Authors: Hilary Norman
“Fun, though,” Lally said. They linked arms as they strolled, leisurely, out of Mallory Square. “Where to now?”
“Food?”
“Sounds good.”
“And we still need somewhere to sleep,” Hugo pointed out.
They’d stopped in at a few places, but the prices were insane, and most of them were fully booked anyway, though some people had suggested they return later on in case of no-shows.
“We can always leave town and camp again,” Lally said.
“I think I’d rather sleep on the beach.”
“I think we might be arrested.”
Hugo shrugged easily, and they strolled on.
“If I were any more relaxed,” Lally said, softly, “I’d be comatose.”
Hugo looked down at her fondly. “You feel good, don’t you?”
She smiled up at him. “I feel wonderful.”
“God bless Lucas Ash,” Hugo said.
“Amen.”
The red Sunbird had been found parked in a lot not too far from Mallory Square, but the Key West Police Force still insisted that neither Lally nor Hugo had checked into any
known hotel, motel, resort, guesthouse or bed-and-breakfast establishment on the island.
“At least we’ll make contact when they return to the car,” a sergeant told Chris. “Until then, there’s not too much more we can do except keep our eyes open.”
The officer looked at his exhausted face. “If I were you, sir, I’d try to grab a little shuteye.”
Chris ignored the advice and went back outside. He located the parking lot, found the car, saw the note from the police and added one of his own, wrote it in bold marker pen and taped it right
over the driver’s side of the windshield, where they couldn’t miss it. He began walking again. By the time all this was over, he reckoned, he’d probably have tramped every foot of
Key West several times over, and yet he doubted if he’d have noted anything of the slightest consequence about the place itself. He thought of calling Joe Duval again, could have used a
conversation with someone who knew what he was feeling, but it wasn’t fair to bother Duval when he had nothing to tell him.
He went into a bar, had a Coke, then hit the streets again. There were fewer folk out now, since most people were eating dinner. Chris had a restaurant guide in his pocket, and a blister on his
right big toe. He walked into five places in and around Duval Street, scanning the diners and walking out again. In the sixth, he saw another pair of cops showing Lally’s picture around, and
he felt a sudden rush of warmth for them, felt just a little bit less alone, but still, they hadn’t found her, and by now he was beginning to wonder if they ever would, if Lally and Hugo
hadn’t perhaps just dropped off the edge of the world, never to be seen again.
He didn’t know what took him back to that particular section of that particular harbour. He’d visited it three times since he’d arrived that afternoon, and
now it was almost midnight, and aside from a few perfectly laid-back glamorous types sipping nightcaps on the decks of their yachts, there were hardly any other people around.
There was a fishing boat up ahead, a beautiful old vessel, its sails neatly furled. It was pale in the moonlight, graceful and peaceful. An old grey cat sat on a ledge near the stern, washing
itself in silent concentration.
All cats are grey in the dark.
Chris stood very still, watching it. It was the first time in days that he’d consciously taken time out to look at
anything, really
at
it, and he realized that for tonight, at least, he’d about given up. He supposed he was too tired to look any more. He supposed there was nothing more he could
do, except maybe catch some sleep somewhere, even if it was only back in his car.
The cat stopped washing. It looked at him.
“Hi,” Chris said.
It stiffened a little, not actually rising, but still looking.
“Don’t mind me,” Chris said.
And then he realized that it wasn’t looking at him, but past him, to a spot somewhere behind him.
“Chris? Is that you?”
He didn’t move. He thought he was hallucinating.
“Chris?”
He turned. She was there. No more than ten feet behind him. She wore a flowing skirt and a dark, halter-necked top. Her arms were bare and her long slender legs showed through the diaphanous
fabric of the skirt. Her long straight hair blew in the gentle breeze off the Gulf of Mexico, and the moon, behind her, surrounded her with an aura of silver. She was the most incredibly lovely
sight he had ever seen.
“It is you,” Lally said, softly, unable to believe her eyes.
“I thought – ” He stopped, his throat so dry that the words were almost too husky to hear. He swallowed. “I thought you were a ghost.”
She stepped closer. “No ghost.”
