I got in the car and tore out of that drive before Ellen could stop me. Through the dust cloud behind me, I caught a glimpse of her in the rear view mirror as she barged out of the cottage. She didn’t chase me far. She pulled up on the road, all slumped and sad, watching me go. I wondered if she wondered if I would ever come back. I wasn’t so sure myself.
I didn’t exactly know the way to Burlington. But driving through Middlebury I lucked out and stumbled onto a signpost at the junction with Route 7 North, so I turned. It was as momentous a left turn as I had ever taken in a vehicle. Now that my course was set, my core filled with little needles that seemed to precipitate out of my blood. I’m not sure I was cut out for this assassin business.
But then again, I was more a courier than a killer. I was just making a delivery. It was Wendell who created the Fellstraw. And it was the nurse who would be committing the actual act. But I tried not to think about it too much. I just couldn’t process the magnitude of the deed.
My first murder. The lead-up summoned a far different feeling from any of my other firsts. First time behind the wheel of a car. First date with a girl. This was just as nerve-wracking, but there was something fiendish and nightmarish about taking a life.
I was under no illusions that this little errand would get Wendell out of my hair. I could tell what he was doing, leading me along, giving me a taste of what it would be like to work for him and the Frelsians as a high-paid assassin. I had no intention of following him any farther down that path, but like Urszula had said, it would buy time. To what end, I wasn’t sure yet.
At least it was pretty country up here. A lot flatter than I expected to see in a place called the Green Mountain State. Lots of fields and meadows. Cows and barns everywhere. There was supposed to be a big old lake up here. Champlain, I guess it was called, but I never caught even a glimpse of it from these flat lands.
I took care not to go too much over the speed limit. I had no license. No identification whatsoever.
When I got to town, I had to stop and ask for directions to Winooski Avenue. Turned out I had overshot it and had to double back. The houses here were a weird combination of quaint, rundown and majestic all interspersed within the space of one block. The configurations were diverse. No two built exactly alike, quite a change from Fort Pierce, where whole subdivisions had the same layout and palette. But I guess that’s the way things are up here. People built their houses one at a time.
The Lakeview Assisted Living Center didn’t look like much. It had no view of any lake, as far as I could see. It was just an old, bloated and triple-decker house with a fenced-in yard, surrounding by other houses in varying stages of dilapidation. Apparently, the winters were rough on paint jobs up here. It was not the ritziest neighborhood in Burlington.
As I stepped out of the car, I realized I had forgotten to stop for flowers. I racked my mind to try and remember if I had seen any florists on the way. But I hadn’t really been looking for any.
One of the neighbors had some daffodils and tulips in the flower bed. Those along the front walk were kind of old and bedraggled, but there was a row of bicolor tulips on the shadier side of the house that had yet to come into bloom.
I looked up and down the street. There was no one around, so I bustled over to the next yard and snapped off a good half a dozen blossoms. It wasn’t ideal, but it was going to have to do.
So I went back to the Center, ascending a rather steep, makeshift wheelchair ramp made of painted plywood and hit the switch for the automatic door. Inside, there was a small lobby with a threadbare all-weather carpet, mottled with random stains and bleach marks. The air smelled like a blend of urine and antiseptic.
