by Keith Thomas
“Is she okay?” Matilda asked.
“She’s in the hospital.”
“I thought—”
“No,” Kojo clarified, his disembodied voice so close. “I meant she’s had some trouble. Another seizure. Doctors told me she’s okay, but they don’t know what brought it on. I thought maybe those pills her mom was giving her. They’re running tests. I just figured you ought to know about it.”
“A seizure?”
“Yes, that’s what I was told.”
“But she’s okay?”
“She’s asking for you. Doctors told her you’d be by to check on her in the morning, when visiting hours start up again.”
“I’ll go now,” Matilda said, pushing off the blankets. “I have access.”
“Now I didn’t mean to get you out of bed and—”
“Why’d you call me then?”
Matilda didn’t mean it in any accusatory way. And she hoped the tone of her voice made that clear. She wasn’t sure why she cared if she’d offended Kojo, someone she barely knew. But she did, and it went beyond just professionalism. There was an emotion attached to her worry—she wanted him to like her, to trust her, to want to call her again.
Okay, she told herself. What’s that all about? This isn’t just about Ashanique or . . .
Matilda listened keenly to the silence on the other end as she grabbed a pair of green scrub bottoms from the floor.
Kojo cleared his throat.
“I was worried about her,” he said. “Figured you might be too.”
“Want to meet me there?”
Kojo paused again. “Been a long night already. I’ve got a ton of paperwork. Everyone hears about shootings and wonders about the investigations, how the cops follow leads and sort through evidence. No one ever stops to think about all the paperwork. That’s just not sexy. Truth is, though, almost every case is broken line by line—we write the reports and find the answers there.”
“You’re right, doesn’t sound sexy.”
“Drive safe now,” Kojo said. “I’ll talk to you again soon.”
Matilda put the cell phone back on the nightstand. She replayed Kojo’s last words in her head in a loop. There was something there. She told herself that maybe, after Ashanique was okay, after the girl was safe and in a place where Matilda could really, truly understand what was going on in her head, then maybe this thing with Kojo could . . .
Ashanique needs you. That’s it. That’s the only thing happening right now.
Twenty-three minutes later, Matilda walked into the hospital.
She stopped by the nurses’ station on the sixth floor and asked the on-call psychiatrist about Ashanique’s condition. The psychiatrist wasn’t too worried about the seizure (that was the domain of Dr. Olson, the neurologist on deck) but she had concerns about some of the things Ashanique had been saying. They went beyond post-traumatic stress. The psychiatrist tossed around words like undifferentiated schizophrenia and schizophreniform disorder. Matilda wasn’t prepared to call it anything yet. Despite some reservations, the psychiatrist okayed Matilda to look in on the girl. Figured it would help for Ashanique to see a familiar face.
The curtains were drawn across the windows to room 623.
Inside, the only light emanated from a blinking call button hung over the edge of Ashanique’s bed. The girl appeared to be asleep. Matilda closed the door quietly. She considered tiptoeing over to the uncomfortable recliner near the bathroom. She figured she could sleep there until Ashanique woke up. But halfway across the room, Matilda realized that might frighten her.
A soft voice called to her from the darkness.
“I’m awake.”
Ashanique sat up. With her braids undone, her hair spilled out against a propped-up pillow in magnificent wild curls. Ashanique moved her feet out of the way so Matilda could sit on the edge of the hospital bed.
“How’re you doing?” Matilda asked, sitting down.
Ashanique shrugged. “Fine.”
“I heard about the seizure. Must have been scary.”
“It wasn’t. I’m worried about what caused it, though.”
“Ashanique, do you know what is happening?”
“It’s the memories. All those lives that are coming back.”
“Like George?”
Ashanique nodded.
Though it was hard to see the girl’s eyes, Matilda felt the weight of her gaze. She shifted and moved farther up on the bed, closer to Ashanique; she needed the girl to know she wasn’t going anywhere. That she could be trusted.
