Wake to Darkness

“Care to take a drive with me tomorrow?” he asked.

She didn’t even ask where, just nodded her assent. “Misty won’t mind me leaving her again. She and Amy were planning a Christmas shopping trip tomorrow, anyway.”

“I take the boys home at noon on Sundays. So we’ll go after that, all right?”

“Sure.”

“Think you can sleep?”

She looked at her glass. “One more of these and I’ll sleep like a baby. For a few hours, at least.” She downed the remainder of her drink. “Please, God, no more fucking dreams. No more.”

Sunday, December 17

“It’s just a day trip,” I told her for the tenth time at a quarter to one while I waited for Mason to pick me up. “I feel really bad for leaving you again so soon after the book blitz, but it’s just for the day, and I’ll bring you back something, okay?”

“Will you bring me back something, too?” Misty asked.

“Me, too. I want something,” Amy said.

I rose from the floor, where I’d been scratching Myrtle right in front of her ears, which was her bliss-spot. “Yeah, yeah, I owe you both my life. If for any reason I don’t make it back tonight—”

“I’ll stay over,” Amy said.

“Yeah, because being seventeen, I need a babysitter who’s twenty-five.”

“Twenty-four,” Amy corrected.

Misty rolled her eyes. “I could manage just fine on my own overnight.”

“I know you could.” With Aaron, Lloyd or whatever her current boyfriend’s name was. I just remembered the double letters at the beginning. I’d met the kid, hated him on sight. Cocky, arrogant little prick.

“I wish we were having more fun, Misty,” I said in all honesty. I did feel bad. She was missing the trip of a lifetime with her family, but it was obvious she didn’t mind that, and I had no doubt she’d been seeing plenty of the boyfriend while I was doing the talk show hop, with or without Amy’s knowledge.

Sandra thought it was fine when I talked to her about my suspicions, said she trusted Misty. If you asked me, “trust” and “seventeen” should never be uttered in the same sentence if there was a boyfriend involved. Teenage girls loved harder than any other species. Teenage love was apocalyptic. Wild horses couldn’t stop it.

“I’ll get back as fast as I can and we’ll do something fun. Really fun, I promise. Maybe we’ll go find a Christmas tree and decorate it.”

“I had a lot of fun at Mason’s yesterday,” Misty said. “Don’t feel guilty, Aunt Rache. You always say it’s a wasted emotion.”

Yeah, I did say that. In print and in front of live studio audiences. That didn’t make it true. Guilt was never wasted. It was going to net the kid a Swarovski crystal swan to add to her collection.

Mason pulled up in that big black boat he called a car. I closed my eyes, hitched my “just in case” bag over my shoulder, hugged Misty, then Amy, then Myrtle one last time. “Okay, I’m outta here. See you late tonight, and if there’s any change, I’ll call.”

They said so long and I was gone. I opened the driver’s door, and Mason looked up at me from behind the wheel.

“What, you want to drive?”

Damn, he’s good-looking. It’s like I forget just how good-looking when I’m away from him, and then I see him again and it knocks me on my ass.

“I know you love your boat and all, Mace, but—”

“It’s a seventy-four Monte Carlo, and it’s a classic.”

“It’s a rear-wheel-drive behemoth, and it’s an accident waiting to happen. We’re heading into the snow belt. What if we hit a blizzard? Why didn’t you bring the Jeep?”

He sighed. “It’s a clear day, maybe my last chance to drive my baby for the season.”

“Which part of the words snow belt did you not understand?”

“You want to take your Subaru, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. You have any objections?”

He lowered his head. “I have to tell you something I’ve never told you before, Rachel.”

Hell, this sounds serious. I frowned, watching his face. “Go ahead. What is it?”

“I hate your driving.” His head came up, and he was grinning, probably at the way my mouth was hanging open. I clamped it shut. “I don’t mean to insult you, but you scare the hell out of me when you drive.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re always looking at everything but the road.”

