“He's gone bradycardic twice now,” the nurse was explaining to Dr. Carson-Miller, no doubt having woken her up from her sleep in another empty hospital room. “I've administered atropine both times to restore rhythm.”
William knew the cardiologist's response. “Twice, huh? Keep Harry NPO. We'll have his doctor check him out again in the morning, and bring in Dr. Stokes for a consult. Glance at his day, all right? Good night.”
The phone clicked. William managed to breathe again. Everything was done. He still felt hysterical but wasn't sure why. After all, it went just like all of them went, smooth as glass. Inject twice, giving the candidate two bradycardic episodes. Cardiologist does the sensible thing and recommends the installation of a pacemaker to regulate the heart, Dr. Harper Stokes agrees, and it's done.
Why wouldn't the nurse leave now? William needed her to leave now.
He heard footsteps, loud, ringing footsteps coming down the hall. Men's shoes appeared in view. Brown suede Italian loafers.
“I'm sorry, sir,” the nurse said immediately. “But you can't just walk into the ICU.”
“Um,” the man said. “I know . . . this is for family only—”
“During visiting hours,” the nurse said firmly. “These aren't visiting hours.”
“Ah, yes, um, I know. But I'm with the FBI . . .”
William bit his lower lip.
“I'm a friend of this guy. I mean, he's an old friend of the family. I understand he had some chest pains today and was rushed to the ER. We'd heard it was nothing, but then I found out he was in the ICU. I promised my pop I'd check in on him. Of course, my job doesn't let me come during normal hours. I was just gonna glance in, but the lady at the desk said he'd been having problems. Can't you at least tell me what's happening.”
The man was lying, of course. Even a four-year-old could tell the man was full of shit. FBI agent appearing in the hospital at three A.M. to look in on a “friend”?
And then William understood. That's what the note had said—You get what you deserve. And the organs, of course, the organs were a symbol of what he and Harper were doing. Someone knew. Someone had sent the agent for him. At any minute the agent would make a pretense of dropping his gun, bend down, and shoot William.
You've been a bad boy, a very bad boy. Bad Billy.
“Oh, dear,” the nurse said. “You really can't be in here. I'll have to ask you to step outside.”
“But is he all right?”
“Mr. Boer has had a rough night, I'm afraid. Most likely he'll have surgery in the morning, but his doctor can tell you more about that.”
“He needs open heart surgery!” The man sounded both stricken and triumphant.
“Well, he might.”
“Please, nurse, tell me exactly what happened.”
The feet started moving. The nurse was ushering the man to the door. But she was also beginning to explain.
William lay transfixed.
You get what you deserve.
Slowly he reached beneath his arm and pulled out his gun. He took off the safety.
He was ready, he promised himself. He wasn't some scared, spineless kid anymore. He'd learned a lot growing up as an undersized boy in a Texas orphanage.
Time to start thinking, William. Time to take control.
You get what you deserve.
William made his decision. If that's the way this thing was going to be played, he'd play it. Dr. Harper Stokes might think of William as harmless, maybe even a fall guy, but Dr. Stokes hadn't seen nothing yet.
EIGHTEEN
I N A DARK suite of the Four Seasons, just across from the Public Garden, just across from the Stokeses' Beacon Street town house, Jamie O'Donnell sat on a blue velvet sofa, brandy snifter in one hand, TV remote in another.
An old goat like him shouldn't be surfing the channels with the lights out. He should turn off the TV, go to bed. Snuggle up with Annie and savor the soft sound of her breathing. Beautiful woman, Annie. The best thing that had ever happened to him.
He remained in front of the TV, flipping the channels.
In many ways Jamie considered himself a simple man. He'd worked hard all his life, fighting his way up from poverty tooth and nail. He'd killed men and he'd seen them die. He'd done things he was proud of, and he'd done things he knew better than to think about late at night. You did what you had to.
