The Pain Nurse - страница 49

She was overreacting, she just knew it. The car would pass on when she turned left on Clifton Avenue to head home. But it didn’t. Both her hands clamped the steering wheel until they ached. The driver was brazen now, right behind her. It was the black sedan. Panic flooded her limbs. Now she was in her neighborhood of old bungalows and century-old trees, but he was right behind her. She couldn’t let herself be trapped on her dead-end street. So she turned on Warner, doubled back north on Ohio and turned right on McMillan. Traffic was light and all the businesses that catered to the university were closed. Only a couple of bars were open. The black car stayed with her. She accelerated and turned south on Vine, not yet sure what to do. Her right hand fished out her cell phone. Should she call the police? Maybe it was all a mistake.

The skyscrapers of downtown shimmered ahead as Vine dropped down through the dreary blocks of the ghetto. She raced past the dark, abandoned buildings toward Central Parkway. She hit sixty. She never drove this fast in the city. The sedan paced her. The light at Central Parkway was green and she turned onto the wide boulevard. It had once been a canal, and the decaying, unfinished subway was underneath it. But tonight it was just a wide, desolate expanse. The Kroger building looked like a silver shoebox set on its side. The needle on the gas gauge was below an eighth of a tank.

“Damn!” Her voice sounded as if it were coming from far away.

Then she saw salvation in the squat, plain building that was Cincinnati police headquarters. She swung onto Ezzard Charles Drive and stopped directly behind a police car where the officer was getting out. She slammed the gearshift into park and leapt from the car.

“Help me!” Cheryl Beth ran to the cop. “I’m being followed.”

She saw in terror that the black sedan had stopped right behind her.

“That’s the car.”

The cop was an overweight man in his forties in a dark uniform jacket and the white peaked cap that always made her think of an ice-cream man. She pointed again, seeing that the car had turned off its headlights. She could see one silhouette behind the wheel. She looked at the gun in the officer’s belt for comfort.

He arched his black flashlight against his shoulder and pointed at the car.

“I can understand, ma’am,” he said. “Black male. Menacing behavior. He’s been a problem before.”

She was about to speak but then saw he was smiling at her. Then she saw Detective Dodds emerge from the sedan.

“What’s the matter with you!” She had stomped over to him and was yelling before any prudent centers of her brain could take hold. “Are you crazy? What were you trying to do?”

The big man adjusted the collar on his camel hair coat and arched his eyebrows.

“You took quite a way home, Cheryl Beth. And why were you digging in other people’s trash?”

“Damn you! Why were you spying on me, following me!”

“Since you left the hospital.” He looked at her with easy suspicion.

She could feel herself close to crying, which she did when she was really mad. She hated it because it made her seem weak. She shook her head vigorously to stop it and let herself feel the cold. Her foggy breath was coming out in quick, angry bursts.

“I’m sure you won’t mind if I search your car.”

She stared at him, suddenly afraid, feeling naked. “I sure as hell might mind.” She struggled to keep her voice calm. She settled herself down with an effort, like riding a bicycle uphill. “What’s going on?”

He was about to speak when his cell phone rang. He held out a finger and answered it.

“What do you want? What the hell?” This was followed by worse profanities, his face pinched with rage. He put away the phone and rested his hands on his hips, looking uncertain. Then he gave her arm a light but firm pull.

“Come with me.”

She felt her pager buzz and pulled back, studying the number on the readout.

“Sorry, I’ve got to go back to the hospital.”

He took her arm again, gripping more tightly this time. “That’s fine. I do, too.”

“So what does a pain nurse do? I’ve never heard of a pain nurse.”