Divine Evil

cubicle, drawing the privacy curtain so that the light filtered weakly through. She could see shadows moving beyond it.
    He had gotten his hands on a tape recorder and taken her briefly and thoroughly through the events that happened after she left his house.
    She'd felt both sad and awkward answering his questions. He hadn't been wearing his badge, but she'd known it stood between them.
    After he had put the recorder away, labeling and pocketing the tape, he had brought her a cup of tea and stayed with her until she drifted off.
    She was relieved he wasn't there now, that she couldtake a moment to calm herself. The dream that had awakened her was still running through her mind like film on an endless loop.
    Her old nightmare had mixed with a new one, one of herself running through the woods, crashing through brush and bursting out on the road. Behind her was the swell of chanting growing louder, louder. A smell of blood and smoke. It had been
her
white and terrified face caught in the hard glare of headlights. Behind the wheel of the car bearing down on her was the figure of a man with the head of a goat.
    She had awakened on impact with the sickening thud echoing in her head.
    Clare rubbed her hands over her face and could feel a wild pulsing in her fingertips. She was awake, she reminded herself, safe and unhurt. As her heartbeat quieted, she heard the beep of pages. Nearby she heard a hacking cough and someone moaning.
    Nightmares fade, she thought. Reality doesn't. There was another woman lying in a bed somewhere upstairs. A woman she was responsible for.
    Just as she started to swing her legs off the padded table, the curtain was parted.
    “You're awake.” Cam came forward to take her hand and study her face.
    “How long did I sleep? Is she out of surgery? I want to-” She broke off, seeing that Cam was not alone. “Dr. Crampton.”
    He gave her a reassuring smile and patted her free hand. “Well, young lady, what have we got here?” he said as he took her pulse.
    It was the same greeting he'd given her when he treated her for an ear infection fifteen years ago. It triggered the same reaction. “I'm fine. I don't need a shot or anything.”
    He chuckled, pushing his wire-rim glasses back up his prominent nose. “It's mighty depressing when people always look at you as though you've got a hypodermic in your pocket. Any dizziness?”
    “No. Cam, you had no business bringing Dr. Crampton all the way up here.”
    “I figured you'd be more comfortable with Doc Crampton. Besides”-he grinned at her-“the intern on duty is too young and too good-looking.” He turned to the doctor. “No offense.”
    “I don't need a doctor.” How could he joke? How
could
he? “Tell me how she is.”
    “She's out of surgery.” Cam kept Clare's hand in his while Crampton shined a light in her eyes. “She hasn't come around yet, but she's going to be okay.” He couldn't bring himself to tell her that it was going to take at least one more operation to reconstruct the woman's knee.
    “Thank God.” She was so relieved she didn't object when Crampton fit a blood pressure cuff over her arm. “Can I see her?”
    “Not until morning.” He squeezed her hand before she could object. “Doctor's orders, Slim, not mine.”
    “You're carrying around a lot of stress, young lady,” Dr. Crampton told her. “Entirely too much. You call the office and make an appointment for next week. No arguments, now.”
    “No, sir.”
    He smiled at her. “You're going to try to find a way to slip out of it.”
    She smiled back. “You bet.”
    “You always were one of my worst patients.” He tapped a finger on the tip of her nose. “I want you to relax. I'm going to give you something to help you sleep.” He caughtthe stubborn look in her eye and sent her one in return. “I'd do the same for my own girl.”
    It made her sigh. This was the man who'd seen her through chicken pox and that first, horribly embarrassing pelvic exam. His patient voice hadn't changed, nor the gentleness of his hands. New and deeper lines were etched around his eyes since the last time Clare had been his patient. His hair was thinner, his waist thicker. But she remembered very clearly the way he had dispensed balloons from a china clown on his desk, for good girls and boys. “Don't I get a prize?”
    He chuckled again and opened his bag. He pulled out a long red balloon to go with the sample of pills. “Nothing wrong with your memory.”
    She took it,