He was about to get up from the bench when his phone rang. It was Josefa Alvarez, who took care of Calista Carlino. She was at a hospital and in tears. “Calie’s had a stroke. Please come, come quickly, David, she’s dying.”

| 54 |

When David arrived at the hospital’s intensive-care unit, Emily’s mother had already passed. Weeping, Josefa Alvarez held fast to him for consolation.

He couldn’t tell if the small room was warm or not, for cold radiated outward from his marrow. He wasn’t able to stop trembling. White ceiling and walls, white floor, white bedsheets, white fluorescent light: It was a room in an ice palace.

Deep in grief, Josefa went home while David remained at Calista’s bedside, waiting for the attending physician who, he’d been promised, would shortly speak with him.

The lady lay as though sleeping, her mouth and eyes closed. Although she was pale, death had not lined her face or left her with a tortured expression. She was still lovely and appeared to be in perfect health, though she would not ever open her eyes or speak to break this last of all silences.

David gripped the bed railing to steady himself. His legs were weak. He recalled what Maddison said about feeling as though society had gone mad, as if she were in free fall through all the madness. After the events of the past six days, especially after the bizarre experience in the Ockland residence with the venomous Linette, David was filled with foreboding, with the conviction that he was on the verge of a long fall into an abyss.

He blamed himself for failing Calista just as he had failed Emily. On the one hand, this sense of guilt was irrational. On the other hand . . . he knew why perhaps he should feel at fault, though he was afraid to consider the issue too closely. Not here, not yet.

A nurse entered the room and expressed her condolences as she gently drew the sheet over Calista’s face.

Pushing a gurney, an orderly followed close behind the nurse.

“Where are you taking her?”

“Down to the holding room in the basement. Whatever mortician you make arrangements with can assume custody of the body there.”

David wanted to slow things down, take time to accommodate himself to this terrible turn of events, to get his mind around how his life had changed, take time to catch his breath. Calista’s death had been so sudden, and now the haste with which she was being moved to the hospital morgue seemed to dishonor her.

As the nurse opened the door for the orderly with his gurney, Dr. Theodore Goshen entered. He was dressed in green scrubs. Fiftyish, with a thickening waist and thinning blond hair, he had the weary look of a man who’d seen more death than he had bargained for when the romance of the healer’s profession had long ago lured him into medical school.