Things went quickly after that. He sat Allie in a chair for as long as it took him to retrieve her purse from the car so she could give them her insurance information. In record time, they wheeled her into a curtained cubicle. Glancing back at the admitting clerk, she saw her cleaning her desk with Lysol, wearing rubber gloves up to her elbows.
The doctor showed up almost immediately, a bustling little man with caterpillar eyebrows and no bedside manner. What he lacked in charm, he made up for in efficiency. Allie got barely a nod, and he ignored Marc completely, as he glanced over the triage report and picked up her foot, turning it this way and that before murmuring inaudible instructions to the nurse. He turned back to Allie. “Glass. No metal?”
“No, it was a glass I dropped on my patio. Last night. No, the night before. Whenever. I forgot to clean it up. Then, I went outside this morning and stepped on it. I was barefoot ….” She knew she wasn’t making much sense. Her voice trailed off, as the doctor turned away, probably so she wouldn’t see how stupid he thought her.
She knew Marc was watching her, could feel his gaze on her, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t reconcile this concerned man with the stalker she had thought him this morning.
He stayed with her through the whole ordeal. His name was Marc Frederick, he told her, although Allie already knew that from Sheryl’s report. He lived in Miami and worked as an architect.
A rational part of Allie knew he was talking to distract her and it worked. Sort of. He fell silent when the nurse returned with a tray of instruments wrapped in plastic like a meat package from Winn-Dixie.
When the doctor reached for the needle, Marc started talking again. “Jeremy—my cousin—has kids of his own now,” he said. “They’re the ones getting the bumps and scrapes. He has these twin boys who spend half their lives in the emergency room. A few months ago, one of them sailed his bike off a ramp he’d constructed. He hit a tree limb on his way back down. Eighteen sutures that time.”
Allie was so distracted that when the doctor injected the local anesthesia, she flinched and almost fell off the table. Marc told her not to look. “You can’t do a thing to help him.” He asked her how she felt. “No pain,” she said. The local had already kicked in, thank God.
He smiled. “I hope you can say that later.”
The smile made her look at him again. His hair wasn’t white at all, but a light blonde, what they used to call platinum. Maybe they still did. It was longish on top and fell against his tanned forehead. He had an angular face, but not harsh lines. More like someone had smoothed the hard edges with a brush. His eyes were deep-set under brows a little darker than his hair, and they were a remarkable color. Hazel, maybe, although they seemed greenish-blue right now. He had a deep clef in his chin and a hint of dimples in each cheek when he smiled. Allie wondered why she ever thought he resembled Rupert Cornelius. Maybe the size and hair color were similar, at least from a distance, but that was the end of it.
Her hand qualified for no more than a dab of antiseptic goo and a bandage. Marc had the presence of mind to ask the doctor things she wouldn’t have thought of, like how long she would have to be off her foot and whether she would need a tetanus shot. She could have throttled him when it turned out she did. Marc took the prescription from the doctor and adjusted the crutches under her arms. They had seated her in a wheelchair and put the crutches across her lap, when she heard a commotion outside the cubicle. A minute later, a hand yanked the curtain aside, and Joe Odum filled the doorway.
Chapter 9
Joe was in uniform, and the intense look on his face made Allie cower in the chair. He took it all in at a glance—her bandaged foot, the crutches, Marc. “What happened?” he demanded, still
gripping the curtain in one hand.
“I cut my foot on some glass,” she said, taken aback by his tone. “Marc brought me here to get stitches.”
Joe’s head swiveled to Marc. After a tense minute, he held out his hand. “Joe Odum,” he said, more to solicit Marc’s last name, she thought, than out of civility. Marc shook his hand without speaking.
The nurse who brought Allie’s crutches stood off to one side. She gave Joe an appraising glance and obviously liked what she saw. Joe didn’t seem to see her or Allie, either. His eyes were on Marc. Marc returned his stare. Allie couldn’t have said which of the two seemed more hostile. There were currents shooting between them she couldn’t identify or understand. Nor did she particularly want to. “Joe is an old friend of mine, Marc.”
