Missing Persons

60

I finally made it home from the police station, took the dogs out for a last time, climbed into bed, and rubbed Lauren’s back until she awakened. Although I left a few names and a few details out of my story, I told her enough of what I knew that she understood the magnitude of my dilemma. I finished by asking for her advice.

Her counsel was succinct. “Higher, on my neck. Right there.”

“That’s it?”

“No, that’s not it. On one hand you know a lot. On the other hand you don’t know much. You need to leverage what you have. Save Diane no matter what it takes, screw the rest.”

“It’s all that clear to you? I could get censured, lose my license.”

She rolled over and faced me. My eyes were adjusting to the dark and I could see the shimmer of her irises. She said, “You’d have to sleep with a patient, kill her, and then have sacrilegious sex with her dead body before that spineless state board would yank your license, and you know it. But what if they do? You and me and Grace? We’ll make it if you have to change careers. We will. Will you make it if you knew you could have done something that might have helped Diane and you didn’t do it? I don’t think so. You’re pussyfooting around this, Alan. The rules need to be broken sometimes. This is one of those times. Break the damn rules, save your friend, suffer the consequences. You won’t be able to live with any other choice, you know that.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

She reached a warm arm out from under the comforter, put her fingers on the side of my neck, and lowered her voice to a late-night whisper. “There’s some things I know about you, sweetie: You’re a better cook when you’re not too hungry. You’re a better dad when you’re not feeling too protective. And you’re a better lover when you’re not too horny.”

“You have a point?”

“You want this to be right too much, and it’s clouding your judgment. Step back. Take off your therapist hat. Be a friend, first. You’ll know what to do.”

I didn’t have to think long to know that her advice was sound.

“What?” she said, sensing something.

“I’m a better lover when I’m not too horny? Really?”

She smiled and shrugged. She dropped her hand so that it slid down my bare chest. “You want to prove otherwise?”

The truth was, I didn’t. Not right then.