Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (best book club books TXT) 📕

understandably, but I can’t see anything. No fractures, lungs are clear, your heart’s in sinus rhythm. We could do a CT scan, but if you’re not in serious pain I think it’d just be a waste of time.”

He tried to sit up, but she’d left the one strap across his chest. He bent his arms back to fumble with it. She walked back over and released the clasp. George sat up and looked down at his body. A faint purple-blue spot sat at the center of his chest. It was a little smaller than a quarter. It ached as he moved, just enough to remind him it was there.

He waved a hand at the dull X-ray. “You’re sure there’s nothing?”

“Positive.”

“It’s really dark.”

“Yeah, we did two sets. The first films were dark and we thought it was bad stock. Turns out our machine needs maintenance, the levels are really down. Or maybe X-rays can’t get through your skin, either.” She smiled and winked. “Seriously, though, don’t start thinking you’re bulletproof or you’ll end up right back here. Just be happy you can tell the coolest bar story ever. I can give you a prescription for some ibuprofen. Or just go home and have a good stiff drink. In a day or two you won’t even feel it.”

Dr. Velez pulled the curtain aside. Doctors flitted around the rest of the emergency room. George glimpsed what looked like a dog attack victim before another curtain was yanked shut. He heard the click of instruments on trays from the other side of the green cloth. “I don’t mean to sound harsh,” said Velez, “but if you feel well enough to walk, we could really use this bed for someone who needs it.”

“Yeah, I see that,” said George. He looked down at his stocking feet. “Do I have shoes somewhere?”

The doctor shook her head. “I think that’s how you came in. Sorry.”

He slid off the bed. The cold floor reached up through his socks and prickled his feet. He patted his backside. No wallet, either. It was still sitting back on his kitchen table with his phone.

He followed a line that led him to a set of wide double doors. No shoes, no shirt, no wallet, and he needed to get home from whatever hospital they’d brought him to. After he’d been shot. This was not going to be one of the better nights of his life.

He pushed through the doors into the waiting room. It was a large, antiseptic chamber with rows of blue plastic chairs and a television showing an episode of Seinfeld. The far wall was all windows and a sliding door to a glassed-in foyer that led out of the hospital.

The woman by the door was Karen Quilt. She stared at him from across the room. Her arms were crossed over a dark trench coat that looked made for substance more than style.

They looked at each other for a moment before she crossed the waiting room in eight long, precise strides. She settled less than a foot from him. “You were supposed to meet me for coffee.”

“Yeah,” said George. “I ended up meeting the President instead.” A vein pulsed behind his eyes as the words left his mouth.

Her lips flattened out. “It is a very rare thing for a man to miss an appointment with me.”

“I wasn’t really given a choice.”

“You also did not return my calls.”

“Yeah,” said George. “I was busy being shot.”

“You did not return my calls before you were shot.”

“Sorry. What are you doing here? It must be close to midnight.”

She crossed her arms again. “I have been waiting for you. I heard the shooting reported on my father’s police scanner. I went to your apartment to investigate, then came to make sure you were uninjured.”

He patted the bruise on his sternum. “Pretty much, yeah,” he said.

“There is no entry wound?”

“They think the bullet bounced off my rib cage.”

She mulled over the idea.

“Did you say you investigated at my apartment?”

“It was important to examine the scene before the police contaminated it,” Karen said. “While their methods are fine for standard crimes, I thought your shooting might require a more open interpretation of the facts.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Where are the rest of your clothes?”

He shrugged. “This is all I’ve got. I wasn’t wearing shoes when they picked me up, and they cut my shirt up in the ambulance.”

Her eyes ran down his body and back. “Wait here,” she said.

“What? Why?”

She turned on her heel and stalked out the door.

George settled into a plastic chair and crossed his arms over his chest. It was odd, sitting around with no shirt on, but with the random homeless people scattered through the waiting room he didn’t stand out too much. One bulky man was barefoot. Another one looked like he hadn’t bathed in months. They both drew more stares than him.

He turned around and looked into the face of a little girl with pale eyes. She was standing on the chair behind him. Her teeth banged against each other as she chomped on her gum.

He was pretty sure she had gum.

She leaned toward him. George got up and the little girl tumbled over the seats to land where he’d been sitting. She didn’t cry. She kept gnashing her teeth as she slid off the chair and onto the floor. He took a few more steps away, around one of the homeless people—a tangle-headed woman—and settled himself against one of the windows.

Shouldn’t there be police waiting to do an interview? George thought. Take a statement or something like that? He looked around, but didn’t see any uniforms or anyone who looked like they might be a detective.

It didn’t feel chilly, but he could hear lots of teeth chattering in the waiting room. The little girl’s father turned around to stare at George. The man’s neck popped twice as he moved. The homeless woman had twin cataracts that made her eyes white. The nurse behind the counter let her jaw hang open as