“You ready to go?” Joe asked, bringing his gaze back to Allie.
Allie didn’t like his rudeness or his proprietary manner, and she’d opened her mouth to tell him so when Marc said, “She’s all set.” She felt a pang of disappointment. Then, she realized Marc was probably glad to get rid of her.
Joe grabbed the wheelchair and started to push her out of the cubicle, but Allie put her good foot on the floor to stop him. She offered Marc her hand. “Thank you for all your help, Marc. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t shown up.”
He smiled, grasping her hand in his own. “My pleasure.”
Hours later, it occurred to her that she wouldn’t have needed his help if she hadn’t been so intent on confronting him about stalking her.
Joe settled her in the squad car before coming around to the driver’s seat. “How in the world did you find me this time?” she asked, irritated by visions of a vast network of spies spread across the county.
“I came by your house this morning to take you to your car, and you weren’t there. The doors were unlocked,” he said, his tone leaving no doubt what he thought of that. “It looked like someone was murdered, and there was blood all over the place—”
“Not all over the place.”
“No? How about the front walk, the living room rug, the patio.”
She groaned. Not the rug too. “I’m not sure all that is mine.”
His eyes cut over to her.
“On the patio. Feelie paid me another visit last night.” She remembered thinking it served him right if he got cut. Now, the thought seemed shabby. “I heard him yell. I hope he didn’t get cut as badly as me.”
“I’ll check on him after I drop you off.” He drove in silence for a minute, the sound of his two-way radio a soft crackle in the background. “I called the hospital because of the blood. They told me you were there.”
She could see the worry etched in his face. “Oh.”
Another long silence. When he spoke, his voice reflected no more than idle curiosity, but his rigid posture made a lie of that. “So, who’s this Marc? An old friend of yours?”
The question seemed fair enough. Even though she didn’t owe Joe an explanation, she hated that she had scared him. “His name is Marc Frederick. He’s from Miami. He happened along right after I stepped on the glass.”
Joe shot her a skeptical look. “Happened along on your patio?”
Allie gritted her teeth as Joe hit a pothole. The effects of the local anesthesia were wearing off, and she’d started to feel mean again. “He happened along on the beach. He heard me yell when I sliced my foot open. He put a compress on it and drove me to the hospital. End of story.” End of what she intended to tell him, anyway, and probably more than he deserved.
Joe seemed to realize he’d pushed the wrong button. “Lucky he came along.”
“Very lucky.”
He took the turn to Cape Canaveral before she realized where they were. “I need to get my car.”
“You shouldn’t be driving.”
Wrong answer. She had an overbearing mother and brother and had been married to an equally domineering man. She knew how they could take over your life if you let them. “It’s my left foot that has the stitches,” she snapped. “If I can hobble to the car with my crutches, I can drive.”
“I could get someone to bring it to you later.”
Her chin lifted an inch. “I want to get it now.”
Joe pulled up at the s
top sign a block away from her house, and Allie saw Feelie’s wife peering out her window. She could forget her reputation in the neighborhood. She could also see the battle taking place in Joe because it was mirrored on his face. Finally, his scowl softened. “I’m not making many points with you, am I?”
Allie relented. Slightly. “You don’t need points with me. You’re my friend, but if you want to stay my friend, you’ll quit being such a steamroller. I don’t like being dictated to.”
She half expected an argument, but Joe gave her a wry smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I think it comes with the uniform. I’m a nice guy in civilian clothes.”
Allie smiled. “I know you used to be.”
“I still am. Give me a chance?”
“I will if you’ll take me to get my car.”
He laughed, and she remembered why she liked him. “OK, but if you plow into someone, I’m not fixing the ticket.”
“Deal.”
