nothing to clear his head, but it gave his lungs something to do as he inhaled deeply and walked over the scratchy spring grass. He was careful not to step on any of the plots as he went along - sure, it wasn't like the dead would know that he was above their airspace, but it seemed like a respectful thing to do.
Jane's grave was up ahead, and he slowed as he approached what wasn't left of her, as it were. In the distance, the sound of a train whistle cut through the stillness - and the hollow, mournful sound was so fucking cliched he felt like he was in some movie he would never sit through at home, much less pay to see in a theater.
"Shit, Jane."
Leaning down, he trailed his fingers along the top of the marker's uneven edge. He'd chosen the jet-black stone because she wouldn't have wanted anything pastel-y or washed-out. And the inscription was likewise simple and unfussy, just her name, dates, and one sentence at the bottom: REST IN PEACE.
Yup. He gave himself an A for originality on that one.
He remembered exactly where he'd been when he'd found out that she'd died: in the hospital - of course. It had been at the end of a very long day and night that had started with the knee of a hockey player and ended on a spectacular shoulder reconstruction, thanks to a druggie who'd decided to take a shot at flying.
He'd stepped out of the OR and found Goldberg waiting by the scrub sinks. One look at his colleague's ashen face and Manny stopped in the process of removing his surgical mask. With the thing hanging off his face like a chin bib, he'd demanded to know what the fuck was wrong - all the while assuming it was either a forty-car pileup on the highway or a plane crash or a fire at a hotel ... something that was a community-wide tragedy.
Except then he'd looked over the guy's shoulder and seen five nurses and three other doctors. All of whom were in the same state Goldberg was ... and none of whom were rushing to pull other staff in for rotation or prep the operating rooms.
Right. It was a community event. Their community.
"Who," he'd demanded.
Goldberg had glanced back at his support troops and that was when Manny had guessed. And yet even as his gut had gone ice cooler on him, he'd held on to some irrational hope that the name about to come out of his surgeon's mouth would be anything but - "
Jane. Car accident."
Manny hadn't lost a beat. "What's her ETA."
"There isn't one."
At that, Manny had said nothing. He'd just ripped the mask off his face, wadded it up, and thrown it into the nearest bin.
As he'd passed by, Goldberg had opened his mouth again. "Not one word," Manny had barked. "Not. One. Word."
The rest of the staff had stumbled over themselves to get out of the way, parting as sure and clean as fabric torn in half.
Coming back to the present, he couldn't remember where he'd gone or what he'd done after that - no matter how many times he played that night back, that part was a black hole. At some point, however, he'd made it to his condo, because two days later he'd woken up there, still in the bloody scrubs he'd operated in.
Among the galling shockers of the whole thing was the fact that Jane had saved so many people who'd been in car wrecks. The idea that she'd been taken in that very way had seemed like Grim Reaper payback for all the souls she'd snatched out of the bony-handed reach of death.
The sound of another train whistle made him want to scream.
That and his cocksucking pager going off.
Hannah Whit. Again?
Who the hell -
Manny frowned and glanced at the headstone. Jane's younger sister had been Hannah, if he recalled correctly. Whit. Whitcomb?
Except she had died young.
Hadn't she?
Mad. Pacing.
God, she should have brought her track shoes for this, Jane thought as she marched around Manny's place. Again.
She would have left his condo if she'd had a better idea of where to go, but even her brain, as sharp as it was, couldn't seem to throw out another option -
Her phone ringing was not exactly good news. She didn't want to tell Vishous that forty-five minutes later she still had nothing to report.
She took out her cell. "Oh ... God."
That number. Those ten digits that she'd had on