Into the Light

by Aleatha Romig

  “It’s not her. It’s not her.” Relief crashed down as I leaned against Dylan’s tall frame, grasping his bicep to keep myself from falling. The worry that had propelled me toward the body had evaporated, leaving me physically weak.

  The body before us was now uncovered to just above her breasts, with her arms visible, giving us a full view of the plethora of injuries marking her skin. Whoever she was, she’d lived through hell and died there. The relief that washed through me left a sickening trail of remorse. I was thrilled that this wasn’t Mindy, but, as Dylan had said, it was still a person, someone who might or might not have had a family. Someone who might or might not be missed.

  How did she get to this table, to the house where she was found? What is her story?

  And what about Mindy?

  The theory that my friend’s disappearance was voluntary was ridiculous. An intelligent, successful twenty-nine-year-old woman didn’t decide one day to disappear. Even if she had, with GPS, traffic cameras, surveillance, it wouldn’t be easy, not without help. Mindy had no reason to walk away from her life. She wouldn’t have. She had every reason to stay.

  Standing beside the table, I found myself back to more questions than answers, back to imagining scenarios that made my stomach turn. I’d researched the number of female disappearances nationwide. The numbers were staggering and, looking at the woman before me, I knew that numbers were only a part of the story. Each report was a life.

  What I saw in this woman’s injuries took my imagination to dark places. Her bruises were an array of colors, indicating a pattern of abuse. Yellow and green peppered her exposed arms and cheekbone. I knew enough from my time in the crime lab to determine that she’d gotten those over a week ago. There was also a purple crescent under her left eye and a dark bluish-purple band surrounding her throat. Something besides hands had made the mark around her neck. The first finger and thumb were the strongest and usually left definitive marks. The customary differentiation of fingers was missing. This bruise on this body’s throat was a consistent dark color, indicating that whatever had been around her neck, had been in place for a long time. She also had lacerations. There was a partially healed wound visible on her chest above the edge of the sheet.

  Now that I knew this wasn’t Mindy, my investigative side took over. I longed to remove the sheet and meet this woman, understand her, and learn her story. However, it was more than that. The vile taste in my mouth, the way the tiny hairs on my arms rose, told me that part of me feared that Mindy could be experiencing, at this very moment, the same terror that this woman had known.

  I needed answers, for Mindy, for this woman, and for any other women who had disappeared from their lives to awaken in a nightmare.

  “Miss Montgomery?”

  The technician’s voice pulled me back to the cold room.

  “Yes?”

  “If you need to sit down, you may go into one of our rooms for a few minutes before you leave. We realize this is difficult. I’m sorry we’ve brought you in here twice. I hope you know that we wouldn’t do that if we didn’t think there was a possibility . . .”

  I straightened my shoulders. “No, I don’t need to sit down, and I want you to call me. If there’s even a chance that you have Mindy, call me again. I’ll be here.” I looked up toward Dylan, then back to the young lady. “Thank you. What about this woman?”

  “We’ll run some more tests to see if we can find any markers. Since the tips of her fingers have been burned, our only means of identification are DNA and dental records. Those are both long shots unless she matches a missing-persons list or a national registry.”

  My gaze dropped to the woman’s hands. The way they lay next to her still body, I hadn’t noticed anything about them, but now I saw that the skin on the tips of her fingers was ghostly white.

  “Burned?” I asked. “With what?”

  “We’re not exactly sure. As you can see, it wasn’t fire. We’re assuming acid.”

  “When?” My voice came out softer than I liked.

  Dylan reached for my wrist, pulling me gently toward the door. I didn’t move. I steadied my feet and turned back to the technician. I couldn’t help it. The questions came fast and furious. “What the hell happened to this woman? Do you think someone put her fingers in acid before she died?”

  “I really can’t—”

  “Stella, let’s go,” Dylan said. “This isn’t your story.”

  I turned to face him. “Whose story or case will it be? Who’ll give a shit about her or what she suffered?”