“Thank God,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was so sweetly puzzled, so calm. “I couldn’t believe it was you. Are you on vacation, too? Is Katy with you?”
Chris licked his lips. “Where’s Hugo?”
“Having a nightcap with some people we met.” She turned her head, nodded in the direction of one of the smaller yachts moored some way back. “I felt like strolling a little,
and – ” She stopped, seeing his expression. “Chris, what’s wrong?”
He managed to smile, though his heart was pumping, and every last fragment of weariness had vanished. He’d been dreaming of this moment for the last two days, had fantasized about finding
Lally, about sweeping her into his arms and keeping her safe and never letting her go again. Yet now, seeing her standing there just a few feet away, they were like polite half-strangers bumping
into one another on vacation, and she looked so happy, so well, so
normal
, and he knew he had to rip it all apart, to bring terror, not safety, into her life, and he didn’t know how
to do it, and he wished to God that Joe Duval were there instead of him, and he experienced a sudden and intense urge to run.
Instead, he stood absolutely still.
“Lally,” he said, “I’ve come here to find you.”
Chris refused to tell her anything until they’d fetched Hugo, and were all sitting down, away from other people, on a pier wall. The stone felt cool and solid beneath
her, and the sky was still clear and beautiful, littered with brilliant stars and that magnificent moon.
“There’s a problem,” he said, at last, “with your pacemaker.”
“What kind of problem?” Hugo sounded half afraid, half aggressive, as if a part of him suspected that Chris Webber had come haring down to Florida just to break up his vacation with
Lally.
“Of course, it may be nothing at all – ”
“What
kind
of problem?” Lally asked.
Even in the darkness, Chris’s face was white. “They’re recalling all the recipients of pacemakers manufactured by the company who made yours. There’s probably no problem
with it at all, but your brother felt – ”
“Joe?” Lally was bewildered. “What does Joe have to do with it? I didn’t even tell him I was sick.”
“I know.” Chris had repeatedly rehearsed the way he would break the news to Lally, the way he would try not to frighten her too much, but he knew now that that was an impossibility.
“The manufacturers asked the police to help track down all the patients. Your brother saw your name on a computer printout.”
“How did you get involved?” Hugo asked.
“Lieutenant Duval came to Stockbridge on Friday, looking for Lally.” He mustered a smile. “And we’ve both been trying to find you ever since.”
“Is he here, too?” Lally asked, suddenly icy. The prospect of Joe taking time off work, and leaving Jess and Sal, seemed more alarming than anything else Chris had said.
Chris shook his head. “He wanted to be, but he had to go back to Chicago. He’s waiting to hear from you.”
“You still haven’t told us what kind of problem this is,” Hugo said.
“That’s because I don’t really know the facts. All I know is that it’s urgent that we get you to Chicago.”
“Why Chicago?” Hugo asked. “Why not home?”
“If it’s so urgent,” Lally said, very softly, “wouldn’t it be safer to deal with it in Florida, quickly?”
Chris’s insides wrenched with pity and fear. “According to your brother, there’s some special equipment in Chicago they wouldn’t have here.”
“Nor in New England?” Hugo was openly suspicious.
“That’s right.” Chris willed Hugo to shut up. “Okay with you, Lally?”
“No. Not unless you tell me the truth.” She saw the dismay on Chris’s face, and grew gentler. “I can cope with trouble better when I know what I’m up
against.”
Chris didn’t speak.
“Tell me, Chris.” Her voice was surprisingly calm. “You didn’t leave Katy and Andrea to come chasing us all over Florida because of some possible problem with my
pacemaker. It’s worse than that, isn’t it?”
Still Chris didn’t trust himself to speak.
“It’s my heart, Chris. I have a right to know.”
“Tell her.” Hugo was shivering in spite of the night’s warmth.
Chris focused on Lally’s grey eyes. Even in the darkness, they were every bit as beautiful as he’d remembered.
“Okay,” he said. “But I swear to you, the odds are heavily against your pacemaker being affected. I swear that by all that’s holy.”
All Lally’s calm went away. “Go on,” she said.
He told her everything he knew.
