41
ASHLEIGH MATTHEWS SAT in a waiting room at Duke University Medical Center idly flipping through the pages of a dog-eared copy of Cosmopolitan. The only other person in the room—a man—surfed the channels on a TV mounted high on a wall.
Her brother David had been in surgery for five hours and she'd heard nothing from the doctor. She dropped the magazine on the seat next to her and walked to the nurse's station. "Have you heard anything about how things are going with David's operation? How much longer it might be?"
"The doctor will come and speak with you just as soon as he's out of surgery."
"Does it usually take this long?"
"What they're doing with David? Yes."
"Thank you."
Ashleigh paced to a window, stopped, and scanned the view. The TV paused on each channel just long enough to hear six or seven words before jumping to another. She addressed the man. "Do you have to keep doing that?"
He looked up surprised. "Sorry. I didn't realize I was doing it. It drives my wife crazy, too."
"Thanks." The TV had stopped on a local Durham station doing a newscast. "An explosion and fire claimed the lives of three women in Wrightsville Beach last night..."
The man leaned forward, set the remote on a table in front of him, and sat back. "We've only been married about a year. Last month we found out she has breast cancer."
"I'm very sorry," Ashleigh said stepping closer to the TV as video of the burned out ruins played on the screen.
"...and destroyed a luxurious three-story ocean-front house in what police believe was an attempt to eradicate evidence in the murder of a woman whose body had been found hours earlier at another Wrightsville location. Police are seeking two men for questioning in the case—one unidentified, and one named Dane Bonner. In a related story, the body of the man killed in an explosion and fire that ripped through a 1998 Corvette less than two hours later at a truck stop along I-40 has not yet been identified. The Corvette, however, was registered in the name of Dane Bonner and police are looking into both incidents to see if they are related."
Ashleigh felt her chest tighten.
"Ashleigh?" a man's voice called from across the room.
She turned to discover Dr. Harry Tatum standing in an open doorway. He was dressed in green scrubs with slip-on covers over his shoes and a white mask dangling under his chin. As she hastened to him, the Looney Tunes characters on his surgical cap —Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, and Sylvester—eased the tension she felt in her neck.
"Everything went extremely well." His voice was relaxed and positive. "He's in recovery now. We don't know yet how well this new artificial skin is going to work, but if it goes like we think it will, he's eventually going to have his face back."
"Can I see him?"
"After he wakes up and we get him into a room. But," he waved a finger at me. "I'm warning you, Ashleigh, he's not going to look good. Probably not for weeks."
Her eyes reddened. "I understand."
"Now go get a bite to eat and check back around four." He flashed a warm smile.
"Okay. Thank you."
"You bet."
Dr. Tatum nodded and stepped back, the door slowly swallowing him. Ashleigh turned back to the TV News. They were now running a commercial. She got her coat and pulled it on.
"Good news, I hope," the man said.
"Yes. Yes it was." She picked up her handbag. Yes. It was very good news.
WHEN MARTHA GOT HOME, she called Skeeter Barnes, a former contact she'd had at the police department, and left a message saying that she needed a license plate run and asked him to give her a call. She left the plate number as well as her telephone number then unfolded the sheet of newspaper Sydney had picked up at the beach. It was dated June 22, 1986. She scanned the front and then the back, but saw nothing of any value. Her computer beeped and an instant message popped up on her screen. It was from Skeeter.
"U back in the biz?"
She smiled and typed, "Still working my case. How ya been?"
The reply came quickly. "I miss all the trouble u used 2 get me n2."
She typed, "He he! U r 2 nice. Get anything on that number?"
"Cadillac Escalade reg'd 2 Dane Bonner, Charleston, SC."
"U look for anything else on him?"
"Blank—like he don't exist."
"Thanks. IOU. CU later. "
Martha pressed the "Enter" key and sat back. She missed the things she used to do—sniffing out a good story, following leads, putting the pieces together, and solving mysteries and puzzles while uncovering the crooks and their plans. Mostly, though, she missed her friends and contacts.
She missed her life!
She sighed and googled "Dane Bonner." The monitor finally displayed one, then two links. After several minutes of searching, it still had only returned a few 1986 newspaper articles from The Journal News of Yonkers, New York. She clicked on one titled "Yonkers Youth Sought" and began reading.
Eighteen-year-old Dane Bonner of the Methodist Home for Boys is still being sought by Yonkers Police for questioning in the death of twenty-two-year old Robert Scott McGillikin, a former resident of the home, killed in a recent car crash.
She stared at the name. Scott McGillikin? What is this? She read on.
Bonner is thought to have been in the car at the time of the accident, but has yet to be located. McGillikin was a 1982 graduate of Roosevelt High and a 1986 graduate of the University of North Carolina.
Martha opened the other two links and they, too, were about the same incident. She tried several more search engines, but found nothing more than the same three articles. Her eyes dropped to the newspaper Sydney had picked up at the house. The banner read The Journal News. Her eyes jumped to the date. Tuesday June 17, 1986. She unfolded the page, scanned it again, and in the lower left corner on the back side under obituaries she found a listing for Robert Scott McGillikin, 22, of Yonkers, NY.
AT LUNCH, I NOTICED THAT SYDNEY HAD CHANGED. She was now quiet, serene. Her cheeks were still flushed when we placed our orders—a house salad with ginger dressing for her, a Reuben for me.
"You look dazzling," I said, leaning forward keeping my voice low. She smiled, looking down to smooth the cloth napkin in her lap. It felt so right to be there with her—as if I'd come home after being away for half a lifetime. I knew it was love, but I was afraid to say it. Not yet. I chuckled instead.
"What's so funny?" she asked, her eyes sparkling.
"Oh. Nothing. I'm just...happy."
She reached across the table and touched my hand. "Me, too." She waited for the waitress to leave our beverages, then asked, "So why haven't you ever gotten married?"
"Man, you do get right to the heart of things. Don't you?"
"People say I'm direct."
"I almost did, once." I touched my fingers to my glass, but didn't lift it. "I dated a girl for two years right after college that I thought I was going to marry. Then one day she took off with someone else, and I haven't dated much since. Maybe I'm just too choosy. But when you've been hurt like I was, you learn to look for the warning signs before jumping back into the fire."
"Like what?"
"Like if a person is manipulative, jealous, self-centered, or critical of the things you do before you're married, I think you can count on that still being there after you're married. Probably more so."
"I'm self-centered."
"In what way?"
"I spend most of my time thinking about and working on the dance studio."
"I see that as a positive trait."
"I'm also a perfectionist."
"So?"
"You wouldn't want to be married to a perfectionist would you?"
I lifted her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. "I'd marry you." She pulled her hand back glancing to see if anyone was watching. As her eyes came back to mine, she blushed and I could feel her trying to read my thoughts. We took our time with lunch, laughed often, and occasionally touched each other as we filled each other in on our hopes, dreams, and dreads.
After lunch Sydney took me back to the bike and headed off to work. I followed her for a short distance before heading downtown to check on things at the photography studio.
AT THE STOPLIGHT near the university's Randall Library, Sydney watched lovers walking hand in hand laughing and chatting, and thought about how different Richard was from Scott. How handsome he had become with a little age. He was gentle and considerate, positive and caring, and his eyes danced when he looked at her in a way she hadn't seen in a long time.
The car behind her honked drawing Sydney back to reality. She pressed the gas pedal, glanced at the car behind her in the mirror, and thought she saw Scott leaning over the steering wheel of his silver Porsche. She looked up at the stoplights passing over her—still red—and barely got a glimpse of the Lowe's delivery truck before it collided with her van.