They had tried to have a baby for two years, but so far, it hadn't happened. After a year he'd had a colleague do workups on both of them, but they learned nothing. Their infertility was unexplained: everything was working perfectly but had not resulted in conception.
A few months later, a pregnant twenty-year-old girl had shown up looking for Jane Whitefield. One of Jane's old runners had been the girl's teacher in a San Diego high school. The girl's much older former boyfriend, a small-time criminal, was trying to find her so he could take the baby. Jane had put the girl into her car and driven off. But months later, when Jane had come back from wherever she'd taken her, she had seemed different. After she'd been home two days, she took down the antique cradleboard, carefully rewrapped it, put it back in the attic, and then closed the baby's room.
Since then, Jane had gone out with runners twice. One was an advertising man named Stephen Noton who had somehow gotten his hands on a document about drug smuggling, and was being hunted for it. The third runner Jane had taken on since she'd quit was James Shelby.
Tonight Carey was tired. The loneliness, the obsessive brooding on where Jane must be at this moment, got much worse at night, and he couldn't fight it by staying busy. He looked at his watch. It was after midnight. It was Friday, so it wasn't as bad as it could be. He could sleep until noon tomorrow if he wanted, and then go in for hospital rounds at two or three in the afternoon.
He went to the kitchen without turning on the bright light, opened the cupboard, and took down the bottle of Macallan twelve-year-old single malt Scotch. He set a heavy crystal glass on the counter and poured, then held his glass under the faucet and gave it a small squirt of water.
"Doc Holliday, I presume"
He turned toward the kitchen door and there she was, standing in the dim light just inside the doorway. For an instant the word "hallucination" came to him, but her image didn't fade or waver. He said, "Calamity Jane," then lifted his glass to salute her.
"I meant he ruined his health drinking and smoking."
"You're leaving out the effects of tubercular bacilli, I think."
"Then how about a drink"
"Name your poison."
"I'll have what you're having," she said.
She set her purse on the counter beside her and watched him fill a second glass and add water. She took a step toward him and reached for the glass, and then saw his eyes widen.
"My God, Jane. What happened Was it a car accident Have you been seen" He looked down at her leg, and up to her face, hair, eyes. She could see that his assessment of her appearance was not good.
She took the glass and sipped from it. "A lot happened, not much of it good. And yes, a doctor saw me right away to clean the wound and sew me up. Since then I've taken care of myself."
"You said `wound.' What sort of wound"
"Oh, it's a lot to say at once. If you missed me, come give me a kiss."
He stepped to her, set their drinks on the counter, and gently put his arms around her. He did kiss her, but she could tell he was impatient. And he was so gentle it made her impatient, too.
"I won't break," she said. "I'm just a little tender in spots. A lot tender, actually. Fortunately for you, none of them are your favorite spots."
"All of your spots are my favorites."
"After I finish my drink I may be in the mood to let you prove it."
"There's nothing I'd like better."
"Well, I should hope not."
"But you've got to stop trying to change the subject. You're injured, and you look terrible. What happened"
"I'll tell all."
"How badly are you hurt"
"I'm actually waiting for your opinion and dreading what it might be. It happened about two weeks ago, so I'm out of danger-not stoically bleeding to death or anything. But I've got some marks on me. There's one that will be at least big and ugly forever, and might even make me limp."
"Okay," he said. "I'm about through waiting in suspense."
"I've been dreading your seeing me, and being disgusted or something."
"Hold on to your drink." He put an arm around her back and the other swung to the back of her knees. He scooped her up and carried her out of the kitchen, across the living room, and then to the stairway. He carried her upstairs to the bedroom and set her on her feet.
"The service around here is slipping," she said. "I almost spilled my drink."
"Disrobe, please."
"You have some nerve."
"This isn't funny. Do it."
She took another sip and set her drink on his dresser, then turned and unbuttoned her blouse, and took it off. She looked into his eyes, and kept looking at them as he bent lower to examine her stomach and ribs.
"Some bad bruises." He turned her around so he could see her back, and gently touched the skin a few times. "And what the hell Those are burns. How did you get burned"
"They heated some skewers, the kind you might use for shish kebab. They were trying to make me tell them where Shelby was."
"Somebody tortured you Tortured you Who did that to you"
"Enemies of Shelby's, who didn't want him to escape." She felt his arms circle her waist to come around and undo her belt. Her slacks fell to her ankles and she stepped out of them. She reached for her drink and took another sip, then put it back on the dresser.
"This is really something," he said. From the sound of his voice, he had gone to his knees behind her. He unwrapped the bandage on her thigh. "That's an exit wound. Who shot you" He turned her around again to look closely at the entrance wound in the front of her thigh.
She looked down at him. "I can tell you he was no gentleman," she said.
"Stop, Jane. I told you, this isn't striking me as funny."
"Okay. One of the same men. They were pretending to be cops. When I realized they weren't, I tried to get away, so one of them shot me."
"And who sewed you up and dressed this Some old mob doctor who doesn't report bullet wounds"
"He was young. His nurse was his girlfriend. I almost won her over to my side, but she was smitten with him, and a little stupid. The doctor was kind of angry. It was as if he agreed to treat a gunshot, and only after he got there realized it was likely to get him in trouble-that it wasn't an accident, and the victim wasn't going to be grateful for his work and for not reporting it."
"You probably already realized this, but he did a pretty good job. Good closure, no signs of infection, no indication there's anything inside. You were also very lucky. The bullet didn't hit bone or sever the femoral artery. It was a clean through-and-through shot. I'm sure he told you that. It's just a question of the muscle having time to heal now." He rewrapped the bandage. "I want you to tell me who did this."
Jane stared at him. She could see he actually intended to go find the men who had hurt her. "You can't do anything to him, Carey. He's dead." She paused. "The other one is dead, too." She didn't take her eyes off Carey. She could see that she must not let Carey know that the third one, Wylie, was alive. He lowered his eyes and glowered at a spot on the floor.