08 Illusion

by Frank Peretti

“I need you to say your name.”

  “Okay, right. Daniel Collins. Dane is a nickname.”

  “Okay, got it.”

  “Are you going to send somebody?”

  “They’re already en route, sir. Now, you don’t know of any injuries?”

  None that he could see. Of course, she was wearing a coat. Oh, brother. Shirley, where are you?

  “Did she hit her head? Is she bleeding anywhere?”

  He swept his eyes over her small shoes, her slender jeans, her blue shirt tail hanging out, her hooded jacket, and then her neck up to behind her ear where the brown hair had fallen aside. “There’s a … a little scratch or something on her neck, just a little bit of blood.” What about her hair right there? Were those blond roots?

  There was a knock, and the side door opened. Dane spun away from the girl on the couch. “Hey! Shirley!”

  Shirley strode on her short legs into the living room, lugging her big orange EMT kit.

  “Okay,” Dane said into the phone, “we have an EMT here.”

  “Oh, the crew is there already?”

  “No, my neighbor is an EMT. I called her.”

  “Oh, very good. Well, the aid crew should be arriving any minute.”

  Dane told Shirley, “The aid car’s on its way.”

  Shirley was already checking Eloise’s breathing and pulse. “Better open the gate.”

  Dane said good-bye to the dispatcher and entered the gate open code into the phone.

  Shirley struggled trying to remove Eloise’s coat. “Give me a hand here.”

  He helped her get the coat off. That didn’t go so smoothly either, but he felt better with Shirley doing it and him helping. Eloise’s shirt was damp with sweat. Shirley rolled up the left sleeve and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around the arm. “Better bring us one of those blankets in the upstairs hall closet. Bring the purple one.”

  By the time he returned with the blanket the aid car had arrived, lights flashing, and two paramedics came to the front door. One was a big-bellied, balding everybody’s neighbor, and the other could have been a high school basketball coach, young, tall, and buzz cut. Shirley knew both of them. The big-bellied guy was named Ron, the young guy Steve. Steve got out an oxygen bottle while Ron shined a penlight into Eloise’s eyes.

  “Is she on any drugs?” Ron asked.

  The phone rang. “I don’t know,” Dane said, then picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Dane? Dane Collins?” It was a woman. He didn’t recognize the voice.

  “Did she hit her head?” Ron asked. “Do you know?”

  To the phone, “Uh, yes,” and to Ron, “I don’t know.”

  The woman said, “Dane, this is Dr. Kessler, from Las Vegas.”

  She could have punched him in the jaw. His mind went into little blips and flashes that didn’t connect to anything. “Uh. Dr. Kessler?”

  “Do you remember me?”

  Ron asked, “What’s her name?”

  Dane covered the phone and answered, “Eloise.” He uncovered the phone. “Yeah, sure, I remember you.”

  “And how are you doing?”

  “Uh …” He looked toward the couch.

  Ron was gently shaking Eloise by the shoulders. “Eloise? Wake up. Eloise? You hear me? Wake up.”

  Dane lowered his voice, he wasn’t sure why. “I’m, I’m not sure this is a good time right now.”

  “Sounds like you have someone there with you,” Kessler said.

  He was watching Eloise. They’d put an oxygen mask on her. “She’s …”

  Eloise made a little whimper, beginning to stir. Ron signaled for Shirley to step in. “It’s all right,” said Shirley. “You’re all right.”

  “Who was that?” asked Kessler.

  “That was …” Why’d she need to know? “Uh, Dr. Kessler, could we start over? Hello, how are you doing, and why are you calling me?”

  Eloise’s eyes half opened and she jolted, still dopey. Her little yelp was muted inside the oxygen mask. She blinked at Shirley and the paramedics like a dazed, cornered animal.

  Kessler was saying something. “… to find out how you were doing. You remember the conversation we had?”

  Oh, yeah. He remembered it. “Sure.” His eyes were on Eloise. She didn’t seem to be focusing yet, but being hemmed in by paramedics was troubling her.

