Shadowfires

“Miss Kiel's
physical condition is not grave by any means, and I suppose
she'll be out of here today or tomorrow. But she suffered severe emotional trauma, so she needs to be allowed to rest when she can. And right now she's
resting, sound asleep.”
    Stop looking at my shoes, damn you, Peake thought. He said,
“Doctor, I understand your concern for the patient, but this is an
urgent matter of national security.”
    Finally raising his gaze from Peake's shoes, Werfell frowned skeptically and said, “What on earth could a sixteen-year-old girl have to do with national security?”
    “That's classified, strictly classified,” Peake said, trying to pull his baby face into a suitably serious and imposing expression that would convince Werfell of the gravity of the situation and gain his cooperation.
    “No point waking her, anyway,” Werfell said. “She'd still be under the influence of the sedative, not in any condition to give accurate answers to your questions.”
    “Couldn't you give her something to counteract the drug?”
    With only a frown, Werfell registered severe disapproval. “Mr.
Peake, this is a hospital. We exist to help people get well. We
wouldn't be helping Miss Kiel to get well if we pumped her full of drugs for no other purpose than to counteract other drugs and please an impatient government agent.”
    Peake felt his face flush. “I wasn't suggesting you violate medical principles.”
    “Good.”
Werfell's patrician face and manner were not conducive to debate. “Then you'll
wait until she wakes naturally.”
    Frustrated, still trying to think why Werfell looked familiar,
Peake said, “But we think she can tell us where to find someone whom
we desperately must find.”
    “Well, I'm sure she'll cooperate when she's awake and alert.”
    “And when will that be, Doctor?”
    “Oh, I imagine… another four hours, maybe longer.”
    “What? Why that long?”
    “The night physician gave her a very mild sedative, which didn't suit her, and when he refused to give her anything stronger, she took one of her own.”
    “One of her own?”
    “We didn't realize until later that she had drugs in her purse: a few Benzedrine tablets wrapped in one small packet of foil-”
    “Bennies, uppers?”
    “Yes. And a few tranquilizers in another packet, and a couple of
sedatives. Hers was much stronger than the one we gave her, so
she's pretty deep under at the moment. We've confiscated her
remaining drugs, of course.”
    Peake said, “I'll wait in her room.”
    “No,” Werfell said.
    “Then I'll wait just outside her room.”
    “I'm afraid not.”
    “Then I'll wait right here.”
    “You'll be in the way here,” Werfell said. “You'll wait in the
visitors' lounge, and we'll call you when Miss Kiel is awake.”
    “I'll wait here,” Peake insisted, scrunching his baby face into the sternest, toughest, most hard-boiled look he could manage.
    “The
visitors' lounge,” Werfell said ominously. “And if you do not proceed there immediately, I'll
have hospital security men escort you.”
    Peake hesitated, wishing to God he could be more aggressive. “All
right, but you damn well better call me the minute she wakes
up.”
    Furious, he turned from Werfell and stalked down the hall in
search of the
visitors' lounge, too embarrassed to ask where it was. When he glanced back at Werfell, who was now in deep conversation with another physician, he realized the doctor was a dead ringer for Dashiell Hammett, the formidable Pinkerton detective and mystery novelist, which was why he had looked familiar to a dedicated reader like Peake. No wonder Werfell had such a tremendous air of authority. Dashiell Hammett, for God's
sake. Peake felt a little better about having deferred to him.
They slept another two hours, woke within
moments of each other, and made love again in the motel bed. For
Rachael, it was even better this time than it had been before:
slower, sweeter, with an even more graceful and fulfilling rhythm.
She was sinewy, supple, taut, and she took enormous and intense
pleasure in her superb physical condition, drew satisfaction from
each flexing and gentle thrusting and soft lazy grinding of her body,
not merely the usual pleasure of male and female organs mating, but
the more subtle thrill of muscle and tendon and bone functioning with
the perfect oiled smoothness that, like nothing else, made her feel
young, healthy, alive.
    With her special gift for fully experiencing the moment, she let
her hands roam over Benny's body,