My heart was beating hard as I moved over the last yards of the cul-de-sac to the front doors. I reached through the vines. Grabbed the metal handle. Pulled and pushed on it so that the chain rattled. But the doors wouldn’t open. I tested the wooden boards, but they were stuck fast. I moved to a section thickly overgrown with ivy and pushed the green leaves and vines aside.
There I found what I was looking for: a jagged patch of shadow—a section of broken glass that had been hidden by the vines. An entryway.
Carefully, holding the ivy aside, I stepped into the darkness, into the hospital.
The quiet was deeper in here. No sounds of traffic, no whispering breeze. The light was pale gray just by the doors, but then slowly drained into dark shadows in the broad hall beyond the abandoned front desk.
I moved forward cautiously. Nervous. Hopeful. Was she real this time? Had I really found her? Was that really why Mrs. Longstreet had sent me? Because Samantha told her to? Because Samantha had been hiding from Stark here, waiting for me. Because she didn’t know how to reach me without giving herself away. But she knew I would follow the same path she had. She knew I would find Mrs. Longstreet. Because she knew my mind. Because we were part of each other . . .
That was the hope anyway. But I remembered too that Stark’s hired gun had tracked me to the ghost town outside Washington Falls. Maybe tracing my credit cards. Maybe trailing my car. I didn’t know. I didn’t even know how much of that had been real. But there was always the chance that it might be the skull-faced murderer or one of his goons who was waiting for me here, hiding somewhere in these dark hospital halls.
I drew in a deep breath. Moved slowly past the desk. Into the broad corridor beyond. No windows. Gray light. Empty doorways—door after open door. Shadows everywhere. Emptiness everywhere. Ghostly movements at the corners of my eyes. Stark? Samantha? No one. The dark gathered around me as I went deeper into the hospital, farther down the hall.
I heard the footsteps first. Light steps on a stairwell. I stopped in the dark. Open doors and empty rooms on either side of me. I listened. Nervous, my heart going a mile a minute, my hand slipping into my windbreaker, touching my holstered gun. I knew the death-headed Stark might emerge from the shadows at any minute.
But what if . . . ? What if it was Samantha? What would it be like to see her again? After all this time.
There was the sound of a heavy door opening. I could just barely make it out—the stairwell door—swinging open in the shadows at the end of the hall. It fell shut again, loudly: boom. The sound echoed in the emptiness. Only when the echo faded did I hear the footsteps again.
My fingers closed around the butt of my Glock, ready to draw.
Then, slowly, she came out of the shadows. She was wearing black jeans and a black sweatshirt. The auburn of her hair, the gold and rose of her skin, her blue eyes were all gray in the darkness.
For another moment, I still wasn’t sure she was real. I still half expected her to vanish. But she didn’t. She approached me steadily. Nearer and nearer, step by slow step. She came close to me. I could smell her scent. I watched every motion as her hand lifted to draw a strand of her hair from her forehead. I was afraid to move. Afraid to speak. I was afraid if I did anything at all, she would be gone.
Samantha smiled, laughed silently, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. She did know—exactly. I smiled too.
I released my gun. My hand came out of my jacket. I reached out and touched her shoulder. She was there. She was real. On impulse, I leaned down and kissed her.
I kissed her very gently. Just pressed my lips to hers. She didn’t resist. She let me. Her lips were soft, responding to mine. But when I drew back, I saw that something frightened, even frantic, had come into her eyes.
I started to lean toward her again.
She shook her head. “Don’t.”
I tried not to—but it was no good.
“I can’t help it,” I told her.
I kissed her again. Again, she let me. She kissed me back. I put my hand in her hair and drew her close. I put my arms around her and held her and caressed her as I kissed her.
She turned her face away and pressed her cheek against my chest.
“Don’t, Danny. Really. I mean it.”
I went on holding her. I kissed her hair. I stroked her hair with my hand. I put my face in her hair and drew in the scent of her. Lost to me—lost even to my memories. All this time.
