Page 16 of Absinthe Dreams
“How about at the beginning?” he asked and took a sip out of his own glass. He made a face like it wasn’t half bad and took another sip.
“First, how much do you know about NOLA Mass Gen and how it operates?”
“I don’t know shit about fuck,” he answered, and again, it made me laugh.
“Fair,” I said, and I gave him the rundown about the rotating schedules and how I rotated out of the ER quarterly. About the Palliative Care ward, and how I discovered what Belmar was doing.
“Then he bounced?” he asked.
“After a fashion,” I said. “He’s in the wind, alright, but then I started getting flowers and notes.”
“You got ‘em?” he asked.
“The notes?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” I got up, went to the kitchen, and pulled them out of the same junk drawer that I’d kept Chainsaw’s card in, including the latest one that’d come with the roses.
I went back into the living room and handed them over. He said, “Give ‘em to me in the order you received them.”
“Okay.” I went through them and handed him the first one, then the next, and the next, and the next until we’d been through them all.
“You went to the cops?” he asked.
“Several times over,” I said. “They basically told me that they couldn’t do anything until he actually did something.”
“I’d say the dead cats are certainly something…” he said.
“I figured all the people he killed in the hospital would have been enough, but silly me, I guess.”
“Why’d you hang onto my card?” he asked me. “Especially after all this time?”
I licked my lips and told him the truth. “My dad was in the life.”
“Was he now?” he asked. “Why didn’t you call him?”
“My dad and his brothers are all in poor health and aging. They’re all retired, if there is such a thing, from things. I didn’t want to risk any of them.”
“You’re a good girl,” he said thoughtfully, and I had to snort at that.
“I’m no angel,” I said. “I called you, knowing what would happen, didn’t I?”
“Eh, to a serial killer, I think your scales are still tipped toward good over bad for that.”
“Maybe, but who am I to be judge, jury, and executioner?” I asked.
“Deep breath, beautiful,” he said. “We’re not here for existential and moral quandaries. I’m here because you called and I told you, if you ever needed someone taken care of, I’d take care of it. I meant it.”
“Why?” I asked, wide-eyed, and he held my gaze with his.
“Because you took care of me,” he said, and plucked at the heavy cross-stitching at one of his shoulders.
I cocked my head and asked, “Same one?”
“You know it,” he said.
I smiled faintly at that.H