As Matilda listened to Ashanique’s breathing, images from the previous forty-eight hours flooded her mind. So much had happened. This little girl was in the hospital and her mother was missing, possibly dead; Clark’s throat had been slit by some maniacal killer; Matilda herself had been only minutes away from death; and all of it had started the moment she walked into Ashanique’s life.
“Did your mother tell you about George? Did she coach you?” Matilda needed to know the truth.
Ashanique seemed to sink into her bed. “You still don’t believe me?”
“I’m not saying I don’t. I just need to understand better what it is you’re experiencing. I did some research on George Edwin Ellison. You got all the facts right; all the ones that I could verify. And the details were . . . remarkable. Whatever it is that is going on inside your mind, Ashanique, it makes you very, very special.”
“It scares me sometimes,” Ashanique whispered. “It’s not seeing all the lives that came before this one. It’s not experiencing them either. Some of them are really, really horrible, though. It’s just that there are too many. I feel like . . . Sometimes I feel like I’m going to drown under the weight of all of them.”
“I’d find that frightening too.”
“You had that feeling ever?”
“Not like that, but I swam when I was in high school, and I once helped save one of my teammates. She’d been bragging about being able to swim the length of the pool, back, and then back again in one breath. Stupid stuff. She tried and almost made it. She sank to the bottom of the deep end and, luckily, I was over there. I pulled her up and the coach did CPR. She was okay, but afterward she told us what it felt like. Her head got light, fizzy, like there was soda bubbling around inside, she said, but her body got really, really heavy. She sank faster than she knew she could. Then it all went black.”
Ashanique nodded as she listened to Matilda.
“It makes me feel like I might go crazy like the others.”
Matilda leaned in. “What others, Ashanique?”
The girl’s hands tightened on the bedsheets.
“My mom told me things when she was alive.”
“Ashanique, we don’t know that—”
“She’s gone now,” Ashanique said. “I don’t know how I feel it, but I do. It’s not so bad, though. Things were getting tough for her. She was really stressed-out. She’s with the older ones now, with the other numbers.”
Matilda propped herself up on her right arm so she had a better view of Ashanique. As she spoke, she ran her fingers along the girl’s forearm. Even though it was very light, Ashanique seemed to relax instantly at the touch.
“That man who attacked us, he said he was looking for number Fifty-One. I assume he meant your mom. Do you know what that means? She was fifty-one of what?”
Ashanique said, “She didn’t tell me. She didn’t need to.”
“Can you tell me?”
“Clarity. It was called Project Clarity. It was an experiment, a long, long time ago. But I can see it in my head. That’s what I was drawing, you know? When you saw me in my room; that place in the forest and the snow. I was there, Matilda. I was part of it in a past life. In my mom’s life and my grandmother’s life. The Night Doctors did terrible things there. Terrible things, and they’ll do them again if they catch me. That’s why he’s looking for me. . . .”
“The man at the pharmacy?”
Ashanique nodded.
Ashanique took Matilda’s hand and squeezed it tight between her own. Her fingers were warm, and Matilda’s were so cold.
“You heard my mom,” Ashanique said. “I have to meet someone tonight.”
“I know that’s what your mom said, but this person—”
“Childers.”
“Who is Childers?”
“I don’t know. Someone who works for Dr. Song. We have to be in the library at the International Museum of Surgical Science tonight.”
“Have you met Dr. Song before?”
Ashanique looked away, hiding whatever she knew. A moment later, she said, “I’ve never met him, but my mom told me he is the only one who can fix me.”
“Why would you need to be fixed, Ashanique?”
“I already told you. Right now, the past lives that I can see are just a trickle. But my mom told me that more and more will come. Without the pills, they’ll overwhelm me. Make me crazy like the others. But even the pills won’t stop it all the way. It will get worse and worse as I get older. By the time it’s done, I’ll be insane.”
