Shiver

19

Drifting. She was drifting. Weightless, bodiless, free. No pain, no fear. Around her, blackness and shades of gray. From somewhere, from everywhere, a rushing-air sound, a conch-shell hiss, monotonous and soothing.

The hum reminded her of the ocean. Slow rolling waves. Sheets of bubbly foam tickling a white shore. Sea birds like chips of broken glass, pieces of the sky. Far down the beach, laughing people. She watched them, saddened by their distance, wishing she could join the crowd. She didn’t dare. She was safer alone. Always alone. Alone and afraid.

No, wait. That was wrong. That was the old Wendy. Something had changed her, shocked her out of hiding, made her come alive. The Gryphon. Yes. Fear was behind her, and all because of the Gryphon.

Her eyes fluttered open. The ocean and the people were gone. She lay in an unfamiliar bed, her left cheek resting on a starched pillowcase.

Without lifting her head, she took in her surroundings. Beige carpet, yellow walls. In a two-dollar frame, a painting of a farmhouse with a red barn. A long wooden bureau. A doorway to what must be the bathroom, and, near it, a closed door.

Behind the door, the squeak of rubber-soled shoes on tile. A hallway. A nurse walking past. A hospital. She was in a hospital room. Of course she was. She knew it even before she rolled her head languidly to the right and saw the bed beside her, unoccupied, its white privacy curtain hanging open.

On the other side of the empty bed, there was a window. Although the shade was drawn, enough pale pinkish daylight filtered through to wash the room clean of darkness. The light was the color of dawn, of promise. Was it springtime yet? No, still March. Spring would come soon, though. Wendy smiled.

For what seemed like a long time she lay motionless, staring at the corkboard ceiling panels. There had to be a call buzzer within reach; she could summon a nurse if she liked. She chose not to. She wanted to think. Wanted to reconstruct what had happened to her and figure out how she’d wound up here.

She remembered watching the police car explode on the mountainside. Then she’d stumbled back to the Camaro and collapsed into the driver’s seat, feeling suddenly weak. After that, a stretch of darkness. Her next memory was of lying with eyes closed in the back of a moving vehicle, her body draped in the soft heaviness of a blanket. The blanket was good because she was terribly cold, shivering. Her skin felt damp, clammy, almost slimy. Like sushi. She wondered if only a Californian would think of that.

Sounds of activity swirled around her as she was wheeled on a gurney into a room smelling of disinfectant and ringing with voices. The voices seemed gratingly loud. She wanted to open her eyes, but found she couldn’t.

Snatches of hurried conversation faded in and out like a weak radio signal.

“Respiration twenty-two.”

“Pulse eighty. Strong and regular.”

Static thrummed in her ears. She went away somewhere. When she came back, hands were crawling like spiders over her fingertips, her lips.

“No cyanosis.”

Pressure on her wrist.

“Distended veins prominent.”

A python squeeze on her left arm.

“Blood pressure one-twenty over sixty.”

“It was one-fourteen over forty-eight in the wagon…”

The static rose to a roar, drowning out the voices, then receded.

“Vasoconstrictor indicated?”

“No, she should be all right, now that she’s supine. Give me another BP reading.”

The rubber python coiled around her arm again. “One twenty-two over sixty-four.”

“Better all the time. You’re going to make it, honey.”

Of course I’ll make it, Wendy answered voicelessly. I knew that. I can’t die now. Not after what I’ve been through. It wouldn’t be fair.

The voices went on, but the static was rising once more, the signal dissolving in the ether. She thought of Pioneer, of Voyager, those robot spacecraft sent out to explore the solar system, and how they’d glided ever farther from the sun, finally losing radio contact with Earth’s voice and spinning on into the void among the stars, that great and silent darkness. She slept.

And awoke in this bed, in this room, in the first light of day.

Well, she thought with a smile, the doctor was right, and so was I. I made it. I survived. Everything is going to be fine now. Everything.

Except…

She went cold.

“Jeffrey,” she whispered.

She’d forgotten about him. No, not forgotten. She’d pushed the memory out of her mind, not wanting to face it, not wanting to feel the pain.

She asked herself if she’d been in love with Jeffrey. She wanted to answer yes, but she knew the truth. He’d been someone to go to dinner with, someone who broke up the lonely routine of her days, someone who liked to talk and who’d found a lady willing to listen. That was all.

Then she remembered the concern he’d shown for her last night. The way he’d hugged her when she cried…

He might have loved me, she thought. He really might have.

And I got him killed.

