Nesbitt’s.

Don’t touch that

Cate woke up to Nesbitt’s face in soft-focus fog. For a minute, she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming. He looked worried, so it couldn’t be a dream. Nobody worried in dreams. Also, she didn’t dream about Nesbitt. Much.

“Good morning, Judge,” Nesbitt said, and Cate blinked.

“Is it morning?” she said. Her mouth felt dry.

“I’m joking.” Nesbitt checked his watch. “It’s nine at night.”

“Oh.” Cate felt her head begin to clear. The room came into hazy focus. She was lying in a hospital bed with pull-up plastic rails. Light blue walls and a window on the right, its blue-patterned curtains drawn. An oxygen tube was under her nose. A mounted TV played on mute, a basketball game in too-vivid color.

“How do you feel?”

“I feel good.” Cate thought a minute. She didn’t hurt anywhere. She felt really happy. “Why am I so happy?”

“It’s the drugs.”

“I feel so calm.” Cate smiled, and Nesbitt smiled back.

“It makes a nice change.”

“What happened to me? Did I fall off a cliff?”

“No. They found you by the side of the road, passed out from the fumes. You got the full brunt. You were lying near a big crack of steam.”

“At least my pores are clean.”

Then Cate began remembering it all, albeit hazily. The cemetery. The cliff. The dark car. Russo. “Is he dead? He’s not dead, is he?”

“No. He’s upstairs, here. I saw him, and he’s resting. A bunch of broken bones, but the doctors say he’ll be fine.”

“Good. I think.” Cate felt her emotions revive, though buffered. “Now that he’s alive, am I allowed to wish he was dead?”

Nesbitt smiled. “Now that you’re alive, I can say I told you so.”

“So we’re even.”

“Exactly.”

“Is he in pain, at least?”

“I believe so.”

“A lot or a little?”

“Tell you what. As soon as he heals, I’ll beat the crap out of him for you.” Nesbitt’s smile faded. “We got the call almost as soon as it happened. He had his ID on him.”

“And his gun.”

“He took a shot at you?” Nesbitt asked, alarmed. “I hadn’t heard that.”

“I almost caught one, but I missed. Sorry.” Cate remembered the heat on her cheek. It didn’t even bother her. These must be some drugs. She resolved to show more empathy on the next drug case before her, then she remembered she wasn’t a judge anymore.

“He’ll be released into our custody, and we’ll charge him.”

“How does that work exactly? Will you charge him and then beat him up? Or beat him up and then charge him?”

“Usually we beat them up first. That way we get the confession.”

“Don’t vary it on my account.”

“Passers-by found his car and they called the locals, who were already on their way.”

“My genius car called the cops, didn’t she?”

“Right. How much you pay for that baby?”

“Not enough.”

“By the way, you’re gonna need a new one. That thing’s an accordion. Russo do that, too?”

“Yes.”

“Were you in it at the time?”

“No. It’s a Mercedes hate crime.” Cate saw Nesbitt frown, despite her excellent joke.

“We’ll need a statement. You’ll tell me in detail when you feel better.”

“I’ll never feel better than I do now.” In fact, I may be in orgasm, as we speak.

“I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know about Centralia. It’s incredible. Toxic smoke coming right out of the ground like that. I can’t believe the feds don’t cordon it off.”

“It’s a theme park for carbon monoxide.”

“I don’t understand why they can’t put it out, after so many years. We can land a man on the moon but we can’t put out a fire?”

Bootleg miners didn’t help, but that’s another story. “So when can I go?”

“They won’t let you go until morning. They want to watch your blood gases.”

“My blood has gas?”

Nesbitt laughed.

“I feel fine. Time to go.” Cate began to lift herself from the bed, then sank back down, dizzy. “Or not.”

“Chill. Or as my daughter says, chillax. By the way, I called your friend Gina, telling her you were fine, so she didn’t find out from the TV news. I told her that you’d be out tomorrow morning and she didn’t need to come up. That okay with you?”

“Good, thanks.” Cate nodded, pleased. Putting Gina out would have been the last thing she wanted.

“I’ll take you back to the city tomorrow morning, when they discharge you. You’ll need the ride. Okay with you, too?”

“Sure, thanks.”

“By the way, there is good news. Jenna Whitcomb was found in bed with Mark Melendez.”

Cate frowned, confused. “You mean Jenna Whitcomb, the actress?”

“Yes, the new Julia Roberts. She was caught by Access Hollywood, cheating on her husband, Ron Torvald, the new Russell Crowe.”

Cate smiled. “How could any woman cheat on the new Russell Crowe? I wouldn’t even cheat on the old Russell Crowe.”

“It’s a major scandal. They’ve released the photos, and he’s already said he’s filing for divorce tomorrow. Mark Melendez is the new new Russell Crowe.”

“How do you know these people?”

“I told you, I have a teenage girl. My house gets Cosmo. We vote on Hottie of the Month. We even take the quizzes. Don’t tell the guys on the squad. Boys can be so dorky.” Nesbitt rolled his eyes, and Cate laughed.

“So why does this matter to me?”

“This is the gossip of the decade, which means the heat is off of you, at least temporarily. You’re off the map. There’s no press for you outside the hospital, and I bet there’ll be very few at your house because there’s a big local angle to the story. Mark is from Doylestown.”

“Mark? You on a first-name basis?”

Nesbitt actually blushed. “Gimme a break. He’s Hottie of the Year. We voted for him.”

“So the press is gone? I feel so used.” Cate felt a residual sleepiness, and Nesbitt, watching, cocked his head.

“You want some water or something?”

“No, thanks.”

“I should tell the nurse you’re awake.”

“I don’t feel so awake,” Cate said, her eyelids drooping. Suddenly she felt good and drowsy, postcoital without the coital, and in the next second, she drifted into sleep.

The next time she woke up, the room was dark except for various red and blue numbers on her vital-signs monitor. Her heartbeat was a glow-in-the-dark green outline of jagged peaks and valleys that reminded her of the Appalachians. She touched the tube under her nose, and the oxygen was still there. But Nesbitt was gone, his chair empty. She tried not to feel let down. He was above-the-call, but he wasn’t crazy.

Cate breathed in and out, taking silent stock of her situation. On the plus side, she was alive, she hadn’t gotten Russo killed, and there was a new new Russell Crowe from Doylestown. On the negative side, she had no job, no boyfriend, and no reason to go home. She lay still in the dark watching the Appalachians march across the vital-signs monitor. She had no idea if it was truly nighttime, in the artificial day/night of the hospitals.

She felt oddly suspended in the middle of time and space. She didn’t belong here, up north, among the peaks and valleys. Centralia had loosened its hold on her; she had overdosed on its toxins and they’d almost killed her. She felt oddly free of it somehow. The fire that raged had burned from within, and consumed their family like so much fuel. She wouldn’t let it consume her, too.

Cate didn’t belong here anymore. She needed fresh air. She wanted to go home, and for the first time, home meant Philadelphia. She had to start over. She’d figure out how when she got there. Maybe on the way back, she’d talk it over with Nesbitt. She told herself she wasn’t looking forward to it, before her eyes closed again.

“Judge Fante?” It was Brady at the door the next morning, in his dark neat suit, worn with a black topcoat and a fresh shave. “How’re you feeling?”