Eyes Wide Open

“No. This is all going far beyond Evan. You’re stepping into things you shouldn’t be. Things the police ought to be handling if something’s going on. You’re going to get yourself hurt, Jay. Don’t you see I’m worried about you? ”

I knew I had to say something to convince her I hadn’t lost my mind. “I just need you to trust me, Kathy, that’s all. Like how you trusted me when you went up in the plane with me that first time. Like how you trust me every day to take care of you and Maxie and Sophie. And I’ve never let you down, have I?”

“No, Jay, you’ve never let me down.”

I said, “I realized something the other day. I know this’ll sound a little crazy. But how lucky we are. All of us. I tried to say it, but I couldn’t. You wouldn’t have understood.”

“We are lucky, Jay. We are.”

“I don’t mean that way. What I mean is, Charlie and my father, they were the same. You know what I’m saying, right? That’s why Lenny was so volatile. He just was never diagnosed. He just played it out on a different stage.

“Being out here, and watching how Charlie and Gabby loved Evan, it’s made me think, maybe the only reason Charlie is where he is and I’m where I am is simply that I was lucky. That what they had didn’t get passed on down to me. Charlie got it, Kathy.”

“You’re wrong about that, Jay. You’ve earned whatever you have. I’ve watched you. You’ve earned it all. And you say you’re out there to find the truth… But the truth is never the truth, Jay, when it comes to your brother. You know that, don’t you?”

“Maybe so,” I said. “But I’m going to be there for them, Kathy. I’m in now. And all the way.”

It was the second time in two days we had hung up with distance between us. I promised her I’d be back soon. Maybe not tomorrow, but the day after. Or the day after that.

I sat up and looked in the mirror. And while the face that stared back at me was the same-the one who scrubbed in in the OR, who laughed at The Office or 30 Rock, who cheered on my son at his matches, and who drove my daughter down to college and hung her posters on the walls just right, and even cried in the car after I hugged her good-bye-I saw something different in the eyes that stared back at me.

Something had changed.

The phone sounded again.

I hurried to grab it, wanting to say, Kathy, I didn’t mean to scare you. I don’t know what’s taking hold of me. I need you too

…

Then I realized it wasn’t my cell at all that was ringing. It was the room phone. I thought maybe Sherwood was calling me back, or more likely, the front desk-I was way, way past my original checkout date.

I reached it on the third ring. “Hello?”

“You know the one about the patient, doc, who waits too long to find out what’s wrong with him, ’cause he never wants to hear bad news?”

The voice was male, a slight southern inflection to it.

“Sorry?”

“And then it’s too late. He’s got cancer. And the doctor goes, ‘How would you feel if I told you it was all a joke, and you just have high blood pressure now?’ ”

“Who is this?”

He didn’t say. Instead he said, “You’re a smart man, doc. Smart people like you ought to know when they put their noses where they don’t belong. When they should just back off. Before they get themselves burned. Or even worse, maybe someone else, someone close to them.”

“Who the hell is this? ” I said, my blood instantly on fire.

“Don’t you worry your little medical degree about that, doc. You worry about what you’re gonna do. Comprende? I’m just trying to play the good citizen here and clue you in. Time to just pack up and head home, pal. Quit trying to make trouble here.”

“What do you mean,” I said, my temperature rising, “ someone close to me?”

“Mine to know, doc, yours to worry about. The kid was sick, right? Why don’t we just leave it at that. And speaking of sick, let me ask. You smoke, doc?”

I was about to hang up but answered, seething, “No, I don’t smoke.”

“That’s funny then,” he said, “ ’cause I definitely smell something burning. Don’t you?”

The guy’s voice had this cozy, insinuating sort of tone to it, which actually scared me a little. “Don’t call me again, asshole.”

“ ’Cause it would be easy-you don’t know how easy-,” he went on, “to just burn that little nose of yours right off, any time we want. Remember, doc, you’re out west, not back in New York. Once a fire starts here, you never know how fast it might spread. Or to where.”

I put down the phone, my heart pounding, anger pouring out of me.

I definitely smell something burning. Don’t you?

I jumped up, a sudden alarm shooting through me. I ran to the door and pulled it open, stepping out into the corridor outside. I scanned in both directions, toward the lobby and the parking lot.

No one.

What the hell did he mean?

Then I looked down, my blood rushing to a stop. I saw what was on the mat.

Smell something burning?

It was a lit, half-smoked cigarette.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

T hirty minutes later I handed the cigarette to Don Sherwood.