  “I was wondering if you were having any problems such as those we talked about.”

  He didn’t want to tell her how much Eloise Kramer looked like Mandy, very much when she was knocked out—she even snored like Mandy—and almost perfectly when she was awake, a fact that was overwhelming him this very moment. “Such as?”

  Kessler wasn’t having an easy time of this either. He could imagine her consulting her invisible notes again and shifting in her chair. “Umm … we would call it a delusional disorder, in this case, your thinking you see Mandy.”

  “How about some for instances?”

  He could tell she didn’t want to humor him. “Well, for instance, you might think you actually see her, or you could even see someone else and think she looks just like Mandy.”

  Eloise’s eyes focused—on him. Oh, good grief.

  He looked away from her and spoke into the phone, “What exactly makes you think I would see something like that?”

  “Dane?”

  “Dane?” said Shirley.

  “What?” he asked Kessler as he looked in Shirley’s direction.

  Kessler said, “You have someone there with you now, don’t you?”

  Shirley, Ron, and Steve were watching Eloise look at Dane. Eloise was staring as if trying to make sure who he was. Dane gave her a weak little wave and smiled. He couldn’t see her smile through the oxygen mask, but her eyes smiled with relief and she sank back against her pillow.

  Kessler asked, “Who does she look like?”

  Dane studied Eloise’s face. “She looks … What the heck kind of question is that?”

  “Does she look like Mandy? Be honest.”

  “I don’t think this is a good time—”

  “This is a very good time. It gives you a chance to see exactly what I warned you about.”

  They were taking off the oxygen mask—he’d lived with that image, but this time she was young and alive, not burned and dying. She and the medics were talking.

  “Dane? Can you hear me?”

  “I need to get off the phone.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Okay. Kessler had crossed the line. “That is none of your business.”

  “Dane, she isn’t Mandy. You have to realize that.” She didn’t sound as if she believed it. “She doesn’t even look like Mandy. You just think she does. Did you hear me?”

  Gal, either you’re crazy or … I think it’s you. “I’ll call you later.”

  He hung up.

  “No! No hospital!” Eloise said with a moan, still under the heavy influence of whatever it was.

  “We just need to be sure you’re okay, just get you checked over,” said Ron.

  That upset her more. “Oh, no you don’t!” she muttered, her eyes barely open, her neck like a rag doll. “I know who why yam! I’m Meloise Kramer and I’ve live here all my life and you cann take me to da hosp’al!” She groped about blindly, trying to find something. “Where my wallet?”

  Dane stepped up while Shirley handed Eloise her coat. “She’s Eloise Kramer. She works at McCaffee’s, that little coffee shop in Coeur d’Alene.”

  “Has she taken any drugs?” Ron asked.

  Eloise dug out her wallet and flashed her driver’s license at them. “I’m Meloise Kramer. Says so ride ’ere.”

  Ron checked her license and told Steve, “She’s nineteen.”

  Steve gave a nod of acknowledgment.

  Dane asked Ron and Steve, “Is she all right?”

  Ron answered, “Her vitals are fine, but she’s doped to the gills on something.”

  “Booze?”

  Ron shook his head. “Some kind of
sedative. That could be a needle mark on her neck. Did you give her anything?”

  Well now, how was that for a blunt question? Dane could feel himself bristling, but he held himself in check. “No. I wouldn’t know what to give her. She was like this when I found her.”

  “Found her where?”

  “Outside in my pasture.”

  “How’d she get there?”

  “She ran. Some guy—”

  “No!” said Eloise, waving dazedly in Dane’s face. “Doan! Doan lettem take me.”

  Don’t let them take me. The look in her eyes broke him open, her fear knifed through him as if it were his own, as if she could have cried those words the last time but no one listened; as if he should have cried out for her but didn’t because Dr. Kessler and her white coats knew so much better, controlled everything, pronounced her dead, and wheeled her through a door that closed between them forever.

