Tymber Dalton (25 page)

She snapped Pog’s leash to his collar. The Lab jumped out and sniffed the ground around the vehicles. When he spotted the horses, who’d walked over to the fence, he let out a bark.

Sami let him water a few fence posts and then tried to lead him to the house. The usually obedient Lab balked, sat on his haunches, and pulled back, whining.

She knelt beside him. “What’s wrong, boy? It’s okay, we’re home.” He sniffed her and looked at the house before whining again.

“Sam, if I didn’t believe you before, that is more than enough to convince me there’s some serious weirdness going on,” Matt said.

It took them ten minutes to coax Pog through the kitchen door. Once inside, he refused to move. With his tail tucked between his legs, he curled up into a tight ball under the kitchen table.

“That’s just plain freaky,” Sami said. “He’s never,
ever
acted like that before.”

“He’s never been in this freakin’ house before,” Matt quipped.

She poured them glasses of iced tea, took two extra-strength Tylenol for her wrist, and then they went to the living room. Pog watched them through the open doorway but wouldn’t budge.

She handed Matt the folder of information. “This is all stuff about the house. I also have four journals. Three by Evelyn Simpson, and one by Mary Prescott.”

Matt leafed through the articles. Sami leaned back and closed her eyes, relaxed in his presence.

He eventually broke his silence. “Let me get this straight,” he carefully said. “You think George Simpson is possessing Steve?”

While it sounded weird hearing him say it, at the same time, she felt relieved. “I don’t know what to think. In Evelyn’s journals, she talked about George having a pain in his right side. When she tried to get him to a doctor, he refused. Probably appendicitis, but Steve had his out already.”

“I’m no doctor, but I’m sure it takes a while for gallbladders to go bad. He had to be working on gallstones for months, at least.”

“That’s the weird thing, Matt. When they admitted Steve, they did another CT scan and the stones looked worse than they were on the CT scan from a couple of days earlier. Gallstones don’t grow overnight.”

“They might have read the films wrong the first time. They screwed up his blood work.”

“Did they?”

“You said that’s what they told you.”

“George Simpson drank whiskey. Evelyn’s journals said she couldn’t find where he hid it. What if Steve did?”

“It doesn’t explain the negative results later.”

“It does if it’s George Simpson’s spirit controlling Steve somehow. Every time this ‘fever’ comes back, it’s when he gets nasty and acts like George Simpson.”

“Fevers can cause people to act irrationally.”

“Does it make their eyes glow red?” She told him what happened.

Matt chewed on that. “Might have been a trick of the light.”

She held up her wrist. “
This
wasn’t a trick of the light.”

“Let me unload my stuff and let’s go to the hospital. I want to see him.”

“I don’t know if they’ll let us in with him in that condition.”

“You’re his wife, I’m his agent and a lawyer, and he’s a famous author. Trust me, I’ll get us in.”

Pog refused to move from under the table. She didn’t want to leave the obviously distressed dog alone in the house.

“What about the barn?” Matt suggested.

She nodded. “The tack room. It’s cool in there, he’ll be okay.” She easily coaxed the Lab out of the house. Outside, he acted like his normal, wiggly self. She didn’t understand it. In a strange house, he normally would have imitated a bloodhound, sniffing everything.

Pog willingly let himself be locked in the tack room where he curled up on a saddle blanket and watched her fill a bucket with water. “Stay here and behave, okay?” His tail thumped a few times before putting his head down.

Matt drove the truck. She gave him directions to the hospital and relaxed in the passenger seat. It was good not to have to drive. Halfway there, she realized she’d stretched her left arm, resting her hand against Matt’s leg.

Old habits die hard
, she supposed.

About that time, he took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Sam, this will all work out. One way or another, it’ll work out.”

He didn’t release her hand and she made no move to pull away. “I know.”

It was after four when they reached the hospital. Sami checked with the front desk to make sure they hadn’t moved Steve. He was still in the same room.

I suppose that’s good.

When they reached the hall near his room, Sami pulled Matt aside. “Let me walk in ahead of you.”

He nodded.

She was happy to see the restraints were off, but the IV was back, and a bag of fluids along with two different pumps delivered medicine. Wires ran from under Steve’s hospital johnny to a large cart, which held equipment to monitor his various vital signs.

The nurse who’d treated Sami’s wrist sat working on his chart in the corner. She smiled at Sami and waved her in. “Mrs. Corey, he’s doing much better. How’s your wrist?”

She touched it. “It hurts, but it’s okay.”

Steve opened his eyes. “Sami.” He weakly held up his free hand. She cautiously approached, nervous about getting too close.

He spotted his friend. “Matt!” Steve’s eyes brightened, in a good way.

Matt stepped past Sami and gave Steve a one-armed hug. “You’ll do anything to get out of a deadline, won’t you, Boy Genius?”

Steve tried to laugh and winced. “Yeah, that’s me, just sandbagging.”

“Is he in pain?” Sami asked the nurse.

She nodded. “The doctor will be here in a little while to talk with you. They’re going to take him into surgery tonight. They think the wound has abscessed, and that’s causing the infection. Right now the OR isn’t available, and they don’t want to transfer him to another facility.”

“How can a hospital only have one OR?”

“Oh, we have more than one. There’s only one anesthesiologist available. One’s out sick, and the other is over in Spring Hill on an emergency. We’ve never needed more than three on-calls during the weekend before. As soon as the doctor’s free, they’ll let us know so we can get him to pre-op and they can take him in right away. It should only be another hour or so.”

Steve eyed Sami’s wrist. She stepped closer and put on what she hoped was a brave smile. “Are you feeling better?”

