The Common Thread (37 page)

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Simon had always considered himself a lucky man, and he wasn’t about to contemplate the possibility that his luck might be running out. The series of coincidences, all misfortunate, were just that—random events.

His request for a divorce had gone worse than he could have imagined, with Heather crying and pleading with him until he was forced to tell her the harsh truth—he was in love with someone else. He’d hoped to spare her that indignity, but she’d forced him to say it. Then, after hours of fighting, she’d simply walked away and allowed him to leave. Somehow, he didn’t feel good about the way they’d left things. Instead of feeling free, he feared the fury of the proverbial scorned woman.

His instincts had been dead-on. His father-in-law was waiting for him at the office in the morning. Unlike Heather, he didn’t plead with Simon but simply met him in the garage and handed him a large box filled with personal effects, all from his office, and told him to get off his property. Simon didn’t argue; in fact he wanted nothing more.

There was still the matter of the equipment in the basement. Simon had planned to remove it, but that plan was thwarted. It didn’t matter, though. There was nothing wrong with a compounding pharmacy having such machinery, and his father-in-law was so out of touch with the times Simon doubted he’d even understand the significance of his find. If he did, Simon was sure the man would conclude that Happy and Healthy Pharmacies was planning to begin compounding medications. It was a great idea, and if Simon was sticking around, he might have implemented it.

Determined to finish his task, he arrived at the hospital in good spirits. Wearing a tailored suit and loafers, and carrying a briefcase that held a syringe with enough potassium to stop an elephant’s heart, he found Katie’s room and, before entering, took a deep breath to calm his nerves. He opened the door to find a cleaning lady disinfecting the space. She didn’t know if the former inhabitant of the room had died, been transferred, or been discharged. Inquiring about Katie was the last thing he could do. When she was found dead someone might remember he’d been looking for her. Simon was forced to do some clever detective work, but he was successful in the end. He was too smart for the morons who surrounded him.

A secluded corner of the surgical waiting room offered him privacy. “Hello, this is the pharmacist,” he said to the woman who answered the phone. “I have medication for Katie Finan, but she isn’t in her room.”

“She was discharged,” the nurse informed him.

Thinking quickly, Simon showed some of the cunning that made him such a success in the drug business. “Yes, I know. She dropped off the prescriptions, but the number we have on file for her has been disconnected. Is there any chance you have one for her?”

The very helpful women who’d answered his call quickly read to him the ten digits that comprised Katie’s cell-phone number. When he disconnected the call, he immediately dialed them.

Using the voice of Marc Simonson, he knew Katie would never recognize him. “This is Ted from the surgery team. I’m looking for Katie Finan,” he said when she answered.

“This is she,” Katie replied.

Simon thought she sounded tired. Good. She’d put up less of a fight when he finally put that needle in her arm. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Tired,” she admitted.

“Well, you did rush out of here somewhat unexpectedly,” he gently chastised her.

“Yes, I did. But I needed to get to a funeral.”

Ah, that explained it. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with the police and Heather and his father-in-law, he might have attended the funeral himself. And it would all be over now. Instead…it was too frustrating to think about. But it was good that he was going out of business, getting out of town. So much was getting past him lately he’d be lucky to stay alive on the streets if he stayed. He remembered the purpose of his call.

“Katie, the reason I’m calling is we forgot to schedule the nurse to come out and check on you.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. I’m staying with my friend, and she’s a nurse. She can check me.”

Simon frowned and slapped his hand against his forehead in frustration. Remain calm, he told himself. You can’t lose her now. You may not have another opportunity. He looked around the drab waiting room, the sparse furnishings worn and the magazines dated, the walls in need of paint and a light bulb in need of changing, and thought about the Caribbean. In a few days, he and Angelica would be there, in the warm sunshine, in a brightly painted, modern, elegant suite befitting them. He was inspired.

“Can I say anything to change your mind? The doctors prefer to have someone impartial evaluate you. Family members and friends are often overly concerned about trivial things, or not concerned enough about real problems. We’ve found more complications in patients who are followed by family members.”

“Is there a charge for this? Does my insurance cover it?”

