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The two men who’d escorted Emory into the ER earlier in the day had driven away in their SUV. The news vans had departed after the press conference. Shortly after ten o’clock Jeff Surrey had left in a late-model European car.
Somewhere in that building Emory was alone, and would be for the rest of the night. That should relieve his mind. It didn’t.
To his sister, he said, “I can’t relocate right away.”
“You always do. Immediately.”
“Not this time.”
“What makes this time different?”
He couldn’t tell her or she would be even more worried and afraid than she was. If he told her about Emory, she would advise him to turn his back, walk away, leave it alone, and do so tonight, now. He didn’t want to hear it from Rebecca. He knew it already.
“I have to wrap up something here before moving on, that’s all.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“No.”
“Does it have to do with Westboro?”
“No. This is something else.” Before she demanded to know information he wouldn’t share, he gave her the number of another burner phone. “Same rules. Call it only if you have to.”
“I will. Will you call me?”
“Sure.”
After a beat, she said, “You’re taking on more trouble, aren’t you?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Swear to God,” she said, “if I knew where you were, I would call Jack Connell right this minute and tell him.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
She blew out a gust of breath and, with defeat, said, “No, I wouldn’t. But he did say something about you today that I can’t get out of my head.”
“This ought to be good.”
“He said that it might actually be a relief to you if you were found.”
“A relief?”
“That was the word he used.”
“Then he’s full of shit. If he comes around again, tell him to fuck off.”
She laughed. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Her laughter was a good note on which to end the call. Before either of them became maudlin, before they had to actually say good-bye, he disconnected. Then he removed the battery from the phone and ground the phone itself beneath his boot until it was broken into bits.
He knelt and swept all the pieces of the phone off the ground into his hand and dropped them in his coat pocket to dispose of later. Then he dug into his jeans pocket and took out the tiny silver trinket, the token that he’d kept as a tangible link to Emory, not realizing until today what vital importance it had.
Thoughtfully rubbing it between his fingers, he gave the hospital one last look, and, convinced that nothing untoward was likely to happen tonight, he started back toward where he’d left his truck. He had a lot of work to do tonight. Busy work. Tasks that should keep his mind off Emory.
But wouldn’t.
For four years, he’d lived with loneliness and had even reconciled himself to it.
