Twice Dead

by Catherine Coulter

  Lily smiled. “It’s my grandmother’s name. Coincidence, maybe, but she grew the most beautiful lilies.”

  “It’s interesting how some things work out, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, interesting, but sometimes it’s also terrifying.”

  “True, but there is nothing here to harm you, Lily.” She patted Lily’s hand again. Dr. Chu knew that Lily Frasier was an artist, and that meant she was creative, probably very bright. Such folk usually went under very easily. She said in her soft voice, “You understand that I’m going to try to help you remember what happened last Wednesday evening. Do you want this?”

  “Yes, I want to know very badly what really happened. Tell me what to do. I’ve never been hypnotized before.”

  “It’s nothing, really. I just want you to relax.” She lightly squeezed Lily’s hand.

  Lily felt more warmth flow through her, all the way to her bones, felt herself becoming utterly calm. Those small hands of Dr. Chu’s, how could they make her feel like this?

  Savich pulled a chair next to Lily’s and took her other hand. A strong hand, she thought, strong fingers. His hand didn’t make hers feel warm, but it did make her feel safe. He said nothing at all, was just there beside her, there for her. Sherlock sat on a sofa behind Lily, quiet as could be.

  Dr. Chu said, “You will perhaps believe this a bit odd, Lily, but I don’t swing a watch in front of your eyes or let you lie on the sofa and chant this and that over and over. No, we’ll just sit here and chat. I understand you draw a cartoon strip. No Wrinkles Remus? Such an interesting title. What does it mean?”

  Lily actually smiled. She felt the familiar pain of Beth’s death ease away. “Remus is a United States senator from the state of West Dementia, located in the Midwest. He’s very bright, utterly ruthless, completely amoral, has overweening ambition, and loves to pull fast ones on his opponents. He’s also known as ‘Ept Remus,’ as opposed to inept, because he’s so fast to come up with a new angle to get what he wants. He’s a spin master. He never gives up, ignores what people say because he knows that soon enough they’ll forget, ignores what the truth is, and continues until he gets what he wants. What he wants now is the presidency, and he’s shafted a friend of his to get it.”

  Dr. Chu raised a thin, perfectly arched black brow and smiled. “An interesting character study, and not all that unfamiliar.”

  Lily actually chuckled. “I finished another strip last week. His friend Governor Braveheart isn’t taking being shafted well. He’s fighting back. Although he’s tough, he’s got one big problem—he’s honest. It’s good. At least I hope it is.”

  “Did you take it to your editor at the paper?”

  Lily paused a moment and closed her eyes. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I started feeling bad again.”

  “What do you mean by ‘feeling bad’?”

  “Like nothing really mattered. Beth was dead and I was alive, and nothing was worth anything, including me and anything I did.”

  “You went from feeling great and creative, from smiles and laughter to utter depression?”

  “Yes.”

  “In a day?”

  “Yes. Maybe less. I don’t remember.”

  “On the day your husband left for Chicago, how did you feel, Lily?”

  “I don’t remember feeling much of anything. I was ... simply there.”

  “I see. Your husband called you the next day—Wednesday—and he wanted you to take some medical slides to a doctor in Ferndale?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the only road is 211.”

  “Yes. I hate that road, always have. It’s dangerous. And it was dusk. Driving at that time of day always makes me antsy. I’m always very careful.”

  “It makes me nervous as well. Now, you took two more antidepressant pills, right?”

  “That’s right. Then I slept. I had terrible nightmares.”

  “Tell me what you remember about the nightmares.”

  Dr. Chu wasn’t holding her hand now, but still Lily felt a touch of warmth go through her, felt like it was deep inside her now, so deep it was warming her very soul. “I saw Beth struck by that car, over and over, struck and hurled screaming and screaming, at least twenty feet, crying out my name, over and over. When I awoke, I could still see Beth. I remember lying there and crying and then I felt lethargic, my brain dull.”

  “You felt leached of hope?”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly. I felt like nothing was worth anything, particularly me. I wasn’t worth anything. Everything was black. Nothing mattered anymore.”

