Lost Innocents (17 page)

Maddy’s heart was hammering, but she tried to keep her expression impassive. “What are you talking about?”

“Karla Needham,” said Heather, lifting her chin. “She’s really cool, she’s a cheerleader, and she gets every guy she wants. She’s telling everybody that there is chemistry between them.”

“Why are you talking this way to me, Heather? I’m not a school chum of yours. My husband is not some boy in your class. Don’t you realize that you’re talking about my marriage here? My husband?”

“Well, you probably feel the same way I do. You can tell him from me that he better not do it with her. Because if he does, that would be very unfair to me,” said Heather. “And I will find out, because I’ll make sure to find out.”

Maddy didn’t know whether she was more shocked by this suggestion or by the fact that Heather would come to their house and speak to her this way. It was as if the girl had learned nothing at all from her whole sordid experience with the investigation and the court. “I thought you were going to go to a psychologist to get some help, Heather,” Maddy said. “I’m going to have to call your parents and tell them that you came here looking for my husband.”

“No, don’t,” Heather said. “I only wanted to know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“There’s something seriously wrong with you, Heather,” said Maddy.

“Just tell him I was here,” Heather said. She turned and hopped off the front step as if she were playing a game of hopscotch. Maddy watched, stunned, as Heather skipped down the path and crossed the street. Haifa block away she got into a little Ford Escort. Maddy could see that someone else was in the car.

What in the world would possess her to come here and suggest that Doug was involved with another schoolgirl? Maddy wondered. Something is very wrong with that child, she thought. Maybe this is one of those obsessive things. Maybe she has really gone around the bend. Despite the scariness of having an obsessed teenage stalker on the doorstep, Maddy found the idea oddly comforting. This proved that Heather really was disturbed. No one in their right mind would behave the way she had. The encounter made Maddy feel shaky, but she was determined to put it out of her mind. She had other business to attend to.

“Mommy,” Amy called from the top of the stairs.

“I’m on my way,” Maddy said grimly.

D
oug dutifully escorted Bonnie and the sleeping Sean up to the floor where Terry was recovering. An attractive young nurse seated at the nurse’s station was engaged in conversation with a flirtatious intern. Bonnie waited until he was a gone and then stepped up to the Formica-topped counter.

“I’m up Mrs. Lewis,” she said tersely in answer to the nurse’s greeting. “I’m here take my husband…Terry Lewis…home. He’s in room to 304.”

“Oh, said the nurse. “The doctor is with him right now. You have to sign these papers and then we’ll send a wheelchair down there for him.”

Bonnie shifted Sean, her pocketbook, and the diaper bag to her other shoulder so she could sign the papers. She in all the appropriate spots then slid them back across the counter. The nurse picked up the papers and examined them. Then she looked up at Bonnie.

“You know, ma’am, we don’t generally allow babies on this floor.”

Bonnie glared at her. “I’ve brought him here before.”

The nurse shrugged. “It’s really for the child’s sake. We don’t want them exposed to infections.”

Bonnie pulled herself up to her full height. “My baby’s father is injured, not sick.”

“Maybe your friend could take him,” the nurse said, nodding at Doug. “There’s a very nice waiting room just off the lobby.”

Doug sighed in exasperation. He should have known he would get no work done here. “All right. Whatever,” he said.

Reluctantly Bonnie started to pass the baby over to Doug.

“Can I see him?” the nurse asked sweetly, coming around from behind the desk and craning her neck to get a look at Sean. “I love babies.”

“No,” Bonnie barked defiantly. “There’s too many germs around here as it is. You’re the one who said so.”

The nurse made a face and went back behind the desk. Doug rearranged the baby on his shoulder. “You better give me that bag with his stuff,” Doug said.

“You don’t need it,” Bonnie said, clutching her belongings. “You’re not going to be changing him. You just hold on to him. That’s all you need to do. We’ll find you when we’re ready.”

Doug set his jaw and headed for the elevator. He pushed the button and waited for the doors to open, rubbing the baby’s back absently, watching Bonnie’s rolling gait as she marched toward her husband’s room. “Bitch,” he whispered.

