into words, but he couldn’t stop himself: “What if he called from the
Jamisons?”
“He didn’t,” she said.
But Jack was abruptly obsessed with that horrendous possibility, and he
could not control the morbid compulsion to say it aloud, even though the
words brought hideous images to him.
“What if he killed all of them-”
(Mangled bodies.)
“-killed Penny and Davey-”
(Eyeballs torn from sockets.)
“-killed Faye and Keith-”
(Throats chewed open.)
“-and then called from right there-”
(Fingertips bitten off.)
“-called me from right there in the apartment, for Christ’s sake-”
(Lips torn, ears hanging loose.)
“-while he was standing over their bodies! ”
She had been trying to interrupt him. Now she shouted at him: “Stop
torturing yourself, Jack! We’ll make it in time.”
“How the hell do you know we’ll make it in time?”
he demanded angrily, not sure why he was angry with her, just striking
out at her because she was a convenient target, because he couldn’t
strike out at Lavelle or at the weather that was hindering him, and
because he had to strike out at someone, something, or go absolutely
crazy from the tension that was building in him like excess current
flowing into an already overcharged battery.
“You can’t know!”
“I know,” she insisted calmly. “Just drive.”
“Goddamnit, stop patronizing me!”
“Jack-”
“He’s got my kids!”
He accelerated too abruptly, and the car immediately began to slide
toward the right-hand curb.
He tried to correct their course by pulling on the steering wheel,
instead of going along with the slide and turning into the direction of
it, and even as he realized his mistake the car started to spin, and for
a moment they were traveling sideways-and Jack had the gutwrenching
feeling that they were going to slam into the curb at high speed, tip,
and roll over-but even as they continued to slide they also continued to
swing around on their axis until they were completely reversed from
where they had been, a full one hundred and eighty degrees, half the
circumference of a circle, now sliding backwards along the street,
looking out the icy windshield at where they had been instead of at
where they were going, and still they turned, turned like a carousel,
until at last the car stopped just short of one entire revolution.
With a shudder engendered by a mental image of what might have happened
to them, but aware that he couldn’t waste time dwelling on their close
escape, Jack started up again. He handled the wheel with even greater
caution than before, and he pressed his foot lightly and slowly down on
the accelerator.
Neither he nor Rebecca spoke during the wild spin, not even to cry out
in surprise or fear, and neither of them spoke for the next block,
either.
Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”
“I understand. You were crazy with worry.”
“Still am. No excuse. That was stupid of me. I won’t be able to help
the kids if I kill us before we ever get to Faye’s place.”
“I understand what you’re going through,” she said again, softer than
before. “It’s all right. And everything’ll be all right, too.”
He knew that she did understand all the complex thoughts and emotions
that were churning through him and nearly tearing him apart. She
understood him better than just a friend could have understood, better
than just a lover. They were more than merely compatible; in their
thoughts and perceptions and feelings, they were in perfect sympathy,
physically and psychologically synchronous. It had been a long time
since he’d had anyone that close, that much a part of him. Eighteen
months, in fact. Since Linda’s death. Not so long, perhaps,
considering he had never expected it to happen again. It was good not
to be alone any more.
“Almost there, aren’t we?” she asked.
“Two or three minutes,” he said, hunching over the wheel, peering ahead
nervously at the slick, snowy street.
The windshield wipers, thickly crusted with ice, grated noisily back and
forth, cleaning less and less of the glass with each swipe they took at
it.
Lavelle got up from his rocking chair.