Self-Defence

"Someone-" she repeated. Poking her ribs. Terror in her eyes. "Someone…"

"Someone what?" I said, leaning in closer.

"Killing me!"

9

She sank back and fell asleep. It took the monitors another minute to slow down.

I waited a while, then left to find some coffee. A man down the hall said, "Excuse me, are you her doctor?"

He looked to be around thirty. Five-ten, broad-shouldered, stocky, and round-faced, with light brown hair, a golf-course tan, and wide brown eyes. His blue blazer had some cashmere in it, his burgundy shirt was broadcloth. Beige linen trousers broke perfectly over oxblood tassel loafers.

"I'm Dr. Delaware, her psychologist."

"Oh, good." He extended his hand. "Ken Lowell. Her brother."

Movement down the hall distracted both of us. An old man, waxy white and skeletal, was being eased by an orderly into a wheelchair. Blood dripped from under his hospital gown, painting a winding, crimson trail on the gray linoleum floor. His eyes were blank and his mouth was open. Only his tremoring limbs said he was alive.

Ken Lowell stared as the chair was wheeled away. No one rushed in to clean up the blood.

He turned back to me, looking queasy. The good clothes made him seem a tourist who'd wandered into a slum.

"Dr. Delaware," he said. "She was asking for you. I thought she was delirious and wanted to go to Delaware for some reason." Shaking his head. "How's she doing?"

"She's recovering, physically. Did you bring her in?"

He nodded. "Has she done this before?"

"Not as far as I know."

Pulling a burgundy silk handkerchief out of his breast pocket, he mopped his forehead. "So what happens to her now?"

"She'll be here involuntarily for at least three days, and then a psychiatrist from the hospital will determine a treatment plan."

"She could be committed against her will?"

"If the psychiatrist- Dr. Embrey- believes she's still in danger, she can go to court and ask for an extension. That's unusual, though, unless the patient makes another suicide attempt in the hospital or experiences some sort of massive breakdown."

"What led up to this, doctor? Was she very depressed?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't discuss details with you- confidentiality."

"Oh, sure. Sorry. It's just that I don't know much about her. For all practical purposes, we're total strangers. I haven't seen her in twenty years."

"How'd you come to bring her in?"

"Pure chance. It's pretty scary. I was looking for Puck- my half brother, Peter- Lucy's brother. We had a di

He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket and shook his head.

"You're from San Francisco?" I said.

"How'd you know that?"

"Lucy told me."

"She was talking about me?"

"I took a family history."

"Oh. Actually, I'm from Palo Alto, but I'm down in L.A. quite a lot on business- real estate, mostly buyouts and bankruptcies. What with the economy, I've been down here more than usual, and I started thinking about co

"Was Lucy going to be there, too?"

"No, he didn't want her to be- protecting her, I guess. It was a trial balloon. The deal was that if it worked out, we'd get her involved… he was pretty nervous about the whole thing. Still, I was surprised when he stood me up."

"Have you heard from him since?"

"No. I tried him a couple times from here, no answer." He looked at his watch. "Maybe I should try again."

There was a pay phone up the hall. He called, waited, and came back shaking his head.

"Poor kid," he said, looking at the door to Lucy's room. "Puck said she'd been through some kind of rough jury duty and was pretty freaked out, but I had no idea she was this… vulnerable."

He buttoned his jacket. Tight around the waist. "Too many business di

I nodded.

He said, "I don't know if she's had any contact with him, but if she has, I'd be willing to bet that's at least part of her stress."

"Why's that?"

"The man's a total and complete sonofabitch."

"Have you had contact with him?"

"No way. He lives here- up in Topanga Canyon, big spread. But that's a call I'll never make." Unbuttoning his jacket. "When I first started in the business, I used to have fantasies of his going bankrupt and me buying his land up cheap." Smile. "I've been in counseling myself- got divorced last year."

"What happened twenty years ago?"

"Pardon?"

"You said the last time you saw Lucy was twenty years ago."

"Oh. Yeah, twenty, twenty-one, something like that." He squinted and scratched the side of his nose. "I was nine, so it was twenty-one. It was the summer my mother decided to go to Europe to take painting lessons- she was an artist. She drove us- my sister Jo and me- down to L.A. and dropped us off at Sanctum. That's the name of his place in Topanga."

"I've heard of it- a writer's retreat."

"Yeah. Anyway, here she is, dumping us on him, no advance notice. He was about as happy as getting a boil lanced, but what could he do, kick us out?"

"And Lucy was there too?"

"Lucy and Puck. They came up a couple of weeks after we did. Tiny little kids, we didn't know who they were; our mother had never told us they even existed, only that he'd left her for another woman. As it turned out, their mom had died a few years before, and the aunt who had taken care of them had gotten married and dumped them."

"How old were they?"

"Let's see, if I was nine, Puck would have had to be… five. So Lucy was four. We looked at them as babies, had nothing to do with them. Tell the truth, we resented them- our mother was always bad-mouthing their mother for stealing him away."

"Who took care of them?"

"A na

"Twenty-one years ago," I said. "That must have been right after Sanctum opened."

"It had just opened," he said. "I remember they had this big party for the opening, and we were forced to stay in our cabin. Along with plates of food. Tons more spread out on these long white banquet tables, leftovers for weeks. I used to sneak into the kitchen and swipe pastries. I gained ten pounds- that was the begi

People shouting or maybe they're laughing… and lights like fireflies.