Midnight Voices

arm and prodded his ribs.

“They’re just old and lonely,” Caroline told him. “Some people get that way.”

But as his mother started down the street, Ryan suddenly looked back at the building they had just left. The great front doors were ajar, and he could see Dr. Humphries looking out.

Looking at him.

As the doors slowly shut and Dr. Humphries disappeared, Ryan felt a chill run through him.

CHAPTER 15

“Nate?”

Nathan Rosenberg looked up to see Andrea Costanza at the door to his cubicle, which wasn’t surprising considering he had been doing his best to tune out the drumming of her fingers that had been beating steadily on her desk for the last hour. Three times he’d resisted the temptation to peer over the divider and ask her what was wrong, but all three times he’d decided that if she wanted his advice, she could come around and ask for it directly. Now that she was here, he grinned at her, and drummed his own fingers loudly on his desk top. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“Sometimes I think I really hate you,” Andrea replied, though there was nothing in her tone that would lend much credence to her words. “So tell me more about these osteopaths and homeopaths you’re so hot for.”

Nate’s drumming faded away. “The Mayhew girl again?”

Andrea nodded. “I dropped in on my friend who lives at The Rockwell yesterday, and Rebecca came down with the Albions. She looks like she’s lost more weight, and her skin is so thin and pale I thought I could see right through it.”

“But obviously she was out of bed. Doesn’t that mean she’s getting better?”

“All it means to me is that her doctor isn’t doing much for her,” Andrea countered. “And I can’t find him.”

Rosenberg frowned. “What do you mean, you can’t find him?”

“All I can find is his address at The Rockwell.”

“So you found him. What’s the big deal?”

“I mean I can’t find his office.”

“Why does he have to have an office?”

Andrea gave him a look that clearly said she thought he was being deliberately obtuse. “It’s where doctors see patients. Or are you living in some parallel universe where everything is different?”

Nate Rosenberg leaned back in his chair, propped his feet up on his desk, and clasped his hands behind his neck. “Let me tell you about my old family doctor out on Long Island. She’s almost ninety, and wants to retire, but her patients won’t let her. She quit her office forty years ago, and has worked out of her house ever since. She doesn’t have a nurse, doesn’t have an assistant, doesn’t have anything. But the patients pour in, because she’s a genius at healing. So before you jump to any conclusions about — what’s his name again?”

“Humphries. Theodore Humphries.”

“Right. Well, before you decide there’s something wrong, why don’t you go see him?” Dropping his feet back to the floor, he turned to his computer, tapped rapidly at the keyboard, then picked up the phone, dialed, and handed the receiver to Andrea.

Before she could even think about it, a deep voice answered the phone at the other end. “This is Dr. Humphries. How may I help you?”

There is something wrong, Andrea told herself late that afternoon as she pulled open the heavy outer door of The Rockwell and stepped into the vestibule. Nobody gets an appointment with any doctor on the same day. Especially not on a Friday. And no doctor answers his own phone. A moment later the concierge — or doorman, or whatever he was — opened the glass inner door and let her into the lobby. For a moment Andrea felt slightly disconcerted; something had changed, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. She glanced around, but nothing seemed different. And yet— Then it came to her. The lights seemed to have been turned up, making the whole lobby seem slightly more cheerful. But when the concierge spoke, it was in the same hushed, almost funereal whisper he always used. “Dr. Humphries is expecting you. Fifth floor, around to the left and all the way back.”

Fifth floor. The same floor Caroline was living on now. The elevator ground slowly up, finally clanking to a halt, and Andrea opened the door and stepped out onto the landing. She turned left, and walked around the great stairwell that wound around the elevator shaft. In the back corner diagonally across the building from Caroline and Tony Fleming’s apartment, she found what she was looking for: a mahogany door, ornately paneled, with a discreet brass plaque whose green patina almost obscured the engraving: theodore humphries, d.o.

A brass button, only slightly less tarnished than the plaque on the door, was set into the wall, but as Andrea reached for it, she suddenly hesitated.

Maybe she should just go around the stairs, ring Caroline’s bell, and forget all about this. Stupid, she told herself as soon as the thought formed. You’re here to do a job, so just go ahead and do it. Still she hesitated.

Why?

Then she knew. It was the silence. There were no voices around her, no doors opening or closing, no movement in the halls. Even the elevator was silent.

She found herself shivering as the silence gathered around her like a shroud of fog. Stupid, she told herself again. You’re just used to noisy buildings jammed with kids where you can hardly hear yourself think. But had it been like this when she came to visit Rebecca at the Albions? She tried to think, tried to remember.

What did it matter anyway? So the building was quiet? So what? Reaching out, she stabbed at the button, then forced herself to stand perfectly still, facing the door, not looking over her shoulder, not giving in to the sudden urge she felt to dash down the stairs before Dr. Humphries could answer his door.

And then the door opened, and she was facing the man she’d seen once before, going into the Albions’ apartment upstairs.

And he, apparently, recognized her as well, for he opened the door wide, stepped back, and waved her in with a smile. “Now I remember,” he said, his resonant voice filling the spacious entry hall to his apartment. “You’re the woman from the city who checks on Rebecca! I thought I recognized the name when you called.” Suddenly his smile faded slightly, his expression clouding with worry. “This isn’t about Rebecca, I hope?” Before she answered, Andrea glanced around. The apartment seemed very much like the Albions’: a collection of large rooms opening off the entry hall, the doors to most of which were closed. Dr. Humphries, seeing her scanning the doors, moved to the one nearest the front door and pulled it open. “My office and treatment room,” he explained, ushering her into a room that looked far more like an elegant study than a doctor’s office. Bookshelves lined the walls, Tiffany lamps stood on tables at either end of a large Chesterfield sofa that faced a fireplace and was flanked by a pair of wing chairs upholstered in the same deep red leather as the sofa. At the other end of the room was a large desk, with comfortable-looking chairs on both sides of it. “So, is it you I’m seeing, or are you seeing me about Rebecca?”

“It’s Rebecca,” Andrea replied. “I saw her yesterday, and I’m worried.”

“But she’s much better,” Humphries said, waving her into the chair in front of the desk as he settled himself into the one behind it. “Unless something’s happened since I saw her last week.”

“She just seems…” Andrea’s voice trailed off as she searched for the right word. “I don’t know — she just seems sickly, I guess.”

Humphries’ lips curved into a thin smile. “Well, I’m glad to see you noticed.”

“Can you tell me what’s wrong with her?”

“I can, of course,” Humphries agreed. “But I don’t think that I shall. My patients’ records are confidential.”