Chapter 54
NURSE BARROWS’S EYES left the page of the medication log, her head whipping in the direction of the scream. She recognized Nora’s voice right away.
Hurriedly navigating the corner of the nurses’ station, she yelled out for Patsy, who was in the supply room.
Reaching the hallway, Emily saw Nora frantically waving her arms. There were about thirty yards separating her and Olivia Sinclair’s room, and Emily began covering them faster than her chunky frame should’ve allowed.
“What is it?” Emily yelled out. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” cried Nora. “She’s—”
Emily ran right by her and into the room. What she saw was a scene straight out of The Exorcist. Olivia Sinclair was convulsing on the bed, her body fully extended while her arms and legs trembled and twitched with spasms. The rattling of the metal-frame bed was now a near deafening noise.
But for all that was happening—including Nora’s complete state of panic—Emily Barrows instantly became calm. She glanced over her shoulder to see Patsy just arriving at the doorway.
“Give me a hand,” she said to the younger nurse.
Patsy joined her with quick, nervous steps.
“Is this your first seizure?” Emily asked.
Patsy nodded.
“All right, here’s what you do. First, you roll her on her side so in case she vomits, she won’t choke on it,” said Emily. She folded her arms and nodded at Patsy, who again seemed frozen. “Don’t just stand there, dear.”
Sputtering into action, Patsy lifted Olivia onto her side. “Okay, what now?”
“Now you wait.”
“For what?”
“For it to stop.”
“You mean, this is all I do?”
“Exactly. Don’t try to restrain her in any way. Simply keep track of the clock. Nine times out of ten it won’t last more than five minutes. If it does, we call for a doctor.”
Nora stood there, her shock doubled by the fact that Emily had turned her mother’s seizure into a teaching lesson. “There’s got to be something more you can do!”
“There really isn’t, Nora. Trust me, it looks a lot worse than it is.”
“What about her tongue?! Isn’t there a chance she can swallow her tongue?!”
Emily shook her head, trying to remain patient. “That’s a myth,” she said. “It’s not even a possibility.”
Nora was still not satisfied. She was about to insist on getting a doctor when suddenly everything stopped. The bed, the noise… her mother’s convulsions.
The room fell silent. Emily eased Olivia over onto her back again, propping her head on the thin pillows. Nora rushed over and grasped her mother’s hand, giving it a squeeze.
For the first time she could remember, she actually felt a squeeze back.
“Everything’s okay, Mother,” said Nora softly. “Everything’s okay.”
“There, there,” whispered Nurse Barrows, and she had a calming hand on Nora’s shoulder. “I know you thought she was dying, but trust me, dear, you’ll know when somebody’s dying. You’ll know.”
Chapter 55
SIX FEET UNDER?
I really don’t know where that expression came from. Definitely not from the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at the Old Dutch Church in Westchester County. With six feet of soil dug up next to Connor Brown’s tombstone, there was no sign of a coffin. Only when the dirt pile was twice as high did I finally hear the flattened thud of shovel hitting wood.
At least I wasn’t doing the digging in this famous old cemetery, where Washington Irving and several Rockefeller ancestors are supposedly buried.
“They should’ve called that TV series Twelve Feet Under,” I said to the chain-smoking cop standing alongside me. I guess he didn’t get HBO, because he didn’t get the joke. Of course, the cop’s blank stare might have just been the humorless combination of fatigue and resentment.
My objective was to get in and get out as quickly and discreetly as possible. That meant a pared-down crew, no loud machinery, and a two A.M. start time. Broad daylight and a big production was the last thing I wanted.
In addition to the stone-faced cop, I had three workers from the cemetery. After setting up a couple of small floodlights, they dug for about an hour. The only other person with us was a driver from the FBI’s pathology lab. He looked barely old enough to have his license.
I glanced again at the cop next to me. “Talk about your graveyard shift, huh?”
I got no laugh or chuckle in return. Be that way, I thought.
So I turned my attention back to the gaping hole in the ground. Standing on top of Connor Brown’s half-exposed coffin were the three guys from the cemetery. They were about to secure straps around the handles, which didn’t look sturdy enough to me.
“You sure those things are going to hold all that weight?” I asked.
All three looked up. “Should,” said the tallest one, who was under five foot six. His English was okay, though. The other two were fluent only in nodding.
The straps were tied and the three guys climbed out of the hole in the ground. They lifted an aluminum frame with a crank attached to it, straddling it over the pit before hooking up the other end of the straps.
There was a sudden noise.
What the hell was that?
No one actually said those words and yet our collective looks made it clear we were thinking the same thing. It sounded like twigs snapping, footsteps maybe. The Headless Horseman out for a late-night ride?
We all froze and listened for it again. Above us the thick oak branches swayed, creaking and moaning. But the noise didn’t return.
The three cemetery guys—not quite as spooked as the rest of us—got back to work and started to crank.
Slowly, Connor Brown’s coffin began to rise.
Almost on cue the wind picked up even more. There was a sudden chill in the air that raced up my spine. I wasn’t terribly religious but I couldn’t help wondering about what we were doing. Disrupting the dead. Toying with the order of things.
