“Everett Hughes. I saw,” he said, grinning knowingly.
She gave a hollow laugh.
Had Everett been talking about her on that talk show?
She felt a little sick all of a sudden. Disoriented.
Heartsore.
“Can we do the procedure now?” she asked Dr. Chen, forcing her mind into the world of the mundane versus the flash of Everett’s smile.
Unfortunately, after she’d been admitted, the surgery had been delayed due to the fact that her temperature had gone up again and was over one hundred. Dr. Chen didn’t want her to undergo general anesthesia until it at least dipped below ninety-nine degrees. Joy had been forced to wait for three hours now, willing her fever to go down the whole time.
“The nurse is about to come and do your vitals. If your fever has gone down, we’ll take you to the OR right away. I just heard from the anesthesiologist that she’s got an opening.”
Joy held her breath in anticipation as the nurse took her temperature. She hated the fact that she’d already been in there longer than she’d expected.
“Ninety-eight point eight,” the nurse said.
Joy glanced triumphantly at Dr. Chen, and he gave her a thumbs-up.
“I’ll send over some transporters to transfer you,” Dr. Chen said before he left.
Joy set aside the remote control and lay back on the flat, uncomfortable hospital pillows. Why had she been so eager to get the procedure underway? she wondered as her familiar dread for the general anesthesia rose like an encroaching shadow ready to pounce. She started to panic.
What if she never woke up? Why hadn’t she asked Seth to be here with her?
Had she done the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life by telling Everett good-bye? She had an overwhelming desire to call him. She sprang up and fumbled with the phone on the bedside table. A young man dressed in white knocked on her door and rolled a gurney into the room.
Slowly, Joy set down the receiver.
* * *
Everett saw a meter maid writing out parking tickets a half a block away. Crap. He couldn’t believe they gave out tickets at night. He glanced at the sign posted at the side of Joy’s street. Apparently, vehicles were supposed to have a neighborhood sticker to park here legally.
For the two hundredth time since he’d arrived in Chicago that evening, he looked at the brownstone where Joy lived. Her apartment remained dark. She wasn’t answering when he buzzed her intercom. She wouldn’t pick up her cell phone.
Where the hell was she? What if she was up there in her apartment, sick and fevered? His thoughts about picking the locks to get into her place fractured when he heard a tap on the windshield of his rental car. He glanced up and saw the meter maid—a short, light brown–skinned woman of about fifty—squinting at him. She waved her hand toward the street as if to say Get going and I won’t ticket you.
Everett shrugged and gave her a sheepish glance, wishing she’d just give him the ticket and leave him alone. Joy’s street was lined on both sides with bumper-to-bumper cars. He wasn’t going to give up his prized spot. Instead of ignoring him, however, the meter maid shone a flashlight in his eyes and indicated she wanted him to roll down his window. He pulle
d down the bill on his cap and followed her instructions with a resigned sigh.
“What’re you doing?” she asked bluntly.
“I was waiting for a friend,” he said, tilting his chin toward Joy’s brownstone. A thought occurred to him. “Hey, have you passed this street earlier today? You haven’t seen her coming in or out, have you? The woman who lives in that brownstone? Real pretty, short brown hair, great legs—”
“Joy,” the meter maid stated rather than asked.
“Yeah,” Everett said, leaning forward eagerly. “Have you seen her by chance?” He squinted when she shone the flashlight full in his face. He ducked his head.
“You could pass as a double for that guy—Everett Hughes,” the woman said, peering at him.
He slunk back into the shadows. “That’s what I’ve been told a time or two. Hear it more when I have a goatee,” he mumbled, wondering belatedly why he hadn’t thought to do a foreign accent to further disguise himself. “Have you seen Joy or not?”
“Are you going to move this car, or do you want a ticket?”
“I’ll take the ticket,” Everett said. He started to roll up his window, but the meter maid tapped on it lightly with her flashlight, glaring at him. He waited resignedly while she filled out the ticket and handed it to him.