Hideaway

The article included a three-sentence summary of the accident and a silly reference to Hatch as “holding the current record for being dead the longest time prior to a successful resuscitation,” as if he had arranged the entire ordeal with the hope of winning a place in the next edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.
    Other revelations in the piece made Hatch curse out loud and sit up straight in bed, culminating with the news that Cooper was going to sue his employer for wrongful termination and expected to get his old job back or, failing that, a substantial financial settlement. “I have suffered considerable humiliation at the hands of my former employer, subsequent to which I developed a serious stress-related health condition,” Cooper had told reporters, obviously disgorging an attorney-written statement that he had memorized. “Yet even Mr. Harrison has written to tell me that he holds me blameless for the events of that night.”
    Anger propelled Hatch off the bed and onto his feet. His face felt flushed, and he was shaking uncontrollably.
    Ludicrous. The drunken bastard was trying to get his job back by using Hatch's compassionate note as an endorsement, which required a complete misrepresentation of what Hatch had actually written. It was deceptive. It was unconscionable.
    “Of all the fucking nerve!” Hatch said fiercely between clenched teeth.
    Dropping most of the newspaper at his feet, crumpling the page with the story in his right hand, he hurried out of the bedroom and descended the stairs two at a time. In the den, he threw the paper on the desk, banged open a sliding closet door, and jerked out the top drawer on a three-drawer filing cabinet.
    He had saved Cooper's handwritten letters, and although they were not on printed stationery, he knew the trucker had included not only a return address but a phone number on both pieces of - correspondence. He was so disturbed, he flicked past the correct file folder—labeled MISCELLANEOUS BUSINESS—cursed softly but fluently when he couldn't find it, then searched backward and pulled it out. As he pawed through the contents, other letters slipped out of the folder and clattered to the floor at his feet.
    Cooper's second letter had a telephone number carefully handprinted at the top. Hatch put the disarranged file folder on the cabinet and hurried to the phone on the desk. His hand was shaking so badly that he couldn't read the number, so he put the letter on the blotter, in the cone of light from the brass desk lamp.
    He punched William Cooper's number, intent on telling him off. The line was busy.
    He jammed his thumb down on the disconnect button, got the dial tone, and tried again. Still busy.
    “Sonofabitch!” He slammed down the receiver, but snatched it up again because there was nothing else he could do to let off steam. He tried the number a third time, using the redial button. It was still busy, of course, because no more than half a minute had passed since the first time he had tried it. He smashed the handset into the cradle so hard he might have broken the phone.
    On one level he was startled by the savagery of the act, the childishness of it. But that part of him was not in control, and the mere awareness that he was over the top did not help him regain a grip on himself.
    “Hatch?”
    He looked up in surprise at the sound of his name and saw Lindsey, in her bathrobe, standing in the doorway between the den and the foyer.
    Frowning, she said, “What's wrong?”
    “What's wrong?” he asked, his fury growing irrationally, as if she were somehow in league with Cooper, as if she were only pretending to be unaware of this latest turn of events. “I'll tell you what's wrong. They let this Cooper bastard off the hook! The son of a bitch kills me, runs me off the goddamned road and kills me, then slips off the hook and has the nerve to try to use the letter I wrote him to get his job back!” He snatched up the crumpled newspaper and shook it at her, almost accusingly, as if she knew what was in it. “Get his job back—so he can run someone else off the fucking road and kill them!”
    Looking worried and confused, Lindsey stepped into the den. “They let him off the hook? How?”
    “A technicality. Isn't that cute? A cop misspells a word on the citation or something, and the guy walks!”
    “Honey, calm down—”
    “Calm down? Calm down?” He shook the crumpled newspaper again. “You know what else it says here? The