Chapters (57)
“I think Sandra Czernin would go anywhere if she thought it gave April a fighting chance. Lotty, I keep worrying that I should have noticed something before she collapsed.”
She shook her head. “Sometimes there may be a fainting spell—you say the mother reports one last summer—but often these collapses come out of the blue, with no warning.”
“I’m afraid to go to school Monday,” I confessed. “I’m afraid to ask any of these girls to run up and down the court for me. What if there’s another one with some time bomb ticking in her chest or brain?”
Morrell squeezed my hand. “Tell the school they have to test the girls before you’ll continue the program. I’m sure the moms would agree, at least enough of them to force the school to take action.”
“Bring them up to the clinic and I’ll do EKGs on them, or Lucy will,” Lotty offered.
She was meeting Max Loewenthal for dinner; she invited Morrell and me to join her, which seemed like a welcome change of pace to both of us. We went to one of the little bistros that have sprung up on the North Side, one that had a wine list Max likes, and lingered late over a bottle of Côte du Rhône. Despite my worries and injuries, it was the most pleasant evening I’d spent since Marcena’s arrival.
In the cab home, I fell asleep against Morrell’s shoulder. When we got to my place, I stood drowsily on the curb, holding his walking stick while he paid off the driver. In the way you don’t really notice things when you’re half asleep, I saw a Bentley across the street, a man in a chauffeur’s uniform at the wheel. I saw the lights in my living room, without thinking about it, but when we’d made our slow way up the stairs, and I saw my apartment door ajar, I woke up in a hurry.
“I’m going inside,” I muttered to Morrell. “If I’m not out in two minutes, call 911.”
He wanted to argue about which of us got to be the hero, or the fool, but he had to agree that between my injuries and his, I was the one in better shape—and I was the one with street-fighting smarts.
Before either of us could do anything, heroic or foolhardy, Peppy and Mitch started barking and whining from the far side of my door. I kicked the door all the way open, then flattened myself against the wall. The two dogs bounded out to greet us. My lips compressed now more with annoyance than fear, I followed them in.