Unhinged by Sarah Graves Page A

under you twenty-four-seven. Here, it was what we had.
    I wanted to head back in and find where that hole led to in the cellar ceiling. But just then Bob Arnold pulled up in the squad car, grim-faced. “Jake,” he said, “you and Ellie better go home to your house. I’ll be there soon. There’s been an accident.”
    “No accident. It was—”
    “No,” he interrupted. “Listen to me, Jake. I mean at your house.”
    “But Bob, no one’s home except . . .”
    That siren.
    “. . . Wade.”
     
     
    “What the
hell
have you gotten stirred up?” Victor demanded. Tearing off his surgical gloves and tossing them, he stomped down the hospital corridor straight at me, full of sound and fury.
    At the house I’d found only the frightened animals and the reek, unmistakable, of burnt gunpowder.
    “You
always
do this.” Tearing off his surgical gown, ripping the paper OR shoes from his feet.
    “You
stick
your nose in, you can’t let things
alone,
like it’s
any
of your business . . .”
    He’d heard already about our presence at the Danvers’ house, of course. Victor was good at hearing of anything that had to do with me, in case he could use it against me.
    He turned, pulling his white coat from a hook. His name was embroidered in red script across the breast pocket, like a swirl of bright blood.
    “You
always
. . .” he repeated, and then I was on him, spinning him, pinning him to the wall.
    “Damn it, Victor, you
tell
me right now if Wade is okay.”
    “Jesus,” he gasped. “Of course he is.” He shook himself from my grasp, his face creased with distaste for my loss of control.
    Relief ambushed me; I sank into one of the chairs lining the corridor outside the surgical area.
    Nurses stared. “Jake,” Victor grated. “You’re making a scene.”
    Inside my ex somewhere I suppose there’s some vestige of human beingness. But it’s so well defended you practically have to hold a gun to his head to get a glimpse of it. Or if you have a tumor as big as a rutabaga, he’ll be kind to you.
    Otherwise he won’t. “Wade’s in recovery. He’ll wake up soon. He had a close call but he’s okay. And Sam’s fine,” he added thinly, letting me know how derelict it was of me not to have asked. Then he stalked away.
    “Don’t worry about it,” Ellie comforted me when he was gone. “It’s just his way of blowing off steam.”
    Right. But even after years of being divorced he still only blew it off at me, partly I guessed because mine were the buttons he knew how to push. Ellie sat beside me, handed me a tissue.
    “Watch out for the contact lenses,” she said automatically.
    “Thanks. Did you get to talk to Harry?”
    On an end table the day’s issue of the Bangor paper lay open to the Downeast section. A photo of Sam’s demolished car featured prominently.
    “No,” Ellie said. “Harry went in the ambulance with Samantha straight to Bangor. From there, they’re airlifting her down to Portland. We can talk to Harry later.”
    “Okay.” I blew my nose hard. “Ellie. I’m not crazy, right? This really
isn’t
just a string of . . .”
    “Coincidences?” she finished for me. “I don’t think so.”
    The hall smelled of new paint, not quite covering the odors of fear and pain that no amount of disinfectant could ever eradicate. Victor dealt well with fear and pain as long as they belonged to other people, and as long as they were generated by a discernable physical cause that he could do something about.
    It was the emotional stuff he had such trouble with. For approximately the millionth time, I put Victor away in the mental compartment I reserve for his psychopathology.
    “This,” Ellie said, “goes beyond coincidence. And we should start assuming Sam’s car
was
tampered with, too.”
    A nurse appeared. “You can see him now.”
    In the recovery room Wade raised a hand weakly, let it fall. “How’re you doing?” he asked me.
    Tears spilled through my lashes although I tried not to let