"I can find my own way out," she said. "Thank you."
As she walked toward the half-open door she caught movement in the hall. A white-haired man in a navy blue suit; not an orderly, or a patient. Too well dressed. He smelled of money. A family member? She glanced back at Wasserman and caught him white-faced and sweating, evasive, like a man exposed in a lie.
He closed the door behind her. She heard a lock click into place.
In the hallway, the man had disappeared. She hurried to the corner, but then the big orderly was coming toward her again.
"Excuse me, Andre, isn't it? This is embarrassing. I was wondering, that man in the blue suit? I met him last week but I can't remember his name."
"Out," the orderly said. "Right now."
He followed her all the way to the parking lot, folded his arms, watched her from the walkway. She got into the car and sat for a moment in silence, and resisted the childish urge to pound her fists against the steering wheel. Sarah was still inside somewhere, alone and probably scared to death, and there was no way to reach her.
Jess thought about their return trip from Patrick's church, poor Sarah awake now and staring absently out at a crimson wash of autumn leaves, poor, lonely Sarah; something terrible is going to happen. I know it.
Nothing's going to happen to you.
I don't want to go back. Am I ever going to get out?
We're going to find a better place for you. I promise.
If my mom can't take care of me, I want to live with you. Will you please help me?
A stiff breeze lifted brittle leaves from the corners of the parking lot and sent them tumbling end over end. She could hear the dry hiss of their passage. It sounded like the whispers of a thousand ghostly voices. She took a deep breath and let it out. Goddammit, Wasserman, this isn't over. I swear it isn't. She put one hand on the PET scan inside her bag. Maybe, just maybe, she had something.
Thank God for Charlie's car. The orderly was still standing and watching her as she left the parking lot. She resisted the urge to give him the finger, and waved genially instead. If he was aware of the sarcasm, he didn't show it.
--30--
Jess Chambers drove Charlie's car too fast through crowded city streets. She cursed at stoplights and tested the brakes on more than one occasion, earning the glares of her fellow motorists. But all that went unnoticed.
She was thinking of the changes in Dr. Evan Wasserman since she had first met him, only weeks before: the breakdown in his control, the cracks appearing along his formerly smooth surface. What are you hiding, Wasserman? You 're scared to death of her, aren't you?
But that wasn't it exactly. This was what really bothered her, his discomfort aimed not entirely at her but somewhere. She turned onto Washington Street and drove through Brook-line, moving away from traffic, using this time to calm herself again and think. The man in the blue suit, Wasserman's face when he caught a glimpse ...
Important pieces were missing. She needed answers, and there was only one other place she might find them.
***
This time when she rang the doorbell there was nobody to answer the door. She went around the back of the house, stepping carefully past pruned juniper hedges and pine bark mulch. The smell of freshly watered soil touched her nostrils, and with it came a feeling of calm, of peace. She flashed back to fields of rustling corn, the smell of turned earth, of September rainstorms. It washed away the stink of the city.
Professor Jean Shelley sat in front of a garden table on the grass. On the ground was a large, silver bowl and a folded towel. She kept her back and neck rigid under a cotton sweater, watching birds flit to the feeder. Jess stood for a moment transfixed. From this angle, she could see clearly how swollen Shelley's wrists and ankles were, how worn she looked. Death comes gradually and then all at once, like headlights around a corner at night.
Shelley turned her ghostly face slightly but did not look at her. "I thought you might come back. I'm sorry I didn't answer the door but I'm not feeling well enough at the moment."
"You should have someone here with you."
"That's thoughtful, but I prefer to be alone."
"I won't stay long."
"Then please, find a seat." Jess took a chair from the deck and set it on the grass. "Good, good. Now how did your little trip turn out?"
Jess told her about the afternoon at Patrick's church and the events immediately following: the meltdown in the computer, her recent visit with Wasserman. "I spoke with him this morning, actually," Shelley said, when she had finished. "He told me you were no longer welcome at the hospital. He wanted me to speak to the school administrative office and have you expelled."
"Did you?"
"Of course not. I don't think you've done anything I wouldn't have done, in your shoes, and I feel guilty enough for my part in this. But you've been missing classes. I know your grades are starting to slip. You need to be careful not to let this consume you."
Jess opened her shoulder bag. She took out the PET scan and handed it over. "It's from Sarah's private file," she said. "The one I didn't get a chance to see. Can you tell me what it means?"
Shelley looked at the scan for a long moment, and put it down on the table between them, where it sat like an unwanted visitor. She seemed to be struggling with something. "Let it go," she said. "It's out of your hands now. Go back to school, take back your life. Be young."
"I can't do that, Professor."
They were silent for a moment. Jess burned with impatience, but let it simmer under the surface, waiting for the right time.
"Let me ask you a question," Shelley said. "Forgive me for being blunt, but I've been thinking about this since you came to visit before. That man who taught you to fly. Did he try to . . . touch you? Do something inappropriate?"
Jess was surprised by the question. She considered what to say. "Yes. Once he did."
"And you stopped him?"
"I thought it was disgusting, it made me angry. I was hurt. I was old enough to know about what he wanted to do."
"I wondered. His gift of the plane seemed like an offering. Only once, though? He never tried again?"
"No. He seemed genuinely sorry, like he had slipped. But we never talked about it and I didn't go see him much after that. Things were different between us. Something had changed."
Shelley seemed satisfied with the answer. She nodded. "Sometimes we take too much responsibility for others, don't we? We assume that they'll act as we do, with decency and respect. And when they don't we take it upon ourselves, we take in their sins and we try to erase them from memory in any way we can."
"I guess so. But it isn't as simple as all that."
"Isn't it?"
"Professor Shelley, I saw a man today with Dr. Wasserman, he was well dressed, white hair, short and stocky. I hadn't seen him before. Do you know what he might have been doing at the hospital?"
Shelley didn't seem to hear her. When she spoke it was with distance, and tinged with a dull anger. "I don't think I'll be going back to school," she said. "I've been feeling very nauseated lately and my strength is gone. I just don't see the value--"
"Professor, please. You'd said before I'd have the truth. Tell me what's going on."
"Do you know anything about acute lymphocytic leukemia? It's a brutal disease. Your bone marrow makes too many immature white blood cells. These cells never develop into lymphocytes, as they should. Here are the symptoms. First you feel a shortness of breath, exhaustion. Your skin is too pale. This leads to bruises and cuts that do not heal. Finally, there are infections, as the dwindling number of white blood cells can no longer fight off germs.