The House of Thunder Read Online Free Page A

chatter was amusing, frequently self-deprecating, and oddly soothing.
    “Hungry?” Mrs. Baker asked.
    “Starved.” She had awakened with a ravenous appetite.
    “You’ll start taking solid food today,” Mrs. Baker said. “A soft diet, of course.”
    Even as the nurse spoke, a young, blond, male orderly arrived with breakfast: cherry-flavored Jell-O, unbuttered toast with a single spoonful of grape jelly, and a thin, chalky-looking tapioca. To Susan, no other meal had ever been so appealing. But she was disappointed by the size of the portions, and she said as much.
    “It doesn’t look like a lot,” Mrs. Baker said, “but believe me, honey, you’ll be stuffed before you’ve eaten half of it. Remember, you haven’t taken solid food in three weeks. Your stomach’s all shrunk up. It’ll be a while before you’ll have a normal appetite.”
    Mrs. Baker left to attend to other patients, and before long Susan realized that the nurse was right. Although there wasn’t a great deal of food on the tray, and although even this simple fare tasted like ambrosia, it was more than she could eat.
    As she ate, she thought about Dr. Viteski. She still felt that he had been wrong to let her alone, unattended. In spite of Mrs. Baker’s sprightly manner, the hospital still seemed cold, unfriendly.
    When she could eat no more, she wiped her mouth with the paper napkin, pushed the rolling bed table out of her way—and suddenly had the feeling she was being watched. She glanced up.
    He was standing in the open door: a tall, elegant man of about thirty-eight. He was wearing dark shoes, dark trousers, a white lab coat, a white shirt, and a green tie, and he was holding a clipboard in his left hand. His face was arresting, sensitive; his superbly balanced features looked as if they had been carefully chiseled from stone by a gifted sculptor. His blue eyes were as bright as polished gems, and they provided an intriguing contrast to his lustrous black hair, which he wore full and combed straight back from his face and forehead.
    “Miss Thorton,” he said, “I’m delighted to see you sitting up, awake and aware.” He came to the bed. His smile was even nicer than Thelma Baker’s. “I’m your physician. Doctor McGee. Jeffrey McGee.”
    He extended his hand to her, and she took it. It was a dry, hard, strong hand, but his touch was light and gentle.
    “I thought Dr. Viteski was my physician.”
    “He’s chief of the hospital medical staff,” McGee said, “but I’m in charge of your case.” His voice had a reassuringly masculine timbre, yet it was pleasingly soft and soothing. “I was the admitting physician when you were brought into the emergency room.”
    “But yesterday, Dr. Viteski—”
    “Yesterday was my day off,” McGee said. “I take two days off from my private practice every week, but only one day off from my hospital rounds—only one day, mind you—so of course you chose that day. After you laid there like a stone for twenty-two days, after you worried me sick for twenty-two days, you had to come out of your coma when I wasn’t here.” He shook his head, pretending to be both astonished and hurt. “I didn’t even find out about it until this morning.” He frowned at her with mock disapproval. “Now, Miss Thorton,” he teased, “if there are going to be any medical miracles involving my patients, I insist on being present when they occur, so that I can take the credit and bask in the glory. Understood?”
    Susan smiled up at him, surprised by his lighthearted manner. “Yes, Dr. McGee. I understand.”
    “Good. Very good. I’m glad we got that straightened out.” He grinned. “How are you feeling this morning?”
    “Better,” she said.
    “Ready for an evening of dancing and bar-hopping?”
    “Maybe tomorrow.”
    “It’s a date.” He glanced at her breakfast tray. “I see you’ve got an appetite.”
    “I tried to eat everything, but I couldn’t.”
    “That’s what Orson Welles