Lotus Effect

by Trisha Wolfe

  Rhys and I exchange a curious glance before we enter the building. An interview doesn’t require us to dress for an examination.

  “Maybe he’s in a rush and plans to talk to us while working,” I say.

  “Maybe,” Rhys agrees, but he’s distracted. I can sense he’s already two mental steps ahead.

  Dr. Keller directs us toward a bank of sinks. “Fresh scrubs are hanging up over there.” He points to the partition.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask as we wash our hands. Sometimes I wish I could get an inside look into his thoughts.

  “Not sure yet.” Rhys shakes off the water, then grabs one of the green robes.

  Once we’re fully covered, Dr. Keller walks us behind the partition. “It’s interesting you should bring up the Delany case,” the pathologist says. “A female victim was discovered just yesterday. I recognized the lacerations right away during my initial exam at the scene. I pulled the Delany file this morning to compare.”

  The body on the morgue table is pale, the Y incision already cut into the victim’s sternum. I cover my mouth and quickly look away, catching my breath.

  “Is she all right?” the doctor asks.

  “She’s fine,” Rhys answers for me. “This just wasn’t on the agenda.”

  “Oh,” Dr. Keller remarks. “Here. Let me get you some Vics. The victim hasn’t been dead long, so I didn’t think the smell was too bad. Of course, I really don’t notice it anymore.”

  He attempts a weak smile, and I nod. “Just a bit shocking…when you’re not expecting it.”

  “Even without the smell, the mint in the rub helps quell the nausea from the sight.” He hands me the Vic’s Vapor Rub. “A kind of numbing, cure-all for the senses.”

  “Thank you.” I dab a fingertip into the ointment and smudge it beneath my nose. “Just needed to get my bearings.”

  Truthfully, this is the first dead murder victim I’ve seen in person. Working cold cases, you get used to the pictures. After staring at mutilated corpses for a few years, I believed I built up a tolerance, a defense. But with images you’re removed, distanced. It’s not the same as real life.

  Nothing prepares you for this.

  Then the doctor pulls back the sheet covering the victim’s face.

  And the woman on the gurney is no longer just a body.

  The floor shifts, and I vertically right myself to keep balance. Oh, God. No.

  I press my hand to the partition, thinking that will somehow stop the spinning motion. “Cam…”

  Dr. Keller approaches me cautiously. “You know the victim?”

  “Knew—” I knew her.

  “Then, I’m sorry, but you can’t be here.”

  I feel Rhys’s hand on my arm, steadying me. “We’re not working this case. We’re on the Delany cold case with the cold case division.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Dr. Keller says.

  “Thank you,” I manage, but it feels wrong to accept his condolences. I hadn’t been Cam’s friend for a long time. Although, when you stretch the seams of time out, what length is considered a long enough time not to be someone’s friend?

  I met Cameron freshman year. We were the same age. Both excited and scared and curious. Three years as college roommates, as best friends, then the world changed, and it’s been too many years since we’ve spoken.

  Until yesterday.

  What does that equate to?

  Rhys and Dr. Keller are talking, muffled voices float to my ears. Then I catch one word more clearly than the others—one word that freezes my blood.

  Baby.

  Cam was pregnant.

  Through my blurred vision, I study her shape. The flatness of her stomach. The missing swell of her belly that I was so envious over the day before.

  “What happened?” I hear myself ask.

  The ME looks to Rhys, silently conspiring what’s proper to reveal to me.

  “I can handle it,” I say, forcing my voice steady.

  Rhys takes my arm in a calm hold and faces me. I see it in his eyes then: the warning.

  Implication.

  He doesn’t express his fear aloud. He doesn’t have to. I was one of the last people to see Cam alive. I might’ve been the last person. Considering the timing, the call from Detective Vale might’ve been a ruse. Bring me in to discuss the cold case and corner me in an interrogation room.

  My hands tingle. I can feel the blood draining from my extremities, adrenaline taking hold. My pulse quickens.

