Exit by Thomas Davidson

Author:Thomas Davidson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Time Twisted Tales
Published: 2014-07-05T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Rayne drove while Tim sat beside her in the front seat, squeezing his cell phone. She watched him from the corner of her eye. He kept dialing Alex Portland’s cell number. Nothing.

“I’d have better luck calling the White House and getting through to the president. This is totally…” His voice trailed off for a moment. “You should’ve told me sooner.”

“No.” She held up her right hand in the air, stopped him. “There was nothing we could do. You had to get in to see the doctor right away. We were already standing in the E.R., and the Gateway was across the river. Whatever happened over there—happened. If we ran back outside, flagged a cab, squeezed through traffic all the way back, then even more time goes by. What then? We knock on the door of the Gateway at that hour and they let us in?”

“This is so messed up.”

“I made the decision, Tim. It’s on me. You had nothing to do with it.”

His faced the windshield, slumping down in the seat. “Don’t say that. No. If I don’t walk through that exit, this never happens.”

“When Shay called and told me…” Just thinking about that call sent a tingle down her spine. “We barely got out of that alley alive. When I pulled you back inside the theater, I thought I was the luckiest girl alive, like I won the ultimate lottery. Then just a short while later I got that call in the ER. And I thought, You’re never that lucky, you never get it all your way. I should have known something would go bad. Real bad.”

“Go by his house.”

“I was thinking the same thing. We’ll do it, but don’t get your hopes up.”

Rayne headed for Alex’s neighborhood, and soon turned onto his street lined with shingle style houses, Greek Revival, and triple deckers.

Tim popped the door as they rolled to a stop. “I’ll be right back.”

She sat behind the wheel with the engine running, and watched Tim hustle up to the apartment building and into the foyer. She could see him beneath a ceiling light, pressing a buzzer. He fidgeted, turned to look through the glass and steel inner door, as his finger touched the buzzer again. Rayne thought of Alex’s unanswered cell phone. She imagined Alex’s doorbell having a recorded message when pressed.

“Hi, this is Alex. I can’t come down to the foyer right now and let you in. I’m away. I’m out of town, but still in Cambridge. It’s complicated.”

The car bounced when Tim opened the door and dropped onto the seat. “Now what?”

“Home.”

He fell silent for two or three blocks, his eye cup facing the windshield. Finally he said, “Paparazzi.”

“I know.”

“When we were working on Up, remember the night we laughed and said, ‘This is a very strange story—a guy is floating in the astral plane and watching his wife murder him. What is wrong with us. And then we laughed even harder.’” Tim was not laughing now; he sounded half dead from exhaustion. He rubbed his temples and breathed deeply several times, trying to rally.

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