He felt odd entering the house, and not just because of the circumstances. He'd once lived here with her, although he'd never felt truly at home. It had been bought with her money and decorated according to her taste, but his lack of comfort had stemmed more from the incentive than from the decor. She had needed him to be nearby, to watch her back emotionally and physically as she struggled to rebuild. He'd been happy to help, of course, had considered it a privilege and a natural extension of his love for her, but he'd also known it wouldn't last, and that despite her protests to the contrary, she'd eventually become firm-footed enough to start longing for her independence of old. His moving out had actually come as somewhat of a relief to both of them.
Still, it felt funny to be "back home," where, as with a long-delayed visit to a grandparent's house, familiar smells and sights commingled and got confused with foreign ones. The pull between feeling like an intruder and standing on safe ground was palpable, and Joe proceeded quickly through the darkness upstairs to Gail's bedroom hoping to end the awkwardness as fast as possible. But he also couldn't lie to himself-by now, he'd become alarmed by her silence.
He paused on the threshold of her room, the moon through the skylight revealing a shape in her bed.
"Gail?"
He half held his breath to better hear some sound from her, watching intently, until the merest hint of a movement finally gave him relief. Only then did he step inside and cross over to the bed.
"Gail. It's Joe."
He sat by her side and gently laid his hand against her head, noticing as he did so the prescription bottle and glass of water on the nightstand.
"Gail," he said, his voice still soft. "Wake up."
With his other hand, he reached behind the phone and hooked a finger around the cord, pulling it free from where it dangled unattached to its nearby outlet. That explained why she hadn't been answering his calls; only the downstairs machine had been picking up.
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Come on, sweetheart. It's Joe."
Finally, she stirred, moaning briefly.
He took advantage of that to roll her onto her back, sweeping her hair clear of her face as he did.
"Wake up, Gail."
Her eyes fluttered and opened slightly.
"Joe?" Her voice was groggy and clotted with induced sleep.
"Yeah. It's me. Everything's okay. I had to see if you were all right."
She blinked several times, clearly trying to understand what was going on.
"Everything's okay?"
"I hope so," he told her, kissing her cheek again. "I heard you had a tough time yesterday afternoon at Laurie's place. I'm sorry I wasn't there."
The eyes closed again, hoping to shut out the memory. "He was horrible."
"You don't have to worry about him. We got him. What happened, anyway?"
She had all but surfaced by now, her breathing more rapid, her responses close to normal. He could still sense the effects of the sleeping pills, but his mind was at ease that she'd obviously only taken enough to knock herself out for a while.
She rubbed a hand across her face. "Nothing really. I mean, nothing you could point at. I just had a bad flashback is all. The guy. . something about him. He was creepy and insinuated what he wanted to have happen, but it was his smell more than anything that brought me back. He never touched me, but I almost felt it had happened all over again. I felt. . violated. And scared. Humiliated."
She suddenly raised both her arms and encircled Joe's neck, pulling him down to her and sobbing into his chest. "I thought it was behind me. Even when I was with him, I thought maybe I still had it under control. But then all afternoon I got pulled lower and lower."
He let her cry for a while, rubbing her shoulder, his face half buried in her hair and her pillow, breathing her in.
Eventually, she quieted enough that he could straighten slightly and look at her. "I've been worried about you. Called a few times, drove by earlier. Couldn't figure out where you'd gone. Sam said you came by."
"It's not just that, Joe. It's Laurie, too. I can't get what she went through out of my mind. I feel responsible. Of all people, I should have known to watch out for her. I know how things are out there."
Joe was shaking his head. "Gail, you can't do that. We all have our own lives to lead. We can care for each other and try to help when the going gets tough-you did that when you suggested Laurie come up here in the first place. But she came with her own baggage. You're not responsible for that. Don't forget why you made that initial offer. Her life was a mess back home."
"It doesn't help, Joe. I've told myself all that."
"Where are her parents? Right now"
Gail looked at him, startled. "I. . in Connecticut."
"They're not here? They didn't come up?"
"They will," she said weakly. "They're making plans. They know she's safe. . that I'm here with her."
He let his long silence speak for him.
"I've got to put things right," she finally murmured.
"You're not seeing her as a victim only, are you?" he asked eventually
"What do you mean?"
"That the Lauries of the world, no matter their backgrounds, do have some responsibility for how they end up."
"I know that," she said, her voice tensing.
"It's not just good and evil," he continued, ignoring the warning. "Most dealers are users, and most users end up as thieves, prostitutes, mules, you name it. It's a mixed-up mess, but it's a mess most of them acknowledge right up to the end. That's why some of them actually beat it and get better-because deep down they know they can. They're the only ones accountable."
She was angry at the condescension she heard in his words-the platitudes that allowed him the distance he needed to function in his job. But she also knew what he was attempting, and so merely placed her hand against his mouth and said, "Stop."
He straightened, caught off guard, and studied her closely.
"I don't care about all that," she explained. "I don't care how people rationalize their way clear. I saw how that works when I was raped and reduced to an unidentified victim in the paper. I see part of me in Laurie, Joe, in ways you'll never understand, and I won't put up with it any more now than I did back then."
Gunther was vaguely confused by parts of what she was saying. He thought about asking her what her plans were, knowing how capable she was of setting almost anything in motion.
But he also finally recognized the anger in her eyes, and with it an extra element he thought might be pure bewilderment. There was a shift going on here he'd never before seen in this woman he thought he knew so well.
He stroked her shoulder instead of responding, and simply informed her, "This probably isn't the right time, but I mentioned that the guy you met in Laurie's room had been caught. He was actually killed in a shoot-out with the PD. I didn't want you to hear that on the news."
"Who was he?"
"Roger Novelle. Meant nothing to me, but Willy knew him. Local bad boy. He was dealing heroin when he was shot."
Gail stared into the darkness of her bedroom for a few seconds before asking, "He was Laurie's supplier?"
"We don't know yet. Sam's talking with Tony Brandt, and VSP is doing the shoot investigation. Right now everyone's playing connect-the-dots. I wouldn't be surprised, though."
Gail laid her head back against the pillow, her expression implying that she'd come to some sort of decision. "Thanks, Joe. And thanks for coming by."
He hesitated and then stood up, hearing the dismissal in her tone. He was anxious about what he'd just witnessed, and a little irritated at being shut out. The only saving grace, if it even qualified, was that he thought she might know less about what was going on inside her than he did.
For the moment, though, he would let things lie. He leaned over, kissed her, and retreated through the dark, empty house the same way he'd arrived.