He'd arrived in Texas at the ripe old age of thirteen. He started working the oil fields when he was just fourteen. By the time he was twenty he'd developed the broad shoulders and thick neck of a day laborer. His face was generally stained black, his nails too. Definitely not a pretty boy, but he'd never let it get in his way.
Come sunset, Jamie was always the first person off the fields, into the showers, and then into town. College campuses, that's where he liked to go. College campuses were where he could dream. And that's where he'd met Harper Stokes.
Introduced by mutual friends, they'd sized each other up immediately. Shrewd Harper had recognized that Jamie didn't fit in—no way was this thick, dark man a student. In turn, Jamie had known that Harper didn't fit in—no way was this thin, overdressed Poindexter really an aristocrat. They were the outsiders, and they both knew it. So they spent the next few months competing against each other to see who would break into the golden clique of old money. They schemed against each other and ridiculed each other and somehow, along the way, they ended up friends.
Harper liked to talk of money even back then. He was obsessed with what other boys wore, what other boys drove. Jamie understood. He'd spent enough time in the oil fields to know he wanted to be someone someday too.
Harper lectured him nonstop about the power of education, the proper way to talk and dress. Jamie figured he might have a point. He cleaned up a little. Then he taught Harper how to throw a proper right hook. Now, that was something every man ought to know.
And then on Friday nights, the mutual education delved into deeper grounds. Bookish Harper, desperate for the perfect upper-class wife, couldn't even get a date. Jamie, on the other hand, went through women by the dozen. He adored them, and they sure as hell adored him. So every now and then he'd try to send one Harper's way. It seemed the least he could do.
Then Patricia walked into both their lives.
Ironic that the things men would do for love could be so much worse than the things they'd do out of hate.
Life worked itself out. Jamie knew that now. In many ways he and his old friend had gotten exactly what they wanted. Harper lived in a Boston town house. He had his showcase wife, his golden children, his glowing reputation. No third-generation blueblood would question the great Dr. Stokes these days.
And Jamie couldn't complain either. He jetted around the globe, he built a business empire. He stayed in all the right places, met with all the right people. Sure, not all his friends belonged in polite society. But he had power now. No one was getting rich off his sweat but him.
Two old men. So many years the wiser.
Perhaps when all was said and done, the biggest lesson of all was that familiarity did breed contempt.
One hour earlier Harper had called him on the phone, rousing him from his slumber. Harper's voice had been too calm. His anger too quiet.
“What are you doing, O'Donnell? It's been twenty-five years, I've kept my end of the bargain, and we are much too old for this shit.”
Jamie had yawned. “Harper, it's two in the morning. I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't feel like playing guessing games—”
“The note in my car, dammit. This little vendetta against William. Breaking into his house to plant a pile of pig organs? Classy, O'Donnell. Just plain classy.”
“Someone left a pile of pig organs in William's house?” Jamie laughed. “Did the poor boy get sick? I bet he did. I would've paid to see that, you know. I've always hated that spineless bugger.”
“Oh, cut the crap. I want to know why you're doing this. Dammit, we all have too much to lose.”
&
nbsp; “You got it all wrong, sport. I don't know what the hell is going on or who the hell is doing it, but as of tonight, I also joined the club.”
“What?”
“I got a present too. Hand-delivered to the concierge downstairs. Wrapped nicely, I have to say. The ribbons even made those pretty little curlicues. You'd like it, Hap, you would.”
“What was it?” Harper sounded perplexed. He'd never liked the unexpected, and it was stealing his headwind of righteous rage.
“I got a canning jar. And floating in it, in some kind of shit I just don't want to know, is a cock and balls. A penis. A pickled penis.”
There was a moment of horrified silence, then Harper laughed. Then his voice grew cold. “A castrated penis, how charming. Tell me, Jamie, do you still dream about her? Do you still lust after my wife?”
“For God's sake, Hap, I'm telling you again, I'm not the one responsible for what's going on. It's been decades, man. I've moved on.”
