Lucidity

by CJ Lyons

  Where Jimmy was waiting for her to join him. Forever.

  She had a brand new bottle of Tylenol--more than enough to polish off her liver. In a few days, she'd slip peacefully into a coma and never wake up. By the time anyone realized what she'd done, it would be too late.

  She sucked in her breath, overwhelmed for a moment by the longing to be back in her house, surrounded by familiar smells and sounds and sights. Jimmy's face looking down on her as she worked on her computer. Even locked behind the cold glass of a photo frame, his smug grin lent her warmth, strength.

  Please God. Let me find a way out of this place. I just want to go home.

  Grace shook away her childish wishes. She of all people knew the futility of praying to a faceless god. She ducked her head around the corner of the nurses' station and checked to be certain it was empty before she crept inside.

  She knelt in front of the chart rack, below the sight line of anyone passing in the corridor. Kat had been here long enough that two thick volumes bore her name. She grabbed the first and leaned back against the wall. Down the hall a door swished open. Footsteps came toward her accompanied by a man's breathy whistling.

  She pulled her knees to her chest and slid behind the chart rack into the dark space below the counter top. The footsteps passed her. Keys rattled in the secure door at the end of the hallway. Where Alex said the Beast lived. She wondered what kind of patient earned that sobriquet and the need for locked doors.

  A woman's voice came from nearby. Dr. Warden. A man's voice answered. A voice that sliced into Grace's very marrow, releasing a swarm of wasps and terror.

  Grace curled into a ball, squeezed her eyes shut as panic overwhelmed her.

  She had a good idea who the Beast was.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Beast

  Eve removed the last of the electrodes from Lukas's shaved scalp. "Let's go over everything we covered tonight," she told him.

  Lukas looked up at her with glassy blue eyes--his usual look, not a side effect of the Lucidine therapy. But he was more engaged now than he had been when they began therapy four months ago. He flexed and closed his long, skinny fingers but otherwise sat perfectly motionless, his body slumped in the chair, watching her with that almost-vacant stare as if trying to judge if she was real or not.

  "Tell me about your wife."

  "Gracie. Gracie is my wife." His face became animated, his gaze bounced around the room as if his wife hid in a corner.

  "Is?" Eve frowned. Tonight's session had been frustrating--all the ground she'd gained over the past four months lost again for unknown reasons. She pounded her fist against her thigh. Renee Redding was not going to like this. Not at all.

  And if Renee wasn't happy with Lukas' progress, then Eve would lose the funding for her private clinic. "You mean, was, right?"

  "No." Lukas frowned, concentrated on twisting his wedding band. Eve had tried repeatedly to get him to stop wearing it, decided when that finally happened, she'd know that her treatment was a complete success. Until tonight, she'd thought that might be any day now. "Our fifth wedding anniversary is coming up this May."

  Goddamn it! She'd worked so hard--she couldn't stand it that those idiot psychiatrists at Western Psych might be right. They'd had Lukas for almost four years and got nowhere--said his delusions were fixed, he was beyond treatment, psychotic.

  But with the help of Lucidine, she'd been able to replace those delusions with a new reality, one that would render the man harmless to society. It was to be Lucidine's greatest triumph when Lukas was re-evaluated in two weeks.

  The launch pad for her own clinic, supported by the government grants Renee Redding promised her after she cured the lobbyist's son. Renee also assured her a steady stream of private patients once Lucidine therapy was validated.

  "Lukas," she injected the venom she felt into her voice. "We've been through this. You and Gracie were married but what happened on your honeymoon? Do you remember driving home from the airport? The drunk driver swerving into your lane? Remember, Lukas?"

  He squinted at her, brow creased in a frown as he tried to separate his delusions from the alternate reality Eve had programmed his brain to respond to. She leaned forward, took his hand. "Think, Lukas. Remember the blood? Her screams?"

  He nodded as if in a trance. "I remember blood. I remember screaming."

