“Not for long, Nell. The nurses tell me you’ll be out of here in another week and a half – off to stay with your daughter in Florida.”
“Christmas in Florida! There’s no snow!” she’d huffed, and tried to stay annoyed, but couldn’t hide an upward flicker at the unbandaged corner of her mouth.
“I guess you’ve read and seen on TV all that happened.”
“Some.”
“Tell me, Nell, when you said you had come up with some other tidbits and a name related to Kelly’s murder, was that just a come-on to get me out to your place?”
Her icy silence had told him he’d hit the truth.
“You want to hear the inside stuff the media didn’t get?” he’d asked, trying to warm things up between them again.
The flicker at the side of her mouth had shot north for a second, and her eyes showed interest, but she just as quickly continued to look cross. “Don’t think tempting me with that sort of thing makes us even. I’m still mad at you.”
“For saving your life?”
“For putting that tube into me.”
“Same thing.”
She glared at him. “You think you’re so smart.”
“Well, if you don’t want me to tell you the good stuff, or about what’s happening with Lucy and me-”
“What about Lucy and you?”
He’d told her. All about Lucy. Including where she’d been born.
She’d studied him in silence almost a full minute when he finished.
“And you say the mother registered under a false name, but had a red file?”
“That’s right. And the year would be 1969, the date, March 7.”
She’d studied him some more.
“You think I might be able to figure out who it is?”
He’d nodded.
From the way her gaze had suddenly intensified, he could tell the wheels were already turning. “Perhaps it would help if you saw her. There might be a physical resemblance,” he added.
That had evoked a completely unchecked smile of delight.
He passed the place in the highway where he’d rammed Braden’s killers. Minutes later he put the gate to the home behind him. The landmarks had made him tense up inside.
Up ahead stretched open road, steeper, but unencumbered with any bad memories. He picked up the pace and felt himself relax. He got into the familiar rhythm of his body adapting to the change in grade and let it carry him along.
Time would expunge the hold that place had on him. Just as other memories would no longer encumber him. He felt certain of that.
Mark started to sprint, and soon found himself thinking of the wonderful things that lay in store rather than the past. His feet seemed to glide over the gray pavement, and a full moon peeked up over the horizon. Running straight at it, he headed for the summit, grinning all the way.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Dr. Brian Connolly and Dr. Jennifer Frank for their consults on the clinical story line.
To Dr. DeWolfe Miller for his tutoring on the darkness and techniques of deep mountain lake dives.
To Dr. Yasmine Ayroud for her advice on the state of a body after it spent twenty-seven years in the mud of a deep mountain lake.
To Johanna, Betty, Connie, Anne, and Arnie for their editorial comments.
To my agent Denise and her staff Maura and Joy for all their support.
To publicist Nancy Berland for her enthusiastic encouragement.
And to my marvelous editor at Ballantine, Pat Peters.
About Peter Clement
Peter Clement is a physician who served as chief of Emergency in a major metropolitan teaching hospital, as well as the chief of Family Medicine, and has practiced as an M.D. for twenty-eight years.
