The Girl Next Door (29 page)

The expression in Gemma’s eyes turned stony. “You are … sick,” said Gemma. “You think
your brother did this?”

Nina drew back in the face of Gemma’s anger. “I don’t know what to think. I’m sorry,
Gemma—I couldn’t help thinking about it. I mean, Jimmy spent the night at your house.
I’ll bet he told Patrick all about what he and Calvin Mears did on the night my mother
was killed—about the robbery.”

Two spots of color appeared in Gemma’s normally pale cheeks. “Jimmy was carrying on
about that. Yes,” she said. “He maundered on till all hours. I don’t think that Patrick
believed him though. Jimmy was dead drunk.”

Nina leaned forward in her chair. “I know, but maybe today it was bothering Patrick.
Maybe he decided to go down to the motel where Calvin was staying and confront them
both—find
out for sure. And maybe he walked in and found Jimmy like that, and—you know—went
crazy. If I’m not mistaken, he does have a gun. I think he told me that once.”

“Patrick is at work,” said Gemma. “In New York City.”

Nina thought of the other times when Patrick had said he was at work. Times when he
was with Lindsay Farrell. “How do you know?” Nina asked. “He could have left work
and driven down to Seaside Park.”

Gemma studied her through narrowed eyes. “Did you tell all this to the police?”

“No,” Nina admitted. “They questioned me, but when they mentioned the blue Jaguar
I never said anything. No matter what you might think of me, I wasn’t about to rat
out my brother. I’m just … worrying out loud.”

“Well, stop it,” said Gemma. “Why would you want to think the worst of Patrick? Are
you trying to ruin us? He’s my husband. He’s the father of my children. Do you want
him to go to prison?”

“I just want to know the truth,” Nina said stubbornly.

“Give me the phone,” said Gemma, holding out her hand. “I’ll call him again. I’ll
prove it to you.”

Nina reached in her satchel and gave the cell phone to her sister-in-law. Gemma punched
in a number.

“Yes,” she said. “I want to talk to Patrick Avery. Tell him it’s his wife, and this
time it’s an emergency. No matter what he’s doing, tell him I need to speak to him.”

Gemma waggled her foot impatiently as she waited for Patrick to get on the line.

Nina watched her cautiously.

“Yes, I’m still here,” said Gemma. Suddenly, all the fire went out of her eyes. “He’s
not? Since when? When did he leave? I see.” Gemma punched the phone off and sat holding
it for a moment. Then she stood up and handed the phone to Nina. “I have to go,” she
said.

“Where is he?” said Nina.

“I don’t know,” Gemma said.

Nina shook her head. “Gemma, I don’t want this to be true. Look, I’m not going to
tell the police anything about this. But you have to prepare yourself. If the Puerto
Rican guy lives, he may be able to identify the shooter. If it was Patrick …”

Gemma hesitated and then turned toward the door. “Go to hell,” Gemma said, grabbing
her coat. She slammed the door as she left.

Nina grimaced. She didn’t blame Gemma for being angry. She felt guilty for even thinking
these thoughts about her own brother. But she had to find out for sure. She knew that
there was one other place that Patrick could be. Somewhere that Gemma didn’t know
about.

A
NDRE
awoke, shivering, in a room filled with bright lights. He looked around and saw railings
on his bed and a thin white cotton blanket covering him. There was an IV needle inserted
in his hand, a splotch of blood dark against the transparent tape. He tried to shift
his weight in the bed and felt the pain radiate throughout his upper body. What am
I doing here? he thought groggily. And then he remembered.

“Hey, somebody’s awake,” said a nurse, as she approached his bed and rested her thick
forearms on the bed rail. She was middle-aged, with a short, graying haircut and a
broad, pleasant face. She cocked her head and looked down at him kindly. “How you
feeling now? You’re a mighty lucky fellow,” she said. “They took three bullets out
of you.”

Andre tried to speak, but his mouth was dry and he couldn’t form the words.

“Here, let me help you,” said the nurse. She produced a tiny
sponge on a stick and wiped his parched lips with it. “There, is that any better?”

Andre nodded slightly. “Time?” he murmured.

