Rita looked up to see Marty in the doorway. “Come in!”
Angela moved out of the way and watched the two women hug. Rita wished she could include her in, but she didn’t know how. Wasn’t sure she wanted to start something. Allowed her to back away with the excuse of needing a smoke.
“I wasn’t interrupting, was I?” Marty asked, perching on the side of the bed, more comfortable with Rita than her own mother had been.
“Not at all.”
Rita and Marty had met in college during graduate school. They had both done internships at the Warner Center for Mental Health and had stayed on where their friendship had deepened. Rita tried to ignore the fact that Marty was a tall, blond beauty. They were opposite in both looks and personalities–Marty’s effervescence to Rita’s no-nonsense. It was Marty’s phobias that fueled Rita’s interest in phobic patients. Marty had shared the aspects of her childhood that led her to phobias, like being locked in a bathroom for punishment and having to use the same towel all month. Only she hadn’t told Marty the truth about a lot of her life.
“She was here every day,” Marty said.
“How did she even know?”
“I called her. I thought she should know, in case…”
“I died.” Rita had been knocked around the car hard enough to put her in a coma, but aside from a mild head injury and massive bruising, she’d had no other serious injuries. Thank you, God, she mentally added. “I could hear you talking to me.”
“Could you? The doctor said you might, but I wasn’t sure. You looked like you were far away. It was scary.”
“Thanks. For talking to me and for being here.”
“You couldn’t keep me away.” Marty returned the squeeze of her hand.
“Have you gotten over your hospital phobia then?”
“Yes, you cured me by extreme exposure therapy. It wasn’t easy. I’d close my eyes in the elevator and then race out as soon as the door opened. I couldn’t just keep sitting outside in my car thinking that was enough.”
They shared a smile. It felt good to latch onto something familiar.
Marty’s expression grew more solemn. “The officer who investigated your accident is down the hall. He was talking to your doctor about asking you some questions.”
“I don’t remember much.” The doctor had told her it was normal not to remember a lot about the time right before the accident.
A handsome man with silver hair and blue eyes knocked at her open door. “Rita Brooks?” he asked, walking in. “I’m Officer Michael Potter. I was on the scene of your accident. You up for some questions?”
Rita shifted in bed, sitting up straighter. “I have some of my own, actually. I’m afraid I don’t remember much about that night.” She introduced Marty and invited the officer to sit in the vacant chair while Marty settled on the bed.
“I was hoping you’d remember something, anything about the driver. The car that hit you was stolen. We’ve had a rash of teens taking cars for joyrides, though this is the first time there has been injury to others. We caught three kids pulling off a theft a week ago and we’re trying to tie them to some of the other thefts. Particularly the one involving your accident. The car that hit yours was wiped clean of prints.” He handed her three arrest photos. “Do you recognize any of these kids from that night?”
Rita tried hard to pull up something. Sometimes she’d get a sliver of memory. After a minute, she shook her head and handed the pictures back. “I wish I could help. These kids…how old are they?”
“Two are fifteen; one’s seventeen.”
Rita grimaced. They were kids.
“A witness saw the accident from a distance, but unfortunately he can’t ID the occupants. The other vehicle came up beside you as though he were going to pass but then slammed into the side of your car.”
“You don’t think the driver intentionally ran me off the road, do you?”
“Hard to determine. Drugs or alcohol or plain inexperience could be factors.” He put away the pictures. “How are you feeling?”
The car came up beside her…something niggled at that, but she couldn’t draw it close enough. “Good, thanks. It looks like I’ll survive.”
He nodded at both her and Marty. “If you remember anything, please call me at the station.” He handed her a card and left.
“The driver ran his car into me. Why?” Rita asked Marty.
“You can’t look at it as something personal. When you’re feeling better, we’ll discuss rage, helplessness, and the whims of fate.”
Rita nodded, but why did she feel this was no whim of fate?