  She’s dead because of me.

  “The baby survived,” Dr. Keller says. “It’s extremely rare. A baby only survives inside the womb for mere minutes after the mother’s death.”

  Relief floods me, and I nearly crumple to the floor. It only lasts a moment, though. Had I never gone to visit Cam, chances are, she’d still be alive. I know it in my bones that I was followed yesterday.

  “How was that possible?” Rhys asks.

  “I’m not working that side of it,” Dr. Keller says, “but I believe the police received a call-in. Paramedics arrived in time.”

  In time to save the baby. But not Cam.

  Who called it in?

  “The victim’s femoral artery was severed,” Dr. Keller continues, giving his attention to the body. “That was the cause of death. She was stabbed eight times, but every laceration”—he points to the deep wounds on her chest—“was survivable on its own. I want to believe the perpetrator purposely missed exposing the fetus to any harm.”

  The fetus. The way he says it…so technical…I swallow hard. I do the same; detach myself from the crime. In my case, I have to. I can’t identify with the victim. It’s too dangerous. Rhys has drilled this into me.

  But this is Cam.

  As I look at her pale body, lifeless, all the vibrant colors that made her alive drained from her flesh, I can’t remove myself. The terrible irony that Cam’s end was met with the fate that should’ve been mine…

  What were my last words to her?

  I look away. Sickness roils my stomach. “Where is the wound located that caused her death?” Cam’s baby was spared. I can see clearly enough to note the killer didn’t inflict the same wound to her torso that I suffered. That would’ve injured the baby.

  “Hale, we should leave.” Rhys’s tone conveys his increasing fear. The more I know, the longer I’m here, the worse it becomes for me.

  Dr. Keller moves swiftly to uncover the legs. “Here.” He mimics the direction that the weapon took across her thigh. “Right below her pelvis region. Deep enough to sever the femoral artery, but not deep enough to hit the femur.”

  “Was it intentional?” Rhys asks.

  The ME frowns. “I would have to say yes. Whoever the perpetrator was, he knew enough. This incision was done with a steady hand. No hesitation marks. The location was selectively chosen, also.”

  “How so?” Rhys can’t help it; the agent in him has to have answers.

  “The victim bled out quickly, but not so quickly to endanger the fetus. I can’t say with one hundred percent conviction that was the intent, but I’ve been doing this a long time.” He wipes his goggles clean. “I trust my instincts.”

  A rare statement for a man in the medical field. I glance at Rhys. He harbors respect for those who trust their instincts. It’s one of the main differences between us.

  “Thank you for your honesty,” I say to Dr. Keller. He nods his sympathies as I turn to go.

  I’m steps away from escaping, but the realization that this is the last time I will see Cam halts my retreat. With a deep, chemical-laced breath, I pull the surgical gown tight around my middle and walk toward the table.

  Rhys catches my wrist, and a flash of last night assaults my senses. The imploring I saw in his eyes, the need for me to close the distance between us. His hold on me now pleads for me to stop. Not to torture myself. Don’t let this be my last memory of Cam.

  “I’m all right.” I pull away and move closer to the table. “I’m sorry,” I whisp
er to her, only loud enough for me to hear.

  I can’t bring myself to promise Cam what I vow to the others—the victims I try to avenge by catching their killers. How can I make that oath to her? How can I, when her murder is so entwined with mine?

  I wait on the other side of the partition as Rhys conducts the interview we primarily came here to obtain. Joanna has—momentarily—taken a backseat as my thoughts drift to the moments I shared with Cam.

  Paradoxically, I don’t consider myself sentimental, but death has a way of making us just that. We mourn for what can never be again, even when it wasn’t a part of our current story.

  It’s the fear of the absolute end. Finality.

  It reminds us with a cold, sobering awareness that we’re mortal.

  I listen as Rhys goes through the checklist with the pathologist. DNA profile on the vic. What trace was found on the body, if any. Cam’s contusions are congruent with the bruises found on Joanna.

