Michael Palmer - Side Effects

Over and over again, in a voice as soothing as a warm tub, the cold spoke to her of hopelessness and sleep. Kate flexed her hands and her feet, struggling against the downy comfort of the lies and the inertia.

Remain still and you will die. Surrender to the cold and you will never see Jared again, never get the chance to tell him how much his letter and his decision mean to you. She tried pushing herself along with her feet, but could not bend her knees enough to get leverage. She had to see him. She had to tell him that she, too, was ready to make choices.

Aroused by the aching in her legs and the far deeper pain in her side, she twisted and wriggled onto her belly. She had been wrong to allow Willoughby to nominate her without trying harder to see things from Jared's perspective. She had been wrong. Now she could only admit that and hope Jared believed it had been he, and not the devastating events, who had helped her see the true order of her priorities. She was less than halfway from the far end of the pipe. The fog seemed to have lifted. She could now make out the silhouettes of trees against the white sky. A few more feet and there was enough light to read the numbers on her watch. Eleven fifteen. She had been entombed for over an hour. Was Zimmermann still out there? Could he possibly have stayed around in the snow and the cold for over an hour?

Driven by the need to see Jared again, to set matters straight, she worked herself arm over arm along the icy metal. A foot from the edge she stopped and listened. Beyond the soft wisp of her own breathing, there was nothing. Had an hour been long enough? Wouldn't Zimmermann have left, concerned about having his car attract attention?

Finally, she abandoned her attempts at reasoning through the situation.

If he was out there, waiting, there was little she would be able to do.

If he wasn't, she would overcome whatever pain and cold she had to and make it home. There were amends to be made. With a muted cry of pain, she curled her fingers around the edge of the culvert and pulled. + "We're sorry, but we are unavailable to take your call right now. Please wait for the tone, leave your name, number, and the time, and Kate or Jared will get back to you as soon as possible."

"Kate, it's just me again. Ignore the previous two messages. I'm not going to stay at the office, and I'm not going to speak with Reese. I'm coming home. Please don't go anywhere. Thanks. I love you."

Something was wrong. In almost five years of marriage, Jared had never felt so intense a connection to his wife. With that heightened sensitivity and three unanswered calls home had come a foreboding that weighed on his chest like an anvil. The feeling was irrational he told himself over and over again, groundless and foolish. She was at a neighborss or on a run. With his MG still in the office garage, where it had been all week, he had taken her Volvo, but still, there were plenty of places to which she could have walked. He left the city and crossed the Mystic River Bridge, the rational part of him struggling to keep the Volvo under seventy. She was fine. There was some perfectly logical explanation why she hadn't answered his calls the past hour and a half.

He just hadn't hit on it. Certainly, his concentration and powers of reason were not all they could be. It had been one hell of a morning.

The call to California, the sound of Lisa's voice, had left him at s once elated and sickened. His father had lied. He had lied about Lisa and possibly about Stonefield as well. Jared cringed at the thought of how close he had come to siding with the man. Silently, he gave thanks that he had made his decision, set down on paper his commitment to Kate, before he had learned the truth about his father. The man had been paying Lisa off all those years. That conclusion was as inescapable as it was disgusting. They were some pair, his ex-wife and Winfield. One totally vapid, one totally evil. Some goddamn pair. Then there was Stacy. As he weaved along past Route I's abysmal stretch of fast-food huts, factory outlets, budget motels, garish restaurants, and raunchy nightclubs, Jared ached with thoughts of her. What did she believe had become of her father? Would there ever be a way he could reenter her life without destroying whatever respect she had for her mother, possibly thereby destroying the girl herself?

Kate would have a sense of what was right to do. Together they could decide. Damn, but he had come close, so close, to blowing it all. The house was deserted. Kate's running gear was gone, and so was Roscoe. It had been several hours since his first call-far too long. He checked the area around the house and yard. Nothing. There were but two choices, wait some more or call the police. The heavy sense of apprehension, so ill-defined while he was in Boston, seemed more acute. There was no sense in waiting. As he walked to the phone in the kitchen, he glanced out the front window. Three neighborhood children, all around eight, were trudging up the driveway pulling a sled. On the sled was a cardboard carton. The path to the front door, only as wide as a shovel, was too narrow for the sled. Two youngsters stayed behind, kneeling by the box, while the third ran up the walk. Jared met her at the door.

"Mr. Samuels, it's Roscoe, " she panted. "We found him in the snow."

Jared, a dreadful emptiness in his gut, raced past the girl to the sled.

Roscoe, packed in blankets, looked up and made a weak attempt to rise.

His tail wagged free of the cover and slapped excitedly against the cardboard. "His leg is broke, " one of the other children, a boy, said simply. Jared held the dog down and pulled back the blanket. Roscoe's right leg was fractured, the bone protruding from a gash just above the knee. "Come kids, " he said, scooping up the box. "Come inside, please, and we'll take care of Rose. Do you think you can take me to where you found him?"

"Yes, I know, " the little girl said. "We have teacher's conference today, so no school. We were sledding down the hill to the bridge, and there he was, just lying in the snow. My mom gave us the blankets and "It looks like he's been hit by a car, " Jared said. "Kids, this is important did any of you see Kate-you know, my wife? " The children shook their heads. He reached down and stroked the dog's forehead Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth where his teeth had torn through "Well, let's get some help for Roscoe, then we'll go back to the spot where you found him." He felt consumed by feelings of panic and dread, and struggled to keep a note of calm in his voice. Frightened confused children would be no asset to him-or to Kate. Minutes later three of them, Jared and two of the youngsters, were in the car. The third had been left behind to keep the dog still and await the arrival of the veterinarian. "Okay, kids, " Jared said, "you said you were sledding near a bridge. The stone bridge over the little stream? " Both nodded enthusiastically "Good. I know just where that is."

The short drive over the narrow, snowy road seemed endless. Finally, Jared parked the Volvo at the top of the hill and then half ran, half slid to the indentation in the snow where the children assured him they had found Roscoe. He had thought to take his parka but had not changed his slacks or loafers, and the trek from the spot into the surrounding woods was both awkward and cold. The snow around him was, save for his own footprints, smooth and unbroken. After a scanning search, he made his way back to the road and started down the hill. At his request, the children followed, one on each side of the road, checking to be sure he had not missed anything. At the stone bridge, he stopped. There was evidence of some sort of collision at the base of the wall. A piece of granite had been sheared off, and a gouge, perhaps two feet long, extended along the wall from that point. He searched the roadway and then looked over the wall.