Under the Knife(87)

Her eyes popped open, and she gasped, as if she’d awakened from a bad dream. Her eyes darted around before fixing on him.

“Spencer?” She sounded like she didn’t believe he was real.

He moved to the head of the bed and gave a little wave. “Hi, Rita.”

She jerked her head off of the pillow and touched her left ear. She seemed to be listening for something, from that ear; then her eyes met his again, and they clouded with what looked to him like fear.

“Spencer.”

She reached out and gripped his arm, then his hand. Her touch gave him palpitations.

She hadn’t touched him in so long.





SEBASTIAN


It sounded as if someone was in the room with her.

She said, “Spen—”

Static.

The feed went dead.

He sucked his teeth, listening to the static, then snatched his phone from the front passenger seat and frowned at the jagged lines of interference lurching across the screen, identical to the ones he’d seen that morning in the OR.

His gut twitched. He hated being blind and deaf. Whatever was happening, it deserved a closer look.

“Sebastian?” Finney said.

He unmuted his audio link as he climbed out of his car. “Yep. I see it, boss. I’m on it.”

Sebastian hurried toward the ER. It took him a while, longer than he liked, because he first had to change back into scrubs. He paused at the ER entrance to fish out his hospital ID badge—

(ROBERT RODRIGUEZ, PERIOPERATIVE TECHNICIAN)

—and present it to a bored security guard (goddamn, but she’s a big one) reading a paperback novel.

“Hi there.”

Sebastian looked up, his hand just emerging from his pocket with his Rodriguez name tag.

It was Grant, the Wall Street Journal reporter.





RITA


“Hi, Rita,” Spencer said.

The plastic chair next to her bed groaned under his weight as he sat. He scooted closer and, using the control panel on the side of the bed, raised its height and elevated its head, so that her eyes were on the same level as his.

She touched her left ear.

Strange.

She felt that distinct and peculiar sense, again, of Finney’s absence.

The same feeling she’d had earlier in OR 10.

Was he really gone? She thought so. If so, this time, she so hoped it would last. Because if she heard him again in her mind, she thought she’d walk to the edge of the park behind Turner, the one overlooking the ocean, and jump off the cliff.

“How’re you feeling, Rita?”

“I’ve been … better.” Her throat tightened.

Don’t cry. Crying is weak.

She felt a tear glide down her cheek.

Don’t. Cry.

He reached out with one enormous, gentle hand and wiped the tear away. He smiled, in that crooked, unguarded way of his: the same smile that made him look like a little boy, despite his huge physique; the smile she’d fallen in love with. The smile she still loved, she realized. And everything that she’d been through that day now didn’t matter so much. With Finney gone, and with Spencer here, she felt, well … safe.

“I’m really glad to see you, Spencer.”

She reached out and took his hand. He glanced over his shoulder, toward the door, and gave one brief squeeze before letting go. She found herself wishing he hadn’t let go, or looked behind him, but she understood why.

I haven’t exactly invited public displays of affection.

“I’m glad to see you, too, Rita. I would have, you know, preferred slightly better circumstances.”

“Yeah.” She smiled weakly.

“Rita.” He cast another look behind and, in a hushed, urgent tone, asked, “Rita. What’s going on? What happened up there today?”

“I can’t—I don’t know where to begin, Spencer.”

“How about at the beginning? I’ve got time.”

He grinned again. It felt like warm sun on her face.

Why not?

He might end up thinking she was crazy … but, then, it wasn’t like anything worse could happen to her at this point. Besides, she felt … disinhibited. The drugs and alcohol, maybe? Something they’d given her here in the ER? Or—and this thought made her blood run cold—was it what Finney had done to her brain?

So she told him.

Everything.

Beginning with the OR table—

“Which ear?” Spencer interrupted.

“What?”

“Which ear was bleeding?”

“Oh. Left. The left one.”

“Okay. Go on.”

She did, leaving out nothing. When she had finished, she said, “Well. What do you think?”

He frowned and scratched his head. “Rita—”

“You don’t believe me.” She felt betrayed, like he had sucker punched her in the stomach. “You don’t believe me.”

“I believe you think that’s what happened.” He was studying his hands, each the size of a child’s baseball glove.

“That’s not an answer. That’s a platitude, Spencer.” That’s what you say to a paranoid schizophrenic when you’re trying to talk her down off the ledge. “Don’t patronize me.”