True Evil

“You’re all she can talk about.”

“Is she conscious?”

“Not at this moment. We’re doing everything we can, but you should prepare yourself for”—Dr. Andrews gave Alex a lightning-fast appraisal—“you should prepare for the worst. Grace had a serious thrombosis when she was brought in, but she was breathing on her own, and I was encouraged. But the stroke extended steadily, and I decided to start thrombolytic therapy. To try to dissolve the clot. This can sometimes produce miracles, but it can also cause hemorrhages elsewhere in the brain or body. I have a feeling that may be happening now. I don’t want to risk moving Grace for an MRI. She’s still breathing on her own, and that’s the best hope we have. If she stops breathing, we’re ready to intubate immediately. I probably should have done it already”—Dr. Andrews glanced at Bill—“but I knew she was desperate to talk to you, and once she’s intubated, she won’t be able to communicate with anyone. She’s already lost her ability to write words.”

Alex winced.

“Don’t be shocked if she manages to speak to you. Her speech center has been affected, and she has significant impairment.”

“I understand,” Alex said impatiently. “We had an uncle who had a stroke. Can I just be with her? I don’t care what her condition is. I have to be with her.”

Dr. Andrews smiled and led Alex into the room.

As she reached the door, Alex turned back to Bill. “Where’s Jamie?”

“With my sister in Ridgeland.”

Ridgeland was a white-flight suburb ten miles away. “Did he see Grace fall?”

Bill shook his head somberly. “No, he was down on the field. He just knows his mother’s sick, that’s all.”

“Don’t you think he should be here?”

Alex had tried to keep all judgment out of her voice, but Bill’s face darkened. He seemed about to snap at her, but then he drew a deep breath and said, “No, I don’t.”

When Alex kept staring at him, he lowered his voice and added, “I don’t want Jamie to watch his mother die.”

“Of course not. But he should have a chance to say good-bye.”

“He’ll get that,” Bill said. “At the funeral.”

Alex closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. “Bill, you can’t—”

“We don’t have time for this.” He nodded into the room where Dr. Andrews stood waiting.

Alex walked slowly to the edge of Grace’s bed. The pale face above the hospital blanket did not look familiar. And yet it did. It looked like her mother’s face. Grace Morse Fennell was thirty-five years old, but tonight she looked seventy. It’s her skin, Alex realized. It’s like wax. Drooping wax. She had the sense that the muscles that controlled her sister’s face had gone slack and would never contract again. Grace’s eyes were closed, and to Alex’s surprise, she felt this was a mercy. It gave her time to adjust to the new reality, however fleeting that reality might be.

“Are you all right?” Dr. Andrews asked from behind her.

“Yes.”

“I’ll leave you with her, then.”

Alex glanced at the bank of CRTs monitoring Grace’s life functions. Heartbeat, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, God knew what else. A single IV line disappeared beneath a bandage on her forearm; Alex’s wrist ached at the sight. She wasn’t sure what to do, and maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe the important thing was just to be here.

“You know what this tragedy has taught me?” asked the familiar bass voice.

Alex jumped but tried to hide her discomfiture. She hadn’t realized Bill was still in the room, and she hated showing any sign of weakness. “What?” she said, though she didn’t really care about the answer.

“Money isn’t really worth anything. All the money in the world won’t make that blood clot go away.”

Alex nodded distantly.

“So, what the hell have I been working for?” Bill asked. “Why haven’t I just kicked back and spent every second I could with Grace?”

Grace probably asked the same question a thousand times, Alex thought. But it was too late for regrets. A lot of people thought Bill was a cold fish. Alex had always thought he tended to be maudlin.

“Could I be alone with her for a while?” Alex asked, not taking her eyes from Grace’s face.

She felt a strong hand close on her shoulder—the wounded shoulder—and then Bill said, “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

After he’d gone, Alex took Grace’s clammy hand in hers and bent to kiss her forehead. She had never seen her sister so helpless. In fact, she had never seen Grace close to helpless. Grace was a dynamo. Crises that brought others’ lives to a standstill hardly caused her to break stride. But this was different. This was the end—Alex could tell. She knew it the way she had known when James Broadbent went down after she was shot. James had watched Alex charge into the bank just seconds ahead of the go-order for the Hostage Rescue Team, and he had gone in right behind her. He saw her take the shotgun blast, but instead of instantly returning fire at the shooter, he’d glanced down to see how badly Alex was hurt. For that concern he’d caught the second blast square in the chest. He wasn’t wearing a vest (he’d taken it off upon learning that the HRT was going in), and the shotgun chopped his heart and lungs into something you saw behind a butcher’s counter. Why did he look down? Alex wondered for the millionth time. Why did he follow me in at all? But she knew the answer. Broadbent had followed her because he loved her—from a distance, true, but the emotion was no less real for that. And that love had killed him. Alex saw tears falling on Grace’s cheeks—her own tears, numberless these past months. She wiped her eyes, then took out her cell phone and called Bill Fennell, who was standing less than thirty feet away.

“What is it?” he asked frantically. “What’s wrong?”

“Jamie should be here.”

“Alex, I told you—”

“You get him, goddamn it. This is his mother lying here.”

There was a long silence. Then Bill said, “I’ll call my sister.”

On impulse, Alex turned and saw him standing near the nurses’ station. He’d been talking to Dr. Andrews. She saw him disengage from the neurologist and lift his cell phone to his cheek. Alex leaned down to Grace’s ear and tried to think of something that would reach the bottom of the dark well where her sister now dwelled.

“Sue-Sue?” she whispered, simultaneously squeezing the cold hand. Sue-Sue was another nickname based on a middle name—a family tradition. “Sue-Sue, it’s KK.”

Grace’s eyes remained shut.

“It’s me, Sue-Sue. It’s KK. I’m back from Sally’s. Wake up, before Mama gets up. I want to go to the carnival.”

Seconds dilated into some unknown measure of time. Memories swirled through Alex’s mind, and her heart began to ache. Grace’s eyes stayed shut.

“Come on, Sue-Sue. I know you’re playing possum. Quit faking.”

Alex felt a twitch in her hand. Adrenaline surged through her, but when she saw the frozen eyelids, she decided that the twitch must have come from her own hand.

“Kuh … kuh,” someone coughed.

Alex turned, thinking it was Bill or Dr. Andrews, but then Grace clenched her hand and let out a sharp cry. When Alex whipped her head around, she saw Grace’s green eyes wide-open. Then Grace blinked. Alex’s heart soared. She leaned down over her sister, because though Grace was only thirty-five, her eyes were almost useless without glasses or contacts.

“KK?” Grace moaned. “Iz zah wu?”

“It’s me, Gracie,” Alex said, rubbing a strand of hair out of her sister’s cloudy eyes.

“Oh, Goth,” Grace said in a guttural voice, and then she began to sob. “Thang Godth.”

Alex had to clench her jaw muscles to keep from sobbing. The right half of Grace’s face was paralyzed, and drool ran down her chin whenever she struggled to speak. She sounded exactly like Uncle T.J., who’d died after a series of strokes left him without a shred of his old identity.