  Dr. Keller needs to make the proper comparisons, but he believes the lacerations—the deep cut Cam sustained to her thigh; the cut across Joanna’s ribs—will be a close match. And if so, he can prove the same weapon was used in both crimes.

  I step around the partition.

  “Can you use pictures to make a comparison?” I ask.

  Dr. Keller’s features pull tight. “I can, of course.”

  My hands grip the hem of my shirt.

  “Lakin…” The dark note in Rhys’s tone makes me pause. His voice breaks at the end of my name. I wonder if it’s because he rarely uses it, or if there’s a painful emotion he’s trying to conceal.

  Our eyes meet. “It could help connect the cases,” I say. “We have to know.”

  I have to know.

  He reads that certainty in my eyes; he knows that whatever happens now, I’m bound to uncover the truth.

  Rhys lowers his gaze as I lift my shirt above my bra, exposing the ugly, diagonal slash across my chest.

  Momentarily stunned, Dr. Keller stares at the scar, speechless. Then he pulls himself out of his daze and grabs his camera from the tray. He takes a few pictures, very professional. Then: “When did this happen?”

  “Almost four years ago,” I answer. “Will that hinder the comparison? Because it’s healed—”

  “It shouldn’t. I can make the needed adjustments.” He makes a note on a pad. “Is there a case file?” His deep-set eyes catch mine. “I need the details to make an accurate comparison. Hospital records will work.”

  I nod knowingly as I lower my shirt. “Everything about the attack was documented.” I leave out that I have no actual memory of it. He’ll find out the details soon enough.

  Before we leave, Rhys shakes Dr. Keller’s hand and thanks him, then we exit the morgue. The coffee I set on the floorboard is still warm. Time passes in its own measure. A torturous lifetime inside the morgue; fifteen minutes to the outside world.

  I toss the cup away.

  As Rhys and I leave in silence, that one niggling question of motive batters my brain. Why Cam? Why Joanna?

  Why me?

  I’m the nexus, that much is clear now. The black lines all stem from me to connect the other murders, like the lotus stalks descending down into that dark, underwater world of the unknown.

  A look. Bat of the lashes. A smile.

  What monster did I lure into our lives?

  21

  Book of Dreams

  Lakin: Then

  Aloneness.

  Three synonyms: Isolation. Seclusion. Solitude.

  Aloneness is not a bad state. For the most part, back then, I was used to being alone. So I didn’t mind, not really. There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely.

  There was a before and after to my life.

  Before Amber died of osteosarcoma, and after.

  Then there was Andrew Abbot.

  It makes me sound insanely vapid. As if I was one of those clingy, insecure college girls who changed personalities for their boyfriends. But for me, having been so utterly isolated up until the moment he drew me out of my shell, it was a rebirth. An awakening.

  I was a woman. A real woman. And I was in love.

  The world was hued in pink promise and rosy adoration.

  Hence, I was naively blind to who Drew actually was. After the fallout, I would learn the true definition of loneliness. Two weeks before the attack, symptoms of what was to come were already appearing in a dream. A recurring nightmare spawned out of fear of losing Drew.

  Fear can wreck a mind.

  The dream started in the middle, like all dreams do. No beginning.

  For some reason, as I write this scene, Drew’s lecture on memories is forefront. I’m not sure if this chapter will make it past the editing phase. I’m already tempted to delete the words. As if putting them in print will alter the past.

  How do I want to remember the dream?

  Was it bright and sunny?

  Was it overcast and gloomy?

  Maybe it was just after sunset, the evening air thick with the scent of marsh, the crickets chirring loudly in my ears. My skin was tacky with the humidity. My T-shirt clung to my back as I crossed onto the wooden planks.

  A bang crashed through the brush like the crack of a bat against a tree.

  I thought of that old metaphor: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?

  There was a shadowy presence, a foreboding, engulfing me. I could sense it in the misty air. It pressed heavily from all around. I had to keep moving. I didn’t run, but I knew I was being chased.

