Smolder

by Graylin Fox

  Once back home, I took a long, relaxing shower while Josh made dinner. More relaxed than I'd been since I moved here, I took my time, and stepped out of the tub to a steam-filled bathroom. I had forgotten to turn the fan on, again.

  I turned the fan on, and waved a towel around so I didn't trip over anything. It was nice to relax and enjoy the evening. We cooked out on the grill. My brother stared at the marsh as if willing the sea otters to come back and play again. It was a quiet Monday night, and I went to bed early.

  Chapter Ten

  An hour before my alarm went off, I lay awake staring at the ceiling.

  “Crap. I'm not getting back to sleep now.” I got up and put on my bathing suit. “Might as well do a few laps.”

  The water was cool, and light sparkled off the small waves from the breeze. I'd done ten laps when a hand popped into the water just before I did a flip turn. I stopped looking up to see Josh smiling at me with a cup of fresh-brewed coffee.

  “You want?” he asked.

  I got out, and took the cup from him. “Yes, please.”

  “Do you really think this is over?” he asked.

  My reflex answer was no, but I didn't want to tell him that. I stayed silent.

  “I thought so,” he said. “You need to get ready and get to work. I've got this place covered. Owen showed me how to monitor the cameras from my computer. Even if someone does come by, I'll know they are here. I put your knives in the usual spots; bed, dresser, fireplace, and the front table lamp.”

  One of my friends in graduate school studied karate and was an excellent knife thrower. She took me to her class, and I loved it. I had a yellow belt in karate and could hit a bull’s eye with a throwing knife from twenty yards. After a teen prank a few years ago, when a couple of kids broke into the house next door at night, I hid them throughout the house. I even had three hidden in the car.

  The office smelled wonderful when I walked in. Hot muffins sat in the kitchenette with a thank-you note from the chief of police. “We all owe you our thanks.”

  “That was nice of him,” Lee said behind me.

  “Yes, it was. And unnecessary since he kept my name secret during his press conference.” I took a banana nut muffin, smothered it in butter, and got a cup of coffee. “I'm all set. How does today's schedule look?”

  “Eat up, you will need your strength. The wife of the inmate you saw yesterday showed up at three in the morning and had a royal meltdown. The nurses told her she needed to calm down before she could see her husband. She screamed she would calm down after she saw him. They gave up and let her in to see him. He was asleep and had kicked his sheet off. All of his wounds were visible, and she fainted. Right there on the floor. Just passed out. They put a recliner in the room and sat her in it.”

  “They didn't wake her up?” I asked with a smile.

  She laughed. “No, they were so grateful she was quiet they checked her vitals and left her there. They covered him back up, though.”

  “I'll go there first.” I headed to my office and caught up with email and paperwork.

  My cell phone rang and the caller ID said it was Josh. “Yes?”

  “The chief of police likes you, he really likes you,” he joked.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “There is a brand new security system being installed right now. You will be able to monitor the cameras from your televisions. Both of them.”

  He was excited.

  “I'm sure you don't have anything better to do today than sit in the recliner and watch the grass grow beside the house,” I teased. My heart raced. How serious was the threat? Wasn’t the killer in jail? If so, why did I need a state of the art system installed by the local police? As grateful as I felt, there was a warning for the future in the gesture.

  “I've already been to Home Depot. There was a cute girl in gardening who said these flowers will attract hummingbirds.”

  He'd had a good day, my gullible brother. “Only if hummingbirds fly in Savannah. It's not like they'll change a migratory pattern for you.”

  “I also got fencing to block off the side yards so you can only get back here from through the house.” He sounded put out.

  “That was a great idea. You did good. I have to go now.” I promised to ooh and ahh over the flowers when I got home.

  The patient and his wife were awake and looked happy when I got to the nurses' station in front of his room. He waved at me and said something to her. She got up and came over to me.

  “Thank you,” she said, and started crying. “I don't know if I would have survived if Billy had to go back to that awful prison with a killer. It would have killed me. I have four young children, and we wouldn’t know what to do if Billy died. We just would all fall apart.”

  He had warned me about melodrama.

  “You are welcome, ma'am. I'm glad he's still here for you.” I meant it.

  “He gets out in three weeks, so I told him to cough up something every day so he could stay here until they release him. That's not wrong, is it?” she asked.

  “I don't know if it's legal. But I wouldn't keep telling people that,” I offered.

  She thanked me and went back to her husband's bedside.

  “I'll make sure there isn't anything in the room he could choke on,” the nurse said behind me. “God forbid he put something in his mouth to cough up and end up choking to death.” She rolled her eyes.

  I chuckled and made my way out of the unit. Lee called my cell phone and told me about two more consults in pediatrics that were instigated by family members arguing with the doctors and overcrowding the room.

  I stopped by the first room and explained this was a hospital and no matter how many people wanted to show up, the care would get worse if the nurses and doctors couldn't find the patient amongst the crowd in the room. One family ordered so much food from the cafeteria it looked like a buffet.

