Vision of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

back to sleep, and hopefully end up in the pretty woman’s arms again. He rubbed a hand over his face and beard stubble rasped against his palm. It was a nice idea—if he wanted to drive his brother even crazier with worry.
    “You okay?” Theo asked.
    What little energy he’d been able to recover during the last five hours seeped out, leaving him deflated. He couldn’t deal with one of Theo’s paranoid rants right now. “Lookit, T, it’s nothing you need to worry about. It was a legit shot.” He waited a beat. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
    “Don't use that baby tone with me, Alex. I’m five fucking years older than you.”
    “You're going to be in trouble.” He forced himself to sound normal as he switched on a battery-powered lantern. Whenever he spoke to his brother, he fell into using a saccharine tone best reserved for indulging children. It was hard not to when Theo’s disease made him childlike in many ways. “If they catch you using the phone after hours, they’ll suspend your privileges again.”
    “But I had to call you. The Guides told me you—”
    “The Guides do not exist.” A mantra he was sick of repeating. He rolled over on his sleeping bag and noticed the one photograph he had of his brother, sitting in its plain black frame on top of his duffle. Stupid and sentimental, but he took the damn thing with him whenever he left home for an extended trip. Even to Iraq.
    The photo had been taken—Alex didn’t know by whom—right after Theo passed his driver’s test and bought a junker T-bird convertible. He looked happy leaning up against the piece of shit car in his baggy 1990’s style clothes and backwards Red Sox cap, a devil-may-care grin splitting his square face. He hadn’t smiled like that since.
    “It’s all in your head, T,” Alex said and picked up the photo. “A manifestation of the schizophrenia. Are you cheeking your meds again? Remember what Dr. Romano told you—”
    “I’m not crazy!”
    Alex shut his eyes as the ocean wind beat at the nylon of his tent like an angry fist. “Listen, I can’t do this now. I have to get up early. Webster has me out of town on assignment,” he lied. No sense in burdening his unstable brother with his problems.
    “Out of town?” A tinge of panic crept into Theo’s voice. Straddling a fine line between calm and hysteric, as always. “Where?”
    “Maine.”
    “No!”
    Alex grimaced, held the phone away from his ear. “Jesus. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
    “Oh, God.” His voice shook. “No, listen, you can't go to Maine.”
    “I’m already here.”
    “No. Oh, no. You have to leave. Get out of there! Al—”
    “Theo,” a man interrupted in the background, his voice full of caution. “What are you doing up?”
    “Leave me alone!”
    “Who did you call? Give me the phone.”
    “No, wait—let me—dammit, just let me talk to my brother. I'm not bothering any—don't come near me with any fucking needles!” Something crashed. Feet scuffled. A muffled umph as if someone caught a wayward fist to the stomach.
    “Hey,” the hospital aide shouted, “I need help down here! Theo’s having another episode.”
    “T, relax,” Alex tried to soothe, feeling powerless lying in a tent in another state while the aides fought with his brother. “Go to bed. I'll call you tomorrow when you’re allowed to use the phone, okay?”
    “No, wait, wait—please, I need to talk to Alex. He needs to know what The Guides said—Alex, get out of Maine!” he shouted, his voice echoing as the aides dragged him away from the phone. “Don’t go to the light—”
    The line went dead.
    Alex stared at the phone. Then he shut it off, dropped it into his bag. He looked at the picture of his grinning brother for a long moment.
    And turned it face down.

 
    CHAPTER 4
     
    “Pru, you have a visitor.” Gail, the morning shift waitress, poked her head through the swinging door into the kitchen as Pru rushed around to fill a stream of early