The Secret Room

by Sandra Block

  “But the patients,” I argue.

  “I know.” His purses his lips in a frown. Someone in dirty jeans and a T-shirt passes us, being led into an interview room. “And you don’t think your brother could be involved?”

  “I’m going to call him, but I don’t think so. It keeps coming back to Sofia.”

  “Maybe. But we’ve searched that cell up and down. She’s got a ton of religious stuff but nothing that ties her to any of this.”

  “And we’re still sure it’s not Abraham,” I confirm.

  “Nothing that’s come up so far.” As he folds his arms, horizontal wrinkles stretch across his suit. “Oh, I almost forgot. We did get some good news. I was going to call you if you hadn’t come in.”

  “What is it?”

  “Abraham was arrested. We finally found the smoking gun. He bought the arsenic over the Web from a foreign supplier. We got the transaction.”

  “So he’s…”

  “In jail. A quarter-million bond,” he says with deep satisfaction.

  “At least he can’t get to Andre now,” I say.

  “That’s for sure.” He nods at a detective who walks by. “How is Andre doing, by the way?”

  “I saw him the other night. Not great.”

  “Yeah, that’s what the nurses said.”

  Standing there, I notice a pseudo-line snaking around us, of people waiting to talk with the detective. “I guess I’d better be on my way.”

  The detective tucks his notebook into his pocket. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. And I’ll have a word with the warden about Sofia again. But you take care of yourself, Zoe. Okay?”

  And by his look, I understand what he’s trying to say without saying it.

  * * *

  “I didn’t tell her a goddamn thing!” Jack’s voice booms into the phone.

  “Maybe just hinted at it, by accident?”

  “No. Not a chance, Zoe. I swear. I haven’t talked to her once since she’s been in prison.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you, Jack. If you did. She can be very manipulative.”

  “Yes, she can. I agree with you there. But I promise, I didn’t tell her.”

  “Okay.” I am straightening up Mike’s DVD collection. Which basically means alphabetizing a bunch of horror movies. Since being off work, I’ve become unmoored and taken to creating activities for myself. I put Re-Animator in front of Rosemary’s Baby. “I’ll just have to talk to her myself.”

  “You think that’s safe?” Jack asks.

  “I’m not worried. She’s had plenty of shots at me already.”

  “Maybe I should talk with the warden,” he offers. “Before she kills someone else.”

  “It’s not a bad idea.” I agree. “Just don’t tell him about the…baby thing…you know…”

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “I wouldn’t.” Banging and yelling comes over the phone. “Oh, damn it.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. The guys just dropped something. I have to go. I’ll call you after I’ve spoken with the warden.”

  As I hang up, Arthur takes the opportunity to snatch the next case from my grip. “Arthur, no,” I say, and am chasing Hellraiser—the dog and the movie—around the room when the front door opens.

  “Just me,” Mike says, taking off his winter hat.

  I glance up at the clock. “You’re home early.”

  “Yeah, I got a certain female doctor to cover for me.”

  “Working those masculine charms again?” I fit another DVD in a blank slot.

  “Desperate measures.” He comes over, his white socks immediately covered in hair from our dog who’s not supposed to shed.

  “It’s sweet that you’re here, Mike. But you don’t have to check up on me. I’m not an invalid, you know.”

  “I know.” He wanders to my side. “What are you doing with the DVDs?”

  “Oh,” I say, brightly, “arranging them. Alphabetically.”

  “Hmm.” He sits down on the couch, and Arthur bounds over for a pet.

  “Why? Did you not want me to?”

  “No, that’s okay. It’s just, I had them arranged by year already.”

  Says one anal-retentive person to another. “Oh.”

  “No, it’s good. Alphabetical is good. It’s better,” he assures me. But as I continue sorting, I notice that he is quiet, just staring at the wall.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  He turns to me. “I need to know something.” His hand is rubbing Arthur behind the ears in an automatic motion. “Like I said, I’m okay with what we do, either way. But I just need to know. Were you going to tell me? If you didn’t get the text, I mean. Were you still going to tell me?”

