When I woke the next morning I could hear Jake snoring down the hall. Either that or he was taking a saw to the wall.
Stumbling into the bath, I relieved myself and paused at the apparition in the mirror. I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay? I looked like one of the legends I’d been reading about till three in the morning: the Blue Lake Monster or Sasquatch. Splashing stinging water on my face, I combed my wet hair back and shook out a pair of jeans.
In the kitchen I fried up bacon and put the coffee on.
Jake, lured by the smells — or the crash of the cup I dropped — wandered in wearing a pair of Levi’s and nothing else, and dropped down at the table. He scratched his very flat, hard belly in a leisurely fashion, brooding. I put a cup of coffee in front of him. He leaned over the table, both hands clasping his coffee cup as though in prayer.
“Fried or scrambled?” I held up an egg.
“Scrambled.”
I scrambled and said, “Listen, Jake. I thought over what you said last night. The fact is, you’re right. I’ve decided to go back to LA.”
Watching him out of the corner of my eye I saw his head jerk up like a Smokey the Bear scenting forest fire.
“I’ve got a few things to wind up and then I’m out of here.”
A beat.
“You’re serious?” he said finally.
“Yes.”
Another beat. He drank some coffee, set the cup down and said more cheerfully, “Well hell, maybe I should head back today?”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“You think that would be a good idea?”
“I do. I think you should start packing right after breakfast. You don’t have to worry because I’ll be out of here by tonight myself.”
He smiled. “Hey, so if I start packing right away I could be on the road by lunch?”
“You won’t have to miss another day’s work.”
I stopped because he was laughing.
“Man, you are something else,” he said shaking his head.
“I don’t follow?”
“Don’t give me that little boy blue look,” he said. “You’re trying to get rid of me.”
“No. No, I thought about what you said last night. Really.”
“Shut up, Adrien,” he said. “I did some thinking myself last night.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, then he admitted, “I was in a pisser of a mood at dinner.”
“That so?”
He met my eyes. Looked away. “It was my birthday yesterday. I have a hard time with birthdays.”
This was the last thing I expected. I mean, obviously Jake had birthdays like everyone else, but I guess it underlined how little I knew about him. Not the most basic things. Not his blood type. Not his birth date.
“Why didn’t you say something?” I didn’t like the tone of my voice but I couldn’t help it.
Jake shrugged.
“How old are you?”
“The big 4-0. Forty.” He grinned sheepishly.
Eight years older than me. I’d wondered about that. And a Taurus. The bull. The bullhead.
“Happy birthday,” I said cordially and turned back to the stove.
The bacon popped and spat my way.
I heard a chair scrape. Jake came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. Big powerful arms that would be all too easy to find comfort in, to start relying on. Sniffing my ear, he said, “You smell good. What is that?”
“Bacon grease.”
He grunted.
I could feel his body all down the length of my own; feel the hard muscles in his thighs and arms, feel the heat of him through our clothes. He smelled good too, warm and sleepy and himself.
“How about I let you treat me to dinner tonight?” His breath was against my ear.
“I could treat you to lunch and you could be back in LA by nightfall.”
“Nah,” said Jake. “Today we’re going to see what’s up with our friends at the Red Rover mining camp.”
* * * * *
It looked like a town meeting was in progress when we reached the hollow.
“You don’t think —?”
“I think,” Jake said, opening his car door, “you need to decide what you’re going to do about all this. Pronto.”
Swell. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do about all this.
Kevin detached himself from the crowd gathered around the supply tent and strode across the grass to meet us.
“We found the entrance to the mine,” he called.
Together we walked across the clearing while Kevin explained that the mouth to the Red Rover mine had been discovered a mile from base camp.
Discussion raged as to whether base camp should be moved or not.
Everyone but Melissa seemed to be there, and everyone seemed to have an opinion. Shoup and Kevin were all for pulling up stakes. Marquez led the others in loud objection.
“Isn’t it up to Dr. Livingston anyway?” I suggested to Kevin under-voiced, while the opposing arguments were being made.
“Sure, if we could get hold of him.”
“What does that mean?” Jake questioned in his official voice.
Kevin shrugged. “He’s not at his hotel, and he was due back two nights ago.”
“He checked out?” I asked.
“That’s just it. According to the hotel, he never checked in.”
