“Rebecca,” Michael barks. “What is this place?”
But I couldn’t answer him yet; couldn’t find the words inside my brain or my heart. I didn’t have it in me to speak. Instead I looked at the trees and the house and I saw it all in my mind like it was only yesterday: our entry though the front door into the dark home, the spider-webbed interior, the horrible stench that I tasted more on my tongue than I smelled though my nose.
Lifting my left hand, I touched the home with my fingertips, running the pad of my index finger along the five red-brown letters that made up the word ‘Smell’, each individual letter tattooed along the side of the house like graffiti.
“Smell,” Michael read, the word pouring like acid off his lips.
He could see the word clearly. It told me that Franny no longer felt the need to hide their titles. The lack of subtlety told me that Franny was screaming at me now. On Monday, when no one but me could recognize the word in his painting, he’d been whispering. Now that everyone could see the word, he was screaming. Screaming for me to use my senses, to pay attention, to watch my back.
“What. Is. This. Place?” Michael repeated.
I swallowed. He knew all about my secret. He knew exactly what this place was. He just needed to hear it from me; from my mouth.
“It’s the house in the woods,” I said. “It’s where Whalen took Molly and me.”
Confirming his worst fear, Michael cocked the painting over his head and threw it across the room.
Chapter 37
It was up to me to calm Michael down. It didn’t matter now how much I tried to preserve the happiness of the previous night, Franny’s painting, his warning, had ruined the moment.
My ex-husband was sitting on the edge of the couch, hands pressed against his face, muttering something about tearing Franny ‘a new one.’
“It’s not his fault,” I exclaimed. “Franny is simply doing what Franny does. I know without a doubt now that he’s talking to me Michael; not tormenting.”
Michael lifted his head. He was sporting a three day shadow to go with his mustache and goatee.
“Then why does it feel like torment?”
I made my way to the painting and picked it up off the floor. Unzipping my art bag, I slipped the painting inside, out of sight, out of spinning mind. I fully intended to personally deliver it to Harris, just like I fully intended to reveal the texts.
Michael wiped both eyes with the backs of his hands.
“What’s going on here, Bec?” he insisted. “Why would Franny drop the painting off to the apartment instead of leaving it at the art center? That was the whole point behind your taking a couple of days off.”
“I don’t know,” I exhaled. “But I’m about to find out.”
Drawing in a deep breath, I pulled my towel tighter over my chest. I walked barefoot into the bedroom to get dressed. After that, I was going to call Robyn and find out why she gave Caroline and Franny permission to make a surprise drive-by to my home.
Chapter 38
Michael stood by my side while I speed-dialed Robyn’s number and waited for a pick up. For the third time in a row I was greeted by her answering service.
My pulse picked up. This was so not like Robyn.
The fact that Franny and his mother made the effort to deliver the fourth painting directly to my door told me that Robyn had not showed up to open the art center that morning. Otherwise Franny would have simply left the fourth painting there for me.
There was only one thing left to do. I dialed the number for the center. I waited for a pickup but instead got the answering machine and my own digitally recorded voice.
“ You’ve reached the Albany Art Center. No one is available…”
My call waiting kicked in.
Pulling the phone away from my ear, I took a look at the number displayed on the readout. The number did not immediately catch my attention. But the caller ID did
Albany Medical Center.
With trembling fingers, I clicked over to receive the call.
She spoke to me in a hesitant whisper, almost like she was being held hostage. The whisper and the hesitancy were both punctuated with sobs.
Robyn’s mother, June.
“Rebecca,” she cried, “I… have… some…”
She let the sentence hang, as though to complete it was simply too painful.
Michael was staring at me. His shadowy face had gone pale. He opened his mouth as if to say something. But I quickly raised my open hand and pulled my eyes away from his, stopping him cold.
“June,” I begged. “What’s happened?”
I tried to keep my voice steady, even. I’d known Robyn’s mother almost as long as I’d known Robyn. I’d never heard her so upset, so devastated.
“Albany Medical Center,” she exclaimed. “ICU. Please come.”
I dry swallowed.
“Is she alive, June? Is… Robyn…alive?”
“She’s alive,” June whispered.
Then she hung up.
Wide eyed, Michael gazed expectantly into my face.
“Something bad has happened to Robyn,” I explained. “I have to go.”
“You get your stuff together,” Michael said. “I’ll wait for you out in the truck.”
He took me by surprise. There had been a time in our lives when no emergency, big or small, would have kept him from his daily word quota. As he gathered his jacket and beret and headed out the front door to his pickup, I had to ask myself, who is this man?
Acting on instinct, I picked up Franny’s ‘Smell’ painting from up off the floor, tucked it under my arm, and exited the apartment by way of the back door.
Chapter 39
The Albany Medical Center ICU was brightly lit. It was filled with doctors and nurses competing for floor space with the portable gurneys, monitors, hand carts, wheeled IV units, desks, counters and chairs.
The nurse at the counter pointed Michael and I in Robyn’s direction. Like all the beds in the unit, hers was hidden behind a sea blue curtain. From beneath the curtain I could make out June’s sneaker-covered feet, and the tattered cuffs on her gray slacks. The feet were planted stone still and unnaturally on the vinyl tiled floor. A gauze bandage had been tossed on the floor not two or three inches from her feet. The bandage was stained with blood.
My heart was pounding so fast I was having trouble keeping my balance. Michael took hold of my arm. I reached out for the curtain. But I wasn’t sure if I possessed the strength to pull it aside.
“Rebecca,” Michael whispered.
“It’s okay.” I swallowed. I slid back the curtain.
Her face was swelled and bruised, her eyes puffed up and closed shut; her lips bruised and blistered. I didn’t dare look for any missing teeth.
Robyn’s beautiful face.
It came as a relief that she’d been sedated. What in God’s name would I say to her? What could I say?
A clear plastic tube had been run up her left nostril. Her left arm and hand were positioned atop the bed beside her, palm up. An intravenous line was needled into her vein. Hooked to the hospital bed’s plastic railing, a translucent plastic bag collected the catheter drippings.
Robyn’s mother hadn’t shifted her gaze from her daughter’s face when I pulled back the curtain. But somehow, she knew it was me.
Michael slid his hand down from my arm to my hand. He held it tight, his warmth doing nothing to quell the coldness in my palm. Together we stood shoulder to shoulder at the foot of the bed.
“She called me just before she left,” June said, her words meant for me, but her eyes still locked on Robyn’s. “It must have been her third blind date in a row.” She shook her head bitterly. “I warned her, told her she was seeing too many men; too many strangers; that it would all catch up with her one day.”
I recalled Robyn bragging about a stockbroker. But now I knew she’d been lying. That she’d been seeing more men than just the stockbroker. That she’d been playing with Match. com like it was some kind of game that didn’t involve real people; real strangers.