  I sit down next to him. “Yes, I was,” I say. “I tried to a few times, but I just couldn’t. But I promise you that I would have told you. Eventually.”

  He breathes in deeply. “Okay,” he says, nodding, possibly to convince himself. “I’m okay with that. I can be okay with that.” And we are sitting together on the couch, both petting Arthur, who is in absolute heaven, when the doorbell rings. We turn to each other with the mutual question of who it might be, and I get up to solve the mystery.

  I peer through the window. “Oh, Christ.”

  “Who is it?” Mike asks.

  Standing on the doorstep is quite literally the last person I want to see: Newsboy.

  * * *

  Logan extends his leather-gloved hand as if he’s campaigning for mayor. “I don’t know if Zoe has told you about me? I’m Logan, the pain-in-the-ass reporter guy.” He adjusts his hat, which is covering one eyebrow, and gives an apologetic but winning smile, and I can tell that Mike isn’t buying any of it.

  “Yeah, she told me all about you.” Mike and I hover at the doorstep above Logan on the freezing porch, and he’s smart enough not to hint at an invitation inside.

  “I don’t mean to be stalking you, Zoe,” he says, focusing on me now. “But you won’t answer my calls, and there’s a lot going on.”

  “Yes, there is a lot going on. Which is why I haven’t answered your calls. So I’m sorry about that.”

  “That’s okay,” he says, as if I were actually apologizing. “I had another interview with the warden. It’s all over the papers, of course, the jumper.”

  “Of course,” I say, thinking, Janaya Jones. She had a name.

  “The warden said you were taking some time off for now, and the story’s coming out next week.” He stamps a cold foot on the porch. “I’ll put it to you this way. Like I said before, I want you to be able to give your side of the story.”

  “The story is over,” I say. “I won’t be giving an interview.”

  “See, that might not be the wisest way to play this.”

  “No comment,” I say.

  Logan turns to Mike, apparently seeking a bro-to-bro intervention. “Can you talk to her, Mike? Honest to God, it’s her future that I’m worried about.”

  Mike turns to me with a straight face. “Zoe, he’s very worried about your future.”

  “Thanks for sharing that with me, Mike. I’m still going to go with no comment, however.” But before reaching for the door handle, I pause. “As a matter of fact, I do have some gossip.”

  Logan leaps at this. “Oh yeah?” He is reaching into his satchel.

  “Yeah. I think Jason has a crush on you.” And the last I see of Newsboy is a look of utter confusion as I shut the door on him.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  As I go to the clinic to clean out my stuff, just the person I wanted to see is standing in the hallway. After some finagling from Jason, we are in his clinic room, which is the spitting image of my clinic room, a bare white box with a big red alarm button.

  Sofia yawns, extravagantly. I find myself gripping the edge of the desk. “So this is it?” she asks. “The final hurrah?” She leans back and stretches her arms in a way that’s almost feline.

  “What makes you say that?” I ask, testing her.

/>   She shrugs, carelessly. “I’ve heard rumors.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you’ve heard lots of rumors.”

  She gives me a bemused look. “Such as?”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, Sofia.”

  She backs up in her chair, which screeches against the tile. “Okay.”

  “What are you trying to prove?” I demand.

  “Maybe if you could let me know what I’m supposed to have done, I could explain it to you.”

  “Texting your little riddles.”

  “Oh God,” she groans. “We’re back to those texts? I told you I have nothing to do with any of that.”

  “Sofia.” I put both palms on the table, calming myself. “Whatever you’re trying to achieve here, friendship, a relationship, forgiveness.” I peer into those blue, blue eyes. “It’s not going to happen like this. Whether you are truly trying to find God, I don’t know. If so, good for you. You say you want a family again, I say that you destroyed that family.”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Whatever the hell went on that night, I don’t know. But I know this. It isn’t going to happen. Not like this.”

  We stare at each other for some time.

  “I spoke to the warden today,” she says, finally. “Seems he has a lot of crazy ideas, too. Rumors of what I’m supposed to be involved in.” She combs out her glossy hair with her fingers. “Even big brother Jack is in on it. Telling him all the horrible things I’ve done. Unfortunately, none of them are true.”