“Could the hotel have made a mistake?” I inquired out of bitter experience. The generator kicked on. I had to strain to hear Kevin over the rattle and hum of mechanical indigestion.
“Sure. That’s probably it, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s not here. No one at the JC has heard from him. His wife hasn’t spoken to him in almost a week. She didn’t know he had left the site.”
Kevin was summoned away by Dr. Shoup, who looked none too thrilled to spot Jake and me in the crowd.
I said to Jake, “Modern marriage, huh?”
“What’s that?”
“The Livingstons.”
He made one of those sounds that indicated he wasn’t really listening, so I wandered over to Dr. Marquez who seemed about as animated as I’d seen him.
“They don’t know what they’re asking,” he said to me hotly. “All these file cabinets, all these boxes of artifacts, we can’t just throw them in a truck!”
“What happens if you don’t move the camp?”
“Nothing! It just means we have to walk further to and from our digging. It’s an inconvenience, but not as much an inconvenience as picking up stakes and dragging everything down the road.”
He studied me, a speculative gleam in his dark eyes. “You could refuse to let them move the campsite. It’s your land.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Can I see the mine?”
After a hesitation, he nodded. I caught Jake’s eye and indicated where I was going. He nodded.
Marquez seemed disinclined to chat as we left the camp behind us and walked into the woods. I didn’t take it personally; he was not a chatty guy.
“So what’s this about Dr. Livingston disappearing?” I asked as we followed the ruts of the old stage road. Grass and wild flowers covered the faint indentations, but the track was still there, leading straight into history.
Marquez paused mid-step. “Disappearing? What are you talking about?”
“Kevin said nobody’s heard from him since he left here. He said that according to the hotel Livingston never checked in.”
“That’s not true. He’s called several times.” Marquez stopped dead. His dark eyes blinked at me through the thick lenses. “The hotel lost track of his reservation. What’s unusual about that?”
“Nothing, I guess.” Marquez turned and led the way through the undergrowth. I said to his back, “So if Livingston’s due back any minute why not wait and let him make the decision of whether to move camp?”
I didn’t think I was going to get an answer, but then Marquez halted again, turning to face me. “Why? I’ll tell you why. Lawrence — Dr. Shoup — isn’t about to wait for Daniel to return. Maybe I’m talking out of turn, but it’s no secret he wants the credit for this find. He’s not going to want to share that. Not if he has a choice.”
This was the longest speech I’d heard Marquez make. I wasn’t quite sure I followed his reasoning, but he clearly believed what he was saying.
“Am I missing something? What does moving base camp have to do with who gets credit for finding an old mine?”
Nothing.
“A lost mine,” Marquez corrected finally.
“Okay, a lost mine.”
Marquez took a deep breath and said, “It probably doesn’t make sense to you, but a find, a significant archeological find, can mean the difference — academically speaking — between life or death.”
I ducked a tree branch as it swung back behind Marquez. “How does the Red Rover mine constitute a significant archeological find?”
He was silent.
He was right, it didn’t make sense. “I can barely find a record that this mine existed. Why is its discovery significant?”
“It could be.”
“Why?” I persisted.
Marquez said reluctantly, “Because Royale was a rich man when he died — and it didn’t come from some wedding dowry.”
I turned that notion over, held it up to the light. “You think the mine is still workable?”
“Probably not, but you never know.” He smiled at me more cheerfully. “Nice for you, eh?”
Thar’s gold in them hills!
I opened my mouth to pipe up with the first of my many doubts, but was distracted by Marquez who pointed to the hillside before us.
“There it is. That’s the mine entrance.”
Staring past Marquez I spotted the half-boarded opening of what appeared to be a cave in the hillside; chill air whispered out of its snaggle-toothed mouth. Saplings grew out of the hillside, concealing the timber frame of the mine. Easy to see how it had been missed for so long.
“Who found it?” I asked.
“Melissa. And Kevin.”
“Has anyone been inside?”
“Not yet. It may not be safe.” Marquez’s glasses glinted blindly in the sunlight. “The stairs down appear to be rotted.”
Leery, I walked up to the opening and peered inside through the slats. It was pitch black inside. I couldn’t see anything. The breath of the mineshaft was gelid and dank against my face. I ducked back out.