CHAPTER 2
February 10.
Rita’s mind drifted through foggy images.
The man coming toward her. His hands on her shoulders, blue eyes urgently staring into hers. Frames of a life flashing through her mind.
A dark-haired boy wielding a sword. A long, silver blade flashing in the light. Blood. Rage.
A funeral on a bleak day. Sadness. Harsh words, “The prodigal son returns. Too bad no one wants you here.” Regret.
A black-clad figure rushing forward, green eyes glittering with anger. A gold mask concealing identity, a spray of black feathers. A falling sensation. Fear. Rita!
“Brian!”
“Rita?”
The nudge of her arm was definitely not in the dream, and her mind picked through the swampy darkness of half-sleep. Since her coma, waking was harder than she would admit to anyone. It was a slow process, dragging herself through the layers until she could put her surroundings together.
Marty smiled as Rita’s mind and vision came into full focus. Marty. “Oh, my gosh, I fell asleep at work,” she muttered, glancing at the clock. An hour had passed since she’d closed her eyes and pondered Anna’s persistent obsessive-compulsive disorder. They’d been able to vanquish her germ phobia that had her washing her hands more than eighty times a day. Her other compulsion was proving much harder to control. Rita glanced at her clock. It was after five.
“I told you it was too soon to go back to work.”
“I would have gone crazy if I’d stayed home another week. Besides, I have a light load.”
Or was she already crazy? That slideshow of images had plagued her sleep for the five weeks since she woke from her coma. The mystery of it had been a distraction from the aches and the sight of her battered body when she had looked in a mirror at least. Now her body had healed, and the images were becoming more persistent.
“It’s the weather.” Rita gestured to the window. Bleak skies expelled wet snow that made everything glisten under a coating of deadly ice.
Marty stretched out on the leather chaise lounge. “Who’s Brian?”
“I, uh…Why do you ask?”
“You said his name in your sleep.”
Damn, she’d said it aloud. Why had she said his name? Probably because she hovered between worrying and being mad at him. She hadn’t heard from him since her accident. She had emailed him twice from the Internet café at the hospital. He’d never called or emailed back. By the time she’d gone home, she’d been too put off to call him. Then she discovered her PC had crashed and swallowed everything. So she gave him the benefit of the doubt and sent another email last week. Still no answer.
She reached for the file on her desk. “I’m not sure why I said that name.” She hadn’t told anyone, even Marty, about her relationship with Brian. “Let’s talk about phobias. No repercussions on the exposure therapy of the hospital phobia?”
“I’ve had a few of my hospital dreams where I go in for an appendectomy and come out an old, Asian man. What I don’t have a problem with is avoiding answering questions. You do look a little like hell.”
Rita rested her chin on her hand. “I’m not sleeping well, that’s all.” The problem wasn’t lack of sleep; it was too much dreaming.
“You know how I know you’re not ready to be back at work yet?”
Rita gave her a patronizing smile. “How is that?”
<
br /> “Because your pencils and pens are all mixed together. And your stack of folders isn’t precisely lined up. See, there’s an edge sticking out.”
Rita eyed the stack. “Are you trying to tell me I’m obsessively neat?”
“Of course not. You’re neurotically neat. I’ve been in your closet, remember? You are the only person I know who color-codes her clothes and shoes. My diagnosis is you need to get a life. But I’ve been saying that for years and you haven’t listened. You’re a therapist’s nightmare.”
Rita wrinkled her nose. She’d been close to getting a life. “I really appreciate you taking care of things for me while I was in the hospital.” She straightened her folders.
Marty tapped her chin. “And I know an evasive tactic when I see one.”
“Coffee? I could use a cup.”
“Textbook!”
They walked down to the break room.
Marty asked, “Heard from your mother?”
