Inside she leaned over the laptop and tapped the keyboard. "Excuse me, Charlie."
He heard the bedroom door shut. He sat and watched the in-box fill on the computer screen. A few minutes later she came out wearing a long, cobalt, satin bathrobe. The sash was tight to her waist and the lapels framed her breasts. Her eyes were darkened by new makeup and her lipstick was fresh. She gave him an embarrassed glance.
"Glass of wine?" she asked.
"I'm fine, Seliah. You go ahead."
She was back a moment later with an oversize goblet half-full. She smiled and sat down close to him on the couch. Hood was unhappily aroused. She reached across him and deleted a few messages, then opened the one from Sean. She took a long drink of the wine, then put the glass on the coffee table and set her hand on Hood's knee. From: Sean Gravas [[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2011 9:19 p.m. To: Gravas, Seliah Subject: end of faith Dear Seliah, Tearing up my Bible was a terrible thing. I'm still exhausted by it. It must sound like some kind of symbolic destruction but it wasn't. It was REAL and genuine destruction. I felt a piece of my soul leaving with each page I yanked out. When I saw what happened to Juan Batista I felt personally fooled and betrayed. He was a good man. So was I. AM. I'm moving toward the ACCOMPLISHMENT of the MISSION. Or at least toward the opportunity to accomplish it. If I sound doubtful now instead of optimistic it is only because I AM. I once thought that God led us to the brink of things, to the very edge of the cliff, and helped us do what was best. But now I see that WE lead ourselves to our own cliffs and heights and WE decide what is best.
We are free to be brave and free to be terrified and I am BOTH.
All of this GREAT JOURNEY will lead me back to you. When I'm finished we'll be together. We'll resume our life and begin our FAMILY. We will be THREE then more.
I ache for your touch. I want to be welcomed back into the vast universe of your heart and the warm mystery of your flesh. Your Shooting Star, Sean
Hood felt Seliah's hand tighten on his knee. Surprisingly strong. He heard the rough rumble of her breathing, then a catlike purr from deep inside her. She looked at him and the tears rolled down her cheeks. Her pupils were tiny and there were small beads of perspiration along her upper lip. She turned back to the screen and stared at it, breathing slowly. Hood felt her hand trembling on him. Time passed but the trembling did not. Then Seliah placed her free hand over the hand on Hood's knee, pulled it away and stood.
She was in the bathroom a long time. Then the bedroom. She came out wearing a red silk tank that covered her to mid-thigh and that was apparently all. Her body was damp and lotioned. Her makeup was fresh, her blue eyes set in darkness. Her platinum curtain of hair swayed as she flicked off the living room lights and sat down next to him again, the smell of her surrounding him. He could hear the deep rumble down in her chest again-a catlike purr or the rattle of mucous-he couldn't tell. She leaned into him and put her nose to his ear. Rattle. Purr.
Utterly flummoxed, Hood stood and walked into the dimly lit kitchen and looked back at her. She stared at him for a long moment, almost dreamily, then strode over. She lifted his hand to her lips and watched his eyes while she kissed it. Then she stepped into him and put her arms around him and raised her mouth to his. Hood felt the heat of her breath and the weight of her body and his own swift reaction. He unwrapped her arms and held her at arm's length and tried to read her face in the half-light. Gradually Seliah's dreamy expression became a small smile and she tried to embrace him again but Hood held her away. She was very strong and Hood stumbled and she let him overcorrect and it seemed that she was playing with him. She pulled him in closer without effort, as if he were a toy, and looked at him with an expression unreadable to him. He moved her away and felt the unlikely strength of her arms. She bit at him, her teeth clicking together. She laughed. The laugh ended and the smile departed, and Seliah looked down at herself. She easily broke free of his grip and ran from the kitchen into the bedroom and slammed the door.
Hood stood there in the kitchen with his heart pounding, wondering what to do. His standard default options seemed pointless. He felt as if he'd been led to the edge of chaos and was being asked to jump into it. The water in the master bath went on. He went to the bedroom door and listened.
Then back to the living room. He sat in front of the laptop and rubbed his hands down his face. He looked at her wineglass, empty. She'd had a beer and a bottle and a half of wine with dinner. Another big glass here. But alcohol didn't account for this, just another explanation rendered pointless by Seliah Ozburn.
When she had been gone ten minutes Hood went again to the bedroom door and listened. The water was no longer running.
"Seliah? Seliah?"
The knob turned in his hand and Hood pushed open the door. The room was dark but the light was on in the master bath. She was talking to herself.
"Hang in there, Seliah," she said softly.
"Seliah. I'm coming in."
"Go home. I don't want you here. Hang in there, girl; be steady now."
"Are you all right?"
"I'm all right. Go away."
"I want to see that you're okay."
"Hang in there, Seliah. Get away from me! You're good. You're gonna be just fine, hon. That's it… Hang in there."