The nurse checked her watch. “It’s about five o’clock. You were on the table for several
hours. You’re still in the recovery room. We’re going to keep you here until everything’s
stable and then we’ll move you upstairs. But you know the drill, Doc.”

Andre smiled faintly and nodded. As his awareness returned, he was overcome with a
feeling of intense anxiety.

“At first they didn’t realize who you were,” the nurse continued cheerfully. “The
police thought you were into drugs like the guys they found you with. Then somebody
went through your things and figured it out.”

Andre tried to lick his parched lips with a sticky tongue and the nurse swabbed his
mouth again, a concerned look on her face.

“Water?” he managed to ask.

“Not just yet,” she said, “but I can get you some cracked ice if you want.”

“Please,” Andre muttered, his coated tongue barely functioning.

The nurse bustled off and Andre closed his eyes. He tried to remember what had happened.
There were blanks in his memory. He struggled to piece the events together in his
mind. He’d been worried about Nina. Worried she would never rest until she found Calvin
Mears. He knew they would never get together until this was resolved. It was all she
could think about. So he had decided to just go ahead and do it, without even telling
her. He had tapped into the Corrections Department grapevine, gotten the address …
Faces floated into his mind. Stan Mazurek and Dwight Bird. The woman in Seaside Park,
Calvin’s aunt … He closed his eyes and tried to focus his mind. Like a weary man seeking
repose, he let his mind rest on Nina.

Nina. Nina wanted to know … What was it? He remembered taking the address that Stan
gave him and driving to that house in Seaside Park. He had his story all prepared.

“Here we go,” said the nurse. She reappeared at his bedside and lifted a small piece
of ice from a cup with a little plastic spoon and placed it on his tongue. Andre felt
the coldness fill his mouth and trickle down his throat. All of a sudden, a wave of
nausea came over him, and his mouth began to water. He tried to take a deep breath.

“What is it, Dr. Quinteros? Are you feeling sick?” the nurse asked.

Sweat popped out on his forehead. Andre tried to quell the nausea with his will.

“I can give you some Compazine if you need it.”

“No,” said Andre. Compazine would knock him out again. “Phone,” he said. He swallowed
hard. “I need the phone.”

The nurse wagged a finger at him. “No phone for you. You know better than that, Doctor.
You’re still in recovery. You have to stay quiet. Now you just lie back there and
stop worrying. There will be time for the phone when you get into a regular room.
Whatever it is will just have to wait.”

She started to walk away from the bed.

“Nurse,” he croaked in a hoarse voice.

She came back and looked him over, frowning. “You’re sweating something terrible.
Let me get the thermometer.”

She walked away again and Andre fell back against the pillow. He had to get word to
Nina. Tell her what happened. The skinny young man with dirty hair and desperate eyes
had opened the door a few inches and stared at him.

“Are you the doctor my aunt called about?” he had asked. Then: “Thank God. You gotta
help me. He’s dying.”

Andre had gone into the room. It was dark and in disarray. The whole room smelled
of vomit. There was a large man on
the bed with a rubber tube tied around his upper arm and vomit all over his shirt.
He was barely breathing.

“What happened?” Andre had asked Mears.

Calvin Mears had stared at the man on the bed. “I don’t know. He just collapsed.”

Andre had rushed to the man’s side, examining his eyes. His pupils were pinpoints,
his pulse feeble. His skin was pallid, cold to the touch. His breathing slow and shallow.
“What drug did he take?”

“Drug? I don’t know,” said Mears.

“You’re a liar,” Andre had cried, groping around until he found the syringe on the
floor. “What was it?” he demanded.

“Heroin,” Mears had said. “It was heroin.”

“Shit,” Andre had said. “We need Narcan. Call nine-one-one.” And then he had heard
the knock at the door. Mears had gone to answer it.

The nurse returned with the thermometer, poked it into Andre’s ear, and pressed a
button. She took it out of his ear and peered at it.

“What is it?” Andre breathed.

“It’s climbing on us a little bit. That’s normal though. Right after surgery. We’ll
keep an eye on it.”

Andre reached out and grabbed her hand. “Please, nurse. A phone call. Can you do it
for me? It’s urgent.”

“Now, listen,” said the nurse. “You may be a doctor, but I’m in charge here and I
say no phone calls, no questions from the police, nothing, until we get you into a
little better shape.”

