by K.M. Weiland
Chapter Forty-Six
Chris had no sooner closed his eyes in Lael than Brooke’s voice pierced the haze in his head.
“I’m telling you he’s gone completely off his rocker!”
He opened his eyes and found himself staring at the off-white wall of what looked distinctly like a hospital room. So Brooke had somehow dragged him to Lakeshore Psychiatric after all. He stifled a groan. He’d almost forgotten about the mess he’d left back in Chicago. Watching her Land Rover disappear apparently hadn’t been enough to convince her he was telling the truth.
“Chris might be crazy, but he’s not crazy crazy.” That was Mike. “Not crazy enough to be in here.”
“Your assurance on that point seems rather wobbly,” interjected an unfamiliar woman, her pronunciation crisp and professional. “Last night, you said perhaps his being here was for his own good.”
Brooke didn’t give Mike a chance to answer. “You didn’t see him the other day.” Her voice pitched high. “And you didn’t see what happened either. I’m telling you he took my car. It just . . . disappeared, along with all his—his clothes. And everything else!”
“Give me a break,” Mike said. “Now who’s not making any sense?”
The professional woman murmured something.
Chris rolled out of bed. He was wearing only a hospital gown and had to scrounge around until he found the duffel someone must have brought from the hotel. As he hurried into his clothes, he could see, through the mesh-reinforced glass window in the door, Mike towering over Brooke and a woman in aqua scrubs.
“You can’t keep him here against his will,” Mike said.
“Since he has been unconscious for the past twenty-four hours, the orientation of his will remains rather ambiguous.”
“Can’t you just try to wake him up? I’ve got a little bit of an emergency on my hands, and—”
“When and how your friend is woken up is in the hands of specialists. Whatever your emergency may be, I’m sure it could hardly be as important as the state of Chris’s mental health.”
Mike rubbed the top of his head, a sure sign he was about to lose his temper. “If somebody doesn’t let him know what’s going on, this whole hospital is going to be in a state of emergency when he wakes up.”
The woman clicked her pen against her clipboard. “You’re saying he’s prone to violence?”
“Well, I’d say, yes—” Brooke said.
Mike snapped her a glare. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
Chris buttoned his pants and crossed the room to open the door.
The nurse, a narrow-faced woman with spiked hair, turned around. Practiced placidity ironed the surprise out of her face. She laid a hand on his arm to keep him in the doorway.
“Chris. You’ve had quite a nap.” She glanced at his newly donned clothes. “Why don’t we go back into your room. You can sit down, and we can have a talk.”
Mike shouldered in front of her. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” He looked past Mike to where Brooke stood back. “About your Land Rover. I’m sorry about that.”
Her eyes were wide and she hugged herself. “What’d you do with it?” she asked, then immediately paled, as if sorry she’d asked.
“Um.” He glanced at the nurse, then back. “It may be a few days, but let’s just say I’ll try to return it to you as soon as I can.” Assuming, of course, the Koraudians hadn’t torn it apart. “I’ll explain it all to you then.”
“Explain it to me, why don’t you?” Mike said. “I can’t get anything that makes any kind of sense out of her. And here you are sleeping all day and all night, but nobody can find anything wrong with you.”
He took a breath. “You want the long story or the short?”
“What do you think?”
“Okay, short answer: I already explained it, and you didn’t believe me.”
Brooke let out a hopeless groan, but Mike stared him down. Something in the twitch of his eyelids said he almost believed this story from the other day. Or maybe it was more that he believed in Chris, and even Chris’s impossible story wasn’t quite enough to unseat that belief.
The nurse tried to shepherd him back into his room. “Come on, hon. How about we sit down and talk about all this in a more comfortable setting? You can tell us whatever you want whenever you’re ready. How’s that’s sound, hmm?”
Mike rattled his car keys. “Actually, we need to go. You’ve got yourself a little problem to deal with.”
Chris’s pulse sped up, and he backed out of the nurse’s grip. “Kaufman?”
