08 Illusion Read Online Free PDF Page B

that made the newsy photo, caved in on the driver’s side, gutted and charred throughout. The seats were reduced to misshapen steel and wire frames, and the floor was burned down to the metal. Half the roof was gone—that was how the rescue team got Mandy out.
    Dane let the paper fall to his lap as he sat on the edge of the bed. Yeah, there was that sick, crushing feeling again, the head-bashed-against-concrete, immovable, immutable cruelty of the real world. Good morning, Dane. Glad to have you with us.
    Earlier, by now another world away, he woke up by gradual degrees and found himself in a place that could not have been real, only a dream he didn’t have to believe. No, this didn’t have to be a hospital room. He wasn’t really hurt. The pain was only sunburn and maybe a charley horse here and there.
    And any moment, Mandy would walk into the room, look down at him, and say, “Wow, that was a close one!” And he would say, “Yeah, sure was,” and then they’d take each other’s hands and thank God together that they made it through another one. God was taking care of them just as He always did. Remember that spinout we had on Donner Pass the winter of ’73? Got away without a scratch. Hey, what about that fall you took from the stage in Pittsburgh? If that nice gentleman had not been in the front row for you to land on …
    But the sorrow was, he continued coming around. His eyes roamed in small circles, then greater, and everything he saw he discovered for the first time and then remembered: the bed in which he lay, the remote that raised and lowered the bed, the call button for the nurse, the television on the wall, the food tray waiting for breakfast or his next dose of pills, the graduated drinking mug with the hospital’s name on it, the happy face to miserable face pain chart, stripes of sunlight coming through the slatted blinds, and the flowers. Everywhere, the flowers. The room smelled like a florist shop—or a funeral, either one.
    Oh, right. He’d had visitors bringing bouquets, loving words, comforting touches—on his left side only. Bouquets stood on the shelf, the sill next to the bed, the windowsill, even the floor below the window.
    The daisies. Ernie and Katelynn Borgiere brought those because Mandy always liked them. Ernie was a stage magician in the classic style. Some of Mandy’s favorite dove tricks she got from him, and he was honored.
    The red roses, pink lilies, and purple asters in the tall basket came from Pauline Vitori, musical director for Dane and Mandy’s six-week run at the Las Vegas Hilton. That engagement was five years ago, Dane and Mandy hadn’t seen her in all that time, but she was here yesterday, teary-eyed and bringing a bouquet so big it had to sit on the floor.
    Chuck and Cherry Lowell, Dane and Mandy’s pastor and his wife, were there for a great part of the day and brought the dozen roses and baby’s breath. The card read, “For a grand lady at the close of a great performance.”
    Preston and Audrey Gabriel sent roses and a heartfelt letter. Preston, a veteran magician and innovator of magic, was the wise old man in Dane’s life. Now hosting a television show on A&E, he was making quite a name for himself debunking phony psychics and faith healers. He was always good for a deep discussion.
    Carnations. Orchids. Lilies and birds-of-paradise. Greens shooting out of the vases and baskets like splashes. Ribbons. Cards.
    So yesterday really happened.
    Didn’t it?
    Then Arnie arrived with a fresh change of clothes to replace Dane’s bloodied and burned ones, and handed Dane the morning paper.
    Guess it did.
    Dane went back to the photo and studied the car’s blackened frame, broken windows, collapsed steering wheel. It was time to face it. What happened, happened. No option, no escape, no denial. It happened, and the sooner he came to grips with that, the sooner he could learn to live with it. He studied the photograph until his stomach turned and his hands