As she limped along the sidewalk, the song played over and over in her head like a warped CD. Susan had no idea what she was going to do in the next weeks, months, and years. What did people do when they had to start their lives from scratch?
They surrender. She could almost hear Belinda’s voice in her ear, just like the “whispered words of wisdom” in the Beatles song. Could Susan surrender? Could she really trust an HP to give her life direction?
You don’t really have anything to lose. No direction, no friends, no family. No compass to help her find her true north.
The star had escaped the gauze of clouds. Susan imagined it to be the twinkle in the eye of an unseen angel. She wasn’t sure she could completely surrender, but at the very least, she could ask a question.
“Why did I wake up from my coma?” she whispered. “There must be some reason. It’s not as if the world has even noticed I was missing from it for a year. Why am I still here?”
Thirty-Seven
“I’m frankly amazed she can speak, in her condition,” the doctor said, rubbing his bristly chin as he stood in the ICU waiting room.
“May I see her now?” Ryan said.
“Yes. Go in immediately.” He grasped Ryan’s shoulder in a gesture of sympathy. “I don’t know how long you’ll have.”
Ryan entered the ICU and his gaze swung to the bedridden figure on the left-hand side of the room. “Susan” looked the same as when he’d left her last, motionless and battered, as if she’d been savagely beaten with a baseball bat. He’d been told her internal injuries were even worse and it was a miracle she could still draw a breath.
“Ryan. Is that you?” The eyelids fluttered; the voice was weak but audible.
So she could speak.
“May we have some privacy?” Ryan said to the attending nurse. He grasped his wife’s hand in a show of being a dutiful husband. As soon as the nurse disappeared behind the curtains, he dropped it like a stone.
“Where is she? Just tell me that. You killed her, didn’t you?”
There was no response, just the steady wheeze from her respirator. It was not lost on him that over a year ago he had been standing in this very room, begging God to save the woman he’d believed to be Susan.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
He assumed Susan’s imposter lost consciousness again until her chest made a rattling sound and she gasped out a sentence.
“Susan always had it so much better than me, you know,” she said. “I was the one who was abandoned.”
“What happened to Susan?” Ryan asked as he hovered over her, hands clenched at his side.
“You hear it all. Or you hear nothing.” The voice from the bed was unwavering and surprisingly strong.
He had the urge to shake the answer out of her but resisted.
“Sit,” she ordered. “Listen. This may take a while.” She closed her eyes as if summoning the energy for what was coming up next. “As I’m sure you already know, I’m not Susan. My name is Emily Hewitt, and I’m Susan’s identical twin sister.”
Ryan nodded, bracing himself to hear her story.
She and Susan had been born to a teenage mother who gave them both up at birth. Susan had been adopted, but Emily, being the smaller twin, had a host of health problems and ended up in the foster care system. She briefly described a bleak childhood that led her to a life of drugs and prostitution. Ryan was impatient with her backstory. He just wanted to know what had happened to Susan.
The imposter also explained how she’d learned of Susan’s existence through a hot-dog vendor named Wanda. Suspecting Susan might be her lost twin, she called her at her office and convinced Susan to meet her in a diner in downtown Birmingham.
“That was the mysterious family errand Susan went on just before her accident,” Ryan said, more to himself than the woman lying on the bed. “I shouldn’t have let her go alone.”
Emily ignored his comment and continued her ragged monologue. When they were at the diner, Emily had told her twin sister her sob story, hoping Susan would offer her money, but instead Susan insisted on taking her home with her. Emily was desperate for drugs and didn’t want to go anywhere with her sister.
“I lured her into an alley, telling her I had some of my stuff hidden there,” Emily said. “With Susan hovering over me, I reached behind a trash can for a two-by-four. It took one whack on the head to knock her out cold. She went limp and I snatched her purse from her arm and dumped its contents on the ground, searching for her wallet. I found credit cards but no cash. Susan wasn’t wearing jewelry, and there was nothing in her purse worth pawning. I had the keys to her Chevrolet Tahoe parked in front of the diner, but I doubted my dealer would trade rock for a stolen SUV.”
“So the blow to the head killed her?” Ryan said. Every cell in his body jumped with the urge to throttle her.
“No,” she said flatly, as if his concern for Susan was inconsequential. “She was still alive, moaning. I was furious. Why did she get to have pretty clothes and a pricey SUV while I walked the streets? I decided the very least I was going to get out of the deal was her suit and shoes. As soon as I put them on, I felt completely different, way more powerful. ‘How does it feel to be lying naked in an alley?’ I shouted in her face. ‘How does it feel to be me?’”
Ryan tried to block out the lurid image of Susan lying helpless in a filthy alley. “But she was still alive?”
Emily’s eyes flickered, signifying a dismissal of his question. “Suddenly an idea occurred to me. I could drive the Tahoe to her house, steal her blind, and no one would be the wiser. It was the perfect plan, except for one small detail.” She made a noise that sounded like a cough, but Ryan wondered if it was meant to be a laugh. “I’d never learned to drive. Let me tell you something, it’s a stupid idea trying to learn to drive in Atlanta traffic. The next thing I knew I woke up in the hospital, and you were was standing over my bed calling out Susan’s name. You thought I was her, and I wasn’t in any position to argue with you, Ryan.”
