Three Wishes by Barbara Delinsky

one’s the worse for the wear.” Tom realized how angry he was. “Who’s to say the next time he careens around in the snow he won’t hit a bunch of kids and kill one or more outright?”
    â€œTold her that myself.”
    â€œHe must have been stoned or drunk. How else could a human being do what he did and then just drive away? Hell, she nearly died.”
    Bonner squinted up at the stainless steel. “I heard she did. Heard she died on the table. Heard she made it to heaven, before someone sent her back. She tell you about it?”
    Tom wanted to say that what Bree told him was privileged information, only they weren’t lawyer and client. He wasn’t quite sure what they were—friends, maybe—but whatever, he wasn’t betraying her. “Heaven?” he echoed. “Did she tell you that?”
    â€œNah. My cousin works with Paul Sealy. Bree told Paul.”
    Bree had told Paul, who told his coworker, who told Eliot, who would tell Earl and Emma. Emma would tell Dotty, who would tell anyone else in town who cared to listen.
    Tom was angry on Bree’s behalf. “Did Bree tell Paul in confidence?”
    â€œWho knows. Look, it’s no big thing. She won’t sue Paul, any more’n she’ll press charges against whoever was driving that truck. If you ask me, it’s a lot of hokum, this near-death business, but I don’t blame Bree. She had a scare. She earned the right to hallucinate. I just don’t want someone having a real-death experience because I didn’t catch the bastard the first time around.” He pushed himself off the stool, straightened the belt under his belly, cleared his throat. “So. I hear you’ve been on Larry King.”
    Tom stared at him, then beyond. Conversation was abruptly down again. Half the diner was looking their way.
    With a thanks-for-nothing look at the chief, he returned to his veal.
    â€œMore than once,” Bonner went on. “He musta liked you.”
    â€œHe liked what I did,” Tom muttered, jabbing at his food with his fork. “I wrote about incendiary cases. It made for an easy show.”
    â€œWhat about Barbara Walters?”
    Tom snorted. “You’ve done your homework.”
    â€œIt’s my job. I’m all Panama’s got. So. How’d she treat you? Did she put you on the spot? She can be a tough one sometimes. Course, that’s what people like about her. Boy, she’s been at it for a long time now. How’d she look in person?”
    Tom raised a piece of veal, pondered it, returned it to his plate. Whoever in the diner hadn’t known who he was before this would know now, and it wouldn’t stop there. It was only a matter of time before the whole town knew.
    So let them know something else, he decided. With a resigned sigh and a meaningful look at the faces turned his way, he said loudly and to the point, “I bought a house in Panama because it seemed like the kind of place where people respected each other, the kind of place where I could go about my business without being questioned about the past. I chose Panama because I wanted privacy, and because it was far away from New York.” Though his gaze settled on Bonner, his voice was a warning for the rest. “If I wanted to tell the world I was here, I’d have taken out an ad in the Times. If the media track me here, I’m gone. Am I getting through?”
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    Miraculously, he finished his dinner. No doubt stubbornness was part of it, since his hunger had left with the mention of Larry King. It wasn’t that he had a gripe with the man, or with Barbara Walters or any of the others who had interviewed him. The majority of those interviewers had simply asked the questions Tom’s publicist had fed them. They were questions Tom had helped formulate, each designed to show yet another flattering side, and he hadn’t felt a bit of guilt doing it. That was how the game