She flinched from the thought. It wasn’t right to hold herself responsible. After all, she’d nearly died too.

But suppose she hadn’t telephoned Jeffrey from the police station last night. Suppose she’d decided to stay in a motel. Perhaps the Gryphon wouldn’t have been able to track her down at all. And even if the Gryphon had found her, even if he’d killed her, Jeffrey would still be alive.

His death was her fault. Indirectly and unintentionally, yes, sure, of course; but her fault nonetheless.

Her fault… and her guilt.

The dawn light flaring around the edges of the window shade didn’t look quite so bright anymore. And springtime no longer seemed so close.

A creak of hinges drew her attention to the door. A nurse was looking in.

“You’re awake,” the nurse said with a pleasant smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. But okay.” She was surprised at the hoarse rasp of her own voice, the dryness of her mouth.

“Well, you’ve been through a lot. Everyone on the staff is talking about you. You’re a regular celebrity.” The nurse stepped lightly to the bed and attached a blood-pressure cuff to Wendy’s arm, then pumped it up and took a reading. “Looking good.”

“What happened to me exactly?”

“You went into shock.” She consulted the clipboard in her hand. “Neurogenic shock brought on by a syncopal episode. In English, a syncopal episode is a fainting spell. Normally if you faint, you fall over. Since you were sitting in a car, you stayed upright. The blood pooled in your legs, and not enough was getting to your heart.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Luckily the paramedics got there fast.” The nurse listened to Wendy’s heart with a stethoscope, then nodded as if pleased. “They pulled you out of the car and put you on a stretcher. Once you were laid horizontal, no more problems.”

“Why did I sleep so long?”

The nurse briefly checked the beds of Wendy’s fingernails and the veins of her wrists. “Well, I’d say you were flat exhausted, for one thing. But you didn’t sleep straight through. You had a bad dream, and it woke you up.”

“I did?”

“You’ve forgotten that, huh? Well, there’s only so much a person can take. Must have been a doozy of a dream, the way you were yelling.”

“Screaming, you mean? I was screaming?”

“Were you ever.” The nurse crossed to the window and raised the shade, inviting in the slanting sun rays, the fragile salmon light. “Anyway, we gave you a shot of Valium, and you slept just fine after that.”

Wendy blinked. The entire incident-the nightmare and the fit of hysteria that followed-had been erased from her memory. She supposed it was just as well. She had enough nightmares stored in her gray cells as it was.

“Is there anything you need?” the nurse asked.

“I’d like to get out of bed, use the bathroom.”

“Okay, hold on. You’re going for a ride.”

The nurse cranked up the bed till Wendy was in a sitting position, then lowered one of the side rails. She took Wendy’s hand and helped her get up. For the first time Wendy noticed that her palms were bandaged. She remembered shielding her face from flying glass when the windshield blew apart.

The semiprivate room had its own half-bath. Wendy found the nurse waiting for her when she emerged.

“I’m wide awake now,” she said. “I don’t need to go back to bed.” But as she took a step forward, she tottered with a wave of vertigo.

The nurse steadied her. “Looks like you do. The tranquilizer hasn’t worn off completely.”

Wendy allowed herself to be eased back under the sheets. She sat upright, a pillow at her back, fighting spirals of dizziness.

“Which hospital am I at, by the way?”

“Cedars-Sinai.”

“My home away from home.”

“Well, you can go back to your real home soon enough. I’m sure you’ll be discharged as soon as the Valium is out of your system… and as soon as the doctor has had a chance to look you over, of course. In the meantime relax and take it easy.”

“Not much else I can do.”

“If you get bored, call your friends.” The nurse nodded to the telephone on the nightstand. “I’ll bet a lot of people will be anxious to hear from you.”

She shut the door on her way out.

Wendy sighed. She wished the nurse had been right. But with Jeffrey dead, how many people did she have in her life who cared about her? Was there anyone? Anyone at all?

My parents, she thought with a chill of concern. If they’ve heard the news…

And they probably had heard by now. The Gryphon had been a national story; what happened to her must have been on all the morning shows back East.

She picked up the handset, dialed an outside line, and punched in a long-distance number with a 513 area code, charging the call to her phone-company credit card. The phone at the other end of the line rang three times before her mother’s voice answered. “Hello?”

“Mom? It’s Wendy.”

“You’re calling awfully early in the A.M.," Audrey Alden said in a dry, needling tone. “Must be six o’clock out there.”

“Yes. I… I just got up.”

“Something the matter?”

They knew nothing, obviously. That was good. Better to learn about it over the phone than from a TV newscaster.

