Let Darkness Come

by Angela Hunt

  “What?” Timothy crosses his arms as concern and confusion mingle in his eyes. “You’re not talking about Erin anymore, are you?”

  Briley bites her lip and looks away. Years ago she swore she’d never dredge up the past and resurrect an old injustice. The shame nearly killed her once; it might suffocate her now. But Timothy has come back. If he plans to stay, he has a right to know.

  “Do you remember—” she palms tears from her face “—when I told you about how my father died?”

  He nods. “He was murdered by an ex-con. And you were with the cops when they found him.”

  “Right. What I didn’t tell you was that the ex-con dropped a packet of crack cocaine near my father’s body, probably when he was rifling Dad’s pockets. The cops found the coke, and someone from the newspaper saw the police report. Next day there’s a front-page story about how the pastor of a local church is murdered while he’s hanging out with ex-cons and dealing crack. People come out of the woodwork to talk about Dad riding around with dealers, and the social worker who delivers me to my foster home asks if Dad ever tried to get me to use drugs.”

  “I wish I’d been there for you back then.” Timothy’s voice is thick and unsteady. “I’m sure there were people who stood up for your father. People who remembered all the good that he did.”

  “Sure, there were. But the public doesn’t like to hear about the good things, and newspapers don’t like to report them. Drugs and robbery make better copy. My dad had gone to that shopping center to make some convict’s kids happy, and in return, that con ruined my Christmases forever. Worst of all, when the guy was tried for murder, his lawyer claimed my father was the contact for a network of dealers and ex-cons. By the time they were finished telling their stories, my father’s reputation was in the toilet. Dad spent his lifetime serving others, and for what?”

  A muscle quivers at Timothy’s jaw. “That’s why you went to law school.”

  She shrugs. “I knew there was nothing I could do to help Dad. My father’s killer went to prison, so I was glad of that, at least. But I never forgot how it feels to be wronged and desperately want vindication…or to walk into a crowd and be stung by doubting glances. So yeah, I ended up in law school.”

  “And you’ve been defending your dad ever since.”

  She gives him a one-sided smile. “Ironic, isn’t it? One of my professors thought I’d make a good prosecutor, but I’ve never wanted to punish the guilty as much as defend the innocent. Trouble is, once I started practicing, I realized that most of my clients actually committed the crimes they were accused of. That’s why I assumed Erin was guilty…until something she said clicked in my mind.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “That seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing. That sounded like something Dad would have said…and I found myself looking at the case with new eyes.”

  Timothy catches her hand. “Don’t give up, Briley. If she pulls through, she’s going to need you more than ever.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  After two hours of no news, Briley sends Timothy home to bed. A few moments later, she looks up to see one of the E.R. doctors approaching. “You’re the one who came in with the prisoner?”

  She stands. “I’m her lawyer. And her name is Erin Tomassi.”

  The doctor shrugs. “Of course. Well, she’s awake and she’s talking. As far as we can tell, she’s suffered no permanent effects from the drowning.”

  “Did you say drowning?”

  “Attempted murder, actually. One of the EMTs told me they found her beside a laundry tub. Fortunately, the water and the room were cold…and low temperatures activate the diving reflex, which causes the heart and lungs to shut down. They worked on her for thirty minutes before they got a pulse, but I don’t believe she’s going to suffer for it.”

  “Are you kidding? No brain damage?”

  “None apparent. The patient is perfectly coherent, but pneumonia is always a risk. We’ll want to keep her overnight to make sure she’s come through without injury to her lungs or kidneys.”

  Briley sighs in gratitude. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” The doctor grins and backs away. “But I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that your client has nine lives.”

  A few minutes later, a nurse allows Briley to slip past a watchful police officer and step into the cubicle where Erin is propped up on a gurney. The nurse holds a finger to her lips, acknowledging the late hour, but Briley feels as if she’s moving in a timeless dimension. The clock has stopped, and she can barely remember the last time she ate.

