For the Rest of My Life

by Harry Kraus

  “It’s all money we will recoup within the first year of production.” Leon walked back to the table. “Harvard, where are the projections I showed you?” Then, turning to Mr. Sugimoto, he continued. “Let me show you my figures. I’m sure you’ll agree.”

  “Slow down, Mr. McCall. We have not even signed a contract for buyout, and already you are wanting to show me earnings projections.”

  Leon cast a glance toward Harvard and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “Okay, um, sure, I’m sure there will be time for this later.”

  Mr. Sugimoto came over and stood over the stack of contracts.

  “Have a seat, please. And here,” Leon said, sliding a wrapped gift box across the table. “I’ve bought you a new pen for the formalities.”

  Leon sat and pushed a button on the intercom. “Til? Could you bring us some coffee?”

  Mr. Sugimoto did not sit down. Instead he started shaking his head slowly, looking at the contract in front of him. “I am very sorry to say this, Mr. McCall, but we have decided to withdraw our offer.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Billy Ray pressed his ear closer to the pay phone to hear. “I’m not askin’ you to give me medical information. I’m a friend, that’s all. I want to visit her, you know? Can’t you just tell me her room number?”

  The female sighed. “Hold on.”

  He waited, tapping his fingers against the phone.

  “I’m sorry, sir, we have no one by the name of McCall in the hospital.” The female voice was pleasant. Billy Ray wondered if she was as pretty as she sounded.

  “Was she there? She’s supposed to be there.”

  “Sir, she may have been here in the past. I’m not privileged to give you that information.”

  She must have been discharged!

  “Okay, thank you,” he said, before hanging up.

  He checked his watch and walked toward his truck. “Now don’t that beat all.”

  He wasn’t expecting her to be discharged so soon. Now he would have to alter his evening plans. He had thought about going over to Brighton to sneak into Lena’s hospital room, but knowing Dr. McCall was going to be home would change all that.

  He slapped his hand on the seat beside him and cursed. He wasn’t ready for an all-nighter. It wasn’t close enough to the weekend for that.

  But the cops were inept in Stoney Creek. If he could count on one thing, he was sure he could bet on that.

  He started the truck and slammed it in reverse. Maybe he could grab a quick nap before it got too late.

  He squealed his tires as he pulled onto the highway, making a mental list of the supplies he would need.

  He looked around at his empty gun rack. I may need my shotgun for this.

  Claire talked to Wally like he understood every word. She helped him drink some thickened lemonade and promised to buy him some new socks. She told him about her surgery, about how weird it was being the patient, and how she had talked to Della, whom she had to convince to stay in Hawaii. She talked about the weather, about baseball and the Atlanta Braves. In fact, she managed to hit the high points of all of his favorite subjects except one: his friend, John Cerelli. That was one place she didn’t want to go.

  She thought Wally had been in Hawaii when he was in the Navy, but she wasn’t sure, so she asked him, but her father didn’t say one word during her entire visit. Eventually, she just gave up and left with Lucy, giving him a promise she’d come back the next day to see him.

  When they arrived, it was almost ten, and Claire had to convince Lucy to go home so she could get some sleep. Lucy had protested, to be sure, and waited until Claire got through to the Stoney Creek Police dispatch and received a call back from Randy Jensen, who promised to keep her house under tight watch.

  Claire set the phone down on the nightstand beside her bed. “He’ll be watching.”

  Lucy forced a smile. “That makes me feel better.”

  “I’ll be okay. Think about it, Lucy. No one even expects me to be home so early.”

  “I guess so.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure Lee could sleep without me anyway. We haven’t slept apart in thirty-three years, you know.”

  “Wow.”

  “I’m going to check the locks again. You have your mace?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She responded with the tone of an irritated teen talking to her mother.

  “You call me first thing in the morning, hear?”

  In a minute, Lucy reappeared in Claire’s bedroom. “Everything’s tight.

  I even checked the window. Don’t even think of answering the door.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Follow me to the door, so you can lock me out.”

