Nights in Rodanthe (7 page)

“What do you think?”

“It’s definitely blue,” he said.

“Do you want to see the other rooms?”

Paul set the duffel bags on the floor as he looked out the window.

“No, this will be fine. Is it okay if I open the window, though? It’s kind of stuffy in here.”

“Go ahead.”

Paul crossed the room, flipped the latch, and lifted the pane. Because the home had been painted so many times over the years,
the window caught after about an inch. As Paul struggled to raise it further, Adrienne could see the wiry muscles of his forearms
knot and flex.

She cleared her throat.

“I guess you should know it’s my first time watching the Inn,” she said. “I’ve been here lots of times, but always when Jean
was here, so if something’s not right, don’t think twice about telling me.”

Paul turned around. With his back to the glass, his features were lost in shadows.

“I’m not worried,” he said. “I’m not too picky these days.”

Adrienne smiled as she pulled the key from the door. “Okay, things you should know. Jean told me to go over these. There’s
a wall heater beneath the window, and all you have to do is turn it on. There’s only two settings, and in the beginning it’ll
make a clicking noise, but it’ll stop after a few minutes. There are fresh towels in the bathroom; if you need more, just
let me know. And even though it seems to take forever, the hot water does eventually come out of the nozzle. I promise.”

Adrienne caught a glimpse of Paul’s smile as she went on.

“And unless we get someone else this weekend—and I’m not expecting anyone else with the storm unless they get stranded,” she
said, “we can eat whenever you’d like. Normally, Jean serves breakfast at eight and dinner is at seven, but if you’re busy
then, just let me know and we can eat whenever. Or I can make you something that you could take with you.”

“Thanks.”

She paused, her mind searching for anything else to say.

“Oh, one more thing. Before you use the phone, you should know it’s only set up to make local calls. If you want to dial long
distance, you’ll have to use a calling card or call collect, and you’ll have to go through the operator.”

“Okay.”

She hesitated in the doorway. “Anything else you need to know?”

“I think that just about covers it. Except, of course, for the obvious.”

“What’s that?”

“You haven’t told me your name yet.”

She set the key on the chest of drawers beside the door and smiled. “I’m Adrienne. Adrienne Willis.”

Paul crossed the room, and surprising her, he offered his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Adrienne.”

P
aul had come to Rodanthe at the request of Robert Torrelson, and as he unpacked a few items from the duffel bag and placed
them in the drawers, he wondered again what Robert wanted to say to him or if he expected Paul to do most of the talking.

Jill Torrelson had come to him because she had a meningioma. A benign cyst, it wasn’t a life-threatening ailment, but it was
unsightly, to say the least. The meningioma was on the right side of her face, extending from the bridge of her nose and over
the cheek, forming a bulbous purple mass, punctuated by scars where it had ulcerated over the years. Paul had operated on
dozens of patients with meningiomas, and he’d received many letters from those who had undergone the operation, expressing
how thankful they were for what he’d done.

He’d gone over it a thousand times, and he still didn’t know why she’d died. Nor, it seemed, could science provide the answer.
The autopsy on Jill was inconclusive, and the cause of death had not been determined. At first, they assumed she’d had an
embolism of some sort, but they could find no evidence of it. After that, they focused on the idea that she’d had an allergic
reaction to the anesthesia or postsurgical medication, but those were eventually ruled out as well. So was negligence on Paul’s
part; the surgery had gone off without a hitch, and a close examination by the coroner had found nothing out of the ordinary
with the procedure or anything that might have been even tangentially responsible for her death.

The videotape had confirmed it. Because the meningioma was considered typical, the procedure had been videotaped by the hospital
for potential use in instruction by the faculty. Afterward, it had been reviewed by the surgical board of the hospital and
three additional surgeons from out of state. Again, nothing was found to be amiss.

There were some medical conditions mentioned in the report. Jill Torrelson was overweight and her arteries had thickened;
in time, she may have needed a coronary bypass. She had diabetes and, as a lifelong smoker, the beginnings of emphysema, though
again, neither of these conditions seemed life-threatening at present, and neither adequately explained what had happened.

Jill Torrelson, it seemed, had died for no reason at all, as if God had simply called her home.

Like so many others in his situation, Robert Torrelson had filed a wrongful-death suit. The lawsuit named Paul, the hospital,
and the anesthesiologist as defendants. Paul, like most surgeons, was covered by malpractice insurance. As was customary,
he was instructed not to speak to Robert Torrelson without an attorney present and even then only if he was being deposed
and Robert Torrelson happened to be in the room.

