by CJ Lyons
Vincent looked up with a shudder as if half expecting unidentified "bits" to come crashing back to earth around him.
"You seem to know a lot about it," he told her, remembering her previous statement that she hadn't pried into her employer's drama.
"Just because I wouldn't talk to Mrs. Moran about it, didn't mean I didn't look into what happened before I came here. Got to check things out. What if there'd been a reason for Lukas Redding to come back? Or if he had friends?" She shook her head. "But no, it was just blind luck, that's all. Ain't it always the nicest people that the worst things happen to? Mrs. Moran's neighbors they all said 'bout how happy them two were. How you could call anytime day or night and Jimmy'd come get your car jumped or he and the missus often would shovel everyone's walks after a snow--without being asked, just 'cause they liked to. Back when the missus still could, she'd even help out Mr. Agostino with his medicines, he takes so many he can't keep them straight, you know and she'd always be checking on Mrs. Purcell, make certain she was getting her insulin okay while the mister would be cleaning out her gutters or the like."
"Sounds like they were a nice couple."
She shot him a look that said that was an understatement. "More than that," she asserted. "They was good people."
Vincent noted her use of the past tense, as if Grace Moran had stopped being a person after Jimmy died.
His fists clenched in the pockets of his overcoat as he wished desperately that he could give Grace a second chance. Not just at living, but at life.
"Wanna see something?" Mrs. Garman asked, her voice lowered as if worried that someone might be listening.
"All right."
With a flourish she whipped back the small rug behind the couch. "They tried and tried but couldn't get all of it out," she told him, kneeling down to brush her fingers against the palm sized stain on the pale oak floorboards. "Said they'd have to sand it down, but she told 'em to leave it."
Vincent crouched down, drawn against his will to the blood stain. A man's life force that refused to be banished from sight or memory. His fingers reached out to hover over it as if the owner could still be felt through it. Mrs. Garman rocked back on her heels.
"That's just what she does," she told him. "The missus, she comes down here when she can't sleep. I can't tell you how many times I've come in the morning and seen her through the front windows, curled up like a baby on the bare floor, her hand right there like she's searching for something she lost. Those days I'll ring the bell, pretend like I've lost my keys."
Vincent doubted that the young woman in front of him ever lost track of anything.
"She'll come and open the door and the rug will be back in place, but," she paused, building to the climax of her campfire ghost story, "when her back's turned, I'll look and that spot will be wet." She finished, daring him to explain away her modern miracle. "Now, that's true love if I ever heard it."
More likely a combination of tears, sweat and condensation, Vincent thought. But something did seem to pulsate from the stain on the floor. He jerked his hand away and got to his feet. He was a scientist, didn't believe in ghosts.
"Those are bad days," she continued, straightening the rug and covering the living testament to a dead man's life force. "There're worse. Days when she'll lock herself up in her room, not eating, not talking--as if she were dead to the world. Or," she turned her shrewd gaze up to the ceiling as if she could see through it to the heart of the matter, "the world's dead to her."
"She's lucky to have someone like you to watch over her," Vincent said as he got to his feet and brushed his slacks off.
"Doubt she'd see it that way. Should've heard her cussing me out when the ambulance guys drug her away last week. And then I had to leave her alone in that hospital--my sister went and had herself twins, born a month early." Mrs. Garman sighed as if the weight of the world was upon her shoulders. She turned away, picked up the stack of mail. "I think maybe she wants to die, thinks it'll fix everything. Some days I think she might be better off if she had died way back then. Some days she thinks it too. Others--" She shrugged. "Ain't none of my business, I'm just a housekeeper."
Vincent knew a mother's instinct when he heard it. Ingrid Garman definitely was more than a housekeeper to Grace Moran. No wonder the woman was so protective over her charge.
"Do you have any photographs of Mrs. Moran?" he asked, adopting Ingrid's formal tone in addressing her employer. He'd seen the inside of Grace's brain, but never her face.
He followed as Mrs. Garman led the way to the fireplace and the framed photos collected there.