He walked to the threshold of the bath. In the hard light Seliah sat on the tile floor near the toilet. She was wearing the red tank and nothing else. She tracked his eyes and lifted the shirt off her thighs and sneered at him. She had handcuffed one wrist to the toilet seat hinge. Saliva hung from her chin. With her free hand she swept it away and wiped it on the tile.
He drooled all down his shirt and pants. He growled like a wolf. He became strong as a chupacabra. He bit and raped his wife for four days. He repented and locked himself here to die. To save her life.
Hood took a step in and sat on his haunches on the floor a few feet away from her and looked only at her eyes.
"Let's get you to a doctor."
"Why?"
"Look at you."
Her sneer had dropped away. "A pretty girl drinks a little too much and wants to kiss you, so you call a doctor? Maybe the doctor should be for you."
"I want a good doctor to take a look at you."
"Oh, all right."
"That was easy, Sel."
She raised her rump and with her free hand pulled the tank to cover her more and held it there. She sighed. "I know you're right. You can't believe how tired I am."
"I mean tonight. Now."
"Okay, Charlie. I know you're a true friend. I was trying to protect you. See? I flushed the key. These cuffs are Sean's. I don't know why the Juan Batista story affected me so strongly. I feel very drunk."
He was not crazy. He went with the devil.
Was he an evil man?
No. He always loved God.
If he loved God, why did he go to the devil?
The devil came to him. In the caves of his blood.
"I'm going to call for the paramedics, Seliah. They can help."
"Are you going to leave me locked up until they get here?"
"Yeah."
"Good thinking. But you better stay here and keep an eye on me because I could chew off my arm and escape. Come, sit right here."
She let go of her blouse and patted her palm on the tile beside her.
"I'm good here, Seliah."
She laughed. "Charlie, if you get in range, I'm going to yank you close and kiss your cute little mouth right off. Then I'll eat you alive. Stop that, Seliah! Hang in there, girl."
Her smile collapsed and she wiped her chin again and the tears came down her face in rivers.
Hood sat on the bed and called Soriana, who said he could circumvent the ER. He'd also get some of Seliah's background information to the examining physician ahead of time. She sobbed and talked to herself, then went quiet. When Hood went back into the bathroom she was asleep with her head on the toilet lid and a hand towel folded over for a pillow. He could have used his ATF hand-cuff key to set her free but he left her sleeping as she was. The doctor was Tim Brennan, a general practitioner affiliated with San Clemente Hospital. He was young and cheerful for being called from home to work at ten thirty p.m. He let them into a small examination room.
Seliah was calm. After the paramedics arrived, Hood had taken off her cuffs and she'd gotten into a simple white tee and the hiker's pants and athletic shoes of earlier in the day. Now she sat uncomfortably upon the exam table, looking close to exhaustion. Brennan asked a thousand questions and made notes on a yellow legal pad with a thick wood-bodied pen. Hood stayed for the interview and sat in an empty waiting room down the hallway while she was examined. The TV was on but Hood muted it and thought about Seliah while images of her terrible beauty flashed out of order through his brain.
Brennan found him there and sat down in the chair beside him. Hood glanced at the closed door of the examination room. "I want to keep her tonight. She's okay with that. She's very tired and fairly intoxicated. I've given her a light sedative. I took some blood and a urine sample and now she can get some rest. Tomorrow we'll probably have a vastly improved young woman. I've got a few questions for you, Deputy Hood. I got most of this from Agent Mars over the phone, but the husband, Sean, he's been living away from home for how long?"
"Fifteen months."
"Isn't that long for an undercover assignment?"
"A year is usually tops but this one was… Well, it was especially important."
"ATF tries to control guns going south into Mexico?"
Hood nodded.
"So Sean Ozburn, working undercover, is active in infiltrating the criminal drug cartels, posing as a gun seller or buyer or what have you?"
"That's what we do."
"Has anything happened recently to Sean that could be a precipitator to Seliahs behavior? Some disaster or very negative event?"
Soriana's job, not mine, thought Hood. "No."
"Is there any chance you could bring him back from his assignment, or whatever you call it? Just let him come home and help take care of his wife?"
"He can't return right now. Soon, we hope."
"I understand. Seliah probably started feeling the stress well over a year ago-before her husband even left. And that stress has continued to build for a very long period of time. Still, she has a clear grasp of the world around her, and of herself. We'll determine which of her symptoms are real and which ones might be imagined, or stress-related. We have tests for just about everything, as you know. My job right now is to find out if what she says is going on really is going on. She's got a respiratory tract infection for certain, and a low fever. She says she's had dramatic mood swings and emotional outbursts, in addition to the physical symptoms. Speaking generally, I think she's a strong woman with a bad chest flu who has reached the end of that strength."
"It's more than flu and stress."
"Very possibly, but don't underestimate the flu virus. Seliah has an odd group of symptoms. Influenza is most likely, Deputy. She could also be hypo- or hyperthyroid. An autoimmune disease comes to mind. So does drug abuse-meth, cocaine, prescription-they'll show up in the blood tests. And again, we treat a lot of the worried-well. This could all be rooted in stress and anxiety. Very anxious people often exhibit these unusual symptoms, ones that don't fit together and don't make sense."
