He started and half-turned to retreat inside when, suddenly, Tracey was there and her arms were around him.
'I told Mother to go to hell,' she said, half-laughing, half-crying.
'She said I had to stay home and I told her to go to hell. God, am I gonna get killed when I get back.'
Hesitantly his arms went around her; gratefully he lowered his face to rest against her hair. He didn't care if anyone was watching, but he would have killed the first person who tried to break them up.
Another hug and she said, 'C'mon, I want to talk to you.' She took his arm and guided him along the arc of the circular drive leading on and off the hospital grounds. To the right was the visitors' parking lot, empty and barely lighted by three-foot pillars at the corners, and they crossed it without speaking, Don only once looking up at the building to see if he could pick out his mother's room.
At the far, darkest side they found a concrete bench under a half-dozen skeletal cherry trees and sat down, staring across the empty blacktop to the brick posts that marked the hospital's entrance. Across the street there were houses as black as the near-leafless trees that marked the edge of the sidewalk. No cars passed. No horns sounded. It was a hospital zone, and no celebrations were wanted.
'How's your mother?' she asked then, covering his hand with one of hers.
Haltingly, pausing frequently to clear his throat and stretch his neck to shake loose the obstructions he found there, he explained what the police had told him and what his father had said about Mr. Hedley. Then he told her what he knew had really happened, what they wouldn't believe even if his mother had seen it and could talk.
'But I didn't do it!' he added heatedly, his insistence almost begging.
'Trace, you know me, I wouldn't wish my own mother ...' He remembered.
Suddenly, like a sharp elbow in the stomach, he remembered.
'Don?'
'My father wanted to know if it was one of my friends.'
'What? I don't believe it.'
'I'm not lying, Trace. He wanted to know if I'd said or done something to good old Brian to make this happen.'
'He couldn't have been serious. I mean, he's worried and all, Don. He's not thinking straight.'
He wasn't sure, and was no longer sure he cared. 'He was with the mayor, can you believe it? He was having drinks with the mayor while my mother almost died!'
'Mr. Falcone did,' she reminded him softly.
'I know.' He turned to her urgently. 'And you know why she didn't die?'
Tracey shook her head, changed her mind, and nodded. 'The park.'
He leaned back and looked up at the sky, wondering what had happened to the rain, what had happened to the thunder. It had been all figured out, and now it was all changed. Even in his own world the Rules didn't stay the same.
'But they do,' she said, and he blinked before realizing he had spoken aloud. 'That ... that thing, Don. It's yours.'
'But I didn't tell it to kill-'
'I know, I know,' she said. 'I know, but it's more than you think.'
His eyes closed slowly; he was tired. Ashamed because suddenly he was so tired all he wanted to do was curl up in her lap and fall asleep.
'I shouldn't believe any of this anyway,' she said quietly, as if talking to herself. 'It's not possible. I know what I saw, and I know what you said, but it's still not possible.'
'It is,' he said, watching stinging colors swirl across his eyelids.
'Jesus, it is.'
'I thought about it all the way home, and all the way over here. I thought about you making me see things that weren't really there. Like one of your stories. And I thought about how I wanted to help you so much that I'd even see King Kong if you told me to.'
Her breath came in harsh pants; he didn't open his eyes.
'I thought about it, but Don, I saw it. So ... so I thought about it like it was real, and what you said about it-it isn't right, Don. It isn't right.'
His head swiveled slowly. 'It wants to help me, don't you understand that? It came because I needed help, and it helps me. But I swear to god I didn't say anything about-'
'No, Don,' she said, turning her head as well. 'No, it's protecting you, and that's not the same.'
Norman didn't think he could take another nasty surprise. He slumped back on the couch and stared at the acoustical tiles on the ceiling, only a flutter of a hand or a slight jerk of his head letting the detective know he was still listening. Though why he should, he didn't know. Verona, for all that he was an obvious hard worker, wasn't anywhere near finding the answer to this mess.
'All right,' he said finally, rolling to sit upright. 'All right, Tom, I've heard enough. It's crazy and you know it.' And: crazy, he thought, is getting to be the word around here.
'You're not telling me anything I don't already know.' Verona rubbed at a dark pouch under one eye. 'But what am I supposed to think? I know it's hard, especially now, but what in god's name am I supposed to think?' He held up one hand and pointed with the other to a finger. 'The lab tests show that Don didn't hit that man with the tree branch like he said he did. There was nothing to indicate that Boston had been struck by a car. Adam Hedley looked just like them, and I'll be damned if I'll believe that a car drove into your school, down the aisle, jumped the stage, and ran him over. Then there's Falcone-'
'Oh, Christ, Tom, will you listen to yourself?' Norman picked up a magazine as if he were going to throw it. 'One-you can't find the tests.
Two-by your own admission there was nothing to show Boston hadn't been hit by a car either. And I refuse to believe that my son, through some mysterious means, managed to subdue two men and a kid and bash them to death, one of them right in the middle of Park Boulevard.' He leaned back heavily. 'Besides, he was home when Hedley was killed, and he was with Tracey Quintero when Falcone ...' He choked. He refused to say it one more time.
Verona threw up his hands, more in frustration than in defeat, and Norman almost felt sorry for him. In fact, he knew he did. The man was grabbing for any straws he could find, and only Don's encounter with the Howler and those elusive lab tests gave him any sort of connection.
'Joyce,' Verona said, 'spoke his name several times.'
'Well, Jesus, man, he's her son!'
Joyce had slipped into a deep sleep at last, and Naugle had summoned them both into the room when she began muttering in a dream.
'She also said 'a horse,' if you recall.' His smile was brief and mirthless. 'Tell you what-I'll go for the car in the school if you'll go for the horse in my house.'
'She could have been talking about drugs.'
'For god's sake, get serious!'
He was tired. He wanted to go home. The only decent news he had had all evening was that John Delfield had gotten some of the neighbors to help him erect a temporary shield of plywood across the smashed bay window.
He reminded himself to drop the man a note, perhaps enclose a check to reimburse him for the materials.
A door squeaked open and Naugle came in, bringing Norman to his feet.
'I gave her an injection,' the doctor said. 'Otherwise, there's no change.'
'A shot? What for?'
'She wasn't asleep deeply enough,' Naugle said. 'She's having some pretty hairy nightmares, and I don't want her any weaker than she is.'
'Great,' Norman said, dropping back to his seat. 'That's just great.'
'You might as well go home.'
Norman almost agreed before shaking his head. He wanted to stay. If he left, he might check to see if Chris was still home, still in her bed, still ... He shook his head and shuddered, and Naugle patted his shoulder.
A car pulled into the parking lot, blinding them with its headlamps. Don threw up a hand and cursed softly,
