Free Cast a Pale Shadow by Barbara Scott Page B

plead his case, he feared he wouldn't be given another chance. He simply had to stay.
    Yet, he'd been surprised when the preoccupied nurse had shrugged and sighed, "Suit yourself. It isn't my job to throw you out." The victory seemed too easy to count as foreshadowing. He had won this time, not through his charm but through her weariness.
    In the dim light from the hall filtering through the partly open door, the dark purple of Trissa's bruises stood out against her pale skin and the stark white sheets. The tracks of shed tears still showed on her cheeks, and he wondered how long she had cried alone while he was being detained by Edmonds. He kissed two fingers, touched them lightly to her hair, and began his vigil.
    He shifted restlessly in his chair as his body made him aware of the jarring he had taken in his tumble over the tracks. Eventually, he slumped down to a position that, despite his best intentions, soon had him dozing, his head bobbing like the marionette of a drunken puppeteer.
    Nicholas found his dreams visited by the shades of his own troubled memories. He was on the railroad tracks again, this time on a trestle that narrowed in one direction to a vanishing point. There was no escape to either side, for the trestle spanned a deep, rugged gully with a ribbon of river twinkling with starlight far below. Acrid smoke billowed up behind him, and he whirled to see the rails burning, sputtering and sizzling toward him like twin fuses.
    "I can get you out of this, Nicholas. Take my hand, jump with me." Doreen's voice was filled with exhilaration, and he was surprised to feel her so close where seconds before he had been alone. He turned to look into her beautiful, beaming face and, as always, it suffused him with light and joy. She kissed him and tossed back her gypsy-dark curls then gripped his hand tightly and he yielded to her gentle tugging. They teetered on the brink, the wind from the chasm swirling her skirts wildly about her knees. "Don't be afraid. There's no other way. Look! The fire is getting closer. Jump with me, Nicholas. Fly with me!"
    "Doreen, this is crazy. We'll be killed."
    "Yes, crazy, that's what we are. Now, Nicholas, now." She grabbed his other hand and yanked him toward her for a kiss so deep he didn't notice as she angled their bodies precariously over the edge until she set them spinning into space. Still joined by their kiss and clasped hands, they seemed caught by the wind for a while as they dipped and swirled like falling leaves.
    She broke the kiss. "We're free, Nicholas! Now they'll never get us back." The wind whipped the words from her, and they splintered in echoes down the ravine. She stiffened her fingers and slipped them free of his, and they parted.
    "Doreen! Doreen?" He realized with the jolt of awakening that he had spoken her name out loud. His heart still thumping in his ears, he pulled himself upright and blinked away the remnants of his dream. God, Doreen! He shuddered with the memory. Why had he dreamed of her after all this time? The sky lightened outside and the hall bustled with early morning activity. He thought a walk and maybe a smoke in the parking lot would dispel his foreboding.
    No one could blame him for what happened to Doreen. No one could have stopped her. No one. Nicholas paused in the doorway to look once more at Trissa. No, it would be nothing like Doreen this time. He would not let things get beyond his control. He was older now. But was he wiser?
    Over the months he had learned to adjust his gait to the altered state of his foot since the loss of his frostbitten toes, but when he was weary or too absorbed in his thoughts, his limp became pronounced. Tonight, it was aggravated by stiffness from his hours slumped in the chair so that his walk down the hall made a clump and drag sound he was, at first, unaware came from him. When he realized it did, his spirits sagged further.
    A cigarette and the walk would not be enough. He was faced with a decision that