  The cubicle is quiet and warm. Erin, neatly tucked in and covered with a blanket, has a clip on one swollen finger and a machine recording her pulse and blood pressure. A pastel hospital gown has replaced the jail uniform. An IV stand holds a bag of fluid that drips into a vein on her right hand. A set of handcuffs links her wrist to a railing on the bed. Her forehead is bruised, as are her arms and hands.

  Briley sits on a small stool and studies her client. No permanent effects, the doctor said. Nothing physical, perhaps, but how many nightmares will Erin experience after this?

  Briley leans toward the edge of the gurney and drops her hands onto the railing. When her ring hits the metal with a soft chink, Erin stirs. Her fingers move, her eyes open, then she looks at Briley—and smiles.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi yourself,” Briley says. “How are you feeling?”

  Erin’s eyes widen. “She’s gone.”

  “Who’s gone?” Briley moves closer. “The person who did this to you?”

  Erin shakes her head in an almost imperceptible movement. “Lisa Marie. She’s gone. I can feel…emptiness. Like when you lose a tooth.”

  Briley remains silent, not sure how to respond. Could the doctors have been wrong about the brain damage? Is Erin delirious?

  A nurse appears in the curtained opening, a determined look on her face. “Your five minutes are up,” she says, her voice firm. “Our patient needs to rest.”

  Briley squeezes Erin’s hand, then smiles a farewell to the nurse. By this time tomorrow, if all goes well, her client will be a free woman. But what price has she paid for her freedom?

  Briley steps out of the cubicle, grateful for the policeman on duty. Erin is finally in protective custody. She has a vigilant nurse, a uniformed cop, and a lawyer to watch over her—but the lawyer is hungry.

  She presses her hand to her midsection as her stomach reminds her that hours have passed since she ate breakfast. In search of food and coffee, she follows signs for the hospital cafeteria and finds it on the first floor. Most of the chairs are stacked on tables, but a pair of doctors in green scrubs sits in a far corner, eating sandwiches from cellophane wrappers. A custodian mops the floor near the cash register and makes small talk with the cashier.

  Briley walks down the line of packaged foods and realizes she’s so hungry she could eat two of everything. She didn’t get to finish her lunch, and she was in such a rush to type up the motion and get it to the judge that she didn’t take time for dinner.

  She picks up a tuna sandwich, a package of cookies, and a fruit salad. After pouring herself a cup of coffee, she moves to the cash register, where the dark-haired woman stops talking to the custodian long enough to ring up her purchases and hand her a receipt. Briley takes her tray and walks toward the only table with an available chair. A man in a white coat is sitting alone at the neighboring table, and on second glance, he looks familiar.

  “Excuse me.” She stops in the aisle. “Were you treating an E.R. patient earlier tonight?”

  The man’s look of concern lifts the wrinkles etched into his cheeks. “Is that young woman a friend of yours?”

  “She’s a client…and yes, she’s a friend.” She gestures to the empty seat at his table. “Would you mind?”

  “Make yourself at home.” He lifts a brow when he sees her tray. “Better not let the nutrition police catch you eating dinner so late. Nothing heavy afte
r seven, that’s what they’re always saying.”

  “I don’t pay much attention to the nutrition police.” She sits and drapes the strap of her purse over the back of the chair. “Lawyers don’t have to be careful about what they eat.”

  “Because they can always sue their doctors.” The man smiles, but his eyes are serious.

  Briley tugs at her sandwich wrapper. “I don’t handle malpractice suits. I’m in criminal law.” She takes a big bite and leans back to savor the mingled tastes on her tongue. Hard to tell what sort of doctor her companion might be—he’s wearing a blue scrub suit under his white coat, but no hat. No stethoscope around his neck. No junk food on his tray, only a coffee mug.

  She swallows and tilts her head to peer at his nametag: Eric Baron, Neurology.

  “Neurology?” She lifts her coffee cup. “They called you in to check Erin’s brain function?”

  He smiles at her. “You’re a quick study.”

  She shrugs. “I’d say it was a no-brainer, but I imagine you hear that a lot.”