  “It’s an open investigation,” the technician volunteered. “The police are working on it.”

  “If someone were to use an acid strong enough to take away her fingerprints, wouldn’t there be more damage to her skin?” I asked.

  The young woman nodded. “If it were done all at once. However, if it’s done over time, each application takes away a little more. Then it scars, making the final result more effective. Some terrorist groups willingly do this to lose their previous identities.” She looked down. “I really shouldn’t say any more.”

  “Stella, we need to go.” Dylan placed his hand on my shoulder.

  I nodded as I scanned the features of the woman on the table. Briefly I wondered what she had looked like before she was hurt, killed, and left for rat food in an abandoned house. That was what some asshole had done. If drugged-out kids hadn’t gone into the house to shoot up or hook up in the middle of a Detroit summer, this woman would’ve been consumed by rodents, greatly reducing any hope of identification.

  Shaking my head, I looked back at the technician. That’s when I saw it, a look in her eyes that seemed to plead for my help, asking me to use the resources at my discretion to do something.

  I tested the waters. “Thank you for your help. What’s your name? I apologize for not asking sooner.”

  “Tracy, Dr. Tracy Howell, assistant forensic pathologist.”

  I stood straighter. “Doctor. Again, I apologize. I just assumed you were a technician.”

  Dr. Howell smiled. “I’m used to it. It’s all right. When people enter our labs, they aren’t in the best place. I’m sorry, Miss Montgomery, that your friend is still missing. Thank you for stopping by.” Her eyes shifted to Dylan, then back to me. I got the feeling that Dr. Howell didn’t want to talk with others around.

  “Call me Stella, please. Thank you again, Doctor.”

  As Dylan and I walked through the door to the hallway, I took one last look over my shoulder and saw Dr. Howell cover the blonde woman’s head with the sheet. The vision of the woman settled into the back of my mind: her yellow hair combed away from her battered face; her eyes partially opened, irises hidden by the veiled lids; her fingers curved slightly, their distinguishing marks burned away.

  And something else.

  One of the earlobes, the one on the right, was split, as if an earring had been ripped from the ear. My feet stopped. We’d made it to the security gate but I’d suddenly forgotten how to move.

  “What is it?” Dylan asked in a low voice.

  I barely heard his question as I tried to make sense of the injury. Should I go back and confirm what I saw?

  Mindy’s ears weren’t pierced. That was one of the things I’d specifically told the medical examiner.

  Why did Dr. Howell call me down here if she knew it wasn’t Mindy?

  Perhaps there was a simple explanation. With all the injuries the woman had, her ear could have gone unnoticed.

  “You’re scaring me. Are you going into shock? What’s the matter?”

  I shook my head. “I was just thinking about Mindy.”

  Mindy and I used to joke about getting tattoos. Neither of us had actually wanted one, but we were curious. We’d wondered what the fascination was, why people continued to get them. The subject didn’t come up every day, usually only when we’d had a little too much to drink. Regardless, it always ended the same way, with Mindy biting her lip and recounting her fear of needles, telling
how she’d reacted when her mom took her to a store in the mall to have her ears pierced.

  She’d begged and pleaded with her mother for weeks. All her friends had pierced ears and she’d wanted them too, until she was there, sitting on the stool, watching the clerk pick up the silver gun. She’d usually start to laugh as she recalled how she’d been struck by an overwhelming wave of panic. How she’d screamed at the top of her lungs, completely out of control. She’d even fallen from the stool. Needless to say, she never had her ears pierced, and after we saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we never again even joked about getting a tattoo.

  Dylan’s warm hand rubbed a circle on the small of my back. “Why don’t I take you home? I’m sure if you call Barney he’ll understand. This is too hard on you. I don’t like that they keep calling. I think they should call me. If I’m not sure, then I’ll have you come down and confirm. That woman obviously wasn’t Mindy.”

  I shook my head. “Thank you, but I want to be the one they call, and I can’t go home. I still have work that needs to be done at the station. Besides, I don’t think sitting in my apartment with only memories and a vivid imagination is a good idea.”