“Ah, decades, of course. I suppose even beauty queens don't look quite the same after thirty years—”
“You're an idiot, Harper.”
“That's what you'd like to think. But I'm the one who won the girl in the end, aren't I? And I know that still galls you, O'Donnell. You just can't handle that you've never understood Pat any more than you've understood me.”
“Hap, you're missing the point.”
“What point?”
“Somebody knows, Harper. After all these years, somebody knows about Meagan.”
Harper shut up. He turned his attention to business, and together they ran through the facts. It wasn't encouraging. Harper had received a note. William had gotten a pile of organs and a note, and Jamie now had a pickled penis. Plus there were the hangups Annie had been receiving. Finally, Larry Digger was in town after all these years.
“It could be him,” Jamie said after a moment.
“He doesn't have the imagination. Never did.”
“What about Patricia? Has she received anything?”
“Hasn't said a word to me.”
“She wouldn't say anything, Harper, at least not to you.”
Harper didn't argue the point. No matter what he liked to say, his marriage had fallen a long way from being a love match over the years, and they both knew it. “She'd tell Brian though,” he said at last. “And Brian would be angry enough to tell me.”
“Even now?”
“I think you know as well as I do, O'Donnell, that my own son hates me more than ever. I would think that would make you happy.”
“No,” Jamie said honestly. “It doesn't.”
Harper cleared his throat. He was shaken up about his son. Handling it badly, in Jamie's opinion, but genuinely shaken up. That made Jamie feel something he wasn't prepared to feel after all these years—pity.
Sometimes he hated Harper Stokes. He saw all the things Harper did that his family knew nothing about, and at those times he thought Harper Stokes could very well be the devil. Then there were moments when he confused even Jamie. Harper did seem to love his son. He had been honestly betrayed by Brian's little announcement.
“Melanie's migraine,” Harper suddenly said.
“What about it?”
“I assumed it was due to stress, but what if it's not? Melanie hasn't had a migraine in ten years, not even when she split with William. So why now? Unless it's more than just stress. Unless it's her memories.”
“It could be. It could be.”
Jamie couldn't say anything more. He could tell Harper was equally spooked. Her memory was the wild card, the one thing that could undo it all. In the beginning they'd obsessed about it constantly. But after twenty-five years, all of them, he supposed, had grown comfortable.
“The truth has a life of its own,” Jamie said at last. “Maybe the only real surprise is that it took it this long to find us again.”
“Who the hell could be doing this?” Harper exploded.
“I don't know.”
“What about you? Or maybe Brian?”
“What would we possibly have to gain, old man? How could we come out ahead? Melanie would hate our guts, and maybe you don't care, but I know I do. And I'm sure as holy hell that Brian does.”
“It's too late, O'Donnell. All of us have gained too much to lose it all now. I'm taking the family to Europe, that's it.”
“Europe?”
“Oh, I didn't tell you?” Harper's voice grew innocent, and Jamie knew his old friend was moving in for the kill. “I asked Pat this morning. We're taking the whole family, including Brian, on vacation. Just gonna pack up our bags and go, to hell with everything. Very romantic, Pat said. She seems quite excited about it. I know I am.”
Jamie didn't say a word. He simply gripped the phone tighter and listened.
“Don't you get it yet, sport? Patricia loves me. She's always loved me. I do know how to make her happy, O'Donnell. I am just her kind. So take care of this person, okay? We both know that getting dirty is your line of work, not mine.”
Harper hung up. But Jamie whispered into the phone anyway. “Yes, she's always loved you. But you've never cared, old sport. You got the goddamn perfect family and you've never, ever cared!”
He slammed down the phone. And then he simply felt tired.
Four A.M. A one-minute roundup of local news came on. Jamie watched the report of a shooting in a downtown hotel. Reporter Larry Digger was dead.
Jamie froze. Harper had not mentioned it. Jamie certainly hadn't arranged it. What was going on?
