Play Dead

They were only a foot away from the study’s doorway when Laura tripped over the bronze bust of Keats. She lost her footing and began to topple forward. Her hands tried to move in front of her to cushion the fall, but they did not move fast enough. Her head caught the edge of doorframe, sending shards of pain through her skull. Dizziness swam through her.

Have to get up, she thought through the murk. Have to get up and drag Judy out of here.

Laura’s throat felt like it was being stomped on. Black smoke was everywhere now. She gasped for air and struggled to a sitting position, the flames licking at her feet. Her head reeled with pain. Her limbs felt like large blocks of lead.

Have to move. Have to do something . . .

She crawled slowly and reached out for Judy. The dull ache in her head consumed her. Breathing became impossible. Laura stopped moving. Her eyes rolled back. Her hand never made it to her aunt.

As Laura lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor, a powerful arm circled her waist and scooped her up.

25

FOR the tourists, it was a unique photo opportunity. Here, in the lobby of the Pacific International Hotel, a mammoth local sheriff sprinted through the front door at breakneck speed, almost shattering the glass. Graham hurdled over suitcases, darted deftly between hotel guests, dashed across the tile floor. Without slowing, he made a left at the receptionist desk, traveled another twenty yards before finally pausing in front of a door that read GENERAL MANAGER. He grabbed the knob, not bothering to knock, and turned it.

“Where are they?”

Gina Cassler looked up from her desk. “Good Lord, Graham, you’re all out of breath.”

He heaved in oxygen. “Not important,” he managed. “Where are the passport cards?”

She shook her head. “They’re in my file cabinet. Will you relax and sit down?”

Graham collapsed into the chair like a punctured lung. “Hand them over, luv.”

She took out a key and unlocked the file cabinet behind her. “I wanted to keep them safe for you.”

“I appreciate that.”

Her hand reached into the cabinet. “Can I get you something to drink, Graham?”

“In a minute, thanks.”

She took hold of a large manila envelope and pulled it out of the file. “Here they are,” she said.

“Have you looked through them yet?”

“Looked through them?” she repeated, tossing the envelope across her desk. “For what? I don’t even know what you’re looking for.”

Graham nodded, satisfied. He took hold of the envelope and ripped it open. “Was there any problem getting these?”

“None.”

“No one asked you why you needed them?”

“I told them I kept superlative records but one of my staff members had carelessly misplaced some data.”

Once again, Graham looked around the paper-cluttered room. “They bought that?”

She nodded. “Lucky for you they’ve never seen this office.”

He shrugged, slipped the cards out of the envelope, and began to sort through them. He piled the ones filled out by Americans on the side.

“What do you want to drink, Graham?”

Without looking up, he said, “Whiskey.”

Gina reached behind her into the same file cabinet and withdrew a bottle. She poured some into two shot glasses and passed one of them to Graham’s side of the desk. He ignored it.

“Find anything yet?” she asked.

Graham shook his head and continued to flip through the cards. When he was finished, he picked up the pile of the ones he had sorted out. He skimmed through them. On the upper corner of each card, a receptionist had jotted down the room numbers. The name and address were underneath that, followed by the nationality (most Americans just wrote USA), the passport number, date of issue, place of issue. When he reached the passport card that had room 607 scribbled on the top, he checked out the address. Boston, Massachusetts. Then he read the name. A hammer blow struck Graham’s heart. He read the name again.

“Sweet Jesus . . .”

“Graham, are you all right?”

The other cards slipped through his hands and onto the floor. Graham grabbed the shot glass in front of him and threw the liquid contents down his throat.

“Mary Ayars,” he said, “Laura’s mother.”

DR. Eric Clarich had lived in Hamilton, New York, since he was three years old. He had attended John Quincy Adams Elementary School, Heritage Junior High School, Hamilton High School, Colgate University. In fact, the only time he had lived outside of freezing-cold Hamilton was during his days of medical school at Cornell. Even his residency and internship had been performed at the hospital nearest to the home of his childhood, adolescence, and college years.

Eric was what prep school students would call a townie. Many claimed that his devotion and, indeed, obsession with Hamilton was dangerous. Dr. Eric Clarich’s lack of exposure to the outside world, they claimed, would cause his outlook to be somewhat myopic. Perhaps that was true. But Eric did not worry about it very much. He had his life here. Delta, his high school sweetheart-turned- wife, was pregnant with child number two. His new and growing practice was doing well. Life was good, solid. There was even talk of having Eric run for town council next year.

“Isn’t she that famous model?” one of the nurses asked him.

Eric nodded solemnly. Two women had just been rushed into the emergency room. One he recognized; the other he knew very well. The two women were also related, he knew, the younger being the niece of the older. Eric had first met the older woman more than a decade ago. Professor Judy Simmons had brought Shakespeare to life for a sophomore Eric Clarich, offering insights and reflections that stunned and stimulated the lucky students who had been selected to take her class. She prided herself on being easily accessible to her students and Eric took full advantage of that fact. He would never forget the hours they had chatted over cups of herbal tea in both her faculty office and her home study. Now, from what he had been told, that study and indeed her entire home were little more than ashes.

Memories drifted gently across Eric’s mind. Professor Judy Simmons had written a glowing recommendation to Cornell’s medical school describing Eric as “a true Renaissance man.” Describing someone as being truly Renaissance, she explained, was the ultimate compliment. Many would-be doctors could claim a cold, impersonal knowledge of the sciences, but how many could combine that with a glowing love of literature and the arts? That, she surmised in her letter, was what made Eric Clarich, her student and friend, stand above the rest.