“Yes and yes. No charges to you.”

“Okay, I suppose there’s no harm in getting checked.”

Simon fought the urge to leap for joy. Instead, he brought his pen to the paper. “If you could please tell me the address where you’re staying, I’ll make all the arrangements.”

Thirty minutes later, Simon picked up Angelica, a few suitcases filled with essentials, and eight million dollars. He programmed the address Katie had given him into the Lexus’s GPS and headed for the mountains.

Nic followed the instructions given by the robotic voice on her GPS, exiting Interstate 84 at Lake Wallenpaupack, and only then did she begin to feel panic setting in. Her destination was just a few miles ahead. Her final destination, though, was so much farther than the address on the computer in her car. She wished she knew where the roads were leading, but she just didn’t. She was scared.

Taking Katie’s children had been the right and decent thing to do. It had always been a temporary remedy, though, and Nic had never felt any sense of permanence about it. Eventually, Katie would recover from her wounds and resume caring for her children. She’d gone into this knowing the outcome, thinking she could and would walk away when her duty was done. She had no obligation to have a relationship with them, and no one would judge her if she didn’t.

She hadn’t anticipated the impact they’d had on her life, though, and how in such a short time she would come to love them so much. It was now crucial that she meet the woman she’d hadn’t intended to meet, for Katie was the key to Nic’s relationship with Chloe and Andre. And she feared Katie—the judgments Katie could and would make about her, from her hairstyle to her manners to her career choice. What if Katie didn’t like her? The thought was devastating.

“Left turn ahead,” the GPS voice instructed, but Nic couldn’t see any place to turn. To the left she saw only trees and, as had been the case for the past mile, the glint of sunshine reflecting off the lake in those odd places with a break in the thick spring foliage. And then she saw it, a gravel road squeezed in between a pair of towering evergreens, and turned sharply before the chance escaped her.

The road was in need of repair, and the combination of abrupt deceleration and uneven terrain awoke Nan from the nap she’d been enjoying, and also captured the attention of her backseat passengers.

“Are we there?” Andre asked. “I can’t wait to see Mommy.”

“I think we’re here,” Nic answered, although the lack of clear signage allowed for some doubt. Then she saw a red Jeep and an extraordinarily tall woman unloading packages from its hatch, and she knew she’d found the right place. “Yep, there’s Jet. We’re here.”

“Jet,” Chloe exclaimed, forgetting that the windows were still up.

Jet heard their car, though, and looked up, a smile on her face when she recognized them. Dropping her packages, she took a few steps toward the car and opened the passenger door behind Nic before the car was even fully stopped. Chloe jumped into her arms, and Andre ran around the car to join her. Nic opened her door, intending to walk around and help Nan, but the sight of the woman on the porch stopped her cold.

Katie’s eyes were on her children, the smile across her face almost hiding the strain of the past week. She was pale, and her hair, though wavy like Nic’s, hung limply over her shoulders. Her right hand held the porch rail for support, and the way her body was leaning into it told Nic she needed all the help it provided. Her peripheral vision must have caught Nic’s movement, and her eyes shifted, capturing Nic where she stood, paralyzed. Katie held her gaze. There was none of the appraisal Nic had anticipated, no judgment in her eyes, just a reverence that surprised and touched Nic. Then a slow smile spread across the corners of Katie’s face, tightening the hold she had on Nic and pulling her closer.

Nic could hear the commotion around her, but it blurred to insignificance as she slowly covered the dozen feet separating them. When she reached the bottom porch step, Katie began to laugh. “Is this the twilight zone, or what?”

Nic nodded, laughing as well. “That about sums it up.” She bridged the gap between them, mounting half the stairs that separated them without ever averting her eyes. “I’m Nicole Coussart,” she said, offering her hand.

Katie wouldn’t accept it. “Don’t make me move, Nicole. It hurts too much.”

And so Nic climbed those last two stairs, and when they were eye to eye, like lovers contemplating their first kiss, Katie removed the hand that held her steady and reached toward Nic, not to shake her hand but to embrace her.

