Theresa Weir - Bad Karma

“I’ll take it.” Cleo pressed her hands against the mattress, shoving herself higher. The nurse left, and Daniel picked up the receiver from the bedside table and handed it to Cleo.

“ Adrian.” There was a softness to Cleo’s voice Daniel had never heard before.

“I’m fine,” she said. There was a pause. “I swear.”

Daniel turned and walked slowly from the room, the murmur of her voice carrying into the hallway. Or maybe his ears were just tuned to her frequency.

“No, Adrian. Don’t do that. Please. I’m fine. You don’t need to come.” Another pause. “You must wonder if it’s always going to be like this,” she said sadly. “Do you wonder if I’ll always be a burden to you?”

He must have answered in the negative, because her voice grew soft again, less tense. “I love you.”

That was followed by a long silence on her part. Daniel could imagine her brother asking questions Adrian didn’t want to ask.

“Yes,” she said. “They know who did it. They’ll find him… No, not yet, but they’ll arrest him very soon. I’m not in any danger… Yes, people are watching out for me.”

Another question. “No.” Her voice dropped. “I wasn’t raped. I swear. And even if I had been, well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, would it? Worse things have happened and I’ve gotten though them, haven’t I?” She was using a tone of voice Daniel was becoming familiar with-the bubbly bluff.

Then she told him again that she loved him and said goodbye.

Daniel left with a heaviness in his chest that he didn’t understand. The first thing he did when he got home was call Campbell ’s house. When no one answered, he called Campbell ’s office.

“Dr. Campbell is out of town,” the receptionist told him.

“Where’d he go?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Surely he left a number where he can be reached.”

“I’m sorry. The only number he left was his associate’s, in case of an emergency.”

“Isn’t that unusual?”

“No. They always take care of each other’s emergencies. It works out very well for both of them.”

Daniel hung up then put in a call to the state police.

“Crime scene was picked clean,” the head of investigations told him. “Nothing there.”

“Shit.” Daniel followed that with a few words of thanks then hung up. He left the station and headed for the hospital, stopping to pick up some clothes for Cleo on the way.

The IV monitor was beeping when Daniel appeared, two shopping bags in his hands.

“Clothes,” he said, dropping the bags on the bed. “No sign of your suitcase yet, so I figured the only stitch of clothing you have to your name is what you were wearing yesterday.”

“It wasn’t mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“The black slip. He gave it to me to put on.”

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

The nurse finally showed up to shut off the beeping machine. “We can take that needle out now,” she announced.

“Do you know what happened to her clothes?” Daniel asked.

“Her belongings should be in a bag in her closet.”

Daniel checked. “Are you sure this is where it would be?” he asked.

“Positive.”

The nurse loosened the tape on the back of Cleo’s hand then gently removed the needle. There were the customary release papers to sign, then the nurse bid Cleo a cheery farewell.

Alone with Daniel, Cleo picked up one of the bags he’d dropped on the bed. It felt weird to think of his going into a store and buying clothes for her.

Here they’d been as intimate as two people could be, yet his buying clothes seemed more familiar than the act of sex. Why? Was it because it would have required more thought on his part? Was it because he would have had to think about her, about her size, maybe even her likes and dislikes?

She hadn’t looked at his purchases yet, she told herself. For all she knew, he could have run into a store and grabbed the first thing he saw.

She pulled out a bundle of clothes. No pink polyester pantsuit, thank God. And nothing orange, which would have been even worse. And no Ozarks T-shirt. No, what he’d gotten was something she might have picked out herself. A skirt with a pattern of tiny flowers. A short-sleeved top with a V-neck. Panties. Plain bikinis of white cotton, with a bra to match. For her feet, sandals not unlike the ones she’d had.

She hadn’t cried, not once, during her entire ordeal. She hadn’t even begged for her life. But now she felt the pressure of tears against the back of her throat. She felt a stinging in her eyes. She blinked, her fingers curling tightly into the fabric of the top.

“Hey, if you don’t like them,” he said quickly, “I can get something else.”

He tried to take the clothes from her, but she wouldn’t let go.

“It’s okay.” His little show of panic got her past the danger point. She no longer felt like dissolving into a storm of weeping. “These are fine.”

“Right. Okay.” He dug into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a knife. He opened it and sliced the tags from the clothes. Finished, he threw the tags away and closed the knife blade against his leg before pocketing it. Then he stepped outside the door to give her privacy.

Cleo slipped on the panties, but couldn’t undo the knot in the gown. She ended up calling for Daniel’s help. She bent her head, chin to chest, while he fumbled at the back of her neck, untying the knot. Then he quickly disappeared again.

She let the gown fall to her waist, then went about trying to fasten the bra. Her arms were too weak, her fingers too stiff, and she had to give up. The top was easier. That was followed by the skirt, and finally the sandals, which she dropped to the floor, toed into position, and slipped on her feet. They were a half size too small, but it didn’t matter because of the open back. She stuck the bra in the bag.

Daniel appeared again, his eyes going over her, lingering on her chest, where the fabric clung to her breasts, then moving back to her face. “Okay?” he asked.

She grabbed the bag and stood, waiting a moment for a spell of light-headedness to pass.

Daniel had parked near the front door of the hospital, but her legs were shaking by the time she was inside the truck, Daniel closing the door behind her.

He was acting as if nothing had happened between them. And maybe that was good. She was in no shape to try to analyze the situation, if there was a situation to analyze. She didn’t know how to have any kind of relationship with anyone anymore. She didn’t want to know how. At least that’s what she told herself. It had been easy to be with Daniel that night because she’d thought she would never see him again. That knowledge had given her a freedom, a lack of inhibition, that she normally wouldn’t have had.

He put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb. “There are no leads on Campbell -”

“It’s just my word against his, and who’s going to believe me?” she finished for him.

“What do you think about going back to the barn? Maybe you could do that trance thing and pick up something.”

“Does that mean you no longer think I’m a fraud?”

“You may have faked it last time, but earlier… I’m thinking that was real.”

She thought about what she’d seen that day, about the hole in the ground. She’d assumed it was a premonition, that she was the one in the hole, but maybe not.

“Go to the barn,” she told him.

“I didn’t mean now. I meant when you’re feeling stronger. I saw how you were shaking.”

“I won’t be able to rest until Campbell is in jail. Drive me to the barn.”

It was early evening when Daniel pulled the truck to a stop in the same weed-filled lane he’d carried Cleo through the day before. All she recalled was a hazy sensation of relief, of feeling safe, the sun shining down with a brilliance that was blinding, the drugs Campbell had pumped into her, running warm and slow through her veins.