“Watch for snakes,” Marquez warned. “We found a rattler in camp a couple of days ago. They’re irritable this time of year. They’re shedding their skins.”
I turned to stare at him. “What happened to the snake?”
“Dr. Shoup killed it and buried it.”
A thought went through my head — and kept on going. I just couldn’t picture Indiana Bones tucking baby rattlesnakes in among the circular fliers of my mail.
And yet someone had.
“Are you sure this is the right mine?” I inquired as we started back to camp.
Mid-step Marquez paused. He gazed at me as though he suspected I was trying to be funny.
“It’s the only mine,” he said with finality.
* * * * *
We celebrated Jake’s birthday dinner at La Chouette, a century-old, two-story Victorian with a wisteria-framed verandah and a Parisian-trained chef.
“French food?” Jake said doubtfully. “What is that? Sauces and snails?”
“I’m sure they have a recipe or two for red meat. According to the Auto Club it’s the best place in town.”
He mulled this over. “So long as I don’t have to wear a tie,” he conceded at last, grudgingly.
Neither of us wore ties. In fact we wore Levi’s which were all we had, Jake complementing his with a tight black turtleneck that looked so sexy he could have modeled for the Under Gear catalog.
We kicked off the celebration with drinks in the cozy saloon-bar and then moved out onto the verandah for dinner. It was a lovely, mild evening; outside heaters worked overtime to keep it that way. Lost mines, rattlesnakes and dead bodies all seemed like something that happened to other people in distant galaxies.
“How’s your book coming?” Jake inquired, making civilized conversation halfway through his delice de veau.
“It’s coming,” I said, reaching for the thirty-dollar bottle of Merlot. “What were all those phone calls you were making this afternoon?”
“Just checking on a couple of ideas.”
“Like?”
He pushed his glass my way. I filled it and signaled the waiter for another bottle.
I expected Jake to brush me off, tell me not to worry my pretty little head, but he said finally, “The problem is we don’t have an ID for your stinker in the barn. Most homicides are solved within forty-eight hours, because most of the time there’s a known connection between the perp and vic.” He explained, “Cops ask themselves what would someone have to gain by the vic’s death? Who profits? But if we don’t know the vic, it’s hard to draw a connection.”
“We know about Ted Harvey.”
He sighed, but apparently decided to let it ride.
I swallowed a forkful of my coq au vin, and proposed, “Suppose Harvey’s death has nothing to do with drug running?”
He mulled this over. “Your supposition is based on what?”
“On the fact that someone was searching Harvey’s trailer.”
“I’m not tracking.”
“What would they be searching for?”
“Harvey,” Jake said unhesitatingly. “Or money. What do you think they were searching for?”
“Jake, if we were dealing with drug runners don’t you think their approach would be more direct? Do drug lords typically waste time playing with snakes and knocking people out? Wouldn’t they just come in with automatic weapons and mow us down?”
“You’ve seen way too many Steven Seagal movies.”
I choked on my wine. “Whose fault is that? Besides, I think handling a rattlesnake demands a certain amount of expertise. You don’t just buy them at pet stores. You have to find one, first off.”
“Maybe.”
“What do we know about Harvey? He was a doper, yes, but he was also a small-time crook not above trying his hand at fraud. Maybe he got ambitious.”
“You think Harvey did the DB in the barn?”
I moved the candle aside to see his face better. “I don’t know. But you heard Marnie Starr say Harvey was boasting about a big score. What does that sound like?”
“A drug deal.”
“Forget about the pot for a minute,” I said, nettled. “What else does it sound like?”
“What?”
I pushed my dish out of the way. “That’s what we have to figure out.”
Jake shook his head and carved another hunk off his veal.
“I’ve been thinking about that corpse in the barn,” I said.
“I don’t doubt it.”
“It’s a small town. How come nobody has claimed him?”
“Maybe he’s not from around here.”
“Then how did he get here? Where’s his car? The sheriff must have checked against missing person reports.”
“I’m sure you’ve got a theory.”
“Maybe no one knows he’s missing yet.”
A busboy whisked away my plate. I leaned forward on my elbows. “Maybe no one knows he’s missing because until today everyone thought they knew where he was,” I offered.
Jake looked up then, his expression wry. “Dr. Livingston, I presume?”
