The Shadow Wife

“It doesn’t matter,” Gabriel said. “Alan and I will work out the details. We just need the world—and your mother—to think that Carlynn Shire is still alive. We can always say that the accident somehow altered your healing ability. It doesn’t matter. The center is really about research,” he said. “And we can change the shape of that research. We can attract other known healers to the center, and they can become subjects for study.”

The door opened, and a nurse walked in followed by Alan, who looked nothing short of panic-stricken at being unable to keep the woman out of the room a moment longer. The air vibrated with tension as the nurse took Lisbeth’s blood pressure and pulse and slipped the thermometer beneath her tongue.

“Do you know where you are?” she asked Lisbeth once she’d removed the thermometer.

“The hospital,” Lisbeth said.

“And do you know what year it is?”

Lisbeth had to think for a moment. “Nineteen sixty-seven?” she asked, not completely certain.

“Very good,” the nurse said. “And you know these gentlemen? Which one is your hubby?”

Lisbeth swallowed hard. Carly, Carly, Carly. What do you want me to do? She glanced at Gabriel, then turned her face toward Alan.

“That one,” she said.

38

LIAM WOULD HAVE STAYED WITH JOELLE WHILE THEY EXAMINED her, but he was being treated in another curtained-off cubicle of the E.R. himself. He’d broken the index finger on his right hand, and Bart was now injecting something into his jaw to numb it, so that he could stitch the jagged cut Liam had no memory of receiving.

He’d never hit another human being in his entire life. Not even as a kid. But, it had felt so natural to him. So right. He wanted to beat that bastard to a pulp. The image of him kicking Joelle into the wall was embedded in his mind forever.

He knew where she was. Three cubicles down from him. For a while, he could hear her crying. The police had been questioning him at that time, and he’d asked them to let him go to her, but they said she was being well cared for.

“And you’re bleeding all over the place, besides,” one of the cops had added.

“Do you know how Joelle is?” he asked Bart now, as the doctor sat down next to him and began working on the laceration on his jaw.

“They’ve taken her to the Women’s Wing,” he said.

That’s why he was no longer hearing her cry, Liam thought. “Is she okay?” he asked.

“She’s in premature labor.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “She’s only…what…thirty weeks?”

“Stop talking, Liam,” Bart said. “I think that’s what I heard. Thirty weeks. It’s going to be rough if she has that baby now.”

It was happening again: another pregnancy, another child of his, being born into tragedy. And he cared—he truly did—about that baby. But just then, he cared far more what happened to Joelle.

“Is Joelle okay, though?” he asked again. “I mean…besides the labor?”

“She has a couple of cracked ribs, I think,” Bart said, leaning back from his work. “And if you keep talking, Liam, this will take all day.”

After Bart had finished stitching his jaw, Liam threw away the bloody shirt and pants he’d had on and borrowed a pair of blue scrubs to wear for the rest of the day. He left the E.R. and headed toward the Women’s Wing, but stopped off in the men’s room to see what had been done to his face. His image in the mirror shocked him. The cut on his chin was bandaged, as was his splinted aching finger, but there were bruises on his face that he could not remember receiving. He’d told the police he’d done all the hitting, yet that was obviously not the case, and he imagined the cops probably had a good laugh at his expense after they’d finished questioning him. Suddenly, he was very tired. He leaned against the tiled wall in the restroom and closed his eyes.

Joelle had to be terrified, he thought. She knew too much about what could go wrong with a pregnancy. Just like Mara did.

He felt a little sick to his stomach as he walked out of the men’s room and down the corridor. He would visit Joelle as her fellow social worker, her friend, the guy who’d also been involved in the altercation that caused her injury. No one would think anything of it.

He found Serena Marquez at the nurses’ station in the Women’s Wing.

“How’s Joelle?” he asked.

“Oh my God,” Serena said, when she saw him. “I heard you beat up the guy that kicked Joelle. It looks like it was the other way around.”

“How’s Joelle?” he repeated, not in any mood for banter.

“Rebecca’s trying to stop her labor,” Serena said.

“Can she?” he asked. “I mean, how is it going?”

“Don’t know yet,” Serena said. “But her membranes have ruptured, so that’s not great.”

“Can I see her?” he asked.

Serena looked at the clock. “Give her about twenty minutes or so,” she said. “Rebecca’s examining her. She’s starting her on some betamethasone and antibiotics.”

“What’s the beta…whatever for?”