The Heart of the Jungle, стр. 7

Once death was inevitable, the will to live quickly subsided. In the end, greeting death was not so different from slowly drifting off into a deep, relaxing sleep.

Some people who had come back from the brink claimed to see a bright light or a long tunnel. They were surrounded by loved ones and a deep sense of peace and happiness. He had experienced none of those things. Just a slow, consuming drowsiness, and then... nothing. There hadn't even been a sense of time having passed when he'd awakened in the hospital two days later.

That, he realized, was what he wanted now, more than anything---the release of oblivion. If his daughter was lost to him, nothingness was preferable to the lifetime of anguish and unanswered questions that lay ahead.

He couldn't face that pain and loneliness. Who would really care, anyway?

George might shed a tear or two, but he had his practice, his own worries. Chris's death would be a minor affair in the scheme of his life.

Yes, it was better this way, he convinced himself. The world really wouldn't be impacted by the loss of another head case. He was just another drain on the planet's precious resources.

Bullshit. He was taking the coward's way out. He knew it. All these excuses were just the twigs he was using to build his house of straw. Whatever. He'd never claimed to possess any kind of remarkable courage. Aside from that, it was his life, and it was his decision what he did with it.

He traveled down the hallway and paused outside of Michael's office. Everything was still in its place. Even the last file folder that had been on the desk's surface was just where he'd left it. The last jacket he'd worn was draped over the back of the chair. It wasn't sentiment that had caused Chris to leave it this way; he'd just never had the strength to clear it out. Besides, seeing it the way it was when Michael had been around added to the feeling of familiarity. Over the past year, that was about the only thing that had kept him from doing what he planned to do today. When there had still been some hope that they might return or some answers would be forthcoming, he'd held on. Now, that was impossible, and there just wasn't any more reason to stick around.

He continued down the hallway and stopped in his bedroom. The bed was carefully made. Michael's reading glasses still sat beneath the lamp on the end table. He knew that in the closet, Michael's clothes still hung in orderly, color-coordinated rows. He had been careful to keep the shirts rotated and ironed on a weekly basis. On the surface, maybe it looked like a sign of dementia, but he didn't see it that way. He saw it as an act of defiance against the cruelty that fate had visited upon him.

Maybe it was true that Michael was dead and that he was ironing for a ghost. Maybe it was a little deranged. Screw it. It was his psychosis, damn it, and who cared what anyone else thought about it?

He turned slowly to the door at his back. Just across the hall from his bedroom, Brianna's room awaited. This door, unlike the rest, was tightly closed. He'd saved this for last. He hadn't crossed the threshold since that horrible October night. The last people to have entered those hallowed walls were the police, and they assured him that they'd disturbed nothing. There had been no evidence, so everything had been left in its place.

He took a deep breath.

Daily reminders of Michael's existence were one thing, but seeing Brianna's empty bed, or her favorite toys, or her neatly folded clothes on the shelves of the changing table, would have been too much.

He had stood outside the room with his hand on the closed door three times over the past ten months. He'd stood there gasping for breath, willing himself to turn the knob. Each time, he'd collapsed on the floor, sobbing and crying out "why?" to the heavens.

Each time, the door had remained closed.

He braced himself and turned the knob.

The doorbell rang.

He jumped and stumbled backward, startled.

He wasn't expecting anyone. Who could it---?

George.

Of course. He'd promised he'd stop by to check on him.

The pills on the coffee table. He had to put them away.

His heart racing, he dashed down the hallway and skidded to a halt in the living room. His eyes darted to the door and back to the pills. He snatched up the bottle, rushed into the bathroom, and returned the drugs to the medicine cabinet.

By the time he reached the front door, he was panting. He mentally berated himself for the stupidity of his panic. Oh well. The evidence of his intentions was safely hidden away just in case.

He opened the door just as the doorbell rang for a second time.

"George, I...." It wasn't George standing on the front porch.

Backlit by the sanguine glow of the setting sun, a startlingly handsome face stared back at him. The full lips parted in a smile of greeting, flashing bright teeth. There was a sprinkling of stubble upon the sharp jaw, and as he looked up into the man's darkly lashed hazel eyes, he was stunned into speechlessness. Those eyes bored into him with an almost physical force. He just stood there, gaping, disoriented by the effect of that enigmatic stare. It was electric---like something out of a sappy Hollywood love story.

Why could he not tear himself away? Say something? Do something? This discomposure was starkly out of character, particularly given his presence of mind only moments before.

In the tense silence, while he struggled to regain his faculty, while words---a sudden impossibility---refused to coalesce, a strange, thrumming vertigo threatened. He held his breath. What's happening to me?

"Are you... okay?" The stranger stepped quickly across the threshold and reached out a hand to steady him.

Chris couldn't do anything but stare. Heat rose into his cheeks and burned the