by Chelsea Cain
Archie blinked blearily. It was dark outside and the lights in his room had been adjusted to their dimmest setting, giving the space a faint golden glow, just enough light to find the bathroom, and not enough to read by. “What time is it?” he muttered.
“Eleven-thirty,” she said. “Halloween’s almost over.”
She returned her gaze to the blood pressure cuff on his arm and Archie saw a figure curled on the love seat under the window over her shoulder. He thought it was Henry until he saw the black and white hair.
“She’s been here for hours,” the nurse whispered.
She removed the cuff, jotted down the blood pressure reading in his chart, and then stood. “I’ll let you get back to sleep,” she said with a mild smile. She walked to the door and paused. Her long ears threw a shadow on the blue wall. “Want the lights off?” she called softly.
“No,” Archie said, his eyes still on Susan. “You can leave them how they are.”
The rabbit nurse left noiselessly, leaving the lights on their muted setting. Archie used the remote on the side of his bed to adjust the mattress angle slightly so he could see Susan a little better. She was wearing clothes he’d never seen her in before—strange pants and a shirt that looked like something someone would bring back from an island vacation. The low light was just enough to illuminate the features of her face, serene with sleep, blemished only by the stark white bandage that covered her ear. Her knees were curled to her chest. Her head was resting on one hand like a child, and her other arm, the one in the sling, was draped across her belly. He could see her breathing, the slight rise and fall of her body against the baby-blue fabric of the couch. He watched her for a long time. Sometimes her bare feet would twitch or she would go to move her bad arm in her sleep and then her face would tense and her arm would settle back against her side.
Archie liked having her here.
He could have watched her all night.
He didn’t even see her open her eyes. He was just watching her and after a while he became aware that she was watching him, too. Her breathing hadn’t changed, her body was still, but her green eyes were wide and alert. Then she sat up and yawned.
“I guess I fell asleep,” she said.
“I guess so,” Archie said.
“What time is it?” Susan asked, looking around.
“Late,” Archie said. “How are you?”
Susan put a hand on her shoulder. “My shoulder’s okay. They said I might have had permanent damage if she hadn’t fixed it when she did.”
“She?” Archie asked. Then the implication hit him. “You mean Gretchen?”
“Yeah,” Susan said, flustered. “Sorry. I forgot you were unconscious. She fixed it before she left.”
Archie felt a prickling sensation creep up his arms. “Did she say anything?” he asked.
Susan rubbed her eyes with her good hand. “I’ve been through all this with Sanchez and the others,” she said. She laid her head on the back of the couch, and her face fell into shadow. “She said it had been fun. And that help would be there soon. And that I should keep you warm. Then she left.”
“Claire said by keeping me warm you saved my life.”
Susan shrugged. “I just did what Gretchen told me.” She paused. “Do you remember much?” she asked tentatively.
“Not really,” Archie said. He tried to review the fragments of memory he had gathered, to put them in order. “I remember firing the gun, and then it all goes black.”
Susan exhaled and he thought he saw relief in her body language.
“I can’t see your face,” Archie said.
Susan lifted her head. “What?”
“I want to see you,” Archie said. “Come closer.”
Susan looked confused, but she stood up and padded over to his bed in her bare feet. As she got closer, she moved from shades of gray and gold to full color, her face pink and freckled, her emerald eyes watching him intently. “Where’s Rachel?” she asked.
Archie didn’t even begin to know where to start. “She’s…”—he searched for the right words—“gone,” he said. “It didn’t work out.”
“I never liked her,” Susan said. She shook her head and groaned, “Blondes.”
She wavered slightly on her feet without seemingly noticing. “Leo and I broke up,” she said.
Archie patted the edge of his bed with his hand and she sat down, facing him. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said. “Not yet. My mom brought caramel apples,” she added. “If you want one.”
“I’m not that hungry,” Archie said.
“They don’t have razor blades or anything,” Susan said.
“I didn’t think they did,” Archie said.
Susan struggled to hold back a yawn and lost, her mouth widening as she closed her eyes and emitted a silent yowl. Then she gazed at him blearily. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you a birthday present,” she said.
“I think I’ve had enough presents this year,” Archie said.
Susan scratched her arm. “I’m so tired,” she said. “They gave me a pill. How do you take those things?”
“Come on,” Archie said, moving over to make room for her in the narrow bed. Susan hesitated only for a moment before she folded herself on her side next to him. The bed was small, but there was room for both of them if Archie kept his legs straight and his arms at his sides, Susan on top of the covers, Archie underneath. Susan’s face was at his shoulder, her nose and lips almost grazing his skin. Her knees pressed gently against his stitches, but he didn’t move. She closed her eyes and he watched her as her breathing slowed and equalized. Her foot twitched and Archie saw that a small yellow leaf was stuck there, on the bottom of her foot, clearly the same leaf that Henry had finally lost off his boot.
