The Reckoning Stones: A Novel of Suspense by Laura Disilverio

reminded Iris that she wasn’t used to the altitude anymore. Pausing to breathe and finish her water, she scanned the area. With a start that made her grip the plastic bottle so hard it crinkled, she realized she was directly across from the room she sought. Before she could find an excuse not to, she approached the half-open door, knocked once and entered.
    Her breaths came fast and shallowly, and a dizziness that had nothing to do with the altitude made her grab the door jamb for balance. Sunlight blared through the blinds, striping the floor and making the room too warm. The confined space held a chair, a TV mounted from the ceiling, a potted plant bound with a yellow bow, and a six-foot-high medical gadget or monitor pushed against the wall, silent. A privacy curtain concealed the bed. Could Pastor Matt sense her presence through the thin fabric, hear her breathing? Did he think she was a nurse assistant coming to take his blood pressure? Not even close. Two steps brought the curtain within arm’s reach and she rattled it back with a sweep of her hand.
    The bed was empty.
    Putting a hand across her mouth to stifle the combination gasp and giggle that threatened to erupt, Iris stared at the rumpled bed as if the intensity of her gaze would cause Matthew Brozek to materialize. He couldn’t be checked-out gone, out of her reach. Not when she’d come all this way.
    A footstep warned her of someone’s approach before a voice said, “Who are you and what are you doing in my father’s room?”
    Iris whirled. A grossly fat woman stood in the doorway. A pale green garment Iris could only think of as a muumuu covered most of her bulk, and a large silver cross on a heavy chain lay on an outcrop of bosom. Her moon face, cushioned by half a dozen chins and framed by an expertly blonded bob, was smooth and pale and flawlessly made-up, with red lips and mascara-fringed eyes of marine blue that glittered within deep pockets of flesh. They gazed at Iris with a mixture of suspicion and anger. Iris would never have recognized her except for those eyes and the clue of “my father’s room.”
    This woman had to be Esther Brozek, but it didn’t seem possible that the slim teen Iris had known was buried in the mausoleum of flesh that confronted her. The changes she’d imagined had run along the lines of a few wrinkles or gray hairs … surface changes. Yet, these layers of fat spoke of a wound as deep as Iris’s, of changes as profound. Esther was like an oyster that had added coats of nacre to an irritant, year after year, making it unrecognizable. A quick flush of embarrassment made Iris grip her lips together. Her fantasies about confronting Pastor Matt seemed juvenile in the sterile glare of the hospital room.
    “You don’t belong here, whoever you are,” Esther said, surging forward. “This is a private room. All requests for interviews are supposed to come to me. I’ll have to talk to the hospital administrator again.”
    “I’m not a reporter,” Iris said. Even though Esther had obscured her once slim figure, her bossy and condescending attitude still shone through.
    “Oh. Well, it’s still not appropriate for you to be here, dear.” Her tone had altered, now carrying a disconcerting hint of the unctuousness that had characterized Pastor Matt’s speech. “I know it can be comforting to stand in the presence of the miraculous, of a great healing, but my father is still recovering and I’m afraid he needs rest when he returns from his tests. Are you ill? We can pray.” Esther closed her eyes and held out a hand, clearly expecting Iris to grasp it.
    Iris clasped her hands behind her back. “Esther, it’s me.”
    As the sound of her name, the fat woman’s eyes flew open. She studied Iris for a long moment before saying with certainty, “I don’t know you.”
    “Pretend you’re throwing stones and then maybe my name will come to you.” Iris stood rigidly, her chin jutted forward.
    Esther’s mouth dropped