In the hospital that Wednesday night, or maybe it was into Thursday morning already, I was enjoying the painkillers too much to open my eyes, but I heard Detective Barrone just fine. “He admits to having sex with Angela but denies he put her up to burning Nicole. He insists his father would have disowned him if he found out he was in any way responsible for the acid attack, not to mention withholding information about the perpetrator. Apparently no Bendix has ever not been admitted to Harvard.”
“Those calls,” my father said. “What’d you want to talk with me about anyway?”
“I wanted your expertise. I’d interviewed Angela Sammick’s art teacher, and she’d shown me some of Angela’s work. Some of the pictures looked vaguely familiar, as if she’d copied some paintings that an art historian would be able to identify at a glance. I was looking for you to save me some time.”
“And why are you here now?” my father said.
“To check in on your son. I’m glad he’s all right.”
“So you’re dropping the obstruction of justice charge?”
“No.”
Later, I woke hungry. My father was still there, dozing in a chair at my bedside. I pretended to be asleep, enjoying the fact that we could be in the same room and relatively peaceful, even if it was a hospital room. The doctor came in. I watched through slit eyes as he showed my father the latest MRI on his iPad. “He’ll be fine,” the doctor said. “I’m releasing him tomorrow. But I just wanted to make you aware that your son has significant scar tissue buildup in his frontal lobe.”
“I am aware of that, Doctor,” my father said.
“This is not from what happened last night,” the doctor said.
“I know.”
“This is from an older injury-”
“I get it, okay? I get it.” He got up and went to the window and ran his hands through his hair, pulling it.
The next morning, Thursday, I felt a soft hand on my cheek. I opened my eyes. Nicole looked beat up, but she was trying to smile. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to leave the house.”
“I snuck out.”
“Can you sneak me out?” I took the saline IV out myself, got dressed, and we just walked out, no problem. We stopped in the hospital cafeteria to pick up my father. He’d gone down to grab coffee, but now he wasn’t there. I tried his cell, no pickup. I texted him to let him know I would meet him at home.
We went to the diner. Nicole seemed oddly relaxed-not happy, but calm. The real Recluse was still out there, and Nicole didn’t seem to care. I was beginning to think Schmidt was right. The guy who paid to have Nicole burned had gotten what he’d wanted, and he’d gotten away with it.
Nicole picked up on my anger. “It doesn’t help,” she said. “Believe me, if it did, I’d have no problem hating them day and night, Angela and whoever put her up to this.”
“And Dave?”
She looked down at her burger. She’d only had a bite. She pushed her plate away.