“I think you best get your eyes open,” Josiah said. “I do believe there may be a police appearance at the hotel shortly.”
“Why? What are you talking about?”
“Eric Shaw should be getting some visitors,” Josiah said, and then he hung up and sat in the dark with a grin spreading across his face. Shaw would buy him some time, and that was good, but moreover he’d enjoyed this first brush with Lucas G. Bradford. He liked the rich bastard’s tone, the sense of control, the belief that he could run this world and everyone in it. He thought he was strong, and Josiah was pleased by that. Let it turn into a battle of will, Lucas, let us see who breaks first.
45
FOR A LONG TIME Eric sat on the balcony, sipping the water he’d taken from the faucet in the spa and waiting for visions, but none came. Eventually, he went back inside and pulled the curtains shut and turned off every light before he got into bed. Around him the room existed in shadows and silhouettes and nothing changed within it or entered from outside. At some point consciousness slid away from him, folded beneath sleep.
The thumping on the door woke him.
He let out a grunt and sat up, blinking at the dark room and trying to get his bearings. Just when he thought he’d imagined the sound, he heard it again. A knock.
The clock beside the bed said it was twenty past one.
He sat in bed, supported by the heels of his hands, and stared at the door. It’s Campbell, he thought, and then he turned and looked at the door to the balcony, as if he could run out there and hide like a child or fling himself from it and sail down to the floor below and escape.
Another knock then, louder this time.
“Shit,” he said under his breath, and then he got to his feet, wishing for a weapon. He’d never had any interest in guns as an adult, though he’d hunted as a boy, but he wanted one now. He ignored the peephole because he was afraid to peer out and see what waited, chose instead to unfasten the lock quickly and jerk the door open.
Claire stood in front of him.
“I didn’t think it was a good idea to wait until morning,” she said, and then she stepped past him and into the room.
He closed the door and locked it, then pulled on jeans and a T-shirt while she sat on the edge of the bed, regarding him like an engineer inspecting a building’s structural integrity, searching for cracks. He had not seen her in more than a month. Her beauty struck him now just as it always had, or maybe even harder because it had been so long. She was wearing jeans and a black tank top over a white one, no jewelry and no makeup, and her hair was tousled in the way it often was after a drive because she liked to have the windows down. He’d always loved that about her, had always liked a woman who didn’t mind being windblown. There were laugh lines around her mouth, and he remembered telling her he was proud of them when they began to show because he could take credit for plenty of them. There were also lines on her forehead now, though, creases of frowns, of sorrow and pain. He could take credit for plenty of those, as well.
“What are you doing here, Claire?”
“Like I said, I didn’t think it was good to wait until morning. The conversations we had today were getting progressively worse. Scarier.”
“What did you do, climb out the window and rappel down from Paul’s penthouse? There’s no way he would’ve wanted you to be a part of this.”
“Actually,” she said, “he encouraged it. He thought it was a dangerous idea for you to be alone. Medically, and legally.”
He grunted.
“Can I see it?” she said.
“See what?”
“The bottle.”
“I don’t have it, remember? Kellen took it up to Bloomington to have it tested.”
“I didn’t realize you sent the whole thing. I thought maybe he just took a sample. I wanted to see it.”
“Well, it’s gone.”
She’d given him an odd look when he told her the bottle was gone, and he wondered if she was searching for proof, looking for some sort of sanity test.
“You’ve stayed here tonight?” she said. “Haven’t left the hotel?”
“That’s right.”
“I looked for your car in the parking lot. If you were gone, I was going to hunt you down and kick your ass.”
He couldn’t find anything to say. It felt so out of place to be in the room with her, to be looking her in the eye again. She sensed the response.
“You may not want me here. I understand that. But I’m worried. If you come back to Chicago, if you go to see doctors and lawyers and people who can help, I will step aside. But I want to make sure you do that.”
“Thank you.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. Just protecting my reputation. Reflects poorly on me if my husband gets arrested for murder or locked up in a hospital for the insane.”
He smiled. “People would gossip about you.”
“Point their fingers and whisper. I couldn’t bear that shame. Just taking social precautions, that’s all.”
Say, “I miss you,” he thought. Say it, you dumb shit, it’s all you want to tell her, so just put the words in your mouth and let them go.
“How long was the drive?” he said.
She gave him a look that was both amused and sad. “That’s what we should be talking about?”
“Sorry.”
“No, I understand. It’s strange to see me, and you don’t even really want me here, but there are things-”
“Stop,” he said. “It’s good to see you. The fact that you came down… I appreciate it more than you know.”
“You can mail me a formal thank-you next week. Use nice stationery. But until then, we’ve got to figure out what to do. I still think you need to go home. It’s why I came. To bring you home.”
“Right,” he said. “Go home.” Home. Away from here, away from the story that had wrapped him in its eerie embrace. Away from the water.
“So you’re agreed? We can leave in the morning?”
He got to his feet and walked over to the balcony door, pushed back the heavy draperies, and waved his hand out at the dome and the expansive rotunda.
“It’s a hell of a place, isn’t it?”
“Gorgeous,” she said. “So we’re leaving in the morning?”
He looked out at the hotel for a long time in silence, then turned back to face her.
“Claire, the things I’m seeing… the story that’s there, it’s powerful.”
“What does that have to do with staying or going?”
“I’m getting the story because I’m here, Claire. Because I’m here, with the water. I’m seeing it almost like a narrative now, I’m seeing the story moving forward, and-”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m beginning to realize that there’s a purpose to it, that I need to tell this story. This is the movie, Claire, this is the one I’ve been waiting for, the one I couldn’t find. If I stay down here for a while-long enough for me to get the whole thing down-I can turn this into something special, I can use this to get back in the game. Wouldn’t that be amazing? To use something like this as a way to get back what I’ve lost? But I’m starting to feel like that’s what it was all about, like I’ve been given a shot here, a chance at redemption and I just had to see that it was there.”
She was watching him in disbelief, lips parted. Now she said, “Are you kidding me? You want to keep having these visions? To keep drinking that water? The water that almost killed-”
“That was when I didn’t take it. The water has been nothing but good for me.”
“Nothing but good for you! Eric, are you hearing yourself?”
“This story needs to be told, and I’ve been looking desperately for something that would give me a chance to get back. There’s a purpose to this, Claire.”
She shook her head in exasperation and turned away from him.