“Police?” he whispered.

“They’re out in the hallway,” she said. “They’ve been asking to come in here for the
last hour. They want to talk to you about what happened. But they’re not getting in
until I say so.”

“I want to tell them …” he said.

“Oh no. I don’t want them in here disturbing everything.
There’s plenty of time for that,” said the nurse. “Now lie back.” Shaking her head,
she took the thermometer and his chart and went back to the nurses’ station. She recorded
the patient’s temperature, filed the chart in the appropriate slot, and then went
to check on an elderly man who had had his gallbladder removed by laparoscopy. The
old man seemed to be faring pretty well. He would be heading up to his room in no
time. She moved on to a woman who’d had several ovarian tumors removed that afternoon.
Everything was benign, but she’d had a rough couple of hours. A bad reaction to the
anesthetic. The nurse started to walk around the side of the bed to take the woman’s
pulse when the woman called out in a weak but alarmed voice. “Nurse, that man, look!”

The nurse turned and saw the doctor with the gunshot wounds. He had managed to slide
off the bed. He was on his feet, but wobbling, holding the bandages on his stomach
with one hand and the wall with the other as he tried to make his way to the door.
The back of his johnny was flapping open but he did not seem to care.

“Dr. Quinteros,” she cried. “Stop that!”

He ignored her, continuing to shuffle toward the door holding on to the wall.

“You stop right there,” she cried, as she rounded the bed and headed toward him. “You’ll
start bleeding.”

Just as he got to the door she reached him and tried to grab him. He turned toward
her, his coppery skin now gray. Blood was seeping across the front of the johnny where
he held his hand. Before she could catch him his eyes rolled back and he collapsed
against the wall and slid down to the cold tile floor.

N
INA
had called Farrell’s Antiques and the salesman, Arne, answered. He told her that
Lindsay was out. When Nina persisted and said she would come to the store and wait
for her, Arne had finally admitted that she was out appraising the contents of an
estate for a young banker named Cowley, whose parents had recently passed away. She
would probably be working there late into the night. Reluctantly, he gave her the
address, warning her that she was not welcome to barge in on Lindsay while she was
working. Nina was beyond caring about being unwelcome.

The Cowley estate sat at the end of a winding driveway that passed through an apple
orchard and over a bridge above a manmade pond surrounded by weeping willows. In the
moonlight, the fronds of the willow trees were silver, and the onyx surface of the
pond was split by a corrugated trail of light. Nina drove slowly toward the enormous
Norman-style house at the foot of
the driveway. The place was probably breathtaking when it was all lit up, Nina thought,
but tonight it was dark except for several glowing windows on the first floor. Nina
parked the Volvo beside the lone car in the driveway, a black BMW, and stepped out
onto the cobblestones. There was no sign of the Jaguar. This one time, Nina wished
that she had found it here. Maybe he came and went, she told herself. Go and find
out.

She walked up to the front door of the Cowley house, which was standing ajar, and
pushed it open. She stuck her head in the door and called out in a loud voice, “Lindsay?
Are you in here?”

Nina heard a distant voice say something, and she stepped into the grand, open foyer
with a winding staircase that faced the front door. She looked down through the corridor
of rooms on either side of the foyer. One of the corridors was dark, but through the
other she could see the tasteful muted tints and wallpapers of the succeeding rooms.
“Lindsay. It’s Nina Avery,” she called out in the direction of the lighted rooms.
She listened for a reply and heard one voice, and then a second voice.

Frowning, Nina began to walk in the direction of the lighted rooms and the voices.
As she got closer she could distinguish the timbre of the two voices—it was a man
and a woman speaking. Lindsay and, if she wasn’t mistaken, Patrick. Patrick. Nina
fumed as she passed through ornately decorated rooms that already had colored tags
attached to the vases, paintings, and furniture. She arrived at the doorway of a book-lined
room and steeled herself for what she might see when she looked in. She knew she should
announce herself, but she decided it was time they were caught in the act. She stepped
through the doorway and looked. At the opposite end of the room, in front of a bank
of mullioned windows, Lindsay and Patrick were huddled together. As she looked closer
she saw that they were examining the underside of an upended settee.
“Look at that webbing,” said Lindsay, shaking her head.