“Samantha,” I said. She couldn’t know, I thought, how much I’d longed for her, how deep it went, the power of it . . .
She lifted her face to me.
“This is . . .” she started to say.
At the sight of her lips, I kissed her. I couldn’t stop myself. I pulled her body into mine. I lingered on her mouth as she drew it slowly away.
“This is insane,” she whispered, breathless.
“I know,” I said.
I drew her in to me again.
Her body was unbearably sweet, painfully sweet and fresh, like someone you remember but can’t have anymore, like remembering the first time you ever touched a woman.
Because it was supposed to be her, that’s why. It was never supposed to be anyone but her.
She had camped out in a room upstairs. She had spread a sleeping bag over the mattress of an old hospital bed. The afternoon light slanted in through the uncurtained windows. The room was a little bastion of light in all the hospital’s mazelike halls of darkness. I still didn’t know what was in that darkness—what, if anything, was waiting out there, watching, coming for us. But for a little while, I didn’t care. For a little while, as I was making love to her, there was nothing for me but feeling her body, watching her face, hovering over her and watching her face and stroking her hair and studying every naked inch of her. Except sometimes . . . sometimes I had to hold her closer, bury my face in her neck to shut out the memories, the voices drifting to me from the darkness all around . . .
Don’t let them take me, will you . . .
They kept me alive a long time . . .
We’ll be all right now, won’t we, Danny?
Outside, the afternoon deepened, the sun shifted, the shadows covered her.
Only when I touched my lips against her cheek—only then did I feel the tears there and realize that she was crying.
The smell of smoke woke me. I sat up out of a nightmare of fire, but the smoke was still there. My heart racing, I looked around in a murky panic. Where the hell was I? How could I have fallen asleep? The drug. The damned drug.
It took a long moment before everything came back to me. St. Mary’s. You’ll find all the answers there.
I tried to think, tried to clear my head. Was I alone? Was Samantha gone? Had she ever really been there in the first place . . . ?
The smell of smoke again. It was real enough this time. Someone had been smoking a cigarette in here and the smell lingered.
Could it be Stark . . . ? One of his men? Were they here? Had they found us, come for us? Taken Samantha?
Fighting the heaviness and confusion in my mind, I got up quickly. Tugged on my clothes. Strapped on my weapon. Covered it with the windbreaker. Made my way out of the little room.
I stood still a moment, out in the hall. Scanned the shadows. Then the smell of smoke reached me yet again, stronger now. I moved forward cautiously.
I came to a small common room right next door: an alcove off the corridor. A table and a sofa were the only furniture left here. There was a balcony beyond them. The glass doors were open and the thin white curtains were blowing in, billowing in with the cool afternoon wind. As the curtains moved, I caught glimpses of her. She was standing at the railing out there, looking out over the forested hills. She lifted her hand to her mouth. I saw a red glow: a cigarette. As she exhaled, the smoke blew in to me.
I felt my tense muscles relax a little.
Samantha.
I made my way through the curtains and stepped out onto the balcony. The day was cooler now, an
d the light deeper. Samantha didn’t turn to me, didn’t look at me. She just went on smoking her cigarette. As I got closer, I could see the tears glistening on her cheeks. She was still crying. Drawing on her cigarette fiercely; gazing out over the hills; crying.
I stepped up beside her. “We should go,” I said gently. I tried to brush her tears away with the back of my hand. With a harsh, startling gesture, she knocked my hand away with her arm. She glared at me through her tears with fierce defiance.
I didn’t understand at first. “We should,” I said. “There are people after us.”
“I know that.”
“They’ve found me twice already. They could do it again. I have to take you someplace safe.”
“You’re not taking me anywhere. No one’s taking me anywhere. I’m going to tell you what I need to tell you, and then I disappear, I’m gone.”
“Samantha . . .”
“Why did you do it?” she said savagely.
“What?”
