Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

Why was she doing all these things? What did she have against his family and his neighbors on Willow Tree Court?

He couldn’t go to the police without getting Roseann in trouble. So he’d come here. On the way, he’d driven past the Arboretum, where Mr. Corson was murdered. Chris kept thinking how much he could have used Mr. Corson’s guidance right now.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened on the fourth floor. Chris started down the hospital corridor toward the Intensive Care Unit.

Courtney was the only one he could think of who might have some answers. She’d survived an attempt on her life. If nothing else, at least they could commiserate with each other over what had happened to their fathers. He hated comparing his dad with Mr. Hahn, who was pretty damn perverted — and pompous. But his dad and Mr. Hahn had both been exposed in similar sleazy situations.

As he turned the corner for the ICU, he heard someone’s cell phone go off.

“Mrs. Hahn,” he heard a woman say. “I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed to use cell phones in here.”

“Oh, leave me alone. Don’t you have anything better to do?” Mrs. Hahn replied, all huffy-sounding. And then her voice took on a sweet tone. “Hello?”

Chris almost bumped into a nurse, who was emerging from the ICU visitors’ lounge. She was shaking her head. “Arrogant bitch,” she muttered.

He saw Mrs. Hahn, sitting alone on one of the two tan, cushioned love seats in the small lounge area. A TV bracketed high on the wall was muted and tuned in to some afternoon talk show. The coffee and end tables all had magazines and boxes of Kleenex on them. The window looked out to the parking lot.

Mrs. Hahn had her cell phone to her ear. She suddenly stood up. Her purse dropped off the edge of the love seat and fell to the floor. “Goddamn you!” she yelled. “Who are you? Why are you doing this? Goddamn it!” She hurled the cell phone against the wall, and it smashed into several pieces that scattered on the carpet.

His mouth open, Chris stopped at the edge of the lounge area. Mrs. Hahn turned and flopped down on the love seat. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

“Mrs. Hahn, are you okay?” Chris asked, gently. He put down the dried flowers, picked up a Kleenex box, and offered it to her.

Without looking at him, she plucked a tissue from the box, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose.

“What was that about?” he asked.

“It’s this awful woman,” Mrs. Hahn said, her voice strained. “She hasn’t called since Jeremy — since before Mr. Hahn was arrested. I couldn’t tell anybody about the calls, because she kept saying Jeremy was. .” She took a deep breath. “Well, she said all these filthy things about him that I didn’t think were true at the time. I still don’t think it’s true — despite what everyone says.”

His brow furrowed, Chris gazed at her. “You mean, she told you ahead of time that he was involved with—”

“Yes,” she interrupted impatiently. “ ‘Lynette, did you know your husband likes to fuck teenage girls?’ ” she said in a scratchy, singsong, mocking voice. “I thought the calls started because some nut had seen me on TV when your mother was killed. But this woman kept calling. For a while there, I thought it was Molly. I couldn’t go to the police, because of what she was saying about my husband. He still hasn’t gone to trial. So I still can’t go to the police, and she knows it, goddamn it.”

“Molly was getting phone calls, too — about my dad,” Chris pointed out. He sat down on the arm of the love seat across from her. “Molly said my mom was getting harassed, too — by the same woman.”

“I knew about the calls to your mother,” Mrs. Hahn muttered, wiping her eyes. “But I didn’t know Molly was getting them, too.”

“You said it stopped for a while?”

She nodded. “After Mr. Hahn was arrested. This is the first one since then.”

“Can I ask what she said?”

“She said, ‘So, Lynette—’ ” Mrs. Hahn took on that crawly, mocking voice again. “ ‘How does it feel to have everything taken away from you?’ ”

Chris frowned. “That’s it?”

“No,” Mrs. Hahn whispered. “And then she said, ‘Now you know what you did to me.’ ”

“What does she mean by that?” Chris asked numbly.

“I have no idea.”

Chris got up and started collecting the broken parts to her cell phone. The battery had fallen out, and he put it back inside. The screen was cracked and the casing was in shards. He set everything on the coffee table in front of her. Then he picked up the flowers. “Is it okay if I see Courtney?” he asked.

Slouched in the love seat, Mrs. Hahn wiped her eyes again and nodded. “She was asleep earlier, but she should be up now.”

Chris walked down the corridor toward Courtney’s room. He wondered what the woman caller meant when she’d told Mrs. Hahn, “Now you know what you did to me.” Had Mrs. Hahn gotten this woman’s husband arrested in some kind of sex scandal? Did this woman have a daughter who was disfigured, maimed, or almost killed?

The last time he’d seen Courtney had been the afternoon before his dad had died. She’d been totally out of it, pumped full of drugs and painkillers. Her face had been so red and swollen that it had seemed almost twice its normal size. He’d barely recognized her.

The drapes in her room were closed now, but the TV was on — a Friends rerun. The light from the television flickered across her bed, which was raised near the headboard. Courtney was sitting halfway up. A bandage covered her right eye, but the other one was open. The swelling had gone down. Past the staples in her face and the shiny red skin, Chris could see a little bit of the old Courtney. But her blond hair had been shorn off, exposing a dark hole and pink scars where her right ear used to be. A tube was stuck in her nose, and she had another one in her arm. A third tube ran out from under the covers. That explained why one of the three bags hanging on a contraption at her bedside was full of urine.

Courtney’s uncovered eye seemed to catch sight of him, and a tiny smile flickered across her chapped, blistered lips. Her right hand rested on her stomach. The bandage didn’t quite camouflage the fact that her first two fingers were missing. The other hand worked the volume on the TV control. She put it on mute.

“Oh, crap, don’t look at me, Chris,” she murmured. She blocked his view of her face with her good hand. “I’m like something out of Night of the Living Dead. ”

Chris tried to smile. “Actually, you look better than you did the other day when I was here. The swelling’s gone down.”

“You were here?”

He nodded. “You were pretty well medicated.”

“Are those dead flowers for me?” she asked warily.

“Yeah, they’re dried , not dead.” He set them down on the dresser across from her bed. He noticed a big card with a cartoon nurse on the cover leaning against a vase of flowers.

“Actually, they’re very pretty, thanks,” Courtney said. She finally took her hand down. “I got a card there from Madison. Can you believe it?”

Chris picked up the card and opened it. Inside, Madison had written: Get well soon! I really miss you! XOX — Madison. He carefully put the card back. “So — are you in a lot of pain?”

“It’s not as bad as it was,” she muttered. “They have me on a ton of drugs. I’m going to be a Vicodin addict when I get out of here — and I’ll be a circus freak, too.”

“Don’t say that,” Chris whispered.

The uncovered eye glanced toward the drapes. “Why not? It’s true.”

“Do you know if they’re any closer to figuring out who did this to you?”