Ryan hated hearing his name in her mouth, hated that he hadn’t known immediately that Emily wasn’t Susan.
“What happened to Susan? You have to tell me.”
Emily gasped for air, the effort of speech obviously draining her. Ryan’s muscles were tensed. Would she be able to finish her story without losing consciousness?
Finally her breathing evened out and she motioned with her head for Ryan to come closer.
“She was alive,” she said in a feeble whisper, “but I couldn’t risk her waking up and reporting her car missing. Just before I left the alley I gave her one more final whack on the head. I don’t know if I finished her off or not, but she did stop moaning.”
“Nurse!” he shouted, grabbing the sides of his chair and squeezing so hard a sharp pain shot through his wrist. He needed someone in the room to prevent him from reaching over and snapping Emily’s neck into several pieces.
The nurse drew back the curtain, and a buzzer sounded. Emily’s eyes closed; her features were blank. It was that quick and quiet, almost as if he’d killed her with his rage.
“I’m sorry. It’s over,” the nurse said. Ryan got up from his chair and wordlessly left the room with only one thought in his mind. He wanted to find Susan’s body and bring her home.
Thirty-Eight
It wasn’t as easy to locate Susan’s remains as Ryan thought it would be. He assumed she was buried in a paupers’ field somewhere in Alabama, but when he visited the archives of the Birmingham News searching for murder victims, he found no homicides involving a woman of Susan’s description. Without giving away any specific details, he also enlisted the help of Gordon, his security person, who had some connections in the homicide division of the Birmingham Police Department.
Ryan didn’t know what else to do. Had Emily lied? Maybe the murder hadn’t actually taken place in Birmingha
m. Or had she omitted details of what she’d done with Susan’s remains? Ryan couldn’t imagine why there was no record of the death. Surely Susan’s body had been found. It couldn’t still be in that alley.
Ryan was seated at his computer, trying to think about his next plan of action, when the phone rang.
“Mr. Blaine,” Gordon said. “I heard back from one of my buddies in Homicide.”
“And?”
“The detective called me ’cause he remembered a case similar to the one you’d described. He didn’t work on it, but a buddy of his did. A young woman was beaten in an alley, just like you said.”
“Yes?”
“The reason he had no record of it was because his division didn’t handle it.”
“Why?”
“Because it wasn’t a homicide.” Gordon paused. “The woman didn’t die from her assault. She survived it.”
As soon as he hung up the phone, Ryan clicked to the 2016 archives of the Birmingham newspaper, this time typing “assault” in the search box instead of “murder.” Immediately he found what he was looking for:
ASSAULT VICTIM HAS YET TO BE IDENTIFIED
An unidentified woman was found Tuesday in an alley just off Third Street. She was beaten with a wooden board found nearby and remains in critical condition at University Hospital. The woman is blonde and blue-eyed and believed to be in her mid-twenties, and may go by the name of Emily. Anyone having information about her identity is asked to call the Birmingham Police Department.
Ryan seized the phone and dialed directory assistance for University Hospital. When he was connected to the hospital operator, he said, “Yes. I’d like to see if I could find some information on a patient admitted in June of 2016.”
He was passed around to several different people, and when he finally got an admissions clerk, she told him patient records were confidential and refused to help.
Ryan never played the fame card, but in this case he was willing to make an exception.
“This is Ryan Blaine. Son of former president Richard Blaine. I hate to be a pain, but I really need your help.”
After an excited squeal, the admission’s clerk said, “I was so sorry to hear about your wife.” In minutes she gave him what he was after.
“The patient, known only as Emily, was discharged on November seventh and admitted to Magnolia Manor, a long-term care facility,” she said. “That’s all I have.”
“A long-term care facility? You mean a—”
“A nursing home,” the clerk said.
Ryan hung up the phone. A nursing home? An image of Susan among the elderly and infirm flashed through his mind.
She was alive but, as he feared, completely incapacitated.
His breathing quickened as he punched in the number for Magnolia Manor, asking for the director.
“Mona Scales. May I help you?” said a pleasant voice.
Ryan introduced himself and told her he was looking for a young woman named Emily.
“What a thrill to hear from you, Mr. Blaine,” Mona said. “I wish I could help you. I’m afraid Emily’s not with us anymore.”
Ryan swallowed. “Was she transferred to another nursing home?”
“No.” Mona clucked her tongue. “I’m sorry to say no one knows where she is.”
“I...I don’t understand. How could she be missing? It’s not like she could get up and walk out of there on her own.”
“That’s exactly what she did, Mr. Blaine,” Mona said patiently. “I don’t mean she walked out of Magnolia Manor, but last week she left the rehabilitation facility where she was being treated. Unfortunately, she didn’t tell anyone where she was going.”
Ryan couldn’t keep his voice from cracking. “Are you telling me that Susan, er, rather, Emily, can walk?”
“Yes,” Mona said. “It took nearly six months for her to learn again, but now she gets along quite well.”
