Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,6

aside. The woman’s face was pale, with bruises ripening beneath her eyes. She had a mouth that might be French like her name. Her hair was still glossy. He moved closer to the bed. The alcohol was depressing her system. When they took the fluids away, she’d get a headache and the heaves.

Under the thin coverlet, the bandages made a runway across the woman’s stomach. He noticed the narrow outline of her body, her nipples under the cloth. Her johnny was open at the neck, and Webster could see the place where Burrows had rubbed her sternum. Hell of a bruise, but you had to make it work. He remembered her long legs, the bikini underpants.

Webster said her name.

An eye fluttered.

He touched her arm and raised his voice a little. “Sheila?”

She opened her eyes. He watched as she tried to focus. She said nothing.

“My name is Peter Webster,” he said. “I’m with Hartstone Rescue, and I worked on you last night.” He paused. He hadn’t meant to say it that way. “You had a close call. You nearly died.”

“No, I didn’t,” she said, already defensive, the eyes sharpening up. In better shape than she looked.

He thought of walking out of the cubicle right then and there. Later, he would often wonder why he hadn’t.

Webster let a week pass before he tried to find out Sheila’s whereabouts. He assumed the wallet had been returned to her, but there might be a record of her address at the police station. Possibly at the hospital, too, though they were tight with information. That left Webster no choice but to call the station. He prayed it would be McGill at the other end of the line.

Webster wasn’t surprised when he heard Nye’s voice. The Weasel was everywhere: the left eye with its squint and the mouth in a permanent sneer—not necessarily the result of Nye’s disposition, but because the man’s right eyetooth stuck out a quarter inch. Webster wondered whether instead of developing a face that showed his character, Nye had grown into his face, viewing the sneer in the mirror every morning when he shaved.

Nye might not know that Webster had already visited the hospital. He decided to take a chance.

“The rabbit’s foot?” Nye asked.

“Yup.”

“What’s the point?”

“She might need the keys.”

“The car was totaled, her license was suspended for two months. Massachusetts license, by the way.”

“Any local address?” Webster asked, and waited.

“You know I can’t give out that kind of information.”

“Jesus, Nye. I might have saved her life.”

“That means exactly zero over here.”

Fucking Nye was going to make him beg.

“I suppose as a probie, you’re not familiar with proper procedure,” Nye added.

Webster took a chance that guff would win out over pleading. “Cut the crap.”

Nye made Webster wait so long, he was sure the Weasel had hung up. Then he heard the tapping of a pencil point on a desk.

Nye gave Webster the address. “Don’t do anything stupid, probie.”

Webster knew where the house was. Just inside the northern town line stood a pale blue Cape with a front porch not fifteen feet from the edge of 42, the porch encased in jalousie windows. Webster pulled into what might have been a driveway in an unkempt yard. Before he opened the door of the old cruiser, he thought about what he’d say: he was just following up, wanted to know how she was. She would see right through that, might even call him on it. He remembered her defensiveness in the hospital. But Webster’s curiosity outweighed his judgment, had been outweighing it all week. When he knocked on the door, it was Sheila who answered.

“Who are you?” she asked at once, both hands on the door, ready to slam it fast.

She had on a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, a pair of jeans. Her hair was longer than he’d thought, curling at the ends, as glossy as he’d remembered. He found it hard to take his eyes off her mouth. Did she really not remember his visit to the hospital?

“I’m Peter Webster. I was at the scene when you had your accident.”

“Are you a cop?”

“No, I was one of the EMTs.”

“OK,” she said.

“I just wanted to follow up, see how you were doing.”

She wasn’t buying it. In her stocking feet, Webster put her at five nine, five ten.

“How do I know you’re who you say you are? And, more important, why the fuck should you care how I am?”

Not as tough as she wanted him to believe. Something wary in