He said that she was in excellent physical health otherwise and that youth was on her side, that she had had normal pupil reflex upon arrival, and that the entire team was hopeful. I had heard this speech before, because I had made it; I knew what it was worth.
Dr. Rissman said he would be back in an hour to check on things and then introduced me to the primary nurse, a solid woman in her forties; she said nothing but squeezed my hand before moving away. I sat in the chair beside the bed, and Lena Moretti was the only one left in the doorway of the glass-partitioned area. She came to the bedside and stood beside me, placing a hand on my shoulder and, thankfully, offering no advice. She stood like that long enough for me to start feeling guilty. “You should go home.”
Her voice was very quiet. “You’re sure?” I didn’t say anything; evidently that was okay, because she patted my shoulder and assured me that she’d be back in the morning with breakfast. And she was gone.
I listened as the machines breathed for my daughter, monitored her heart, and fed her intravenously, but I kept looking at the incision where they had removed a portion of the skull to allow her swollen brain enough room to survive. A small piece of Cady was now in a freezer on the fourth floor and, when I thought about it, the weakness threatened to overwhelm me again; so I looked at her face. It was lovely, and every time I looked at it, I had a hard time convincing myself that I had had any hand in it. I always loved the finished quality of her features; she was like her mother in that respect. Mine were more blocked, as if nature had started with a pretty good idea but had gotten bored with the effort. Cady was different. She was beautiful.
I thought about the two photographs that were on my desk at the office in Wyoming. One was a preteen shot. She was tossing her hair back, exposing the large hoop earrings that she had favored until her sixteenth birthday, when she exchanged them for the tiny ones I gave her. She was smiling. If pressed, I’d have to say that I don’t remember her smiling during this period-she mostly frowned in disapproval of my very existence-but she must have, because there was photographic evidence.
The other photo was from the summer of bum, as it later became known. Between law school at the University of Washington and the subsequent bar exams and her current stint at Schomberg, Calder, Dallin, and Rhind, she had spent a perfectly glorious summer along the Bighorn Mountains sleeping, sunbathing, and shopping. The photograph was taken near the end of August, and she was seated on the deck at Henry’s house, her oversized feet in flip-flops. A battered pair of jeans and a stunningly studded Double D leather jacket that had cost me a half-week’s pay completed the outfit. She was smiling again-Tuesday’s child, full of grace.
My eyes started tearing. I looked toward the doorway and tried to clear the heat from my face and the wild thoughts that swooped through my mind like barn swallows under a dark bridge.
The plastic basket along with Cady’s briefcase had been carefully placed on another chair. I went over, pulled her cell phone from the bin, and returned to my seat. I looked at her some more, then flipped open the phone, which was a much fancier version than Henry’s. I scrolled down, and it didn’t take long to find BEAR/CELL. I pushed the green button, and the prissy voice told me that the person I was calling was unavailable; I left yet another message, this time with the caveat that I was calling from Cady’s cell phone. I hit the red button and looked at the other functions on the tiny screen, one of which read RECEIVED CALLS.
I stared at the phone a while longer and then pushed the button: DEVON 10:03 PM. I scrolled down, and it read DEVON 10:01 PM. DEVON 09:47 PM. DEVON 09:32 PM. DEVON 09:10 PM. DEVON 08:48 PM.
I ran through all the calls: Twenty-six, and all from Devon. All unanswered.
I remembered to breathe and felt the wingtip feathers of vendetta scouring the insides of my lungs. I swallowed, watched my hands shake for a moment, and then hit the function button that indicated that, in all those calls, there was only one message, and it was from the last call.
There was the little voice that said don’t do it, but every other voice was screaming at me to listen. It was what I would do for anybody else; it was my sworn duty. I took a guess and punched in BEAR as the security code.
“You have one message.” I had none, but I was listening.
For the next two minutes, I listened to Devon Conliffe. He was in a spitting rage and referred to Cady as everything but a child of God; the language he used to describe her actions and person would have paled Vic. He threatened to do things to her that I hadn’t heard in a four-year stint with the Marines and close to a quarter century of law enforcement. Toward the end, he had become breathless but no less vitriolic, closing with one last salvo that promised a savage retribution if she did not appear within the next minute. The line went dead.
I closed the tiny cell phone; soundings from a very dark place began working their way to the surface. I knew the timber and the danger of these thoughts. My face cooled where a healthy heat had been, and a stillness crept over my hands.
I placed the cell phone in the front pocket of my jacket and hung it on the back of my chair. I pushed my hat back a little, crossed my arms, and looked directly at Cady; the smooth, steady movement of my actions raised a sliver of panic in the rational man who was abandoning me.
I wondered what in the hell she had been doing on the other side of town. Why would she be at the Franklin Institute instead of with me at her house in Old City? Had what happened been an accident and, if she and Devon had had an argument and he had pushed her, why hadn’t he called someone? Why wasn’t he here?
I pulled the phone from my pocket and listened to the message again.
I now knew some answers. The next questions would most likely be asked by the fifth largest police force in the country. I had no jurisdiction in Philadelphia. I listened as the sliver attempted to gain a little leverage and force some light into the emotional dusk, but darkness can be stubborn.
I sat there in the glare of the ICU and the murmuring of the machines and watched my child as all the shadowy things loosened themselves and began their steady ascent to open air where they could do the most damage. I suppose an hour had gone by when Dr. Rissman came back and checked her vitals.
He closed her eye and again looked past my shoulder. I felt like punching him for not looking at me directly but, instead, shook my head and cleared my throat. “No movement.”
“It’s still early.”
“I know.”
He gave a perfunctory nod and went out to the nurse’s station, and I was alone again.
It was approaching dawn, and the trauma physician had checked in five more times with the same results. The faint glow of the sun crept against the adjoining buildings, and it felt like I was in the turret of an unending castle. My eyes must have grown tired because, when I blinked, somebody else was in the room. I tried to focus, but the strain of the night made it feel like I was dragging 600-grit sandpaper over my eyeballs. I closed them and opened them again, but the image of the man kneeling by the bed remained blurred.
A small panic sparked, and I shifted in my chair, but he put out a hand and stilled me. It was only when the image shifted and I heard the intricate melody of the Cheyenne song that I knew it was Henry.