Out of Character (7 page)

“You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

She had no idea why she’d said something so outrageous. She attempted a smile. “You think I have a secret life?”

“No, but something might have happened in the ER—”

“Nothing did. I’m just having a string of really bad luck. I’m definitely staying away from ladders and black cats for a while.” She took a couple deep breaths. “How did you know I was shot? The paper didn’t give my name.”

“Kristen told me.”

“When?”

“I talked to her the day after it happened.” Andy looked sheepish. “She promised to try to convince you to agree to see me again.”

A phone rang twice, the floor creaked under someone’s shoes, voices murmured, a door slammed. Normal sounds. Except nothing was normal. Her eyes filled again. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”

“I know. Neither can I.” Andy wiped a tear from her cheekbone and held Jillian close again. His heart pounded under his cashmere sweater, the one she’d given him a Christmas ago.

“I’m going to miss her so much,” she whispered.

“Me, too.” Andy’s arms tightened. “Me, too.”

* * * *

At nearly four in the morning, they pulled up in front of the Denver apartment Jason had rented when he and Kristen split up two years earlier. Jillian and Andy muttered a few sympathetic platitudes. Jason got out of the car and plodded to the front door.

“Stay at my place tonight.” Andy watched her, his hands on the steering wheel of the idling Lexis.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“In the spare bedroom,” he added. “Kristen told you that I wanted to talk to you.”

Jillian nodded. She didn’t want to discuss this now. Seeing Andy tonight was raising conflicting emotions she was in no state to sort out.

“I do want to, but not tonight. I thought you might not want to be alone in your apartment. I sure as hell don’t.” He took one of her hands. “You can trust me, Jillian.”

She studied him for long seconds. The last man who’d told her that had been lying. But Andy had never lied to her. When he’d wanted out of their relationship, he’d told her, before he’d started up with Tiffany. Andy wasn’t Mark.

Jillian squeezed his hand. “I know, and you’re right. I don’t want to be alone tonight, either.”

Andy’s condo looked the same as the last time she’d been there: all tasteful wool, leather, and wood except for the wagon wheel coffee table he’d had since college and refused to relinquish; neat except for a pile of magazines and newspapers on the floor beside the sofa and a half-full coffee mug on the end table. She followed him into the spare bedroom where he set down her suitcase. The Keystone police had considerately collected her things from the townhouse.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked.

She shook her head. “What time do you have to leave in the morning?”

“By nine. If I’m gone, make yourself at home.”

She touched his arm. “I’m glad I didn’t go home tonight.”

“So am I,” he said. “Get some sleep.”

* * * *

Jillian didn’t sleep, not really. One of the sleeping pills she’d gotten after she’d been shot knocked her out for a couple hours, but then she woke up and thought about Kristen. All those memories everyone claims will eventually be comforting, but at the moment hurt like hell.

At eight, she gave up. She dressed then applied blush and lipstick in an attempt to make her pale face look less skeletal. It only accentuated her dark circles, making her look like a skeleton with a couple fading black eyes.

Andy sat at the kitchen table, typing on his laptop. “How did you sleep?”

“Lousy. How about you?” Jillian pulled a mug from the cupboard above the coffeepot and filled it.

“The same. I have a meeting, but I should be done by noon. I can take the afternoon off.”

Jillian returned the pot to the warmer and sat at the table beside Andy. “Don’t worry about me. I want to go see Kristen’s parents then I need some time alone.” She sipped hot, strong coffee.

“The funeral’s tomorrow. At ten at First Lutheran. Jason called.”

“That’s fast.”

“I think her family wants to get it over with. It will be several days before the authorities release her remains, so…”

Jillian cradled her mug between her palms. “I can’t believe we’re talking about Kristen.”

“Do you want to stay here again tonight?” Andy asked.

“Thanks, but I need to go home. I have to find something to wear to the funeral.” She closed her eyes against a stab of pain.

“At least let me take you to it.”

She took a couple steadying breaths before reopening her eyes. “I’d appreciate that.”

“I’ve got to go.” Andy closed his laptop and stuck it into his briefcase. “I’ll come back and give you a ride home.”