Matilda knew the girl sounded delusional. Her story was the product of a severely ill mother to a daughter who had never known another life outside of the topsy-turvy one they inhabited. And yet, the pain, the fear, the profound anxiety in Ashanique’s eyes were very real. Matilda knew she had to be careful. When used incorrectly, therapy can be more damaging than a weapon.
“How will Dr. Song fix you?”
Ashanique smiled.
“With the solution.”
32
3:18 A.M.
NOVEMBER 15, 2018
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICAL
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
DR. HENRY OLSON was dictating when the detective asked to see him.
Dr. Olson was old enough to have grandchildren but he was the proud father of a seven-year-old girl. She’d run him ragged the last few days, between dance recitals and the art classes that his husband, Alex, insisted on signing her up for despite the fact that he couldn’t take her. Dr. Olson’s anger at having to drive across the city in rush hour dissipated the second he saw his daughter’s first papier-mâché mask. He mounted it above the fireplace, the proud father of a budding artist.
But now, there was this impossible case of a girl whose mother had been feeding her cancer medications without any medical oversight.
Unreal.
Dr. Olson would have asked himself what the world was coming to, but it was actually much improved from when he was a young intern, when it felt like every other child was coming to the ER abused and abandoned.
In the few quiet alone hours that Dr. Olson had, usually when he was swimming at the rec center, he frequently drifted back to the faces of those broken children. He wished he could gather them up in his arms, give them those precious moments of happiness his daughter so enjoyed.
“What can I do for you, Detective?”
Dr. Olson leaned back in his office chair and undid his tie. He noticed the clock on the wall behind the detective. It was near three thirty in the morning.
Kojo said, “Any updates on Ashanique?”
Dr. Olson threaded his fingers behind his head.
“She seems like a healthy girl, and, considering what she’s witnessed, she’s doing surprisingly well. But that’s not to say I don’t have some concerns. First and foremost is the fact that her mother’s been dosing her with an experimental cancer medicine, one that has never been properly studied in children and has some serious side effects in adults. The girl’s blood sugar is also higher than I’d like. Could mean prediabetes; could mean something else. We’re waiting on additional labs to come back. Any luck on finding the mother?”
“Still looking. You mentioned side effects from the medication.”
“There’re a whole host of things. Pain, nausea, headaches, blurred vision, anemia, lymphedema, restlessness, but I’m most concerned about potential liver damage. I haven’t seen anything to suggest there’s an actual problem, though.”
“Why would the mother give her daughter something like this?”
Dr. Olson shook his head.
“That’s the real question, right? Wish I had an answer. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen parents give their children. But I’m sure you’ve come across just as many horrors. I, uh, I honestly have no idea why she’d give the girl MetroChime, but I can tell you that it isn’t exactly an easy medicine to come across. It’s an experimental cancer drug, developed by a small British pharma company to treat leukemia but stuck in clinical trials. Average time it takes to get pediatric approval on a drug is thirteen years; this thing’s been around at least that. Funny thing is, the mother had to work hard to track this stuff down. That suggests, to me at least, that it was more than deliberate. It was calculated. She obviously believed that this drug would help her daughter. Against what, your guess is as good as mine. Certainly not cancer.”
“Any of these side effects involving mental disturbances? Seeing things, hearing things? Schizophrenic-like behaviors?”
Dr. Olson frowned. “Not that I’m aware of but . . . truth is, when a clinical trial is run, nearly every side effect is listed. Someone stubs their toe twice during a research study of a medication and it’ll turn up on the warnings. Half the stuff on there is a sort of reverse placebo effect. People know they’re taking a new med and will assign any negative health condition that arises to it. You enroll someone in a study who fails to mention he gets headaches every afternoon on account of the amount of caffeine he drinks, and guess what? Your drug now has a side effect of causing headaches. That’s an oversimplification but not far from the truth. So, yeah, maybe psychological stuff is possible. We haven’t done a full eval yet. What’s got you concerned?”
“Some of the stuff she talked about. Said she hears things?”