“Tell you on the way.” Mike took Chris’s other arm and started walking away. He glanced at Brooke. “You coming?”
She stepped back. “I am not getting in the same car with him.” Her gaze darted to Chris. “I’m sorry. But we don’t even know how sick you are right now.”
Frown lines enclosed the nurse’s mouth. “Now, now, we don’t need any accusations—”
Mike scowled at Brooke. “How are you going to get home?”
She glared back. “You can pick me up after you’ve dropped him off.”
“Fine.” He pulled Chris away.
“Wait!” The nurse’s shoes squeaked behind them. “He is in no condition to leave. He just woke up. We haven’t established anything about his mental condition!”
“Why do you think I signed his release papers?” Mike said.
They wound their way to the exit and pushed through a door into the cooler air of the foyer.
Mike shot a glance at Chris. “The first thing you should know is I had nothing to do with Brooke showing up at your hotel and trying to talk you into that involuntary commitment. Second thing you should know is I’m not so sure she wasn’t right.” He stopped at the door. “What happened to her car?”
Chris huffed a sigh. “It’s in the same place as Mactalde.”
Mike’s nod was slow and deliberate. He opened the door. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
They stepped outside, and the cold smacked Chris in the face. The sky swirled, and hailstones littered the streets in knee-high piles. Windows, windshields, even traffic lights had broken to fragments.
He stopped short. “No way. Here too?”
Mike’s frown deepened. “Weird things are happening everywhere. Tsunamis in Australia, earthquakes in Texas, flooding in South America.” Next to his Bug, he stopped and unlocked the driver’s door. He watched Chris over the roof. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“I just escaped the quack house, and I’d prefer not to make a repeat visit. So forget about me, and tell me about this emergency of yours.”
“Harrison Garnett’s disappeared.” Mike dropped into his seat. He reached across to unlock the passenger door and ground the engine to life while Chris climbed in. “Happened last night.”
Chris slammed his door and tried to sort out days and weeks in his mind. “He was released?”
“Not exactly. He ripped out his IVs and oxygen and beat it out of there under his own power.” Mike gunned the car in reverse and skidded onto the street. “The police called my house, wanting to know if you knew where he’d gone.”
“How do they know he wasn’t abducted?”
“They’ve got a security vid of him leaving by himself.” Mike swerved to pass a snowplow clearing away hail. “A nurse seems to think a phone call yesterday afternoon made him go.”
Chris thumped the back of his head against his seat. “Flores. Or Kaufman. Paranoid as Harrison is, a threat is all it would take to get him to bolt.”
“If he left because Flores called him, he’s probably walked right into a trap.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Harrison doesn’t think in straight lines like other people.”
The Bug’s rear wheel caught a hailstone pile and bucked. Chris braced both hands against the dashboard to keep from banging his forehead against the windshield.
The last thing he wanted to do right now was go chasing after Harrison Gar
nett. But Harrison wasn’t likely in any shape to be out there on his own. If Chris didn’t find him first, Flores probably would. He gnawed the inside of his cheek. He didn’t owe Harrison anything, but leaving him out there to get shot didn’t quite set well either.
He glanced at Mike. “Where would you go if you were crazy?”
“Of the two people in this car, don’t you think you’re more qualified to be answering that?”
“Thanks a lot.” He racked his brain. “Okay, let’s try this. Head for Hunter Street. The only place I know he’d go is home.”
“That’s halfway across the city. There’s no way he’d be able to make it there in his condition.”
“That’s where his safe house is. He’s been holed up there for years. He hardly knows how to function outside of it.”
He drummed his fist against his thigh and fought the urge to lean across the seats and take control of the wheel like he had the other day with Brooke. Who knew how long Harrison had been wandering the backstreets?
Mike turned on his blinker and eased onto the long stretch of North Lake Shore Drive. “The fact that you’re thinking like this guy isn’t making me any too sure about the wisdom of signing all those papers guaranteeing your sanity.”
_________
Twenty minutes later, Mike pulled the Bug around the corner of Hunter Street. Ahead, a man in a flannel coat hung onto a dog-wire fence and dragged himself down the sidewalk.