  I didn't mind going into a room and being the bad guy. I could leave the floor while the medical team couldn't. So I walked in with a security guard, wrote “Two visitor limit” on the whiteboard, and stood my ground while the extended family was escorted from the room. They did ask for boxes to take the food and were not happy when I reminded them this wasn’t a restaurant.

  It took twenty minutes for the drama to ease up. The patient was a small teen, and her sister and mother were left with her. She thanked me and gave me a hug when they all left. Then, I pulled the mother and sister out of the room and reminded them that healing was exhausting and company made it worse. So the fewer people in her room, the quicker they could get her home. That seemed to work.

  One of the nurses commented as I wrote my notes in the chart.

  “That girl was smothered with love.”

  “Room to breathe is always a good thing,” I said.

  The other family simply wanted answers the doctors didn't have. As frustrated as the family became, the results from the tests wouldn't change to fit their desires. I asked one of the residents to come with me, and he showed the family the chart with the test results in the hallway.

  The office was empty when I got back and I cleaned out my inboxes before headed home. Josh wasn't in the house, so I changed into yoga pants and a tank top. All of the excitement had interrupted my normal routine. I needed to exercise. The blinds to the backyard were closed in the kitchen, but he'd left the security monitors up on the television. There were four of them, one for each side of the house.

  The backdoor opened, and Josh came in. “I have your throwing targets set up.”

  “I love you.”

  Outside, he had a ten-foot-by-thirty-foot section of the yard marked off with gardening fence. At the far end, a stand held three half-inch particle boards nailed together with a bull’s eye painted on the front.

  On the table lay a brand new throwing knife set. Actually, two sets of Jack the Ripper throwing knives. All of them were six inches long and made of stainless steel.

  My first two throws were off the
mark.

  “You haven't practiced in a while,” Josh noted.

  “I've been a little busy.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, we could definitely say that.”

  The next three hit the middle target, but not dead center.

  “Did you call your girlfriend and tell her the guy's in solitary?” I asked.

  He nodded. “She’s still worried, and wanted to make sure I don't let my guard down. I told her we were going to start our self-defense exercises again, and she felt a little better.”

  I threw the last knife, and it hit dead center.

  “Bull’s eye. I'm not as rusty as I thought.” I stretched my arms over my head as I walked to retrieve the knives.

  There was a question on Josh's mind; I could see it in his face. “Just ask it.”

  “Would you be offended if I moved here?”

  He was serious.

  “Of course not.” I realized he’d asked about himself and not the girlfriend. “She coming with you?”

  His shrug said a lot. He’d tell me when he was ready. “She may move here, but I think the threat to you, and my stubborn insistence on staying here, made her a little nervous.”

  “You can't blame her.” I admitted.

  I threw for the next hour while Josh made dinner. I felt guilty that my brother found a wonderful woman who was now leaving him because of me. I hoped Josh would find someone here who didn't run every time something strange happened in my job. The poor man would be lonely and exhausted from all of the coming and going.

  Dinner was grilled steak, baked potatoes, and salad. I ate better when Josh was around. He was the best housewife. He cooked, cleaned, gardened, and had fashion sense.

  “So, Dmitri?” he asked as we sat with coffee.

  “Yes.” I had been waiting for this. “Raised in Russia until the Soviet Union fell, moved to Italy by his parents, has a sister, met and married an Italian woman. Now divorced, with ex-wife and two teens in Atlanta.”

  “Seems like a nice guy.”

  “He is. I like him.”

  “Savannah definitely has romance going for it.” He smiled.

  “The lady cop would like to romance you.” I teased and laughed when his color deepened. “Have you already been flirting with her?”

  “No!” he answered. “Not at all. I love my girlfriend, but if she doesn't want me, then a lady cop might.”

  “Besides, she already loves your crotch,” I said.

  He balled up his napkin and threw it at me.

  “Tell me I'm wrong. Did she even look at your face?” I teased.

  He was flushed red now. “Yes she did. I know she did. At least, I think she did.”

  We laughed together. All of the recent tension disappeared as we laughed.

  “Did you look at her face?” I said through tears.

  “Yes, yes I did. A couple of times.” And then he snorted.

  I laughed so hard my sides hurt, and I slipped sideways in the chair. Tears slipped down my cheeks as I looked at the person who had been my best friend since the day I was born. He carried me home from the hospital and told the neighborhood kids if they made me cry he would beat them up.

  We cleaned up the kitchen and sat in front of the television. Seeing the house from all four sides at once was a nice touch. Now that the side yards were both fenced, it may not be as necessary, but I was glad to have this setup just in case. I'd have to send the chief a thank-you card tomorrow.

  The local news was filled with stories about The Carver. We watched in stunned silence while family after family thanked the police, God, and anyone else they thought helped catch him. Closure was a powerful thing, and these people had waited too long. It was tough to watch, but we couldn't turn it off. Then Owen was interviewed, and thanked for his efforts. Apparently, the chief attributed the arrest to Owen's talk with the cellmate at the hospital.

  “He stole your thunder,” Josh said.

