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"I have no idea. He said he didn't have time for breakfast after all, that he needed to follow a hunch. He left almost as abruptly as Ski did."
"Hmm." Berry hoped the topic of Ski would end there. But her mother was too intuitive.
"What happened between you?" she asked. "When Dodge and I came in, we could practically smell the ozone. Were you in the middle of an argument, or ... something else?" Just then her cell phone jingled, saving Berry from having to answer. Caroline checked the caller ID. "It's my office."
"Take your call. I'm off."
"Where are you going?"
"It's Sunday. Day of atonement."
Twenty minutes after leaving the lake house, she was standing outside Ben Lofland's hospital room. She bolstered herself for whatever might come of this visit and tapped lightly on the door. Amanda Lofland opened it. When she saw Berry, her expression turned petulant and hostile.
Berry didn't give her an opportunity to speak first. "I'd like to see Ben."
"What for?"
"To apologize for his getting shot."
Startled by the blunt admission, Amanda regarded Berry with mistrust but then stepped aside and allowed her to enter the room. Ben was awake, half sitting up with pillows behind his back.
Berry smiled as she approached the bed. "You're looking a lot better than you were the last time I saw you."
"I feel worse," he grumbled. "I was unconscious when you last saw me, and wasn't feeling a thing."
Amanda went to stand opposite Berry on the other side of the bed, her expression sour.
Berry asked Ben, "Is the pain bad?"
"Only when I breathe."
"Don't the drugs help?"
"Put it this way, I'd hate to be without them."
She said softly, "I tremble when I think how much worse it could have been."
"Yeah. That's occurred to me--to us--too." He reached for Amanda's hand and squeezed it. Husband and wife smiled at each other, although Amanda's smile was somewhat strained.
"I blame myself for underestimating Oren's mental state," Berry said.
"Who'd have thought he could do something so crazy?"
"I was forewarned," Berry admitted. "I'd seen him lose it completely."
"Before Friday night?"
"Yes. But only once. I thought it was an isolated incident, a reactive outburst. Obviously I misjudged." She took a deep breath. "That's why I saw no harm in phoning him."
Ben's pale face registered his surprise. "You phoned him? When?"
"Thursday afternoon."
Still gaping at her, he said, "Had you lost your mind?"
"It was a mistake. I see that now, but I had said things to him that I regretted and wanted to apologize for. I also felt he should know the project he'd worked on was being completed and that it had turned out well. I felt that we--that I--owed him that."
Ben wet his lips. His gaze shifted several times between Berry and his wife, finally landing on Berry. "I wish you'd consulted me first."
