Suspicion of Betrayal by Barbara Parker

and glanced at the clock: 12:37 amThere was a moment of knowing. The old man was dead. Anthony was calling to tell her.
    She fumbled for the receiver, dropped it, then brought it to her ear. Her eyes were still closed. "How is he?"
    A silence.
    She cleared her throat. "Anthony?"
    Then a voice like metal scraped across piano strings. HelloGailConnor.
    Still groggy, she struggled to sit up.
    Hellobitch. The hideous clanging resembled a laugh. Timetodie.
    "Who are you?" Suddenly awake, heart pounding, she automatically clutched a handful of sheet at her heart. "Why are you doing this?"
    Goingtogetyou. Timetodie. Howdoyouwantit?
    "Go to hell." Gail saw the pale green light of the disconnect and jabbed it.
    Within moments the ringing resumed. Gail turned on the light and squinted at the display, pay phone.The same as last night? She couldn't remember. This time she left the number in memory.
    She turned off the ringer. For a few seconds there was silence. Then a muffled jangle came up the stairs from the extension in the living room. She threw back the blanket and stood up, staring at the open door to her bedroom, the dark hallway beyond. She thought of calling the hospital, asking for Ernesto Pedrosa's room, then dismissed that idea. She couldn't disturb Anthony when he was waiting for word from the doctors. Come home, I'm scared.
    The phone rang again downstairs, then went silent. In her room the display showed the same number as before, but the message light remained dark.
    She thought of the argument with Peggy Cunningham. Peggy might have confronted her son with Gail's accusations. Might have punished him. Might have sent him to his room, where he sat fuming. He would look out the second-floor window and see her car in the driveway.
    "Oh, stop it," she said aloud. "He's only fourteen years old."
    She hastily put on jeans and a T-shirt and went downstairs to check all the windows and doors, and turn off the ringer on the extension. She sat in the dark in the living room, listening for noises. Her mind spun with visions of a face at the window. If Anthony was here, he would go outside with his pistol. Gail did not own a gun.
    She dialed 911, heard it ring once, then hung up. The police had better things to do. Yeah, some woman got a phone call and wants us to drive by and see if Freddy Krueger is hiding in the bushes.
    The ringer was off. What if Anthony called?
    This is stupid, she told herself. Someone playing a joke, nothing more. She turned it back on, then went upstairs and turned on the phone in the bedroom as well.

    It was past two o'clock in the morning when the call came through. Gail was wide awake. She saw MERCY HOSPITALon the display and picked it up.
    Anthony told her the old man's heart rate was irregular. They had him on medication, and the doctors were deciding what to do. .
    "Tell him I love him," she said. "And Digna. Be sure to tell her."
    "I will," he said.
    "I love you too, Anthony."
    "I'll call you in the morning. Go back to sleep. Te quiero.''''

FIVE

    â€œIwouldn't say I'm worried."
    "Well, I'd be worried. You should notify the police. Promise me you will."
    "I promise, Mother. If it happens again, I'll call them."
    Gail had come to her mother's house to sit on the terrace, read the Sunday paper, and be fussed over.
    A gust of wind off the water teased Irene Connor's sun hat, and she caught it and pressed it firmly on her head. Bright auburn curls framed her face, and her sunglasses were a conscious joke—hot pink frames with little flamingos at the corners. Karen had bought them for her in Key West. Extending her arm, Irene aimed the brass nozzle of a hose toward the periwinkle around the base of a palm tree.
    "It's so hot," she said. "Look at that poor plant, how droopy. I was just out here yesterday." Flat four-petaled flowers bobbed and swayed in the stream of water.
    "My grass is dying," Gail said. "We just laid it, and it's turning brown. The roofers broke some sprinkler heads. They're still