There were few cars parked in front of Lester’s, and Allie was glad she didn’t have an audience, as she climbed awkwardly out of the car. Joe helped her get her crutches out of the back and hovered, as she made her clumsy way to the Jeep. When she reached for the door handle and found it locked, she remembered she didn’t have any keys. In fact, she had no purse. No driver’s license. Nothing. She let out a long sigh and rested her head on the top of the car. So much for her declaration of independence.
“What’s the matter?” Joe asked. “Is it your foot?”
She shook her head. “It’s my brain. It’s not working.” She turned to face him. “I don’t have my purse or keys.”
Joe struggled against a smile. “You want me to run you home?”
She slumped on her crutches. “No, but I guess you’d better.”
They didn’t talk much on the ride to her house. She waved at Mrs. Feelie out front in her lawn chair, calling attention, she hoped, to her being in the front seat of the police cruiser, not handcuffed in the back. The woman didn’t wave back. Maybe her eyes were closed behind her sunglasses. Maybe not.
They went through the get-the-crutches-set routine again while Joe did his hovering. She wondered if this new, overprotective Joe resulted from his being caregiver for two ailing parents and hoped they appreciated it more than she did.
The front door was still unlocked, and Joe helped her over the stoop. The first things she saw were her purse and keys sitting on the coffee table. Then, she saw the prescription bags beside them. Marc. She remembered his slinging her bag over his shoulder and later taking the prescriptions from the doctor. He must have gone to the pharmacy directly from the hospital and then brought everything back. She wished he’d hung around, so she could thank him properly.
She didn’t say anything to Joe about where they’d come from, and if he noticed the prescriptions, he didn’t mention it. She shooed him out the door as soon as possible and stood for a moment, reveling in the quiet. It lasted about thirty seconds before the pain kicked back in. She picked up the prescription bags and hobbled to the kitchen on her crutches, where she swallowed the antibiotic capsule and pain pill with a single gulp of lukewarm faucet water, grimacing.
She made her way back to the living room, her underarms already sore from the unaccustomed pressure of the crutches. Spook huddled on the couch. If Allie didn’t know better, she’d think the little dog looked worried. Maybe he wasn’t, but she was. How would she take him for his walks? He didn’t seem to be in distress; at least, he didn’t run to the back door and whine.
“Hi, puppy.” She reached down to rub his head. “I’ll live,” she said, then winced as her foot brushed the floor. “Maybe.”
Joe was right. There was blood on the living room rug. She should try to get it out immediately, but she didn’t have the energy. As it was, it took what felt like an hour for her to get into the bathroom. She wanted to take a shower, but the plastic bags she needed to secure over her foot were in the kitchen, light years away. So were the rubber bands to hold it, if she even had any. Her tiny house suddenly seemed enormous. She would have to start thinking ahead about these things.
She settled for a sponge bath—how did she get blood on her elbow?—and slipped on a nightshirt, even though she didn’t intend to go to bed. She wanted to call Sheryl and make sure she made it home all right the night before, but the house phone and her cell phone were in the kitchen. She made it as far as the living room sofa before she collapsed, wondering how an injury to her foot could make her ache all over. Spook hesitated, but then he jumped up beside her. Was the little guy getting used to her?
She propped her foot on the coffee table and fell back against the sofa cushions, exhausted. After a minute, she noticed the photo albums stacked up beside her. She opened the top one. The first picture was of her. She must have been seven or eight years old, all long arms and skinny legs. Freckles on her nose. Eyes downcast.
“You were a shy little thing back then.”
“Me? Shy?”
“Oh, yes. Not too surprising, growing up in the shadow of your show-off brother. It took you a long time to get over it. Your folks didn’t help much. They thought you were being a good girl. Remember the first time you asserted yourself? I thought your mother would have a stroke.”
“When? I don’t remember.”
But she did. Allie must have been eleven or twelve, all raging hormones and erratic emotion. It was a week before she was to head down to her Aunt Lou’s house for the summer. Vivian got it in her head that her precious son was unwelcome, and if Len was unwelcome, her daughter couldn’t go, either. Allie walked into the room and overheard, and she pitched the first full-fledged tantrum of her life. “Len doesn’t want to go,” she screamed. “Ask him! He hates it there. Send him to camp. I’m going to Aunt Lou’s!”