“Kiss me. Make love to me. I told you I didn’t want to.” She spat out the words. Then she turned away. She stared furiously out into the distance.
“Look,” I began to say. “I couldn’t . . . it just . . .”
“I told you!” she repeated.
“But you did want to.”
She didn’t argue. She didn’t answer at all. The cigarette in one hand, she brought her other hand to her mouth and chewed angrily on the thumbnail.
“You must be out of your mind,” she said after a while. “I mean it. You must be living in some kind of fantasy world.”
I sighed. What could I say? She had a point: I wasn’t even sure where my fantasies ended anymore. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am. It’s just that when I saw you . . .”
I reached for her again and she pushed me away again. “Don’t.” She sniffled violently. She wiped her cheeks and nose with her sleeve. “Did you think it would be like . . . nothing had happened? All these years. It’s been almost thirty years . . .”
“I know how long it’s been.”
“Well, what did you think?”
“I don’t know. I told you. I don’t know. Look, there’s no time for this. We have to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The wind rose and we could hear the trees whisper and rattle below. When the air reached us, it was cold. Samantha’s whole body shuddered. I wanted to wrap her in my arms again. But the anger rose off her like an atmosphere. All I could do was stand there and watch her seethe.
“I used to dream you’d come and rescue me,” she said. Her voice was low and quick. She spoke into the empty distance. “Whenever some new bastard of a foster father put his filthy hands on me. I used to think, Danny will come. Danny is so strong, Danny is so fast, he’ll find me, he’ll come in and save me any minute.”
I went on standing there. I wanted to tell her: I used to dream the same dream—that I would find her, that I would rescue her. After a while, I couldn’t stand dreaming it anymore. I couldn’t stand living with my own little-boy helplessness. So I stopped the dreams altogether. I stopped remembering her altogether. I forgot her. Her and everything.
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
She made a sharp, dismissive noise, wiping her eyes roughly with the back of her hand. “I don’t need you to be sorry. I know it’s not your fault. We were children. I’m just saying . . .” She glanced up at me. Quickly looked away. “I’m just saying you don’t know me. You don’t know my life. You weren’t there. You don’t have any right to just . . . I mean, Jesus, Danny! What was it supposed to be? Love’s sweet song?”
“Come on, Samantha . . .”
“Things change. The things they do to you . . . change you. Twist you . . . We don’t become the people we’re supposed to be. We become . . . something else.”
I couldn’t stand there anymore, couldn’t watch her anymore. Biting her fingernails, smoking her cigarette. Bitter, angry. Spitting out those words. Trying to hurt me with them. Hurting me.
I turned from her to the balcony rail. The rail was painted white, the paint chipped, the red rust showing through. I gripped it, looked over it, out across the trees. The sun, out of sight, laid a wedge of gold over their green crowns.
“Oh, don’t sulk,” Samantha said with a hard laugh. “I’m sorry I’m not what you expected . . .”
“Stop.”
“Well, I am. I am sorry. Believe me, I’d be Sleeping Beauty if I could.”
I felt a surge of anger at her—anger and, I guess, disappointment too. “You’re the one who brought me here,” I said. “You waited for me. You told the Longstreet woman to send me . . .”
“Because people are trying to kill me. I don’t know who else to trust.”
“All right then. Trust me. Let me keep you safe.”
“I don’t trust anyone. I can’t.” Beside me, she dashed her cigarette to the concrete platform and crushed it brutally under her sneaker. “Damn it,” she said—and she muttered again: “I told you I didn’t want to . . .”
“You didn’t exactly scream for help.”
“Yeah, well . . . I’m a little screwed up in that regard, all right? I was hoping you’d be the sane one.”
I swallowed my answer. It tasted bad.
She started crying harder now. Trembling and crying. Swiping angrily at her cheeks with her hand. Sweeping her sleeve across her nose. I stood it for a while, but it was too much, too brutal; I couldn’t let it go on.
