Last Run

by Hilary Norman

  ‘What can we do for him?’ Cathy asked David.

  ‘Be here,’ he told her. ‘Let him know we’re here, that we all love him.’

  ‘Need him,’ Terri said.

  ‘Can he hear us, do you think?’ Cathy asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ David answered. ‘We can’t be sure.’

  ‘What about you when you were unconscious that time?’ she asked him. ‘Could you hear people talking to you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But that’s because I can’t remember because of the drugs. It doesn’t mean I didn’t hear.’

  Cathy hardly stopped talking to Saul after that, told him every little thing that came into her head – talked to him, when no one else was around, about her feelings for Kez, about how much she was missing her.

  ‘I keep thinking about the afternoon we met you and Teté in CocoWalk and you said we should all go have a drink, but we didn’t because Kez wanted us to be alone. But afterward she was worried you might have been upset, and I told her you wouldn’t be offended about something like that, but still, you would have gotten to spend some time with Kez, and then you’d understand how I feel about her. So when you’re better I hope we can do that anyway, though I’m not too sure that Kez is ever going to want to spend time with me again.’

  She paused, hoping for some tiny response, the smallest movement of a finger, anything, but there was nothing, would be nothing for a long while yet.

  And if there had ever been the smallest doubt in her mind as to the depth of her feelings for Saul, it was entirely extinguished now.

  They took rooms at a motel near the hospital, taking it in turns to go there to shower and sleep for short periods before going back again.

  David was practically immovable, for which Sam – anxious as he was that their father not make himself sick – was profoundly grateful, since so long as that grey-haired, hawk-nosed old guard dog was on duty, it freed him at least to liaise with Patterson, check in periodically with Martinez (nothing so far of any interest on Terri) and take a couple of late night walks on the beach – about all he felt he could get away with without arousing the irritation, or worse, of the local force.

  Sam did not want a grain of bad feeling between himself and Joseph Patterson or his colleagues. He wanted them on this case with as much motivation and goodwill as humanly possible. For now, at least, they were still in what many cops called ‘the first seventy-two’ – the period during which new cases were most likely, statistically, to be solved, after which, with manpower as stretched in Naples as in Miami Beach – though there were exceptions, especially in particularly high profile cases – the only detective likely to be left with the case was the lead investigator, most people returning to work on other old cases and, of course, new crimes.

  Saul might be one of the most important people in Sam’s life, but there was nothing remotely high profile about him – and he wasn’t even dead.

  Sam still felt torn between the urge to get out on the streets – as a private citizen, not a cop – and his need to keep Terri under a degree of surveillance.

  Not that he actually believed she was the one.

  He’d had occasion to see the soles of Terri’s feet early the first morning, an hour or so after he’d talked with Detective Patterson.

  They had been taking a few minutes in the relatives’ room – David and Grace sitting in the ICU – and Cathy had fallen asleep on the couch.

  Terri had taken off her moccasins, lifted one foot at a time and rubbed it.

  Neat, tidy feet with red toenails. Smooth soles and heels.

  Not a blemish.

  That ought, Sam thought, to have been a turning point, the instant he should have felt able to drop the notion for keeps and let her off the hook, yet it had not been, for there was no real reason why the foot which had stamped on his brother’s throat should have been injured or marked in any way.

  So he was still watching, just in case.

  He blamed her anyway.

  For not having been with Saul when he’d been attacked. For having had another quarrel with him. For walking out on him, leaving him distressed enough to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening out searching for her.

  Though even if they hadn’t fought, Sam tried to rationalize, if Terri had not walked out, they might still have taken a nighttime stroll along the beach, and maybe the attack might still have taken place.

  Not if they were prowling, looking for a lone victim. All three of the others had been alone on the beach, all after dark. Which meant that the chances were that it would not have happened to Saul if Terri had been with him, and Sam didn’t know if he could ever forgive her for that.

  Which made him no better than Althea with her unforgiving heart, because he had not been there when their little boy had pulled away from her grasp and been run down by the drunk driver.

