The Stars Shine Bright (28 page)
He flipped to a blank page in the notebook and wrote:
Raleigh David?
He offered me the pen. But I reached into the glove box, where I'd stashed a cheap Bic.
Raleigh David is my undercover name. It had to be a name I wouldn't forget. Like my real name.
YOU picked the last name David?
Yes. For my dad. David.
You couldn't pick Fielding?
I looked up. His blue eyes burned like gas flames.
“David” reminds me of my dad. It's like he's with me.
The plastic window slid open. “You want straws, like, for the shakes?”
“Yes.”
I looked at DeMott. He was staring out the side window. In the next parking lot some guys stood by a dirty gray van with a ladder on its roof. Their clothes were spattered with paint. They smoked cigarettes and laughed, and when the ordering window slid open again, I turned and handed the drink tray and food bags to DeMott, because he would be careful not to get anything on the car. Then I drove forward slowly and parked behind the yew bushes. Madame got out with me, but DeMott stayed in the car. Tail wagging, the dog lapped from the water cup, splashing as much as she drank, then wolfed down a Whopper. I'd have her fattened up in no time. When I looked into the car, hoping to show DeMott, his head was resting on the seat back. Eyes closed.
Tired
, I thought.
That's all it is; he's just tired
. Madame and I shared the fries, but I carried the rest of the food into the restaurant. The same teenager from the window walked over to the counter.
“Is, like, something wrong?”
“No, nothing's wrong. But we didn't touch this other food. Could you offer it to the next person who comes in?”
He glanced at a guy standing at the fry station. Then back at me. More confused than ever. “You mean, like, for free?”
“Yes. For free.”
When I climbed back into the car, DeMott reached over, taking my hand.
“I'm sorry.”
“No, I'm sorry. This is a lot to think about. And you must be really tired.”
He nodded, giving a weak smile. “With the baby coming, Mac's had everyone running around. Just like before her wedding, only worse.”
“I can only imagine.”
“Guess what she's naming him?”
I turned the key. “It's a boy?”
“Yes. Fielding DeMott Morgan.”
And the words came right back.
“You couldn't pick Fielding?”
“That sounds just right for them.” I inched the Ghost past the yew bushes and gazed down the highway both ways. No Caddy. I pulled out of the parking lot and reversed directions, heading north to catch I-5 south. Madame leaned out my window, contented and full, but DeMott's fountain pen was scratching the paper again. I looked over. He held up the page so I could read the words.
Can I see your mom while I'm here?
Once again that knife scored across my heart, completing the X that marked the spot.
He held the notebook so I could write with one hand on the wheel.
I'm headed down there right now.
He wrote beneath that:
I thought she didn't want to see you.
She doesn't. I have a shrink appt. At the asylum.
Her shrink?
Mine.
??!!
Mandatory. All undercover agents have to.
What??
Undercover agents sometimes forget what's real.
What about you?
I smiled and shook my head.
But you look so different. New clothes. Cool car.
Just for cover.
And you don't look unhappy anymore.
I shifted my eyes, gazing in the rearview mirror. I knew the Caddy wasn't there, but the sudden pain in my heart wouldn't let me look in DeMott's eyes. Changing lanes, I took the on-ramp to the interstate. The Ghost glided for several minutes before I realized our silence was too long. It might seem suspicious to anyone listening. I cleared my throat. “You're going to stay at Aunt Eleanor's house. She's our chaperone.”
“I can't wait to see her,” he said. But he was writing:
And your real aunt, Charlotte? Visit?
I shook my head.
Too risky. Another time. Promise.
How much longer, Raleigh?
The track closes in four days.
And then . . . ?
Take Mom home. To Virginia.
That's what you want?
I nodded.
“Really?” he asked, out loud.
I nodded again. That was what I wanted. For her.
But as we drove down the highway and Mount Rainier filled the sky, our silence extended again. It was easy to say what I wanted for my mother. But figuring out what I wanted for myself was a bigger problem.
Except the truth.
I really did want the truth.
I
signed my fake name on the official visitors' log at Western State Hospital. It was a quarter to three and the air already smelled of dinner. Institutional dinner. That prickly odor of salted green beans and oily yellow chicken, all of it reeking of vitamins and reconstituted illness. The receptionist at the front desk was a square-faced girl whose eyes were set too close together. She seemed less than pleased to see us. She pointed her pen at DeMott.
“Is he here to see Dr. Norbert too?”
“No.”
DeMott gave me a look, letting me know my tone was harsh. Bad manners always bothered him.
I tried again. “No, ma'am. But he might be visiting a patient later.”
“He's just going to waltz onto the wardâis that what you think?”
“No.” I stretched the word out, hoping to neutralize her sarcasm. “Dr. Norbert has to approve it first. And the patient has to agree to see him.”