  I’m suddenly in the center of a pier. It stretched out far over a marshy lake. Graffiti decorated the dock in bright, neon spray-paint ahead of me. As I walked closer, I realized it wasn’t graffiti.

  Fresh slashes of red streaked the darkened, rotted wood.

  Blood.

  Then I sensed the person nearing. They had found me…

  According to dream interpretation, there’s a significance to a faceless or unseen entity in a dream. It can signify that the dreamer is searching for their own identity.

  Despite my regard for psychoanalysis, I’m not entirely certain I believe this theory (sorry, Freud), or if dream interpretation can quantify on the same level as psychology in general. But during that point in my life, I wasn’t knowledgeable on the subject. All I knew was that, amid the dream, the presence terrified me.

  This entity was an ominous threat. A tailored demon to haunt my waking world as well as my dreams. Like a dark, sordid truth we keep buried in our psyche, this malevolence wanted to be realized. It wanted to be known, to be made flesh.

  Look… The disembodied voice intoned.

  The daylight was gone; the night dense with absolute blackness. The sounds of insects so loud I covered my ears. I looked down into the murky water surrounding the pier.

  The white water lilies stood stock-still in the water. No breeze to disturb their petals.

  Every lotus pond and lake I’ve ever seen has always been monochromatic. Either white, or yellow, or pink. But never a mix of colors. So the one lone yellow lotus I glimpsed floating amid the others…

  A chill slithered down my back at the sight. It was a lock of blond hair draped over the flower. The same color of her hair.

  Chelsea.

  I reached down to clear the flowers aside, and a face appeared. Her pale skin looked porcelain against the murky water. Her eyes were open and opaque, colorless, staring at the night sky. Her light-blue shirt was torn at the neckline, revealing jagged scrapes and cuts along her chest and neck. A dark-red wound slashed her breast.

  Then the sun peeked. The crisp sunlight played over the white petals, casting splinters of gold around her dead body like a halo. Only, as I continued to stare—just as quickly as a sequence changes within a dream—it was no longer Chelsea in the water, buried in a floating halo of lotuses.

  It was a trick of the light, a trick of my mind. After a few months, I even started to believe I mig
ht have embellished this part; my creative mind layering details around the memory of the dream.

  I was looking at my own face.

  Dread encapsulated me, stealing my breath. My chest caved. And then I felt every wound slash my body at once. The pain overwhelmed my senses. Everywhere I touched…my hands were covered in red. My clothes soaked with blood and grimy lake water.

  I fought my legs to stand, then looked down the dock, the way I’d come. I was unnervingly calm.

  I saw her nearing then. Her golden tan, blond hair white as angel’s breath. Her belly was swollen. A slight baby bump denoting her pregnancy.

  I’m pregnant.

  Chelsea terrified me. My wounds…my imminent death… I accepted. But the beautiful, confident girl holding her belly protectively ripped through my mind like a twister, decimating and cruel.

  I’d never felt so alone like I did when I came out of the dream. Each and every time. Over the course of those two weeks leading up to spring break, I was scared to sleep. Scared to lose Drew. Scared of being alone.

  Up until Chelsea showed up at Drew’s doorstep, I didn’t truly believe in premonitions. Technically, I still don’t. I understand the laws of physics and the mind too well. I know that our memories are unreliable—that trauma can alter the way we recall those memories. I know that fear and loss and despondency can manufacture lucid dreams that feel like premonitions in themselves but…

  Then there is the man.

  Hallucinations are firing neurons—I know this, too. But is it all just a misfiring network in the brain? Or is there some higher level of consciousness that our minds are able to tap into?

  There is no answer; only the question.

  I saw myself die. It’s an uncommon phenomenon to witness oneself die without waking up before that moment of demise. I have no real memory of my death, and yet I witnessed my life end in the dream.

  It’s a bone-hollowing loneliness, the cold void of fading away.

  If a girl dies in a lake and no one is around to see, is she truly dead?

  22

  Prime Suspect