by Willow Rose
“God might not be early, but he is never too late,” my dad had said. Once again, I had to say he was right. Even though I still struggled with the fact that it had to happen in the first place.
I walked to the kitchen table, grabbed her sketchbook, and was about to close it when I paused. I stared at the drawing Josie had made, puzzled. Not so much because of how good it was, that surprised me too since Josie wasn’t usually very good at drawing because she was too impatient.
It was what she had drawn that made my blood run cold.
Chapter 18
I flipped the pages in the book and looked at the previous drawings, then grabbed the sketchbook in my hand and walked up the stairs. I knocked on Josie’s door, then walked inside.
“You forgot this downstairs,” I said and held up the sketchbook.
“Oh, thanks,” she said.
I opened it to the drawing that had gotten my attention. “What’s this?”
She looked at it. “Oh, it’s nothing.”
“It must be something since you’ve drawn it several times. Look. It’s the same scene over and over again. Where did this come from?”
“It’s just this nightmare I keep having,” she said with a sigh. “It’s nothing, really. Calm down.”
I looked at the sketch again. It showed a car in the water, sinking into the harbor, and a little girl inside the car looking out the window.
“You’re dreaming about this?” I asked.
“Yeah, almost every night.”
“How long has this been happening?”
“Since I got back from the hospital, I guess, why?”
I shook my head. “No reason. I was just wondering.”
I stared at the sketch again, my heart pounding in my chest. I had never told Josie about the girl whose heart she received…about Emilia. She couldn’t possibly know that was how she died, could she? Had she heard it somewhere else? Maybe at the hospital? But only Jean would know that the heart came from Emilia. It was usually kept anonymous. And Jean would never tell her about Emilia. I couldn’t imagine why she would.
“Who is she?” I asked, to figure out if she knew.
Josie shook her head with a shrug. “I told you. I don’t know. Just someone from my dream.”
I stared at the sketch, then back up at my daughter, wrinkling my forehead, wondering. How was this even remotely possible? How could she know the details about Emilia’s death so well? The station wagon in the sketch was even painted a bright green like the real one had been, the one I saw in the case files.
“Why are you so interested in some silly dream anyway?” she asked with a scoff.
I ignored her remark. I couldn’t stop looking at the drawing, my pulse quickening. It wasn’t just the details that spooked me. There was more to it than that. What had me totally freaking out was something else in the drawing, something—or someone—standing on the dock.
“Who is he?” I asked.
She exhaled. “I don’t know who he is. It starts with me waking up inside the car, and it’s moving, and then I look out the window and see him standing there, looking at me with these steel-gray eyes. I just know in that instant that he’s the one who somehow made the car fall into the water.”
Josie shivered as she spoke. I could tell it was unpleasant for her to talk about it, and I wondered if that was why she hadn’t told me.
“It freaks me out every time,” she added, “and then I usually wake up.”
Chapter 19
I took Camille out for a walk, pushing her in a wheelchair. She enjoyed getting outside and going for a stroll around the neighborhood, looking at the flowers. She pointed at a big red rose, and I pushed her close to it, then plucked it and gave it to her. She smiled at me, then started to cry.
“Oh, no, sweetie,” I said and bent down. “Are you okay?”
Her head tilted sideways, while tears were still running down her cheeks.
I smiled and hugged her. “I know. I know. You can’t help it. You can’t control your reactions. We’ll get you better soon, I hope.”
I pushed her down the street, letting her cry while dangling the rose in her hand. I felt tears coming to my eyes as well while wondering if I would ever see the Camille I had loved so dearly again. I was ashamed to admit it, but this didn’t seem like her. This felt like a completely different person.
I stopped at a park so she could watch the children play while I sat on a bench next to her. Camille liked watching them play; at least, I believed she did. It was hard to tell. At least it was a change of scenery from the bedroom, and she had to enjoy that.
We looked at the young children playing while sharing a snack. She was eating better on her own now, and that was a huge improvement. I just wished I knew what was going on inside that mind of hers behind those beautiful eyes. If only I understood what she needed, what she wanted.
Did she still love me? Did she remember anything from our life together?
“Why did you do it?” I suddenly asked out of the blue. I hadn’t planned on saying anything, but it had been on my mind for so long, it just burst right out of me. “Why did you start doing drugs again?”
I stared at her, feeling stupid. The woman couldn’t speak a single sentence. What did I expect to get out of her? Maybe nothing. Maybe that wasn’t why I asked. Maybe I just needed to get the words across my lips.
She lifted her glance, and our eyes locked. I stared into them, wondering if she even had understood the question at all.
She parted her lips, and a word left her lips.
“Josie.”
It was pretty much the only word she had said since she woke up. That and ba-ba, which she said a lot too, but I had no idea what that meant yet either. The doctor had said there was damage caused to her speech, language, and swallowing, and it could take years for her to rehabilitate it all. I just hoped we could start her rehabilitation therapy soon. I hated that we’d have to wait.
