Breaking Glass (34 page)

“Did you hear anyone mention what room he’s in?”

Spake cocks his head. “Why?”

“I just want to see the guy. He may be a bastard, but he practically raised me. I didn’t have the heart to ask Mrs. Morgan. She’s got enough troubles.”

Spake assesses me and either falls for my flagrant bullshit or just doesn’t care enough to keep sparring with me. “There’s a special ward on the next floor for patients who can’t breathe on their own.”

“Thanks, Spake. You’ve been a big help.”

He heads back to Ryan’s room, and I text Marisa to come and get me because I’m running on empty. The stump screams in rebellion with every dragging step I take, outraged at the abuse. Marisa helps me to the elevator. It’s slow going, but she steadies me.

Patrick Morgan’s room in the ITU, or Intensive Treatment Unit, is guarded by an elderly private security guard who snores gently on a chair outside the room. Marisa and I slip inside.

Patrick Morgan lies in state behind a see-through tent, a plastic tube inserted straight into his throat. His eyes are frozen in a perpetual stare, as if he is dead. The sky-blue eyes shift ever so slightly and a chill shrieks up my spine. Unlike his son, the eyes are shrewd and aware, but the face is immobile. The machine that registers Patrick Morgan’s heartbeats bleeps faster.

“Oh, my god,” says Marisa. “He’s wide awake in there. How awful.”

“It is, isn’t it,” I say, drawing closer. Patrick Morgan doesn’t blink, his face as still as sculpted marble. But the monitor’s bleep rate speeds up.

“So,” I say leaning over him, staring deep into those wide-open eyes. “A tree with the deepest roots starts with a single seed, Mr. Morgan. All the trouble in this town leads back to you, doesn’t it?” Blip, blip, blip.

“Jeremy,” Marisa warns. “I think you’re upsetting him. If his heartbeat gets too erratic someone’s going to come rushing in here. We should go.”

I turn to her. Sleek black hair frames her face, obsidian eyes shining with fear and worry. “Why shouldn’t he know how it feels to be completely powerless, like the people he’s victimized all these years?”

It’s time to test my theory. Before she can protest, I pull Marisa into a kiss. I want to punish Patrick Morgan for hurting Ryan. For being a tyrannical bastard. And any other crimes he had his filthy hands in.

My groin presses against Marisa’s pelvis. The thrill of standing and kissing her all at the same time washes over me, even though I know the curtain is about to come down on my stolen moment of bliss.

As if on cue, the lights snuff out. Damp wind circles the room, buffeting Patrick Morgan’s plastic tent. Blip, blip, blip, blip goes the heart machine.

Feeling for Marisa, I hug her close against me. I see nothing but Patrick Morgan, his plastic tent illuminated as if by an eerie spotlight. The heart monitor is going wild. In moments, a medical team will be stampeding in to keep the bastard alive.

I feel her presence in the swampy air. Hear her cries swallowed in the howl of the sudden wet wind that tears at our hair.

“Did he hurt you, Susannah? Was Patrick Morgan the one who killed you?” I shout.

A black mist in the vague shape of a girl hovers close to Patrick Morgan, wind shrieking and lashing our faces. Marisa trembles violently and I press her tiny frame tighter against me.

The nebulous form passes through the plastic tent. The heart monitor races, the lines on the screen jagged with zigzags.

“No!” I hear Marisa cry.

The heart monitor stutters.

“Stop this, Jeremy!” Marisa screams.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say. Dragging Marisa with my good arm, I head blindly toward the door, shreds of light ripping through the dark veil of gloom. By the time we reach the glare of the hall, I can see again.

“What if she kills him?” Marisa asks, her voice trembling.

“Then she’ll have done them both a favor.”

“Do you really think Patrick Morgan killed Susannah?”

I stop and wince at the grinding ache in my hip, tempted to rip off Veronica and hop the rest of the way to the car. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

C H A P T E R
t h i r t y - t h r e e

Back in Chaz’s van, Marisa helps me unstrap Veronica. I can almost hear my stump sigh with relief as I peel off the sweaty sock it wears like a newborn’s cap. Marisa doesn’t flinch at the sight of the raw, raised scar, or the pink hairy slab of flesh and bone jutting a few inches past my hip joint. Veronica sits beside us on the seat like a third passenger.

My head resting on Marisa’s slight shoulder, I let my eyes drift close, lulled by the movement of the car tires as they roll over winding roads. I slip into the peaceful sleep of a tired baby after an outing at the playground.

And I dream.

Sunlight dapples the reservoir in lazy ripples. The lapping water sparkles in diamond-bright glints. Her back to me, Susannah stands on the rocky shore tossing daisies into the water. The current takes the flowers toward the center of the reservoir in a single line, like a string of beads.

In the distance, Pirate Island rises from the water like a shark’s fin.

Marisa, Chaz, Dad, and I spend New Year’s Eve eating pizza. Afterward, Chaz puts me through my paces, making me climb the stairs again and again, backward and forward. Then, he makes me do it with my eyes closed.

I collapse into bed, exhausted, and dream, yet again, of Susannah tossing flowers into the water, the floating bouquet stretching across the reservoir in a long yellow line.

