at her. She felt as paranoid in that moment as her husband the night before he died.
I can hear voices, Kate! Make them stop!
The security guards nodded to the doctor and left Christopher’s room to approach her.
“Antiques shop,” Ambrose said like a lightbulb. “David ruined the bookshelf, but the lady who owned the shop knew my mother years ago. She took it out of sympathy.”
“Why? How did he ruin it?”
“He covered it with duck wallpaper.”
Christopher’s mother was struck silent. The only sound in the room was the sheriff’s morphine trickling into the IV bag with a drip drip drip.
“Mr. Olson,” she said in a whisper. “Will you stay with Christopher for me?”
“Of course,” he said, confused. “Why?”
“I know where the bookshelf is,” she said.
Christopher’s mother looked across the hallway at her son. His broken little body. His poor feverish mind. At the rate he was going, his brain would hit 107 degrees and begin to cook by midnight. And the answer was on the other side of town.
“You can have any bookshelf you want. Why do you want that one, honey?”
“Because it smells like baseball gloves.”
That bookshelf was in her son’s bedroom.
Chapter 93
The figure sat up in the bathtub. Hidden in clouds of steam.
Christopher stood, frozen. He looked around the bathroom. It was exactly as he remembered it. The foggy mirror. The Noxzema smell on his skin. His father’s shirt resting on the sink. Sweet with tobacco.
“Do you know where you are?” the voice asked.
Christopher couldn’t speak. He shook his head. No.
“Would you like to know?”
Christopher nodded. Yes.
“Okay, but it’s a secret. I could get in trouble. So, come here. I’ll whisper it to you.”
Christopher didn’t move.
“Don’t be afraid, honey. I would never hurt you. Come here.”
The figure patted the tub. Little trickles of blood ran from his wrists down the porcelain in tiny red rivers. Christopher wanted to run away, but his feet moved without him. He began to walk. Through the steam. Through the clouds.
“That’s it, honey. Walk to your daddy. It’ll all make sense soon.”
Christopher took a baby step. A second. A third. The figure reached out for him. The hand was warm and smooth with tobacco stains between the fingers.
“That’s it, Christopher. Come and give me a hug.”
Christopher felt a hand on his shoulder. The figure wrapped him up like a blanket.
“Where am I, Daddy?” Christopher asked.
Christopher was so close, he could smell the tobacco on his breath.
“You’re off the street.”
Christopher looked back into the tub as the clouds cleared to reveal the smiling figure.
It was the hissing lady.
Chapter 94
106.8 degrees
beEp.
Christopher’s mother looked through the window at her son, struggling for life across the hall. She had to help him. She had to save him. She had to get the message David Olson left on his old bookshelf back at home.
But Mary Katherine had destroyed her car.
The two security guards raced across the hallway and opened the door to the sheriff’s hospital room. They scratched their red faces. Bloated and sweaty. Blocking the door. A nurse Christopher’s mother had never seen before entered the room behind them.
“Mrs. Reese, is everything okay?” the nurse asked.
“Yes. Fine,” Christopher’s mother lied.
The nurse smiled and coughed with the flu that wasn’t the flu. She looked at Christopher’s mother a little too long.
“What’s that you’re reading?” she asked.
The question hung in the air for a tense second. The nurse scratched her arm.
“This is a little embarrassing,” Ambrose said. “She’s reading a scrapbook of letters from my late wife. Some of them are a little racy. You can read them out loud to me next if you want. Mrs. Reese was just about to get me something from my car.”
Then, Ambrose dug into his pocket and held the key up.
“You remember where I usually park it, right? The old beat-up Cadillac in the corner? Scraped and dented, just like me.”
“Yes, Mr. Olson,” Christopher’s mother said.
“Good. I’ll sit right by Christopher’s bedside while you’re gone.”
He handed her the key in exchange for his brother’s diary.
“Thank you, Mr. Olson,” she said.
“No. Thank you, ma’am,” the old soldier replied.
Christopher’s mother took the car key and left the room, squeezing past the dubious security guards. She went straight to the ICU door, waiting to be buzzed out. She winced from the pain in her ribs. Her medication was wearing off, but there was no time to stop now.
Come on. Open up, God dammit.
She turned to see the nurse wheel Ambrose back into Christopher’s room. Her son lay in the bed.
106.9 degrees
beEp.
The door buzzed like a swarm