Critical Judgment (1996) by Michael Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

their gravel driveway made the announcement redundant.
    His not coming out to the kitchen to meet her probably signaled another evening of tension. She paused by the back door for one more rib.
    “In here,” he said.
    As she passed through the kitchen, she noticed the bottle of pills on the counter. They were prescribed for Josh by the employees’ clinic at Colstar. Fioricet—headache medication with generic Tylenol, some caffeine, and a moderately strong sedative. At least he had gone to see someone. If he mentioned having a headache, fine. But she had started enough skirmishes by bringing the subject up herself. Not tonight.
    He was on the couch in the living room, his favorite spot, eating some vegetable stir fry, watching a baseball game, and doing a crossword puzzle. Taken as an isolated freeze-frame, the scene looked incredibly normal. She bent over and hugged him from behind. Then she took off his glasses and inserted herself between him and the puzzle.
    “In case you can’t tell,” she said from breath-mint range, “I’m a little starved for affection.”
    He blinked as if he had just noticed she was there. Then he took her face in his hands and, for a moment, seemed to be peering at her through a fog. Even so, his blue-green eyes drew her in as they always had. Finally he responded to her closeness with a kiss, lips nearlyclosed, eyes open. It was hardly an invitation to anything more intense, but for the moment she would take it.
    Josh was thirty-eight, an electrical engineer who had been married briefly in his early twenties and had been a gun-shy bachelor-about-town since. Two and a half years ago a mutual friend had fixed them up, accurately predicting that neither of them would be intimidated by the other’s intellect and good looks. Abby adored him from night one. Josh wasn’t as certain about her initially, but the time constraints of her job at St. John’s required him to make something of a commitment if he wanted to see her at all. Within six months they were living together—an idyllic relationship, spiced with good friends and a wonderful merging of styles, humor, temperaments, and interests.
    During medical school Abby had had a two-year relationship with a med student who decided in one tumultuous week that he was neither ready to be a physician, nor to be romantically involved with anyone. Over the years that followed she had dated as much as her demanding schedule allowed. But having a man in her life was never an overriding priority. She had good friends and a stimulating job in a city that she loved. If Mr. Right came along to share all that, so much the better. If not, she wouldn’t be shattered. It was only after she met Josh that she was able to admit that, subconsciously, she had been kidding herself all along, purposely minimizing the importance of finding someone because she feared it simply wasn’t going to happen for her.
    From the very beginning the two of them were at ease with one another. Josh was more fun to be with than any man she had ever known, and it seemed as if there wasn’t one aspect of her life that wasn’t better, richer, because of him. Even her ER work became less stressful knowing that the end of the day meant sitting in a theater together or trading puns as they jogged through the park or squeezing into their small tub togetherbefore making love. She knew without doubt that this was the man she had held out for—the man she had somehow had in mind when she had worked so hard to find fault with the others. And at almost thirty-five, she had no desire to begin the process again.
    “Sorry I’m late,” she said, setting what remained of the Chinese food on the table. “I finished up the day from hell with a really tough case.”
    “Tree resin, six letters, begins with
m
.”
    “Mastic. Josh, listen to this. There’s this hermit. He lives in the forest someplace north of town. A former professor, believe it or not. He got beat up and I sewed up his