The Shimmer. Carsten Stroud

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       karen walker reaches a vital conclusion

      Redding drove to Immaculate Heart Hospital with his mind mainly on the woman in the marsh. He was almost certain that she was still there, but the flatboats had been all over it, and he couldn’t just wait her out. He had to see Julie, and then make sure that Mace Dixon hadn’t done something radical to get Karen Walker’s full attention. Such as throwing her off the roof of the hospital.

      The ER entrance at Immaculate Heart was cluttered with ambulances and police vehicles, County and State—another busy evening in Paradise—Redding found a space next to LQ Marsh’s cruiser and shut the car down, feeling a wave of exhaustion settle over him.

      He checked his watch. It was going on midnight and he had a feeling it was going to be a while before he got back to his seaside bungalow on Crescent Beach.

      Not that going back there was anything he looked forward to, but it was where he had lived for many years with Barbara and Katy and he wasn’t ready to pack up all their things. Yet.

      He leaned forward until his head was resting on the steering wheel, closed his eyes and let the same old feeling pull him down. He had gotten over the central illusion about grieving, which was that grieving was something you got over.

      How he felt now was just the new normal, the way it is for a vet who comes back from the wars with nothing below his knees but stainless-steel sticks. Life was that before, and now life was this.

      * * *

       Anson Freitag.

      An eighty-three-year-old retired surgeon with cataracts and a pacemaker. Loved by all, so all the papers said. A pillar of the community, so all the cable news folks said.

      A celebrated cardiovascular surgeon credited with saving literally thousands of lives over his decades-long career, most of it spent right here at Immaculate Heart Hospital in downtown Jacksonville.

      Anson Freitag, northbound on A1A last Christmas Eve, around 9:30. Driving a tank-sized navy-blue Mercedes-Benz 600. At 80 miles per hour. In a fog bank. Coming up on the Matanzas Inlet Bridge at the north end of Rattlesnake Island.

      And southbound on A1A, at the same time, in their black Jeep, Redding’s wife, Barbara, at the wheel and Katy in her safety seat in the back, strapped in tight, playing with her iPad Mini. Coming up on the Matanzas Inlet Bridge at the north end of Rattlesnake Island.

      Barbara was on the hands-free phone, talking to Redding. Redding was on duty that Christmas Eve, the price for getting Christmas Day off. Otherwise he would have been at the wheel, which might have meant Barbara and Katy would still be alive. Or Redding could have managed to die with them, which would have been better than what actually did happen.

       Barbara’s voice.

      Talking to him about Christmas Dinner.

      Through the cell phone he could hear music in the background. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by Bing Crosby. Barbara was a sucker for all those old Christmas songs. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Judy Garland. And the classic films. Miracle on 34th Street