He was infuriated that he had to spend this last precious day before he returned to his job playing chauffeur to these creeps. But he could tell by the look in Maddy’s eyes that there was no use in arguing about it. She had this notion that Bonnie was not the baby’s mother because Bonnie didn’t act all warm and fuzzy about the kid the way Maddy did about Amy. Maddy didn’t realize that plenty of mothers were like Bonnie. “I feel sorry for you, slugger,” he whispered. “But you’re stuck with her.”

Doug stepped inside the elevator and pushed the button for the ground floor. As the doors began to close, he thought he saw a familiar figure hurrying by in the hallway. It was that wild tangle of gray curls. How many people had hair like that? he thought. “Ellen,” he started to call out, but the space between the doors was disappearing, and the other people in the elevator looked at him suspiciously. Even if it was her, she might not remember him from the other night. After all, everybody said she wasn’t playing with a full deck. He swallowed the name and assumed the impassive expression of the elevator passenger.

Without another look back, Bonnie started down the hallway to Terry’s room. At the doorway of room 304, she pulled a compact out of her purse. The hospital corridor was dim, but she did her best to examine her face critically. She ran a lipstick carefully over her lips and forced a comb through her dry, unruly hair, trying her best to get it to look right. It was hard. Her hair had always had a mind of its own. You got your father’s hair, her mother would say in disgust, and shake her head whenever she barged into Bonnie’s room and found her trying to tame the frizz with gels and rollers. Her mother had beautiful, soft blond hair. She always looked perfect. Right up to the very end.

Bonnie replaced the comb in her purse, straightened out her glasses on her nose, and took a deep breath. He loves you just the way you are, she reminded herself. He is your devoted, loving husband, and you are beautiful to him. “Beautiful to him,” she murmured as if to give herself courage. “You are the most beautiful thing in the world to him.”

She pushed open the door of the room and walked in. She ignored the man in the first bed. Dr. Tipton, the surgeon, looking attractive and efficient in her white coat, stood beside Terry, who was dressed and sitting on the edge of his bed. Now that he was in his clothes, Terry looked weaker than before. And pale. Bonnie’s heart did a flip-flop and seemed to melt at the sight of him, as it always did. He looked up as she came in. She gave him a brilliant smile.

“Hey, babe,” he said, giving her a weak wave. “Where’s my boy today?”

Bonnie’s smile faded. “The nurse wouldn’t let him come in. That Mr. Blake took him downstairs.”

Terry nodded. “Too bad. I was telling the doc about him.”

“Mrs. Lewis,” the doctor interrupted, “I was just telling your husband he is not to overdo it. He needs a lot of rest, and no lifting and no driving for two weeks. If he’s careful now, there will be no long-term repercussions from this. As I’ve told you, he can manage perfectly well without his spleen. We just don’t want those stitches to break. I want to see him back here in two weeks.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Bonnie.

“Well, you need to see a doctor where you are, to have the incision checked. If you like, I can refer you.”

“I’ll take care of it. I think I can take care of my own husband, thank you.”

“All right.” The doctor sighed. “Good luck, Mr. Lewis.” She shook Terry’s hand.

“I’ll let you go, Doc. You have to be about the business of healing the sick. I want to thank you for all you’ve done for me.”

“You’re welcome,” said the doctor as she turned to leave. Bonnie sat on the bed beside her husband, and Terry let out a groan.

“What is it?” she cried.

“Oh,” he said, “it was just when the bed dipped. It hurt a little bit.”

Bonnie jumped up off the bed, and he groaned again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she pleaded.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” he said, but he was grimacing.

There was a silence between them for a moment, and then they both started to speak at once.

“What—”

“How—”

Bonnie looked stricken to have stepped on his words. “You go first,” she said.

“How’s our boy today?” he asked. “Did he sleep okay?”

“He’s fine,” said Bonnie.

There was a silence again.

“What were you going to say?” Terry asked.

“I was thinking we should leave today.”

“Leave?”

“From those people. The Blakes,” she said, her face sour. “I can’t wait to get away from them.”

“But they’ve been kind,” said Terry.

“Believe me,” Bonnie said, “they didn’t do it to be kind. I overheard them talking and they were just worried we were going to sue them. I didn’t tell them we have insurance. Let them worry. By the way, we got the car back. So we can leave any time we want.”