  Claire obeyed, then did a slow walk through the house herself, missing the sounds of her father and feeling alone. Her stomach muscles ached. She was exhausted. But she knew her preparations for the night weren’t yet complete. In her mother’s room, she pulled open the filing cabinet which doubled as Della’s nightstand. There, behind the files of the bottom drawer, she found what she was looking for. She picked up the Colt pistol and weighed it in her hand. It was another gift from Uncle Leon, something he thought every woman without a man to protect her ought to learn to use.

  Claire often questioned her uncle’s motives. Everything for Leon came down to money. If it made him more, he was all for whatever was under consideration. So when he gave Della the pistol, Claire couldn’t think of a way it could possibly work in favor of Leon’s pocketbook. A possible connection was made by John, one afternoon that he’d taken Claire out back to practice firing a few rounds. “He probably wants Della to put Wally out of his misery one day. That way he can have his cut of Wally’s inheritance.”

  She knew John spoke in jest, but scolded him anyway. She wanted to forget it, but the thought returned to nag her like a fever blister, an ugly inconvenience that pops up after a stress. She’d bury the thought for a month or two again, and then up it would surface, especially on the days she saw her mother cry.

  She popped out the clip and loaded in a few shells. It was only .22 caliber, not suitable for a real gunfight, but all Uncle Leon thought Della could handle, and it could certainly do the job if you held the gun tightly against someone’s temple. Claire shook her head to dispel the horrid thought. She cocked the pistol, loading a bullet into the chamber, and smiled.

  Just let the Stoney Creek rapist try to pull a fast one on me. She did a second, slow circle through the house, turning on every light except the one in her bedroom. Once she was there, she lowered herself to the bed, noting that standing wasn’t too bad, and lying down wasn’t too bad. It was making the transition that provided her the biggest pain.

  She set the pistol on her nightstand and her pepper spray beneath her pillow, then switched the two and closed her hand around the grip of the pistol beneath her head. No, I might fire this thing if I start dreaming. Sleeping with a gun beneath her pillow seemed like overkill. She again switched the pepper spray with the pistol, placing it within reach on her nightstand.

  Her eyes stayed open until midnight, her mind alert to every creak of the old house. But at midnight, a gentle rain began to fall, and the rhythm of the raindrops soon soothed her troubled soul into slumber.

  Billy Ray pulled off the highway a hundred yards beyond and across from the McCall lane. There, the trees had been cut away for power lines and he had a relatively sheltered vantage point to watch.

  There were lights on in the house, and only one car in the driveway: Claire’s.

  From the point of the power lines, the road made a slight turn, making the McCall house even easier for Billy to see from his truck, and making his truck a little less obvious to folks traveling from town. In fact, in the last hour, he was sure he’d seen a county sheriff pass through twice, both times slowing to a crawl in front of the house, with the attention away from Billy Ray and right on the little McCall ranch-style home.

  He reached behind him and lifted a twelve-gauge shotgun fro
m the rack in his back window. He chambered a shell and put the safety on before setting the gun on the seat beside him.

  Perfect. Now all I have to do is wait.

  John Cerelli pulled off Interstate 64 and parked under an overpass to put the top up on his Mustang. Rain wasn’t in his plans and was slowing his progress during his unexpected return to Stoney Creek.

  He’d finally listened to his voice-mail at ten P.M., after dining with a new potential client. He left in haste, canceled his hotel reservations, and grabbed a liter bottle of Mountain Dew for the drive.

  He called ahead to the hospital in Carlisle, to find, to his amazement, that Claire was no longer registered as a patient.

  Home alone. Post-op.

  He finished with the last fastener and jumped back into the driver’s seat, before speeding back onto the interstate.

  Opportunities like this don’t present themselves every day.

  Claire slept fitfully, used to sleeping on her side or stomach, but was forced to lie on her back because of her incisions. When she slept, she dreamed. Distressing images intertwined with twinges of pain from her surgical sites to create a morbid hallucination. She was being raped. A man with a surgical mask was beginning to operate before the anesthetic had taken effect.