And each morning, I wake, no closer to understanding the message of the dreams, no closer to solving Susannah’s murder. I can’t find any concrete evidence of Patrick Morgan’s involvement, but I don’t want to believe it could have been Ryan. It doesn’t seem like Spake could have done it. Which leaves me with zero suspects. And a persistent headache.

I’ve felt Susannah’s grip on me slip into a holding pattern, like a storm that lingers, refusing to blow out to sea. She makes her presence known each night, soft breathy advances alternating with violent tirades. Through it all, I remain still, eyes closed against the turmoil, impervious to her touch.

It’s not the same for me, anymore. Her power over me has diminished, yet she’s still with me, this restless spirit I’ve summoned from the grave.

Each night I drift into sleep to the sounds of her muted sobs.

And with Susannah’s presence watching our every move, Marisa and I don’t dare do more than hug.

Which is killing me faster than going cold turkey from vodka ever could.

Still, it’s been nearly two weeks since I’ve wanted a drink.

The days have slipped into a kind of routine. Dad has temporarily moved in with Celia to help her through her ordeal. Even though the town is talking up a storm, a weight seems to have lifted from his shoulders. I’ve even caught him smiling with both sides of his mouth. Ordinarily, I’d be jealous that Dad can be with the woman he loves without the fear that a vengeful spirit will kill him. But he’s lived under the tyranny of Patrick Morgan for so long, I figure we’re even.

I’m left in Chaz’s merciless care—PT torture sessions in the mornings, afternoons doing calculus with Marisa.

My insides still burn for a drink. I won’t be able to hold out forever, but for now there’s too much else to do.

Yesterday, Ryan was transferred to the rehab wing of the hospital. This bright and bitter afternoon, every surface glazed with ice, Dad decides to gives Marisa the afternoon off and takes me to the hospital himself. He makes a strange detour that takes us down a hilly, deserted road glistening with ice-coated branches. A low stone wall banks the road, punctuated by a pair of wrought-iron gates and a sign that reads,
Upper Westchester Memorial Cemetery
.

“Why are you stopping?”

“Your mother is buried here.”

I gnash my teeth. I think I hear the faint rhythm of water lapping against my eardrums. “Shit. Why now, Dad?”

“I don’t know. I guess—you know, Celia and all. I always thought—”

“You always thought what?”

Dad doesn’t answer. Instead, he gets out of the car, comes around to my side, opens the door, and holds his arm out for me. “Please, Jeremy. Just for a minute.”

“There’s all this ice—I don’t know if I can—” It’s true, I’ve gotten pretty good with the walking thing. I’ve ditched the crutch and graduated to a cane. Though I get tired much less easily, I’m still mastering the art of walking on uneven terrain. So I’m not lying when I look at the frozen path with real trepidation. But that’s not what’s holding me back.

I let Dad help me out of the car. Sheets of rutted ice glisten in the sunlight. Dad grips my arm firmly and helps me along, my footfalls uncertain. “I’ve got you, kiddo.”

On either side of us, monuments poke from the shimmering snow cover. My heart races, my frozen breath like razors in my lungs. My gait is hesitant and tentative, each step like wading into a void. “Dad, I—”

“We’re almost there, Jeremy. Promise.”

And then I see it, set a few feet back from the path. A headstone engraved with the name
Douglas Bernard Lewis
.
Beloved son. Born 1961—Died 1978

The brisk air echoes with whispers, with secrets long buried. I jerk away from Dad and do my best approximation of a run.

“Hey,” Dad calls, “Be careful!”

Then I’m slammed by a wall of darkness, as though a black hood has been thrown over my head. I feel myself going down, my stomach and palms slamming against the ice. Within a halo of dim light, the silhouette of Susannah takes shape, perched on Doug Lewis’ grave.

You’re not even trying anymore, Jeremy
.

“I’m trying!” I shout.

You did this. You brought me back
.

Dad hoists me to my feet, my vision shredded by darkness. I fight to regain my bearings and force her away.

“Relax,” Dad says. “I have you.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, still half-blind and clinging to him for support. “I told you it was too icy.”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you. It’s just that I’d been thinking about what you said. About Dougie’s death. And about what if it wasn’t an accident. I just—I guess I just wanted to find some answers.”

I stare really hard at Dad for a beat, trying to blink away the darkness. The questions thrum around me, vibrating through the tangle of roots that twist under the cold hard ground of Riverton, connecting the past to the present, all of us to each other. I can’t help but wonder if I, one-legged, alcoholic-in-recovery Jeremy Glass, really do have the courage to dig them all up to find the answers.

“Don’t we all,” I say, my vision clearing. “And,” I add, “don’t ever make me go back to that Dr. Kopeck again, okay?”

“But, Jeremy. You still need to—”

I cut him off. “I haven’t had a drink in three weeks. I know what I need to do. If I fuck up again, you can find someone else. But not that bitch.”

“It’s not that simple. It took years for you to become an alcoholic. It’s not going to just magically go away in a few weeks.”

“I get that, Dad. I really do.”

Dad nods grimly, and silently helps me back to the car without visiting Mom’s grave.

At the hospital, Dad walks me to the rehab unit where Ryan’s been moved. It’s a long and confusing route and he doesn’t want to risk me falling again.