The Edge by Catherine Coulter

was with you. I saw her as clearly as I always saw you. No one else, Ford, just you. And then Laura was with you, and I saw her clearly too. And I started screaming—”
    “And you came out of the coma screaming,” I said slowly, my eyes never leaving her face. “You saw Laura and you couldn’t bear to have her here, and then you woke up. Was she the one who brought you out of it?”
    I didn’t think she was going to answer me, then she whispered, “I had to get away from her, that’s all I know. I just couldn’t believe she was still here. What were you doing with her?”
    Only the truth, I thought, but what was the truth? There were so many lies swirling about that I couldn’t be certain exactly where the truth lay, but I could at least tell her what I thought of things. “When I was here yesterday, I fell asleep holding your hand.”
    “I know. I saw you.”
    “We’ll talk more about that later. I awoke suddenly and heard you saying that Laura had betrayed you. At dinner last night I asked Paul about Laura, said that you’d told me about her. It took a while, but he finally admitted that he’d had an affair with her, once he admitted that she actually existed. Then he said he’d broken it off. He told me she wasn’t important. He didn’t believe that you knew about it. But you see, I knew that you had at least heard her name. I wanted to see her, so I went to the public library in Salem.”
    Suddenly, Jilly was nearly gasping for breath. She was wheezing. “Ford, you’ve got to believe me. Stay away from her. She’s very dangerous.”
    And I was thinking: I’ve never met anyone less dangerous in my life. What was going on here?
    “Did she sleep with Paul?”
    Jilly shook her head, her skin so pale I thought she would faint. Then she nodded. Was it a yes or a no or just more confusion? In any case, she was tired, upset, and I backed off. I patted her hand and covered her with a light blanket. I stood and felt my body creak. “You’re exhausted. It’s very late. I’ll let you rest awhile. Let me get the nurse.”
    I watched her for a moment, seeing the waves of fatigue wash over her, dragging her under into oblivion. The nurse could wait. All my questions could wait. She needed sleep. I turned to see Nurse Himmel standing in the open doorway.
    “Don’t worry. I won’t wake her up again. That’s what you were coming to tell me, wasn’t it?”
    I nodded and stepped back so she could come into the room. I liked Nurse Himmel. She was short, built solid as a Humvee, and she’d always been kind to me, and to Jilly. Like Midge, Mrs. Himmel would have brought me a beer.
    “She’s sleeping, Mr. MacDougal,” Mrs. Himmel said quietly as she gently pulled the blanket up to Jilly’s neck. “She’s just fine. Her pulse and oxygen level are normal. Goodness, it’s wonderful to see a recovery like this. She’ll be up and walking around soon. Now you should go home and sleep in your bed. You’re looking just a bit slack in the jaw.”
    “You’re right, my jaw could use a rest.”
    She just smiled at me.
    Whatever. I knew she was right. It was just that there was so much Jilly had to tell me. It could wait. It would be stupid if I got myself laid flat again. The people I called friends would never let me live it down. I could hear Quinlan, another FBI agent, calling me a wimp in that easy dark voice of his. I drove into Paul and Jilly’s driveway twenty minutes later. I shucked off my clothes, down to my boxer shorts, and was in bed only five minutes after that.
    I dreamed I was a waiter in a nightclub, with a white towel over my arm, carrying a tray of drinks, but I couldn’t remember who had ordered them. I just kept walking around this huge room, looking and looking, not knowing, and I was getting frantic. There were dozens of customer drink-tables, all of them circular, people crowded around them. There was Jilly, tap-dancing from one table to the next. She was dancing like a pro. People were