  If – when – Saul got better, Sam would have to find a way to forgive Terri. She was looking about as ripped apart as he felt, had told Sam how much she wanted to stay close to Saul, yet wanted at the same time – just like him – to be out there helping find the scum who’d done this.

  She had told Sam, too, how much she hated herself for running out on Saul. Had told Grace the same thing.

  ‘I hate myself for that,’ Terri had said to her, ‘more than I could ever have believed possible.’

  And Grace, still in pieces, had gone straight to Sam and repeated every word to him, verbatim. All she could do right now. Too little, too late.

  He had not actively rejected her again, not in the same painful way, since that moment outside the ICU early that first morning, but neither was he sharing his innermost feelings with her as he usually did, and sometimes when he looked at her she noticed that he swiftly looked away again, and she was terribly afraid that it was because he no longer loved what he saw.

  As frightened for Saul as she was, Cathy was feeling guilt, too.

  She felt so caged, the long hours of vigil in the hospital, the bad atmosphere between the others – only David seeming at all himself, and he, of course, was consumed with fear for his son – taking their toll on her.

  She wanted – needed – to do what she always did under stress. Run, keep on running.

  She wanted Kez, too, was utterly certain of that now. To talk with, be with. To be close to her, have her strong arms around her, and not only for comfort.

  She made the call on Tuesday afternoon, went outside to the hospital driveway, checked her voicemail for the umpteenth time, found nothing and, steeling herself against further rejection, keyed in Kez’s number again.

  ‘I can’t take your call right now . . .’

  Kez’s voice, but no warmth in it, a message spoken swiftly, perhaps recorded in a rush, and if Kez didn’t like cell phones, maybe she disliked telephones altogether.

  But Cathy needed her.

  ‘Kez, it’s me, Cathy,’ she said. ‘I really, really need you to call me.’

  The whole thing, she had to tell her what had happened to Saul, throw it all in, let Kez understand how much she meant to her.

  ‘Saul was attacked, in Naples, and he’s in really bad shape, and we’re all over here together, all the family, but there’s only one person I really want to be with, to talk to, and that’s you, Kez, and I miss you so much, and you told me to make up my mind about how I feel about you, and I have, I really have.’

  Pitiful.

  Cathy hated herself already.

  Kez would despise her even more.

  ‘Please call,’ she said.

  Needs must.

  ‘I’ve said it before,’ Grace told Lucia on the phone, late on Tuesday evening, ‘but it’s never been quite as true. I do not know what I’d do without you.’

  ‘You’d cope,’ Lucia said.

  She had left a message for Grace, wanting primarily to check on Saul, but also to let her know that she had cleared her entire list for the next week so Grace didn’t need to worry about her patients, and yes, Lucia had
remembered that the more fragile would need to be seen by Dr Shrike (Magda Shrike, Grace’s old mentor, and one of the best psychologists she knew).

  ‘So all you have to think about is Saul and your family and yourself,’ Lucia went on. ‘And please, Dr Lucca, promise me you will take care of yourself and the baby. And Tina’s not at People’s Hospital, of course, but if there’s anything you think she could help with, just tell me and I’ll get in touch with her.’

  Grace had forgotten, in the horror, all about Lucia’s favourite niece.

  ‘That’s so kind,’ she said, ‘but I can’t think of anything right now.’ She wanted to get back upstairs to Saul, but Lucia deserved consideration too. ‘If Tina has something that she’d like us to bring back to you, or if you think of . . .’

  ‘You can stop that this instant, doctor,’ Lucia chided her. ‘Didn’t I just tell you to take care of yourself?’

  Grace mustered a smile, felt the baby move, thought of him as an anchor in all the dark distress; thought, too, of the incomparable value of good friends.

  ‘I almost forgot,’ Lucia said, ‘to tell you that Claudia called yesterday.’

  A new wave of guilt jogged Grace.

  ‘You haven’t told her about Saul,’ Lucia said.