Hood said nothing for a long moment. "Sean had the same symptoms a month ago."
"One more reason to think virus."
"They both got strong. Physically strong. Anger. Some violence."
"Oh? She didn't mention that."
"Sean was more prone to it. But even Seliah-more hostile and aggressive than I've ever seen her."
Brennan looked at his watch. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"
"I've gotten to know her over the last year and a half or so. Through Sean. She's changed dramatically in the last few days."
Brennan nodded. "Changed how?"
"She was an athlete, spiritually concerned, a squared-away woman," said Hood. "She was positive and poised. She loved her husband and liked her job and wanted to start a family. A little over one hour ago she was coming on to me sexually, aggressively. When I didn't take her up on it, she handcuffed herself to the toilet and started talking to herself. She was drooling. Did she tell you what happened tonight?"
Brennan looked skeptically at Hood. "She said nothing about sexual aggression or increased saliva production. She didn't drool, either, although I heard mucous in her respiratory tract with the stethoscope. There's certainly an infection. She did tell me about dinner with you and drinking way more than she usually does. Has this happened before?"
Hood sighed and looked down. "No."
"Are you having an affair, you and Seliah?"
"No, Doctor."
"It's not my business but it could be a factor. Don't you think that loneliness and alcohol and a strong attraction to a friend could explain the sexual advances?"
Hood shook his head and looked to the closed door of the examination room. "I don't think you know how sick she is."
"No, I truly don't. But I'm going to find out how sick she is, Deputy Hood. And how well she is. I'm going to do everything in my power to make her better."
He took a card from his wallet and wrote on the back. He was handing Hood his card when the exam room door opened and Seliah's head poked out. "You didn't forget about me, did you, guys?" On his way back to Buenavista Hood called Soriana, who listened to Hood's story and request without interruption. Twenty minutes later he called back to say that with the ATF budget down to a trickle he couldn't approve international travel to interview a relatively minor background witness. He apologized and said the priest could be back in Ireland for all they knew. State could send someone out from the consulate, he said, and talk to the priest, though that would probably take some time.
Hood said he understood and he'd need a few days off. Soriana wished him luck. Hood booked the LAX-to-San Jose flight for the next morning on his own credit card. It was fabulously expensive this late in the game, and his modest frequent-flier miles did not apply to the non-reclining middle seat.
At home he packed up four days' worth of clothes and toiletries and his laptop. A lady friend, Beth Petty, had left him a message to say she missed him and looked forward to their "next couple of seconds together, whatever century that might be in." She was an ER doctor at Imperial Mercy Hospital here in Buenavista, and between their two demanding careers, hours together were rare. She was beautiful and unfettered and Hood missed her pointedly. She was often in his thoughts. Sometimes he would pretend she was watching him doing whatever he was doing and this made him proud and want to do it even better. His dreams were comfortable with her. When he read Sean Ozburn's hot letters to Seliah, they made him think of Beth. He checked his watch: She was working the graveyard shift at Imperial Mercy.
He looked at a framed picture on his kitchen counter of them together at a Bradley and Erin's wedding. Beth was wearing a beige knit dress with glints of mother-of-pearl worked into it, and her dirty-blond hair was up and her eyes were chocolate brown. She had on a sapphire necklace and earrings. Beth and Hood were relaxed and leaning into each other. She was almost as tall as him. She was smiling. To Hood she had been heart-stopping that day, and she was heart-stopping in his memory and in the picture, too.
He double-checked to make sure he had his passport and the U.S. Marshal's badge that would allow him to carry on his gun and a spare magazine. He wrote Beth a blunt note as was his style, and found a very nice piece of quartz outside. The desert around Buenavista was filled with rocks that during the day would twinkle like lights across his field of sight, all the way to the great curving end of his vision-miles of sparks and jewels. He and Beth went on excursions to collect them, sometimes tracking a particular bright beacon across the rough desert, then lugging it and others in Hood's SUV for use on his walkways and in Beth's abundant cactus and succulent garden.
At his kitchen sink Hood rinsed and sponged the rock until the clear crystal facets shone. They were pink. He shut down the house, left on a couple of lights and hit the road for L.A. It was two in the morning, which would put him at the terminal on time for the 7:10 flight. He was exhausted.
But he swung by Imperial Mercy anyway and plucked a few humble gazanias from the planter outside and left them with the note and rock at Dr. Petty's station in the ER. She was nowhere to be seen. Hood waited a few minutes in hope of glimpsing her for just a moment, but she did not appear. He saw that Beth's world was badly in need of her at this hour as he waded back out through the ocean of the sick and injured and the halt and lame, the terrified and stupefied and, rising among them like swollen islands, the destitute pregnant, solid evidence that life goes on.