“I’ll take a cab. Then I should rent a car.”

Andy stood and slipped on the suit coat he’d draped over a chair. She’d forgotten how terrific he looked in a suit, how terrific he looked no matter what he wore. Had made herself forget.

“Call me if you change your mind about staying here or feel like going to dinner,” he said. “Or need to talk.”

She’d also made herself forget what a truly nice guy he was. “Thanks. For everything.”

Andy’s eyes darkened. “She meant a lot to me, too.”

Jillian nodded.

“And so do you.” He grabbed his briefcase. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine-fifteen.”

* * * *

Jillian wiped her eyes with a crumpled Kleenex one more time as she stood in the pew.

Exiting to an intricate organ arrangement of
How Great Thou Art
, people filed down the aisle of the enormous Gothic church.

“Kristen would have loved this,” she said. “All these people, I mean.”

Andy raised an eyebrow. “That so many people liked her, or that so many lawyers had to change their plans on a moment’s notice and give up all those billable hours to be here?”

“Both. I never realized how many friends she had.” She released Andy’s hand, which she’d gripped through most of the service.

He shrugged his dark-suited shoulders. “She made friends everywhere, even with attorneys who opposed her. She was that kind of person.”

“Thanks for coming with me. This was even harder than I anticipated.” Despite Jillian’s resolve, her voice shook.

The organist switched to
Beautiful Savior
. Andy wrapped an arm around Jillian’s shoulders and directed her into the aisle. “You’re doing great. Jason looks like shit, doesn’t he?”

Jason had sat with Kristen’s family, at their request. He always seemed so lively and energetic, but today he looked like a blond zombie, his fair skin nearly albino.

“Kristen refused to talk about why they divorced, other than to say they had reconcilable differences,” Jillian said. “I figured that meant she thought they’d eventually get back together.”

“Jason said the same thing. I can’t imagine having someone I loved die so suddenly. I bet it takes a long time to get over it, if you ever do.”

Jillian’s eyes were on the rose window high above the church’s balcony, but she saw something else. Mark’s face when he’d mentioned his wife. “Maybe that’s why.” Maybe his wife really had died and that had something to do with why he’d run off.

“Why what?”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. Of course, it didn’t matter why Mark had left, except for her ego. He’d been relegated to a minor facet of a vacation she desperately wished she’d never taken.

“Sorry, my mind was wandering. Let’s go find Kristen’s family.”

The emergency room at Denver County Hospital was packed, every gray vinyl chair occupied, a half dozen kids propelling plastic toys around the floor. It was noisy, too—people chattering in a cacophony of tones and languages, kids shrieking, an obese man in one corner and a bird-like woman two seats away trying to out-moan each other, a shrill-voiced woman screaming at the calmly nodding secretary stationed behind bulletproof glass. A typical winter weekday, when the combination of colds and flu, snow and ice-related injuries, and simple loneliness resulted in a backup of patients worse than the planes at O’Hare the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Jillian punched in a code then stepped through the door into the main exam area. Her co-workers, in their aqua cotton scrubs, hustled between exam rooms and the central desk. The familiar odors of antiseptic and coffee and the sounds of conversation, rubber soles slapping linoleum, and machines beeping loosened her back muscles. She’d felt as if her entire life had been upended and rearranged in some unrecognizable design, but it hadn’t. This important part still existed, unchanged.

Sarah Williams stopped mid-step when she spotted Jillian. A nurse in the ER, Sarah was also one of Jillian’s best friends. “How are you?” she asked.

“I’m happy to be here, which I think is a very bad sign. Hi, Mike.” Jillian greeted the assistant ER head, who was sitting at the central desk.

Mike looked up from the computer he was using. “What are you doing here?”

“Working.”

“Aren’t you still on vacation?”

“I’ll go insane if I stay home one more day.”

Mike nodded his shaggy head, his eyes on her face. “And you figured the craziness in here would keep you sane. Are you sure you’re okay?”

So the extra makeup she’d applied hadn’t helped. “You sound like Tom, who gave me his seal of approval, by the way.” Although it had taken a while to convince Dr. Thomas Binger, their egotistical ER chief, that she wasn’t a walking malpractice action.

