Chapter 54 fifty-four

Rachel was driving and saw a sign ahead that said Exit 8, right to Portland.So she turned on her rear lights, signaled a right turn, and drove the car toward the exit lane.She saw a green Holiday Inn sign ahead, prominent against the night sky.Rent a bed, get some sleep, and make this continuous.Let the upsetting and exhausting tension be over; let her grief over the dead child be over, too, if only for a moment.Rachel found the grief to be like having multiple teeth pulled, numbness at first, but even in the numbness the pain was lurking like a kitten whacking its tail, about to happen.When the anesthetic wore off, oh my god, the pain was unbearable.

All sorts of thoughts raced through Rachel's mind: He told his daughter that he was sent to warn...but he couldn't interfere.He told his daughter that he was close to Louis because they were together when he was out of consciousness. Chad knows everything, but he doesn't tell me.Something is going to happen, what is it, what is it? suicide?Is it suicide?Not Louis.I do not believe.But Louis is lying, he's trying to hide something, you can see it in his eyes... oh shit, you can see it in the look on his face too, like he wants me to see he's lying... see, And stop him... because he's kind of scared... so scared...

Scared?Louis was never afraid of anything! Suddenly Rachel turned the steering wheel sharply to the left, and the car's tires screeched.For a moment she thought the car was going to flip over.But no, she drove north again, leaving Exit 8 and the reassuring Holiday Inn sign behind.Then another road sign appeared in front of my eyes, and the words on it flickered strangely: Next exit, Route 12, Cumberland, Cumberland Center, Jesel Ram Studios.Rachel mistook the name of the studio for Jerusalem because the spellings of the two words are so similar.She thought casually, Jerusalem Studios, what a strange name, not a pleasant name, in a way... come on, come to sleep in Jerusalem.

But tonight Rachel wasn't going to sleep, and despite Chad's advice, she decided to drive all the way back for now.Chad knew something was wrong and promised her he would stop it, but the old man was in his 80s and had only lost his wife three months earlier.She couldn't leave it all to Chad.She shouldn't have let Louis force herself out of the house like that, but Gage's death had hit her too hard, made her too weak and numb.Ellie's pained face and the way she held Gage's photo all the time came to Rachel's eyes again.It was the face of a child who had survived a tornado, a child who had been bombed suddenly dropped from a clear sky.Several times Rachel wanted to hate Louis, the pain he caused her, and that he didn't come to comfort her when she needed it, but she couldn't, she still loved him so much, his face was so pale... ...so lack of sleep...

Rachel cranked up the speed to 60 miles an hour, a mile a minute, and maybe she'd be in Luther House in two hours and fifteen minutes, maybe she'd be back before sunrise. Rachel fumbled to turn on the radio, found a station with rock songs, turned it up, and sang along, trying to keep herself from falling asleep.Half an hour later, the program on this radio station ended, and she changed to another radio station, and lowered the car window to let the sleepless night wind wake her up. Rachel wondered if the night would end.