  “You’re right on that score.” His eyes soften. “The patient—she’s in some kind of trouble?”

  Briley pulls the plastic top off her fruit salad. “She was assaulted at the jail. Technically, she was murdered, but the EMTs revived her. And that poses an interesting question—can a man be tried for murder if his victim revives?” She shakes her head, still stunned by the night’s events. “I can’t believe she’s okay. Apparently someone held her underwater in a tub or something. The E.R. doc said the cold preserved her brain function.”

  He nods. “The mammalian diving reflex. When the face is submerged, the reflex slows the heartbeat and redirects the flow of blood to the heart and brain. We’ve revived people who’ve been underwater for more than half an hour.”

  Briley swallows a bite of banana. “It’s all so hard to believe. I mean, I just spoke to her…though what she said didn’t make much sense.”

  “Wasn’t she lucid?”

  “Yes, but—” Briley hesitates, then decides to take a risk. “Are you in a hurry to rush off somewhere? Because I’d really like to talk about this, but I don’t want to keep you from your family or your work.”

  “I’m in no hurry.” The doctor taps his steaming mug for emphasis. “What’s on your mind?”

  She can almost see Timothy’s teasing smile as she frames her thoughts. What, you asked a perfect stranger about your client? Aren’t you getting a little personally involved?

  All right. She wouldn’t have done this last month, but she needs to do it now.

  “Dr. Baron—” she wraps both hands around her foam cup “—have you ever heard of chimerism?”

  A line appears in his forehead. “Like an animal with the DNA of another species?”

  “Like a human who is two fused twins in one body. A woman with two different types of DNA.”

  He picks up his mug. “It’s not exactly common.”

  “According to a geneticist, my client is a chimera. Or was. Or not. But the thing is, she had this invisible friend in her childhood. That’s not so odd, right? But the friend, Lisa Marie, seemed to stick around and talk to my client in her dreams. I think—of course, I’m probably wrong—but I think Lisa Marie might be the chimera. Is that even possible?”

  The doctor sips his coffee, then tilts his head. “Two twins in one body…two separate souls. I’ve often wondered what happened to the souls of twins in a case of fetus in fetu—”

  “Don’t forget, Doc, medical jargon isn’t my first language.”

  “Sorry. Fetus in fetu occurs when one twin is absorbed by the other, but the separate body remains. I read about a recent case just the other day. Apparently a thirty-six-year-old man in India went to the hospital for a suspected tumor in his belly—the growth was huge. When surgeons opened the tumor, they discovered assorted body parts, including teeth and bones. Apparently a mutated twin had been developing inside the patient for more than thirty-six years.”

  A rise of nausea threatens to choke Briley, forcing her to swallow and look away from her food. “But that tumor wasn’t a living person…was it?”

  “It certainly wasn’t alive once they cut it out. So if it had a soul…I suppose it left the body when death occurred.”

  She lowers her fork as her appetite shrivels. “If it had no brain, maybe it didn’t have a soul. After all, the soul is our consciousness. Once you lose that—”

  The doctor waves a finger. “Not so fast. Do you lose your soul when you go to sleep? Or when you lose consciousness under anesthesia?”

  “All right, I spoke too soon. The soul must be part of the brain. And since my client only has one brain, she should have only one soul….”

  “Let me tell you a story.” Dr. Baron lowers his mug. “Once I had a patient referred to me by oncology. By the time I was called in, the cancer that began in his lungs had invaded his brain. At the end, I knew—everyone knew—he was little more than a shell. His brain had been completely eaten up by the cancer. Scans revealed that no healthy tissue remained. He could no longer move, smile at his wife, or respond to stimuli. I checked on him on a Thursday morning and noted agonal breathing—the deep, gulping breaths that signal the beginning of death—so I told the nurse to summon his wife and children.”

  Briley shakes her head, suspecting what will come next. “That must have been hard for them…and for you.”

