"Hang in there, Seliah," she said softly.
"Seliah. I'm coming in."
"Go home. I don't want you here. Hang in there, girl; be steady now."
"Are you all right?"
"I'm all right. Go away."
"I want to see that you're okay."
"Hang in there, Seliah. Get away from me! You're good. You're gonna be just fine, hon. That's it… Hang in there."
He walked to the threshold of the bath. In the hard light Seliah sat on the tile floor near the toilet. She was wearing the red tank and nothing else. She tracked his eyes and lifted the shirt off her thighs and sneered at him. She had handcuffed one wrist to the toilet seat hinge. Saliva hung from her chin. With her free hand she swept it away and wiped it on the tile.
He drooled all down his shirt and pants. He growled like a wolf. He became strong as a chupacabra. He bit and raped his wife for four days. He repented and locked himself here to die. To save her life.
Hood took a step in and sat on his haunches on the floor a few feet away from her and looked only at her eyes.
"Let's get you to a doctor."
"Why?"
"Look at you."
Her sneer had dropped away. "A pretty girl drinks a little too much and wants to kiss you, so you call a doctor? Maybe the doctor should be for you."
"I want a good doctor to take a look at you."
"Oh, all right."
"That was easy, Sel."
She raised her rump and with her free hand pulled the tank to cover her more and held it there. She sighed. "I know you're right. You can't believe how tired I am."
"I mean tonight. Now."
"Okay, Charlie. I know you're a true friend. I was trying to protect you. See? I flushed the key. These cuffs are Sean's. I don't know why the Juan Batista story affected me so strongly. I feel very drunk."
He was not crazy. He went with the devil.
Was he an evil man?
No. He always loved God.
If he loved God, why did he go to the devil?
The devil came to him. In the caves of his blood.
"I'm going to call for the paramedics, Seliah. They can help."
"Are you going to leave me locked up until they get here?"
"Yeah."
"Good thinking. But you better stay here and keep an eye on me because I could chew off my arm and escape. Come, sit right here."
She let go of her blouse and patted her palm on the tile beside her.
"I'm good here, Seliah."
She laughed. "Charlie, if you get in range, I'm going to yank you close and kiss your cute little mouth right off. Then I'll eat you alive. Stop that, Seliah! Hang in there, girl."
Her smile collapsed and she wiped her chin again and the tears came down her face in rivers.
Hood sat on the bed and called Soriana, who said he could circumvent the ER. He'd also get some of Seliah's background information to the examining physician ahead of time. She sobbed and talked to herself, then went quiet. When Hood went back into the bathroom she was asleep with her head on the toilet lid and a hand towel folded over for a pillow. He could have used his ATF hand-cuff key to set her free but he left her sleeping as she was. The doctor was Tim Brennan, a general practitioner affiliated with San Clemente Hospital. He was young and cheerful for being called from home to work at ten thirty p.m. He let them into a small examination room.
Seliah was calm. After the paramedics arrived, Hood had taken off her cuffs and she'd gotten into a simple white tee and the hiker's pants and athletic shoes of earlier in the day. Now she sat uncomfortably upon the exam table, looking close to exhaustion. Brennan asked a thousand questions and made notes on a yellow legal pad with a thick wood-bodied pen. Hood stayed for the interview and sat in an empty waiting room down the hallway while she was examined. The TV was on but Hood muted it and thought about Seliah while images of her terrible beauty flashed out of order through his brain.
Brennan found him there and sat down in the chair beside him. Hood glanced at the closed door of the examination room. "I want to keep her tonight. She's okay with that. She's very tired and fairly intoxicated. I've given her a light sedative. I took some blood and a urine sample and now she can get some rest. Tomorrow we'll probably have a vastly improved young woman. I've got a few questions for you, Deputy Hood. I got most of this from Agent Mars over the phone, but the husband, Sean, he's been living away from home for how long?"
"Fifteen months."
"Isn't that long for an undercover assignment?"
"A year is usually tops but this one was… Well, it was especially important."
"ATF tries to control guns going south into Mexico?"
Hood nodded.
"So Sean Ozburn, working undercover, is active in infiltrating the criminal drug cartels, posing as a gun seller or buyer or what have you?"
"That's what we do."
"Has anything happened recently to Sean that could be a precipitator to Seliahs behavior? Some disaster or very negative event?"
Soriana's job, not mine, thought Hood. "No."
"Is there any chance you could bring him back from his assignment, or whatever you call it? Just let him come home and help take care of his wife?"
"He can't return right now. Soon, we hope."
"I understand. Seliah probably started feeling the stress well over a year ago-before her husband even left. And that stress has continued to build for a very long period of time. Still, she has a clear grasp of the world around her, and of herself. We'll determine which of her symptoms are real and which ones might be imagined, or stress-related. We have tests for just about everything, as you know. My job right now is to find out if what she says is going on really is going on. She's got a respiratory tract infection for certain, and a low fever. She says she's had dramatic mood swings and emotional outbursts, in addition to the physical symptoms. Speaking generally, I think she's a strong woman with a bad chest flu who has reached the end of that strength."
"It's more than flu and stress."
"Very possibly, but don't underestimate the flu virus. Seliah has an odd group of symptoms. Influenza is most likely, Deputy. She could also be hypo- or hyperthyroid. An autoimmune disease comes to mind. So does drug abuse-meth, cocaine, prescription-they'll show up in the blood tests. And again, we treat a lot of the worried-well. This could all be rooted in stress and anxiety. Very anxious people often exhibit these unusual symptoms, ones that don't fit together and don't make sense."
Hood said nothing for a long moment. "Sean had the same symptoms a month ago."
"One more reason to think virus."
"They both got strong. Physically strong. Anger. Some violence."
"Oh? She didn't mention that."
"Sean was more prone to it. But even Seliah-more hostile and aggressive than I've ever seen her."
Brennan looked at his watch. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"
"I've gotten to know her over the last year and a half or so. Through Sean. She's changed dramatically in the last few days."
Brennan nodded. "Changed how?"
"She was an athlete, spiritually concerned, a squared-away woman," said Hood. "She was positive and poised. She loved her husband and liked her job and wanted to start a family. A little over one hour ago she was coming on to me sexually, aggressively. When I didn't take her up on it, she handcuffed herself to the toilet and started talking to herself. She was drooling. Did she tell you what happened tonight?"
Brennan looked skeptically at Hood. "She said nothing about sexual aggression or increased saliva production. She didn't drool, either, although I heard mucous in her respiratory tract with the stethoscope. There's certainly an infection. She did tell me about dinner with you and drinking way more than she usually does. Has this happened before?"
Hood sighed and looked down. "No."