Sleep With The Lights On by MAGGIE SHAYNE Read Free Book Online

families make it together.”
    Organ donation. That hadn’t even occurred to him. He let his eyes travel up and down his brother’s body, completely intact except for his head.
    “The ventilator keeps the organs oxygenated until the decision is made,” Nurse Bieber went on.
    “I see. So he’s...”
    “He’s already gone, Detective Brown. I’m really sorry.”
    Mason nodded. “Seems like it would be a shame to just waste them, doesn’t it?” he asked. “The way he wasted the rest of himself.”
    “Yeah. It does. There’s someone right now praying they’ll stay alive long enough to get a heart, a liver, a kidney, a lung. Even his corneas are still good. He could make a blind person see again. Maybe for the first time.”
    A blind person see again.
    Maybe this accident happened for a reason.
    Mason turned and looked at the nurse, revising his opinion of him. “They should have you talk to all the families in this situation. You’re good at it.”
    “Does that mean you’re going to...?”
    “Yeah, I’ll convince the family. Marie...she listens to me. But don’t worry, I’ll let the doctor think he talked me into it. Now, about those corneas—can we pick someone to get those? A specific person? If they’re the same tissue type or whatever?”
    “Of course you can. Tissue typing isn’t even necessary for corneas anymore. The latest studies, blah blah blah.”
    The nurse’s words faded into the background noise inside Mason’s head, where the gunshot was ringing and echoing endlessly. He was staring at his brother, remembering when they were kids, playing on the tire swing that hung from the giant maple up at the lake, seeing who could swing out farther, dropping into the icy cold water.
    How do you go from a laughing ten-year-old to a cold-blooded killer?
    “Detective Brown?”
    He nodded to let the nurse know he hadn’t lost him. “Can you, uh, give me a minute alone with him?”
    “Sure. And then you’ll call the family?”
    Mason nodded.
    The kid left and closed the door behind him, leaving Mason alone with Eric. He moved closer to the bed. “I don’t know what to say to you, brother.” He swallowed to loosen up the constriction in his throat. “Hell, I don’t even know if you can hear me, but...what the fuck, Eric? What were you thinking? You—” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You killed all those boys, you sonofabitch. And then dumped it all on me? What the fuck, man?”
    He sighed, backed away. “Okay, so you win. You’re badass. You make the messes, and I clean ’em up. Just like always, big bro. And now I’ve gotta go call Mother and Marie, and break their hearts. And they’re gonna cry and mourn for a piece of shit who never deserved either of them. Much less the boys. Damn you, Eric, how could you do this to your family?”
    He got up, started to leave, then turned back. “Why the fuck did you have to wait for me to get there, make me watch you do that? That’s never gonna get out of my head, you know.”
    He left the room, closed the door, lowered his head way down because his eyes were burning with tears, and then, finally, he called his sister-in-law.
    * * *
     
    By noon my room was full of balloons, flowers and various idiotic stuffed animals. And people, let’s not forget people. My BBF—best blind friend—Mott Killian was at my bedside, strumming his guitar and singing away, doing his usual half-a-song-then-switch thing. Mott taught American history over at Cortland State. Amy, my irritatingly twentysomething personal assistant, had confiscated my tray table for her laptop. She was clicking away, tweeting and posting hourly updates to my fifty-thousand-and-some-odd followers, and manning her ever-present iPhone to tell reporters no to every interview request. I have no idea about social media. She does it all for me. My agent, Barracuda Woman, was keeping tabs via Skype from her Manhattan office. And my sister was riding herd on the hospital staff and