“Relatively speaking.” He sounded weak. “I guess I caused a lot of trouble this morning. I’m so sorry.” He started crying. When an alarm went off, the nurse silenced it before adjusting a few settings on his monitor.

“We’re monitoring his vital signs,” she explained, as if it made any sense to Sami.

Sami leaned over Steve and held his free hand. “Listen, it’s okay. You weren’t yourself.”
That’s for sure.
“The doctor said it was the fever.”

He stared at her bandaged wrist. “It’s not okay. Sami, I’m so sorry.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m scared.”

She tried to read his face. “Why?”

He glanced at the nurse, who was preoccupied working on his chart. “I don’t feel like myself,” he whispered. “I’m hearing things. I blacked out at the house and I—I saw things.”

So he
did
have an idea what was going on. “Steve, it’s okay. You’re just sick. We can talk about this after they get you fixed up.”

“No!” he practically snarled, then softened his tone. “You don’t understand. I don’t know what’s going on. I think I’m losing my mind!”

“Steve, you’re not losing your mind.”

He stared at her. “You have no idea,” he whispered. “I’m afraid I might hurt you worse.”

“Why?” She prayed this was the infection talking.

“I can’t explain it.” He swallowed hard. “I don’t want to have kids.”

That didn’t make sense. “You’re afraid you’ll hurt me because you don’t want to—”

The full meaning of his words struck her.

Matt sat in a chair on the other side of the bed and pretended to watch TV. Sami didn’t know how much he heard.

“I’ve wanted to tell you for a while now,” Steve said. “Sami, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I need to be honest with you.”

She tried to contain her rising anger. He was ill, after all. No telling how much of this was the infection talking. “So, you wait until before you go into surgery to tell me this?” She had trouble keeping her voice calm. She knew this wasn’t the time or place to have this conversation.

“I know this isn’t a great time to tell you. I don’t blame you for being angry, but I…I can’t keep telling you lies.”

Target in sight, bombs away, payload delivered. Trembling, she stepped back from his bed.

“Matt, please stay with him. I need air. If the doctor comes before I get back, I’ve got my cell.”

Not waiting for a reply, she left, looking for an escape. She found the front door and walked away from the hospital, her heart pounding.

He doesn’t want kids?
What a time to tell her. Can’t keep telling her lies. What else had he lied about?

I’m trying my damnedest to hold the relationship together, and he decides he doesn’t want to have kids. What the hell? Why should I bother?

She climbed into the passenger side of the truck and closed the door. She cranked it, turning the air up full blast and pressing her face against the dash vent.

She screamed.

After a few minutes of this, she calmed down enough to trust herself around Steve. But she didn’t want to go back yet.

Ever?

How fast could she pack? He dragged her all the way from Ohio, rented a psychotic, possessed house—and oh yeah, by the way, I’ve decided I don’t want kids even though I know you really, really do, and I’ve wasted seven years of your life on a lie.

Deep breaths. No, leaving isn’t the solution.
She couldn’t bail on him.

Yet.
Get him through surgery and recovery, then decide. Maybe he was scared because of his pain, maybe it was the fever, maybe he was delirious and did want kids.

Her cell rang. Matt calling. “Sam, the doctor’s here.”

“I’ll be right there.”

A different surgeon than the one who performed the original operation, he explained what they had to do, had her sign consent forms, and gave her encouragement. “He’s so full of drugs right now, he’ll go out like a light in seconds.”

Drugs. He is full of drugs. Maybe
that’s
what it was.
Steve might not even remember when he woke up tomorrow morning.

How did she get from the point of wanting a divorce and looking for a reason, to getting the best reason of all and wanting to hold on to the marriage a little bit longer?

I can’t kick a man when he’s down
.

A nurse brought Matt and Sami some coffee. Steve was in surgery over an hour before the surgical nurse gave them an update. “He’s doing well, his vitals are strong. They found the source of the infection, and they’re cleaning it now. It looks like he pulled some internal sutures and they abscessed. Dr. Collins said he might be able to go home in a couple of days as long as he isn’t running a fever.” The drugs had knocked back the worst of the fever—again—before they took him to pre-op.

When they were alone, Matt broke the silence. “Steve told me what he said.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He waited a few minutes. “You don’t want to talk about it at all, you don’t want to talk about it right now, or you want me to push you to talk about it so you can get mad, vent, and think of what to do next?”

She closed her eyes. “Three.” She hated he knew her so well, because Steve never had that depth of understanding. It made her miss Matt even more.

“Steve was coherent. It wasn’t the meds, it wasn’t fever. He said he’s been talking to a psychologist and part of his problem the past few months is he’s been putting up walls between you, and he realized why. He doesn’t want to raise a child to have an alcoholic and a psycho—his words, not mine, Sam—for a father.”

She dropped her head and said nothing. Silent tears of anger and anguish fell, soft and heavy, in her lap. There was no denying it. He might not even be possessed after all.

Was it weird to hope he was? To hope he was possessed and not simply better at lying and hiding his drinking than she thought he was?

Matt’s hand gently gripped her shoulder. She laid hers over it. He didn’t say anything.

He didn’t have to.

Two hours after the operation started, the nurse returned. “He’s in recovery and doing fine. He’s not awake yet, but when he is he’ll be in a lot of pain. We’ll put him on a morphine pump and that will make him pretty loopy. He’ll sleep most of the night, I imagine.”

They wheeled Steve into his room and Sami waited until they had him settled to step to the foot of his bed. He opened his eyes and looked surprised to see her. “Sami.”