“Yes,” Wendy said carefully, “you could say so. I mean, there was something the matter, but it’s all right now.”

“Speak English, will you? What did we send you to that college for, if you can’t make yourself clear about the simplest things?”

“I’m sorry.” What was she apologizing for? “A lot has happened, and I guess I’m confused-”

“Boyfriend trouble, I’ll bet. That Jamie’s no good for you.”

“His name is Jeffrey, and you’ve never even met him, and-” And he’s dead, she wanted to add, but she couldn’t force the words out.

“Those photography people are all, you know, peculiar,” her mother went on, unhearing. “Of course I suppose beggars can’t be choosers.”

“What… what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re not getting any younger, and with all the trashy sweet things out there in Hollywood sashaying around on Sunset Boulevard, you’ve got to settle for what you can get.”

Wendy shut her eyes, swallowed her anger. “I only called because I have something important to tell you. Last night-”

“It’s Wendy,” Mrs. Alden said suddenly, her voice muffled. “Yes, calling this early. Sounds half asleep, but then she always does. Pick it up on the extension, why don’t you?”

A moment later her father’s voice came on the line. “I’m on my way to work,” he said without greetings or preamble, “so I haven’t got much time. What’s the matter, darling? Short of cash?”

“No, I-”

He chuckled. “Figured you might be, what with that job of yours. How much are they paying you there? Twenty-five, is that it? Nobody can get by on twenty-five a year, not these days, not in the big city. There are jobs that pay a whole lot better, but a person’s got to have gumption to get ahead in this world, is what I say.”

“I make thirty grand a year,” Wendy said coldly. “Not twenty-five. And I’m not calling about money anyway. For Christ’s sake, don’t you people own a television set? Don’t you-”

“How dare you address your father in that tone of voice,” Mrs. Alden interrupted. “Taking the Lord’s name in vain-where did you learn manners like that?”

“Not from us, that’s for certain,” Stan Alden put in.

“From that Jamie, I’ll bet.”

“Shut up!” Wendy hissed. “Can’t you just listen to me for once? I’m trying to tell you-”

“Keep this up and you won’t be getting any money from us, daughter of mine,” Mr. Alden said darkly. “Not one red cent.”

“I don’t want any money. Why do you keep talking about money?”

“Ease off, Stan,” his wife told him. “The girl is upset. She’s got boy trouble.”

“No, I do not have boy trouble! That has nothing to do with… with anything.”

Wendy was losing her composure. Suddenly she was a small child again, helpless, intimidated, being told what she thought and what she wanted and what was wrong with her, and being given no choice in any of it.

But I’m not a child, she reminded herself as she tightened her grip on the hard plastic shell of the telephone handset. Not anymore.

“Look.” She kept her voice low and even. “I got into some trouble last night, and I wanted you to know-”

“Trouble?” her mother interrupted, a strange note of eagerness in her voice. “What sort of trouble?”

“Whatever kind of jam you’re in,” her father said sternly, “it’s up to you to get yourself out of it. I’ll do what I can, but I can’t bail you out every time. I’m not made of money, you know.”

“Are you pregnant?” Audrey Alden asked. “Or is it AIDS? That’s it, isn’t it? AIDS? That Jamie-I knew he was one of those types. The artistic ones always are.”

“If you’d learn to keep your head on straight and not act like such a damn fool,” Mr. Alden said, “you might be able to take care of yourself for a change.”

“I warned you about Jamie, but did you listen?”

“All it takes is the sense God gave a goat, but sometimes I think that’s more sense than you’ve got.”

Wendy took the phone away from her ear, looked at it for a long moment, then raised the mouthpiece to her lips.

“Mom,” she said quietly. “Dad.”

There was something in her voice, some quality of steely hardness, that silenced them.

“For twenty-nine years”-she listened to herself from some great distance, wondering what she was about to say-“you’ve been taking out your problems on me. Giving me grief because it’s all you’ve got to give. Making me crazy.”

“We never-” her mother protested, but Wendy cut her off.

“I don’t want to hear it. Any of it. I’m not putting up with your bullshit anymore. You hear me? I’m through being treated like a nobody. Because I’m not a nobody. And if you can’t understand that, then it’s your problem, not mine.”

The line was quiet save for the buzz of the long-distance connection.

“Is that what you called to tell us?” her mother asked finally in a small, oddly subdued voice.

“Yes,” Wendy said after a moment’s thought. “As a matter of fact, it was.”

“Then what was all this guff about the trouble you’re in?” Her father sounded as if he didn’t know whether to be hurt or angry.