“You think it’s crazy?”
He floored me by saying, “No. The thought occurred to me today too. I guess we ought to have Billingsly get someone from the site to take a look at John Doe.”
The waiter brought the dessert tray and Jake selected a white and dark chocolate mousse with raspberry sauce. I ordered the Hot Brandy Flip which turned out to be three parts brandy and one part flip. A couple of swigs and I started wondering if Jake’s mouth would taste like dark chocolate or raspberry?
To distract myself from my incredible shrinking jeans, I questioned, “So what’s the deal with turning forty?”
Jake shrugged.
“You thought you’d be a lieutenant by now?”
“Nah.” He met my eyes briefly. “I just thought I’d be ... I don’t know.”
I made a wild guess. “Married?”
His eyes met mine. “Yeah, maybe. I guess I expected to have kids by now. My own family.”
“Kids?” I echoed.
He said defensively, “I like kids. I’m good with kids.”
“You are?”
“I’ve got nieces and nephews.”
Jake’s biological time clock was ticking. Who’d a thunk it? I sighed.
“Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll have your baby.”
He stared at me, unamused.
“It’s a joke,” I explained. “The truth is, I can’t have babies. My doctor told me.”
“See, you say I don’t communicate, but when I do ….”
Damn. A billy club right between the eyes. I blinked at him a couple of times. “Sorry,” I said. “I guess I don’t get it.”
His eyes looked amber in the candlelight. “You don’t care that you’ll never have kids? Your family line ends with you?”
“Probably a wise decision, don’t you think?” At his expression I admitted, “Oh, hell. I’m not the paternal kind. Kids make me nervous. Kids and small dogs.”
Jake finished his wine. The delicate crystal stem looked effete in his large, tanned hand. It was a hand designed for beer bottles and boxing gloves.
“So why don’t you get married?”
He said finally, “I plan to.”
Razors to my wounded heart, as Will put it in Titus. I drained my brandy and inquired, “Anyone I know?”
He probably would not have answered anyway, but right then the waiter brought the bill. I reached for the leather book.
“Thanks for dinner,” Jake said.
“My pleasure,” says I.
* * * * *
We were passing the old movie revival house when I spotted the marquee.
“Hey, they’re playing Captain Blood,” I said. “We could catch the ten o’clock showing.”
Jake, who hadn’t spoken since we left the restaurant, said, “What’s Captain Blood? Tell me it’s not another pirate movie.”
“You’ll love it. It’s got Errol Flynn, your favorite not gay actor.”
“What is it with you and pirates?”
“I don’t know. My deep and abiding love of the ocean, I guess.”
“Oh, what the hell,” grumbled Jake and we pulled into the parking lot behind the theater, Jake no doubt hoping to prevent any further spilling of conversational guts.
The theater smelled of old popcorn. The red velvet furnishings were as tacky as the Coke-stained floor, but the seats were Jake-sized and comfortable, and it was all ours, except for the row of teens making out in the back.
For 119 minutes we lost ourselves in the black and white swashbuckling romance of 1935’s Captain Blood, starring Flynn and Olivia de Havilland who early on proclaims herself familiar with pirates and their “wicked ways: cruelle and eville ...” At which point Jake, his carcass arranged so as not to touch mine at any potentially interlocking body part, snorted and offered his popcorn.
* * * * *
It was a long drive home for a man who hadn’t slept in two nights. Luckily Jake wasn’t someone who required bright conversation to stay sharp. I woke with a crick in my neck as we were bouncing over the cattle guard on the road to the ranch.
“Sorry. Was I snoring?” Gingerly I swiveled my neck.
“It’s more of a droning.”
At least I wasn’t drooling. I straightened up in the cramped seat.
We pulled into the front yard. Jake parked and we got out into the frigid night air. The wind blowing off the distant mountains tasted of snow. The clouds had cleared and the sky was brilliant with stars. Porch light spilled out over the steps and front yard.
When it happened we were walking toward the house; I was slightly ahead of Jake who was jingling the car keys in his hand. Something zipped past my ear followed by a crack that echoed through the mountains.
Behind me Jake uttered an oath, and the next I knew I was hitting the ground. Hard. There’s nothing like being tackled when you’re not prepared. And so much for all those Tai Chi exercises and instructions about sliding your palms and bending your elbows. I slammed down, the wind knocked out of me, with Jake on top. A second rifle shot split the night. The sound seemed to ricochet around the deserted ranch yard, rolling on forever.
