time, so the pain ain’t reaching the brain. How’s your arm feeling?”

“Like it got whacked with a frying pan.”

“May I recommend a Vicodin?”

“I already took one.”

“Take another.”

“You think?”

“Hey, it worked for me.”