I was getting a bad feeling about this.
Snap!
The sound ripped through the wind, echoing in the night. Not twigs. This was ten times louder. The handles on one side of the coffin had splintered, forcing the hinges open with a horrific nails-on-blackboard screech. Out spilled the contents in a slow-motion roll. The corpse of Connor Brown.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” the cop beside me yelled.
We rushed to the edge of the pit and were met with a putrid smell. My gag reflex kicked in, seizing my throat, and I had to step back—but not before catching a glimpse. A decomposing face; white, stringy flesh; eyeballs bulging in hollowed-out sockets, glazed over but staring right up at me.
The cemetery guys were cursing in a mix of Spanish and English as the kid from the pathology lab just shook his head. Next to me was the cop. Puking.
“What the hell do we do now?” I asked.
The answer came in the shape of a ladder. The diggers had to go back down into the hole. The only way to get the body up now was to carry it.
“Please, we need help,” said the cemetery crew spokesman.
It was the easiest decision I’d ever made.
I turned to the cop, who was still bent over and coughing up the last remnants of his dinner. He looked back at me with the most incredulous, pale face. “Me?” he gasped. “Down there?”
My smile said it all.
Sorry, pal, but you should’ve laughed at the G-man’s jokes.
Chapter 56
NORA WASN’T SURE if she’d been spotted, but there was no doubt they’d heard something. The twig snapping beneath her feet as she tried to get closer sounded like a firecracker.
When they all turned to look, she dropped to the ground behind the closest headstone. She pulled her knees tight against her chest and held her breath. It was a good time to wonder if she’d taken too much of a risk being there.
But Nora knew she
couldn’t stay away.
She had to see this, disturbing and macabre as it was. Connor’s body being taken back from the earth—were they really going through with it?
Yes, they were.
Nora shuddered. According to legend, a witch was buried out there in an unmarked plot. Even with a sweater on, she could feel the cold granite slab against her back. Slowly, she took a peek around the headstone. Phew! They had gone back to work. Straps had been hooked up to some contraption over Connor’s grave. They were beginning to raise his coffin.
She watched in disbelief. With each turn of the crank, she became more upset. Everything had been going so smoothly. There was no cause for concern. She was free and clear. And now this.
Who the hell does this O’Hara guy think he is? Asshole! Fucker!
That prompted another question. Where the hell is he?
Nora thought for sure that by following Craig Reynolds that night, she’d get her first glimpse of O’Hara. It was the main reason she was there.
But he wasn’t one of the three workmen with the shovels. He surely wasn’t the cop. Besides Craig, that left only one other man—and he was barely a man. There’s no way that kid is John O’Hara, thought Nora.
Right then the top of the coffin rose above the ground. At the sight of it, she turned away, unable to watch. Her back pressed hard against the gravestone again, she could hear her heart pounding.
That was nothing compared to what she heard next.
A horrific snapping—and it came right from Connor’s grave. Every muscle in Nora’s body tensed. She didn’t know what had happened, and part of her wanted it to stay that way.
But she had to look.
So she peeked around the gravestone.
Her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped. She nearly screamed. One side of Connor’s coffin was dangling, the lid wide open. Her mind filled in the rest, and as she watched the policeman vomit, she wanted to do the same.
In fact, she was sure she would’ve if not for another instinct taking over.
Run!
Chapter 57
THE NEXT DAY Nora drove back to Manhattan and directly to the Bliss spa in her SoHo neighborhood. She had a carrot-and-sesame body buff as well as a hot oil massage. That was followed by a manicure and pedicure. Usually nothing relaxed Nora more than a little blissful pampering.
But three hours and four hundred dollars later, she was no better off. The previous night still weighed on her mind. It was late afternoon and the thought of spending the evening alone was giving her chills.
She considered calling Elaine and Allison. Maybe they’d be up for a last-minute get-together. As Nora reached for her cell phone, though, she changed her mind.
She had another idea. Maybe a better way to distract herself. Instead of dwelling on what was, she’d focus on what might be. Her on-deck circle. Batter up, Brian Stewart.
Nora called the wealthy software magnate she’d met on the plane and asked if he had plans for the evening.
“Nothing I can’t cancel,” he quickly replied. “Give me two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” When he called back after clearing his schedule, he was ready to fill it again. All with Nora.
“I hope you don’t have to be up too early tomorrow morning,” he warned with a laugh. Excitedly, he outlined what was in store.
Cocktails at the King Cole Bar.
Then dinner at Vong.
Topped off by dancing in the West Village at Lotus.
Nora couldn’t have been more pleased. After spending time in a graveyard, a night on the town seemed just right.
Chapter 58
OVER A BOTTLE of Perrier-Jouët at the King Cole Bar, Brian Stewart regaled her with funny stories from his childhood. Nora listened and laughed. At the same time, she couldn’t help notice how a lot of them involved his family. The way Brian talked, she could tell how close they were. It made her jealous. In all her years shuttling from one foster care home to another, she was lucky if anyone even remembered her birthday.