  That was right, big boy. Only it had nothing to do with a drunk driver. When Eve first got Lukas, sent to her by his lawyer after a long court battle and a lot of string-pulling by his wealthy, politically connected mother, he'd thought every woman with dark hair or wearing white was his "Gracie". It had taken a lot of creativity to devise a program of therapy for him. She hadn't even had a photo of the real Gracie to start with--the police had refused to release the file to her. But she'd begun with various stimuli and monitored Lukas' response. Certain chairs became synonymous with Gracie as did knives with long, wicked blades. Anything the color of blood.

  Finally, he'd begun to respond. Until tonight. Now Lukas fought her every step of the way.

  "I had my hands around his throat," he continued in a low whisper. "He deserved to die for what he did to my Gracie."

  Eve sighed, patted her hair back into place. They'd make more progress tomorrow. Now that Fate had intervened and deposited the real Grace into her hands, giving her the final trigger she needed to cure Lukas.

  Eve would use Grace Moran's presence to introduce more realistic stimuli and expedite the therapy. But time was running out. She needed to get Helman's patient up here, under her control before Moran's surgery. If the woman died under Helman's knife, she was no good to Eve. Grace Moran was the key to Eve's future.

  "That's enough for tonight, Lukas. Let's get you back in bed."

  She motioned for the orderly to go ahead and open the door to the locked ward. Lukas was its only resident and he was doing so well that during the daytime when there was enough staff, he was free to roam the unit. Not that he did. He spent most of his time in his room, working at the computer his mother had brought, only occasionally venturing to the door. Sometimes the nurses, who all believed the same fantasy Eve was programming him with, would coax him as far as the nurses' station where they would play cards or give him a book to read.

  Lukas stood, his gaze still fixed on his silver wedding band, shuffling toward the door. They headed toward the locked room at the end of the hall where the orderly waited. As they passed the nurses' station Lukas suddenly froze, raised his head, eyes wide as he sniffed the air.

  "She's here! Gracie, where are you? Gracie--" His shouts reverberated through the empty corridor. He began pounding his fists on the closed doors along the hallway. Eve tried to grab his arm, but he flailed out, knocking her off her feet. The orderly dashed down the hall and tackled Lukas.

  As they wrestled on the floor, Eve rushed to the medication cart inside the nurses' station. In four months, he'd never been violent--what the hell had gone wrong? What had set him off? She punched in her security code and grabbed a syringe full of Haldol. Lukas blocked her way out, lunged at her, teeth bared.

  "I know she's in there!" he screamed at Eve. "Why are you hiding her from me?"

  Eve looked around. Other than her, the nurses' station was empty.

  The orderly regained his feet and slammed Lukas against the wall. Lukas bucked and writhed against the bigger man's weight, but this time the orderly was able to hold him.

  It couldn't be the Lucidine making him act this way. Eve jammed the needle into his biceps. It just couldn't be.

  Grace cowered behind the cart rack, hidden in the shadows beneath the counter. Her hands covered her head, ready to ward off the blows that would come any second. The wasps tore through her skin, their exuberant buzzing ricocheting off the insides of her skull.

  He was back, they said he was gone, had promised, but he was back, he was coming for her, all over again, it was happening all over again--and there was nothing she could do.

  Her body trembled an
d sweat soaked the thin cotton scrubtop she wore. She tasted blood, bit her lip harder in an effort to keep from screaming in terror.

  Jimmy, come get me, take me home, please Lord, not again, Jimmy where are you? Her tears burnt her eyes, but Jimmy didn't come.

  Her eyes closed tight on a vision of blood, Jimmy's face, but not Jimmy, not anymore-- Lukas had won that time--and now it was just her, alone, Jimmy wasn't here, wouldn't come here, was powerless to stop Lukas--stop the Beast.

  The screaming out in the hallway came to an abrupt halt. It was replaced by the sound of a man cursing and a body being dragged away. A door slammed shut. Then there was silence.

  Dead silence.

  Even the wasps seemed afraid to come out of hiding.

  Grace peered through the spaces between her fingers. Nothing moved. She crawled away from the chart rack, dared to look out in the hall. She could see figures silhouetted behind the thick glass of the locked ward. No one else was visible.

