I shook my head too fast and felt woozy. I winced.
Skelleher frowned at me. "Would you come into my office for a moment?"
I shrugged and followed him out of the examining room and into an afterthought of an office cramped with a desk and two chairs. He told me to leave the door open if I preferred. I swung it closed and sat down.
He sat back and rubbed a knuckle over his lower lip for a few moments, then raised his eyes back to mine. He took a deep breath and leaned forward again. "I'm going to crawl out on a very narrow professional limb here, because I think there's something more than medical about this situation.
"I have some friends who… have had experience with similar things to what you're describing. And—I don't like to say this, because it sounds unprofessional—but you might get some benefit out of talking to them. Ben and Mara Danziger. They're friends, not patients. I know him professionally also, and he's a good guy, even if some of his ideas sound like they're straight out of the Twilight Zone. If nothing else, they might at least help you determine if what you're experiencing are legitimate phenomena, or something that ought to be addressed by a counselor." He picked a card out of a desk drawer and offered it to me.
Suspicious, I asked, "You're not sending me to a shrink, are you?"
"No," he replied with a laugh. "Nothing like that. I think that you might be experiencing something that most people just can't get in touch with. Not anything bad, just something from that mysterious edge of knowledge. And in keeping with my belief that a lighter touch is better, I'm going to let you make up your own mind. If you talk to Ben and Mara and then decide they're from the land of the loonies and so am I, I'll be glad to recommend a psychologist, a counselor, or even a change in meds, if that's what it takes."
I looked at him sideways.
His smile limped with exhaustion. "I don't think there's anything medically wrong with you or your pills. I think you'd be just fine without them, to be honest. I can't do anything else for you except make some suggestions and tell you to be sure to go to your follow-up exams. Whatever's causing you these problems seems to be outside my purview."
I took the card, skeptical, and dropped it into my bag. He watched me hitch the bag onto my shoulder and stand.
"You probably should switch to a backpack if you always carry that much stuff," he commented. "A load like that can hurt your back if you carry it on one side."
"I don't like backpacks. Too casual and they're hard to get into in a hurry."
Skelleher shrugged. "You have to make choices. But be good to yourself, you know? Try to sleep. Eat red meat to restore your blood count and proteins. Put wet tea bags on your eyes to reduce the discoloration. Get some regular stretching and exercise. You'll heal faster and feel better. And call me if you have any more trouble."
I said I would and he gave me another crooked, coffee-deprived smile as I left.
Dead. Except for a few family funerals, a required course in forensic science, and a couple of bodies on a case that went nuts, what did I know about death? Bodies are just the leftovers, not the real event of death. I'd never seen anyone die, never been intimate with death— except for that moment in the elevator when it just seemed like a very inviting kind of nap. I wanted to sit and think about that and yet, I really didn't.
I left it to stew in the back of my head, and my brain bumbled around it like a bee in a rhododendron. Dead.
Chapter 2
Foiling gray mist flooded across the floor, pushing against the walls. Lucent wisps spiraled up from the mass, forming a columned portal supporting a hot-white door. My vision clouded, like snow on a television screen. Vertigo gripped me.
The door drifted open on an endless whiteout storm, swarming with almost-seen shapes and moving light. I crashed to my knees in the thick cold, gasping in the sickening death smell of it. Hungry fog boiled out, muttering, whispering, clawing… I started awake with a racing heart.
Nerves vibrating, I stalked through the entire condo, throwing open cabinets and closets, daring the mist to stream out at me. The ferret watched me from the safety of her cage as I found nothing. My head buzzed from getting up too fast, and black dots fringed my vision. I lay back down, but I could not fall back to sleep.
I gave up and stumbled through my morning routine. The sun struggled up through the early-morning Seattle gloom. I looked out the balcony windows, but I couldn't face the prospect of another fog-haunted run.
I showered and faced off to the bathroom mirror, my pulse ragged as I wiped it clear of steam. In spite of the best efforts of the salon gnomes, I still looked thrashed. Pillow creases and morning puffiness didn't help, either.
Chaos, the ferret, made a pest of herself as I dressed, rumpling up my impress-the-client suit, stealing shoes, stockings, and jewelry, and throwing dancing fits of sound and fury when I took them back. Finally, I tucked her back into her cage. She glared at me as I slipped my pistol into the clip holster in the small of my back and hid it under a suit jacket that almost matched my skirt. I would not be taken by surprise again.
I was in my office before seven, coffee in hand. I started catching up on old business and billing and prepping for my meeting at nine.
My first day out of the hospital, I'd called my answering machine. Most of the messages were old business, crank calls, and hiss, but two had sounded like work.
The first had been a male, accented, bad connection: "Miss Blaine. Grigori Sergeyev. You have come to my attention to recover a family heirloom. I must call again. I have no phone number to give now."
I'd made a note, but still no second call had come in.
The second was a female, controlled, with a mature, Eastside girls-academy voice: "Ms. Blaine, my name is Colleen Shadley. My son is missing. The police have been condescending but no help. They suggested I hire a private investigator, and Nan Grover recommended you. Please call me as soon as possible."
I had called her back and agreed to look into it. I'd have preferred later, but Mrs. Shadley had set the time and place for the meeting. I thanked the gods for coffee. At eight thirty, I shut down my computer and locked up the office.
The morning fog hadn't thinned much, giving Pioneer Square a watercolor look as I headed for the bus stop on First. There was no point in moving my Rover just to pay for parking six blocks away.
As I was crossing Occidental, a man shambled out of the alley toward me. He was draped in layers of dark, shaggy rags that spun vortices off into the mist around us.
He muttered as he approached. "Can you see? Can you see?" He waved his hands, one of them clutching an empty shape, gesturing around like a tour guide.
I could smell him, wafting the odor of dirt and attics. I started around him, peering through the sulfurous mist.
His hand darted out and grabbed my upper arm. He hauled on me and shoved his face near mine. "Dead lady? Are y'dead, lady? Y'see 'em?" He waved his clenched-open hand at me and demanded, "Looka! Can you see this? Huh? Can y'see?"
I twisted, pulling my shoulder down and shoving him with my other hand. The layers of his clothes were warm and furry and gave under my hand, but he stumbled back and I spun away, putting a couple of paces between us.
I shook the smell out of my head, saying, "I think you should back off."
He stumbled another step back, muttering, "No? Can't y'see? No?" He whimpered, confused.
I made an aggressive feint forward, leaning in and glaring at him, my hands coming up, curling.
He darted in, trying to grab for me again, but I roared at him and swung one hand hard over his nearest ear.
He yelped and turned, skittering off into the alley and sliding away in the shredding fog that swirled and sucked behind him.