Vivian gave in eventually, and Allie reverted to model child behavior.
“Mom didn’t like being stood up to. She still doesn’t.”
“Don’t I know it. You’re stronger than you realize, Allie. You even stood up to Garrison eventually.”
“I was an idiot to believe in him at all.”
“You weren’t an idiot. Believing in people, trusting them, is the right thing to do. Garrison was one of life’s lessons. That’s what life is, you know, one big classroom.”
“If it is, I probably have about a C minus average.”
“Nonsense. You’re a solid B plus. I know these things. The way you graduate is to die as I did. Being a graduate, I know everything now, just as I always thought I did. Don’t quit trusting, Allie. Trusting others is important, and trusting in yourself is essential.”
A sound at the door jarred her awake. A quick jolt of excitement shot through her, as she recognized Marc’s tall frame outlined through the jalousies. She pushed herself off the sofa and hopped to the door, remembering as she swung it open that she wore only a nightshirt. Then, she chided herself for being silly. It covered more than the shorts she’d worn that morning.
As she swung the door wide, his eyes went immediately from her foot to her crutches on the floor beside the couch. He smiled. “I wanted to make sure you were all right, but you appear to have it under control.”
“Come on in,” Allie said, hopping back to the couch before he could pick her up and carry her. Spook vanished. No surprise there. She moved the photo albums from the sofa to the floor. “Please sit down,” she said, lifting her foot up on the coffee table. “I’m glad you came back. I wanted to thank you for returning my purse and filling my prescriptions. How much do I owe you?”
He sat down on the other end of the sofa. “Nothing. I paid for them with your money.”
That’s right. He had her wallet. “Didn’t they ask for a birth date or something for the prescriptions?”
He nodded. “It’s on your driver’s license.”
“Oh. Right. I forgot.” She sounded like an idiot. It must be the medicine. “I wanted to thank you, but I thought I might have seen the last of you after the incident at the hospi
tal.”
“No thanks are necessary,” he said, relaxing against the sofa cushions. “I didn’t think your police officer liked me being there, so I decided to bow out as gracefully as possible.”
“He’s not my police officer,” she said. Then, she realized how that sounded. “I mean, Joe’s just a friend.” She blushed, which made it worse. “He’s not usually like that. I mean, he’s usually friendly.” Why couldn’t she shut up?
Marc must have sensed her discomfort, but he didn’t laugh. “How long have you lived here?” Much better subject.
“I’ve been coming down here for the summers most of my life, but I’ve lived here only
for a week.” Was it only a week? “My aunt lived here. She died recently.”
She could see the realization form. “At that hospital?”
Allie bit her lip, as tears sprang to her eyes. She struggled to gain control. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I know how hard that is. The same thing happened after I lost my wife a few years ago. Every place I went seemed to remind me of her.” He hesitated. “It gets better after a while. You still feel the loss, but it’s not as intense.”
Allie smiled, wiping her eyes with her hand. “I’ll have to take your word for it. I’m sorry. I’m not usually this weepy.”
“Don’t apologize. You’ve been through a lot today, and the codeine breaks down your defenses. I came by to see if you’d eaten. I know you didn’t have lunch—” He broke off as the door slammed open. Sheryl stood in the open doorway, in uniform with her hand on her gun. “What’s going on?”
Marc got to his feet, as Sheryl advanced into the room. Allie wanted to crawl under the couch. “Everything’s fine,” she told Sheryl, holding up a hand. “I asked Marc in.” Sheryl narrowed her eyes, her glare traveling between Marc and Allie.
“Marc, this is my friend Sheryl Levine,” she said, desperate to defuse the situation. “Marc took me to the emergency room this morning after I cut my foot.” Sheryl stopped her advance, but Allie noticed that her hand remained on her gun. Her eyes flicked toward Allie’s bandaged foot, then back to Marc.
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