Part 17 (1/2)

”This won't affect us on the job, of course.” Another weak smile. ”We'll still be Mulder and Scully.”

X-Files. X-Lovers. X-Lovers.

”I want your help with these MP's and DOA's.”

I bit back a retort I would later have regretted.

”You're sure about this?” I asked.

”I've never been less sure about anything in my life. But I'm sure of one thing. I owe it to my daughter to try. I can't see her destroyed while I just stand by.”

I needed fresh air.

I didn't offer rea.s.surance. Or another Streisand line. Or a hug.

Molding my face into a smile, I rose and left the restaurant.

I felt leaden, oblivious to the Sat.u.r.day night revelers with whom I shared the sidewalk. My feet rose, fell, moving me along without sensation. Then they stopped.

I looked up.

Hurley's.

It wasn't air that I craved. I'd run toward the old umbilicus. The ruby glow in the long-stemmed gla.s.s, the friction on my throat, the heat in my belly. The bullet train to temporary gladness and well-being.

All I had to do was enter and ask.

But I know myself. I am an alkie. The fling wouldn't be brief. And, inevitably, the euphoria would give way to self-loathing. Hours, perhaps days would be gone from my life.

I reversed my course and went home.

Lying in bed, I felt totally alone in the universe.

My thoughts played like a danse macabre. danse macabre.

Dorothee and Genevieve Doucet, forgotten in an upstairs bedroom.

Kelly Sicard. Claudine Cloquet. Anne Girardin. Phoebe Jane Quincy. Vanished, perhaps molested and murdered.

Three young bodies, two bloated and grotesque.

Laurette, abandoned, dead at thirty-four.

My own mother, widowed, neurotic, dead at fifty-seven.

Baby Kevin, dead at age nine months.

A young girl's skeleton, wrenched from its grave.

Obeline, battered and disfigured.

Evangeline, gone.

Ryan, gone.

At that moment, I hated my job. I hated my life.

The world was wretched.

There were no tears. Only an overwhelming numbness.

15.

I AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF THE PHONE AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF THE PHONE. I FELT SLUGGISH AND FLAT FELT SLUGGISH AND FLAT and didn't know why. Then I remembered. and didn't know why. Then I remembered.

Ryan.

Last night's numbness rea.s.serted itself. That was good. It got me through the call.

”Good morning, sugar britches.”

Pete never phoned me in Montreal.

Katy! I shot upright.

”What's wrong?”

”Nothing's wrong.”

”Katy's all right?”

”Of course she's all right.”

”You spoke to her? When?”

”Yesterday.”

”What did she say?”

”Buenos dias. Chile's the bomb. Transfer money. Adios.”

Leaning back, I pulled the quilt to my chin.

”How are you?”

”Hunky-dory.”