Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“I know.” I sigh. “What the hell could it be?”
“We’re going to have to find out,” Donny says, “and I have the sinking feeling that once we do? We’re going to wish we never started looking.”
A feeling of impending doom washes over me.
“This is wrong,” I say. “So wrong.”
“It’s all kinds of wrong, dude.”
“You’re engaged. You’re settling down with the woman of your dreams. Everything should be going great for you. You’re the city attorney of Snow Creek. And me? Damn. I’m in love. For the first time in my life, I’m in love with the most beautiful woman in the freaking town. She loves me back, Don. She fucking loves me back. It’s amazing, the feeling. The overwhelming elation of being in love, but it’s tainted. Tainted by this whole fucking mess.”
The elevator dings, and the door opens.
Donny meets my gaze. “I suppose we don’t have to do this.”
I walk into the elevator, turn, and regard him. “We have to do this, cuz. We absolutely have to.”
He follows me into the elevator, and the doors close. Donny hits the button for the third floor.
“You’re right. We have to do this. We have to fucking do this.”
The elevator jolts but then ascends slowly.
“Man, we need better elevators here. What if someone has to get to the OR quickly?”
“These aren’t the OR elevators,” Donny says.
“Yeah. Of course not.”
My mind is awash with crap. I’m not sure what I’m even thinking at this moment.
Finally, we make it to the third floor.
“What do we do when we get there?” I ask as we step off the elevator.
“We don’t have to do anything. All we need to do is get the name of the person he’s visiting. We can figure out why later.”
“Right.”
“What was the room number again?” Donny asks.
“3520.” I check the sign on the wall. “We go this way,” I say, heading right.
Donnie and I walk down the hallway, smile at the nurses sitting at the station.
One of them smiles back, and the others don’t look up from what they’re doing.
“Security here is great,” I say with sarcasm.
“That’s in our favor for now. We can make sure they increase security later. When we no longer need this.”
“Yeah, right.”
3504, 3506, 3508…
We walk, slowly, past all the rooms.
3512, 3514, 3516…
One more room to go, and then we’ll hit 3520, near the end of the hallway.
I stop.
Donny turns, meets my gaze. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. It’s just…”
“I know. We’re about to find out one more fact. One more thing that won’t make any sense. Believe me, I get it.”
“What if it does make sense? What if there’s some family member—one of our family members—in there, completely neurotic or psychotic or another kind of mess?”
“Then we’ll deal with it. We already know we have mental illness in the family.”
“Except…” Dare I say what I’m thinking?
“I know.” Donny nods. “Dale and I aren’t related to the rest of you by blood. But we also have a father who sold us out for five grand. Maybe he wasn’t technically insane, but he wasn’t a good man.”
“I hate thinking of it in those terms. You’re my cousin, man. Blood doesn’t matter to me.”
“Doesn’t matter to me either, but I get what you’re saying. Whatever bad genes the Steel family carries, Dale and I don’t have them.”
“Neither does Henry,” I say.
“Yeah, but Henry comes straight from Uncle Bryce, and we know all about his father. If that wasn’t a psychopath, then what is?”
He’s right, of course.
No discrimination here. We are all equally fucked.
“Here we are,” I say. “Room 3520.”
The door is closed, and although there is a window looking from the hallway into the room, the blinds are closed as well.
“He’s in there,” Donny says.
“He is.”
The name on the door says “Smith.”
“So the relative’s name is Smith,” I say.
“Yeah,” Donny says, “and I’ve got some swampland in Florida I’d like to sell you.”
“What do we do now?”
A nurse walks briskly by then. “Can I help you gentlemen?”
“We’re just waiting for our friend. Visiting Mr. Smith.”
“You mean Mrs. Smith.”
“Right, of course.” I flash my smile.
“Would you like to go in? I can check with him for you.”
“Oh no, we’ll just wait for him at the end of the hall. We don’t want to interrupt his visit.”
I follow Donny to the end of the hallway, where there’s a small sitting area. We each take a seat in uncomfortable olive-green chairs.
“Now what?” I ask.
“We wait for him to come out of the room. Or we wait to get a text from Rory or Callie. Whichever comes first.”
“But it’s getting late. It’s almost seven p.m. Aren’t visiting hours over?”
“Hell if I know,” he says.
“Okay, then,” I say. “I guess we wait.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
RORY
Callie and I head back up to the waiting area, and I hand Maddie her Diet Coke.
“Took you long enough,” Maddie says.
“Sorry,” I say, “Callie and I needed to… I don’t know.”