“You can read about it in the paper,” she said coldly. “On the front page.”

She hung up before they could say anything more.

Then she threw her head back on the pillow and marveled at what she’d done.

I told them off, she thought, astonished. I let them know exactly what I think, how I feel. I got them off my back. At last.

The accomplishment seemed as significant as surviving the Gryphon’s attacks last night.

She shut her eyes, her lips parted in a tremulous smile. She felt light and free.

“Good morning, Wendy.”

Her eyes flashed open. Sebastian Delgado stood in the doorway, watching her.

“Oh. Good morning. Detective.”

He stepped into the room, closing the door. She noticed he was wearing the same brown suit she’d seen last night. Dark crescents bruised his eyes. She remembered the cot in his office and doubted he’d had the chance to use it.

“The nurse down the hall told me you were awake,” Delgado said. He pulled up a chair and sat at her bedside. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Not bad. A little woozy from the Valium they gave me.”

“Nothing more serious than that?”

“Uh-uh. Apparently the paramedics did their job.”

He nodded. “They reached you almost immediately. There’s a firehouse only half a mile from the scene of the… the accident.”

“Believe me. Detective, it was no accident.”

Delgado smiled. “I didn’t think it was. You ran him off the road, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” She remembered herself screaming obscenities as she slammed the Camaro into the squad car again and again.

“He stole the patrol car and pursued you after you escaped from the house?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you get a look at him?”

She thought about it. “No,” she said finally, “I never did. In the house it was dark, and when he was chasing me, there was too much going on.”

“I can imagine.”

She took a breath. The next question had to be asked, even though she knew the answer. “Jeffrey is dead. Isn’t he?”

“Yes, Wendy.” He spread his hands and let them drop in his lap. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded.

“I should have protected you better,” he said softly. “I should have posted more than two men outside the house. But I didn’t think the Gryphon could find you there. And I assumed that, if he did, two men would be enough to stop him. I was wrong on both counts.”

“I’m not blaming you. Detective. Nobody is.”

He made a noncommittal sound. It was clear he was blaming himself.

“What about Porter?” she asked. “And Sanchez?”

“Porter’s body was found in the brush across from the house, where the car was parked. He got out of the car for some reason, and the Gryphon ambushed him. We haven’t found Sanchez yet, but we don’t hold out any hope for him either. His body is probably in the wreckage of the car.”

“Probably? You mean you haven’t looked?”

“We’ve been unable to get near the car. When the fuel tank exploded, it ignited a brushfire. The winds spread the flames pretty fast; in a Santa Ana condition, that dry chaparral is like tinder. The whole mountainside was set ablaze. The fire department is still damping down the last of the hot spots.”

“Was anyone hurt in the fire?”

“No. It was contained before it could threaten any homes.”

“But if you can’t get to the car, you don’t know for sure that he died in the crash.” She heard the mounting panic in her voice but couldn’t quell it. “What if he got away somehow? What if he’s still out there?”

Delgado leaned forward and took her hand. “Believe me,” he said quietly, his voice as gentle as his touch, “there is no way anyone could have survived that explosion.”

The red flower of flame bloomed again in her mind. “I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I am. I’m a cop. I’m always right.” The words were spoken lightly, but she could see the sudden bitter self-reproach in his eyes, the brief, ugly twist of his mouth, and she knew he would not forgive himself for the mistakes he felt he’d made.

Wishing to reach out to him as he’d done for her, she raised her free hand and ran her fingers over his knuckles. “It was sweet of you to come see me.”

He shrugged, a shade too casually. “I was in the area, so I thought I’d drop by the hospital and check on your condition.” He glanced in the direction of the bureau. “When you’re ready to go home, look in the top drawer. You’ll find a set of clean clothes from your closet. I had one of my officers-a female officer-pick out some items for you.” He smiled. “I thought you might be tired of wearing pajamas.”

She returned the smile. “Are you always so solicitous toward the civilians you deal with?”

His eyes met hers. “Not always.”

She felt the shiver of a spark between them. They both broke eye contact at once.

“Look, I’d better get going,” Delgado said briskly. “The mop-up operation on the mountain must be nearly done by now.” He released her hand and rose from his chair. “Later I’ll take your statement about what happened last night. The ladies and gentlemen of the press are rather eager to know the details as well. For the moment we’re keeping them at bay; nobody except staff members is being admitted to this wing of the hospital. But I’m afraid I can’t hold them off forever. Before long you’ll have to face the media.”

“After last night, I can face anything.”

He nodded, unsmiling now. “I know you can.”