The case had gone nowhere for a year. Once Robert Torrelson’s attorney received the autopsy report, had another surgeon review
the videotape, and the attorneys from the insurance company and hospital started the process of filing motions to drag out
the process and run up the costs, he’d painted a bleak picture of what his client was up against. Though they didn’t say so
directly, the attorneys for the insurance company expected Robert Torrelson to eventually drop the suit.

It was like the few other cases that had been filed against Paul Flanner over the years, except for the fact that Paul had
received a personal note from Robert Torrelson two months ago.

He didn’t need to bring it with him to recall what had been written.

Dear Dr. Flanner,

I would like to talk to you in person. This is very important to me.

Please.
               
Robert Torrelson

At the bottom of the letter, he’d left his address.

After reading it, Paul had showed it to the attorneys, and they’d urged him to ignore it. So had his former colleagues at
the hospital. Just let it go, they’d said. Once this is over, we can set up a meeting with him if he still wants to talk.

But there was something in the simple plea above Robert Torrelson’s neatly scrawled signature that had gotten to Paul, and
he’d decided not to listen to them.

To his mind, he’d ignored too many things already.

Paul put on his jacket, walked down the steps, and went out the front door, heading toward the car. From the front seat, he
grabbed the leather pouch containing his passport and tickets, but instead of going back inside, he made his way around the
side of the house.

On the beach side the wind grew cold, and Paul paused for a moment to zip his jacket. Pinching the leather pouch beneath his
arm, he tucked his hands into his jacket and bowed his head, feeling the breeze nip at his cheeks.

The sky reminded him of those he’d seen in Baltimore before snowstorms that tinted the world into shades of washed-out gray.
In the distance, he could see a pelican gliding low over the water, its wings unmoving, floating with the wind. He wondered
where it would go when the storm hit full force.

Near the water, Paul stopped. The waves were rolling in from two different directions, sending up plumes as they collided.
The air was moist and chilly. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the light in the kitchen of the Inn glowing yellow. Adrienne’s
figure passed shadowlike by the window, then vanished from sight.

He would try to talk to Robert Torrelson tomorrow morning, he thought. The storm was expected to arrive in the afternoon and
would probably last through most of the weekend, so he couldn’t do it then. Nor did he want to wait until Monday; his flight
left on Tuesday afternoon out of Dulles, and he had to leave Rodanthe no later than nine. He didn’t want to run the risk of
not speaking with him, and in light of the storm, one day was cutting it close. By Monday, power lines might be down, there
might be flooding, or Robert Torrelson might be taking care of who knew what in the aftermath.

Paul had never been in Rodanthe before, but he didn’t think it would take more than a few minutes to find the house. The town,
he figured, had no more than a few dozen streets, and he could walk the length of the town in less than half an hour.

After a few minutes on the sand, Paul turned and started making his way back toward the Inn. As he did, he caught a glimpse
of Adrienne Willis in the window again.

Her smile, he thought. He liked her smile.

From the window, Adrienne found herself glancing at Paul Flanner as he made his way back from the beach.

She was unpacking the groceries, doing her best to put them in the right cupboards. Earlier in the afternoon, she’d bought
the items that Jean had recommended, but now she wondered if she should have waited until Paul arrived to ask him if there
was anything in particular that he wanted to eat.

His visit intrigued her. She knew from Jean that when he’d called six weeks ago, she’d said that she closed up after the New
Year and wouldn’t open again until April; but he’d offered to pay double the room rate if she could stay open an extra week.

He wasn’t on vacation, she was sure of that. Not only because Rodanthe wasn’t a popular destination in winter, but because
he didn’t strike her as the vacationing type. Nor was his demeanor when he’d checked in that of someone who’d come here to
relax.

He hadn’t mentioned that he was visiting family, either, so that meant he was probably here for business. But that, too, didn’t
make much sense. Other than fishing and tourism, there wasn’t much business in Rodanthe, and with the exception of those businesses
that provided the necessities for those who lived here, most of them closed down for the winter anyway.

She was still trying to figure it out when she heard him coming up the back steps. She listened as he stomped the sand from
his feet outside the door.

A moment later, the back door opened with a squeak, and Paul walked into the kitchen. As he shrugged off his jacket, she noticed
that the tip of his nose had turned red.

“I think the storm’s getting close,” he said. “The temperature’s dropped at least ten degrees since this morning.”

Adrienne put a box of croutons into the cupboard and looked over her shoulder as she answered.

“I know. I had to turn the heater up. This isn’t the most energy efficient of homes. I could actually feel the wind coming
in through the windows. Sorry you don’t have better weather.”

Paul rubbed his arms. “That’s the way it goes. Is the coffee still out? I think I could use a cup to warm up.”

“It might be a little stale by now. I’ll make a fresh pot. It’ll only take a few minutes.”