Terry frowned. “Well, I’ll try. I can’t go far.”

“Just so we get away from them,” she said. “We’ll get a room.”

Terry sighed, and they were silent again. “Well, I’ll be glad to be out of this place,” Terry said after a while, looking around the room.

“The nurse is bringing a wheelchair,” said Bonnie.

Almost as if her words had summoned her, the nurse appeared. “Okay, Mr. Lewis, let’s get you into this thing.”

Terry started to push himself off the bed. Bonnie rushed to his side and reached around him, carefully encircling his broad back with her arms. “Here, lean on me,” she said. The nurse came near and tried to help, but Bonnie glared at her, and she stepped back.

“I can do this,” Bonnie said.

“I’m all right,” said Terry. He shuffled to the chair and sat in it, with Bonnie letting him slip from her arms with a look of regret. She felt as if her arms were glowing where they had touched him.

The nurse walked around behind the chair.

“I can push him,” Bonnie said.

“Hospital regulations,” said the nurse. “You can carry his things.” There was a small plastic carrier bag with Terry’s photo of Sean, his Bible, and a few personal items in it on the radiator cover beneath the window. Bonnie picked it up and then tried to wedge herself in between the moving chair and the wall, but she was forced to drop back behind the nurse.

Terry waved to his roommate as he passed by his bed. “God bless you, brother,” he said.

“Take it easy, preacher,” the man in the bed said wryly, looking at him over the top of his half glasses.

“He calls me that. Preacher,” Terry confided proudly to his wife as they reached the corridor and she was able to move up beside him.

“That’s nice,” she said.

When they reached the third-floor lounge she pushed the button for the elevator. The doors opened and they got inside. None of them spoke inside the elevator. At the lobby, the nurse pushed Terry’s wheelchair out of the elevator.

“I’ll go find Sean and that Mr. Blake,” said Bonnie. “He can bring the car up.”

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to get back up to my floor,” said the nurse. “We’re short-handed today.”

Terry beamed at her. “No problem. I’m blessed. I have a wife who will take good care of me.”

Bonnie gazed down at him tenderly. “That’s right, my darling,” she said.

M
addy stood with her hands on her hips staring curiously at the assortment of clothes on the bed. She had gone through all of Bonnie’s possessions except for those she’d taken with her to the hospital. Maddy was feeling guilty but told herself that if her hunch about Sean was right, it was justified. If not, she wasn’t doing any real harm, she rationalized. Snooping through other people’s belongings made her uneasy. Although she had invited these people into her home, that didn’t give her the right to invade their privacy.

While she found their belongings odd, she hadn’t yet come across anything that indicated something criminally amiss. The two suitcases were old and battered. Bonnie’s entire wardrobe consisted of worn, shapeless tops, a couple of sweaters with pills all over them, two synthetic wool skirts, some shabby underwear, and one shiny blue nightgown with scratchy lace and spaghetti straps that still had the tag on it. Maddy felt almost cruel, looking through Bonnie’s meager belongings. The clothes for Sean, on the other hand, were mostly new. That wasn’t surprising for a baby. People gave a new baby lots of clothes, and even the most financially pressed mother always managed to buy her baby new things.

No, only Terry’s clothes were puzzling. They were all brand new. The white sweat socks were still in wrappers. Two pairs of new jeans still retained their price tags, and three new plaid shirts still had pins in the collar. Even the underwear was new and still folded in its plastic three-packs. Oh sure, she thought, it was natural to get some new clothes to start a new job with, but there weren’t any clothes here that had ever been worn. Curious…She rummaged through the pockets of the suitcase but found only a zippered bag with toiletries, a lipstick for Bonnie, and a couple of paperback novels. There was nothing personal in any of it. Nothing that would tell you much about the people who were traveling with those bags.

Maddy sighed in frustration. Suddenly she thought she heard a door slamming. Startled, she straightened up and listened. From Amy’s room came the singsong sounds of her nursery rhyme tape and Amy banging out an accompaniment on the top of a cookie tin. That’s it. It’s just Amy, she told herself. I’m jumpy because I’m afraid of getting caught doing this. Even as she thought that, she had to admit to herself that the brief visit from Heather had depressed her and made her feel anxious, like a shadow falling over her life.