Strangewood (28 page)

"It may take a while," the Lantern added. "But
he is here in Strangewood at last. Back with us once again. As long as he does
as he is told, you might yet live, young Master Nathan. This is good. The wood
needs an heir."

Then the Lantern's presence withdrew. No more hot breath or
sizzling drool. The pad and scratch of its paws on the stone receded, and
Nathan heard the door scrape shut behind it. He waited silently for several
minutes before he dared open his mouth. When he did, he coughed once more. But
when the cough had subsided, Nathan allowed himself a tiny, weak smile.

"Daddy, please come quick," he whispered.

He did not sleep again after that.

* * * * *

Emily left Joe's just after seven A.M. She drove slowly back
to her house, where she showered and dressed with no sense of urgency. Nathan
was in the hospital. Thomas was in the hospital — and she was still
uncertain of his condition. But she wasn't in a rush. There would be plenty of
time today to get to the unpleasant tasks ahead of her.

As much as she could, she tried not to think about the face
she thought she had seen outside Joe's apartment at dawn. She'd been unable to
sleep afterward, but it had still taken on a kind of weird, dreamlike quality. It
could have been anything, or anyone. A homeless person, a kid climbing a tree. But
at dawn, how many kids were out and about? None of those things were any more
likely than her initial thoughts of some kind of stalker.

But the stalker thing wasn't holding water well either. The
doctors had already ruled out poison in Nathan's case, and it was obvious that
what Thomas had done, he'd done to himself. Still, she promised herself that
she would call that detective, Walt something, who had taken Thomas's statement
about his own suspicions and the possibility of foul play regarding Nathan's
catatonia.

But that would have to wait. Already, Emily had too many
things to think about today. Things that needed to be done.

Things she didn't want to do.

Refreshed by her shower and feeling much more comfortable in
a clean pair of jeans and a magenta cotton top, Emily slipped behind the wheel,
turned the key in the ignition, and stared at the cellular phone. She was prone
to doing business in the car, using that otherwise wasted time as best she
could.

Purposely moving her eyes away from the phone, Emily put the
car into reverse and pulled out of the driveway. The entire ride north on
Broadway toward the hospital, Emily was hyperaware of the calls that needed to
be made. But before she would make those calls, she needed to see her son. And
she needed to see Thomas.

In Thomas's hospital room, which was two floors below
Nathan's, Emily stared at the pallid features of her ex-husband. The urge to
curse him had waned, but she could not escape the anxiety his condition caused.
She wanted to ask him again, to whisper to him though she knew he could not
answer. She had to know why he had done it. But she wasn't alone, so she said
nothing.

"How is he?" she asked.

Dr. Gershmann, who had been tending to Nathan, seemed to
deflate when Emily asked the question. They'd come in together only moments
ago, and the doctor had obviously been waiting for that question. Rather than
answer, however, he inclined his head to defer the question to the young woman
who stood at his side. She had the blackest, most perfect skin Emily had ever
seen. When she smiled, Emily could not help but smile in return.

"I'm Callie Cardiff," the woman said pleasantly,
moving forward with her hand extended. Emily shook it, and noticed
simultaneously the surprising firmness of her grip and the fact that she was
much shorter than she had originally appeared. Charisma, Emily thought. It did
wonders.

"I'm the doctor handling your ex-husband's case,"
Dr. Cardiff went on. "To answer your question, he's stable. I'm not going
to use the word 'fine.' He's far from fine."

Emily glanced over at Thomas. "The pills?" she
asked, already knowing the answer.

"Phenobarbital," Dr. Cardiff replied. "Washed
down with scotch, apparently. If there had been just a few more in that bottle,
he'd probably be dead already. According to his records, he'd had the
medication for seizures, and that means he would have been given the usual
warnings. But he must have known what he had might not be enough to kill him,
so his actions puzzle me. Nobody takes a fistful of barbiturates and washes
them down with whiskey unless suicide was their goal."

Emily stared at her. Whatever charm the woman possessed was
gone. She almost made a comment about how the real puzzle was Dr. Cardiff's
bedside manner, but she remained silent. Taking that silence as her cue to
continue, Dr. Cardiff moved toward Thomas's bed.

