Deja Dead Page 0,31
sorry. Let’s just get the hell out of here,” she said, dropping her head into her hands.
All right, we’d follow her script. She’d have to calm down and tell me in her own way. But tell me she would.
“Home?” I asked.
She nodded, never taking her face from her hands. I started the car and headed for Carré St. Louis. When I arrived at her building she still hadn’t spoken. Though her breathing had steadied, her hands still shook. They had resumed their clasping and unclasping, clutching each other, separating, then linking once again in an odd dance of panic. The choreography of terror.
I put the car in park and killed the engine, dreading the encounter that was to come. I’d counseled Gabby through calamities of health, parental conflict, academics, faith, self-esteem, and love. I’d always found it draining. Invariably, the next time I’d see her, she’d be cheerful and unruffled, the catastrophe forgotten. It wasn’t that I was unsympathetic, but I’d been down this route with Gabby many times before. I remembered the pregnancy that wasn’t. The stolen wallet that turned up beneath the couch cushions. Nevertheless, the intensity of her reaction disturbed me. Much as I longed for solitude, she didn’t look as if she should be alone.
“Would you like to stay with me tonight?”
She didn’t answer. Across the square an old man arranged a bundle under his head and settled onto a bench for the night.
The silence stretched for so long I thought she hadn’t heard. I turned, about to repeat the invitation, and found she was staring intently in my direction. The jittery movements of a moment ago had been replaced by absolute stillness. Her spine was rigid, and her upper body angled forward, barely touching the seat back. One hand lay in her lap, the other was curled into a fist pressed tightly to her lips. Her eyes squinted, the lower lids quivering almost imperceptibly. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind, considering variables and calculating outcomes. The sudden mood swing was unnerving.
“You must think I’m crazy.” She was totally calm, her voice low and modulated.
“I’m confused.” I didn’t say what I really thought.
“Yeah. That’s a kind way to put it.”
She said it with a self-deprecating laugh, slowly shaking her head. The dreadlocks flopped.
“I guess I really freaked back there.”
I waited for her to go on. A car door slammed. The low, melancholy voice of a sax floated from the park. An ambulance whined in the distance. Summer in the city.
In the dark, I felt, more than saw, Gabby’s focus alter. It was as if she’d taken a road up to me, then veered off at the last minute. Like a lens on automatic, her eyes readjusted to something beyond me, and she seemed to seal herself off again. She was having another session with herself, running through her options, deciding what face to wear.
“I’ll be okay,” she said, gathering her briefcase and bag, and reaching for the handle. “I really appreciate your coming for me.”
She’d decided on evasive.
Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was the stress of the last few days. Whatever. I lost it.
“Wait just a minute!” I exploded. “I want to know what’s going on! An hour ago you were talking about someone wanting to kill you! You come sprinting out of that restaurant and across the street, shaking and gasping like the goddamn Night Stalker’s on your tail! You can’t breathe, your hands are jerking like they’re wired for high voltage, and now you’re just going to sail out of here with a ‘Thank you very much for the ride,’ without any explanation?”
I’d never been so furious with her. My voice had risen, and my breath was coming in short gulps. I could feel a tiny throbbing in my left temple.
The force of my anger froze her in place. Her eyes went round and cavernous, like those of a doe caught in high beams. A car passed and her face flickered white then red, amplifying the image.
She held a moment, a catatonic cutout rigid against the summer sky. Then, as if a valve had been released, the tension seemed to drain from her body. She let go of the handle, lowered her briefcase, and settled back into the seat. Again, she turned inward, reconsidering. Perhaps she was deciding where to begin; perhaps she was scouting alternative escape routes. I waited.
At length, she took a deep breath and her shoulders straightened slightly. She’d settled on a course. As soon as she