A Step of Faith (7 page)

Dr. Schlozman came in to check on me an hour later. My father stood as he entered.

“It went well,” he said to me. “I’m sure they told you the tumor was benign, so we can all high-five, or chest bump, however you want to celebrate.”

“Why do I feel so crummy?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it’s because
you just had brain surgery
.” He grinned. “You’ll feel a little better tomorrow.”

“What’s next?” my father asked.

“He’ll have an MRI in the morning to make sure we got it all, then, if all’s well, he heads home on Thursday.”

“That soon?” Nicole asked.

“If the MRI checks out, so does he.” He smiled at me. “Thanks for staying alive, Alan. It looks good on my résumé.”

The rest of the evening I drifted in and out of sleep. When I woke the next morning, I had been given a catheter, something I was always very afraid of. It was an infection caused by her catheter that had killed McKale.

A little before noon, I was taken by wheelchair for an MRI. On my way down the hall I saw myself in the reflection of a window. In addition to being bald, my head was swollen and I had a long row of staples in my scalp, with a deep indentation along the line of the incision. I looked like a monster.

Later in the afternoon I was moved into a private room. Dr. Schlozman came in to see me shortly after lunch.

“I’ve got great news,” he said.

“You got the tumor?” my father asked.

“That too,” Dr. Schlozman said. “But
my
good news is that my new book came out today and it’s a bestseller on Amazon.com.”

I was still a little foggy and wasn’t sure I was hearing him right. “You wrote a book?”

“It’s called
The Zombie Autopsies
. It’s a medical journal about the origin of the zombie virus.”

“You wrote a book about zombies?” Nicole asked.

“Yes, and it’s currently number fifty-seven on Amazon. Right between David Baldacci and Nicholas Sparks.”

My father looked annoyed. “But my son’s okay, right?”

Dr. Schlozman waved him off. “He’s fine, we got it all. Every crumb of it.”

“Thank goodness,” Nicole said.

“I still feel crummy,” I said.

Dr. Schlozman smiled. “I guess we can’t have everything, can we?”

The next morning the nurses prepared for my discharge. They gave my father prescriptions for pain medications and a sheet of instructions for caring for my incision. I just
wanted to lie quietly without distractions—no talk, television or reading. It was as if words and sounds pricked my brain.

Around noon an orderly wheeled me out of the hospital and helped me into my father’s car. Frankly, I didn’t feel a whole lot better and I felt more tired than I had the day before. I felt overstimulated by everything around me. More than anything, I wanted to be left alone.

Through it all Nicole was helpful and kind, but she also seemed sad. It was nearly a week before I found out why.

Six days after my surgery I was lying in bed when Nicole came into my room. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.

I sat up. “What’s wrong?”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “I’m going back to Spokane.”

“I thought you were staying longer.”

She avoided eye contact. “I was going to, but I think I should be going.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“It’s not your fault.” She took another deep breath. “When you were in recovery, you kept asking for Falene. At the time I told myself it was the anesthesia . . .” She looked me in the eyes. “You love her, don’t you?”

I looked down for a moment, then back at her. “I don’t know. I suppose I don’t know how deep the waters go, since I wasn’t really fishing.”

She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I love you. Not just because you saved me, but . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just making this more difficult.” She
took my hand. “I’ll go.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you for all you’ve been to me. I’ll always love you.”

“Nicole . . .”

She looked at me, but I had no idea what to say. After a moment she said, “It’s okay, Alan.” She walked out of my room.

Now I’d lost her too.

CHAPTER

Nine

I have become an expert at chasing those I love out of my life.

Alan Christoffersen’s diary

Early the next morning my father drove Nicole to the airport. After he returned, he came into my room.

“Is she okay?” I asked.

“She’s hurting. Unrequited love is a painful thing.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt her. I do love her.”

“I know.”

I sighed. “Now what do I do?”

He leaned against my wall. “What do you want to do?”

“Since when has that mattered?”

“It’s always mattered. It doesn’t mean you’ll get what you want, but what you want always matters. That’s what defines you.”

“I want my life back.”

“Your life or wife?”

“They’re the same thing.”

“No, they’re not,” he said, frowning. “What do you want for your life that’s within the realm of possibility?”

“I want to figure out my feelings. I need to talk to Falene. But I don’t even know where she is.”

“Someone knows where she is.”

“That’s not helpful,” I said.

My father thought a moment, then said, “I have a
client who’s a private investigator. A few years ago he fell on hard times, and I did his taxes for free. He keeps saying, ‘Let me do something for you.’ That’s his expertise, hunting down people—child support dodgers, bail jumpers, corporate embezzlers. He’s darn good, too. I bet he could find Falene.”

“What’s your friend’s name?”

“Carroll Albo.”

“Let’s give him a call.”

That afternoon I spoke with my father’s friend Carroll. He didn’t sound like I expected him to, though, admittedly, my perception of private investigators was largely shaped by
Columbo
and
Magnum, P.I
. reruns. This man sounded squeaky and timid, more fit for accounting than man-hunting and intrigue.

I told him everything I knew about Falene, which wasn’t especially helpful. Her past had little to help us in the present.

“You say she got a job with a modeling agency in New York?”

“Yes.”

“There’s probably a couple hundred of them. At least. We could start looking. What about friends or family? Old boyfriends?”

“Her old boyfriends were all bad news, so she wouldn’t have told any of them where she was going. She didn’t really have any girlfriends that she hung out with.”

“Family?”

“She has an aunt. I’ve never met her, but she owns a furniture consignment store.”

“Do you know her name?”

“No, but I know the store. It’s called the Fifth Avenue Consigner. It’s in Seattle.”

He paused as he wrote it down. “Anyone else?”

“She has a brother. But he’s MIA. She doesn’t even know where he is.”

“Why is that?”

“He was in a gang and messed up with drugs.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” Carroll said. “I mean, it’s horrible for him, but for our purposes, it’s not bad. What’s his name?”

“Deron Angelis.”

“Spell it.”

“D-e-r-o-n A-n-g-e-l-i-s.”

“Got it. Do you know where he spends his time? What city?”

“He used to live with Falene.”

“In Seattle?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be back with you as soon as I have something.”

Carroll called just three days later. Truthfully, I hadn’t expected to hear from him so soon. A part of me didn’t expect to hear from him at all.

“Her aunt’s name is Chloe Adamson,” Carroll said. “But she doesn’t know where Falene is. Or if she does, she’s not telling. But I found her brother. Deron Angelis, twenty-three years old, born January 20, 1989, in San Joaquin County.”

“How did you find him?”

“Hunting drug addicts and gang members isn’t hard.
Eventually they end up in one of three places: hospital, jail or the morgue.”

“Which one was it?”

“He’s in the King County jail.”

“King County?”

“In Seattle. He was caught in possession of meth and was sentenced to prison for several years, but had the sentence suspended. He has to serve a county jail sentence for six months, then when he’s released, he’ll be on probation for a couple of years.”

“I can see him there?”

“Visiting hours are determined by inmate location. I checked on it for you. He’s assigned Sundays from noon to one-thirty and Tuesdays from five-thirty to seven.”

I wrote down the information.

“In the meantime I’ll keep hunting your girl. My secretary has called at least fifty modeling agencies so far, but only found one Falene, and she’s from Brazil. Your friend didn’t go by a different professional name, did she? You know, like movie stars sometimes do if they don’t have a fancy enough name?”

“Falene isn’t fancy enough?”

“It is to me, but all my taste’s in my mouth.”

“Not that I know of. She went by Falene in Seattle.”

“Oh, one more thing. I should have asked you last time if you know any of her past employers.”

“I’m her past employer,” I said.