Jeff Abbott - Fear

‘There’s no need for shouting,’ Nancy said, unruffled. ‘You want me to call Doctor Vance?’

‘No,’ she said, not adding, She’s dead, you must not read the papers. ‘No. I’m just…’

‘Sad and lonely,’ Nancy said. ‘You want to come home with me, have dinner with me and Tony?’

An invitation, always extended.

‘No, thank you.’ Celeste fought back fresh tears. ‘Nancy, Doctor Vance is dead.’ Shock blossomed on Nancy’s face. Celeste told her the news accounts.

‘My God.’ Nancy sat on the edge of the bed.

‘So the paper said it might be a gas explosion, but what if it wasn’t, what if someone wanted to kill her?’ Celeste got up out of bed, started pacing the floor. She showed up unexpectedly, she acted weird, she asked me to keep her secret. From the hospital. But she couldn’t tell Nancy about Allison’s request – Nancy would call the police, they would come, then the press… no. Never again. But she should call the authorities… tell them what Allison had said. What if it was important? What if Allison had been murdered? That thought, one she’d been keeping at bay, rushed at her like an avalanche.

‘Honey. Listen to me.’ Nancy put an arm around her. ‘It was an accident, I’m sure, no one would want to hurt Doctor Vance.’

‘She works with crazy people. We’re dangerous.’ Celeste paced the floor.

‘You’re not crazy, dear…’

‘Yes, I am, I am crazy, Nancy.’ Celeste stumbled to the curtains, leaned against the wall. ‘The price I pay for not saving my husband…’

Nancy steered her back to the bed. ‘Did you stab Brian?’

‘No… no…’

‘Then you didn’t kill him. Banish that thought from your mind. You’re not responsible.’ Nancy shook her head. ‘You’re not nuts. Nuts is thinking that how you’re living is normal, and you know it’s not. Now. You’re not going to hurt yourself, are you?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I won’t.’

Nancy glanced at the fresh bandage on Celeste’s arm. ‘I better stay tonight.’

‘No. You have a life. Go live it.’

‘I’m staying.’

‘I won’t hurt myself. I’d rather be alone. Really. Please. I’ll call you if I need you.’

‘You’re alone too much. Have you eaten today?’

‘Breakfast. Before I saw the news.’

‘Then I’m going to make you a pot of vegetable soup before I go. I’ll get you a plate of cheese and crackers to snack on while it’s cooking.’

‘Stop being so nice.’

‘Stop acting like you don’t deserve it.’ Nancy gave her a hug and Celeste let her, although she didn’t much like being touched.

‘Thanks, Nancy.’

‘I don’t mean to sound insensitive to Doctor Vance,’ Nancy said, ‘but it might be wise to find another therapist.’

‘I don’t think I can face a new psychiatrist right now.’

‘Doctor Vance wouldn’t want your therapy to end.’

‘You’re right.’ She wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘I think I’ll go check my e-mail.’

‘You spend too much time on the computer. One day I’m gonna unplug that monster and wheel it to the street. Might get you out of the house.’ Nancy squeezed her hand and went off to the kitchen.

Celeste sat down at the computer. Allison had sat here; she’d seemed nervous. Skittish. Now she was dead, under extraordinary circumstances. Maybe one didn’t have anything to do with the other. Just because you had a weird day, then you died, it didn’t necessarily mean anything.

But the day Brian died had been off kilter. The coffeemaker broke; it gurgled in protest and wouldn’t brew. She dropped the egg carton pulling it from the refrigerator, spilling shells and yolks across the tile. So Brian said, I’ll run to the store and I’ll swing by Starbucks, babe, because now she got recognized everywhere she went in Atlanta, there was a checker there who always wanted to make a big deal about seeing the winner from Castaway. So Brian was gone when the Disturbed Fan she believed was a friend knocked on the door with his easy grin and she let him into the house because she trusted him, he was her fan club’s president, and then he pulled the knife and the gun and told her she and Brian were going to die, just as soon as Brian got home with the dozen eggs and hot coffee.

She closed her eyes, steadied herself in the chair. Brian walking in, her tied up and the Disturbed Fan starting to tuck the fabric between her lips, Brian calling, Babe, I got Sumatra, I hope that’s okay, and then it all ended, her life wadded up and thrown away.

She swallowed past the mountain in her throat. She hit the space bar on the keyboard, awakening her computer from sleep. She could dig around the system, see what Allison had done. Before Brian died, Celeste had been an accomplished programmer; now her computer was her only friend, aside from Nancy.

She checked the Sent Items folder in her e-mail program. Nothing unusual there; Allison hadn’t e-mailed anything from Celeste’s account. Next she dived to her Web browser and checked the history.

The list of sites the browser had visited yesterday scrolled down the screen. Odd. Celeste had spent much of Wednesday morning on Amazon, shopping for new books on PTSD, and those pages were cleaned from the browser’s history. But the sites she’d visited after Allison’s visit: Victor Gamby’s blog and discussion board for PTSD sufferers, CNN, and eBay, those sites’ addresses remained in the history list.

Which meant wherever Allison had gone on her Web browser, she’d then erased the entire history. She hadn’t wanted to leave a trail.

Celeste opened the various Microsoft Office programs, surveying the listing of recent files, to see if there was a file name she didn’t recognize. None. So Allison had not opened a Word document or spreadsheet, or she had cleaned out the history of files opened in those programs.

What had Allison said? Celeste frowned, trying to remember: I have all the programs I need on this disk.

‘Celeste, your snack is ready,’ Nancy called. ‘Come sit in here with me while I finish making your soup.’

‘All right.’ She wondered if there was a way to recover the cleaned-out history file. She’d have to research that once Nancy left.

The kitchen smelled of broth and chiles and she sat down to a plate of wheat crackers and grapes and Havarti cheese. Food. She needed this more than hours of crying in bed, although Allison deserved grieving. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome, sweetie.’

‘You’re right about finding another therapist,’ Celeste said. ‘Allison mentioned a Doctor Hurley at Sangre de Cristo. I’ll call him and set up an appointment.’

Nancy told her that was a good idea and took her leave. Celeste ladled out the simple soup into a bowl. It tasted wonderful; hot, spicy with green chiles. She ate two bowls of it and felt better.

She opened the Yellow Pages, found a number for Leland Hurley. She dialed the hospital, got connected to his voice mail, and left a message, asking him to call her regarding a doctor to take over her therapy. Then she added: ‘Allison acted… oddly the day she was here, Tuesday, and I need to talk to you about it.’ She felt disloyal but she knew Nancy was right; she couldn’t let her therapy stop. She wanted distraction, so she flopped on the sofa, powered on the TV, settled in to pass the time with an old Bob Hope comedy.

The doorbell rang. She clicked the TV to the channel that fed into the security camera on her front door. She didn’t know the man standing at her porch. He held up a sign to the camera, handwritten in block letters on white cardboard. It read I KNOW ALLISON’S SECRET.

She gaped at the screen in disbelief. The man gave the camera a polite wave.