I was trying to work out what was happening when Jake raised himself off me and fired his 9mm over my head. This took out the cheerful welcoming porch light.
“Move,” Jake yelled in my ear. I could only hear him muffledly, due to the fact that I was half-deaf from the blast of the automatic a couple of inches from my eardrum.
Jake rolled off me and I got to my feet, sort of, and did a four-limbed running scramble for the porch steps. Not more than several yards but it felt like the LA marathon — or a gauntlet.
Every second I expected to feel bullets thud into my body, tearing muscle, bone, vital organs. There’s nothing more frightening than being shot at — except maybe having a knife held at your throat. The fact that I had now experienced both was not a good thing.
As I reached the porch there was another shot. Jake, right on my heels, made an inarticulate sound and then yelled, “Stay low.”
Yeah, no kidding. I had my keys out, though I didn’t remember fumbling for them. I knelt in front of the door, jamming one key after another in the damn lock until I found the right one.
More shots. One hit the porch post behind us. The other rang off one of the cowbells hanging from the homemade chimes in the pine.
“Any time,” Jake remarked a little breathlessly.
I pushed the door open and he shoved me into the room and slammed the door behind us.
No more shots. Just the sound of our panting filling the long room, tree branches scratching against the outside walls, the house creaking.
“Why didn’t you fire back?” I gasped between breaths.
“He’s got a rifle, probably with a scope. I’ve got a handgun. He could be half a mile away.” Jake scooted over toward the window, a bulky shadow in the unlit room.
“Can you see anything?”
“No.”
We waited while the wind moaned down the chimney. Jake muttered, “If he’s got any brains he’s halfway back to town.”
“Or back to camp.”
“Good point.”
He rose, keeping clear of the window and yanked shut the heavy drapes, cutting off any outside view of the room. I did the same on my side. When the room was secured Jake said, “Okay, turn on a lamp. But — Adrien?”
“Yeah?” I paused, my hand on the switch.
“Don’t freak. I’ve been hit.”
“What?” I snapped on the light.
Jake was on his feet, and sure enough, his left sleeve was soaked with something darker than the black knit material. Something that glistened in the gentle lamplight. The blood trickled down his hand, which he was wiping on his jeans.
“It looks worse than it is.”
“Sure, just a flesh wound,” I said stupidly.
“It is just a flesh wound.” He gave me a sharp look. “You’re not going to pass out, are you?”
I shook my head.
“Because you’re sheet-white.”
“Just my girlish complexion.” I got a grip on myself and said, “We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”
“No. What kind of first aid kit do you have around here?”
“You’re going to a hospital, Jake,” I said. “I’m not in the mood to play doctor.”
“For this scratch?” He set his gun on the table and began struggling with his shirt.
I tore my eyes away from the Beretta. “You’re damn right! You could get blood poisoning or lead poisoning or lose too much blood.”
There was such a lot of blood. Blood smeared his breast and spilled out the ugly plowed flesh of his upper arm, in a slow but steady trickle. A fat drop hit the floor and splattered. The sight of it oxidized my brain.
“You’re going to the hospital now.” I headed for the door, and Jake, half in and half out of his shirt, intercepted me.
“Hold on. Maybe you’re right, but let’s do this by the book. We’ve got to make sure he’s gone.”
“He’s gone! He’s not going to come after us. He knows you’ve got a gun. We’ve got a phone. He’ll think we’ve called the sheriffs.”
Why the hell weren’t we calling the sheriffs?
“Let’s do this by the book,” Jake repeated. “We’ll go for the Bronco, it’s closer. Got your keys?”
I held my keys up. They were jingling. I lowered them.
Jake returned to the window. He parted the drapes a crack and stood motionless, holding his injured arm.
It felt like forever before he gave me a twisty smile and said, “Stand by for action.”
I opened the door. Injured or not, Jake moved fast. He brushed by me, and was out the door first. If I had been on my own, nothing on Earth would have got me outside. I’d have stayed put and called for the cavalry. But no way was Jake going out there without me. I followed him out onto the porch.
Nothing moved in the yard. The wind rippled through the waves of grass and wildflowers beyond.
