Linwood Barclay: The Twenty-Three

She shifted her head on the pillow to take him in, blinked her eyes so slowly, it was like watching two garage doors close and open.

“Okay,” she said weakly. “Help me up.”

He got an arm under hers, shifted her forward slightly on the bed into a sitting position, propping pillows behind her.

“That’s perfect,” she said.

“I think you look good today,” he said, sitting back down. “Well rested.” Finley looked at the collection of pills, water bottle, reading glasses, and a Ken Follett novel big enough to chock a jetliner’s tire, set down open somewhere in the middle, the spine cracked.

“Still working your way through this,” he said.

“I really like it, but every time I start, I forget what I read last, so I have to go back.” She forced a smile. “I like it when you read to me.”

He had taken to reading her a chapter every night when he got home. “I don’t have anything on today,” he said. “Maybe I can read a chapter this morning and another in the afternoon.”

“Okay,” she said. “How about you? How did you sleep?”

“Oh, you know. I never sleep that good.”

“I thought I heard you up in the night. Did you go out after you left me?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Maybe just for a bit of air.”

Finley heard a car door close outside. “That must be Lindsay,” he said. The home care worker Finley had hired not long after his wife became ill. In addition to tending to Jane Finley’s needs, she made meals, cleaned the house, ran errands.

“Isn’t this the holiday?” Jane asked.

Finley nodded.

“You should have given her the weekend off.”

Finley shrugged. “Well, you never know. Something might come up. They might need me at the plant. If I have to take off in a hurry, she’s here for you.”

Jane pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, pulled it away, making a soft clicking noise. “My mouth is so dry.”

He reached for the half-empty bottle of Finley Springs water on the bedside table, uncapped it. He held it to her mouth, tipped it far enough to give her a few drops.

“That’s good,” Jane said. “So, no campaigning today?”

“I’m not sure. So many people are away, gone to their cottages, or working on their gardens, doing spring cleaning. I don’t think anyone’s going to pay much attention to a gasbag like me today.”

She reached out a weak hand and touched his arm. “Stop that.”

Finley smiled. “I know what I am, sweetheart. And I’m good at it.”

That made her laugh, but the chuckle then sent her into a coughing fit. Finley got a hand behind her back and leaned her forward until she was done.

“You done?” he said, easing her back.

“I think so. A bit of water went down the wrong way when I laughed.”

“I’ll try not to be so hilarious,” he said.

“The thing is,” Jane said, “you’re not the gasbag you once were.” Another small smile. “You’re a better man than you used to be.”

He sighed. “I don’t know about that.”

“I thought I heard something, just as I was waking up. Sirens?”

“I was in the shower, and I had the radio on in the bathroom,” Finley said. “I didn’t hear-”

He cut himself off, listened. “I think I hear one now.”

“Just so long as they’re not coming for me,” she said.

Finley patted his wife’s hand, stood. “I’m going to go down and see Lindsay.”

“Would you ask her to make me some lemonade?”

“Of course. But you’re going to have some breakfast, aren’t you?”

“I’m not very hungry.”

“You need to eat.”

Jane’s eyes misted, and with all the strength she had, she gripped his hand and squeezed. “What’s the point?”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s only a matter of time.”

“That’s not true. If you keep your strength up, no one can say how long… you know.”

She released his hand, dropped hers down to the comforter. “You want me to hang in long enough to see you redeem yourself.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Finley said, frowning. “I want you to hang in, period.”

“You’ve already redeemed yourself in my eyes.” A pause. “Although I might need those glasses.”

That brought Finley’s smile back.

“I’ll be back up in a little while, read to you,” he said.

“Morning,” Lindsay, a wiry woman in her late sixties, said to Finley as he came into the kitchen.

“Hi,” he said.

“How’s Jane doing this morning?”

“Tired. But fine. She’d love some lemonade.”

“About to make up a new pitcher. Think she’s up to any breakfast?”

“She says no, but I think you should take her up something, anyway. Maybe a poached egg? On toast?”

“I can do that. How about yourself?”

He thought a moment. “I guess I could be talked into the same. But make it two eggs.”

“Coffee?”

He nodded.

Lindsay grabbed an oversized measuring cup from the cabinet and filled it from the Finley Springs cooler in the corner of the kitchen. She poured it into the coffeemaker, added a filter and some ground coffee, and hit the button.

“Don’t know what’s happenin’ out there today,” she said.

“Hmm?” he said, reading messages on his phone.

“Must have seen five ambulances on the way into Promise Falls today.” Lindsay lived out in the country, about five miles outside the town.

Finley slowly looked up from his phone.

“How many did you say?”

“Five, six, seven. I kind of lost count.”

Finley looked at his watch. “All in the last half hour or so?”

“Well,” she said, going into the refrigerator for eggs, “that’s when I was coming in.”

Finley went back to his phone, brought up David Harwood’s number. It rang several times before he picked up.

“Yeah?” David snapped. Finley could hear a car engine in the background.

“David, it’s-”

“I know who it is. Don’t have time to talk, Randy.”

“I need you to check something for me. Lindsay says-”

“Lindsay?”

“You haven’t met her. She’s our-”

“I’m hanging up, Randy. All hell’s breaking loose and-”

“That’s why I’m calling. Lindsay says there are ambulances all-”

“Go to the hospital and see for yourself.”

“What’s happened?”

When there was no reply, Finley realized that David had already ended the call.

“Don’t worry about those eggs for me,” Finley said to Lindsay. “And would you be good enough to tell Jane that I had to head out? I think something’s come up.”

Duckworth

ITwas the kind of scene one might expect to find if a jet had crashed outside of town. Except there was no jet, and the people waiting for treatment were not suffering from cuts and bruises and severed limbs.

But that didn’t make things any less chaotic.

I didn’t need long to take in the scene. Dozens of patients in various stages of distress. Some, on the floor, were clearly already deceased. People vomiting, writhing, scratching their arms and legs. Children crying, parents shouting for help.

The doctors and nurses were going flat out. I hated to stop anyone in the midst of treating all these cases, but I needed to get a sense of what was going on, and fast.

I pulled out my police ID long enough to get someone’s attention, but then I spotted someone whose eyes and glasses I thought I recognized above the surgical mask. After all, I’d seen her only yesterday.

“Dr. Moorehouse?” I said.

Hair was hanging down over her eyes and those brown-framed glasses were askew. She was looking off in another direction, moving past me.