“She can walk,” he repeated dumbly.
“And talk. Since waking from her coma, she’s almost good as new.”
“Almost?”
“She still has memory problems. Her past has been coming back to her in fits and starts, and when she left, there were still so many holes.” Mona paused. “You’re the first person, besides a couple of reporters, who has ever asked after her. Did you know Emily?”
“I would rather not discuss it over the phone,” Ryan said, his heart leaping with hope. “Please. Can I come there to see you?”
Thirty-Nine
“This is Belinda,” Mona said, ushering Ryan into her office at Magnolia Manor. “I asked her here today because she knows Emily better than anyone else. I’ll give the two of you some privacy.” The nursing home director shut the door, leaving Ryan and Belinda sitting across from each other.
Belinda, a woman with a lush figure and dark expressive eyes, spoke first.
“I’ve been beside myself over Emily,” she said, pulling a tissue from a box on the desk. “I’ve tried everything under the sun to find her. I went to the bus station, and I even hired a private detective, but it’s like she’s fallen off the side of the Earth.”
“I understand you were her best friend,” Ryan said, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. “How much of her life does she remember?”
“She left me a letter in her hospital room saying she’d recovered her memory until a year before her coma.” Belinda said, twisting a gold hoop earring. “She doesn’t remember anything about her life in Birmingham before the accident. She said she couldn’t bear to recall all those horrible times when she was a drug addict, and that’s why she was moving on.”
She doesn’t remember because it never happened, Ryan almost said. Belinda seemed like a sincere person, and she’d obviously cared about Emily. Could he trust her?
“She never called herself Emily, and she never lived in Birmingham,” Ryan said quickly, before he could change his mind. Then he told Belinda the entire story, from the day her twin sister assaulted her to her imposter’s recent death.
Belinda blanched as Ryan spoke, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“She didn’t seem like a person who was capable of throwing her life away,” she said, shaking her head. “It didn’t fit her. She seemed so together. You should have see her going through recovery; that lady was a bulldog.”
“Yes,” Ryan said with a chuckle. “That sounds like my Susan.”
“I just knew she had to belong to somebody.” Belinda crushed her tissue in her hand so it looked like a pale pink flower. “That someone loved her to pieces.”
He stared down at the pleats of his wool trousers, not daring to catch her eye for fear he might lose control altogether. “Susan doesn’t know someone loves her. She obviously doesn’t remember me.”
“Her neurologist says she may never recover memories that occurred the year before her accident.”
Ryan nodded. A month before Susan had her fateful encounter with her twin sister in the alley, Ryan and she had opened a bottle of champagne and she’d proposed a toast.
“To the best year ever,” she’d said. “One year ago today you bulldozed your way into my life. Thank God you didn’t give up.” According to Belinda, their whole time together could have been wiped from Susan’s mind as if it never existed.
“But you know what, Ryan?” Belinda said softly. “I think she will remember you, eventually. I don’t think it’s possible to forget the greatest love of your life. I once read a book on soul mates and the author claimed the memory of the people we love deeply is never erased, even over several lifetimes.”
“I hope you’re right.” Ryan pinched the skin between his eyes. “I can’t imagine ever forgetting Susan. Now I hope I can find her. I’m going to drive to Devon’s Island, South Carolina in the morning. It’s the place we met. Maybe she went back there.�
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“It’s so ironic. To finally discover Susan’s alive and not be able to find her,” Belinda said. “It reminds me a little bit of those sad love stories you hear on—” She snapped her fingers and grinned. “Wait a minute. I know how to find Susan.”
“How?”
“The radio show,” Belinda said. “You have to call Minerva. Have you ever heard of her?”
Ryan startled at the name. He hadn’t called the program in months. “What do you mean? Why should I call Minerva?”
“Because Susan listens to it every night without fail.”
Forty
Susan reclined in the movie theater watching a late-night showing of Casablanca. It was Saturday night, and she hadn’t felt like spending the evening in the confines of her hotel room.
Her birth certificate had finally arrived at the hotel, and today she’d visited the Department of Motor Vehicles and obtained a new driver’s license. She was catching an early-morning bus out of Devon’s Island. The town could support only one veterinarian, so there was no point in sticking around. She had plans to go to Columbia to check into opening a practice there.
The theater was empty, save for a patron sitting two rows behind her. The woman had made a raid on the concession stand. Susan kept hearing the rustling of candy wrappers, the rattling of ice in her soda, and the sound of her hand rooting around in her popcorn tub.
Susan glanced at the glowing dial of her watch. It was fifteen minutes before midnight. If she stayed for the rest of the film, she’d miss Minerva. The radio show was one of her few reminders of Caroline. When Susan closed her eyes during Minerva, she swore she could hear the creak of Caroline’s rocking chair and her mutterings to the show’s callers.
It won’t hurt to miss Minerva one night, Susan thought, leaning back even farther into her seat. Elsa was asking a reluctant Sam to play “As Time Goes By.” As soon as Sam started playing the song on the piano, the woman behind her stopped her grazing and began to sing along.
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