Dr. Wilson was unmoving, and all of the visible blood appeared to have coagulated. Didn’t that mean he was dead? She saw no spurting, no fresh flowing, and when she tried to focus on his face, neck and hands—the areas with visible skin—she saw no sign of muscle movement. She’d intended to check for a pulse, but realized that she wasn’t brave enough to hold his wrist or place her hand on his neck.

He had to be dead.

Besides, what could she do if he wasn’t? Her minimal CPR skills were rusty, and his injuries might be so extensive that it could do more harm than good if she moved him.

In her mind, Jen saw him suddenly jerking upright, the way a seemingly lifeless body would in a movie, and the thought made her hurry out of the exam room and back to where Anita was just getting off the phone.

“Someone’ll be here in a minute,” Anita said.

They exited the building the way they’d entered, opting to wait outside for the emergency responders.

“Why do you think he did it?” Anita asked.

“Do you think he did it?” Jen responded.

They were both speaking quietly, even though they were outside.

Anita nodded. “It doesn’t look like foul play to me. It looks…self-inflicted. Besides, they say that financial problems are the leading cause of suicide. I mean, he didn’t say anything, but that situation with the car? It seems to me like he was having money troubles.”

Jen shook her head. “I don’t know. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d do something like that.”

“Too arrogant?”

“Well…yeah.”

“You never can tell,” Anita said.

They were both silent after that, waiting.

4

Kyle rifled through the stack of records in the box before him. There was a lot of good stuff in there. He flipped past a complete collection of Joni Mitchell, idly reflecting on the weird vanity of her 1970s album covers, where she’d posed as a sort of buck-toothed sex symbol—naked on For the Roses, in a bikini on The Hissing of Summer Lawns, faux Faye Dunaway chic on Hejira.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking up. “I’d like to buy these, but Brave New World only sells books. Originally, I thought about selling music too, but I don’t really have the space for it, and to be honest I’m not sure there’s that much of a market for records and CDs in Montgomery.”

The man pulled his box back. “That’s okay. Rollie Brown over at Amazing Stories said he’d buy them. I just stopped in to see if you’d give me more.” He lifted the box off the counter. “I guess not.”

“Rollie’s store’s already open?”

“Yep.”

“And he’s calling it Amazing Stories?”