Tess Gerritsen - Bloodstream

Her red hair was matted, shot through with gray. Her mouth hung open. Her sleep was a noisy rhythm of whistles and grunts. And yet he did not feel disgust when he looked at her. Rather he felt pity, and disbelief that he had ever been in love with her.

And a sense of stifling and never-ending responsibility for her welfare.

She would need a blanket, He turned toward the hail closet and heard the telephone ring. Quickly he answered it, afraid that it would wake Doreen and ignite the scene he dreaded.

It was Pete Sparks on the line. “I’m sorry to call you so late,” he said, “but Dr. Effiot insisted. She was going to call you herself if I didn’t.”

“Is this about the slashed tires? Mark already called me about it.”

“No, it’s something else.”

“What happened?”

“I’m at her medical building. Someone’s smashed all the windows.”

Glass was everywhere, bright shards littering the carpet, the magazine table, the waiting room couch. Through the broken windows, now open to the night air, wisps of snow slithered in and settled like fine lace on the furniture.

Stunned and silent, Claire moved through the waiting room to the business office. The window above Vera’s desk had been smashed as well, and slivers of glass and broken icicles sparkled on the computer keyboard. Wind had blown loose papers and snow into drifts throughout the room, a blizzard of white that would soon melt to soggy heaps on the carpet.

She heard Lincoln’s boots crunch across the glass. “Plywood’s on the way, Claire. There’s more snow predicted, so they’ll get those windows boarded up tonight.”

She just kept staring down at the snow on her carpet. “It’s because of what I said at the meeting tonight. Isn’t it?”

“This isn’t the only building that’s been vandalized. There’ve been several this week.”

“But this is the second time for me in one night. First my tires. Now this.

Don’t you dare tell me this is a coincidence.”

Officer Pete Sparks came into the room. “Not having much luck with the neighbors, Lincoln. They called in when they heard the breaking glass, but they didn’t see who did it. It’s like that incident down at Bartlett’s garage last week. Smash and run”

“But Joe Bartlett had only one broken window,” she said. “They’ve smashed all of mine. This is going to shut me down for weeks.”

Sparks tried to be reassuring. “It should only take a few days to get those windows replaced.”

“What about my computer? The ruined carpet? The snow’s gotten into everything.

The data will have to be replaced, and all my billing records reconstructed. I don’t know if it’s worth it. I don’t know if I even want to start over again.”

She turned and walked out of the building.

She was huddled in her truck when Lincoln and Sparks emerged a short time later.

They exchanged a few words, then Lincoln crossed the street to her pickup truck and slid into the seat beside her.

For a moment neither of them spoke. She kept her gaze focused straight ahead, and her vision blurred, the twirling lights of Sparks’s cruiser softening to a pulsating haze. Quickly, angrily, she wiped her hand across her eyes. “I’d say the message came through loud and clear. This town doesn’t want me here.”

“Not the whole town, Claire. One vandal. One person-”

“Who probably speaks for a lot of other people. I might as well pack up and leave tonight. Before they decide to burn down my house.”

He said nothing.

“That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” she said, and she finally looked at him. “That I’ve lost any chance of making it here.”

“You made it hard on yourself tonight. When you talk about shutting down the lake, it threatens a lot of people.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, you had to say it, Claire. You did the right thing, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

“No one’s come up to shake my hand.”

“Take my word for it. There are others who have concerns about the lake.”

“But they’re not going to close it down, are they? They can’t afford to. So they shut me up instead, by doing this. By trying to drive me out of town.” She looked at her building. “It’s going to work, too.”

“You’ve been here less than a year. It takes time-”

“How long does it take to be accepted in this town? Five years, ten? A lifetime?” Reaching down, she turned on the ignition, and felt the initial blast of cold air from the heater.

“Your office can be repaired.”

“Yes, buildings are easy to fix.”

“It can all be replaced. The windows, the computer.”

“And what about my patients? I don’t think I have any left after tonight.”

“You don’t know that. You haven’t given Tranquility a chance.”

“Haven’t I?” She straightened and looked at him in fury. “I’ve given it nine months of my life! Every minute, I worry about my practice, about why my appointment book is still half empty. Why someone hates me enough to send anonymous letters to my patients. There are people here who want me to fail, and they’re doing their best to drive me out of town. It’s taken me this long to realize it’s never going to get better. Tranquility doesn’t want me, Lincoln.

They want another Dr. Pomeroy, or maybe Marcus Welby. But not me.”

“It takes time, Claire. You’re from away, and people need to get used to you, to feel confident you’re not going to abandon them. That’s where Adam DelRay has the advantage. He’s a local boy, and everyone assumes he’ll stay. The last doctor who came here from another state left after eighteen months. Couldn’t take the winters. The doctor before him stayed less than a year. The town doesn’t think you’ll last, either. They’re holding back, waiting to see if you make it through the Winter. Or if you’ll give up and leave town like the other two did?’

“It’s not winter that’s driving me away. I can take the darkness and the cold.

What I can’t take is the feeling I don’t belong. That I’ll never belong?’ She released a deep breath, and her anger suddenly dissolved, leaving only a feeling of weariness. “I don’t know why I thought this Would work. Noah didn’t want to move here, but I forced him. And now I see what a stupid thing it was to do..

“Why did you come, Claire?” He’d asked the question so softly it was almost lost in the whisper of air from the heater.

It was a question he had never asked her, an elementary piece of information about herself she had never shared. Why I came to Tranquility. Now as he waited for her answer, the silence stretched between them, magnifying her reluctance to confide in him.

He sensed her discomfort and shifted his gaze to the street, granting her some measure of privacy. When he spoke again, it was almost as if the words weren’t directed at her, that he was merely sharing his thoughts with no one in particular.

“The people who move here, from other places,” he said, “most times it seems to me they’re running away from something. A job they hate, an ex-husband. An ex-wife. Some tragedy that’s shaken their lives.”

She sagged sideways and felt the icy window against her cheek. How does he know? she wondered. How much has he guessed?

“They come here, these people from away, and they think they’ve found paradise.

Maybe they’re on summer vacation. Maybe they’re just driving through, and the name of the town catches their fancy. Tranquility. It sounds safe, a place to run to, a place to hide. They stop at the local realty office and look at the photos on the wall. All the farmhouses for sale, the cottages on the lake.”