The End is Coming

Chapter Twenty-seven

After extinguishing her last cigarette of the morning, Natalia had decided that whether she wanted it or not, she needed sleep, and a shower would only serve to keep sleep further out of reach. So instead she had removed her boots and stretched out on the couch underneath her fur coat—one of the few luxuries packed in the things she had brought with her from Chicago.

But a fur coat wasn’t really a luxury—and af-ter all, she had told herself, falling asleep under it, it was her uncle’s secretary who had packed her things.

Paul Rubenstein still slept—and it was nearly evening. She marveled at his kidneys. But she had watched the even rising and fall-ing of his chest—he was well. She had been able to view the bandage—the wound to his left arm had not bled through.

She let him sleep—rest would help to cure him.

She had gone into the bathroom, brushed and flossed her teeth, brushed out her hair. She had stripped away her black jumpsuit, her bra, her panties—Natalia stood now under the warm water of the shower, hair washed, washed again, conditioned, rinsed, rinsed again, re-rinsed, her body washed—soaking in the warmth.

She looked at the scar over her abdomen—like scars she had seen on other people, but never herself. It was a long, very thin scar—and she smiled, thinking Rourke, his hands on her, his scalpel cutting her, must have tried to make the scar as small as he could. It was reddish purple, and when it was completely healed, it would be like a tracing—of his fingertips.

And then she heard the noise from beyond the closed bathroom door. “Paul?”

No one answered her.

Naked, she stepped out of the shower and onto the bath mat, turning down the shower head with her right hand. “Paul?”

No one answered her.

She took the towel down—she had brought a fresh change of clothes into the bathroom and not a robe. There was no time to get dressed.

The first towel wrapped around her, barely covering her crotch when it was up enough to cover her breasts, she grabbed a second towel, ducking her head, wrapping the towel around her soaking wet hair turban fashion.

She raised her head, barefoot, stepping to the toilet, grabbing the two Metalife Custom L-Frame .357

Magnum Smiths from the lid of the flush tank—the stainless steel guns were moist from condensation in the steamy air.

She stepped to the bathroom doorway, listen-ing.

More sounds.

Holding one pistol under her left arm, she put her right hand to the doorknob, twisting it open. But she left the door only slightly ajar.

The sounds of the inner door of the Retreat being opened or closed—she wasn’t sure which. Both revolvers in her hands, she stepped back from the door and kicked her bare right foot against the door, swinging it outward, fast.

As her right foot came down, she stepped a half-step forward on it, a wide, full step forward on her left leg, dropping down onto her right knee, the towel loosening as she moved, starting to slip, both pistols leveled, at eye level, in her clenched tight fists.

She moved her eyes.

A woman. A tall, handsome little boy. A pretty little girl with honey-colored hair. John Rourke was visible coming from the storage area to the left of the main entrance and off the great room.

“Sarah—” Natalia whispered.

She suddenly realized the towel was going, reaching up her left hand, the revolver still in it, holding the gun across her breasts to keep the towel from falling.

The woman—about her own height, pleasant of figure, dark brown hair half obscured by a blue and white bandanna. The woman smiled, but a funny smile. She said, “You must be the Russian woman I’ve heard so much about—” and she started forward, down the three steps, across the Great Room as if she didn’t see it, slowing, then coming up the three steps to the level of the bathroom. “I’m Sarah—John’s wife,” she smiled, taking the three steps quickly then, standing in front of Natalia. Natalia got to her feet, her left thigh pressed against her right, slightly ahead of it, her left hand with the re-volver still holding the towel against gravity and her breathing. “So you are Natalia.”

Sarah Rourke still smiled.

Natalia, her voice odd-sounding to her, an-swered. “Sarah—I wanted so to meet you. The children are beautiful.”

“So are you.”

Natalia didn’t know what to say.