Camille’s face looked confused as she repeated the word “Josie.”
I nodded and took her hand in mine.
“Yes, Josie.”
But her eyes remained bewildered as she kept looking at me, barely able to lift her head enough to do so.
“Josie.”
“Yes, Josie,” I repeated.
She shook her head and looked like she was really trying to say something, then almost yelled out into the park:
“JOSIE!”
She was getting agitated now, and I took her hand in mine, trying to calm her. It was obvious that I had upset her with my question. She yelled it again, repeating it over and over:
“JOSIE! JOSIE! JOSIE!”
People were turning to look at us, concerned looks in their eyes, some even pulling their children away fearfully. I got up, smiling awkwardly at them, then started to push her back toward the house while she still kept yelling our daughter’s name.
Chapter 20
“She was yelling, you say?”
Jean looked at me over the steaming cup of coffee. After my walk with Camille, I had put her back to bed, where she had finally calmed down and fallen asleep. I needed to get out, so I walked next door and knocked. Jean served us coffee and a piece of chocolate pie she had baked that smelled divine. Two of my favorite things were chocolate and pie.
“Yes, everyone was staring, and I couldn’t get her to stop. I feel terrible for admitting this, but I was really embarrassed. I can’t stand seeing her like this. I hate to say it, but it’s almost like it’s worse than when she was just a vegetable, you know? Now, she’s awake, but not much has changed, really. I still can’t communicate with her, and I can see that she is trying to.”
“It sounds like she was trying to tell you something, and the words just wouldn’t come; her brain wouldn’t cooperate. I’ve seen it before in patients who suffered brain injury. I think she might be trying to tell you something. Maybe you need to give her some time, and then it’ll come.”
She sipped her cup, and I mine while fee
ling awful in my stomach. Had Camille sensed I was embarrassed about her? Had she simply been frustrated because I didn’t understand her? Was that why she was yelling?
I shook my head. “I’m sorry for coming here like this. You must think I’m…”
“No,” she said, placing her hand on my arm. “I am glad to be here for you. For all of you. You know I am.”
I looked up, and our eyes met. On another day, in another lifetime, I’d have leaned over and kissed her in this instant. Instead, I pulled my arm away and leaned back.
“There’s something else on your mind, isn’t there?” Jean said. “I know you, Hunter. Something is going on in there. What is it?”
I exhaled. Jean knew me so well.
“It’s Josie.”
She sipped more coffee and ate her pie.
“What about her? Is she having trouble?”
I leaned forward, at first debating if I wanted to tell her this, then decided if anyone would understand and wouldn’t laugh at me, it was Jean.
“She started having these dreams. Ever since she got the new heart, she’s made drawings of them. It scared me half to death, to be honest.”
She gave me a look. “Why?”
“Because they showed how Emilia died.”
Jean put the fork down on the plate. “Her donor?”
I nodded. “Yes. You know how her mother drove the car into the water down at the harbor. She’s drawing that, and I don’t know where she got the information. I haven’t told her how Emilia died, have you?”
Jean shook her head. “I couldn’t see why I or anyone would tell her that.”
“And there’s more in the picture than what we know, and that’s what has me puzzled, to put it mildly.”
“What is it?”
“A man. There’s a man standing on the port, up on the dock, looking down at them. Josie says he’s always standing there in the dream, and he scares her. She also says that he somehow made the car fall in the water.”
“I see,” Jean said. “And now you’re worried that maybe it wasn’t a murder-suicide, that it was, in fact, something else, am I right?”
I nodded.
“I fear they were both murdered, yes.”
Chapter 21
“I just can’t understand how on earth Josie would know about this. That’s what I’m struggling with,” I said and sipped more coffee. “I mean, if I choose to believe this, to believe that they were actually murdered, then what do I do next? I can hardly reopen the case based on my daughter’s dreams, can I? They’ll all think I’ve gone nuts. More than usual.”
Jean thought it over for a few seconds.
“It’s actually not that uncommon. There have been lots of reports of organ transplant receivers claiming they seem to have inherited the memory, experiences, and emotions of their deceased donors, even though they never knew anything about them. I know they did a huge research project recently where a doctor found sixty-something transplant patients and collected their accounts. He wrote an entire book about it, which I read; I just don’t recall the title. But it was quite stunning how they had changed in personality, and how they carried memories that, when it was researched, turned out to have belonged to their donors. A woman who had never liked beer started to drink beer and eat green peppers and chicken nuggets suddenly after receiving a heart from an eighteen-year-old man. She kept dreaming about him too and knew his name was Tim and ended up going looking for him. Others say they have suddenly developed a taste for classical music…stuff like that. There was also a girl who was gay before the heart transplant, and after, she wasn’t. I think I have the book here somewhere,” she said and got up. She walked to the living room, then came back with a book between her hands.