They drove through the night to Miami, abandoning the red Sunbird in favour of Chris’s larger, faster, smoother Mercedes. Hugo wanted Lally to lie down and rest on the
rear seat, but she was a million miles from sleep, felt wired enough to power the whole state of Florida single-handedly.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
They kept asking her that, trying, but failing, to mask their fear, and she kept responding, though she no longer really knew how she did feel. It was simply too insane to take in, too
terrifying to cope with. The anxiety, when she had first been taken ill, that her heart might stop beating, had been awful enough. The knowledge that there was a possibility – no matter how
remote – that it might actually be on the point of being blown to kingdom come, was, when all was said and done, too much to contemplate.
Hearing Joe’s voice on the phone, when they’d called him from Key West, had lent her only a grain of comfort.
“Don’t think,” he’d told her. “Thinking’ll make you crazy. Just get to Miami and get on that plane and come to me, and we’ll take care of it.”
“Why can’t I go to a hospital here?” she’d asked, her voice thin and unfamiliar to her own ears. “Why can’t they just take it out here?”
“They’re not equipped there, sweetheart. You have to come to Chicago. Everything’s all set for you here.”
“I’m scared, Joe.”
“I know you are.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Not any more.” He sounded very decisive. “Not now we’ve found you. You’re going to be fine.”
“What about Miami?” she’d asked, clutching at straws. “There are major hospitals there – couldn’t they take it out?”
“No, sweetheart, they couldn’t They need special equipment, and we have that here.” Joe had paused, and she’d realized that he was fighting to control his own emotions,
and suddenly Lally had felt a great rush of anxiety for him.
“I love you, Joe,” she’d said.
“I love you, too, Lally.”
It was the same now, with these other two frightened, loving men, both striving so hard to seem normal as they drove, taking turns, for safety’s sake, for they were both
dog tired. While Hugo drove, Chris sat in the back beside her, holding her hand, saying little but communicating a lot through his touch, and when he took over the wheel, it was much the same with
Hugo, though Lally had the sense that he was closer to cracking than either Chris or herself. When Hugo looked at her now, the love in his eyes was more naked that it had ever been, and she’d
always known how he felt about her, though neither of them had ever talked about it, and maybe now they never would.
She watched the nape of Chris’s neck while he was driving, saw him glancing at her every few moments in the rearview mirror. There was no more room for doubt about his feelings for her
now. This man, whom she hardly knew, had dropped everything, had left his wife in a clinic, had even left his own daughter, to chase her through half of south Florida because she was in danger. If
she hadn’t been so terrified, she thought that might almost have made her happy. But it was hard to daydream about happiness when she was so painfully aware that both these men who loved her
were speaking in soft, cautious voices, as if they feared that a loud sound might detonate the thing inside her.
The thing. That was the way she’d thought of it when she’d first been released from the hospital, but then it had seemed a strange, yet benevolent alien, a lifesaving thing. Not a
killer.
They reached Miami airport before sunrise. At the United check-in desk, Chris found a message to call Duval in Chicago without delay.
“What’s up?”
“Can Lally hear us?” Joe asked.
“No.”
“You can’t fly.”
“What?”
“They won’t let Lally fly.”
“They have to.”
“No chance.” Joe’s tone was terser than ever. “There’s been another death, in Orlando. There was a small piece in a local paper, though the full story’s been
kept away from the media. But the FBI notified the FAA, and the guys down there know you want to bring Lally back to Chicago, and they’re treating her like a walking bomb.”
Chris was silent, his mind working overtime.
“I’m getting something underway from this end,” Joe said, “but it’s going to take time.”
“We don’t
have
time.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I’ll get her there,” Chris said.
“How?” Joe was sceptical.
“I’ll charter a plane.”
“You’ll never find a pilot willing to do it.”
“I’ll find one, for the right money.”
“It’ll cost a fortune.” Joe was close to tearing his hair out. “There’s no way I could even begin to – ”
“I can afford it,” Chris said. “And I won’t want paying back.”
“I can’t let you – ”
“Goddamn it, Duval, do you want your sister back in Chicago in time to save her life or not?”