  “It won’t work,” I say. “What you want. It’s never going to happen.”

  “The rabbi says—”

  “Never.”

  Sofia moves in toward me then, her look questioning. “I could help you, you know. If you told me what’s going on. But otherwise, I don’t know what you want me to do.”

  I lower my voice, leaning in toward her as well. “Here’s what I want you to do, Sofia. Leave me the fuck alone.” I enunciate every word. “It’s over. Done. Don’t send your little messengers. Don’t text me.”

  Sofia shakes her head, like a teacher disappointed with her pupil.

  “Talk to the news, or don’t. It doesn’t matter now. I’ll leave that up to you. And your God.”

  “You know what, Tanya?” She stands up then, motioning to a guard outside the door. “You’re running out of chances here. Pretty soon I will give up on you. And believe me,” she says, right before the guard gets there, “then you’ll be sorry.”

  * * *

  Jason helps me load up my box. I don’t have a ton of stuff: some pictures, some diplomas, some files. And about a hundred mugs.

  “Don’t worry,” Jason says. “You’ll be back.”

  I drop a couple drug pens in a mug. “We’ll see about that.”

  “I’m not planning on dealing with Novaire without you, so you better be.”

  I pause then, surveying the office. Gray industrial tile. White industrial walls. Laminated desks and outdated computers. Yup, I’m going to miss this place. “I better get going. Mike’s waiting in the parking lot.”

  “Yeah, I should go, too. I have to decide whether my newest patient is fit to stand trial.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Let his king cobra loose on his neighbor.”

  “Yikes. Did the neighbor survive?”

  “Yeah, sans a foot, though.”

  “And how’s the patient?” I ask with some jealousy. Because I won’t be seeing him. Because I’ll never be asking those questions again. “Competent?”

  “I don’t know. Supposedly he’s speaking in tongues right now.” Just then Officer Maloney knocks on the door.

  “I’m almost ready,” I say. “I’ll be out in just a minute.”

  “No, no. It’s not that.” He looks embarrassed. “One more patient wanted to see you before you go. Can you do that?”

  I toy with the corner of the box. “If it’s Sofia, the answer is no.”

  “No, it’s the redhead who’s always cutting herself. She wanted to give you a gift or something. She’s pretty upset.”

  I text Mike. Be out in 10.

  * * *

  As soon as I walk in, I can see she’s been crying.

  “It isn’t fair that they’re making you leave,” Aubrey complains as Officer Maloney walks out.

  “It’s okay.” I must admit I’m touched. As Sam says, you can’t forget the good ones. “It’s just for a little bit. While they do an investigation.”

  She sniffles with a weak smile. “The warden is such an asshole.”

  I cup my hand and say in a stage whisper, “I don’t entirely disagree.”

  We pause, sharing a bittersweet moment, then she taps her fingers on her knees. Her polish is chipped and chewed. “Well, you helped me so much, I wanted to give you something back.”

  “You don’t need to do that.” I pull out the bracelet from under my sleeve, now stained and ratty. “See, I’m still wearing this one.”

  “No, it’s something else.” She lifts up an orange cuff of her own sleeve, and I see a sore, red mark on her skin. I figure it’s a cutting mark, but then I see it’s got blue ink embedded in it. A new prison tattoo, in a flowery cursive.

  “You have a new tattoo?”

  She stops reaching, confused a second. “Oh, that. It’s nothing. Just a private joke.” She lifts her arm to show me. “The Professor,” it reads.

  “Odd joke.”

  “Not really,” she says, finally finding what she was reaching for, which is a shiny, metal tool with a sharpened end, like a homemade knife. It takes me a second to realize it’s a shank. “I’m sorry, Dr. Goldman.”

  “Aubrey.” I back away, but not quickly enough. She leaps on me, pushing me over with the chair. The red button is tantalizingly in view but unreachable. Squirming from her grasp, I feel a sudden, searing pain above my hip bone. I glance down in shock to see blood bubbling up. She lifts her arm again for another go, and I am pushing her wrist away with all my might.