“I am not!”

“‘Oh, pretty mountain! Oooh, what kind of bird is that? Hey, look at that cloud.’”

I bit back my automatic defensive response and took a breath. “Try being blind for twenty years and see how much looking you do your first fall, first winter—”

He held up both hands to stop me, midrant. “I love the way you see everything like it’s the first time, Rachel. Makes me see things from a fresh perspective myself. It...enhances my every experience just being around you.”

Damn. That was almost poetic. My anger cooled a degree or two.

“I just don’t love being a passenger in a car while you’re doing it. That’s all. You gonna shoot me for that? You wanna use my gun? ’Cause it’s right here—”

“Shut the fuck up, Mason.” I dug my keys out of my pocket, hit the garage door opener button on the key ring, then dropped them into his lap. With his irritatingly perfect reflexes he caught them before they landed.

“You can drive, okay? But we’re taking my car.”

“That sounds fair.”

“You can put your boat in the garage if you want.”

“It’ll be fine outside.” He shut off the engine, dropped his own keys into the ashtray and got out. He had a dark green backpack on the backseat, and he grabbed that and was good to go.

So I let him drive. And yeah, I stayed mad at him for the first hour, until we drove past the wetlands preserve, partially frozen over, and I saw a red-tailed hawk dive-bomb not twenty feet from the highway, then soar up again with something furry in its talons.

“OhmyGod, did you see that? That hawk just nailed a freaking squirrel or something. Look, look at it go!” I was pointing and craning my neck. When I looked over at him, he managed to hold back for about three seconds and then he burst out laughing, and I did, too, in spite of myself.

“All right,” I admitted, no longer angry. “I’ll have to try to stop doing that.”

“Don’t ever stop doing that. That was amazing, and I never would have even noticed it if you hadn’t been with me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Just...try not to do it when you’re driving.”

I rolled my eyes and returned to watching the passing scenery.

* * *

At Strong Memorial Hospital’s Financial Services Center, Mason made the impossible as easy as 1, 2, 3. He got in to see a patient accounts manager, claiming to be an insurance adjuster and saying he needed to verify some information about the patient who received the kidney on August 17 of this year. Then he shuffled papers looking for the patient’s name while the woman at the desk clicked her keys, bringing up the info. I waited in the hallway outside the office door, and when he sneezed, I walked up the hall a few steps, made sure no one was looking and, with a tissue covering my fingers, pulled the fire alarm.

People poured out of offices left and right, including Mason and the accounts person. I joined the throng moving forward, exclaimed, “My purse!” in case anyone was listening, and ducked into the same office he’d just left. I hurried around the desk, took a quick look at the computer and there it was. The patient’s name and address. Three patients had kidney transplants that day. But only one of them received a left kidney. I scribbled the info on a notepad, jammed it into my pocket, zipped out again with my heart in my throat and caught up with the throng heading for the stairwells. By then someone in charge was telling everyone to stay calm, it was probably a false alarm. Maybe even a prank.

“Fucking kids,” someone muttered.

I saw Mason talking to the woman whose office I’d just left and looking at his watch, making excuses to leave and follow up with her later. Then he entered the stairwell. I passed her in the hall as I went to join him, but there were lots of people heading down and I had to wait until we were outside. He was ahead of me, and he got into my car and started the engine. I hurried the last few steps and hopped in on the passenger side.

“You get it?” he asked.

“Henry C. Powell of Sodus Point, New York. You know where that is?”

“No, but your nav system does.” He poked buttons. “Street?”

“Twenty-five Lake Street.”

He punched a button, then another, and the nav system plotted a route and said it would take less than an hour to reach our destination. “We’re in business. You want to grab a bite first?” It was close to four-thirty, after the two-and-a-half-hour drive out here, and the time we’d spent executing our plan. Flawlessly, I might add. Neither of us had eaten lunch.

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