"Aren't you worried that re-arranging things would upset Mrs. Moran?" Vincent asked, remembering Grace's diagnosis of OCD.
Ingrid only tsked. "She's not crazy," she said. "She's perfectly fine around here. Sometimes you know, she can even be downright sloppy about things--like a kid or something. And if she's spent the day in the garden--"
"She goes outside to the garden?"
"Course she does. Sleeps out there when the weather's nice. Has an air mattress, got some, what'cha call it, mosquito netting, and she sleeps out under the stars," she sighed. "Those are the good nights."
"And the bad ones?"
"The bad ones she'll end up down here." She nodded behind him to the area behind the couch. "Or she'll be up the entire night--sometimes two, three nights in a row, working herself into a frenzy. Always worse 'round their anniversary, his birthday."
"You know, there's medication--"
"She ain't no fool and neither am I," the housekeeper retorted. "She tried them at first but said they didn't seem to make the pain any better--just made the rest of her numb. Decided she'd rather live with the pain and when she was ready to let it go, she would."
"But she's built a prison for herself," he protested. "She was a doctor once. She could be out there, helping people, doing--"
"Doing what? She can help people from inside here but on her terms 'stead of theirs. She does a lot of good on her website, she gets people money from insurance companies that are trying to gyp them, she helps them cut through the medical gobbledygook you doctors 'bout drown 'em in. And what's so great about the world out there?" She jutted her chin at the window. "I live there and I have to tell you, there's a lot of days it's a helluva lot nicer in here. I just wish I had her guts to turn my back on it all, tell all those so called normal people to go to hell and leave me alone." She said this last in the tone of a mother proud of her child's accomplishments.
Vincent had to admit he didn't have a very good argument to offer her. What was he to do, quote the psychiatric diagnostic and statistical manual's criteria for agoraphobia, post traumatic stress, and obsessive-compulsive disorder?
That wouldn't convince the woman in front of him that Grace Moran was sick, that her choices had been wrong, a legacy of her trauma rather than her own free will.
He had to admit, he wasn't so certain if he agreed with Helman that Grace Moran was incompetent. Despite her meeting the criteria for several serious psychiatric diagnoses, he was beginning to think that Grace Moran had created a reasonable method of coping with her own very unreasonable living hell.
"Here, you wanted to see a picture," Garman continued. She lifted a heavy silver framed 8x10 photo from the mantle and gave it to Vincent. The metal frame felt cold in his hands. He looked down into the faces of two people obviously very much in love.
The man was tall, with red hair and a gaze that seemed focused solely on the woman beside him, oblivious to the camera or anything else that existed in the outside world.
"It's their wedding picture," Garman said.
Vincent's gaze focused on the woman beside Jimmy Moran and the frame almost slipped from his grasp. Staring out at the camera with brilliant dark blue eyes was Alex Weiss' mother, the woman calling herself Marie D'Angelo.
"Did Mrs. Moran have any sisters?" he asked, scrutinizing the photo. This woman's face had a few subtle differences from D'Angelo's. Grace Moran's cheekbones were
higher, had a different curve, her eyebrows more even as well. But there was no mistaking or disguising those eyes or that intense stare.
"Nope. She was an orphan. Her ma abandoned her when she was just a few days old." Mrs. Garman took the photo from his trembling fingers before he could drop it.
An orphan. Abandoned. Just like Alex.
Could the differences in her face be the product of the injuries she'd received from Redding's beating? No. It couldn't be the same woman.
He'd talked with D'Angelo, had coffee, a meal with her--she functioned perfectly well, didn't act at all like an agoraphobic outside of her comfort zone. Wouldn't an agoraphobic flee the hospital, want to return back home as soon as possible? Marie D'Angelo seemed content to remain at Angels, tending to Alex, mooching off the system.
One mysterious woman with a horrific past, fleeing a frightful future. One woman with a mysterious past, trying to give a dying child some comfort in his future. Two women or one?
His eyes widened as he thought. He stared at the photo again.
Grace Moran was Marie D'Angelo, he was certain of it.