  “All right, Lily, now you’re driving away from your house. You’re in your red Explorer. What do you think of your car?”

  “Tennyson yells every time I call it a car. I haven’t done that for months now. It’s an Explorer and nothing else is like it and it isn’t a car, so you call it by its name and that’s it.”

  “You don’t like the Explorer much, do you?”

  “My in-laws gave it to me for my birthday. That was in August. I turned twenty-seven.”

  Dr. Chu didn’t appear to be probing or delving; she was merely speaking with a friend, nothing more, nothing less. She was also lightly stroking Lily’s left hand. Then she turned to Savich and nodded.

  “Lily.”

  “Yes, Dillon.”

  “How do you feel, sweetheart?”

  “So warm, Dillon, so very warm. And there’s no nagging pain anywhere. It’s wonderful. I want to marry Dr. Chu. She’s got magic in her hands.”

  He smiled at that. “I’m glad you feel good. Are you driving on 211 yet?”

  “Yes, I just made a right onto the road. I don’t mind the beginning of it, but you get into the redwoods and it’s so dark and the trees press in on you. I’ve always thought that some maniac carved that road.”

  “I agree with you. What are you thinking, Lily?”

  “I’m thinking that when it’s dark, it will be just like a shroud is thrown over all those thick redwoods. Like Beth was in a shroud and I’m so depressed I want to end it, Dillon, end it and get it over with. It’s relentless, this greedy pain. I’m thinking it’s settled into my soul and it won’t leave me, ever. I can’t stand it any longer.”

  “This pain,” Dr. Chu said in her soft voice, holding Lily’s hand now, squeezing occasionally, “tell me more about this pain.”

  “I know the pain wants to be one with me. I want to give over to it. I know that if I become the pain and the pain becomes me, then I’ll be able to expiate my guilt.”

  “You came to the conclusion that you had to kill yourself because it was the only way you could make reparation? To redress the balance?”

  “Yes. A life for a life. My life—worth nothing much—for her small, precious life.”

  Then Lily frowned.

  Dr. Chu lightly ran her palm over Lily’s forearm, then back to clasp her limp hand. “What are you thinking now, Lily?”

  “I just realized that something isn’t right. I didn’t kill Beth. No, I’d been at the newspaper, giving my cartoon to Boots O’Malley, seeing what he thought, you know?”

  “I know. And he laughed, right?”

  “Yes. I heard the sheriff say later that Beth’s body had been thrown at least twenty feet.”

  Lily stopped. She squeezed Dr. Chu’s hand so tightly her knuckles whitened.

  “Stay calm, Lily. Everything is fine. I’m here. Your brother and Mrs. Savich are here. Forget what the sheriff said. Now, you suddenly recognized that you didn’t kill Beth.”

  “That’s right,” Lily whispered, her eyelids fluttering. “I realize that something is wrong. I suddenly remember taking those sleeping pills that Tennyson put on the bedside table. I took so many of them, felt them stick in my throat and I swallowed and swallowed to get them down, and I sat with that bottle and chanted, more, more, more, and then the bottle was nearly empty and I thought suddenly, Wait, I don’t want to die, but then it was too
late, and I felt so sorry for the loss of Beth and the loss of me.”

  “I don’t understand, Lily,” Savich said in that darkly smooth voice of his. “You told me about the pills you took just after Beth’s funeral. Why are you thinking about that now, while you’re driving?”

  “Because I realize that I can’t really remember actually taking those pills. Now isn’t that odd?”

  “It’s very odd. Tell us more.”

  “Well, I realize I didn’t want to die then, and I don’t want to die now. But why is the guilt eating at me like this? What’s inside my brain that’s making me want to simply drive the Explorer right into the thick trees that line this horrible road?”

  “And did you find an answer, Lily?”

