“Mark? You on a first-name basis?”
Nesbitt actually blushed. “Gimme a break. He’s Hottie of the Year. We voted for him.”
“So the press is gone? I feel so used.” Cate felt a residual sleepiness, and Nesbitt, watching, cocked his head.
“You want some water or something?”
“No, thanks.”
“I should tell the nurse you’re awake.”
“I don’t feel so awake,” Cate said, her eyelids drooping. Suddenly she felt good and drowsy, postcoital without the coital, and in the next second, she drifted into sleep.
The next time she woke up, the room was dark except for various red and blue numbers on her vital-signs monitor. Her heartbeat was a glow-in-the-dark green outline of jagged peaks and valleys that reminded her of the Appalachians. She touched the tube under her nose, and the oxygen was still there. But Nesbitt was gone, his chair empty. She tried not to feel let down. He was above-the-call, but he wasn’t crazy.
Cate breathed in and out, taking silent stock of her situation. On the plus side, she was alive, she hadn’t gotten Russo killed, and there was a new new Russell Crowe from Doylestown. On the negative side, she had no job, no boyfriend, and no reason to go home. She lay still in the dark watching the Appalachians march across the vital-signs monitor. She had no idea if it was truly nighttime, in the artificial day/night of the hospitals.
She felt oddly suspended in the middle of time and space. She didn’t belong here, up north, among the peaks and valleys. Centralia had loosened its hold on her; she had overdosed on its toxins and they’d almost killed her. She felt oddly free of it somehow. The fire that raged had burned from within, and consumed their family like so much fuel. She wouldn’t let it consume her, too.
Cate didn’t belong here anymore. She needed fresh air. She wanted to go home, and for the first time, home meant Philadelphia. She had to start over. She’d figure out how when she got there. Maybe on the way back, she’d talk it over with Nesbitt. She told herself she wasn’t looking forward to it, before her eyes closed again.
“Judge Fante?” It was Brady at the door the next morning, in his dark neat suit, worn with a black topcoat and a fresh shave. “How’re you feeling?”
“Fine, thanks.” Cate rose from the bed and shook his hand, dressed in her sweats and sneakers, now dry. She was already in her coat, feeling herself again, and had even showered for the trip home with Nesbitt.
“You’ve had quite an experience, with Russo and all.”
“How is he?” Cate’s nurse hadn’t known.
“He’s fine, resting. He’ll be in the hospital awhile, unless they transfer him to Philly.”
“Good.”
“I heard that your car’s totaled. I came to take you back to the city.”
“No, Nesbitt’s taking me.” Another jurisdictional dispute over little old me.
“He can’t make it. He was called on a job, and when we heard you were stranded up here, I came up.”
Rats. I mean, thanks. “You didn’t have to do that. I could have taken a train or rented a car.”
“I’m detailed to you until the end of the week. I took the liberty of getting your personal items from your car. Your purse, your cell phone, and some boxes. I think your secretary called your insurance company. We’re good to go.”
“Great, thanks,” Cate said, then rose with her signed discharge papers. “We should stop by the hotel to get my stuff.”
“I did that, too. There wasn’t much, but I took it. We’re all packed.”
“Wow.” Cate managed a smile, and they left.
The trip home went quickly, the sun clear and cold outside the car window. Brady opened up about his feelings, the way people tend to do on long car rides, except that his only feelings concerned the Eagles. He was so annoyed by Terrell Owens that he almost drove over the divider and he believed that Donovan McNabb was “too damn happy” to win a Superbowl. Cate listened idly, making the appropriate noises and watching the RV dealers whiz past the window. By the time Brady had established that Andy Reid “totally deserved” Coach of the Year, they were pulling into her driveway, where not a single member of the press stood watch.
“Amazing,” Cate said, at the sight. “What a difference from the other day, remember?” Her house, peaceful and undisturbed. The street, quiet, and the neighbors, evidently all at work. The snow that had fallen so hard upstate was nowhere to be seen here. It was all back to normal, and she was home.
“I know. Even the Philly press is gone.” Brady leaned over and shut the ignition. “He’s from Doylestown, I hear, that movie star guy. The reporters moved up in there. Stalking his high school principal. Finding his prom date. You know, who went to the prom with Mark Martinez.”
“Melendez.” Don’t you read Cosmo? Cate grabbed her bag and got out of the car, in her dumb outfit. She thanked Brady with an awkward hug good-bye and went up her sidewalk, feeling separation anxiety for her federal babysitter.
She climbed the steps to the front door and remembered that she’d lost her house keys in the snow, so she went into the secret lockbox hidden behind a bush out front, pressed in the code, and retrieved the extra key. She unlocked the door with Nesbitt in the back of her mind, with his yin/yang of magazine subscriptions. She wondered if she’d see him again, now that the murders were solved and nobody was trying to kill her.
Not that it mattered.
Cate stood at the granite island in her kitchen, talking to Gina on the phone and sorting her mail. There had been a stack of it, slid through the mail slot in the front door and spilling in a messy heap when she got inside.
“Of course you’ll see him again!” Gina said, on the other end of the line. “Only you could find a bad side to the fact that you’re finally safe.”
“I’m not sure I want to, anyway.” Cate had thrown away the newspapers that came in while she was gone. She didn’t need to see those headlines. At least she was yesterday’s news. “Is he my type?”
“He’s your new type. Strong, reliable, and out of jail.”
Cate smiled. “This is silly, this whole conversation. I mean, nothing’s going on. He was a detective assigned to the case, and that’s that.”
“He’s a man, and you’re an Italian. Enough said.”
“He’s not attracted to me. If he liked me, he would have found a way to drive me home.”
“He got busy, catching murderers. Give the guy a break. He called here to tell me not to worry about you and he sounded worried about you. That reminds me, did you see a shrink yet?”
“I’ve been a little busy, dodging bullets.” Cate set aside for disposal the catalogs for Nordstrom’s, Ann Taylor, Strawbridge’s, Bloomingdale’s, and Neiman Marcus. Then she retrieved the Neiman’s.
“Call. Soon. Now tell me what happened in Centralia. What a nut job! Russo tried to run you over?”
“It’s a long story. I don’t want to tell you while you’re driving around. I’ll tell you tonight. It’s Monday. Our date night.”
“I can’t tonight. Uh, Justin’s bringing over a DVD he wants me to see, The Godfather. I never saw it.”
“Are you serious?”
“Lots of people have never seen it.”
“No, that you’re ditching me for Justin!”
Gina giggled. “Yo. Suburban moms need bodyguards.”
“Is it a love connection?”
“I just like the guy. His brother has cerebral palsy, and he lives at Elwyn. So Justin understands, at least some things.”
“He’s thirty!”
“Younger works for me. Nesbitt’s older, right?”
“Older works for me.” They both laughed, and Cate warmed at the excitement in her friend’s voice. She hadn’t heard her that happy in years. “Good. Great. Go for it. I bought him through next week. Consider him a late Christmas present.”