  She awoke and groaned, turned to one side and back again, and drifted into a dreamlike place between sleep and consciousness. John Cerelli, Margo, Dr. Branum, Mr. Sugimoto, Uncle Leon, Lucy, and Billy Ray all gathered to look at her appendix floating in a jar.

  She heard only one sound before she felt the full weight of her attacker, a heavy footfall on the floor beside her bed. She screamed as her senses were jarred into full alert. This was no dream!

  The room was dark. Her attacker had either closed the door to the hall or turned off the lights. His hands were on her neck and shoulders, pushing her back, then flipping her over so that her face was buried in her pillow.

  Deputy Jensen slowed as he neared the McCall house again, noting this time the absence of lights. He looked at his watch and wished for the passage of time. Night patrol around Stoney Creek could be dreadfully slow. He patted his pocket and reached for a cigar, something he indulged himself in only during his night shifts.

  He slowed further and lowered his window. “Blasted rain,” he muttered. That’s when he saw a reflection of his headlights off of a vehicle parked in the woods beyond the McCall lane. It was a red truck. He decided to pass slowly and turned around to come in from the other side where he would have a better angle to see the license plate.

  The shoulder where he stopped was soft, so he couldn’t get all the way off the road. His element of surprise would be lost, but he couldn’t risk not being seen by an approaching vehicle. He turned on his flashing blue lights and stopped the car with two wheels still on the highway. He spotlighted the truck license plate, but didn’t need that for an ID. He knew this vehicle by heart. It was Billy Ray Chisholm’s pride and joy.

  Randy Jensen mumbled to himself about Billy Ray’s foolishness and slipped from his vehicle, one hand on a strong flashlight and another on his firearm.

  Throbbing pain erupted from the back of Claire’s neck where her attacker held her face against her pillow. She locked her ankles together and prayed. He shoved her forward again, harder this time, until her eyes smashed against an object on the other side of her pillow. Color burst into her vision as her eye flattened.

  The pepper spray! She pulled her hand forward under her pillow and closed her fist around the small canister. She needed air, but she knew she’d dare not breathe in if she was able to just get off a shot of the spray.

  Seconds seemed like forever. She felt her lungs would burst. Finally, she had the moment she needed. As her attacker shifted his weight off of her neck, she wiggled her right hand up beside her ear. Hoping she had the spray pointed in the right direction, she clinched her eyes even tighter and began to spray.

  Her attacker screamed.

  The weight lessened and she rolled to her right, ignoring the pain in her abdomen. She gripped the pillow over her mouth and nose with her left hand, willing herself not to breathe. With the pepper spray pointed at her attacker’s face, she sprayed a second stream, as she slid to the floor and took her first gasp of air from under the bed.

  The man was howling now, his hands rubbing his eyes.

  Claire strained to see in the dim light. He was wearing a mask. She quickly slid against the wall and crawled to her feet. The spray had slowed her attacker, but he was not fleeing, perhaps because of the mask. He stumbled forward, reaching for Claire. His arms were making wide circles.

  Can he see me?

  She held her breath and huddled against the wall next to the nightstand.

  The man took another step and turned his head as if to listen. When he edged closer again, she leaped up and leveled the spray at his face.

  He fell backwards, tripping across the corner of the bed. Claire felt the top of the nightstand for the pistol, but closed her hand around a glass lamp. She tore the shade away and stood to her feet. She had the advantage now. Her attacker was writhing on the floor, his breath coming with distinct wheezing noises between retching coughs. She was not sure if he could see, but she knew the room and crawled across the bed with the lamp in hand, ripping the cord from the socket. When she reached the wall by the door, she flipped on the overhead light.

  Now, with her attacker in full view, she brought the lamp crashing onto his forehead.