“I leave most of that to our psychiatrists. I don’t see anything in a neurological sense. No tumors. No apparent injuries. Nothing physical that might cause some of the things you’re describing. However, the wheels of medicine sometimes move pretty slowly. I’ll have a better sense of things when we get all the test results in.”
Dr. Olson ended with his trademark “not much left to talk about” smile.
“Thanks, Doc,” Kojo said. “Appreciate it.”
“I’ll call you when I know anything more.”
• • •
Kojo told himself it’d be a good idea to check in on Ashanique himself.
He didn’t mind seeing Matilda as well.
Kojo knew she was at the hospital. After his wake-up call, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep. She was more than just transfixed by Ashanique. He had to admit, the girl held a certain fascination that went beyond the details of the case. Even Dr. Olson had confirmed as much.
Kojo took an elevator to the sixth floor, where he flashed his badge to the nurse working the desk. Kojo found the door to Ashanique’s room open. He peered inside and saw Matilda sitting on the girl’s bed.
Ashanique, awake, smiled and waved.
“Thought you had paperwork?” Matilda said.
“I was in the area, figured I’d stop by. Want to get a cup of coffee?”
Matilda turned and looked back at Ashanique.
Ashanique nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
Kojo and Matilda grabbed two cups of watery coffee from the cafeteria. The only people sitting at the tables were a handful of staff—nurses, medical assistants, and doctors—who talked shop over stale doughnuts and exceedingly thick slices of banana bread.
Drinks in hand, they made their way to a bench in the lobby. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, they could see a steam vent sending weaving white serpents up into a night sky peppered with stars. The night was frigid an
d silent.
“You think she’s special too, don’t you?” Matilda asked Kojo.
“I think she’s resilient.”
“I mean, the stories—”
Kojo nodded. “The past-life memories?”
“Yes.”
Even harried and exhausted, Matilda was a bright light. Kojo noted the brilliance in her eyes, a brilliance that suggested an unquenchable curiosity and a fierce intellect. He also noticed how incredibly smooth the skin around her neck was. He imagined touching it but quickly shook the thought loose.
“I’m not a scientist like you,” Kojo said, “but my gut tells me there’s something more going on here than just a girl telling stories. To be honest with you, thinking about this stuff gives me that same sort of overwhelming feeling you get when you think too hard about space. You know, about how it’s infinite? How we’re these tiny specks in the middle of nothing? You think too hard about that stuff and you feel crazy. I realize that’s not a technical term. What about you?”
“I still don’t know. If it’s true, it flips psychology on its head. If it’s not, it means she’s some sort of savant. Either way, I can’t help but feel—”
“That she’s special?”
“Yeah.”
Kojo shifted, stretching his back. It was a tell, an unconscious shifting of emotion. Matilda knew he was going to ask her something personal.
“I get the research,” he said. “I get why you have an interest in Ashanique’s case. But, there’s something more to it, isn’t there? This whole thing, the past lives, the idea that you can remember backward hundreds of years, it speaks to you. I mean, beyond the science of it.”
Matilda said, “Is it that obvious?”
“No,” Kojo replied. “I just pick up on things.”
“My mother has Alzheimer’s. Hers was early onset. My grandfather did too. I’m convinced, well, all the genetic science says, I’m likely to develop dementia. I’ve spent my career, most of it really, trying to find a way to stop the progression of dementia. Seeing it firsthand, watching how someone can be so utterly erased so quickly . . . I knew since I was in high school that I would make it my mission to find a cure. So I studied chemistry and psychology, and I’ve been trying to weave the two together. If we can understand the chemistry of how a memory is formed, of how the brain stores those memories, how it retrieves them, then we can figure out how to protect the process. How to fix it when it’s falling apart. I have all these notes on the walls of my office, they started out as a way to try and see the big picture. You should see my apartment. Anyway, I thought that maybe immersing myself in it all would help guide that breakthrough. . . .”