“Well, if you can satisfy God, far be it from me to argue,” Mike said, “especially when we need the help.” He stood and picked two charts off the desk. “Since you’re doing us a favor, I’ll let you choose. Would you like door number one—” he waved a chart—”or door number two?”

“Two.”

Mike looked down at the chart in his left hand. “Wait until you see what you’ve won. Behind door number two is Mildred Taylor, a seventy-four-year-old female with belly pain. Room 7.”

* * * *

Jillian walked out of Exam Room 7 and slid both the striped curtain and glass door shut behind her. Even after examining Mrs. Taylor, she didn’t know what was wrong with her, which wasn’t that surprising. People were as bad at describing belly pain as they were at giving directions, not that a description would help much. Belly pain could be anything from cancer to gas to an ectopic pregnancy, although she could probably rule that last one out in Mrs. Taylor’s case. She ordered what she hoped was the right mixture of tests to diagnose the problem without pissing off Medicare, then headed to her next patient.

She skimmed the chart outside of Exam Room 13. A forty-six-year-old female with belly pain. Terrific.

Not that Jillian was complaining. She wasn’t here for fun. Coming back to work three days before the end of her vacation had been the last ditch effort of a desperate woman, desperate for something, anything, to take her mind off the past week and save her sanity.

Starting the day after Kristen’s funeral, Jillian had felt as if she was being followed. Even though she never saw anyone, she couldn’t shake the sense of eyes watching her whenever she left her apartment to run or do errands.

Last night had been the last straw. She’d returned from the grocery store, put away her two bags of food, and gone into the living room. The book she’d been trying to read was on the left sofa cushion, although she was positive she’d set it on the right cushion. That had convinced her someone had been in her apartment, even though a quick search confirmed nothing was missing and God knows she’d been agitated enough lately to be wrong about a stupid book. She’d still wasted nearly an hour sitting on the sofa hugging a pillow and agonizing over what to do about a break-in that had undoubtedly never happened.

Jillian hadn’t mentioned this to anyone because she knew it was simply stress making her imagination work overtime. Her last week would have shot anyone way off the stress meter. She needed something to take her mind off her grief long enough for her system to deal with it and heal. Work was the obvious something.

She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. Ironic, she’d lived eighteen years near one of Chicago’s worst neighborhoods without anyone close to her getting killed or even attacked, but on a nice, upper-middle-class skiing vacation, she got socked with both a shooting and a fatal explosion. She hoped they weren’t right about bad things happening in threes.

Although her experience with Mark could have been the third. Her pain about Kristen was so overwhelming she couldn’t tell if Mark’s leaving hurt anymore, but it certainly had at the time. Hopefully it satisfied her quota.

* * * *

Friday after her shift, Jillian stepped into the dusk. The flurry of the ER had done what she’d hoped. Since returning to work, she hadn’t imagined a thing.

The evening air was mild enough that maybe this year Mother Nature wouldn’t view the official beginning of spring as a joke and dump a foot of snow as the punch line. People crowded the sidewalks, rushing home with a speed and efficiency Jillian bet they rarely exhibited at work.

She turned left at the corner, toward the Carleton Parking Ramp three blocks from the hospital. She should start looking for a new car. Her agent said she’d get the insurance proceeds next week, and the company would stop paying for her rental soon afterwards. But she couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for a new car. She didn’t have a clue what kind she wanted, except not another Camry. Maybe Andy would help her.

Kristen would be pleased at how she and Andy were drawing together, even though she wouldn’t have been thrilled to have been the catalyst. Not that Jillian had made any decisions about Andy. If she was too stressed to analyze cars, she certainly couldn’t decide something infinitely more important.

The crosswalk sign flashed
Don’t Walk.
The crowd obediently stopped at the curb instead of rushing across the street the way they would have out East. Further support for her brother’s theory that despite its Wild West pretensions, Denver was basically a nice, polite Midwestern city. She hadn’t talked to Ian for a couple days, and she knew he’d been worried about her. She’d call him tonight and—