“This is the one.” Jean opened it to a page. “Here’s one that is very similar to Josie’s story. This is a woman who says that she dreams about her donor’s accident every night. She says she can feel the impact in her chest as the car slams into her. She also says she hates meat now, even though she loved it before. Here, you can take the book home and read it if you like.”
Jean slid the book to me across the table.
I stared at her, then down at the book in front of me.
“So, it’s really a thing?”
“Yes, Harry. You’re not going crazy, and neither is Josie. The theory behind this phenomenon is that memory is accessible or processed through the cells, and since the heart possesses cells similar to the brain, and it has been proven that the heart sends information to the brain, it may be possible that information about memories and traits may be transferred to the recipient’s brain.”
“So, let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re telling me that heart transplant recipients can receive information through the donor’s heart after it has become part of their body?”
“That’s the theory, yes,” she said, “but read the book and you’ll know more. I found it very interesting.”
Jean looked at her watch.
“Anyway, I should get to work. I have the evening shift tonight.”
I left her house and walked back to mine, book in my hand. I made myself another cup of coffee, then sat with the book in the living room, reading through all the accounts, one after another, startled and pushed in my beliefs of what was possible for the human body. I had to admit, it all made a lot more sense: the sudden cravings for avocadoes and root beer, her sudden ability to draw, and her new-found interest in creepy stuff that she had never had before.
It all made so much more sense.
But it also meant that, if this was true, if what Josie was dreaming actually happened, then somewhere out there was a murderer who had killed Emilia and Jennifer García, and who was getting away with it.
Chapter 22
The rain drummed on the roof of the car and poured on her windshield so hard the wipers almost couldn’t keep up. It was a typical Florida afternoon thunderstorm, and it always clogged the traffic through downtown. People slowed down, some almost till they came to a stop, and now Savannah was barely moving forward.
She looked in her rearview mirror at the car behind her to make sure it kept its distance. In the back, she had her case with her violin. She had been at practice with the orchestra, and now she felt tired. It had been a long day. The kids at school had been impossible. They were so loud, and their instruments sounded awful. There was especially one kid who always gave her trouble. His name was Jarrett. As usual, he hadn’t practiced for today and kept stopping when they just got into it. He was the only one in class who played the double bass, and that meant he had to know his stuff; otherwise, he threw them all off.
Savannah finally reached the intersection where she had to turn to get to her small street, then drove down the wet road through the puddles. As she parked the car in front of her townhouse, she looked in the rearview mirror again and thought she saw the same car that had been behind her all the way home.
Savannah turned her head to look, but the car continued past her, accelerating down the street, where it took a turn at the end.
“That was odd,” Savannah said and wrinkled her nose. She could have sworn she had seen the same car parked outside her house several times this week. Was it following her? Was someone watching her?
You’re being paranoid again. You’re turning into your mother.
She walked inside and put down her case. She hung her keys on the hook, then walked into the kitchen, where she grabbed herself some water that she drank while looking into the street. She didn’t like it. It had been going on for weeks now, this paranoia, this feeling of constantly being watched.
Maybe she should see someone about it?
Except there was something that made her think she wasn’t completely off, that it wasn’t her going crazy. She knew she had a reason to be cautious, a reason to fear for her life.
Because of what she knew. Because of what she had seen.
Savannah shook her head in distress. She didn’t like to even think about it
. It made her so anxious, it almost hurt. Yet, as she stood there in her kitchen, she couldn’t help herself. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t escape the images in her mind…images of the man with the steel-gray eyes and big hands. Of the dead body on the ground. Of the blood on the ground.
Savannah dropped the glass she was holding. It slid out of her grip and fell onto the tiles below, where it shattered. Small pieces of glass were everywhere, and she began to clean them up but cut her finger on one of them. She stared at the blood from the tip of her finger, while images of the body and the blood on the ground flashed through her mind, making her lose her balance. She reached over for the kitchen table and closed her eyes, trying to replace the images with something nice, something pleasant.
She looked over at the violin case, then wiped the blood off on a paper towel, opened the case, and took out her beloved violin. She touched it gently, then took out the bow and placed it on the strings.
She closed her eyes and started to play, drifting off into the world of music. She played like this for hours and hours on end, not even realizing it had become dark out and nighttime was fast approaching. Savannah kept playing, pressing her tears and fears back till her fingers hurt, and she had no more strength in her arms to hold the violin.
Then she finally put the violin down with a loud exhale. She slid into a kitchen chair, thinking she ought to feel hunger, but she didn’t. She was too upset, too exhausted for that.
As she decided to call it a night and turned off the lights in the kitchen and walked to the stairs, she heard a noise coming from behind her. She gasped and looked toward the back entrance leading to the yard. A shadow was standing there, wearing a raincoat. The water from his jacket was dripping on the floor.
Chapter 23