  Now or never.

  She pushed off like a sprinter in the race of her life and ran down the corridor, not stopping until she was half way through the Skyway leading to the Annex. She didn't dare to look back, just caught her breath and kept on running.

  Not the Annex--she couldn't bear to be alone, not now. Try for home? Jimmy would be there--or would he? What if she made it home and found it empty? No Jimmy, no Ingrid, no one to protect her when the Beast came for her again. He knew where she lived, it was the first place he would look for her.

  So where would the last be?

  CHAPTER 12

  Light of Day

  Vincent always started his morning by checking on his sickest patients. And right now there was no one on Peds more critical than Alex Weiss.

  But Vincent was smiling as he pushed open the door to Alex's room. He'd finally been able to convince the ethics committee to place Alex on the list for a heart-lung transplant and waiting in his in-box this morning had been a message that UNOS had approved Alex and made him Level 1, the highest priority. Vincent couldn't wait to tell Alex, to be able to offer the boy something besides comfort measures. He grabbed the clipboard from its hook beside the door and went inside.

  Then stopped. A woman lay beside Alex in his bed, her arm snuggled around the boy's shoulder, his hand entwined in hers as if he was grabbing onto a lifeline.

  What the hell? Who had allowed a stranger into his patient's room? Vincent dropped the clipboard to the bedside table and stalked over to the side of the bed where the woman slept, the side of her face cradled against the top of Alex's head. Night and day is what they looked like--her long dark hair tousled against Alex's blond curls.

  "Hey, sleeping beauty," Vincent tried to pitch his voice low enough that Alex wouldn't be disturbed. No answer except for the soft snuffle of stereophonic snores.

  "You've got to get out of here or I'm gonna call security," he continued. Still no response. But then, anyone who could sleep through the noise of a hospital ward must be a sound sleeper. He wished he could sleep that deeply. Before the Nguygen case, he could.

  He touched the woman's bare arm. Who had given her a set of scrubs? Did she work here? He didn't recognize her.

  A stray beam of sunlight slid through the window, casting her profile into relief. Vincent stopped, caught by the secrets the light revealed.

  She might have been beautiful once--but something had happened. The light exposed thin whispers of scars lining her face. One angled through one eyebrow and across her forehead, another through her cheek and upper lip. They'd been expertly repaired but now that he was looking Vincent saw that bones had been broken as well; one cheekbone was slightly higher than the other. She shifted and the blanket slid from her right arm. Both arms were criss-crossed with scars. A gold wedding band and emerald engagement ring circled the fourth finger of her left hand.

  The only time he'd ever seen injuries like these was after some sonofabitch had thrown his wife through a plate glass window. The sunlight grew stronger now, glinting off a row of surgical staples closing a fresh laceration in her scalp.

  Vincent backed away. She'd gone back, let the sick bastard do it again! Why did women do that?

  He remembered his college girlfriend, Mona. Well, at least he'd thought she was his girlfriend--she kept going back to her ex, a lacrosse player who would torment her, drag her down, and then beat her senseless and kick her out. She'd end up on Vincent's couch for a few days, igniting his hope that this time she'd see what was going on, stay for good, then one day he'd wake up and she'd be gone again. Finally he went to confront the bastard--only to have Mona call the cops on him and try to hit him with a lamp before they came. He'd fled, vowed never to get involved with anyone that needy again. He'd never heard from her again until he read in the paper that she'd married the lacrosse player.

  Probably was still letting the guy use her as a punching bag. He knew you weren't supposed to blame the victim, but the way Mona kept leaving him, going back for more--that spoke of some fatal flaw in the psyche.

  So, how had this refuge from the woman's shelter ended up in his patient's bed?

  He was about to shake her awake, demand answers, when the door was flung open and Kat Jellicle flew in.

  "Alex! I can't find--" The girl caught sight of Vincent and skidded to a stop, one hand over her mouth.

  Vincent looked from Kat back to the two on the bed. Alex was awake now as was the woman, both staring at him with twin pairs of eyes the same startling hue of blue.

