The Secret Hour Read Online Free PDF Page B

Waiting for the next in a parade of doctors, he tried to read the brief he’d brought from home. His head spun, and he felt sick to his stomach. Lowering the document, he could practically see his desk calendar looming before him and thought of how he didn’t have time for this.
      Why couldn’t he at least have gotten the kids off to school? In the midst of life’s total insanity, he calmed himself by knowing he was a good father. Okay, so he gave crummy haircuts. But he had the main bases covered: food, shelter, carpooling. Child care. He hoped Kate Harris would turn out to be the best Baby-sitter X so far.
      “Hello, good morning,” a technician said, holding a wire mesh basket of vials. “The doctor sent me to get your blood. Roll up your right sleeve.”
      John complied, staring at the needle. His stomach flipped—he had always hated needles. When his kids got injections, cheering them to be brave, John would feel queasy inside. “Uh,” John said, stalling for time, “any idea when I can get out of here?”
      The technician chuckled. “What, you’ve got something more important than your health to worry about?” She glanced at his cut; a doctor smelling of coffee and peanut butter had closed it with cool hands. The local anesthetic was wearing off, and the sutures pulled his skin.
      The technician was taking her time. Had she recognized him? Was she going to stick him extra hard because he was Greg Merrill’s lawyer? John gritted his teeth, waiting for the sting.
      Bang—the needle pricked his skin. He looked down at his blood, flowing through the tiny tube. Whoa—he felt like he was going to faint. Another reason his kids would laugh—to know that their dad hated the sight of blood. He looked away, up at the ceiling, felt immediately better, and then was hit with a memory of Theresa.
      They’d brought her here after the accident.
      John had been home with the kids. He had gotten the phone call, left Teddy to watch his sister, sped here to the hospital. Walking through the wide doors, into the bright room, running to the desk…
      John had known even before they told him: His wife was dead.
      It was one of those freak things: Although she had walked away from the wreck, hadn’t gotten even one cut on the outside of her body, her chest had slammed into the steering wheel. The impact had severed an artery in her heart—cut it right in half—so she’d bled to death by the time the cardiac team even started their work.
      His beautiful wife. His golden-haired, blue-eyed Theresa. Such an old-fashioned, sturdy name for such a delicate, porcelain-skinned girl. She had been wearing such bright pink lipstick the night she died. Such shiny, cool, freshly applied lipstick…The memory of it jabbed him unexpectedly, like a knife in the ribs.
      “Mr. O’Rourke?” the doctor said now, coming around the curtain with John’s chart in his hand.
      “Yes?” John asked, dazed, still rocked by the sudden vision of Theresa’s lips.
      “Your films look fine. There’s no sign of concussion, although I’d like you to take it easy for the rest of the day and watch for symptoms. You’re going to have a bad bruise—that can’t be avoided, and I’ve called for a consult with a plastic surgeon,” the doctor said.
      “A what?”
      “A plastic surgeon. The cut was deep, and you’re going to have a nasty scar. Might as well get it looked at now so you don’t regret it later.”
      John shook his head, already reaching for his file. “That’s okay. I’ll live with it,” he said, thinking suddenly of the cop’s bitter remark about a scar helping him to fit in at the prison.
      He signed the necessary release forms. Bending over the desk, he felt some of the staff watching him. When he pushed the papers across the desk and said thank you, he heard one secretary say to the other, “I wonder if he knows that one of the girls died here.” “After the killer left her for dead,”