“How about windows, anything that would tell you whether it was day or night?”
“No uncovered windows.” She bit her lip, nodded once. “There was a ceiling fan light fixture thing.”
“You said you were facedown.”
“I was face-up at first. I saw this ceiling fan with palm frond–shaped blades, ivory or cream. The fan was off, but the light was on. I think it was nighttime, because it was darker where the light didn’t touch the ceiling. Then someone kicked me over.”
“Did you see them?”
She shook her head.
“Not at all?”
“No, not at all.”
“Rache, if you were face-up, and they came close enough to kick you over onto your face, you would have had to have seen them.”
She frowned really hard, her brows drawing together. “No, something went over my face right before I felt the foot in my side. I remember, something covered my eyes.”
“A hand?”
“Maybe a piece of cloth. It didn’t feel like a hand.”
“Okay, okay. And then you felt someone kick you over?”
She nodded. “I was completely paralyzed. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t turn my head. Couldn’t even breathe. I could see, but I could barely move my eyes enough to get a better look around me. But I could feel everything.” She lowered her head and hugged herself, rubbing her arms up and down. “Everything.”
“I’m sorry, Rache.” He put a hand on her shoulder, kneaded it softly, repeatedly, like he could massage away the horror.
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
“I gave you his corneas.”
“You gave me my eyesight. You didn’t know it was gonna come with a downside.”
He lowered his head. “What else do you remember?”
“Just the cutting.” She reached out, took her drink, slugged half of it. “And praying to die fast.”
He swore softly, set the pen down and hugged her. He put his arms around her shoulders, and he pulled her to his chest. Her head rested against him, but her arms stayed at her sides, under his.
“Check on whoever got his kidneys,” she said again, staying stiff in his arms, not returning the embrace, but not pulling away from it, either. He let go, and she sat up straight again. “You had a list before, when we were looking at your brother’s recipients as potential killers. We need to check on whoever got the kidneys.”
“The list was just the hospitals. Not the patients. But I think we can trace them from there. There are probably two—two kidneys, two recipients.”
“It was the left one.”
He nodded and wondered why he didn’t doubt a word she said. Admittedly, there was some small voice of reason way down deep inside his brain saying Wait just a damn minute here. Saying they couldn’t be sure the victim she’d dreamed of was another of Eric’s organ recipients. That the dream might have just been a nightmare and not a real event. He could say those things himself. He’d said them before, after all.
But he’d been wrong.
He went to the computer and pulled up the list he’d wheedled from a transplant-unit nurse. His brother’s body parts were listed in neat rows, along with the hospitals to which they’d been sent. His kidneys were not labeled left or right. He had no idea if they should’ve been or not. There were two separate hospitals beside them, though. Piedmont Transplant Center in Atlanta and Strong Memorial in Rochester.
“Care to take a drive with me tomorrow?” he asked.
She didn’t even ask where, just nodded her assent. “Misty won’t mind me leaving her again. She and Amy were planning a Christmas shopping trip tomorrow, anyway.”
“I take the boys home at noon on Sundays. So we’ll go after that, all right?”
“Sure.”
“Think you can sleep?”
She looked at her glass. “One more of these and I’ll sleep like a baby. For a few hours, at least.” She downed the remainder of her drink. “Please, God, no more fucking dreams. No more.”
Sunday, December 17
“It’s just a day trip,” I told her for the tenth time at a quarter to one while I waited for Mason to pick me up. “I feel really bad for leaving you again so soon after the book blitz, but it’s just for the day, and I’ll bring you back something, okay?”
“Will you bring me back something, too?” Misty asked.
“Me, too. I want something,” Amy said.
I rose from the floor, where I’d been scratching Myrtle right in front of her ears, which was her bliss-spot. “Yeah, yeah, I owe you both my life. If for any reason I don’t make it back tonight—”
“I’ll stay over,” Amy said.
“Yeah, because being seventeen, I need a babysitter who’s twenty-five.”
“Twenty-four,” Amy corrected.
Misty rolled her eyes. “I could manage just fine on my own overnight.”
“I know you could.” With Aaron, Lloyd or whatever her current boyfriend’s name was. I just remembered the double letters at the beginning. I’d met the kid, hated him on sight. Cocky, arrogant little prick.
“I wish we were having more fun, Misty,” I said in all honesty. I did feel bad. She was missing the trip of a lifetime with her family, but it was obvious she didn’t mind that, and I had no doubt she’d been seeing plenty of the boyfriend while I was doing the talk show hop, with or without Amy’s knowledge.
Sandra thought it was fine when I talked to her about my suspicions, said she trusted Misty. If you asked me, “trust” and “seventeen” should never be uttered in the same sentence if there was a boyfriend involved. Teenage girls loved harder than any other species. Teenage love was apocalyptic. Wild horses couldn’t stop it.
“I’ll get back as fast as I can and we’ll do something fun. Really fun, I promise. Maybe we’ll go find a Christmas tree and decorate it.”
“I had a lot of fun at Mason’s yesterday,” Misty said. “Don’t feel guilty, Aunt Rache. You always say it’s a wasted emotion.”
Yeah, I did say that. In print and in front of live studio audiences. That didn’t make it true. Guilt was never wasted. It was going to net the kid a Swarovski crystal swan to add to her collection.
Mason pulled up in that big black boat he called a car. I closed my eyes, hitched my “just in case” bag over my shoulder, hugged Misty, then Amy, then Myrtle