Rita poured her fourth cup of coffee, ignoring her jittery hands. “Once. We’ve left things on neutral ground for now.” She took a doughnut from the box on the counter, trying to forget that she’d already had one. “I don’t know who keeps bringing these in, but they’ve got to stop.” She sighed as a billion grams of sugar dissolved in her mouth. “I think there’s a fat person inside me screaming to get out.”
“Bill called while you were in the hospital after hearing about your accident. He told me he’s tried to get back with you over the last year, but you keep putting him off.”
“He’s not my type.”
“He’s exactly your type, that sweet, Bill Pullman kind of guy who calls to check on a woman who ditched him a year ago.” Marty lowered her voice. “He told me about your nosebleed when he tried to kiss you.”
“So I got a nosebleed. Big deal.”
“If it’s no big deal, why are you pulverizing that doughnut?”
“Shh!” Rita tossed the mashed doughnut in the garbage.
Marty followed Rita back to her office, whispering, “You’re just too embarrassed to admit you need help. It’s all right for those schooled in the mind to ask for help. Heck, I think most therapists need counseling even after their early training. This has something to do with the fact that you haven’t had a real boyfriend since I’ve known you, doesn’t it?”
Rita closed her office door behind them and walked to her desk, wanting to feel in control again. “It’s just a little problem relating to men. Nothing for you to worry about.” Marty wanted to understand…to know her deepest, darkest place where she hid the girl whose father had only one lesson to teach her: men were removed and aloof, mysterious and alien.
“I think you have a phobia about people worrying about you,” Marty said, crossing her arms. “Why is that?”
Barbara, the receptionist, tapped on the door and poked her head in. “Oh, excuse me, I didn’t know you were busy.”
“We’re done,” Rita said.
“Done!” Marty threw her hands up. “She’s hardly opened up at all.”
Rita kept smiling at Barbara, wishing she could kick Marty under the desk.
“There’s a gentleman here to see you, Rita. Christopher LaPorte.” She raised her eyebrows and waited for a reaction.
“I don’t have anyone else scheduled for today.”
“Oh, I thought you knew him.” Barb’s brown eyes twinkled. “Thought maybe he was your new gig. I was going to applaud your outstanding taste. He said he didn’t have an appointment, but he acted like it was pretty important that he speak with you.”
“Barb, can you tell him that I only counsel female patients?” How could Rita help men figure out their problems when she had problems figuring out men?
A few minutes later, Barb was back. “He’s not leaving until he speaks with you. He says it’s personal.”
“Personal,” Rita repeated, pulling herself to her feet. How could she have personal business with someone she’d never heard of?
“Wish he had personal business with me,” Barb muttered, backing out of the door and heading to the ladies’ room.
Rita’s heartbeat jumped. Wait a minute. LaPorte? Is that what Barb had said his last name was? Brian’s last name. But not Brian. A mispronunciation then? Coincidence?
He was standing with his back to the hallway, reading the positive messages hanging on the walls about self-esteem, love, and friendship. His dark, short hair looked wet from the snow. He had a backside that belonged in one of those Chippendale calendars and a well-built chest encased in a black sweater. A wrinkled winter coat was slung over his shoulder. Not Brian, who said he had blond hair and was only 5’10.
“Can I help you?”
He turned around, and he may as well have punched her in the stomach.
It was him, the man she’d seen in the gray place. The intense dark blue eyes and that mouth with the built-in pout. Her knees went soft.
“You’re Rita Brooks?” he asked in a voice flavored with a hint of Southern Comfort, like Brian’s voice.
Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t utter a sound. She just kept staring at his eyes.
“Yes, she is.” Marty stepped in to save her. “What can we do for you?”
He acknowledged Marty’s protective stance but trained his eyes on Rita as he took a step closer. With him came the aroma of grapes mixed with the subtle spice of deodorant. His face was dry and red, as though he’d hastily shaved in a gas station restroom on his way here. He had the handsome, angular kind of face she’d seen in advertisements for shaving cream.
“Do you know my brother, Brian LaPorte?”