  “He can have it. Serial killers create copycats, and the person responsible for catching the original can end up as a part of the game. He didn't steal my thunder and likely stepped in front of me.”

  I was grateful.

  The news ended, and I headed off to bed. The workout had loosened my muscles but left me more tired than it should have. I fell right to sleep.

  The next morning, I realized I needed to move my alarm clock across the room. I didn't remember hitting the snooze button, but I had to for it to be this late when I peeled my eyes open. I called Lee, told her I would be there in an hour, and apologized. She told me not to worry about it, and that my schedule was empty this morning, but full all afternoon.

  That slowed me down enough to enjoy a long hot shower to ease the soreness from last night's throwing.

  There was a note on the kitchen table under a bagel with cream cheese, and a travel mug of coffee.

  “Off to look for places to live. I have to decide if I'm going to stay in wrestling or retire with a big match in Atlanta and then figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Love you, Josh.”

  The office was quiet when I arrived. Lee was not there. I took the time to find the human resources department. I wanted to know if they had a locking file cabinet for me to store tests. I had to explain that psychologists had to keep testing materials and charts for seven years. They gave me a small filing cabinet and a small scanning wand. They expected me to scan the tests into a secure file location and not keep the paper test forms. I loved the idea and all of the paperwork on my desk was scanned into my system by the time Lee returned.

  “You have a new toy," she said. “Can I try it? I would love one of these.”

  “I'm on it." I walked back to human resources and told them I would need a shredder for the original documentation and another scanner for the office. The lady who helped me was so proud that I liked her idea she handed two more over and said she would send someone with a shredder.

  Lee was elated when I handed her not one, but two.

  “You are a miracle worker. I can never get equipment from them without a week's worth of paperwork.”

  “She didn't even ask me to sign anything,” I said.

  “From now on, I'm sending you for supplies,” she said.

  She opened her scanners, and then pulled open all of the drawers in her desk. Everything was neat and in its place.

  “It's going to be a good day,” she said as she pulled out a file folder.

  I laughed as I walked back to my office, and then I did the same thing. The phone didn't ring, and no email notifications showed up, so we kept on scanning until my stomach growled.

  “I need something for lunch. Do you want me to make a couple of to-go boxes from the lounge and we can eat here?” I offered.

  She was on the floor surrounded by paperwork in neat little piles with post-it notes on top.

  “Sure, I don't want to stop,” she answered.

  Lunch was sliced beef, rice, and vegetables. I packed two containers and dropped two banana puddings into my lab coat pockets. On the way back, I passed Dmitri surrounded by his medical residents and students. There were a couple of women in that group, and I fought a rush of jealousy. My insecurity washed over me, and I tried to push it back down. Knowing this was unreasonable and even with the words I would say to a client readily available to me, I still stood there and tried not to look hurt and angry.

  There didn’t seem to be enough training to remove the emotional doubts created by years of being cheated on and lied to in the past. He winked at me over their heads, and one of the women shot me a look. She had a medical resident’s equivalent of a crush on your professor. Which didn’t remove my jealousy, only put it in perspective.

  I told Lee about it when I got back. We pulled two of the waiting room chairs up to the coffee table.

  She said, “This hospital is known for hookups. Did you notice the nurses on one floor all look orange from self tanner?”

  “Yes,” I answered. I’d wondered about that.

  “They
are here to meet and marry the medical residents. Most of the nurses that come here straight from nursing school have marriage on the brain.”

  “How long have you been married?” I asked.

  “Twenty three years. We have two teenagers. Well, one is almost an adult and is off at university in Wales. My daughter is going to university back home in a year.”

  “How long have you lived here, and why are your kids going back to Wales for college?”

  “About seven years. We applied for citizenship when we arrived, and it hasn't come through yet. University back home is less expensive. Your schools here have another year of high school classes, where in the UK they start with your major right away. They are three-year schools instead of the four to five years it takes in America.”

  “One more thing I want to know,” I said.

  “Ask me anything.”

  “Why did you request a transfer to this office?”

  It's a rare person who had the compassion and tolerance to work the desk at any mental health facility. With her office skills, she could be running an office with a staff under her.

  “I love working with people.” She got up and picked up her plate.

  I followed her to the kitchenette.

  “Psychology intrigues me,” she continued. “You work with people who really hear voices, and see things, and believe in things that aren't there. I'm fascinated by it.”

  “Thanks for taking the job. I appreciate it, and your fascination is the same as mine. It's why I got this degree in the first place.”

  “Now, you have a busy afternoon. Here in the office, we have a workman's compensation evaluation from one to two, and an ADHD evaluation from two to five.”

  Testing was my passion. I got to sit with someone and ask them questions that told me how they think, where their strengths and challenges were, and how best to help them learn and succeed. I loved it. I walked the teenager who thought she had ADHD back to her mother in the waiting room at five p.m.

  Lee looked frazzled.

  “Are you okay?”

  She waited until the clients left, closed the door, and turned to me. Her mouth opened to say something, but she started laughing and couldn't speak.