On the way out she’d stopped and spoken to the nurse, who assured her that patients often preferred not to have visitors at all, that so much of their energy was taken up with getting better that they simply had none left to entertain anyone. Anne had tried to let it go at that, but still found herself worrying all evening, especially after hearing what had happened when Kevin visited his father that morning. And when Glen finally called, though he’d sounded more like himself, she’d been able to tell that something was wrong. Despite his apology for the way he’d treated both her and Kevin, she had the strange sense that he hadn’t really known why she was upset with him. And ever since the call, the sense of nervousness she’d only just managed to assuage had come flooding back.
Now, setting aside the stack of notes she’d been working on — notes gleaned from hours of work in the storerooms of the Public Safety Building — she abandoned her desk, knowing there was no chance of getting any more work done that evening. Leaving the small study that Glen had carved out of one end of the cavernous living room, she glanced at Kevin, who was sprawled out on the sofa, reading a book while the TV droned unheeded in the background. “If you’re not watching the TV, you might turn it off,” she commented.
“I am watching it,” Kevin replied, not even looking up from his book.
Anne decided not to bother arguing with Kevin. If pressed, he would be perfectly capable of telling her all the details of a plot he had seemed to be ignoring. It was a talent he’d inherited from her own father, whom she knew for a fact had been able to read a book, follow a conversation going on in the same room, and still catch any errors she made while practicing the piano in another room. It was a trait that had both impressed and annoyed her in her father. In Kevin she often found it totally confounding, since she knew the ability undermined all her reasons for him not to watch TV while he did his homework. “I’m going over to the hospital to see your father.”
Kevin finally glanced up from his book, and Anne knew her voice had betrayed her worry.
“Is something wrong?”
Anne shook her head. “I just feel like taking a walk, so I thought I’d look in on him.”
“Okay.”
“Tell Heather not to go out.”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “Jeez, Mom, I’m not a baby. I’m here by myself all the time.”
But not at night, Anne thought silently. Rather than voice the thought and expose herself to another of her son’s scornful looks, she leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “Be back in an hour. Stay out of trouble, okay?”
The night air had grown chilly, and as she headed down Sixteenth East, Anne shoved her hands deep in her pockets. When she came to Mercer Street, where the neighborhood started to deteriorate, she turned right, cut over to Fifteenth, then went south again to Thomas Street, entering the Group Health complex through the emergency entrance, then threading her way through the corridors until she finally came to the elevators that would take her up to the Critical Care Unit on the third floor. Using the red phone in the family room, she identified herself, and a moment later Annette Brady appeared.
“Your husband’s asleep, but I don’t see how it could be a problem if you want to look in on him for a minute.”
“How’s he doing?” Anne asked as the nurse escorted her into the CCU.
“Actually, a lot better tonight. I think he fell asleep after dinner, and when he woke up, he was a human being again. But frankly, if I were you, I don’t think I’d wake him up right now. The best thing for him is just to let him sleep.”
The nurse quietly pulled Glen’s door open, and Anne peered inside. A soft glow of light from the street beyond the window bathed his face. Though he was still attached to the heart monitors, he was starting to look once more like the man she’d married. The last vestiges of the anger she’d felt toward him that afternoon and evening evaporated, as did the worry his uncharacteristic behavior had caused. Feeling much better, she stepped back from the door and let Annette Brady close it again. “Suddenly I feel kind of silly,” Anne confessed as the two of them walked back toward the unit’s main doors. “I suppose I should have just called, but suddenly I feel about Glen the way I used to feel about my kids when they were babies. Being told they’re okay is one thing, but you don’t really believe it until you see it for yourself.”
“Not a problem,” the nurse assured her. “Believe me, we have wives coming in here every night, at all hours. On the other hand, husbands,” she continued, “hardly ever show up at odd hours. Amazing how weak the maternal instinct is in the American heterosexual male.” Anne started toward the elevators, waving a final good-bye as the nurse warned her to be careful if she was going to walk home. “That woman who got killed the other night was only a few blocks from here, you know.”
And she was a hooker who picked up the wrong john, Anne thought as she rode the elevator back to the ground floor, instantly reminding herself that all Shawnelle Davis had been trying to do was earn a living, something for which she certainly hadn’t deserved to die. In almost conscious defiance of Annette Brady’s warning, Anne left the hospital through the main doors and started up Sixteenth East. As she strode up the sidewalk, moving from pools of light into dark shadows, then emerging into the light again a few seconds later as she neared the next streetlamp, she suddenly had a feeling that she was being watched. Pausing, she scanned the street ahead of her, then turned around.
She was alone.
Gazing up and down the street once more, finally satisfied there was no one lurking in the shadows ahead, Anne walked on until, reaching the corner of Thomas Street, her nerve deserted her and she turned left, quickening her step as the brighter lights and heavy traffic of Fifteenth beckoned. By the time she reached the corner, the prickly sensation on the back of her neck had eased, and as she started northward, she began to feel as if she’d just played the fool.
The Experimenter stepped back from the window as Anne Jeffers turned the corner and disappeared from his view. She’d felt him watching her, of that he was absolutely certain. She’d sensed a presence, though she had no idea it was his presence. He’d seen her scan the streets, hesitate, then scan them again, the way he himself always did, watching warily to be certain no one was paying too much attention when he began focusing on a new subject for his experiments.
Soon it would be time to begin again, time to take up the work once more. His fingers twitched with eagerness in the dimness of the room as he anticipated the feel of plunging his hands once more into the very center of life, experiencing again the thrill of holding a living, throbbing organ in his palms, exhilarating once more to the towering sensation of holding the power of life and death within his very grasp.
He’d already decided that Anne Jeffers would be the subject of one of his experiments this time. He would toy with her first, of course, just as he’d been toying with her for years. But when her time finally came, and it was finally her body he opened up, her life force he experienced, he might even keep her awake, so that she could share the exhilaration with him.
There were ways to do that, ways he’d learned about in the years during which he suspended his work. He would have to experiment with the needles, but he was looking forward to that, as he looked forward to all his experiments.