Sandra took her hand and squeezed it.
Janice’s gaze was a long way off. “You see, it was … well, the band were having a CD release. We all went back to my house. I guess nobody realized how serious it was at the time, but she died.”
The last word came out in a whisper.
Sandra nodded. “It was nobody’s fault,” she said, in a tone she hoped sounded confident.
Janice shook her head. “It was everybody’s fault. All of us. Just like the video said. It was horrible. She lay there quivering for a long time before we even … did anything about it. We were afraid. Afraid of being caught and held responsible if they found out she’d been given ecstasy at the party.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Sandra said soothingly.
“No,” Janice said with a harsh laugh. “You’re right. I couldn’t have known, because I was in bed with the dead girl’s date most of that time.”
Above them, the storm thrashed about the eaves.
Janice was beginning to relax a little. Tears formed at the corner of her eyes. She sighed and looked up. “Thank you. I feel better having told you.”
Sandra smoothed the hair over Janice’s brow. She was reminded of a girl she’d known in prison. Crazy Emma. Just friends, of course. Such a pretty face. Not that Janice was pretty, but there was something similar about them. The full lips, the slightly down-turned mouth that hinted at unspoken sorrows. Sandra would like to have kissed those lips — both Emma’s and Janice’s — though she knew it wouldn’t be appropriate. Especially not now, given the circumstances. Maybe tomorrow, in the morning light, she might get up the courage to tell Janice how she felt about women like her. About wanting to soothe all their pains and fears and make them go away forever.
“You should sleep well now. I’d better go see if anybody else needs anything,” Sandra said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
And then, without thinking, she did what she’d wanted to do for most of her adult life. She leaned in and kissed Janice on the lips. And, to her surprise, Janice returned the kiss.
It was only for a moment, though. Janice broke it off. She smiled wanly and looked into Sandra’s eyes. “You’re very sweet,” she said. “I’d better go to sleep now. I think the pills are starting to work already.”
“Yes,” Sandra said, smiling down at her as though she’d done no more than tuck a child in under the covers.
“Thank you,” Janice said. “For listening to me.” She clicked off the bedside lamp.
Sandra went to the threshold and stood staring back into the darkness for a moment. “Sweet dreams,” she said, before going out and closing the door behind her.
She continued down the hall, knocking softly on doors where light seeped through under the sill. Crispin called out in answer to her knock, but assured her he was fine and not in need of any sleep medication.
The light was already off under Max and Sami Lee’s door. Spike was still awake — she could smell the marijuana. He was fine, he called in answer to her question. The light in Pete’s room was off, but she heard him inside muttering to himself. She knocked. After a moment, he opened the door in pyjamas and a ratty-looking T-shirt. His bleary eyes stared straight ahead as if he were looking into another dimension.
“I, uh, was wondering if you needed anything,” Sandra said, fighting to hold her gaze steady and wondering why he made her feel so nervous.
“No, I’m okay,” he said, nearly shutting the door in her face, as though she were an unwanted salesperson.
Next door, Verna answered Sandra’s knock in her nightgown. Her breasts were outlined by the thin material and swelled with each breath. She smiled warmly when asked if she needed anything.
Verna shook her head. “Thanks, sweetie. I’ll be fine.” Then she reached out impulsively and hugged Sandra. “You sleep tight, too,” she said.
Sandra came to David’s door last.
“Come in,” he called out.
She turned the knob and entered. He lay in bed with his torso exposed, the sheets pulled up to his waist. He gave her a curious look as she hung in the doorway.
“Why don’t you come in?” he asked.
“I was just making sure everyone was okay,” Sandra told him nervously. “It’s been a difficult night. Is there anything you need?”
David ran a hand over his chest. “Like what?”
Sandra felt the repulsion she always felt when men looked at her that way, though it hadn’t happened in a while. There had been a few male guards in prison, but now that she’d reached her mid-forties the looks and the offers came less and less often. Still, there were some, like David, who gave her the come-on. And it always brought her back to that day in the ravine after school when Waylon Morphy and the other boys had … but no! She wouldn’t think about that.
She held tightly onto the doorknob. “I could give you something to help you sleep,” she replied in a sombre tone. “If you want …”
“If you’re suggesting medication, I’m all right in that department,” he told her. “Company now, that would be nice. If you’re up for it.”
She felt the grimace taking over her features. “That’s not what I meant,” she said icily, and left the room.
“No offence,” he called after her.
God knows she’s not a looker, David told himself. Anyway, there was no need for her to take it as an insult.
Sandra returned to the kitchen and began to put everything away for the night. While it might seem heartless to worry about domestic duties after there’d been a death in the next room, she knew it might help her put her mind to rest. She felt in her pocket for the tablets. They were warm and firm to the touch, but she wouldn’t take anything just yet.