"We almost lost him during the night," the doctor
said.

With a start, Emily looked at Thomas, and then over at Dr.
Gershmann. She felt a lot more at ease with him than Cardiff, but Gershmann was
a pediatrician.

Still, it was Gershmann who explained, hands on his belly as
usual, as though he were keeping it from exploding even further. "Your
ex-husband experienced respiratory failure shortly after you brought him in. He's
stabilized now, so it probably won't happen again."

"Probably?" Emily asked.

"At this point, we're doing everything we can to get
him out of this," Dr. Cardiff explained. "Maybe I'm an optimist, but
given the actual number of pills he took, I'd have thought he might have come
around already. The longer he stays in a coma, the less of a chance that he'll
simply wake up. It's really just a wait and see situation now."

Emily shook her head slowly, sighed, and tried to keep the
tears at bay. "Just like Nathan," she said.

"Not exactly," Dr. Gershmann replied. "That's
one of the reasons I wanted to come down here and speak with you. Nathan's case
differs significantly from his father's. Mr. Randall has done something radical
to his body. The reaction is severe and possibly fatal."

Emily blinked at that.

"Nathan is perfectly healthy," Gershmann added. "All
our tests confirm it. We've sent his MRI results and other lab reports to
specialists in Boston and Chicago, and nobody has ever seen anything like it. For
all intents and purposes, Nathan is fine. His brain activity shows a very
normal and very wide-awake pattern. Now it isn't unusual for a comatose person
to show high brain activity — the imagination and the sub-conscious are
powerful things. But the level here is extraordinary."

"Which all boils down to you still not knowing what's
wrong with my son," Emily said bitterly. "There's nothing wrong with
him except that he won't wake up. You're just waiting on a visit from Princess
Charming, is that it?"

Gershmann frowned, seemed put off, and Dr. Cardiff picked up
Thomas's chart, completely ignoring her.

"Now, Ms. Randall," Dr. Gershmann said grumpily,
stroking his mustache, "there's really no need to . . ."

"No need?" Emily said, her mind reeling. "You
tell me the only thing that matters in my life has been taken away from me and
you can't figure out why, and the only person who could understand what that's
doing to me decides to overdose . . . and then you want me to be calm, never
mind be fucking civil?"

Part of her was revolted by this tirade. The doctors were
doing their best. She knew that. But another part of her needed it so
desperately. Needed to vent on someone. Gershmann and Cardiff just looked at
her a moment, matching looks of concern on their faces. Which only made it
worse.

"I'm . . . I'm sorry, I . . ." Emily began. Then
she waved at the air as though an insect had been harrying her.

"Not at all, Ms. Randall." Dr. Gershmann stepped
toward her, effectively eclipsing Cardiff, who seemed relieved at the rescue. "Would
you like to go upstairs and see Nathan now?"

Emily chewed her lower lip. Her purse sat on a brown
cushioned chair in the corner of Thomas's hospital room. She stared at it for a
long moment. Her flip phone was inside the purse. As was her small personal
phone book.

"I'll be up in a little while," she said absently.
"I've got some business to take care of, first, and I might as well do it
here."

Emily went over to sit in a chair next to Thomas's bed. There
was a strange smell in the room, as if something were burning. She frowned and
leaned in toward Thomas, somehow not surprised when she realized the smell came
from him. He'd been nowhere near a fire, of course, but his clothes smelled of
smoke.

The doctors excused themselves and turned toward the door. When
Gershmann held the door for Cardiff, Emily glanced over at Thomas and wondered
what the odds were that something like this could happen to anyone. Her son and
her ex-husband, so near to one another and yet far, far away from anyone.

What were the odds?

"Dr. Cardiff?" she asked sharply, causing both
physicians to pause at the door to the room.

Out of the direct light from the room, Dr. Cardiff's skin
looked even darker. Sable black, with a sheen so distracting that Emily felt
the momentary urge to touch her face. Her eyes so dark, her nose so aquiline
and perfect, her cheekbones high.

She looked like a bird.

A crow.

Emily blinked several times, then cleared her throat. "Have
you performed an MRI on Thomas?"

"We have one scheduled for later today, actually,"
Dr. Cardiff replied. "We want to get an idea how much damage he may have
done to himself."