I turned to her. Reached for her. “Samantha, we have to . . .”
She cried out—“Don’t touch me!”—a hoarse scream of fear and grief. And suddenly her hand moved, and a blade flashed in front of my eyes, sweeping by me, missing my face by inches.
I cursed, ducking back, out of range. She held the knife up at me, brandished it, her teeth bared, the tears pouring down her cheeks.
“I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt me again. You, them, anyone. Understand?”
“Put that down,” I said. “I’d never hurt you. Are you crazy?”
She glared at me past the blade, shaking, crying. And then the glare faltered. Her lips quivered like a child’s. She lowered the knife. Shook her head at me.
“Why didn’t you ever come, Danny?” she said. “Why didn’t you ever come?”
She turned and hurried off the balcony.
As I stepped inside, pushing the white curtains out of my way, I faltered a moment. A haze of dizziness passed over me. Now that the excitement of finding Samantha was fading, now that the excitement of making love to her was fading, the effects of my withdrawal from the Z were rising up in me again. I fought them off. Came unsteadily into the common room.
She was there. Sitting on the sofa arm. She had her belt off. She was working the blade back into it. It was clever, the way it was hidden in there. The belt was a series of canvas straps linked by buckles. The buckle in the rear was the handle of the hidden knife.
“Where the hell did you get that thing?” I asked her.
“A store . . . where I got the sleeping bag,” she murmured, sniffling. “If they come after me again, I’ll kill them with it, so help me. I’ll slit their throats.”
I shook my head. I admired the idea, but I hated to think what would happen to her, going up against Stark and his people. I lifted my eyes and peered past her into the shadows of the corridor. I wondered where the killer was—how close he was, how fast he was approaching as we stood here quarreling through our reunion. I could feel the time closing in on us like a hard hand. I could feel Stark and his men closing in on us like the time . . .
When I looked down, I saw Samantha slide the knife back into place. She swiped at her tears again. Then she began to thread the belt through the loops of her jeans.
“Have you seen them?” she asked grimly. “There are two of them. They look, so help me God, just like skeletons. Like Death and his twin brother.”
“The Starks. I’ve seen them. And there’s only o
ne of them now.”
“What?”
“They came after me. I killed one.”
She stared at me. “Did you? Seriously?”
“Under the circumstances, it seemed like a good idea.”
She stared at me another second, then bowed her head so I couldn’t see her face. She gave a lot of attention to buckling her belt. After a while, she made a noise—and I realized she was stifling a laugh.
“You think that’s funny?” I said.
She shook her head, trying not to laugh again, laughing again anyway. “Sort of. I mean, it’s just what you would have done. You know? I mean . . . you’re still Danny. You’re still just like you were.”
I couldn’t help smiling a little too at that. “Unfortunately,” I said, “the other one’s still alive and the whole killing-his-brother thing has sort of soured relations between us. While we’re sitting around here chatting, he’s doing everything he can to track us down.”
Samantha gave a slow nod, let out a slow breath. For a moment, I thought she might listen to reason and let me take her away from here.
But she simply said, “Listen then. I’ll tell you the whole thing quickly.”
“I never wanted any of this,” she said.
We were back in her room. Away from the window, out of the cold. With all the hospital darkness hunkered around outside us like a threat. Samantha was on the bed, hugging her knees, curled in a grim little ball of self-defense. I was slouched in the wooden armchair across from her, my legs splayed out in front of me.
And yes, I knew we should run. Sure I knew. Whether she wanted to or not, I knew I should grab her and put her into the car and drive her to some hidden nowhere as fast as I could. But I didn’t. I didn’t have the strength. A weird heaviness had settled over me and I didn’t have the will to fight with her or to withstand her anger. It was the drug, of course. The hazy lethargy of withdrawal creeping through me so subtly I didn’t even notice it at first.
And so I didn’t run, and I didn’t make her run. I just sat there in the chair. Feverish. Watching her. Listening.