“Stay low, stick to cover,” Jake instructed. “Give me the keys.”
“You can’t drive.”
“I’m going first.” As I opened my mouth to argue he plucked the keys out of my unresisting fingers and slipped out into the windswept darkness.
I followed Jake along the porch. He climbed over the rail and dropped down to the ground. I followed suit, hitting the hard-packed dirt with a thud that jarred my shins.
I imitated Jake’s awkward running crouch to the old water trough. We were still a few feet from the Bronco. Jake motioned me to stay put.
Waiting, I broke out in cold sweat while he sprinted across the open space and ducked behind the Bronco tire.
Silence.
The wind sighed through the cotton willow leaves.
Unlocking the Bronco, Jake slipped inside. I heard the engine roar into life. I saw Jake’s bulk slide past the wheel.
It was now or never. I’d have preferred never, but that wasn’t an option. Hauling ass across the lot, I jumped in and slammed shut the door. My hands were shaking as I threw the gears into reverse and we shot back in a wide arc, just missing the tree with its swing gently swaying in the breeze.
“Easy, easy,” cautioned Jake.
I cranked it into first and we tore out of the yard like the starting moments of NASCAR. The Bronco’s tires burned up the dirt road; we rattled across the cattle guard, bouncing down hard on every rut and rivulet in the road as we raced for the main highway.
“Shit, I’m getting blood all over your upholstery.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the upholstery!”
“I know, baby. Keep it together.”
Second Action Figure not included. When I thought I could match Jake’s neutral tone, I said, “Do we call the sheriff when we get to town?”
“Not unless you want to spend the rest of the night answering questions. There’s nothing Billingsly can do tonight. Tomorrow I’ll have a look around. I think one of those bullets hit the porch.”
He gasped in pain as we hit a pothole.
“Sorry. Are you sure you’re not —”
“The bullet nicked the fleshy part of my forearm.” He tried to examine himself in the darkness. “I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt like hell.”
“I am so goddamn sorry, Jake.”
“Knock it off,” he growled. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is. If I hadn’t insisted —”
“Shut up.”
I shut up. Just as well. I had to concentrate on my driving since I was doing seventy on a winding mountain road.
Thirty minutes before I had been so tired I didn’t think I could stay awake long enough to walk to the bedroom. Now I was on an adrenaline rush that felt like it would carry me into next week.
The road snaked through the silent forest as I decelerated into each curve, accelerated out, the tires squealing now and then when I turned the wheel too tightly.
Jake said nothing, his hand clamped over his arm.
I slowed to a sedate sixty as we tore through town, stopping at the twenty-four hour “doctor in a box.”
We were the only customers past midnight. Jake calmly explained to the nurse behind the counter what had happened while drops of his blood pooled slowly on the Formica. I hovered anxiously.
“Gunshot!” the nurse exclaimed. “We have to report gunshot wounds.”
“Not a problem,” Jake said. “We plan on reporting it.” He pulled out his wallet, but it was his insurance card he was after, not his LAPD ID.
The nurse shepherded Jake off to room number nine, and I dropped down in an orange plastic chair in the empty waiting room, feeling like someone had yanked my plug. Like I couldn’t have moved if my life had depended on it.
A few minutes later I saw a white-coated doctor go into the room and close the door.
* * * * *
How long did I sit there petrifying in the orange plastic chair? It began to seem like a very long time. Too long. Not only was I the only person in the waiting room, I seemed to be the only person in the clinic.
At last a door opened at the far end of the corridor.
A doctor I hadn’t seen before was walking toward me. He was dressed in surgical scrubs and his face looked weary and grim. It seemed like he was walking in slow motion. My heart began to slug against my breastbone.
I stood up instinctively.
“I’m sorry,” the surgeon said. “We did everything we could.”
I couldn’t believe it. I stood there my heart banging like a battering ram against a drawbridge. My body seemed to turn hot and cold by turns.
“That can’t be right,” I said stupidly.
“I’m sorry.”
“But it was just a flesh wound.”
“Guys like Jake always say it’s a flesh wound.”
“But —”
“He went into shock and we lost him. It happens.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I thought probably I was going into shock too. It all began to seem far away, the hospital corridor receding, the bright overhead lights dimming, swirling away ...