Locked In

JULIA RAFAEL

The phone call she’d interrupted her conversation with Haven Dietz to take was from Ted, sounding upbeat.

“Jules, McCone’s conscious, but there’re some complications. Hy asked me to schedule a staff meeting for first thing in the morning.”

“Complications?”

Dietz glanced up at the sound of alarm in Julia’s voice.

“Look, I can’t explain now. I’ve got a lot of other calls to make. Try to get to the meeting no later than eight.”

“Will do.” From the way Ted sounded, the complications couldn’t be too serious. Of all of them at the agency, he’d known Shar the longest and been most optimistic about her recovery.

Dietz looked at her questioningly as she hung up the phone. “A problem?”

“Yeah. Nothing that concerns your case.”

The woman scowled, reached for her cigarettes, then thought better of it.

“So what else do you need to ask me?”

Julia leaned back in her chair, wishing she could go home to her ten-year-old son, Tonio, and her older sister, Sophia. Over the past year her income had risen enough that Sophia could retire from her job clerking at Safeway, but still it wasn’t fair to stick her with so much of the housework and childcare.

Her cellular rang again. Would the calls ever stop so she could get on with this?

Judy Peeples. “Ms. Rafael, I’m so glad I got hold of you. We-Tom and I-were wondering if you could come up to Sonoma this evening.”

A long drive-at least an hour and a half. Julia closed her eyes and let a sigh slip out.

“I know it’s an inconvenience,” Mrs. Peeples’s high-pitched voice went on, “but we’ll have a late supper waiting for you, and a nice guest room. You see… we found something.”

“What did you find, Mrs. Peeples? Something of Larry’s?”

“Well, yes. No. It’s hard to explain.”

“Please try.”

“… Tom was in the tack room-”

“Tack room?”

“A room off the stables where we keep equipment.”

“I see. Go on.”

“What he found… it had to have been Larry that put it there, because it’s certainly nothing that any of the workers would’ve hidden and we’ve never seen it before.”

“What is it, Mrs. Peeples?”

“Cash. A lot of cash.”

“How much cash?”

“I don’t think I should say any more about it on the phone. Please, Ms. Rafael, will you come?”

Mierda. The woman sounded desperate. “All right. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

After she closed the phone, she looked at Haven Dietz. The woman was staring at her. “Larry’s mother?” she asked.

“Right.”

“They found something? Cash?”

“I’m afraid what she told me is confidential.”

“But our cases, you say they’re linked-”

“That doesn’t mean you have the right to information from my investigation for the Peeples-any more than they have a right to information about yours. We’re going to have to continue our conversation later. Tomorrow night at your place?”

“Fine with me.” The woman got up from the chair and moved toward the door in a slightly off-balance walk.

Julia sighed, glad to see her go. Then she picked up the phone and dialed home. No reading the next installment of Robinson Crusoe to Tonio, no having a glass of wine and talking over their days’ events with Sophia. And in her jeans and hoodie she wasn’t dressed for a late supper in the wine country, although she did have the necessities of an overnight stay in a travel bag in the trunk of her Toyota; Shar had taught her to be prepared for trips out of town.

When Sophia answered, she told her where she was going and asked her to kiss Tonio goodnight for her.

The job came first. Always. Another thing Shar had taught her.

SHARON McCONE

Tonight I’m feeling cold and so alone.

Cold, in spite of these thermal blankets tucked solidly around me.

Alone, not just because Hy’s gone now, but because after our eyes met and he realized I was still here with him, he met with my doctor and then he was distracted and sad the whole time he was in the room.

Something wrong. I know. I can feel it. My emotional senses are sharpened, while my physical sense of touch is practically nil. When someone touches me, I’m aware of it, but when no one’s there it’s like being suspended in still air.

To think that I might never respond intensely to Hy’s touch again-that is the most painful.

I had wanted to ask him so many things before: How was he doing, now that he knew I wasn’t a total vegetable? Had he reassured family and friends? How were our cats, Ralph and Alice? The agency-how was it running?

And most important, who the hell had shot me?

No, that wasn’t most important. I wanted to know exactly what was wrong with me. What it would take for me to survive this… whatever the condition was.

I felt trickling wetness on my cheeks. Normally I would have licked the tears away and told myself I was being self-indulgent. Now I couldn’t move my tongue, and self-indulgence seemed like a luxury I was entitled to. I ached to turn over and bury my face into the pillow and sob.

Nurses on rounds. Subdued voices. Pretty brown-haired Latina woman smiling down at me, adjusting tubes, checking my vital signs, smoothing the covers.

Talk to me, dammit!

“Your husband is a very nice man, Ms. McCone,” she said. “He was exhausted when he last looked in on you. You were asleep, so he left around nine, but told me to say he’d be back early tomorrow morning.”

The nurse wiped my face with a tissue. “Don’t cry. We’re taking good care of you, and I understand that soon you will have a few visitors.”

And I won’t be able to smile at or talk with or hug any of them.

The tears kept coming.

“Don’t cry,” the nurse repeated. “Try to get some rest.”

My emotions were running rampant. For a long time after the nurse left tears dribbled down my face. Self-pity morphed into fear and questions: Would I survive this? Would my life ever be the same?