She took a deep breath and like someone emerging from under water, released it.
"You mean, be bait, try to attract him?"
"There's probably no other young, very attractive woman within a thousand miles who is also capable of recognizing medical problems or health threats and indeed knowing how to treat them, as well as recognizing the individual who might be responsible for all this," he replied in a single breath. "That's it, all my cards on the table."
"All?"
"Well, there is one more small thing," he said.
"Give me the whole dosage, Will," she told him.
He smiled.
"If you agree to do this, help us, even for a night or two," he said, "you'll have to keep it to yourself for obvious reasons. You'll have to keep everything to yourself. In other words, don't trust anyone, even someone else who might come to you and identify himself as a law enforcement officer of some kind, especially that sort of person. Don't accept any proof and don't talk to him. Just call me," he emphasized.
"You make it sound like there's more than one of them out there."
"At this point, who knows?" he said.
She stared and then shook her head.
"I'd have to tell my fiance about this idea of my going to local clubs," she said.
"I wouldn't. What if he decides it's too dangerous and comes after you, assuming you still wanted to go forward?"
She thought a moment.
"I don't know," she said. She glanced at her watch. "I have to get moving. My rounds."
"Okay."
"Let me think about it," she said.
"Of course."
"Maybe he's gone."
"Maybe," Will Dennis said. "It will be someone else's problem then, but until then, please remember my admonitions, Doc. Don't talk to anyone but me." She stood looking at him. He smiled and turned back to his food.
"I think I'll finish this," he said nodding at his plate. "It was better than I expected."
She smiled.
"I'll call you," she said.
"Here," he said quickly reaching into his pocket and producing a card. "It has my personal numbers on it. Call anytime."
"Okay."
She left him, but it wasn't until she was actually at the first patient's bedside, that she stopped thinking about all he had told her and all he wanted her to do.
ELEVEN
Even though he was prepared to deal with it, it was encouraging to him that the phone did not ring all day. Aside from the undertaker, no one apparently had any interest in the old lady's well-being. Where were her contemporaries, her friends? Weren't there any relatives who by now would have found out Kristin was dead and would call to offer their condolences and their assistance? What about Kristin's friends? Didn't she have any? He couldn't remember anything he had said to her or she had said to him, so he didn't recall any mention of a girlfriend. If there were any, maybe they didn't like the old lady and didn't want to call her now, especially now. Death, he realized, quarantined the survivors. People ignored or procrastinated as long as they could so they could avoid the sorrow, but more than that, he thought, so they could ignore their own mortality. Every death was a severe reminder that yours was waiting, patiently or impatiently, and no one wanted to be reminded of that, least of all, himself. There was a ruthless determination to keep his body alive and well, perhaps more so than the others, as he had come to call them, for there was he, unique, a wonder, and there were they, the prey, the food source. He thought of the old lady upstairs, no longer involved in the daily struggle to exist. He went up to the bedroom and looked in on the corpse, still to him lying contentedly, comfortably in the bed.
"I guess you really have been a loner, Grandma," he said. "No gossips coming over for tea and cookies? No cousins, no sisters-in-law, no one?" Families intrigued him, however. Was it simply because he could recall no one in his own? Vaguely, he thought there were people related to him, but his memory problem had become severe lately. All of the images he had been able to draw up from the well of his past experiences came to him like underexposed film full of shadows, silhouettes, faces with no distinct characteristics, voices garbled like something recorded and played at speeds far too slowly. Even his dreams had become colorless streams of obscure, wispy shapes. All he had, he concluded, was the present, and of course, the future. Just like the body's nutritional wealth that he was unable to store, so were the events that made up his own history. It sort of made sense to him. Things passed through him. Nothing stayed. He felt loose, primed, and ready for anything, almost virginal.
Maybe not almost, he thought. I am virginal today. I can remember no lovemaking, and just like that, the momentary sense of emptiness, being lost and alone, floating in space, left him. It was replaced instantly with this youthful excitement, the wonder of something new that was about to happen. He was going to go out on his first hot date. Everything about sex and women was back to being mysterious and fresh.
On the other hand, the old lady looked stale. Her memories were squeezed and shoved into every available closet in that yellow brain now rotting away. No wonder she had been so bitter. If people had no memory, they would never feel they had lived too long, nothing would be tired and nothing would be anticipated, no result expected. Every day would be a birthday. Who needs a past? The hell with trying to remember, he told himself.
"I don't want to look at your family albums, read any of your correspondence, or even see your heirlooms. If I could, I'd put it all in the grave with you. It belongs with death," he told her.
Of course, she didn't move, didn't acknowledge anything.
He stepped back and closed the door, and then he went to his room and he changed into a pair of jeans, a black silk short-sleeve shirt that fit him snugly and clearly revealed his buff body, and scooped up his blue sports jacket. He checked his hair, the smoothness of his face and patted it down with some aftershave lotion.
Like some teenager who had been given permission to take the family car for the first night ever, he bounced gleefully down the stairs and hurried out and around to his vehicle. He got in, started the engine, taking pleasure in the sound of its power when he pressed down on the accelerator. Then he turned on the radio, found a station that played upbeat music and, again like some teenager, revved up the volume. The music poured out the open windows and trailed behind him as he shot down the driveway just a little too fast for the turn at the end. The tires squealed their complaint and he laughed.
I'm alive, he thought.
And I'm on the prowl.
Terri nearly turned to run back to the hospital entrance when the car door of the vehicle beside hers opened and a man stood up. The car had been parked beside hers a while. She had seen it as she had left the hospital after completing her rounds. None of the car lights were on. She had not expected to see anyone still in it. He was obviously sitting and waiting for someone or something and here she was.
He moved into the rim of illumination spread by the parking lot lights and her heart did stop and start with a pounding that made her feel her very bones vibrate. It was the blond-haired man, the man who had come to the office impersonating a BCI investigator.
"Dr. Barnard," he said.
She backed up a few steps and looked toward the hospital entrance. There was no one in sight. She could run for it, but there was too much parking lot to cross. He should be able to catch up to her and out here, alone, she would be relatively defenseless. A shout might bring some help, but too late.
He continued around the rear of her vehicle, walking toward her. He was dressed the way he had been the day she had seen him. He smiled.