As she thought back over the events of the evening, her breath quickened. She, too, had been named in the video. Which meant that someone believed she was in some way culpable for that girl’s death. How strange, after all these years, to discover that someone knew about her part in the mishap. She’d never met any of the band members before, yet she was clearly implicated in the tragedy along with them. And whoever knew about it was right, of course. While she hadn’t done anything intentionally wrong, hers had been one odd part in an unfortunate chain of events that had lead to the girl’s death.
She reviewed the case in her mind. After all these years, her memory of that night was still crystal clear, even down to the diagnoses and the treatment prescribed. The girl had taken a bad dose of ecstasy at a party for the band in Janice’s house, as she now knew. When they realized the girl was in serious trouble, they’d put her in a taxi and sent her to the hospital. Only there’d been no one to speak for her, and it had taken a long time to figure out what her problem was.
What was clear to the emergency-room workers, once they began to monitor her symptoms, was that she was suffering from arrhythmia, seizures, renal failure, and cardiovascular collapse. This had been followed by pulmonary edema, cerebral bleeding, hepatotoxicity, and cerebral edema. The words were etched on Sandra’s brain.
The doctor on call that night had correctly ordered complete blood chemistry evaluations and liver function tests. He’d prescribed benzodiazepines to prevent the seizures, phentolamine for hypertension, beta blockers for tachycardia, dopamine for hypotension, and dantrolene for hyperthermia. Somehow, Sandra had doubled the dose of benzodiazepines.
By the time they realized the mistake, the girl had slipped into a coma. They did what they could to reverse it, but by then it was too late. Nevertheless, it was hard to say what part this had played in the order of events overall. Even if Sandra hadn’t been muddled in her thinking — if she hadn’t been using that night — and hadn’t mixed up the dosage, giving her nearly twice what the doctors ordered, the girl still might not have lived.
Or she might have been left alive but brain dead. That would be the worst thing. In her mind’s eye,
a curtain lifted momentarily and she saw the faces of all the others she had helped along in similar circumstances. The ones she’d helped out of their dilemmas. She hadn’t been able to stand the thought that those women would lie there helpless until they died natural deaths, unaware of the indignities their bodies might suffer at the hands of others. The hands of men. So she’d … helped them. That’s what she had done. But the girl at the party — she had been beyond help. Even if the doctors hadn’t eventually agreed she was beyond help by the time she reached them — and the courts had later argued the same thing — Sandra had felt it all along. So she had simply helped her in her own way.
Except it had been an accident. She’d administered too much of a prescribed drug. An accident, yes. Like pretty Emma dying. And that sweet Janice upstairs for throwing her party. Because surely it had been an accident of the worst kind for that girl to have come to her party and for the others not to realize what was happening until it was too late.
Sandra tried to put herself in Janice’s place. How she must have suffered all these years thinking she’d been to blame for what happened. How Sandra would like to soothe Janice’s fears and help her put those terrible memories behind her …
A floorboard creaked and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled to find Edwards watching her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
Sandra reached up a hand to brush her hair behind her ear. “It’s all right. I’m just a bit jumpy tonight.”
“Understandable.”
Edwards was a nice man. At first she’d been worried because his room was right beside hers, the only two people on the ground floor. He hadn’t made a pass at her or done anything off-putting, however. Perhaps she could confide in him. But why would she? She was the caregiver here.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked in a calm tone. She suddenly recalled David’s response to that question. She didn’t want to give Edwards any ideas. “Something to help you sleep, I mean.”
Edwards smiled and shook his head. “Thank you, no. It’s ten o’clock already. I just came down to close up in here.”
He checked the kitchen windows and headed to the back door. It was locked. He turned and looked at her. “I suppose we should both retire,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
Her mind was back in prison, the day she’d helped Emma in the pharmacy. Such a beautiful, tormented girl. But she’d died before they really got to know one another. It was a tragedy how everyone she loved ended up dead, Sandra thought. Everyone.
She looked up. Edwards was still standing in the doorway.
“I had another message from Mr. Keill,” he said. “He expects to be here in the morning.”
This was the first time Sandra had seen him look worried. He turned his head to the sound of the wind outside. It was much stronger now.
“It’ll be tricky going over to pick him up if the storm keeps up, but it has to be done,” he said.
He stood there watching her a while longer, then turned and left the room.
Chapter 12
The wind battered the house all evening long. The rain started a little past midnight. There was no let-up as a bleak and dismal dawn seeped into the sky and filtered across the horizon.
Sandra was up first, at a quarter past seven. As she dressed, she listened for sounds of Edwards stirring in the room next to hers, but there was no sign of life. Like her, he was the silent type who could move about largely unnoticed and unheard. She busied herself in the kitchen making coffee and setting the dining room table before the guests came downstairs. Edwards arrived fifteen minutes later.
“Were you able to reach anyone on the mainland last night?” she asked.
“No, but I left a message. I heard from Mr. Keill. He’s handling things on his end. I’m to pick him up at ten.” Edwards looked out at the rain lashing the windows. “It looks pretty dicey out there. I’m not looking forward to it.”
