It seemed like a hundred years ago that Dana Matherson had tried to strangle him inside the janitor’s closet, but it had happened only that afternoon. “Thanks. Now we’re even,” Beatrice Leep said. “Maybe,” said Roy. They were waiting in the emergency room of the Coconut Cove Medical Center, which was more of a large clinic than a hospital. It was here they’d brought Beatrice’s stepbrother after carrying him upright for almost a mile, each of them bracing one of his shoulders. “He’s going to be all right,” Roy said. For a moment, he thought Beatrice was about to cry. He reached over and squeezed her hand, which was noticeably larger than his own. “He’s a tough little cockroach,” Beatrice said with a sniffle. “He’ll be okay.” A woman dressed in baby-blue scrubs and wearing a stethoscope approached them. She introduced herself as Dr. Gonzalez. “Tell me exactly what happened to Roy,” she said. Beatrice and the real Roy exchanged anxious glances. Her stepbrother had forbidden them from giving his name to the hospital, for fear that his mother would be notified.
