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While he waited for the pictures to develop, he had cleaned the wound, flooded it with iodine, dusted it with antibiotic powder, and prepared a bandage Now he got a needle, another implement she could not identify, and heavy thread from a cabinet and put the on the side of the examination table The wounded ht side with the help of several foa?" Laura asked

"Those holes are fairly large, especially the exit wound If you insist on endangering his life by keeping him out of a hospital, then the least I can do is throw a few stitches in hiht, but be quick about it"

"You expect G-men to break down the door any minute?"

"Worse than that," she said "Far worse than that"

Since they had arrived at Brenkshaw’s, she had been expecting a sudden, night-shattering display of lightning, thunder like the giant hooves of apocalyptic horsemen, and the arrival of o, as the doctor had been X-raying her guardian’s chest, she’d thought she heard thunder so distant that it was barely audible She hurried to the nearestto search the sky for far-off lightning, but she saw none through the breaks in the trees, perhaps because the sky over San Bernardino already had a ruddy glow frohts or perhaps because she had not heard thunder in the first place She had finally decided that sheoverhead and, in her panic, had misinterpreted it as a more distant sound

Brenkshaw stitched up his patient, snipped the thread-"sutures will dissolve"-and bound the bandages in place ide adhesive tape that he repeatedly wound around the guardian’s chest and back

The air had a pungent, htly but it did not bother Chris He sat in the corner, happily working on another Tootsie Pop

While waiting for the X-rays, Brenkshaw also had administered an injection of penicillin Noent to the tall, white,the far wall and poured capsules froe jar into a second ss here, sell theo broke at the pharmacy"

"What’re these?" Laura asked when he returned to the exaave her the two small plastic

"More penicillin in this one Three a day, with meals - if he can take meals I think he’ll coin to dehydrate, and he’ll need intravenous fluid Can’t give him liquid by mouth when he’s in a coma - he’d choke This other is a painkiller Only when needed, and no ive me your whole supply" She pointed to two quart jars that contained hundreds of both capsules

"He won’t need that much of either one He - "

"No, I’m sure he won’t," she said, "but I don’t knohat the hell other proble to have We may need both penicillin and painkillers forotten into? It’s like soive me - " Laura stopped, stunned by what he had said "Like so in one of my books? In one of my books! Oh, my God, you knoho I am"

"Of course I’ve known almost from the moment I saw you on the porch I read thrillers, as I said, and although your books aren’t strictly in that genre, they’re very suspenseful, so I read theraph’s on the back of the jacket Believe et your face once he’d seen it, even if he’d seen it only in pictures and even if he was an old crock like ht it was a joke After all, the melodraht, the gun, the corny, hard-boiled dialogueit all seeht think of such an elaborate hoax and, if they knew you,to her guardian, she said, "But when you saw him-"

"Then I kneas no joke," the physician said

Hurrying to his mother’s side, Chris pulled the Tootsie Pop from his mouth "Mom, if he tells on us"

Laura had drawn the 38 froan to raise it, then lowered her hand as she realized the gun no longer had any power to intihtened hi she now realized he was not the kind ofshe could not convincingly portray a lawless, dangerous woman when he kneho she really was

On the exaroaned and tried to shift in his unnatural sleep, but Brenkshaw put a hand upon his chest and stilled him

"Listen, Doctor, if you tell anyone what happened here tonight, if you can’t keep my visit a secret for the rest of your life, it’ll be the death of me and my boy"

"Of course the law requires a physician to report any gunshot wounds he treats"

"But this is a special case," Laura said urgently "I’ from?"

"In a sensefrom the same men who killed my husband, Chris’s father"

He looked surprised and pained "Your husband was killed?"

"You must’ve read about it in the papers," she said bitterly "Itthe press loves"

"I’m afraid I don’t read newspapers or watch television news," Brenkshaw said "It’s all fires, accidents, and crazed terrorists They don’t report real news, just blood and tragedy and politics I’m sorry about your husband And if these people who killed hio straight to the police"

Laura liked this ht they shared more views and sympathies than not He see Brenkshaw to keep his mouth shut "The police can’t protect me, Doctor No one can protect me except me-and maybe the man whose wounds you just sewed up These people who’re after usthey’re relentless, implacable, and they’re

He shook his head "No one is beyond the law"

"They are, Doctor It’d take me an hour to explain to you why they are and then you probably wouldn’t believeof you, unless you want our deaths on your conscience, keep yourhere Not just for a few days but forever"

"Well "

Studying him, she kneas no use She remembered what he had told her in the foyer earlier, when she had warned him not to lie about the presence of other people in the house: He did not lie he said, because always telling the truthhabit Hardly forty-five h to believe that he was indeed an unusually truthful f ed him to keep their visit secret, he was I not able to tell the lie that would placate her and get her out of his office He stared at her guiltily and could not tease the falsehood froue He would do his duty when she left; he would file a police report The cops would look for her at her house near Big Bear, where they would discover the blood if not the bodies of the time travelers, and where they would find hundreds of expended bullets, shattered s, slug-pocked walls By tomorrow or the next day the story would be splashed across the newspapers

The airliner that had flown overheadjet, after all It ht it was-very distant thunder, fifteen or twenty ht without rain

"Doctor, help uardian on the table beside the to betray me later"

He winced visibly at the word betray

Earlier she’d sent Chris upstairs to get one each of Brenkshaw’s shirts, sweaters, jackets, slacks, a pair of his socks, and shoes The physician was not as uardian, but they were approximately the same size