  “Dying isn’t easy for anyone. But I knew the family would benefit, even though he wouldn’t be aware of their presence. I stopped by his room later that day, thinking I’d be able to comfort the family. I found my patient smiling at his wife, patting his children’s hands, and telling them all not to worry. The sound of their voices had brought him out of his coma, and from someplace he summoned the strength to tell them goodbye. Then he slipped away again and expired within the hour.”

  Briley stares, her heart thumping against her rib cage. “You must have been wrong about his brain.”

  “I wasn’t. Autopsy proved what I suspected. The brain no longer existed.”

  “Then what—”

  “The soul, my dear. His soul struggled to reach his loved ones. Did you know—” the doctor leans forward “—that the body loses approximately twenty-one grams of weight at the moment of death? It’s not the weight of air in the lungs, either. Some have theorized that twenty-one grams is the weight of a soul—the invisible essence that doesn’t reside in any particular organ. If your client is two individuals, one living beneath the skin of another, why shouldn’t she have two souls?”

  “It’s impossible.”

  “It’s inexplicable. But we doctors deal with the mysterious every week.”

  Maybe lawyers do, too.

  “In any case—” Dr. Baron idly turns his coffee cup “—you might want to advise your client to remain quiet about her chimerism. There are doctors who would love to put her through tests to ascertain exactly where the anomaly occurs, and I doubt your client would appreciate being used as a human lab rat.”

  Briley lifts her hand. “What if…”

  “Hmm?”

  “What if one of the souls…leaves?”

  For an instant, the doctor’s face clouds, then it clears. “Ah. Your client died.”

  “But she was revived.”

  He considers the question, his forehead creasing, then he nods. “Maybe only one soul wanted to return. Think about it. If you had to subjugate every thought, feeling, and action to someone else, even someone as close as a twin, would you fly free if given the opportunity?”

  Briley frowns. “But fly…where?”

  The doctor smiles. “At this point, my dear, that’s a question only faith can answer.”

  Briley returns to the waiting room outside the emergency unit and settles on a couch with vinyl cushions. In the chairs closer to the admissions desk, a mother frets over her crying infant, a man cleans a bloody cut on his face with a towel, and a middle-aged woman wearily holds an ice pack to her temple.

  Br
iley takes off her coat, folds it into a bundle, and uses it for a pillow as she curls up on the couch. She ought to go home. She has to be in court tomorrow; she’ll have to face Bystrowski and whatever challenge he and his associates have dreamed up. He’ll be freshly polished in his suit and tie, while she might not even have the time—or the inclination—to take a shower.

  What matters most is staying here for her client.

  The cop keeping watch outside Erin’s cubicle doesn’t know her; he’s merely earning his hourly pay as he barrels out his chest for the passing nurses. His gun belt is still shiny, and so burdened with gun, nightstick, and radio it’s a wonder he can rise out of his chair without giving himself a hernia.

  Briley closes her eyes to the guard and the waiting patients. She has things to consider.

  Believing is…seeing.

  She has a client who for months has proclaimed her innocence. Her client is a chimera. Her client may have had two souls.

  If such a thing is possible, Briley doubts it exists in the annals of legal literature. The only situations that even come close are cases in which women have met with violence and lost their unborn babies. Illinois law considers the homicidal killing of an unborn child a criminal offense…at any stage of gestation.

  Slowly her thoughts expand, joining a sliver of comprehension here, connecting with a realization there. An unborn child, an unborn twin. In a very real sense, isn’t that what Lisa Marie was?

  A sister of the soul. An unexpected reminder of eternity.

  When the truth shines fully upon her heart, Briley realizes Timothy was right. She is her father’s daughter. Though she has tried to bury her heritage beneath a mantle of detachment, her dad consistently taught her that life is about much more than the things we can see and touch. He knew that faith brought understanding. He lived to give. Now so can she.

  And she will give whatever she must in order to get Erin acquitted.

  The partners of Franklin, Watson, Smyth & Morton don’t care about Erin, and their confidence in Briley is perfunctory, at best. They are counting on her to stick to her usual approach and remain aloof from her client. They expect a guilty verdict, and they want to please their most powerful client.