  “Yes, I did.” She stopped, just stopped and sighed deeply. She was asleep. Her head fell lightly to the side.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Savich. Let’s just let her rest awhile, then I’ll wake her and we can carry on. She’ll be back with us when she wakes up. We’ll see if she needs to go under again.

  “You know, Mr. Savich, I’m getting more and more curious about that first time when she took all those sleeping pills. Maybe we should go into that as well.”

  “Oh, yes,” Sherlock said from behind them.

  However, they didn’t have to wake Lily up. Not more than another minute passed when suddenly Lily opened her eyes, blinked, and said, “I remember everything.” She smiled at Dr. Chu, then said to her brother, “I didn’t try to kill myself, Dillon, I didn’t.”

  Dr. Chu took both of her hands now and leaned very close. “Tell us exactly what happened, Lily.”

  “I came back to myself. I felt clear and alert and appalled at what I’d been considering. Then the road twisted, started one of those steep descents. I realized I was going too fast and I pressed down on the brake.”

  “What happened?” Savich said, leaning toward her.

  “Nothing happened.”

  Sherlock whispered, “I knew it, I just knew it.”

  Savich said, “Did you pump the brakes the way Dad taught you way back when?”

  “Yes, I pumped gently, again and again. Still there was nothing. I was terrified. I yanked up the emergency brake. I know it only works on the rear tires, but I figured it would have to slow me down.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Savich said. “The emergency brake didn’t work either.”

  She shook her head, swallowed convulsively. “No, it didn’t. I was veering from the center toward the deep ravine on my left. I pulled back, but not too far because the redwoods were directly to my right, thick, impenetrable. I was going too fast, and the downhill grade was becoming even steeper. That stretch twists and wheels back on itself a whole lot before it flattens out at the outskirts of Ferndale.”

  Sherlock said from behind her, “Did you slam the shift into park?”

  “Oh, yes. There was an awful grinding noise, like the transmission was tearing itself up. The Explorer shuddered, screamed, and all the wheels locked up. I went into a skid. I tried to let the side of the Explorer scrape against the redwoods, to slow me down, but then the road twisted again. I knew I was going to die.”

  Savich pulled her very gently into his arms, settling her on his lap. Dr. Chu never released her left hand. Lily lay against him, her head on his shoulder. She felt Sherlock’s fingers lightly stroking her hair. She drew a deep breath and said, “I remember so clearly slamming head-on into that poor redwood, thinking in that split second that the redwood had survived at least a hundred years of violent Pacific storms but it wouldn’t survive me.

  “I remember hearing the blaring of the horn, so loud, like it was right inside my head. And then there wasn’t anything.”

  She pulled back and smiled, a beautiful smile, clean and filled with self-awareness and hope. “Now, this is a very strange thing, Dillon. The brakes didn’t work. Did someone try to kill me?”

  Since Dr. Chu was still holding her hand, Lily wasn’t frightened. Actually, she felt good all the way to her toes. Her smile didn’t fade a bit with those awful words.

  “Yeah,” Savich said, looking directly into her eyes. “Probably so. Isn’t that a kick?”

  “Now,” Dr. Chu said, “let’s go back and see how it happened that you ended up in the hospital with all those sleeping pills in your stomach.”

  Lily felt peaceful and excited at the same time. “Yes, let’s go back.”

  SIX

  Hemlock Bay, California

  “All right, MAX, whatcha got?”

  Sherlock walked over, looked down at the laptop screen. “Oh, dear, he’s not doing anything. You don’t think he’s becoming MAXINE again so soon, do you, Dillon? He’s in a mood?”

  “Nah, MAX is still a he, and he’s concentrating. He’s going to turn up something for us.”

  “You hope.”

  “MAX shuddered a bit. That means he’s digging deep. Is Lily asleep?”

  “Yes, I checked on her. She didn’t want a pain pill. Said she didn’t need it. Isn’t that amazing?”

  “Lily told me that a doctor who could make her feel good without hurting her was sure an improvement over a husband who can’t. She said she still feels better for having met her.”

