Chapter 4
Sabrina stomped into George's office.
"What do you mean by telling me to get Roxanne out of town.?"
"Well, hello Sabrina. How do you feel today?" George smiled while bracing himself for the explosion.
"Exactly what do you mean by that order of yours?"
"I want to keep this place as quiet as possible. Anyway, she will be more useful to you in Washington. You need her to keep Maggie under control until Julia figures out what to do with her... Sabrina, I read Kira's journal. So did Megan, and of course, Grigorenko. And Maggie is a ticking bomb. She won't stay in the hospital much longer."
"If you repeat any of this.."
"There is no need to threaten, Sabrina. You are not the only one who wants to keep this hushed up. I got plenty of fathers and mothers who want to do just that."
"You are right. But I wanted to stay a bit longer."
"Well, you can't. Roxanne attacked Roger last night, and he's in bad shape."
"Roxanne wouldn't."
"She did it all right. I got confirmation from one of my men. I know that it was Roger who attacked her, and she defended herself. But I cannot say so without blowing the cover of my man, and I want him to keep watching Carolyn. It does not help that Roger is in bad shape now, and Carolyn is furious."
"So it is just easier to ride Roxanne out of town?"
"You know it is."
Barnabas shouldn't have expected a warm reception from either Carolyn or Quentin. Seated apart, their faces drawn, there was little warmth that either felt or wanted to share.
"Julia told me what happened." he began to explain.
"Are you sorry that you are not the one who put him there?" Carolyn said venomously.
"No, I am not."
"That girl was one of your former girlfriends, wasn't she?" Carolyn turned to Iris who had accompanied Barnabas "That's what you are going to look like one of these days if you keep hanging around this cousin of mine."
Iris shrugged. It wasn't worth the trouble of answering.
"And probably the same thing will happen to Roger." Carolyn added truculently.
"It won't" Barnabas tried to calm Carolyn.
"How? With your visiting him? Did you come because she didn't do the job properly and you have to do it yourself?"
"Carolyn..."
Iris tugged at his sleeve. "Better leave" she whispered " it is not worth getting into a screaming family argument."
She led him away to where Roger's doctor was checking his notes.
"Is Roger so bad off?"
"Yes. But he will improve fast. It wasn't so much the loss of blood as the anaphylactic reaction."
"Anaphylactic?"
"You managed to skip that term while reading Dr. Hoffman's books? It means that the walls of the blood vessels become permeable and start leaking plasma to the tissues. If it gets serious enough, the blood vessels collapse because they are not holding enough volume. Stress can cause it. Physical stress, I mean."
"I see." Barnabas thought about it. "That's why I don't get bad reactions myself anymore."
"Yes. When you were taking it by force, you caused a lot of internal bleeding at the same time. It wasn't properly bleeding, but some of the veins did not hold enough volume."
Barnabas shook his head. If he had only known earlier...
"You think that Roger will recover?" he asked.
"I don't see why not. And to be on the safe side, the sheriff ordered the girl to get out of town."
"You can relax, David. Think of nothing." Julia instructed David.
"Is this going to get rid of the wolf? Just lying here and talking to you?" David couldn't help being skeptical.
"It is a good way to start. I need to know more about you." she sighed" but I wish you cooperated more."
"I cooperate, don't I?"
"I am not sure."
"But I do anything you ask me to."
"With the kind of power that Barnabas has over you, you have no choice but to."
"Barnabas has nothing to do with this!"
"There are fresh wounds in your wrist." Julia pointed glacially.
"So?" David looked down at his arm. "All he does is tell me to come back to the cage at the full moon and to keep off drugs."
"Why did you start on drugs?"
David stiffened.
"You see? You are not cooperating."
"But I don't remember!" David protested..
"Don't remember or don't want to?"
"I don't remember! Anyway, what doest it have to do with the wolf? That's what you are treating me for, isn't it?"
"I am treating you for your problems. And personally, I think that drugs are as big a problem as lycanthropy."
Frank Torrance came down the train. Whatever else could be said of this new job in the boondocks, at least it was at a safe distance from Sabrina Jennings and her machinations. And also from the hot, humid weather of Washington, D.C.
He wondered if he'd feel the same way after a couple of Maine winters.
Goodbye cockroaches. Hello mosquitoes. Goodbye foreign film festivals. Hello available parking. Goodbye excitement. Hello low rents.
And he already knew people in this town.
Angelique was waiting for him.
He smiled at her. She smiled back, then began helping him with his bags.
They loaded her car.
"Do you have a place to stay?" she asked.
"A room at the hotel."
"Would you want to move in with me?"
"You didn't say a word in there" Carolyn said to Quentin accusingly.
"There was no need to. You managed nicely."
"As usual, you are useless."
Quentin shrugged "I nearly killed Davenport to please you. If you call that useless..."
"But you failed. You always fail."
"It wasn't my fault."
"It never is. You are such a victim of circumstance. You couldn't help brining Kira and letting her loose. You couldn't know that she was using you instead of the other way around. You just couldn't resist the opportunity to get back at Barnabas and Willie, first from taking your mistress and then for making a fool out of you with the Indians. Poor, poor Quentin. He never gets anywhere."
"I got married to you."
"Yes. You couldn't help that either. It was either marrying me or going to jail for embezzlement." she looked curiously at him. 'How do you do it? You are always in trouble. And stupid trouble, which is worse."
"I.. I try.."
"Yes, you try. You are trying...You are very trying." she turned away. "you bore me, you know that?"
"Why not divorce me, then?"
"You know why not."
"Yes. You want to be Carolyn Collins, and that your children be Collinses too. I provide that magical last name. That I delivered. I stay out of your bed so that you don't have children with the werewolf taint. I do not even ask who are you choosing to impregnate you... I don't even frequent the same places you do."
"Yes." Carolyn said. "You are a real doll. Too bad you never grew up."
Phillip decided that the Old house looked livable enough. There was still some damage left from the riot, but nothing that could not wait to be fixed. And he was tired. After the way he had worked today, he might as well take a rest and practice on the sax.
But no sooner had he blown the first notes when there was a knock on the door.
Sighing, he let Iris in.
"He's gone back to Wyncliffe, I see." Iris said "I thought he'd stay at least one more day."
"He had this case that he was worried about..."
"I guess that I have to learn to accept it."
"Yes, he's moved in with Julia."
"You make it sound like...like he's living with her."
"Well, he is."
"I mean, shacking up..."
"Well, it might be" Phillip could not help teasing Iris. "Julia always had her eye on him."
"It is not funny" Iris said curtly.
"Don't tell me that you are jealous." Phillip was surprised. I thought that you two had this arrangement..."
"Yes, we don't have a commitment " Iris said, trying to remind herself.
"Would you like to have one?"
"A commitment to him?" Iris bit her lip "Do you know what that would mean?"
"That scares you?"
"It would mean not just for months...nor for years...but... It is too long a time...I guess that I have to accept that he has a job out of town."
"It seems that he likes it there."
"Like a kid with a new toy."
"Does he have trouble feeding there?"
"Julia turned him loose among the patients."
"The patients?" there was a slight revulsion in Phillip's voice.
"He's working hard, and his time is worth something. As long as the patients get good service out of him, they are just paying him in kind."
Phillip did not look too convinced.
"And Julia things that if he does that, it enhances his effectiveness as a therapist. He forms stronger bonds with the patients, and thus can treat them better. "
"And you believe that?"
"Julia believes that, and she's the doctor."