  Dylan took my hand and walked me through the building. By the time we made it to the parking lot, I’d tucked Mindy away, to a safe place. “Where’s your car?”

  Pointing to the left, he said, “It’s right over there.”

  I turned and spotted his unmarked Charger.

  “How about when you’re done with work, you come back to my place, instead of going home to that empty apartment?” Dylan leaned closer. “You left in a hurry this morning and besides, I’d like to learn more about that vivid imagination of yours.”

  I blushed, liking how he’d twisted my comment. “I’d like that too, but I didn’t go home yesterday, and I don’t have any clean clothes. Oh, and then there’s Fred. I need to check on him.”

  Dylan’s eyes sparkled in the warm Detroit summer sunshine. “Fred’s a fish. I think he’ll make it. As for clothes, I have this amazing new technology. It’s called a washing machine. I bought one because I’d heard they were all the rage. I can cook some dinner; you can experiment with the new technology?”

  I tilted my head and sighed. “You’re terrible. If I used that amazing new technology, what would I possibly wear? I mean, I need all my clothes clean.”

  “Oh! That’s the fun part. That’s where your vivid imagination comes in. If you need help”—he pulled me close, circling my waist—“I’m sure I can come up with a few ideas that don’t require clothes.”

  I reached for his shoulders, stood up on my toes, and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for being here. I appreciate it. But I think I’ll take a rain check. The same outfit at work for three days, even if it’s clean, will get people talking, and seriously, you don’t know Fred. He mopes if I’m not there. It’s really sad to see his little blue betta fins all drooped. Bye.”

  As I walked away, my phone buzzed, and I opened the text message:

  Dylan: FRESH SALMON?

  He definitely wasn’t playing fair. Cooking wasn’t my thing.

  I started my car and looked in my rearview mirror. Dylan hadn’t pulled away. He hadn’t even gotten into his car. Instead he was leaning against the Charger, his long, jean-covered legs crossed at the ankles, his black, short-sleeved shirt looking too damn good stretched over his chest. I backed my car out and drove toward him. His face lit up, glowing triumphantly from his sparkling eyes to his shiny white teeth.

  I came to a stop and rolled down my window. “You’re not playing fair! You know how I am about your cooking.”

  He laughed. “You know how I feel about yours. That’s why I offered. I’ll cook some salmon on the grill, with some asparagus, a few cold beers . . .” He pouted. “But if you’d rather hang out with Barney.”

  I shook my head. “Give me an hour and I’ll call you. No promises.”

  He winked. “I’ll be waiting.”

  I rolled up my window, cranked the air conditioning, and headed back to the station.

  Even the thought of his cooking made my stomach rumble and growl, but no, I couldn’t go back to his house tonight. It wasn’t that Bernard needed me, though I needed to call him to tell him the body wasn’t Mindy’s. What I wanted to do had nothing to do with work or with the drug distribution happening at the port. What I wanted was to call Dr. Tracy Howell and find out why she’d called me down to the morgue twice, and what she was really trying to tell me.

  I reached for my phone to call Bernard and saw my wrinkled slacks. I definitely needed to go home. Turning my car toward my apartment, I decided to call Bernard and do more research from home.

  CHAPTER 7

  Sara

  After I heard Jacob walk Dr. Newton to the door, I expected him to explain what the doctor meant about my training.

  Will I be left alone with Sister Lilith? Will Raquel or Elizabeth be there? For some reason, I suspected that this was a women-only thing. Do I remember that or do I just suspect it?

  Instead of talking to me, however, Jacob resumed his pacing. Back and forth, four steps. Though he was still taking big strides, his shoes didn’t pound the floor with the force and intensity they had last night.

  One, two, three, four—turn, one, two, three, four—turn . . .

  I lay back and searched for my memories, hoping for something, a clue, a crumb . . . anything. I couldn’t understand how I’d willingly come to this place, a place where shadows of perversion lingered outside my reach. I also wondered why I’d want to do training and if I’d done it before. Does everyone do it? If I did, why am I doing it again? I tried to clear my mind, to think about nothing, in the hope that something would come. Nothing did.