  The woman jerked as if surprised she had fallen asleep and sat up. Alex kept hold of her hand when she tried to move it.

  "Don't go," he said, his voice raspy with sleep.

  The woman looked down at Alex with a smile. "It'll be all right."

  Her voice was smooth, hypnotic even. Vincent shook off his reverie. He didn't care if she sang like an angel--she didn't belong here. And who the hell was she to be telling a critically ill child that everything would be all right?

  "Who are you?" Vincent demanded. She looked at him, those brilliant blue eyes lighting on his face like a monarch butterfly coming to rest. "What are you doing here with my patient?"

  She blinked once, remained silent as if she didn't have the answers to his question.

  To hell with this. He wasn't going to play the sap, not again. "I'm calling security."

  Kat stepped between them. "Dr. V, you don't understand."

  "Go back to your room, Kat." Vincent reached for the phone on the bedside table.

  "Please don't," Alex's voice carried across the room. "She didn't do anything wrong. Don't make her go."

  "She's Alex's mother," Kat said in a gush and grabbed Vincent's arm.

  There was a sudden hush in the room as if all the air had been sucked out of it. Vincent dropped the phone and turned to the children--they were easier to face than the woman with her quiet, hypnotic stare.

  "That's impossible. I don't know what she told you--"

  "No, it's true," Kat rushed on. "She gave him up but then his new parents left him here when he got sick and she'd been looking for him ever since." Alex nodded in time with her words, his face lighting up with a smile. "She came all the way from--Minnesota," Kat finished and took a deep breath.

  "It's true," Alex said.

  Vincent looked from one child to the other, then forced himself to face the woman. She had slipped her hand from Alex's and now stood at the side of the bed, arranging her crumpled scrubs back into place with nervous hands.

  The silence grew. Vincent was certain she would elaborate on Kat's impossible story, waited for her to tangle herself in her own lies. Show her true colors to the children she had deceived. What did she want--a roof over her head until she decided to return to the man who beat her? Did she think she could somehow profit by this ridiculous charade?

  She surprised him by taking a deep breath and extending her right hand. "I'm Marie D'Angelo," she said, her voice forthright, her gaze raising to meet his.

  Her hand was
warm in his, her grip strong. She had the shortest fingernails he'd ever seen on a woman and her fingertips were rough with calluses. He held her hand a fraction too long but she didn't pull away.

  Then he let her go. "And you're Alex's long lost mother?" He had wanted to cut her with sarcasm, but instead his words came out filled with wonder.

  As if he was beginning to believe.

  Her gaze held his. "I'm here to take care of him."

  "Funny. I thought that was my job."

  Grace fought hard to stay on her feet. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. The angry swarm of wasps buzzed around her head, dive bombing at her as she forced herself to remain where she was, to face the man before her.

  He wore green cotton scrubs, a stethoscope around his neck, and a look of chronic fatigue now tempered by suspicion. He glanced from her to the two children, obviously protective of them.

  Grace stood frozen, fighting to control her breathing.

  "Gr--Marie, this is Dr. Vincent Emberek, Alex's doctor," Kat intervened once more. "Isn't it great, Dr. V? After all these years, Alex's real mom finally found him. She had to hire a detective to track him down and she drove all the way here from," Kat faltered for a mere second as she spun her tale, "Minnesota," she finished triumphantly.

  "Yes, that's what you said before." The man's eyes had locked onto Grace and refused to release her. "All the way from Minnesota?" Dr. Emberek scrutinized her face, his gaze resting on the staples in her scalp. "Must have been some trip."

  "I was in an accident." Grace heard her own voice sounding calm and assured, traveling from someplace far away from the here and now where wasps buzzed through her and the sharp edge of panic bit into her every breath. "Got banged up pretty good."

  "But she made it," Alex put in, reached over to take Grace's hand once more. The buzz of the insects immediately receded and she could breathe.

  "Isn't it great, Dr. V?" Kat was bouncing on her feet, one hand tapping on Vincent's arm as if she hoped enthusiasm was contagious.