  ‘No,’ Grace said. ‘Did you . . . ?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Lucia said. ‘Not my place to interfere and I know you feel your sister has a lot on her plate, but I do still think it’s time you let her know. Problems or not, she’s family. She should at least be given the option of getting on a plane.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Grace said.

  ‘I know I am,’ Lucia said.

  Grace made the call right away, but the instant she heard her sister’s voice, heard the dullness she’d been noticing far too often lately, she knew she still wasn’t going to tell her the whole truth.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Claudia asked. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We’re in Naples,’ Grace told her. ‘Saul’s in the hospital.’

  ‘What happened?’ Distress replaced the dullness. ‘Is he OK?’

  ‘He will be,’ Grace said. ‘He was attacked, sis, and we had some scary moments, but he’s going to be fine.’

  Claudia began firing questions: what exactly and when had it happened, why hadn’t Grace told her right away, because she would have flown across, could have been with her through such a dreadful time. There was nothing she could have done, Grace told her, and quite frankly the last few days had been a blur.

  She did not tell her how bad Saul was, told Claudia that the reason she couldn’t speak to him was because he was sleeping much of the time.

  ‘I’m going to book a flight,’ Claudia said.

  ‘There’s no need,’ Grace said. ‘They’ll probably be moving Saul soon.’

  ‘Discharging him?’ Claudia jumped on the words.

  ‘Moving him first, I expect,’ Grace said, ‘back to Miami.’

  ‘Why can’t they discharge him, if he’s OK?’

  ‘Because he’s been concussed, and he’s going to need some surgery.’ Grace was fighting to blend truth with white lies. ‘He has a fractured shoulder.’

  ‘Oh, poor Saul,’ Claudia said. ‘He must be in such pain.’

  ‘Anyway – ’ Grace took the subject back to Claudia – ‘it’s not as if you can just jump on a plane.’

  ‘I can find a sitter for the boys,’ Claudia said, ‘or Daniel will just have to work from home for once – he used to be happy enough doing that.’

  ‘Before he had the new practice,’ Grace said. ‘Not just himself to look after now, sis, a whole bunch of responsibilities.’

  ‘Me and the boys, most of all, I’d have thought,’ Claudia said.

  Grace’s heart sank a little deeper, as it tended to whenever she spoke to her sister these days. Not her imagination that things had been difficult between Claudia and Daniel since the move, and maybe after the baby was born she was going to have to be the one to stir herself and fly up there to see if there was anything she could do.

  For now though, her hands were more than full, and frankly, the way Claudia was sounding, having her here was unlikely to be any help at all.

  She told Claudia that she loved her and missed her, told her that she and the baby were fine, but that she didn’t want to have to stress about creating upheavals for her and Daniel and the boys, and that she had Sam and Cathy and David to take care of her, so there was no need to worry. And Claudia sounded a little aggrieved, but a little relieved, too, no question about it.

  ‘Promise you’ll call if anything changes, or if you need me,’ she said.

  ‘The instant,’ Grace said.

  ‘Nothing new,’ Martinez told Sam early Wednesday morning.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing you don’t already know. Dirtbag dad and drunken mom, grandma saved the day, like you said. And maybe that could all have been the start of some screw-up psychosis, but I don’t buy it because the kid hauled herself up and became a cop like her grandpa, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ Sam said.

  ‘So, can I stop this now?’

  ‘I guess,’ Sam said.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, man, do you want her to be a serial killer?’ Martinez sounded exasperated. ‘Would you rather she’d been the one to beat the shit out of your brother?’

  ‘No,’ Sam said. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘So now you can focus on Saul and Grace and Cathy and your dad, and you can leave the investigation to the Naples guys, right?’

  ‘Sure,’ Sam said.

  ‘Why don’t I believe you mean that?’ Martinez asked.

  ‘Have I done something to upset you?’

  Cathy asked Grace the question as they took a walk outside in the hospital gardens early that afternoon. All kinds of gorgeous trees and flowers, a typically, beautifully cared for Naples setting, the kind of grass that looked as if every blade had been hand-trimmed, carved memorial benches at intervals along the pathways.

