His eyes closed. He looked dead. The color of his skin, the nearly imperceptible shallowness of his breathing, his eyes didn’t even flicker. It was impossible to perceive any part of what he was thinking or feeling.
That’s when my questions came. I couldn’t stop myself. “Why did he do it, Mr. Jost? Why did Tom ask you to watch? Did he want you to stop him?”
“No.” That word was soft but clear. His eyes stayed closed. With my ear hovering, he whispered, “…maybe, die a little bit…with him.”
“The phone-how did you end up with the phone?”
“Shame,” he whispered, “my shame.”
“You took the phone from Tom.”
His eyes barely opened. They were red with smoke irritation, the skin around them gray and sagging. “Tried. Run to him…too late. Too late.” His eyes pooled with tears.
A nurse pushed into the room. “Uh, uh. Don’t disturb the tent,” she scolded. “Out, out, out of there!”
“I’m going. Sorry.”
His fingers curled and tapped across my hand like the dance of a spider’s legs, calling my attention back.
“Yes?”
“Resist not evil.” They were the clearest words he’d spoken yet.
Miracle of miracle, I remembered that one. “Turn the other cheek. Overcome evil with good.”
He tapped the back of my hand three times.
I nodded. I think he believed that taking the phone was a way to turn the other cheek. Perhaps he meant to confess to his community and explain what happened, or save Tom from the public shame of having acted in anger. But Rachel found the phone. And the protective, controlling father took over. Until now, the only scenarios I had been able to imagine were the ones motivated by a man’s self-preservation and guilt. A hundred questions formed in my head. The nurse glared at me.
“Please, one last question. My colleague thinks there was someone in the house with you last night. Before the fire started. Did you see anyone?”
“Thought boy come for Rachel,” he struggled to say.
“Did you see him?”
His eyes closed. Exhaustion or the need to keep his own council ended that line of talk.
“That’s all,” Nursey scolded. “You’re disturbing the tent. He needs to rest.”
“I’m done. I’m gone,” I told her. I touched the back of his hand. “Thank you. Be well.”
Slipping out was more nerve-wracking than going in. Through the mesh at the top of the curtain, I could see Jost’s friends and family three feet away and closing. I ducked around the curtain partition and followed it toward the nurses’ station. Just ahead of me, I could hear men on the other side of the curtain. They were having a tight- throated discussion. I froze.
I’m pretty good with voices. To the careful ear, voices are as distinct as a walk, a form of handwriting, a style of dress. Still, it surprised me-was it really
Everyone has heard the research into pheromones that sync us up with mates. I sincerely doubt that’s all the lizard brain can detect. I think we smell all sorts of crap, like lies and wickedness and trouble ahead. Maybe that explains why a person might freeze and listen to a conversation that makes very little sense at first.
Or maybe I’m just nosey.
“…tired of it, do you hear me?”
“I hear you. I’m trying-”
“I don’t want to hear how hard you are trying. You’ve turned something very simple into something complicated. Am I going to have to find someone else to help me?”
“No. No.”
“I hope not. I’ll call you.”
“Um, yeah, listen I have a new number. Old phone’s gone.”
Hello! The light went on. That was Pat talking. Fireman Pat, Tom Jost’s partner, a.k.a. Mr. Vegas. Couldn’t place the other voice. I slipped back two steps as a nurse came barging full-steam around my curtain wall.
“Whoops-sorry,” she said automatically. She followed it with a more hostile, “What are you doing here?”
“Lost.” I grimaced and backed through the curtain into the open hall area. “Cafeteria?”
“That way.” She pointed with a finger-gun toward the far end of the hall.
“Thanks.”
I caught a glimpse of someone rounding the corner at a good clip, the reflectors on his uniform jacket flashing as he passed beneath the yellow-green light of each fluorescent ceiling fixture. I looked back the other way, no sign of the second man. The only door nearby that didn’t seem to lead to a patient’s room read Restricted.
“Hey Pat!” I hollered, taking a chance that he was the man disappearing around the corner. “Wait up!” On four hours sleep, subtle Miss Nancy Drew I’m not.
Lucky for me, Mr. Vegas had a lot of friends in the hospital.
“Looking for something?” a guy in scrubs asked.
“EMS guy named Pat?” I tried.
That brought an eye roll. “Figures. Never the ugly ones. Toward the cafeteria.”
“Thanks.”
Couple of nurses pointed me, “That way.”
“Right. Thanks.”
I turned a corner into an empty hall. Quiet. No sign of anyone. My heart was pumping with adrenaline and the sudden change of pace. I’d been race-walking the halls, trying to catch up. Mounted on the wall near a frosted glass door was a small, brass plaque.
Chapel. Open 24 Hours.
It felt like a trick. I pulled the door and peeked inside.
My breathing made a surf-roar in my ears. “Hello?”
No answer. I made myself quiet-hiding quiet-and entered.
The room was shoebox small, only a dozen chairs, and a solid table with glass votives at the front. The walls were bare, the wood trim spare and nothing but a pair of dim uplights shining on the curtained wall behind the altar table. I smelled hospital cleaner and the burning sweetness of beeswax candles.
I circled the room. It was empty and then some, as non-denominational as a place of worship could be. In the Amish world, simplicity came from sameness. Funny how in our world, it was diversity that bred simplicity.
Could anyone sink low enough to hide behind an altar table? I looked and realized there was a door behind the curtained wall.
Cold rushed through my blood. Calm took effort.
Ready-I opened the door as carefully, quietly, as possible. It swung inward.
Absolute dark. I slipped my hand past the door jamb, feeling for a light switch.
The overhead blinked on. Room empty. It was a walk-in closet-
I slipped all the way inside-
The light snapped off as the door slammed, the sound mixing with what happened next. My face hit the wall, cheekbone first. The sudden reversal of light blinded me. My hand covered the switch, but his larger hand-sweaty and strong-pressed my palm into the toggle, biting into my skin.
“Don’t move.”
There was nothing to move. I couldn’t even twist my head. His jaw and neck locked the threat of his body right beneath my ear. His chin dug into the top of my scalp. We were both panting, strangely synchronized with each movement of chest, and that was the most coldly frightening thing of all.
“You,” he whispered. “You smell like her.”
“Who? Pat, what the hell-?”
“Shut up.” He crushed his body against me. I stopped inhaling. “Questions don’t help. Knowing won’t help. It
