Under the Knife(8)

She took another deep breath, closed her eyes, reached up with one hand, and grasped her father’s dog tags.

Don’t panic.

Not now.

Not ever.

Instinct told her, practically screamed into her face, that something huge was at stake here, that one false step now would leave her well and truly screwed, lovely Rita.

Leave it to weaker women (or men) to fold. Completely lose it. Start weeping, maybe, or slide into some catatonic state. Not her.

She was not weak, had never been weak.

No weakness.

She seized on that thought.

No weakness.





SPENCER


Spencer squinted into the gloaming ahead.

The car.

That’s what was wrong. It was still there.

That piece-of-crap white Ford Fiesta, parked squarely in front of Rita’s house. The one that had first shown up last week.

Whose car is that?

He’d been on vigil over her house for the last year. He knew every car on her street, had memorized their comings and goings, and which ones belonged to which houses. Before it had appeared five days ago, he’d never seen this car. Ever.

So whose was it?

Probably nothing. A car belonging to someone visiting a neighbor, maybe. And yet some indefinable thing about the piece-of-crap Fiesta bugged him. Why? Maybe because in this upscale neighborhood of upscale foreign cars in car-centric Southern California, piece-of-crap Fiestas—piece of crap anythings—stuck out like sore thumbs. Or maybe because, with plenty of empty spaces around the other houses, why was the Fiesta the only one parked in front of her house?

He slowed, then stopped as he reached her darkened house. He picked up the newspaper in the gutter and lobbed it into the driveway, in which Rita parked her late-model BMW. The driveway was empty.

She must already be at the hospital.

Rita usually left for work early, even by surgeon standards, and surgeons started their days while most everyone else was still in bed. Today was Monday, and he knew that Rita operated on Mondays. When operating, Rita liked to arrive at the hospital no later than 6:00 A.M.— a habit, he knew, that helped her feel focused and calm before her operations.

Today, Rita also had that big operation, the one everyone was talking about—with the new, automated surgical system. She’d been working her fingers to the bone on that for years. She was probably already at work to get a jump on what was going to be one of the biggest days of her career.

A stand of bushes near the front door shook, and a fat grey cat emerged from them. No, not a cat: an opossum. A big one, its long, ratlike tail trailing behind as it waddled onto the front sidewalk, sniffing at the ground. Spencer spotted them around the neighborhood from time to time, at night. He wasn’t squeamish but didn’t like them, with their big black eyes and creepy tails. The feeling appeared mutual: the opossum spotted Spencer and hissed through a mouthful of sharp teeth before shuffling back into the bushes.

He studied the Fiesta for a few moments before breaking back into a run. He didn’t want to appear as if loitering, or draw attention to himself by lurking in the dark outside her home. Neighbors talked. Besides, he was probably just being paranoid.

But was he?

He craned his neck around for one last glimpse before turning a corner.

Forget it.

But he couldn’t. The Fiesta had latched onto his thoughts like a tick.

The road he was running along bent right, to the north, for another half mile. Then the houses on the left abruptly gave way to an empty embankment that sloped steeply down away from him, and the onshore breeze stiffened.

He’d arrived at the ocean.

Up ahead was one of the local surf spots. Here, sand and rock greeted the Pacific in violent collisions of spray and sound. The waves were enormous; and the local newscaster in his ear was reporting that a storm churning offshore was expected to hit San Diego later today.

The surfers, too, had heard about the storm and the monstrous waves announcing its impending arrival. A crowd of them was up ahead, milling around on the ocean side of the street: men and women of varying ages, from sleek preteens sneaking in a quick surf before school to leathery and lean middle-agers. Many were squeezing into black neoprene wet suits and pulling surfboards from the beds of pickup trucks or off specialized racks mounted on the tops of their cars. Others were arriving on skateboards and bikes, their boards tucked under their arms. The ones not already paddling out into the thunderous surf gathered in eager clumps on an elevated vantage point in a little beachside park, nursing cups of steaming coffee and gaping at the undulating ocean. Occasionally, one would point out a particularly choice wave, and the rest would hoot.

Spencer had never understood the appeal of surfing, which to so many in San Diego equated to a religious experience. To him it seemed like a cult. He’d tried it a few times. It was fun enough, he supposed, but couldn’t see the big deal.

Still, he could appreciate that those were some big-ass waves, and that big-ass California waves often heralded big-ass California storms. Case in point: The newscaster was now speaking of flash-flood and mudslide warnings.

Will be a good night to stay indoors.

He left the surfers behind. The sound of crashing waves diminished as his route followed the coast north, then turned east, back toward his modest house a mile inland.

His right knee was hurting now, not just acting up—a minor jolt of pain shot up his leg with every third or fourth step.