Shut Your Eyes Tight (Dave Gurney, No. 2): A Novel (65 page)

“Aren’t we all?”

“Hell no! Take me, for example. I
appear
totally fucked up. But inside I’m a rock. A finely tuned, well-balanced machine.”

“If you’re well balanced …” Normally Gurney could have ended the sentence with a smart rebuttal, but the Dilaudid was getting in the way, and his voice just trailed off.

The two men held each other’s gaze for a moment longer, and then Hardwick took a step toward the door. “Well, I’ll be seeing you around, okay?”

“Sure.”

He started to leave, then turned back for a moment. “Relax, Sherlock. Everything’s cool.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

•  •  •

S
ometime after Hardwick left, Madeleine returned to the room, carrying a small container of coffee. Wrinkling her nose at it, she laid it on a metal table in the corner.

Gurney smiled. “Not very good?”

She didn’t answer. Instead she came to the side of the bed and took both of his hands in hers and held them tightly.

She stood there next to him, just like that, holding his hands, for a long while.

It could have been a minute or an hour. He couldn’t tell.

All he was truly aware of was her steady, perceptive, loving smile—the smile that was hers alone.

It enveloped him, warmed him, delighted him like nothing else on earth.

He was amazed that anyone who saw everything so clearly, who had all the light of the world in her eyes, saw in him something worthy of such a smile.

It was a smile that could make a man believe that life was good.

When I finished my first novel,
Think of a Number
, I had the extraordinary good fortune to be represented by a remarkable agent, Molly Friedrich—along with her wonderful associates, Paul Cirone and Lucy Carson.

My good fortune was confirmed when the book was acquired by Crown’s Rick Horgan, a marvelous editor.

Today I continue to be blessed by the guidance and support of these honest, smart, and talented people. Their ideal combination of perceptive criticism and heartening enthusiasm made my new novel,
Shut Your Eyes Tight
, better in every way.

Rick, Molly, Paul, Lucy—thank you!

After a successful career in the advertising industry, John Verdon retired with his wife, Naomi, to the rural mountains of upstate New York—an ironically tranquil environment for creating the Dave Gurney series of thrillers.