Archie smiled at that, and maybe it was the morphine, but he felt strangely happy. Lying there next to her, he thought that maybe he could remember what Claire had said about Susan warming him with her body. He had a memory of being very, very cold and then there being a warm presence beside him.
He glanced over at the bedside table where the balled-up piece of paper still lay. Then, very slowly, careful not to wake Susan, Archie reached over her and plucked the wad of paper from the table. He brought it to his chest, his hand trailing IV lines, and with a glance at Susan, he gingerly uncrumpled the square of yellow paper and flattened it out. He had a second copy at home, written in Gretchen’s elegant handwriting, but Archie had a feeling that Henry had found it and destroyed it. The ten digits stared back at him from the wrinkled yellow paper. They were his connection to Gretchen. “If you need me, darling,” she’d said. Archie had looked at the telephone number so many times that he thought he knew it by heart, but now the digits looked unfamiliar to him, already reordering and fading in his memory.
Archie glanced at Susan. Then he closed his hand, crumpling the note in his fist. A plastic trash bin sat against the wall on the other side of his IV pole. Archie tossed the balled-up Post-it note at it overhand and it sailed through the air and into the trash.
Then he settled back into the bed with Susan. He was suddenly wide awake. Susan squirmed in her sleep, and Archie had to brace himself as her knee pressed again into his tender stitches, but he didn’t care. He stayed very still, trying to be as small as possible, to give her enough room to be comfortable. Her mouth was open slightly, and her breath was hot against his shoulder, making the hair on the back of his neck bristle. His wound didn’t hurt while he was still, and the morphine filled him with a woozy contentment. Susan moved in her sleep again and flopped a foot across his shin. He stayed awake for a long time, watching her like that, and then, finally, he slept.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks, as always, to my writing group: Chuck Palahniuk, Lidia Yuknavitch, Monica Drake, Erin Leonard, Mary Wysong, Suzy Vitello, Diana Jordan, and Cheryl Strayed. You could all write these books by now. My good friend and editor, Kelley Ragland, has unfailing instincts w
hen it comes to my work, and has made this book better in a hundred ways. Joy Harris and Adam Reed, your awesomeness knows no bounds. Andy Martin and George Witte, you have always been my champions, and I will always be grateful to you. Hector DeJean, my publicist at Minotaur, thank you for being tall and able to talk comics, and thank you for all that publicity stuff, too. Everyone at St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur is so classy and decent and smart. My husband and best friend, Marc Mohan, gave me a skull for Christmas. “I know you like dead things,” he said. How lucky am I? Eliza Fantastic Mohan, this is the book I wrote when you were in first grade and finished when you were in second grade. If you are reading this, and you are under twenty-five, you are in big trouble, missy. A terrific bookstore here in Portland—Murder by the Book—will have gone out of business by the time this book is published. They have always been lovely to me and have hosted wonderful events, and they will be missed. Go buy a book at a local independent bookstore in their memory. Courtenay Hameister, Jason Rouse, and Sean McGrath, thank you for occasionally inviting me into the LiveWire writers’ room. There is nothing like sketch comedy to cleanse the palate after a day of unapologetic heathenism and murder. Allison Frost and the gang at OPB’s Think Out Loud, I do a little dance every time you invite me to be a Culture Club guest. Thank you, Bill and Mary, for the surveillance, and for the absinthe. And last, the world lost a good dog this year. Franklin, the Australian shepherd who finds the skeleton at the beginning of The Night Season, has died. He never did find a human corpse in real life, but he gave it one hell of a go and I think he got close a couple of times.
ALSO BY CHELSEA CAIN
Kill You Twice
The Night Season
Evil at Heart
Sweetheart
Heartsick
About the Author
CHELSEA CAIN’s first five novels featuring Archie Sheridan were all New York Times bestsellers. Also the author of Confessions of a Teen Sleuth, a parody based on the life of Nancy Drew, and several nonfiction titles, she was born in Iowa, raised in Bellingham, Washington, and now lives in Portland, Oregon. Visit her at www.chelseacain.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
LET ME GO. Copyright © 2013 by Verite Inc. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by Ervin Serrano
Cover photographs by Dan Barnes/Getty Images and Hayden Verry/Arcangel Images
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Cain, Chelsea.
Let me go / Chelsea Cain. — First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-312-61981-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-02238-7 (e-book)
1. Sheridan, Archie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Ward, Susan (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Women journalists—Fiction. 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.A385L38 2013
813'.6—dc23
2013009825
e-ISBN 9781250022387
First Edition: August 2013