Tess Gerritsen - Harvest

It rang four times. She cleared her throat, preparing to leave a message on the inevitable answering machine. Then she heard three piercing tones, followed by a recording:

"The number you have dialled is no longer in service. Please check your listing and dial again…"

Abby redialled, painstakingly confirming each number as she punched it in.

Four rings were followed by the same piercing tones. "The number you have dialled is no longer in service…"

She hung up and stared at the phone as if it had betrayed her. Why had Elaine changed her number?Who was she trying to avoid?

Outside, a car splashed through the rain. Abby ran to the window and peered through a crack in the curtains. A BMW was pulling into the driveway.

She offered up a silent prayer of thanks.

Mark was home.

Mark refilled his wine glass. "Sure, I knew them both," he said. "I knew Larry Kunstler better than Hennessy. Hennessy wasn't with us very long. But Larry was one of the guys who recruited me here, straight from my fellowship. He was an OK guy." Mark set the wine bottle down on the table. "A really nice guy."

The maitre d' swept past, escorting a flamboyantly-dressed woman to a nearby table, where she was greeted with a noisy chorus of" There you are, darling," and'love your dress!" Their high-pitched gaiety at that particular moment struck Abby as vulgar. Even obscene. She wished she and Mark had stayed home. But he had wanted to eat out. They had so few free evenings together, and they hadn't properly celebrated their engagement. He had ordered wine, had made the toast, and now he was finishing off the bottle — something he seemed to be doing more and more these days. She watched him drain the last of the wine, and she thought: All the stress of my legal problems is affecting Mark as well.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about them?" she asked.

"It never came up."

"I would think someone would mention them. Especially after Aaron died. The team loses three colleagues in six years, and no one says a thing. It's almost as if you're all afraid to talk about it."

"It's a pretty depressing thing to talk about. We try not to bring up the subject, especially around Marilee. She knew Hennessy's wife. She even arranged her baby shower."

"The baby who died?"

Mark nodded. "It was a shock when it happened. A whole family, just like that. Marilee went a little hysterical when she heard about it."

"It was definitely an accident?"

"They'd bought the house a few months before. They never got the chance to replace the old furnace. Yes, it was an accident."

"But Kunstler's death wasn't."

Mark sighed. "No. Larry's was not an accident."

"Why do you think he did it?"

"Why did Aaron do it?Why does anyone commit suicide?We can come up with half a dozen possible reasons, but the truth is, Abby, we don't know. We never know. And we never understand. We look at the big picture and say, things get better. They always get better. Somehow, Larry lost that perspective. He couldn't see the long range any more. And that's when people fall apart. When they lose all sight of the future." He took a sip of wine, then another, but he seemed to have lost any enjoyment in its taste. Or in the food.

They skipped dessert and left the restaurant, both of them silent and depressed.

Mark drove through thickening fog and intermittent rain. The whisk of the windshield wipers filled in for conversation. That's when people fall apart, Mark had said. When they lose all sight of the future.

Staring at the mist, she thought: I'm reaching that point. I can't see it any more. I can't see zohat's going to happen to me. Or to us.

Mark said, softly: "I want to show you something, Abby. I want to know what you think about it. Maybe you'll think I'm just crazy.

Or maybe you'll be wild about the idea."

"What idea?"

"It's something I've been dreaming about. For a long time, now." They drove north, out of Boston, kept driving through Revere and Lynn and Swampscott. At Marblehead Marina, he parked the car and said, "She's right there. At the end of the pier."

She was a yacht.

Abby stood shivering and bewildered on the dock as Mark paced up and down the boat's length. His voice was animated now, more animated than it had been all evening, his arms gesturing with enthusiasm.

"She's a cruiser," he said. "Forty-eight feet, fully equipped, everything we'd need. Brand new sails, new nav equipment. Hell, she's hardly been used. She could take us anywhere we'd want to go. The Caribbean. The Pacific. You're looking at freedom, Abby!" He stood on the dock, arm raised as if in salute to the boat. "Absolute freedom!"

She shook her head. "I don't understand."

"It's a way out! Fuck the city. Fuck the hospital. We buy this boat. Then we bail out of here and go."

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

"I don't want to go anywhere."

"There's no reason to stay. Not now."

"Yes there is. For me there is. I can't just pack up and leave! I've got three years left, Mark. I have to finish them now, or I'll never be a surgeon."

"I am one, Abby. I'm what you want to be. What you think you want to be. And I'm telling you, it's not worth it."

"I've worked so hard. I'm not going to give up now."

"What about me?"

She stared at him. And realized that, of course, this was all about him. The boat, the escape to freedom. The soon-to-be-married man, suddenly seized with the urge to run away from home. It was a metaphor that perhaps even he did not understand.

"I want to do this, Abby," he said. He went to her, his eyes glittering. Feverish. "I put in an offer, on this boat. That's why I got home so late. I was meeting with the broker."

"You made an offer without telling me?Without even calling me?"

"I know it sounds crazy-'

"How can we afford this thing? I'm way over my head in debt! It'll take me years to pay back my student loans. And you're buying a boat?"

"We can take out a mortgage. It's like buying a second home."

"This isn't a home."

"It's still an investment."

"It's not what I'd invest my money in."

"I'm not spending your money."

She took a step back and stared at him. "You're right," she said quietly. "It's not my money at all."

"Abby." He groaned. "Jesus, Abby-'

The rain was starting to fall again, cold and numbing against her face. She walked back to the car and climbed inside.

He got into the car as well. For a moment, neither one of them spoke. The only sound was the rain on the roof. He said, quietly, "I'll withdraw the offer."

"That's not what I want."

"What do you want?"

"I thought we'd be sharing more. I don't mean the money. I don't care about that. What hurts is that you think of it as your money. Is that how it's going to be?Yours or mine? Should we call in the lawyers now and draw up the prenuptial agreement? Divide up the furniture and the kids?"

"You don't understand," he said, and she heard a strange and unexpected note of desperation in his voice. He started the car.

HARVEST

They drove halfway home without speaking.

Then Abby said: "Maybe we should rethink the engagement.

Maybe getting married isn't really what you want, Mark."

"Is it what you want?"

She looked out the window and sighed. "I don't know," she murmured. "I don't know any more."

It was the truth. She didn't.

Tragedy Claims Family of Three While Dr. Hennessy and his family slept through the night, a killer was creeping up the basement steps. Deadly carbon monoxide gas, produced by a faulty furnace, is blamed for the NewYear's Day deaths of 34-year-old Hennessy, his wife Gail, 33, and their 6-month-old daughter Linda. Their bodies were discovered late that afternoon by friends who'd been invited to the house for dinner…