Sandra’s face wore a serious expression. “Maybe you should suggest that he wait till the storm is over.”
“I’ve thought of that,” Edwards said. “But it’s his show. I suspect he knows what he’s doing.”
He went back to the kitchen.
Sami Lee and Max arrived in the dining room first. They were followed by David and Crispin. The white-haired critic crept into the room before sitting silently by himself in a corner. He looks like a garden gnome, Sami Lee thought. A creepy little garden gnome. Though he spoke little, he seemed grateful for the company, unlike the previous evening when he seemed merely to be tolerating the others.
“I’ve had word from Mr. Keill,” Edwards announced as he brought in breakfast. “I’m to take the boat over to the mainland in an hour and pick him and his travel companion up at ten o’clock.”
Max took this in with interest. “The new drummer, I suppose. Then I guess he still wants to go on with the plans?”
Edwards looked over. “He didn’t say, sir. He sent his profound apologies to us for what’s happened. He’ll come back over here and get everything sorted out. I understand he’s made arrangements for Mr. Embrem’s body.”
“Is it wise to go out in this weather?” David asked, with a glance at the window. “It’s not exactly calm out there.”
Edwards cocked his head. “We’ll be fine, sir,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”
Spike arrived a few minutes later, followed by Verna and Pete. Greetings were exchanged as the guests helped themselves to the meal. Despite the upset of the evening before, their appetites were hearty. The food soon dwindled and all but disappeared.
“We’d better save something for Janice,” Verna said, looking around the table. “Has anyone seen her?”
Sami Lee shook her head. “Didn’t hear a sound from her room. She’s right next door to us.”
“I gave her something to help her sleep last night.” Sandra said. “She was worried she might be getting a migraine. I’d let her sleep a little longer just to make sure she’s fully rested when she wakes up.” She looked up just as Edwards returned with more food. “Please go ahead and help yourselves. Mr. Edwards will cook for her when she comes down. The rest of you eat up.”
A thought occurred to Max. He looked over at David. “By the way, did you ever find your cellphone?”
David shook his head. “Not yet, though I forgot to look again after all the excitement last night.”
“It’s funny,” Max said. “Because mine’s missing, too.”
Verna’s head whipped around toward him. “So’s mine!”
“And mine,” Crispin added hesitantly. “Though I may have misplaced it. It could be sitting out right in the open and I might have missed it.”
Max turned to Spike and Pete. “How about you two?”
Spike shook his head. “I don’t carry a cell. Can’t figure out how to operate the damn things.”
Pete looked glum. “I didn’t check to see if mine was still there, but I think it was right where I left it the last time I looked.”
“If you have need of a phone, I can offer you mine,” Edwards broke in, hoping to deter their interest in the missing cellphones at least till his employer arrived. Let Keill explain it to them, he thought. After the death last night, it wouldn’t seem like much of a joke. If it was a joke.
The clock crept around to nine, but there was still no sound from upstairs.
“I’ll go and give Janice a gentle nudge,” Verna said. “We don’t want her to oversleep.”
She left. Sandra went to the kitchen and returned with a fresh pot of coffee a few moments later.
Verna came back down the stairs with a sombre look. “I’m worried,” she said. “I knocked several times, but there was no sound in the room and the door’s locked.” She turned to Edwards. “You have a passkey, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll get it and we can go up together, if you like.”
“I’d feel much better knowing she’s all right,” Verna said. “Just to be sure.”
Edwards went off and returned a moment later with the ring of keys. “Here we go,” he said. “Let’s see if we can’t get her to wake up.”
They left together and soon could be heard climbing the stairs. The others turned back to the task of eating and drinking. It wasn’t long before Verna returned alone. She looked wildly around the room.
“She’s dead!” she said in little more than a whisper.
“What?” Sandra whirled to face her. “How can that be? She was fine last night when I left her.”
Verna shook her head and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “She’s completely cold. I touched her skin.”
“Are you sure?” It was David. He looked at her with anxious eyes.
“Go see for yourself if you don’t believe me,” Verna said.
David stood and left the room.
Crispin spoke in Sandra’s direction. “Didn’t you say you gave her something to help her sleep? What did you give her?”
Sandra looked panicked. “I … gave her codeine. Just codeine tablets.”
“How many?” Crispin asked. “I merely ask because it may have triggered something in her system.”
“Two,” Sandra replied hoarsely.
It’s not possible, she thought. Last night I kissed Janice, who kissed me back with great tenderness. And now she’s dead.
“Is it possible,” the critic went on, “that she had an allergy to codeine and that something happened after you left?”
Sandra shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“But it’s possible,” Crispin suggested gently, in a way that was more a question than a statement of fact.
“I … I suppose,” Sandra began, but then she stopped. “But, no. She wouldn’t have taken them otherwise. And the charts didn’t indicate any sort of allergies.”
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