He turned up the volume. The gunman had escaped and was being considered armed and dangerous. A sketch flashed on the screen and Jamie recognized the face.
He hurled the remote across the room and watched it smash into pieces. It wasn't enough. He tipped over the glass coffee table and listened to it shatter.
“You fucker. You panicked, shitless, spineless fucker. How dare you betray me like that? How dare you betray me!”
The bedroom door opened. Ann Margaret stood there, wearing a white bedsheet and looking at him in confusion.
“Jamie?”
“Go to bed!”
Ann Margaret didn't move. “Jamie, what's wrong?”
“Get away. Just get away.”
Ann Margaret moved closer. Then she said calmly, “Nonsense, Jamie. There is nothing you can do that I can't handle. I love you, sweetheart. I do.”
Jamie hung his head and groaned.
He knew he shouldn't. He did it anyway, crossing to her in three strides, his chest thundering, his body covered in sweat. He took her in his arms and he was at once awed and humbled.
This woman had her own kind of beauty and her own kind of strength. This woman had an indomitable spirit and a tough, sensible shell. No pedigrees, no fancy words, no phony pretenses. She was right; whatever he did, she could handle. Neither of them was better than the other, and neither of them was worse.
And he loved her for that. He loved her deeply, and it was one of the few things in life that scared him.
Jamie pulled out of her arms. There were things he had to do and they were errands best done in the dark.
The TV was still on, casting its ghostly light on the room. He'd left the canning jar out in the open without thinking. Ann Margaret suddenly spotted it.
“Jamie?” she whispered.
He closed his eyes. “It came today,” he said gruffly. “Someone's sick idea of a joke, I guess.”
“It's about her, isn't it?”
“Annie, it was a long time ago—”
“But not long enough, Jamie. Not so long ago that someone still isn't remembering, that someone still doesn't want to see you pay.”
Jamie couldn't reply to that.
“Do you still love her?”
“No, Annie, I don't.”
“Did she get an adulterer's penis? Maybe a chastity belt?”
Jamie took her arm, forcing her to look at him. “Annie,” he said softly, “it's not just about Patricia.”
“How
do you know? What is going on?”
“Harper got a note,” he said steadfastly.
“What kind of note?”
“The kind that says you get what you deserve. Plus, Larry Digger is in town and Melanie is having migraines and, Annie, William got . . . he got a note too. ‘You get what you deserve.'”
“Oh, God.” Her tough, sensible shell shattered. “Why doesn't it ever end?”
“I don't know. Must just be the way of things, I suppose. Some people get a good life, and some people don't.”
Jamie strapped on his gun. “Don't let anyone in, Annie, and don't answer the phone.”
“Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Jamie . . .”
He walked to the door. Opened it. Took a step. Turned again. He came as close as he could to saying what was in his heart.
“I'll look after you, Annie. You and Melanie. I swear it.”
BRIAN STOKES JERKED awake. It was the fifth time in five hours, and his lover finally said, “Do you want to talk about it or should I just get you a package of razor blades?”
“Leave me alone.”
“You were dreaming, you know. I heard you call a name.”
Brian rolled away. “Shut up.”
Nate sat up instead. Besides Melanie he was the only person Brian had ever trusted. He always pressed and he always saw too much. Now he tossed back the covers and adjusted his pajamas over his middle-aged frame, a sure sign he was gearing up for a serious discussion.
“You called out for Meagan,” he said gently. “Brian, even when you're awake you never say that name.”
Brian thought he was going to cry. “Fuck you.” He got up, walked to the window, and stared out at the still-sleeping city. But the images in his head were all he saw.
The funeral on the gray, dreary day. His mother keeling over halfway through the service from grief and gin. His father, stony-faced, looking at her as if he hated her.
The silence in the days afterward. The huge house empty of little-girl squeals.
Harper screaming one night, “Where the hell were you all day? If you'd just come home . . .”