She tapped the pen on a sign above the visitors' log. “You'd better find out quick. See what that says for Saturday?”
“Yes, visiting hours are over at three o'clock.” I tapped my watch, the same way she tapped the sign. “So he's still got fifteen minutes.”
DeMott stepped forward, breaking up the fight. “Thank you, miss. We appreciate your help.”
He turned and walked across the foyer, taking a seat by the stairwell door. The receptionist's expression seemed baffled, like that of the airport security guy. Out here, DeMott's Southern gentility sounded like a foreign language. For all they knew he was kidding, pulling their leg. Except he wasn't. DeMott's etiquette was pure distilled Old Dominionâthe Virginian who could face a guillotine and still call the executioner “sir.”
I tried to smile at her. “Do you allow dogs in the lobby?”
“Seeing eye dogs?”
“Ordinary dogs.” Not that Madame was ordinary. “Pets. That belong to the patients.”
“What do you think?”
She really didn't want to know.
Closing my lips over my tattered Southern manners, I walked over to where DeMott was sitting. The foyer's floor was covered with small white hexagonal tiles. The twelve-foot ceiling seemed even higher because of the dark wall panels. The Gothic architecture reminded me of some of Richmond's downtown buildings, built in the late 1800s after the War of Northern Aggression. But the effect was ruined by the plastic chairs placed beside a wood-laminate table, where pamphlets fanned across the surface.
I said, “I'll be back as soon as possible.”
He picked up a pamphlet. The cover read
Signs of Clinical Depression
. He asked, “How long does it usually take?”
“It's hard to say. He stretches it out or cuts it short, depending on his mood.”
“You see him often?”
His forehead was tightening, the skin rippling. I knew this expression. It meant my answers weren't clear enough. I was being evasive, again. And DeMott was worried. Again.
“You know,” I said, “this would be a lot easier if you'd carry a cell phone.”
“And if people used them only for emergencies, I might. But I refuse to spend my days with a phone stuck to my ear.”
“But if you had a phone, I could call you from upstairs. Let you know what he says about the visit.”
“Why can't you walk back here and tell me in person?”
“I can't.” That wasn't really trueâI just didn't want to walk back. Which meant I told another lie.
Wonderful
.
“Call her.” He nodded at the receptionist. “She can give me the message.”
“I guess you didn't catch her drift. The desk closes at three. What if I'm not done by three?”
“Which brings us to my original point. The old-fashioned method still works. Come tell me in person.”
Less than two hours together and already the bickering had started. It felt sadly familiar, known and uncomfortable, like a river current that started miles back and continually forced us to swim against it. Once upon a time, his manor life at Weyanoke charmed me. It seemed romantic, especially compared to the FBI's barking acronyms, triplicate legal files, and electronic databanks. But eight months after our engagement, I was learning something crucial about relationships: the same quality that charmed in the beginning became annoying later.
Reaching into my purse, I handed him my cell phone and car keys. “If you don't hear from me by three, take Madame for a walk. The grounds are actually nice. For an insane asylum.”
“You shouldn't call it that.”
“DeMott, I'm so far beyond euphemisms.” I turned to the receptionist, waiting for her to unlock the stairwell. When the door buzzed, I swung it open.
A woman sprang out.
She must've been crouched below the small window in the door, planning her escape, because she pushed me away and headed straight for the main exit. The receptionist immediately slapped her hand on the wall, and I heard locks snapping in the front door.
The woman shook the door handle. “Let me go! Do you hear me? I'm getting out of here.”
“You're not going anywhere.” The receptionist picked up the phone. “You don't have a pass.”
“But I want to leave.” The woman waddled over to the desk. She was short and fat and her hair looked like oiled gray strings. “You can't keep me here.”
I was still wondering what to do, holding the stairwell door, when she turned and smiled at DeMott. Her yellow teeth looked like torn celery stalks.
She said, “What're you doing here?”
“I'm waiting,” DeMott said.
“Well, I'm going to town. Come with me. We can drink three beers.”
“Three?”
“Yes. Three.”
The receptionist hung up the phone. “Margaret, you're not going anywhere. You don't have a pass.”
“I'm riding the bus.”
“You need money to ride a bus.”
“No, I don't.” She turned to DeMott. “My boyfriend is the bus driver.”
Too polite to stare at this creature, and too gentlemanly for sudden action, DeMott was glancing around the foyer, looking shaken. But another door suddenly opened, beside the receptionist's desk, and two men stepped out. One was a stocky man with red hair. The other was a large black man wearing a gold cross necklace. Both wore white uniforms. And both smiled at Margaret.
“You are not taking me,” Margaret said.
I looked at DeMott. “I shouldn't be more than an hour.”
“That seems long,” he said.
“You have no idea,” I said.