  His hands were on his eyes, so he didn’t have a chance to prepare. Silence followed the shattering of glass. Claire moved quickly while the man lay motionless on the floor. She found the pistol on the table and her cell phone on the floor by the wall.

  She trained the pistol on her attacker and moved slowly into a crouching position. Blood streamed from his forehead. His hair was brown and curly, and his build muscular just like John’s and Billy Ray’s, but the smell was definitely Billy Ray. She reached for the mask and ripped it from his face. As the mask pulled free, his head snapped forward and thudded back against the floor. Cyrus?

  She quickly dialed 9–1–1.

  “Nine one one emergency.”

  Cyrus lifted his hand and began to moan.

  Claire asked for help and gave her address.

  Her maintenance man opened his eyes and coughed, then struggled to sit up to wipe away the blood running into his eyes.

  “I need help now.”

  Cyrus moaned. “You shouldn’t have done that, Dr. McCall.”

  “Stay put! I’ll shoot you,” she screamed.

  The 911 operator spoke again. “Calm down, ma’am. The police will be right there.”

  “Hurry!”

  She locked eyes with Cyrus, who shook his head and moved forward, cursing her.

  “Don’t move!”

  The 911 operator spoke again. “Please be calm. The police have been notified.”

  Claire steadied her grip on the pistol.

  Cyrus grinned and stood to his feet.

  She screamed into the phone. “Get me an ambulance. A man’s been shot!”

  She tossed aside the phone, held the pistol with two hands, and slowly depressed the trigger.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  John Cerelli turned up the music to overcome the sound of the rain pounding his windshield. He had ten miles to go. Ten miles that seemed like an eternity.

  He envisioned their reunion, a chance for him to pamper her through her recovery, a chance to prove he could be counted on to be there when she needed it.

  He only wished she would have called, but he supposed he understood. He had been the one to initiate this new distance between them. He squinted through the streaked windshield as a new sense of foreboding mounted. Claire was alone. Post-op and alone. God, keep her in your hands. Protect her from evil.

  Lightning streaked across the sky in front of him, illuminating the forest bordering the road. His windshield wipers thumped a rhythm just ahead of the tempo of the opera. He be
gan to sing along and pressed the accelerator closer to the floor.

  “L’amore ci guiderá.” Love will guide us.

  “Senza di te, il mio cuore non canterá mai piú.” Without you, my heart will never sing again.

  Randy Jensen tipped his hat forward so the rain ran off onto the ground and pointed the light into the truck’s cab.

  Billy Ray squinted.

  “Whatcha doin’ in there, Billy Ray?”

  Billy held up his hands to cover his face. “Turn that thing off, would ya? I’m just sittin’ here. What’s it look like?”

  “With a shotgun in your lap?” Jensen shone his light across the front of the cab. “You’re not getting ready to spot a deer, are ya, Billy Ray?”

  Billy Ray yawned. “I’m just watching, okay? I’m not hunting.”

  “What are you watching?” Jensen stepped back. “Get out of the truck!”

  Billy Ray reached for the door handle.

  “Put the gun aside!”

  The deputy watched Billy set his shotgun in the passenger seat, then turned and looked at the McCall house. “You watching for anything special? Turn around and put your hands on the truck!”

  “I’m here watchin’ Dr. McCall’s place. She just had surgery. She could be the next target.”

  Jensen didn’t understand. “You want me to believe you are waiting here to protect her?”

  Billy Ray spat on the ground. “I’m here to find the man you want.”

  Jensen scoffed. “You’re nuts if you think I’m buyin’ this.”

  “I’m here to protect me, Randy. You guys think I would be out here if my reputation weren’t on the line? I’m here because you guys are on the wrong track.”

  A sharp pop pulled their attention toward the McCall house. Jensen’s first thought was thunder, which had been occurring sporadically through the night. But this wasn’t thunder. It was quicker, a sharp report characteristic of gunfire.

  Billy Ray knew it right away. He pulled his hands away from the truck and held them up as if to ask, “Is this okay?”