  It didn’t make sense. Everyone here knew me. Everyone knew my past . . . except me. I wasn’t ready to face the reality that the problem must be me.

  Time passed as tears slid silently from beneath the bandages and down my cheeks. Even that felt wrong. I wasn’t a crier. Then again, maybe I was.

  I didn’t try to stop the tears. They were my wordless appeal to my husband, my unspoken request for support. I needed more than him fighting for me while others were present. I needed him to help me when we were alone, to explain why this all felt wrong. Mindlessly I wiped away the tears that I’d vowed to let rain free. The longer they fell, the more I understood: my tears didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  “Sara.”

  Lost in my own thoughts, I startled at Jacob’s voice beside me. I hadn’t heard his pacing cease. I didn’t move or turn in his direction. It was too late. I didn’t care anymore. If showing weakness was what it took to get his attention, then I didn’t want him or his support.

  Instead what I wanted was to get away . . . away to a place where I wasn’t powerless, where I had a voice, where I belonged. I didn’t know where that was. All I knew with increasing certainty was that it wasn’t here. Here, I was trapped.

  My dampened face fell toward my chest as my tears morphed into sobs, each one deeper than the one before. The cries didn’t come from my throat but from my soul, consuming me. Each sob thrust deep into my heart, splitting it open, crying out for my stolen sense of self.

  Under this onslaught, my heart was unable to beat at its normal rhythm, instead thudding in my chest, a dull repeating sound echoing in my ears. Without its steady rhythm I’d cease to exist. Then I realized . . . it had already happened. I no longer existed.

  Whoever I really am is gone.

  I gasped, but air wouldn’t inflate my lungs. My heart, my lungs . . . internally I was disappearing.

  The bed rail beside me lowered. Jacob lifted my hand, but I couldn’t feel his touch. Even his words were gone. I heard only the sound of my cries. The bed shifted, but where our bodies connected there was no warmth. Mine no longer belonged to me. Jacob held someone else’s hand, his leg pressed against someone else’s thigh. The wails grew louder and louder.

  Who was this desperate person?

&nb
sp; Sara.

  Jacob spoke to her, to Sara. He called her by name as he tried to calm her. His words were there, but I didn’t listen. His tone was comforting, but I was beyond calming. It didn’t matter, because he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to the woman on the edge of panic, the woman who willingly lived a life of subservience. A woman who could exist in this strange and terrible place.

  That’s not me! I didn’t want any of this. I wasn’t that person. There’d been a mistake, a terrible mistake. Sara and I were two different people, and somehow I had to make him understand. I didn’t know who I was, but without a doubt, I wasn’t Sara.

  With a fleeting gasp, air finally came, finding its way to my lungs. The deep breath momentarily stilled the sobs, though the ringing in my ears continued. My inhalation brought the sharp pain back to my side. It was the hurt that Brother Timothy said was mine to bear for sins I’d committed.

  Anger sparked a fire that had nearly died. I didn’t commit any sins. Perhaps Sara had, I didn’t know nor did I care. The only sin I recalled was allowing others to determine my future, to dominate my life and body. A cold chill went through me and a sour taste filled my mouth as I remembered Dr. Newton’s recent examination. I hadn’t been able to see their faces, but they had been there, both he and Jacob standing, touching and viewing my exposed body. It felt wrong, almost immoral. These people preached against sin, accused me of transgressions, yet expected me to submit to their violations.

  Another jolt of pain in my side reinforced my newfound determination. Whoever I truly was, wasn’t gone, not yet. I needed to fight. But I couldn’t do it alone. Mentally I reached for Sara and she and I united. I wasn’t her, but I needed her body to save me. I couldn’t stay trapped any longer. I wouldn’t.

  “Sara, that’s enough.” Jacob’s caring tone was gone. He grabbed my chin.

  I pulled away from his grip.