She was perched on the edge of the toilet seat. She had taken off her navy blazer and her white blouse; the latter lay blood-soaked on the sink. He hadn’t realized she’d been bleeding. Darkness and the blazer had hidden the blood from him.
As he stepped into the restroom, he saw that she had shaped a compress of sorts from a wad of wet paper towels. She was pressing it to her left pectoral muscle, above her breast.
“That one shot on the beach,” he said numbly. “You were hit.”
“The bullet passed through,” she said. “There’s an exit wound in back. Nice and clean. I haven’t even bled all that much, and the pain is tolerable… So why am I getting weaker?”
“Internal bleeding,” he suggested, wincing as he looked at the exit wound in her back.
“I know anatomy,” she said. “I took the hit in just the right spot. Couldn’t have picked it better. Shouldn’t be any damage to major vessels.”
“The round might have hit a bone and fragmented. The fragment maybe didn’t come out, took a different track.”
“I was so thirsty. Tried to drink some water from the faucet. Almost passed out when I bent over.”
“This settles it,” he said. His heart was racing. “We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”
“Get me to Nina.”
“Rose, damn it—”
“Nina can heal me,” she said, and as she spoke, she looked guiltily away from him.
Astonished, he said, “Heal you?”
“Trust me. Nina can do what no doctor can, what no one else on earth can do.”
At that moment, on some level, he knew at least one of Rose Tucker’s remaining secrets, but he could not allow himself to take out that dark pearl of knowledge and examine it.
“Help me get my blouse and blazer on, and let’s go. Get me into Nina’s hands. Her healing hands.”
Though half sick with worry, he did as she wanted. As he dressed her, he remembered how larger than life she had seemed in the cemetery Saturday morning. Now she was so small.
Through a hot clawing wind that mimicked the songs of wolves, she leaned on him all the way back to the car.
When he got her settled in the passenger’s seat, she asked if he would get her something to drink.
From a vending machine in front of the station, he purchased a can of Pepsi and one of Orange Crush. She preferred the Crush, and he opened it for her. Before she accepted the drink, she gave him two things: the Polaroid photograph of his family’s graves, and the folded dollar-bill on which the serial number, minus the fourth digit, provided the phone number at which Mark of lnfiniface could be reached in an emergency. “And before you start driving, I want to tell you how to find the cabin in Big Bear—in case I can’t hold on until we get there.”
“Don’t be silly. You’ll make it.”
“Listen,” she said, and again she projected the charisma that commanded attention.
He listened as she told him the way, and his familiarity with the Big Bear area was such that he didn’t need to write down the directions.
“And as for Infiniface,” she said, “I trust them, and they are my natural allies—and Nina’s—as Mark said. But I’m afraid they can be too easily infiltrated. That’s why I wouldn’t let them come with us tonight. But if we’re not followed, then this car is clean, and maybe their security is good enough. If worse comes to worst and you don’t know where to turn… they may be your best hope.”
His chest tightened and his throat thickened as she spoke, and finally he said, “I don’t want to hear any more of this. I’ll get you to Nina in time.”
Rose’s right hand trembled now, and Joe was not certain that she could hold the Orange Crush. But she managed it, drinking thirstily.
As he drove back onto the San Bernardino Freeway, heading east, she said, “I’ve never meant to hurt you, Joe.”
“You haven’t.”
“I’ve done a terrible thing though.”
He glanced at her. He didn’t dare ask what she had done. He kept that shiny black pearl of knowledge tucked deep in the purse of his mind.