Helman would be ecstatic, his pet project wasn't gone missing but was building a new life for herself right under his nose at Angels of Mercy.
CHAPTER 18
Wheeling and Dealing
The drive back to Angels of Mercy was a blur as Vincent tried to untangle the ramifications of his discovery. He could deliver the prize to the Chairman, be assured of Helman's backing for an attending position as well as his support in the malpractice case.
All he had to do was betray Alex and, by doing so, save Grace Moran's life. If she didn't want the surgery, why had she stayed at Angels of Mercy? Why pretend to be Alex's mother?
Christ, he hoped the kid had some inkling that she was lying. He couldn't bear to make Alex cry again.
Not his fault, he told himself firmly. He hadn't started this charade, Grace had. He clenched the steering wheel tighter, angry that he'd felt the slightest tinge of envy or sympathy for the woman. She was a doctor, damn it, how could she do that to a kid like Alex?
It had to be the tumor, it made her unstable. Helman was right, she needed to be locked up, forced to have the surgery. Grace Moran was in no condition to decide anything for herself, that much was clear.
He parked the Mustang in the employee lot and slogged through puddles back into Angels of Mercy. The snow changed back to rain, but he paid it no attention. The memory of Alex's smile this morning when he'd introduced Grace as his mother filled Vincent's mind. Damn, this was going to be tough.
After dropping his sodden parka back at his office and shrugging into his lab coat, Vincent headed for Alex's room at the far end of the hallway. To his relief Grace wasn't there. He didn't want a scene, not in front of Alex.
He paused in the doorway, watching as Alex practiced a magic trick, making cards seem to slide from three stacks on their own volition. "Nice trick. Want to do it for me?"
Alex looked up with a frown and hastily pushed the cards back together. "No, I'd better not. I tried it earlier and it went all wrong."
Vincent sat on the edge of Alex's bed and pushed the table separating them to one side. "We need to talk."
He watched as Alex's lips turned down and the boy looked out the window at the sheets of rain.
"It's about your mother," Vincent continued. "Grace."
Alex jerked up at that, pivoting his sleight frame to sit Indian style on the bed, all focus now on Vincent's face. "Don't make her go away. Please, Dr. V."
"Alex, I'm sorry. But she's a very sick lady. And she may be unstable--even dangerous. She needs help."
"She's not dangerous. She's here to help."
"Convincing you that a transplant is not in your best interests is not helping."
"That wasn't Grace's idea," Alex protested. "That was me. I asked her--told her--I guess I was just wishing out loud. Don't blame Grace for that."
"I'm sorry the way this has worked out. Grace should have known better. Should have never put you and Kat in the middle."
"She didn't. It was our fault. We found her, we just wanted to keep her for a while, that's all. It was Kat's idea to say she was my mom, not Grace's." Alex was practically bouncing on the bed in his eagerness to explain.
Vincent thought back to the morning, to the look on Grace's face when Kat had introduced her. She had seemed just as surprised as Vincent was. But she had gone along with the lie.
"She helped Kat," Alex continued. "Got her to finish her download. And she's a doctor, just like you. She saved my life once."
"She's not like me," Vincent said, standing up and pacing alongside the bed. "We're nothing alike."
Of course not, a nagging voice whispered in his mind. Grace made Alex happy, had him smiling. All you seem to be able to do is make him cry.
Vincent whirled at the foot of the bed, planted his hands on the railing and leaned his weight on them. "Alex, I don't know what Grace has been telling you, but you have to trust me about the transplant. It really is the best thing for you."
Maybe he couldn't make Alex laugh like Grace did, but he sure as hell could do his job and keep him alive.
Alex's lips pressed together and he looked away from Vincent for a long moment. "If I say yes, will you let Grace stay? Just for one night? Please? I never had a family before now."
When Alex stared up at Vincent with such deep longing in those intense blue eyes, he was damned near impossible to deny. "We'll see," Vincent hedged. "First I need to talk with her. Where is she?"
