At present, though, Shay ended a call with the treatment center Kent would be checking into, his arrangements finalized for a week from Saturday. Eager to share the news, Shay dialed Kent. Disappointingly, he didn’t answer, and she left a detailed message. He was eager to get this behind him, and she wanted him to know he was one step closer. Shay hesitated and considered calling Caleb, but then set the phone down as if burned.
She hadn’t heard from him, not since he’d asked her to jump with him and she’d told him she was scared. Ever since, well…she didn’t know what to say to him, and clearly he didn’t have anything to say to her. She didn’t even remember exactly what she’d planned to say to him when she’d charged up to him and demanded they talk. Something along the lines of “Damn it, why do you get to say when it’s the right or wrong time for us?” At least, she thought that was the general idea. Her mind was too cluttered to be certain. All she knew was she missed him. And she was, indeed, scared, and she wasn’t even completely sure why.
The idea of figuring it out had Shay snatching a file to read. She would not think about Caleb. She’d get her work done. It was the strategy that had gotten her past the last few days. It would get her through tonight. Exhaustion certainly helped lessen the pain of sleeping alone in a bed with his scent all over it.
Not ten minutes later though, her phone rang. Assuming it was Kent, she answered without checking caller ID.
“Doc,” came the male sob.
Shay sat up straight, the file in her lap tumbling to the ground. “What’s wrong, George?”
“I want to see Jessie again,” he said, referring to his dead wife.
Shay went completely still, realizing George was no longer happy, and he was absolutely not okay. Her worst fear had come true. Something in this new relationship had gone horribly wrong. “Jessie is with you, George,” she said. “Remember we’ve talked about this. Jessie is watching out for you.”
“I don’t want her to watch me anymore,” he said, and this time it was clear he was crying. “I want to touch her and hold her and smell the scent of her on my skin. I need her. I’m going to see her.”
Shay stood up and struggled to get her shoes on, admitting that George had reverted to a dangerous emotional place she’d hoped they were long past. “George,” she said urgently. “Are you at home? Where are you? I’ll come to you.”
“The Hyatt Regency downtown,” he said. “On the roof.” He hung up.
Shay ran for her purse and keys and dialed information as she headed to the hallway. She took the stairs for speed and cell-phone reception, and asked the customer service rep at the Hyatt for the manager of the hotel.
“What’s this regarding?” the woman asked.
“It’s an emergency,” she said. “I’m a doctor. One of my patients is there, and…” She stopped. She had no way of knowing if George was really suicidal. And alerting the police might not be the best option. She had a close colleague who’d once had a patient threaten to kill himself. He’d hidden in a field of high grass with a rifle. Her colleague had called the police, and the patient had pulled the trigger when one of the cops was in the grass a few feet from finding him. To this day, that colleague was convinced that calling the police had pushed her patient over the edge. Shay hung up the phone, sick to her stomach with the possibility that it was the wrong choice not to alert the hotel.
“They’d have called the police,” she whispered. At the bottom of the stairwell, she ran to her car and didn’t even wait for the car to stop before she switched from Reverse and slammed it in forward gear. She jerked into motion and fretfully contemplated her options.
By the time she reached the highway headed downtown, she could think of only one person who could help.
Shay dialed her phone, praying Caleb would answer. Praying he wasn’t on a sunset jump. He answered on the third ring. “Hello, Shay,” he said.
His voice was warm, encouraging, and it opened a floodgate for Shay. “My patient…George—I think he might be about to try to commit suicide, but I’m afraid to call the police…in case that pushes him to actually do it. He wouldn’t have called me if he didn’t want to be stopped. I’m going to him now, but I—”
“Where is he?” Caleb said. “And where are you?”
“He says he’s on the roof of the downtown Hyatt, off Sixth Street. I’m halfway there.”
“I know where it’s at,” he said, “and I’m already walking to my truck.”