Behind Henry, Susan saw another cop walking into the house. She struggled to sit up. “I think there’s a carbon monoxide leak in the house,” she said.
“There was,” Henry said. “The furnace in the basement was leaking. We shut it off.”
Susan settled back down. She felt woozy from moving and she sat sucking in oxygen for another minute. It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. When she felt well enough, she moved the mask away again. “I came home to take a nap,” she told Henry, “and I started to feel sick and when I tried to leave the house Bennett wouldn’t let me.” The wispy jackrabbit cloud had drifted into a shape that didn’t look like anything at all. “He took my keys and locked me in.”
“You must have really pissed him off,” Henry deadpanned.
“This isn’t funny,” Susan said.
Henry looked around the yard at the ambulance, the patrol cars, the police. He seemed mystified. “Why would Bennett try to kill you?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Susan said. “But he did. I know he did.”
Henry shook his head. “It could have been Gretchen,” he said. He looked back at the house. “I want both you and your mother under protection full-time again. You always have a cop with you. Got it?”
Susan was suddenly aware of the fact that she was, except for a blanket, completely naked. “I need to get dressed,” she said.
“You need to go to the hospital,” Henry said.
No. He was not going to send her to the hospital. Put her under lock and key. Not with all this going on. “I’ve got to get back to work,” she protested.
Henry lifted his finger and touched his nose. “Your nose is broken,” he said.
Bliss appeared then. Susan couldn’t help but notice her freshly applied red lipstick. When she looked at Susan, she winced, her top lip peeling back in disgust. Bliss had never liked the sight of blood.
The sink. Susan must have cracked her nose on the sink when she fell.
“Fine,” Susan said to Henry. “But I’m not going anywhere without my purse.”
“I’ll risk an officer’s life immediately to retrieve it from your home,” Henry said.
“Thanks,” said Susan. She turned to the paramedics. “Take me to Emanuel,” she said.
If she had to go to the hospital, she at least wanted to go to the one where Archie’s doctor worked.
CHAPTER
54
How old were you when you broke your nose?” Gretchen asked.
Gretchen ran her finger lightly from Archie’s hairline over his forehead and then down to the bridge of his nose. He was lying on his back in the bed. She was on her side next to him. They had just had sex again and he felt strangely weakened by it. There was a new highness now. Different from the pills. The pills were soft, like a bright haze. This was darker, a blackness that skirted the edges of his vision.
“Seventeen,” he said. He knew the question that came next. “I was in a car accident.”
“Was anyone killed?” she asked.
He hadn’t talked about it in so long that he was surprised when he told her the truth. But it didn’t matter anymore, and the very fact that she had asked made him think that she must somehow know the answer. “My mother,” Archie said.
“Aha,” she said.
“Aha?”
“You were driving,” Gretchen said.
“I haven’t even told Henry this story,” Archie said. Only Debbie. No one else. Not since he’d left home. It was his dirtiest little secret. Besides Gretchen.
“Was it your fault?” Gretchen asked.
“I didn’t see a stop sign.”
Gretchen touched his face, tenderly, he thought. Though it might have been something else. “Your father must have never forgiven you,” she said.
Archie hadn’t seen his father since he’d left home. “No,” he said.
They were quiet for a time, and Archie watched the shadows that the ceiling fan threw.
“My mother died when I was fourteen,” Gretchen said finally.
He wondered if it was even true. “Did you kill her?” Archie asked.
“No,” she said. She lifted herself up on her elbows and looked at him. She looked worried, her brow furrowed a little at the center. “Does it scare you?”
He knew what she meant. “Dying?” he said. “Not right now.”
“It’s always all right, at the end,” she said, taking his hand. “They always look peaceful.” She kissed his knuckles. “You did.”
“That might have had something to do with the torture ending,” Archie said. He withdrew his hand and sat up, putting his bare feet on the floor. “I’m getting up,” he said. “I have to go to the bathroom. And then I need to eat something.” It was a lie. But if his plan was going to work, he needed to get Gretchen into the living room.
CHAPTER
55
You’re going to what?” Susan asked. She was in an exam room at the Emanuel ER dressed in a snappy pair of borrowed green scrubs. She took her oxygen mask off and said it again. “You’re going to do what?”