“That’s right. Did they tell you there is a new surgeon coming? Some guy with lots of credentials, Walter said. I think even from where you used to work in Boston, Perrin,” Rita added.
Doctors moved around some, that was true, but it would still be odd to end up in the same hospital as a colleague, across the country from where I had worked with them before. Especially at such a small hospital.
“Holden,” Ellen said. “That was his name, Holden Davis.”
Jack
I could tell there was something wrong with Perrin as soon as the conversation with Mom ended. He was stiff and his usually expressive eyes were completely shut down. He smiled, and he said the right things, but I knew him better than all of that. Perrin began to excuse himself for the night long before we normally left. I had a planning commission meeting with Quinn I had to go to, but I assumed Perrin would either go with me or leave the big house when we did.
But, he was avoiding me, not looking in my eyes at all.
“Jack, I’m not going to be good company tonight,” he said, low in my ear, a quiet sort of desperation floating in his words. I had never heard that before, and it scared me.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” I asked, hands on his hips, as his own clutched so hard at my shirt his knuckles were white. His mouth looked green, and his eyes remained flat. But, he nodded.
“I have to figure out how to deal with this Jack,” he said, quietly.
“Listen, I have to go to this meeting with Quinn, but . . ..”
“No,” he cut me off. “Go, Jack. I need to sort through my shit right now.”
I sure as hell didn’t feel good leaving him, but I also could sense he needed some space, so I let him go, knowing I would be at his door as soon as the council meeting was over.
And I was.
I keyed the code and walked in, to find him brushing his teeth in the bathroom, and I could tell he had been sick to his stomach - literally. My head swirled and went all the places it shouldn’t about what could get this man to the point he was literally sick from thinking of it.
“I need to know what’s going on,” I said, leaning on to the doorframe. “What aren’t you telling me, P?”
His movements were slow, and heavy, as if the whole world weighed on his shoulder. He didn’t look at me, but braced his arms against the sink.
“I literally can’t tell you more than I did, Jack. I’ve never lied to you, and I won’t, but if he’s here, he’s here for me,” Perrin said, eyes and tone still just as flat as they had been at the big house.
“What does he want?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” his answer came low, and shaky.
I started to say something, but he held up a hand. Finally pushing off the counter and coming to me, lips and teeth and tongue. We stumbled out of the bathroom, through his room, and into the hallway. Perrin was even colder than usual.
“He’ll hurt you, Jack. Once he finds out he can’t hurt me, it’s what he will do,” Perrin said.
“You don’t know that.”
“He may have done it before. When I left, but before he knew I was gone, a friend of mine was mugged - it seemed random except for the level of violence just to takesomeone’s wallet and phone, but it was the same week that Holden’s behavior sent me packing. I was already in Dresden when I found out, but Icould nevershake the feeling . . .” Perrin looked at me. “You know how you suspect, youfeel, that Rhodes might have done something to cause your injury? It’s like that. Like Iknew.”
“I’m not afraid of him, P. I can access the personnel file, find a . . .”
Perrin cut me off with a quick shake of his head.
“No. Promise me, Jack,” he said, his eyes intense with the piercing gaze reaching his eyes as no emotion had that afternoon. “Promise me you do nothing. Promise.”
“But, I . . .”
He cut me off. “I know you can. I know you could have him gone before he arrives. But, that doesn’t solve the problem. I have to find out why he is here or I look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”
His hands were at my arms, and he was all but shaking me. If I hadn’t been as strong as he was, or almost, he would have been. Suddenly, he realized his hands were on me and he dropped them, giving me a look that I knew meant he was about to rip my heart out. It was full of longing and want and desire and regret, all tossed in a brown sea with golden flecks.
“He can’t know how I feel about you, Jack. Not ever.”