"I'd like to know the results," Emily said. "I'd
also like you to monitor his brain waves for patterns similar to what you're
finding with Nathan."

Dr. Gershmann stepped more completely into the room now, and
both of them looked at her oddly. "Ms. Randall," he said, "I've
told you there's no similarity between your son's condition and his
father's."

"Even if there were," Dr. Cardiff said, none too
tenderly, "you're his ex-wife. We'd need his next of kin to make those
kinds of requests."

Emily stared back. "My divorce was quite amiable. Thomas
and I never revoked our mutual powers of attorney or our health care proxies. Unorthodox,
but that's Thomas. That health care proxy makes this a request as if it were
coming from your patient himself. Please do as I ask."

"To be honest, now that it seems we won't have a quick
recovery, we'll be monitoring brain activity in any case," Cardiff
replied. "But there's no reason to expect any similarity. Do you know of
any reason we may be unaware of?"

"Just please keep me informed," Emily said,
unwilling to respond to the question. To do so would mean asking herself the
same question. And that was something she just couldn't do.

Not now.

"Will do," Cardiff agreed. Then she turned and
walked from the room, casting a strange look at Gershmann. A look Emily was
sure questioned her own mental stability.

Well they needn't worry, she thought. She wouldn't be doing
anything as crazy and stupid as overdosing on barbiturates and booze. Once
again, she looked at Thomas and smelled smoke, like wood burning in a
fireplace. When she looked up, Dr. Gershmann had also left, and she was alone
with her ex-husband.

Emily stood and went over to the ugly brown chair and
reached into her purse to retrieve her cell phone. Her first call was to Lorena
at work. Things were moving along fine, Lorena reported. Not as smoothly as
they might have if Emily were in the office, but they were managing. There were
questions to be answered, Emily's confirmation to be obtained regarding new
hires. Lorena would messenger the paperwork to the house, and Emily could sign
everything there. Lorena herself was hoping for a vacation in October, and
Emily promised it to her, even if things hadn't changed with Nathan. At that
point, she figured she'd be back at work anyway.

Nathan lay with his eyes taped shut in a bed two floors
above her, and life went on around him. The doctors hadn't said anything yet,
but Emily suspected that if Gershmann and his cronies weren't able to figure
anything out soon, they would end up suggesting Nathan be moved to a chronic
care facility.

They were thoughts of the future that Emily could barely
afford to have at the moment. Not the way her eyes burned with uncried tears. Not
the way her heart surged in her chest.

But they were questions that had to be dealt with. And she
realized now, truly understood for the first time, that they were questions she
was going to have to deal with alone, even if Thomas recovered.

If. Too many ifs, she thought. Thomas wasn't her husband
anymore, but the thought of him dying was too much for her, so she pushed it
away.

"You stupid son of a bitch," she whispered.

Then she withdrew the small black phone book from her purse
and looked up the number for Chris Lebo, the attorney who had represented her
during the divorce proceedings. She dialed his number on the cell, and got him
on the third ring.

"Savage and Winter," he said.

"Hi, Chris, it's Emily Randall," she replied, and
let her eyes drift across Thomas's still form and out the window. "How are
you?"

"All work and no play, Emily," Lebo replied. "What
can I do for you today?"

Emily paused. Her gaze shot back over to Thomas. She studied
his face. His motionless eyelids. No dreams for Thomas — not right now. Maybe
never again.

"Some things have happened that you should know
about," she began. "I'm going to want to get paperwork going right
away to get sole custody of Nathan."

She could almost hear Lebo's tiny gasp of surprise. "Wow,"
the lawyer said. "Maybe you'd better start at the beginning."

In the waning hours of the afternoon, most of which she had
spent in Nathan's room reading aloud to him from a book of Grimm Fairy Tales,
Emily realized she hadn't checked for messages all day. Once again breaking out
her cell phone, she dialed her home number. There were seven messages: two from
Joe; two from Lorena; one from Thomas's sister, just checking in; and two
messages from Francesca Cavallaro. She was still trying to close the deal with
Fox, and she needed to know who to speak to. She claimed to feel badly about
disturbing Emily at such a difficult time, but the deal could be important for
Nathan's future.