His unmarred back.
Lisl ran a hand over the smooth skin. There had been welts there only a short while ago. Blood too. She was sure of it.
"How…?"
"I'm a fast healer. You know that."
"But nobody's that fast."
"Which means that you didn't hurt me anywhere near as badly as you thought."
He turned toward her and pulled her down to his side. Lisl snuggled against him.
"You see," he said, "it was all symbolic. You got some of the anger out without hurting me. The anger was real but my wounds were not. You simply magnified them in your mind. The net result: I'm unhurt and you're a little bit closer to being the new Lisl."
"I'm not so sure about this 'new Lisl' business."
"Don't hinder yourself, Lisl. You're on the way to setting yourself free. And when you become the new Lisl, you truly will be a new person. No one who knew you before will recognize you. A new Lisl—that's my promise to you."
"Fine, but this bit with the belt—"
"That's just a part of it—the symbolic part. That must continue. But we won't limit ourselves to the merely symbolic with Dr. Callahan."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You'll see. My plans aren't fully formed yet, but you'll be a part of them, never fear. Stage one is all worked out, however. We execute that in a few hours."
"A few hours? It's after midnight!"
"I know, don't worry. It'll be fun. Trust me."
Lisl hugged Rafe close, a shipwreck victim clinging to a lifeboat on a sea of roiling emotions. She trusted him, but she worried about him as well. Rafe didn't seem to recognize the same limits as most other people.
Lisl shivered as she stood by Rafe's side at the telephone booth. She glanced at her watch. Five forty-five A.M. What was she doing at this hour standing in the chilly darkness outside an all-night gas station?
For one thing, she was listening to Rafe call her ex-husband. She could have waited in the car and stayed warm but that hadn't seemed right. She wanted to know exactly what Rafe was up to, wanted to hear every word he said. She was uneasy about this whole trip.
"Rafe," she said, "are you sure—?"
He cut her off with a wave of his hand and put a finger to his lips. He spoke into the receiver in an accented voice pitched a few tones higher than his own. He sounded Indian or Pakistani.
"Dr. Callahan?" he said with a grin and a wink at her. 'This is Dr. Krishna from the emergency room at County. So sorry to awaken you at this hour. Yes, I am being very new here. I just started this very evening. Thank you very much. Yes, I have a seventy-six-year-old woman here, a Mrs. Cranston, who says her daughter is a patient of yours. Yes, well, let me see… no, I am not having the daughter's name at hand. However, Mrs. Cranston has suffered a displaced fracture of her left hip. She is being in very much pain at this time. No, I am very sorry to say she is not stable. In fact, her blood pressure is falling. Yes, I have done that. Also she is being very obese and I am worried about the possibility of a pulmonary embolism." A long pause, then: "Yes, I will be doing that. And I will be telling her daughter that you are coming in immediately. She will be most pleased. Thank you. I am most looking forward to meeting you, Dr. Callahan."
Lisl stared at him in amazement.
"You sounded just like a doctor. Where did you learn all that?"
He laughed as he led her back to the warmth of the car.
"The same place doctors learn it: a medical textbook. I went to the library and looked up the major complications of a broken hip."
"But why?"
"To get him out of the house, of course."
He helped her into the passenger seat and closed the car door. But instead of getting in the driver side, he headed back to the gas station.
What's he up to? she wondered. He'd been so secretive about his plans for tonight.
A moment later he emerged carrying a cardboard box. He placed it in the space behind the seats, then got behind the wheel.
"What did you buy?" Lisl asked.
"Motor oil."
"Does that have anything to do with Brian?"
"It sure does."
"Can I ask what?"
His smile was enigmatic.
"All in good time, my dear. All in good time."
"You sound like the Wicked Witch of the West."
Rafe let out a high-pitched cackle as the Maserati roared to life.
As they entered the Rolling Oaks development Lisl saw Brian speeding out.
"There he goes. The good Dr. Callahan on a mission of mercy," Rafe said.
"Don't knock that."
"He's covering orthopedic call for the emergency room tonight. He has to go or he'll be suspended from the medical center."
"How do you know?"
"I checked. All it took was a telephone call. And besides, he figures on picking up a couple of grand for pinning some old lady's broken hip, so let's not award him a halo yet."
Rafe shut off his headlights before he reached Brian's house. They cruised to a stop just past the entrance to his driveway.
Lisl felt cold. Her stomach fluttered.
"You're not planning something illegal, are you?"
"You mean like breaking and entering? No. But I suppose it could be considered malicious mischief."
"Oh, great!"
"Come on. This is for you, not me."
"A few hours sleep would do more for me."
Rafe got out of the car and lifted the box of motor oil from behind the seats.
"Come on now. And be quiet. We don't want to wake the neighbors."
As he eased his door shut, Lisl got out and joined him on the driveway. The sky was winter-clear, full of glittering stars in the west but growing pale in the east. She could see Rafe twisting the cap off a half-gallon white plastic container of motor oil. He broke the foil seal and handed it to her.
"Start pouring."
"Where?"
"On the driveway, of course. Start at the bottom and work your way up. A good thick coat."
"But—?"
"Trust me. This will be good."
Lisl looked around. She felt exposed and vulnerable out here in the growing predawn light, but she knew Rafe would never leave before he'd accomplished what he'd come here for, so she began pouring.
The oil glugged from the container and splashed on the asphalt but soon she got the hang of pouring it in an even stream, back and forth, slowly backing up as she poured, container after container, letting the viscous golden liquid ooze down the slight decline of the driveway to merge like warm honey into a slick, uniform coat.
"Right up to the garage door there," Rafe said, handing her the last half gallon. "We're not going to give this sucker one little bit of traction."
Lisl complied, then handed him the empty.
"Okay. What now?"
"Now we sit and wait." He glanced at his watch. "Shouldn't be long now."
They returned to the car and Rafe drove it half a block to a corner where he parked at the curb. Almost dawn now. Lisl had a sharp, clear, unobstructed view of Brain's garage and driveway.
They waited. Rafe kept the car idling with the heater on. It was warm. Too warm. Lisl began to feel drowsy. She was ready to doze off when a black sports car roared past them.
Rafe let out a low whistle.
"Ooh, he's ticked. I wonder why? A wild goose chase to the hospital, maybe? Looking foolish in front of the emergency room staff, perhaps? But that's no excuse. A doctor should know better than to hot-rod like that through a residential neighborhood."
Brian's car made a sharp, tire-squealing turn into his driveway—
—and kept on going.
It swerved as its brakes locked but found no purchase on the oil-slick asphalt, plowing through the garage door and coming to rest at a crazy angle amid its splintered remnants.
Lisl gasped in shock and stared, fighting an urge to get out of the car and run to the site of the accident.