  “What are you doing, Aubrey?” My hip is pulsing. I can feel blood spreading on my shirt.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeats, more forcefully.

  I shove against her wrist, but my arm is shaking with fatigue. In a last-ditch effort, I swat at the button with my other arm but don’t get anywhere near it. “Aubrey, let’s talk,” I say, breathlessly. I’m still pushing but the knife is winning, descending. The blade grazes my abdomen in a flash of pain. My arm is giving out as she lays all her weight on me. “Why? Why are you doing this?” I grunt out.

  “The baby first. That’s what he said.” Her voice is flat and emotionless, like a robot’s. “Get the baby first.”

  “Who said that?” The tip of the blade sinks down a half inch, and my arm is burning. I can’t hold her off much longer. “Aubrey, don’t do this.” The blade burrows deeper. “Help me,” I yell out, more a groan than a yell. My arm is barely pushing now, the blood is coming out in pulses. “Help me,” I say again, this time in a whisper.

  And the door whooshes open.

  A light of hope wells up in me.

  Someone is coming to help me. A shadow lurches up on the wall behind us, and as I look up to see, Aubrey turns her head, too. Then Aubrey’s face contorts in shock and pain. She yelps, comically almost, clutching her chest. And in slow motion crumples on top of me, a blade sticking out at an odd angle from her chest.

  Not Aubrey’s shank, another shank. A different shank.

  Aubrey’s weapon is lying beside me now, glazed with my blood, and someone else’s dagger is protruding from her chest. I shove her off me with revulsion.

  “You don’t get to kill her,” the voice says. Her voice is cool and smooth, with a hint of a sneer. “You don’t get to do that. Not before my little niece meets her Auntie Sofia.”

  Sofia hovers over me then, her smile not mysterious, not small. Her smile is one of pure victory. The guards pile into the room then, and I’m holding my side, trying to stanch the gushing. They swoop down on
Sofia and Aubrey. Voices are barking out, a hand is holding mine. Cloth is held against my stomach.

  “My baby,” I say, realizing right then that I do want this baby, more than anything. I’ve always wanted this baby. My cranberry bean. My apricot. My lemon. My baby.

  “It’s okay, Dr. Goldman. We got you. You’re going to be okay.”

  “My baby.”

  “She’s delirious in here. Somebody call Medical!”

  “Wait!” I say, remembering it right then, what I have to do. Before there isn’t time. In case I don’t make it. In case I die, before there’s time. I try to sit up, but my hip clenches in pain. “Sofia!”

  “Don’t worry about her.” Officer Maloney says, his bristled, sweaty head right above mine. “She can’t hurt you now.” There is a gurney suddenly, and I’m being lifted.

  “Sofia!” I call out.

  “I’m here, Tanya, I’m here.” Sofia turns around, fighting against the guards to see me.

  I can barely lift my head up, but I make them stop as I’m passing by her. I grip on to her shirt to stop them. “I forgive you,” I say. Then my head falls back, and they take me away.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  When the next morning comes, I am still alive.

  I feel like hell, but all things considered, it could have been worse. No vital organs were punctured. No essential arteries nicked. The baby is alive and kicking (well, not literally kicking, but awfully cute, for a lemon). A little blood loss, but not enough to warrant a transfusion.

  But there is pain.

  A lot of pain. Shooting, throbbing, and constant pain.

  Warden Gardner glances nervously about the room, out of his element. When I shift in the hospital bed, another round of pain blasts up from my hip. “Did Aubrey have anything to do with the texts?”

  “We’re still trying to work that out,” Detective Adams says, standing at the bed rail next to the warden. “It may be something totally separate.” A nurse comes by and, seeing the warden, adds a flounce to her step with a flirtatious smile, and the warden gives an uncomfortable smile back, twisting his wedding ring. She bends over to adjust something that probably doesn’t need adjusting on my IV pole, then leaves. “No concept as to why she did this?” the detective asks.