  “Since Dr. Chu didn’t hold our hands, we’ll have to work out our stress at the gym. Too bad.” Then Sherlock laughed. “Remember when she asked Dr. Chu to marry her? That was good, Dillon. She wants out of this mess.

  “Now, according to Mrs. Scruggins, Tennyson will be home in about two hours. She told me she’s making a vegetarian dinner for you—her special zucchini lasagna, and an apple-onion dish that she assured me would make you hum and help you keep your, er, physique perfect. I think she’d like to see you on a calendar, Dillon. What do you think?”

  Savich laughed, then smacked MAX very lightly on his hard drive with the palm of his hand.

  “Not going to commit yourself, are you? Okay, she’s got a big crush on you, Dillon. I think it struck when she saw you in your T-shirt this morning, your pants zipped up but not fastened. There was lust in her eyes when she said your name. She had her hands clasped on her bosom. That’s a sure sign she wants you.”

  Savich cocked a dark eyebrow at his wife. “Don’t go there, Sherlock, it scares me too much.”

  She thought about how she felt whenever she saw him in a T-shirt—or less—and didn’t doubt Mrs. Scruggins’s fast-beating heart one bit. She lightly touched her fingertips to the back of his neck and began to knead.

  MAX beeped.

  “He’s jealous.”

  “No, that was a burp. Well, maybe he’s telling me he’s distracted, what with you draped all over me.”

  Sherlock leaned down to kiss the back of his neck, then grinned at him as she did some stretching. “It really is time for the gym. Do you think there’s one here in Hemlock Bay?”

  “We’ll find one. Tomorrow morning, if Lily’s still feeling fine, we’ll go get the kinks out and lower our stress levels.”

  She stretched a bit more, rubbing the back of her neck. “You think Tennyson was giving her pills to make her depressed, don’t you? You think he changed the pills back, just to be on the safe side since her big brother Fed was here.”

  “Sounds good to me. After Dr. Chu couldn’t get anything conclusive about Lily’s so-called attempt to commit suicide right after Beth’s funeral, I’m thinking that maybe she never tried to kill herself at all.”

  “It was strange how Lily sort of remembered, but she didn’t really. If she didn’t do it, then it had to be Tennyson, and that was the bastard’s first try. They’d been married all of four months, Dillon. That’s incredibly cold-blooded. It makes me really mad. Let’s prove it so we can pound him.”

  “We’ll try, Sherlock. Here we go. Good work, MAX.”

  Both of them read the small print on the screen, as Savich slowly scrolled. A couple of minutes later, Savich raised his head and looked up into Sherlock’s blue eyes.

  “Not really all that much of a sur
prise, is it? So, our Tennyson was married once before, just like he told Lily. Only thing is, he didn’t bother to mention that his first wife committed suicide only thirteen months after they’d tied the knot.”

  Savich hit his palm against his forehead. “I’m an idiot, Sherlock. I shouldn’t have given him the benefit of the doubt, shouldn’t have respected his privacy. Some brother I am after that bastard first husband of hers. After Jack Crane, I should have opened every closet in his house, checked his bank statements for the past twenty years. You know something else? All I had to do was flat-out ask Tennyson how his first wife died.”

  “He probably would have lied.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. You know I can tell when someone’s lying. Also, I could have done then what I’m doing now. My holding back, my respecting Lily’s decision, could have cost Lily her life. I want you to flay me, Sherlock.”

  Sherlock was twining one curly strand of hair round and round her finger, a sure sign she was upset. He immediately took her hand between his two large ones. She said, “I’d just as soon flay myself, Dillon. Do you think Lily would still have married him if she’d known the first wife killed herself?”

  “We can ask her. You can bet she’ll be asking herself the same question, over and over. But the thing is that this is now, and her eyes are wide open. Eleven months ago she believed she loved him, thought she’d found a really wonderful father for Beth. If Tennyson had told her, she’d probably have felt sorry for him—poor man—losing his wife like that. She probably would have married him anyway. If I’d told her, it probably would have pissed her off, she’d have resented me, and she would have married him.”