After an hour or so of tossing and turning, he switched the light back on. He got up, pulled on the bathrobe against the air-conditioned chill, and padded over to a built-in bookcase. Paula had stocked it with a collection of novels and nonfiction. He scanned the titles for something to read. He was not choosy, he just needed to keep his mind occupied. He pulled out a worn copy of Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. He propped himself up in bed and began to read, hoping to fall asleep. But he soon realized that the book was too well written and too interesting. After several chapters he knew he needed to find something else. He was about to get up to find something else when he thought he heard a faint knocking. He listened and thought he heard it again.
Opening the door connecting to the main part of the house, he was surprised to see Paula standing there, also in a bathrobe, arm raised, about to knock again. She, too, was surprised by the sudden opening of the door. They both laughed, mildly embarrassed.
“Sorry to disturb you, but from my bedroom I can see the window to the guest room, and noticed your light was on. I didn’t know if you were asleep or not and didn’t want to wake you if you were, but since I was having trouble dropping off, I thought I’d come down and see if you were having trouble, too. If you are, I can keep you company for a bit.”
“Great! Come in!” He chuckled. “I can’t believe myself, I’m inviting you into your own guest suite!”
She followed him over to the sitting area. “You know, despite the circumstances that brought us together, I enjoyed the evening.”
“I feel the same,” he agreed.
She settled into the sofa, tucking her legs under herself. “My mind wouldn’t stop. And not just because of the iDoc situation. Tonight… Well, I wasn’t as up front as I should have been.”
George raised his eyebrows. “Go on!”
“When we were talking about our relationship in medical school, I wasn’t completely truthful about how angry you had made me.” She stared at her hands folded in her lap. “At the time it was a self-esteem issue for sure. I decided that I would never have anything to do with you socially again.”
“Paula, I’m so sorry about what happened. In retrospect, as I said, I don’t understand my own behavior. Truly.”
“I recovered to a degree over the next three years, but not completely. When you called me during the summer of your first year of residency and my first year out here, saying that we should get together, I was tempted to tell you how angry and hurt I had been and not see you. But I decided on the spur of the moment to give it a go anyway. Can you remember what we talked about?”
George thought he remembered; he had babbled on about Pia.
“For the entire evening, all you talked about was how Pia was not returning your phone calls, texts, or emails and how worried you were about her, blah, blah, blah.”
George grimaced. “Did I really do that?” He knew he did.
“You did. You carried on all evening, which brought up all the hurt from our freshman year.”
“I’m sorry, I was such an ass. But I’ve grown up a bit.” What he didn’t explain was that he had grown up because of Kasey.
The conversation went on for a while longer, with Paula finally taking the opportunity to express herself as she could not before. George was contrite and apologetic, asking Paula to understand that his behavior had stemmed somewhat from his being an addict of sorts, and the more Pia rejected him, the harder he tried to make the relationship work. Since honesty was on the table for the night, George decided to open up about Kasey.
“I never mentioned that Kasey Lynch, the first victim of the iDoc problem, was actually my fiancée,” he said softly. “She was part of the iDoc beta test when she was diagnosed with advanced, stage-three ovarian cancer.” What he still didn’t include was that he had awakened with her dead in his bed.
Paula’s mouth dropped open. “George, I’m so sorry! Here I am talking about my hurt feelings seven years ago, and you just lost your fiancée, possibly because of something I helped create!” She let out a sigh. “When did she die?”
“A few months ago.”
“Are you still grieving? Of course you are. It’s only been a few months.”
“I’ll probably always grieve. But I’ve reconciled myself to her loss, except to why it happened so precipitously. Her death is one of the reasons I have to find out exactly what is going on. Can we do that together?”
“Yes, George.” She took his hand and squeezed it tightly.
George reached out and hugged her. It was obvious to him that this time neither of them felt self-conscious about the hug. It lasted and lasted and led to a tentative kiss. The kiss led to another, and to both their surprise, the sense of attraction they had for each other since they had first met surmounted any reservations they held or the circumstances that had now brought them together.
With a certain desperation the two old friends hesitantly clung to each other, then abandoned restraint. They tore off their robes. Sinking into the canopied bed, they devoured each other, making mad, passionate love. For a few paradisiacal moments they allowed their minds and bodies to be completely absorbed in the giving and receiving of pleasure. Some time later, locked in an embrace as if afraid their coupling had been a dream and that the other was going to disappear, they fell into an exhausted, sublime sleep.
50
A muffled explosion sent a shock wave through the house, rattling the windows and waking George and Paula from their sleep. Both were momentarily stunned, particularly George, who, for the moment, as after his earlier nap, didn’t even know where he was.
An alarm sounded, with a loud, intermittent, obnoxious, grating noise throughout the house. They looked to each other, wondering if it had been an earthquake. It was almost completely dark. What little light there was came from the pool, filtering in through the Bermuda shutters.
Paula was the first to act. She leaped from the bed, her silk nightgown billowing behind her, and rushed over to a small LED security screen mounted in the wall. She quickly typed in a code.
George scrambled out of bed and joined her.
The LED screen came to life, providing the first real light in the room, and began flashing a schematic of the house. It showed a blinking light at the front door.
“The front door has been breached,” Paula croaked. She couldn’t believe this was happening.
Now actual images of the property flashed on the screen, one after another, coming from security cameras throughout the property. Paula tapped out a command and the image shifted to the front door. It had been blown wide open. Through a cloud of smoke they could make out an armed figure dressed from head to toe in black, seemingly standing guard at the entrance.
“My God!” Paula voiced. She tapped out another command. The image switched to the main stairs and then the upper hallway. Three more figures in black could be seen dashing through the hall toward the master bedroom.
The phone rang.
Paula snapped it up. “Confirmed! Break-in in progress!”
George could hear a voice on the other end saying, “Ten-four! Police on their way!”