Nic looked down for a moment at the arm resting on her shoulders. It seemed as foreign as a third arm sprouting from her own body, an alien from the twilight zone Katie had referenced. But then her eyes rose and Katie was suddenly as familiar as a glance in the mirror. The pink hair of the mug shot had grown out and was now the same dark color of Nicole’s. The eyes were a cloudy green, and deep, holding a million secrets. The lips were full and sensual, and Nic didn’t wonder if Katie used them to kiss boys or girls, for she already knew about Jet and only wondered at how beautiful her sister looked at that moment—weakened, recovering from near-mortal wounds, worried about the man who’d shot her, lonely for the company of her children—yet with a calm about her that Nic could only envy.

Her arms moved to pull Katie gently closer, for she wanted some of that peace. She’d found it in the last week, in the arms of Rae and Chloe and Andre, and she no longer feared what her sister might think of her or want from her. In a startling moment of clarity she realized Katie had everything that Nic could ever want.

The sobbing was spontaneous and mutual, and in spite of her wounds, Katie fell into Nic, and Nic resisted the urge to pull her closer, fearing the injury she might cause. No words came and none were needed—both understood the other’s isolation and frustration, a lifetime of need satisfied with this one gesture of affection. A flashback came to Nic’s mind, of her mother’s suggestion that she might have remembered on some unrecognized plane the existence of this woman who was her mirror image, and Nic knew her mother had been right. She’d always known about Katie, and she’d spent the past thirty years mourning her loss.

Neither could have pulled back at that moment except if guided by some external force, and it arrived in the shape of Andre.

“Why are you two crying?” he asked as he wrapped himself around their legs. Another flashback came to Nic then, of the moment in the courthouse when she’d first met him. Of when she fell in love with him and her life changed forever.

“Allergies,” Katie replied, her tone sedate.

“Did you take your medicine, Mom?” he asked, hands on hips, expression stern.

“I’ll have to do that.”

“Mom, can you make AJ some meatball pizza? She never had it. And she bought me a scooter.”

Nic frowned, hoping no parental admonishment about spoiling her child or endangering life or limb would be forthcoming. Instead, Katie’s face lit up, sharing the obvious joy her son felt about his new toy. “Did you get a helmet, too?”

He beamed. “Monsters, Inc.”

“Which monster?” Katie asked.

“Mike. I’ll show you.” He scampered off the porch to Nic’s BMW, where everyone had gathered to empty the car. Even Nan was carrying something.

“I guess I should help,” Nic said, taking the opportunity to escape for a moment, needing to regroup, and walked toward the car as Andre ran in the other direction, carrying the green bicycle helmet with the large eyeball on the front. After bikes and such were deposited in the garage, they made their way into the house, and Nic helped Chloe and Andre unpack their things in the upstairs bedroom, while Rae helped Jet with the food and Nan went to work on a pitcher of lemonade.

When the kids were changed into bathing suits, Nic followed them down the stairs and onto the porch, where Katie and Nan were catching up. She stopped but continued to watch her niece and nephew, who’d run through the yard to the water’s edge before she could tell them to stop.

Katie’s conversational voice was soft, and Nic suspected it was irritated by the tube that had been forced into her lungs and by the weakness she must be feeling. But it rose to a booming level as she reminded both kids about life vests. “You need eyes in the back of your head,” Katie told Nan and Nic.

“I don’t know about that. Maybe just younger eyes than I have,” Nan said. “I’ll go watch them, Katie, but if one of them falls in, you’ll be rescuing me, too.”

“They’ll be fine, Nan. You stay here and rest.”

“No, no. I’ll go down there. You and your sister have some catchin’ up to do.”

The quiet was peaceful as they watched Nan make her way to the edge of the lake. “Do you like the water?” Nic finally asked, breaking the silence.

Katie’s face lit up. “Oh, yes. My family vacationed every year at the Jersey shore, and I never got out of the water. At home, my best friend had a pool, and we swam every day. How about you?”

“Yeah, me, too. I practically lived at the lake in the summer. My mom’s mom lived there, and I spent my summers with her.”

“You got good parents in the raffle?”