In Sickness and in Death by Jaye P. Marshall Page B

the parking garage of the condominium and turned off the ignition. He came around to the passenger’s door, opened it and extended a hand to help Adrienne exit. When he handed her the keys she kept hold of his hand and smiled up at him.
    “Why don’t you come up for a drink?”
    “I really should be getting on home,” he answered doubtfully.
    “Oh, come on. Tomorrow’s Sunday, surely you can stay out a little late once in a while.”
    A bit reluctantly, Alan followed her to the elevator.
    A couple of hours later he slipped out of the condo bedroom, easing the door closed behind him. He let himself out of the apartment and took the elevator to the underground garage. Feeling more than a bit guilty, he hurried across the floor to where his own car was waiting.
    How had it happened, he wondered as he drove to his own apartment near the hospital. Who had seduced whom? He hadn’t intended for his friendship with Adrienne to go this far. Friendly drinks with another hospital employee or even an occasional dinner or a party was all right, but he didn’t want to get involved in an intimate relationship. But it was too late now. What had been done was done. He couldn’t take it back. But he would have to cool it a bit. He would have to do all he could to prevent them from being completely alone at anyplace or anytime.

    The next day as Brian sat meditating on what he should do for Adrienne, he heard his mother’s voice scream out his name. Instantly, he was by her side as she spoke on the phone.
    “There must be some mistake,” she was saying. “My Brian can’t be deceased , for God’s sake. He’s only a young man and if there had been an accident, I would have heard.”
    “Is his middle name ‘Lee’?” The policeman on the other end of the line asked.
    “Yes, but . . .”
    “And his date of birth was June 13, 1972?”
    “Yes.” Brian watched what little color there had been in his mother’s face drain away.
    “But there has to be a mistake.”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m looking at the death certificate right here. I just got a copy from the County Records Office.”
    “But what happened? Where is his body?”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t have that information.”
    Brian tried to comfort his mother as she hung up the phone, sank into a chair, buried her face in her hands and wept.
    “I’m so sorry that you had to find out this way, Mom. If only I could have gotten through to you before my body was cremated. It would do no good to go looking into it now. You are better off not knowing what actually happened.” He tried to send her the warming glow of his love. “Please, don’t cry. I’ll be here whenever you need me.”
    Receiving no indication that his attempts to comfort his mother were doing any good, Brian went in search of the more developed entities of whom his father had spoken. Maybe they could help him with the Adrienne situation.

    It was a few weeks later when Brian again searched out Adrienne and found her lounging on the deck of a cruise ship. In the deck chair next to her was a good-looking man who certainly wasn’t Dr. Alan Robinson. Apparently the good doctor had been unable to take time away from his practice. Brian thought the guy now with Adrienne looked familiar and tried to place his face.
    Somewhere he had seen him before, but he didn’t believe it was around the hospital where Adrienne worked. Finally, it occurred to him. The man on the deck was one of Adrienne’s distant admirers from the Robinson’s party. She had apparently lost no time in establishing a relationship – or perhaps more than one – with the well-to-do guests that had attended. Apparently, she was not intending to depend on only one man this time, especially after the way it had worked out between them.
    Brian noted that there was nothing that Adrienne was wearing that he had ever seen before. All of her clothing was completely new. Was all of it gifts from her newfound male friends? Or had