The Dying Hour Read Free

certain because she was staring at Karen’s parking space and her car was still not there.

4
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    T he vague feeling that something was wrong nagged at Marlene Clark throughout much of her morning.
    She couldn’t pinpoint the source.
    It had nothing to do with her job as a nurse at Vancouver General Hospital. In fact, the surgery to remove the enlarged spleen of a sixty-year-old woman had gone well. Marlene had suppressed the twinge of puzzling unease at the back of her mind, concentrating on passing sponges and instruments from the tray to the surgeon.
    After the operation, worry began niggling at her again. What was it? She didn’t know. She was sure it had nothing to do with work, with the kids, or her husband. Just a cloudy sensation that something wasn’t right.
    She glanced at her watch and started for recovery. On the way she called her house to check with her sitter, Wanda, who was watching Timothy and Rachel.
    “Everything’s fine, Marlene. All quiet here. Want to talk to the kids?”
    A few seconds of chatting with Timothy and Rachel relieved her. She went to post-op where she reviewed the spleen patient’s chart. Later, she found an empty staff room and began eating a late lunch as she checked her schedule for the next day’s surgery.
    A twenty-year-old woman was having her gall bladder removed. Given the patient’s age, Marlene would double-check for any body jewelry that might have to be taken out before the operation. Studs in tongues were popular, she thought as Anita from the desk poked her head into the room.
    “There you are. Telephone call for you, Mar.”
    Marlene glanced at the extension number of the line in the room.
    “Can you put it through here?”
    “No problem.”
    In the moment she waited, she thought of Bill. He’d mentioned something about going out to dinner. The line rang and she picked it up.
    “Hello, this is Marlene.”
    “Hi, Marlene, it’s Luke. Luke Terrell, Karen’s boy-friend.”
    Luke? Why was he calling her here? Was he in town?
    “Hi, Luke.”
    “I’m sorry to be bothering you, but, um—”
    The tone of his voice was weird.
    “What is it?”
    “Is Karen in Vancouver visiting you? Or has she called?”
    “No. Why? What’s going on?”
    “Please don’t get worried. Please, but the police just called me—”
    “Police!”
    “They found Karen’s car off the highway, 539, near Laurel—”
    As Luke explained the little he knew, a hollow sickening feeling seeped into Marlene’s stomach. Ears pounding, she seized upon bits of his account…Karen left her apartment with a bag…left without her cell phone…there was a storm…car abandoned…missing…
    Luke was scaring her, stirring her mysterious fear, twisting it all horribly into focus.
    It was about the dream she’d had last night.
    A nightmare about Karen.
    She was screaming and screaming.

5
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    “ S he died?”
    Jason Wade, a rookie police reporter at the Seattle Mirror, pressed the phone to his head to hear over the newsroom’s scanners. He needed to be certain of what the cop was telling him.
    “She died in the hospital an hour ago,” the lieutenant said.
    First edition deadline was looming. Jason jabbed the night editor’s extension.
    “Beale.”
    “Got an update on the I-405 traffic accident in Bellevue. State Patrol confirmed the woman just died of her injuries.”
    “One hundred max.”
    One hundred words. Gladys Chambers deserved more than that, Jason thought. She was seventy-two, driving home from a seniors’ club where she played the organ when a tire blew and her car rolled.
    “I can give you a little profile, she’s a retired Boeing worker.”
    “We’re tight. One hundred.”
    One hundred words didn’t even warrant a byline. It was as if Gladys Chambers was somehow being cheated in death. Jason wanted to write more about her life but followed orders.
    The night editors ruled his world.
    Embittered veterans who had boiled his job down to a few commandments. Never turn off