I walked faster.
The door was open.
I walked in.
The room was empty.
I stood there, not moving, my first thoughts being that perhaps she had been taken out for an X-ray or MRI or some other procedure, but no, the room was clean, there were no balloons, cards, or flowers on the window counter, and the bed was neat and well made.
A male nurse came by, and I said, “Excuse me, do you have a moment?”
“Sure,” he said, stopping. He held a clipboard in his hand and wore multi-colored scrubs and white shoes.
“Could… could you tell me where Detective Woods is? The woman who was here?”
“Oh,” he said. “She’s gone. I’m sorry. Didn’t you know?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
There was a roaring in my ears and my legs quivered. Gone. Just like that. While I was being kept in prison. Gone. All that fighting and shooting and tears and pain and lies… and for what?
She was gone. The nurse started to walk away and I managed to move my tongue. It seemed suddenly thick in the back of my throat. “Wait,” I said, hating how weak my voice sounded. “Wait just a second.”
He came back to me. “Yes?”
“Can… can you tell me any more? About which funeral home she was taken to? For services?”
He looked at me blankly, and then gave me an embarrassed smile. “Sir, sorry, I should have been more clear. When I said she was gone, I meant she’s been discharged. She’s been transferred up to the Porter Rehab and Extended Care Center. You know where that is?”
The thought of asking directions never came to me. My first thought was of taking my cane and wrapping it around his young, empty head.
“I’ll find out.”
The Porter Rehab and Extended Care Center was in an office park adjacent to the Porter Hospital, about a half-hour north of Exonia. It was two stories and made of brick, and I limped in with no problem, taking an elevator to the second floor. Felix and Angela and Felix’s associate stayed back in the limousine, which took up three parking spaces. As before, Felix begged off going in with me, saying he was going to try to teach Angela some English phrases while I was away.
I eyed him as I got out of the limo. “Need some tips on what to say about heavenly bodies?”
I got a knowing smile from him as the door closed behind me.
On the second floor of the rehab center, the hallways were wide and had waist-high wooden railings for the benefit of its patients. I passed a large room which had exercise equipment and a mock-up of a dining room and kitchen, where patients were at work trying to recover from a host of injuries.
Diane Woods was in Room 209, and there was a Tyler police officer named Milan, whom I knew, sitting outside. He was leafing through USA Today and just nodded at me as I passed by. I quietly walked in, seeing Kara Miles curled up on a settee, fast asleep. I paused and took in Diane.
She was on her back, head propped up on a pillow. There was a feeding tube going into her nose, taped in place. The bruises and marks on her face had improved, meaning she was looking at least somewhat like the Diane I knew. Monitoring devices were hooked up to her wrists and hands. I stepped in closer. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth was sagging open, and her lips were cracked and dry.
She was breathing on her own, but it was a labored, rasping noise.
The windows overlooked a field, and in the distance, Air Force aircraft were landing and taking off from the nearby McIntosh Air Force Base, over in Lewington. Kara kept on sleeping. On the sill by the windows, get-well cards were crowded in a long row.
I came in even closer. It was Diane, no doubt about it, but the spark, the light, the life I knew, wasn’t there.
Maybe it was gone, maybe it was hidden, but it wasn’t there.
I kissed her forehead and slowly walked out.
“Where to now?” Felix asked when I got back into the limousine.
“Tyler Beach.”
“You sure?”
“No doubt.”
About forty minutes later, we were on Route 1-A, hugging the New Hampshire coastline, the winds coming up, the surf breaking harshly against the rocks. The fine homes of Wallis and North Tyler were lit up with golden lamps, and then we came upon a number of motels and restaurants, and then a long stretch of rocks and boulders the size of small cars. Up ahead was the Lafayette House, and the limousine made a left turn into its parking lot.
It stopped before the dirt driveway leading down to my home. I got out and Felix joined me. Without asking, he took my arm, helped me down the rough dirt road. With each step, my insides felt heavier and heavier. I didn’t say anything, just kept on looking, observing, evaluating, until I reached the front of my home, with its small, scraggly lawn.
The smell of burnt and wet wood was still strong. To the right was a jumble of broken beams, shingles, and burnt planks that used to be a small outbuilding that served as a garage. From inside the destroyed garage, my Ford Explorer was a charred mess, resting on burnt and melted tires. Close by was my two-story house, which was now mostly one-story. Most of the roof to the right had collapsed where my office and bedroom had been. The area had been covered with a blue tarp that rattled as the wind came up. The whole area was still surrounded by yellow crime-scene tape, which flapped and twisted from the sea breeze. The waves crashed in behind my house. Chunks of burnt wood and shingles were piled up in front and to the side of my house.
My legs were shaking. I just looked and looked.
Felix still held on to my arm. He said: “Did I ever tell you the story of my Uncle Vincent? He had a place outside of the North End. One day the place blew up because of a natural gas leak, but he was one suspicious bastard and started a one-man gang war.”
“No, you’ve never told me that story.”
“You want to hear it?”
“No, I don’t.”
I broke away from his grasp, went to a point in the yard where there was a chunk of concrete and bricks back from when this place had been a lifeboat station during the late 1800s. I clumsily knelt down, wincing from the pain in my thigh, reached under the brick, and took out a small lockbox, which I opened. I took out a key, limped past Felix, ducked under the crime-scene tape, and unlocked the door. I had to bump my hip twice against the door to open it up. There was no power, of course, so I couldn’t switch on any lights that might be working, but what I saw stunned me.
Save for chunks of plaster and pieces of burnt lumber that I could make out, the place was empty. No furniture. No rugs. No books, no bookshelves.
Had I been robbed?
“Lewis?” said Felix.
I turned. “You,” I said. “What did you do?”
He shrugged. “What do you think? I’m an expert at salvaging things, picking up stuff that fell off a truck. When the smoke had cleared, I hired a crew, got in and took everything out that was still in reasonable shape. Books, rugs, some furniture. It’s all spread out in a large storage facility over on Route One in North Tyler. A guy I know is doing his best trying to get the smoke out of your stuff. Sorry, your computer was a loss. Along with a hell of a lot of books.”
“That’s okay,” I said, still not believing what I had seen. “I always do backups of my computers. Books can eventually be replaced.”
Felix came to me, also ducking under the tape. “So there you go. Did what I could.”
I reached over, grasped his shoulder. “More than I could have imagined.”