“That’s him. That’s Harrison.” Chris levered open the door handle and ducked out of the car before Mike even had a chance to stop.
Harrison tried to push himself upright but only managed to sag double over the fence. His breath wheezed white.
Chris held both hands where Harrison could see them. If the old codger had managed to get hold of any kind of a weapon, it was just possible he might try to use it on Chris before he recognized him. Or maybe after he recognized him.
“It’s me. Harrison, it’s me.”
Harrison blinked hard. “You. Don’t come near me, you.” He gasped for air.
Chris caught his shoulders before he fell over. “You should never have left the hospital.”
Harrison trembled, his bones practically rattling against each other within the sack of his skin. “They were after me. They’re still after me. And they’re after you too. You’re putting me in danger by being here!”
Chris hooked an arm under Harrison’s knees and carried him to the curb where Mike had parked the Bug. “What I’m doing is trying to save your life.”
Harrison grabbed the front of Chris’s T-shirt. “My life wouldn’t need saving if you hadn’t nearly got me killed in the first place!” His teeth chattered. “This is all your stupid, arrogant fault!”
Mike rounded the front of the car to flip the passenger seat forward. Chris bent over and eased Harrison into the backseat.
“Should I call an ambulance?” Mike asked.
“No!” Harrison grabbed the edge of the roof and jerked himself to a stop, smacking Chris’s head against the ceiling. “No hospitals! Hospitals are dangerous!”
Chris gritted his teeth. “Fine. No hospitals. Now get in the car before you pass out.”
“Maybe we should wait until he passes out,” Mike said.
Chris propped one knee on the floorboards and settled Harrison onto the narrow seat. Harrison flopped against the duct-taped leather. His legs hung over the edge, his back wrinkled at a bad angle.
He stared at the ceiling. “I hate this car.”
“Oh, shut up.” Chris rubbed the bruise on the back of his head and pushed the passenger seat upright. He stood on the curb for a moment and scanned the street, but Kaufman’s black truck was nowhere in sight. If Harrison had managed not to be followed, maybe he was cagier than Chris had given him credit for.
He ducked into his seat and kicked the heater up to full blast, ignoring the tortured whine that chased the heat out of the vents.
“Where to?” Mike said. “We can’t take him to my place. Your pals have already got it marked.”
“My house,” Harrison said. “I have to go to my house. I have things I need there. My notes, my papers.”
“You want to take him to your hotel?” Mike asked.
Chris shook his head. “It’s not safe for us to be together for too long. I’ve got to change rooms anyway. Too many people know about that last one.”
Harrison smacked the back of Mike’s seat. “Are you deaf? I said my house. That has to come first. Take me someplace safe afterwards, but first I have to go to my house.”
Chris took a deep breath and let it out. “My dad’s. We’ll take him to my dad’s.”
Harrison rolled halfway to the floor, snaked his hand between Mike’s seat and the door, and groped for the door handle. “Let me out of here. I’m not going there. I got my own business to take care of, and if you don’t want to help me, I’ll walk the rest of the way myself.”
“Just give it a rest already.” Chris twisted around and heaved Harrison back onto the seat. “What are you trying to do? Rip your stitches completely out?”
Harrison’s fist swung wide, just missing Chris’s face. “I’ll rip them out if I want to!”
“We never said we wouldn’t take you to your house!”
Harrison stopped a second punch in midair. His eyes slanted.
“We’ll take you by your house and we’ll pick up your papers. And tomorrow I’m coming back to see you, and you’re going to tell me everything you know about Mactalde and Lael and anything else that could help, you got that?”
Mike watched them out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t say anything.
“For now, we’re taking you to stay with my dad,” Chris said. “And if you don’t like that, then tough.”
“If he’s anything like you, forget it.” But Harrison folded his arms across his chest and lay back on the seat.
Mike cleared his throat. “Since when do you trust your dad?”