  Neither of them noticed the loveliness, both had too much on their minds.

  ‘Why would you think that?’ Grace asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cathy said. ‘I mean, we’re all feeling so bad about Saul, but you seem—’

  ‘What do I seem?’ Grace stopped walking, looked at Cathy. ‘Sweetheart, tell me, please, what have I done to make you think you could have upset me?’

  ‘Nothing terrible.’ Cathy took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Except ever since we got here you seem as if you’re a thousand miles away from us.’ She shook her head. ‘Not just from me, either. I can see David feeling it too, and I can’t tell about Sam, because he’s half crazy about Saul anyway.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Shame heated Grace’s cheeks. ‘I swear to you, Cathy, this has absolutely nothing to do with you. I’m just not dealing with things as well as I ought to be, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t buy that.’ Cathy’s clear blue eyes were challenging. ‘Grace, if this were the other way around, you’d want me to share my problems with you, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I would, but—’

  ‘So why won’t you do the same?’

  For just a moment Grace was tempted, because Cathy was right, of course, and she wasn’t a kid any more, she was an adult with more life experience under her belt than most of them.

  Still, she could not tell her, could not share this with her. Neither her doubts about Terri, nor Sam’s anger with her for keeping them from him. She had finally handed her anxieties over to Sam and they had, necessarily, to be kept private for everyone’s sake, especially Saul’s. As to the trouble between her and Sam, that was just as private, and it was up to her to find the right way to bridge the gap between them.

  ‘Because there is nothing to share,’ she said. ‘Except what you already know about, which I think is more than enough, don’t you?’

  Cathy gave it up, and they walked on in silence, Grace not the only one with guilt loading her down; Cathy aware o
f more than a touch of hypocrisy in herself, given that she had not exactly been sharing her own emotional problems with Grace.

  ‘OK now?’ Grace asked her, gently.

  ‘Fine,’ Cathy answered.

  They walked back inside the hospital.

  Two hours later, taking another break, by herself this time in the cafeteria, Cathy checked her phone and saw Kez’s home number on her missed calls.

  Voicemail, too. From her.

  ‘I only just got your message about Saul – I’ve been at a meet up in Jacksonville, thought I’d told you about it, but anyhow that’s not important. I hope your brother’s OK, and if I’d known, I’d have called right away.’

  Warmth and the greatest relief coursed through Cathy.

  ‘So anyway,’ the husky voice went on, ‘what can I do to help? Would you like me to drive across to be with you or is this strictly family?’ A pause. ‘Whatever you want, just call me.’

  Cathy left the cafeteria without finishing her juice, went out of the hospital, walked around to the parking lot, made the call from there, and Kez picked up right away, her voice filled with concern, listening as Cathy brought her rapidly up to date.

  ‘So there’s no need for you to drive across, because they’ve been talking about moving him to Miami if he stays stable for another twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kez said. ‘OK, that’s good.’

  ‘But just knowing you’re going to be there for me – ’ Cathy forged right on – ‘is already helping, because I do know now just how badly I need you.’

  ‘That’s all I’ve been waiting to hear.’

  Cathy heard pleasure colouring Kez’s voice.

  Felt the same.

  David noticed the change in her instantly, said that she was looking better, then noted her flush, and took her aside.

  ‘Would this have something to do with Kez, by chance?’ he asked softly.

  ‘How d’you know?’ Cathy felt awkward, but impressed.

  ‘I’m happy for you, honey.’ David gave her a gentle hug. ‘I found Kez quite a special young person when I knew her.’

  Cathy drew away, and smiled at him. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ he said.

  Sam arrived then, Grace right behind him, and just watching Sam stroking Saul’s cheek, so much tenderness in his big strong hand, got Cathy all choked up. But then Terri walked in, less than a minute later, and Cathy saw Grace’s eyes shift to her, her expression suddenly wary. Not like Grace at all.