  He’d never known the man he was right here and now, never felt this kind of anguish. He suspected that seeing her face and hearing the echoes of Kessler’s voice could be making him irrational, but in this moment he wasn’t about to trust a doctor or a hospital. He leaned, lifted her chin with a fingertip, and met her eyes. “Eloise, you do not have to go to the hospital if you don’t want to.” He looked at Ron and Steve. “Isn’t that right?”

  They were hesitant to say it, but they both did. “That’s right.” Then Ron added, “But this could be a matter for the police.”

  “No!” Eloise was even more vehement about that. “No police! Doan call ’em, I doan want ’em!”

  “Easy, girl, easy,” said Shirley.

  Dane asked Shirley, “Can you stick around a little while?”

  She nodded with a half shrug.

  He told Ron and Steve, “Thanks, guys. Really appreciate it. Looks like we’ll need to talk to her for a while. Is she out of danger?”

  “As near as we can tell,” said Ron.

  “Okay. Thanks, we’ll keep an eye on her. Shirley’ll be right here.”

  They weren’t happy about it. They gave in, but didn’t leave before pulling Shirley into a private discussion outside the door. Dane could imagine the subject matter. “Eloise?”

  She turned her head just enough to see him.

  “You are nineteen, aren’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Ron was sneaking sideways glances at Dane through the door’s window. Well. This would all have to resolve in its own good time.

  Shirley came back inside. Dane pulled a chair closer for her, then another for himself. Eloise tried to sit up, but her eyes rolled and she rested on her pillow again. She groped and touched Dane’s hand. “Thank you.”

  Shirley arranged the blanket under her chin. “You warm enough?”

  Eloise nodded.

  Dane asked, “I suppose you’ve met Shirley?”

  Eloise looked at Shirley and nodded.

  “Shirley works for me. She takes care of the place.”

  Eloise seemed glad to know that. “’Ello.”

  “Hello, Eloise,” said Shirley, patting her hand.

  “Cute girl, isn’t she?” Dane asked.

  Shirley gave Eloise a smile. “Oh, yes.”

  “You like her shoes?”

  Shirley looked quizzical, but checked out one shoe poking out from under the blanket. “They’re okay. Nice.”

  Dane craned to look. “What kind of shoes are they, anyway?”

  Shirley leaned. “I don’t know. Running shoes.”

  “Silver and gray? Nice color choice.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And what do you think of her hair? Cut kind of like yours.”

  Shirley examined Eloise’s simple, short hairstyle, definitely not looking its best at the moment. “Well, kind of. Her hair’s straighter and there’s no frosting.”

  “Brown, and yours is …”

  “Brown with blond highlights.” She put her hand to her hair, playfully showing it off. So far she seemed to think he was just making calming conversation. Good enough.

  He asked Eloise, “Who cut your hair?”

  “Rhea,” she answered. “A girl frien’.”

  “Nice color.” He told Shirley, “It sets off her brown eyes.”

  Shirley gave him a look. “Her eyes are blue.”

  Dane took a second look and feigned enlightenment. “Oohhhh … excuse me.”

  “So,” said Shirley, “are we gonna talk about what happened?”

  Eloise tried to sit up and slurred, “I havuh go to the bathroom.”

  Dane helped Shirley get her up, and Shirley took her around the corner and down the hall.

  Got to make sure, got to make sure. Dane made a quick circuit around the living room. He found a vase of dried flowers knocked over but not broken. A stack of magazines on the end table had slid off onto the floor. The celestial globe he kept against the window next to his telescope had hopped off its stand. So he did hear real noises down here. He replaced everything with little time to wonder about it before Shirley returned with a towel and started wiping down the couch.

  “Dane? Her clothes are wet. I could put them in the dryer and maybe she could wear …” She let her face ask the question as her eyes looked upstairs.

  He knew what she meant. Mandy’s things, tucked and folded away in drawers, hanging in the closet, safe on shelves. Inviolable. Sacred. “Sorry. No.” He felt guilty but couldn’t bend.

  “What about a bathrobe? Do you have a bathrobe?”

