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A red SUV looms up in her rearview. It swings beside her, almost sideswipes her, then bolts ahead. Davis gets just a glimpse of the driver, but a glimpse is enough. That thick widow’s peak is all the ID she needs. Taillights flash as the SUV pulls up in front of the main entrance. Jalbert gets out: black coat, baggy dad jeans. In spite of her terror and the sense that she’s having her own dream—it’s hardly been an hour since she was called from a sound sleep by her phone, after all—there’s a feeling of almost miraculous wonder. Because Danny was right about everything, and now she knows how he must have felt at that Texaco station, seeing his dream made real.
She doesn’t slow, simply rear-ends Jalbert’s vehicle. He wheels around, eyes wide, going for his gun. Ella lays on the horn with her right hand—wake up, you people, wake up—and opens the door with her left.
She draws her own gun as she gets out, hoping two things—that she won’t have to shoot her ex-partner, and that her ex-partner won’t shoot her. She has a little girl to go back to.
“Frank! Stop! Do not go in!”
“Ella? What are you doing here?”
He looks so haggard, she thinks. So lost. And so dangerous.
“Put your gun away, Frank.”
People are coming out now. Nurses in pink and blue rayon, a couple of orderlies in white, a doctor in green scrubs, a couple of patients from 24 Hour Care, one with his arm in a sling.
“He’s lying, Ella. Of course he is, are you blind?”
They are pointing Glocks at each other like a pair of gunfighters at the end of a Western movie. The .40 S&W ammo those guns fire will be lethal at this short range. If the shooting starts, one or both of them will almost certainly be killed.
“No, Frank. They caught the doer in Wyoming. His name is Andrew—”
“Iverson, yes.” Jalbert is nodding. “I believe that, but they were in it together. Can’t you see that? Follow the logic, Ella, they were a kill-team! Use your brain. How can you believe his story? You’re too smart! Sixteen times too smart! Eighteen times too smart!”
More people have come out. They cluster on the steps. Davis wants to tell them to go back in, but she doesn’t dare take her eyes off Jalbert. Now she can hear a siren. It’s approaching, but it’s too far, too far.
“Frank, why do you think I’m here? How do you think I got here?”
For the first time he looks unsure. “I don’t… know.”
“Danny called me. He knew you were coming. He dreamed it.”
“That’s ridiculous! A lie! A fable for children!”
“But here I am. How else can you explain it?”
A nurse—a large woman in a blue smock—has come out of Urgent Care and is now sneaking up on Jalbert from behind. Ella wants to tell her that’s a bad idea, the worst idea, but doesn’t dare. Jalbert will think she’s trying to distract him, and he’ll shoot.
“I can’t,” Jalbert says. “You shouldn’t be here. I don’t think you are here. You’re a hallucin—”
The big woman throws her arms around Jalbert, pinning his arms. She must outweigh him by sixty pounds, but his reaction is immediate. He stamps down on one of her feet. She screams. Her grip loosens. He frees one arm and drives an elbow backward into her throat. The nurse stumbles away, gagging. He turns toward her and away from Davis.
“Frank, put it down! DROP IT DROP IT DROP IT!”
He doesn’t seem to hear her. The nurse is bent over, hands to her throat. Jalbert raises the gun. He does it very slowly. Ella has time to think about all the miles they’ve driven on Kansas roads and all the meals they’ve eaten in Kansas diners. Prepping each other before testifying. Sitting through endless briefings. There’s time to shoot him, but she doesn’t. Can’t. She can only watch as Jalbert continues to raise the gun, but he’s not pointing it at the nurse. He puts it to his own head.
“Frank, don’t. Please don’t.”
“I did it all for poor Miss Yvonne.” Then he says “Three, two, one.” And pulls the trigger.
68
It’s almost an hour later when Ella is finally allowed into Danny Coughlin’s room. Two cops are standing guard outside his door. She thinks this is a perfect example of locking the barn after the horse has been stolen. Chuck the orderly is there, and a doctor. Ella thinks it’s the one she saw on the steps during the final confrontation, but she might be wrong. They all look the same in their green scrubs. In his hospital johnny, Danny looks like he’s lost forty pounds. He’s as haggard as Jalbert was at the end, but there’s a clarity in his face that’s different.
Ella doesn’t hesitate. She goes to him and hugs him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything.”
“It’s all right,” Danny tells her. He strokes her hair. That seems like the wrong thing to do. It also seems right.
She pulls back from him.