Chris swiveled around in the seat and leaned back with a sigh. “I don’t know what other choice we have right now. And things have . . . happened, since I saw him last time.”
Mike stepped on the gas. “No kidding.”
_________
Chris stood on his dad’s doorstep and held his breath for a short eternity while the door swung inward.
Paul, his hair fluffed into disarray, stared at him. “Chris . . .” He screeched open the screen door. His mouth worked, opening and closing, but he couldn’t seem to summon the voice to inflate his words.
Chris knew the feeling. The last time he’d seen his dad, he’d been Worick: strong and whole—not this trembling, crumbling wreck. If Chris hadn’t known better, he might not have even recognized Paul as being the same person. Except for his eyes. Even swollen and bloodshot, his eyes were the same.
Chris swallowed. “I need a favor.”
Paul stepped outside. “I got a call from some hospital downtown, said you was being kept there. I was going to come see you today. I was going to sign the papers to get you out.” He looked to where Mike and Harrison waited in the Bug. “Guess I was too late.”
A day late, a dollar short, and one shot too many. Story of his dad’s life. For the first time in a long time, his heart squeezed at the thought. “Doesn’t matter, I’m out now. But you can help me with something else.” The Bug’s doors slammed behind him. “There’s a guy here—his name’s Harrison Garnett. He’s in trouble, and I need someplace safe for him to stay.”
Paul’s eyes held steady. “I’ll do it.”
Mike carried Harrison across the sidewalk.
The old man scowled up at the house and clutched the packet of notebooks they’d retrieved from his safe back on Hunter Street. “Another hailstorm is all it’ll take to bring that roof down on my head.”
Chris followed his dad inside. He stopped in the entrance and tried not to breathe. He had never lived in this house, but somehow it still held the scents of his childhood: microwave popcorn, his mothe
r’s perfume, vodka.
Mike hauled Harrison inside and followed Paul into the living room. From the entrance, Chris watched as his dad shoved newspapers and red licorice wrappers off the couch and opened the sofa sleeper.
“I’ll get some blankets and pillows. This’ll be ready in just a minute.” Paul disappeared around the corner.
Mike deposited Harrison on the bed, and Harrison folded his arms over his notebooks. “This is a rat hole. This sofa is spider-infested.”
“Gimme a break,” Mike said. “After living in that garbage dump on Hunter Street, you’re going to carp about spiders you can’t even see?”
Harrison looked at Chris. “How come you think I’m safe with him? He can’t protect me. I’d have been better off in the hospital.”
“This isn’t about protection. It’s about hiding. And right now you’re as hidden as you’re going to get. So try not to pop a blood vessel. I’ll be back to see you sometime tomorrow.”
“Hmp.” Harrison yanked his coat collar up around his chin. “Be just fine with me if I saw you sometime never.”
Paul stopped in the doorway with an armful of faded bedding. His expression wavered on the edge of disappointment. “You’re not staying?”
Chris shifted his weight. “Um, no, I can’t. I’ll see you later.” He turned to go, Mike right behind him, but then something made him turn back. “But I’ll see you tomorrow. All right?”
“You in trouble?” His dad dumped the blankets on the foot of the bed and stood with his arms at his sides.
Chris forced a smile. “Slightly more than usual. Let’s just say that.”
His dad licked first his lower lip, then his upper. “I’ve been having more of those dreams, bad dreams, lately. You’re always in trouble, in the dreams. More than slightly.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “It’s genetic. This whole dream craziness. It’s genetic, isn’t it?”
Harrison snorted.
Chris hesitated: one breath in, one breath out. Not just one, but two worlds were falling to pieces around him. He didn’t have time right now to try to rebuild what was broken between him and his dad—much less his dad himself. But then again, in some ways, he had no time to wait either.
He shouldered past Mike and stopped in front of his dad. “Listen, I’m going to make you a deal. I’m going to make the nightmares stop. Okay? But you’ve got to promise me you’re going to knock off drinking. What about that?”
Paul curled his thumbs into his palms. He didn’t say anything; he only nodded. But for right now, that was enough.