  Fair enough. He bounded up the stairs to the bedroom to get it, tossed it over the railing, and Shirley took it down the hall. He hurried back down to wait.

  When Shirley and Eloise returned, the young girl wobbled, hanging on Shirley’s arm with one hand and clutching his robe about her with the other. It hung from her like it was melting, and the hem almost touched the floor. She shuffled to the couch and sank into it, checking up and down herself for any breach of modesty. Her eyes had progressed from dopey to early morning drowsy and she didn’t seem too happy about having to wear that robe. “So here we go again,” she muttered.

  Shirley started packing up her gear. “Okay, guess I’ve got an elk to cut up.”

  Dane wasn’t ready for this. “You’re going?”

  Shirley cocked an eyebrow Eloise’s direction and answered, “I understand you have a meeting.”

  “But …”

  “She’s all right for now. If she keels over, call me.” She extended a hand, and Eloise gave it a shake. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Eloise.”

  “So nice to meet you,” said the girl.

  “Her clothes’ll dry pretty quick.” Shirley grabbed her coat and kit, then paused in the kitchen door to ask Eloise, “You’re sure now?”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Eloise, her head still a little too heavy for her neck.

  “Okay.” Shirley headed through the kitchen for the side door and called out, “I told her you’re a gentleman so there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  And out the door she went.

  So they’d had a little talk, the two of them. He looked at Eloise. “A meeting?”

  Her eyes implored him through the drugs. “It’d be nice.”

  Well, this was a nice little checkmate, so perfect she had to have planned it. It was awkward. It was even scary.

  But he had questions of his own. “All right.”

  chapter

  * * *

  21

  Dane noticed his body language: he was towering over her and he wanted answers so badly his expression probably seemed unpleasant. He made himself relax, slid his chair back a few feet, and sat down.

  And then they stared at each other. Her eyes fell away a few times, perhaps to deal with a thought, perhaps because she was still half asleep, but they always returned and met his gaze again. He was trying to read her; she was probably trying to read him.

  “So what did you tell her?” he asked, nodding in the direction of Shirley’s exit.

  “That I cam
e out here to see you, but then I had a problem with some drugs.”

  “What drugs?”

  “I don’t know. I made it up.”

  “You made it up? You lied.”

  “Well, I didn’t know what to say.”

  “So what did happen?”

  She laughed an apology. “It sure could have gone better.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  He could see she was thinking, coming up with something, her eyes shifting to the left as she worked on it. “I guess I don’t remember most of it.”

  “Do you remember ingesting or injecting any drugs?”

  “You sound like a doctor.”

  “I’m not. Do you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Are you a drug user?”

  “No. I don’t do drugs.”

  “Do you remember running across my field?”

  “Really? I mean, I did?”

  “That’s where I found you. You fell down in my field.”

  Those little tidbits helped her. “Oh! I think I hit my head! I was fixing a flat tire just a little ways up the road and I bumped my head with the lug wrench. I guess I wandered back here trying to get some help and finally conked out in your field.” She looked at him with a dull, spacey rapture. “And you rescued me, right?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “That is just so cool!”

  “So who was that guy chasing you?”

  Oh. Now she looked caught. “What guy?”

  He cocked his head at her and raised an eyebrow.

  She dug a little deeper. “You mean … who did you see?”

  “I saw a man chasing you. Who was he?”

  “Chasing me?”

  “You were running from him.”

  “I was?”

  He held his forefinger and thumb a tiny gap apart. “You’re that far from getting thrown out of here, wet clothes or not.”

  She searched through her brain another moment but gave up. “I don’t know—I mean, what did he look like?”

  “Blond. Young, agile. Rough face. He looked like he’d been in a fight.”

  “And he was chasing me?”

  He leaned into this one. “Who was he?”

  She shied back and replied, “Clarence.”

  “Clarence. From the other night at McCaffee’s?”

  She brightened and leaned toward him, managing a horse’s nod. “Yes! Remember him? He was my volunteer for the coffee mug trick.”