Brian, he was Brian’s brother, and he was here, which meant something was wrong with Brian, and that’s why she hadn’t heard from him. As her mind clamped around those facts, Christopher’s similarity to the man she’d seen during her coma still confused her. “Excuse us for a moment,” she mouthed to Marty as she led Christopher to the front corner of the lobby. “What’s wrong with Brian?”
He seemed to gauge her, though she wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Maybe he saw the tension on her face, because he finally answered. “Brian jumped off the rooftop deck of his house. He’s in a coma.”
Her mind spun. Jumped? Coma? “Oh, my God. When?”
“January first. I’m trying to…”
His words faded beneath the buzz in her head. January first. She’d gone into a coma January second. That meant they were in a coma at the same time, for four overlapping days. The man who had urgently sought her out…it was Brian. Her analytical side wanted to deny it, but she knew it in the deepest recess of her soul. Brian had come to her.
Christopher was still talking, and finally his words broke through the buzz. “If you broke his heart, and he tried to take his life, it’s not your fault. I just need to know where his head was.”
“Wait a minute. You’re saying he tried to kill himself.”
He was trying to find out if she had anything to do with Brian’s fall. By the hard look in his eyes, he had already made that assumption.
“How did you find me?” she asked, trying to ground herself in concrete facts.
“From your email to him.”
“I didn’t put my full name and address in that email. I didn’t put my work address in it.” She was starting to feel suspicious, too. She slid a glance to Marty, who was surreptitiously hanging around Barb’s desk.
“That’s not important. What’s important is finding out what drove a man who had everything to live for to try to kill himself. I think you know why.”
Important. There was something important. Brian found you. Why? She put her hand over her mouth, sorting through the improbability of it all, and yet she could see the man clearly, holding onto her shoulders, staring into her eyes as though willing her to do something—
Christopher’s hand on her shoulder jarred her out of those thoughts. “Tell me what was going on between you two.”
Conflicting emotions bombarded her, and to her horror, she f
elt the tingling that preceded her nosebleeds. This cannot be happening.
He crowded her personal zone to intimidate her. “What is it that you’re hiding?”
She felt the first trickle of blood and pressed her finger against the side of her nose. Something was very wrong. “I can’t believe he tried to take his own life. Are you sure it wasn’t an accidental fall?” Her voice hardly sounded convincing, all nasally like Fran Drescher in The Nanny.
Christopher looked at her the way a tiger moving in on something that’s caught its eye would, with interest and suspicion. “I’m sure.” Besides, he’d probably read their emails. The thought of that made anger even out the strange sense of panic for a moment.
Rita inched toward the receptionist’s desk just as Barb walked back in. He watched her, the muscles in his jaw working as he chewed what must be grape gum. Rita found the Kleenex and covered her nose with a wad of it. “I’m fine,” she assured Marty, who obviously didn’t believe her. Before she could ask any questions, Rita returned to Christopher. Control, control. “How is Brian? Do the doctors think he’ll come out?”
“I’ll answer your questions when you answer mine.”
“I did answer yours.”
“Look, Rita Brooks, I know you’re hiding something. I can see it in your eyes, in your body language. Spill it.”
She was hiding something, but she couldn’t spill that she believed Brian had come to her during her coma. She needed time to sort it out. The revelation totally knocked her off balance, and Christopher’s presence wasn’t helping. “If I knew something, I’d tell you. I had nothing to do with a suicide attempt. I can’t even believe he would do something like that.”
“What’s wrong with your nose?”
“I have a cold,” she said, pitifully aware of how it sounded.
Marty, however, had to be more helpful. “Rita, you’re bleeding!” She stalked over and turned an outraged glare to Christopher. “Did he hit you? Barb, call security.”
He looked calm, despite his obvious impatience and the accusation. “I didn’t hit her. I only—”
“He didn’t hit me. I can handle this,” Rita interjected, wanting no more to be said.
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