"Nu-huh." Alex shook his head vigorously. "First you need to promise. Grace gets to stay with me one more night before you lock her up with the Freaks."
"Alex! I'm trying to help Dr. Helman save her life. Don't you understand? She has a brain tumor. She'll die without treatment."
Alex merely leveled a stare on Vincent and sat silently, patiently waiting for Vincent to cave. Vincent knew better than to try to resist. Over his many years in the hospital, Alex had learned all the tricks of how to get his own way. In most things, at least.
"One night. Then I tell Dr. Helman where to find her. And," he added, "you don't say anything else about a Do Not Resuscitate order or not wanting a transplant. Deal?"
Alex narrowed his eyes at Vincent's outstretched hand, then nodded and shook it vigorously. "Deal."
"Now, where is she?"
"Gone to visit Kat. Over in the Tower."
"Thanks." Vincent slid off the bed. "You get some rest while I go track down your mysterious friend. And I'm on call tonight, so I'll be here to keep an eye on things."
To his surprise, Alex's smile was bright enough to banish the gloom of the storm clouds from the room. "Great. It'll just be like having a real family."
Grace found Kat alone in her room, the door shut. "Okay if I come in?" she called. She poked her head inside after knocking again and receiving no answer.
Kat shrugged. She sat in the chair beside the window, knees hugged to her chest, staring out into the grey skies beyond. Grace perched on the window ledge.
"Alex and I spent the day sneaking a look at your records," she began after a lengthy silence. "I think I can answer your questions about your surgery now."
Kat shrugged again, didn't make eye contact. "Sure, whatever."
Not the answer Grace was expecting. She laid a hand on Kat's shoulder. The girl flinched away from the contact. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"
"The tech said my download is complete. I can have my surgery any day now." Kat's tone was leaden.
"You were hoping it would take longer?"
"No." Kat looked up, her eyes held a hard edge to them. "I want the surgery. I want to get it over with, get out of this place where everyone lies and you can't trust anyone."
Grace straightened at the steel and bitterness underlying Kat's words. "Who lied?" she asked, wondering if Eve Warden had done something to upset Kat. "Who can't you trust, Kat?"
"You, for starters!" Kat turned h
er face into her shoulder, then swiped at her eyes before looking up. "I heard the nurses talking. Everyone's looking for you, Grace. Why didn't you tell me about your surgery? All that time spent trying to convince me to have mine, that it's my only hope--but you never mentioned that it's your only hope too. Except you're going to run away home and let your cancer kill you, aren't you? Aren't you, Grace?"
Grace pulled away from Kat's all-too-true accusations. Her back pressed against the frigid glass window, the shriek of the wind vibrated into her bones.
"Here I was crying about what a scaredy-cat I was, but you're the one who's a coward," Kat continued mercilessly. "You're just like all the other Freaks. You're all trying to kill yourselves, in your own way. Not me. I'm getting out of this place. I'm going home to my horse and my dog and brothers and sisters and parents and I'm going to live! You and the other Freaks," her voice cracked with tears, "can all just go to Hell!"
Kat wept openly, her glare pinning Grace in place. This time Kat didn't bother to wipe away the tears. Instead she got to her feet and stalked to the door, holding it open.
"Get out, Grace. You did what you came here for. Now go on home and die, just like you want. I don't care."
Grace took a hesitant step toward the door, searching for words to comfort Kat, to explain herself. But Kat spoke the truth. There was no defense against that.
"I said, go home!" Kat shouted when Grace didn't move fast enough to suit her.
Grace stumbled to the door, her own tears blinding her. She stopped and reached a hand out to Kat, who batted it away.
"I'm sorry, Kat," she said. Kat slammed the door shut behind her, leaving Grace shivering in the empty corridor.
Grace wrapped her arms around her chest, wishing she'd taken the time to steal a lab coat in addition to the scrubs. She glanced down the hallway and noted curious stares from the other patients who pressed their faces into tiny slits left by their ajar doors. No one bold enough to come out and confront her, they seemed content to watch and listen from behind their barricades.