Not that she was about to tell Brian any of that.
By this point in her life, Nora had perfected a made-up story of her upbringing. The architect father. The schoolteacher mother. The three of them living blissfully in the rolling hills of Litchfield, Connecticut. The more people she told, the more she was able to forget the truth. One day, she hoped, it would be as if her mother never really killed her father while Nora watched.
Over dinner at Vong, Brian switched to wine and Nora to Pellegrino. As they ate and drank, the two of them became increasingly cozy with each other. She was actually able to look at him without thinking of Brad Pitt. Brian was handsome enough in his own right.
Not to mention fun to be with, which wasn’t always the case with rich men. More times than not, the wealthy ones she met turned out to be exceedingly boring and incredibly full of themselves. Rich and exciting ones were hard to find. Which made Nora all the happier that she’d met Brian.
The feeling seemed mutual.
The way things were going, it looked as if they wouldn’t make it to Lotus for dancing. She tried to picture his apartment. Surely it would be huge, probably a penthouse. Maybe some kind of interesting loft space. She’d find out soon enough.
“Are you having a good time?” he asked.
“The best.”
He smiled. Except it wasn’t exactly a happy smile. Something was bothering him and he looked nervous.
Nora inched forward in her seat. “What’s wrong?”
He fidgeted with his dessert spoon, almost as if he were working up his nerve. Apparently, he was. “There’s something I have to tell you,” he said. “I have a confession to make.”
“Damn, you’re married.”
“No, I’m not married, Nora.”
“Then, what is it?” she asked.
His dessert spoon was getting a real workout now. “It’s something else I’m not,” he said. He finally put down the spoon and took a deep breath. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m not really a rich software developer.”
The words hung in the air, as did the silence that followed them. Nora was speechless. Brian’s face was red, and it wasn’t from the alcohol. His admission had sobered them both up.
“I’m telling you this because I couldn’t lie to you anymore,” he said.
“Why did you lie in the first place?”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t have been interested in me.”
Nora blinked. “What do you really do?” she asked.
“I’m an advertising copywriter.”
“Ah, you lie for a living. So, there were no venture capitalists waiting for you in Boston?”
“No, just a client. Gillette.”
She shook her head. “Let me get this straight—you thought the only way I’d like you was if you were rich?”
“I guess I did.”
“Or was it because you thought that was the only way I’d sleep with you for one night—as in tonight?”
“That’s not true.”
She shot him a dubious look. “Really?”
“Okay, it’s a little bit true,” he admitted. “At least at first. Like I said, though, I couldn’t lie to you anymore.”
“Is anything that you’ve told me true?”
“Yes. Everything, as a matter of fact. Everything except the part about being fabulously wealthy. I’m sorry I lied,” he said. “Can you forgive me?”
Nora paused, if only for effect, before reaching over and taking his hand. “Yes,” she said. “I can forgive you. I do forgive you, Brian.”
A few minutes later, when all seemed well again, she excused herself from the table to use the ladies’ room. It was in the front of the restaurant. As she walked by it and headed out the door to hail a cab home, Nora wondered briefly how long it would take Brian to realize she wasn’t coming back.
Chapter 59
THE TALL BLOND woman quickly turned her face away as Nora walked by. They were so close, she could feel the heat of the other woman’s
body. This was a dangerous moment. No, this was a mistake on her part.
The blonde had been sitting at the bar at Vong, sipping a martini and watching Nora the entire time. She was sure she’d been witnessing a date—probably a first one, given the body language. She couldn’t hear the conversation, but it was clear they were getting along.
Which made Nora’s sudden exit all the more puzzling.
Minutes passed. The blonde stabbed at the olive in her martini with a toothpick, her mind allowing for the various possibilities. Nora leaving momentarily to make a call, for instance. More plausible was her going out for a quick smoke. Then again, she’d yet to see Nora with a cigarette in her hand.
The woman looked back over at the table where Nora’s date sat, waiting. He certainly is a good-looking guy, she thought. He kind of looks like—
“Excuse me,” came a voice over her shoulder.
She turned to see a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair. He was wearing a turtleneck, sport coat, and way too much aftershave.
She glanced up at him, not saying anything, waiting.
He put his hand on the empty stool next to her. “Is this seat taken?”
“I don’t believe so.”
He flashed a cheesy grin and sat down. “Hard to believe there could be a vacancy next to such a very pretty woman,” he said while positioning his forearm on the bar. He leaned into her. “Can I buy you another drink?”
“I haven’t finished this one yet.”
“That’s okay, I’ll wait,” he said, nodding confidently. “All night, if I have to.”
The blonde threw him a flirtatious smile and then lifted her martini. She poured it over his head.
“There, all done,” she said.
She got up and walked away. But not toward the door. Convinced that Nora wasn’t returning, she headed for the table where her date remained sitting alone.
“Excuse me, are you waiting for Nora Sinclair?”
He looked at her, a little puzzled. “Uh… yes, actually, I am.”