Jonathan Kellerman - The Conspiracy Club

“How are you doing?”

“Fine.” She bit her lip. “I’ve been going over what happened. I think I overreacted.”

“You didn’t,” said Jeremy. “It happened, and it was bad.”

“Well, that’s not very comforting.”

“It happened, Angela.”

“Of course it did. I never doubted it did, but-”

“I repeated it for emphasis,” he said. “Because eventually, you may start to doubt that it happened. Denial’s like that.”

“I’m denying ?” Her dark eyes flashed.

“It’s not a put-down. Denial’s not weakness- not neurotic. It’s a fact of life, a natural defense. Your mind and body will naturally want to protect themselves. Go with that. You may surprise yourself by feeling happy. Don’t fight that.”

“I may surprise myself?” she said. “What’s that, some sort of posthypnotic suggestion?”

“It’s a reasonable prediction.”

“I’m not close to happy.”

“Sooner or later you will be. The feelings will pass. But it happened.”

Angela stared at him. “All this advice.”

“Here’s more,” said Jeremy. “Stay away from him. He’s very bad news.”

“What do you-”

“Just stay away.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” she said. “This morning he was rounding, heading straight at me in the hall. I held my ground and when he saw me, he changed directions. Turned around and walked around to the other side. Took a circuitous route just to avoid me. So you see, he’s worried about me .”

If you knew. “Let’s keep it that way.”

“What are you saying, Jeremy? You don’t think I can handle him?”

“I’m sure you can. Just avoid him. Listen to me. Please.” He took hold of her shoulders, drew her close.

“This is scaring me a little.”

Good.

“If you’re careful, there’s nothing to be scared of. Promise me you’ll stay away from him. And look out for yourself.”

She pulled away from him. “Jeremy, you’re really freaking me out. What is going on?”

“He’s a bad guy, I can’t say more.”

“What? That heart patient who died? Did you learn something about that?”

“That may be part of it.”

“Part of it- God, what is going on?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“You come in here with all these dire pronouncements, and now you’re holding back? What’s gotten into you?”

“You’re off Thoracic, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Just do your work and stay away from him.” He smiled. “Don’t take candy from strangers.”

“Not funny,” she snapped. “You can’t just-”

“Do you think,” he said, “that I want to upset you?”

“No- I don’t know. I wish I knew what’s come over you. Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”

He thought about that.

“Because I’m not sure.”

“About Dirgrove?”

“About everything he’s done.”

“Everything.” Her eyes got hard. “This is about her- Jocelyn- isn’t it- and don’t close up the way you did when I hinted around about her the other day. I know you went through hell, know I can never really understand it. But don’t you think, with what’s happened to us- with how close we’ve gotten so quickly- that you could trust me enough to not throw up barriers?”

Jeremy’s head pounded. He wanted to hold her, kiss her, drive her away. “It’s not a matter of closing up,” he said, softly. “There’s just nothing to talk about. And this isn’t the time.”

“Nothing,” she said. “You go through something like that and nothing?”

Jeremy didn’t answer.

She said, “That’s the way it has to be, huh?”

“For the time being.”

“Okay,” she said. “You’re the expert on human emotions- I’ve got to go. You pulled me away just as we were going to conference with the chief. Tropical pulmonary disease. Maybe I’ll take a rotation in some jungle clinic.”

Jeremy’s head filled with teeming, squirming insects.

“The jungle,” he said, “is an interesting place.”

She gaped at him as if he was mad, walked around him, avoided touching him, made it to the door, and turned the knob hard.

He said, “When will you be free?”

“Not for some time,” she said, without looking back. “You know how it is. The schedule.”

He finished his charts, talked to Ramirez about Doug Vilardi, and paged Angela from a phone on Five West. No reply. Returning to his office, he repeated the page. His beeper remained silent. He tried the nursing station on chest ward, the residents’ locker room, the House Staff office. Zip.

Two hours had passed since he’d angered her, and he found himself missing her.

Being alone was different, now. No longer part of him, a phantom limb.

You couldn’t miss someone after two hours. Silly.

And even if Angela shut him out for a while, it was all for the better. As long as she heeded him and stayed away from Dirgrove.

He thought she would, she was an extremely bright person, a well-adjusted person.

He thought of the obsessive-compulsive rituals to which she’d confessed.

A driven woman. All the better. In the end, good sense would prevail, and she’d stick with it.

Besides, he needed to be alone for a while.

Had work to do.

Night work.

Jeremy avoided scrutiny by keeping odd hours and entering the hospital through another out-of-the way rear door- one on the basement level that led to a loading bay. One of those forgotten places inevitable in a place as old and sprawling as City Central. Same level as Pathology and the morgue, but the opposite wing. Here, he passed laundry rooms, boiler housing, electrical entrails, storage space for defunct medical charts.

The guts. He liked that.

He kept to a schedule: saw Doug, and his other patients, at the assigned times, but left the wards by the stairs, rather than the elevators.

No coffee or meals in the DDR or the cafeteria. When he was hungry- which was infrequent- he grabbed something at a fast-food stand. His skin grew greasy, but that was the price you paid.

Once, as he stuffed french fries down his gullet without tasting, he thought: a far cry from foie gras. Cheap food sat in his gut, just dandy, thank you. Perhaps, he’d never been destined for better.

He made sure to check his mail at day’s end but received no more cards from Arthur, no surprises in interoffice envelopes.

They know: I’ve been educated sufficiently.

When he left the hospital, he put the place out of his mind. Concentrating on night work. Driving.

Cruising through the garbage-strewn alleys of Iron Mount, past the pawnbrokers and bail bondsmen and rescue missions and discount clothing stalls that filled the slum. A couple of times he headed out to Saugatuck Finger, where he removed his shoes despite the frozen air and walked barefoot in the hard, wet sand. No remnants of the crime scene remained, just beach and lake and gulls and ragged picnic tables. Behind the spit loomed the backdrop of big trees that would have served the killer so well.

Both times, he stayed for just a few moments, studying the rippling murk of the water, finding a dead crab here, a storm-buffeted rock, there. When the rain came, so cold it was a step away from sleet, he allowed it to pummel his bare head.

Sometimes he cruised the industrial stretch that separated the two kill spots and wondered where the next woman would be found. Driving openly, with the Nova’s radio blasting oldies. Thinking about terrible things.

After dark, he took the scenic route, north. The same route that had led him to the gates of the Haverford Country Club and the brief, cool talk with Tina Balleron. This time, he stopped well before Hale gave way to estate acreage, at the far end of the boulevard, where he motored slowly up chic, elm-shaded streets edged with bistros and boutiques and custom jewelers and graystone town houses, until he found the kind of parking space he needed.