The Girl Next Door

by Lisa Aurello

  “Thank you. It would help if you could provide us with Ms. Jensen’s personal and insurance information.”

  “Yes, yes. I’ll do my best. Thank you. Westchester General, you say?”

  “That’s correct, ma’am.”

  “OK, right. I’ll be there as soon as I can get there.” The moment she hung up, she started moving in every direction before sitting back down.

  Calm down and think, Melanie.

  Panicking wouldn’t help Jane; she needed to have her wits about her and proceed with a plan. She slapped her hands, palms down, on the desk. First, get Jane’s insurance information. The hospital asked specifically for that. Joe Carroll in HR would have access to it. She picked up the phone again and punched in Joe’s extension, praying he was working late. On the tail end of the third ring, he picked up.

  “Joe? Thank God you’re still here. It’s Melanie in IT. Listen… I’m going to need Jane Jensen’s insurance information…”

  “Taxi!”

  The yellow cab switched on its unavailable sign as it passed her. Bastard. Mel flipped her middle finger at the driver. She knew the fucktard totally did that on purpose so he wouldn’t have to pick her up. She’d been standing in the rain for ten minutes now, trying to get a freaking taxi and her gorgeous boots were getting ruined.

  “You know what? Fuck it,” she said aloud and decided she’d get to Jane faster if she just took Metro-North. Grand Central Station was two and a half blocks away and she was already soaking wet. She’d just slosh right over there now and get the next train out. It was stupid of her to try to get a cab in the rain anyway. If there’s one lesson every person who visits Manhattan learns soon enough, it’s that it’s impossible to get a taxi in the rain—it might be easier to win the lottery. Either half the fleet disappears into some underground bunker or everyone on the isle of Manhattan comes out in the rain to hail cabs as some sort of secret pagan ritual. One or the other.

  At any rate, the train was faster. She was just in time by a comfortable margin of about fifteen seconds to catch the 6:19 express. While she sat by the train window, watching scenery fly past, she thought about the conversation she’d had with Jane last year. They’d gone out for drinks one Friday evening after a hellacious workday. Total lightweight that she turned out to be, Jane got tipsy from just the one glass of wine she’d drunk.

  She wasn’t intoxicated enough to be sloppy so Mel ordered her a beer to chase the wine. What the hell—Jane needed to let her hair down. Wearing her usual style of clothes—baggy and often brown—Jane stared at the table, making designs with the water ring that leaked from her frosted glass. She’d had something on her mind. “Mel, can I ask you a favor?”

  Sloshing back her Negroni, Mel held onto a chip of ice to crunch. “What’s up?”

  “Um…uh” she stammered while watching her finger move in furious figure eights on the table, “I was just wondering if you would mind if I listed you as next of kin on my personnel records.”

  The combination of Campari and vermouth was easing Mel into a friendly buzz, but she was still sober enough to consider Jane’s request. “Why, Jane? Don’t you have any family nearby?”

  “No, not really. My parents moved west last year. To Arizona. I don’t have too many friends in the area either but… If it’s too much of an imposition, that’s fine. I just thought it would probably—”

  “No, it’s fine, Jane. Sure, I’ll be happy to be your next of kin.”

  “Really?” She asked as if she were astonished Mel said yes.

  “Yes, really. Now…” She emptied her glass. “Another drink?”

  Mel disguised her feelings behind alcohol but she’d been touched by the request. She also felt sorry for Jane. God, it must be tough to have no one close by. Such a lonely existence that Mel could barely fathom—she hailed from a family of five and everyone lived in the same city, more or less. In fact, sometimes more was less, and she wished they lived farther away so they could irritate her only by phone. Disconnecting a phone call was much easier than slamming a door in someone’s face, if significantly less rewarding.

  Never realizing that anything would come of it, today it did when Mel got the phone call from Westchester General. Mel just prayed that Jane’s injuries weren’t so severe that her life would be permanently altered. What had that hospital woman said? Her condition was critical… but not much else. Mel would have to wait and see.

  As monolithic apartment and office buildings gave way to suburbia through the windows, Mel saw more trees and Tudor architecture and knew she was approaching her stop. Less than one minute later, the train pulled into the station, and she hurried to gather her belongings. Armed with Jane’s medical insurance information and her mother’s telephone number, Mel headed out into the chill autumn rain.

  When Melanie burst through the automatic doors at the hospital entrance, she looked like she’d rolled around in a mud puddle for fun. She was so wet she could feel rivulets of water trickling down along her spine and into her undies via her ass crack. Trying to ignore the icky sensation, she looked around to get her bearings.

  The hospital lobby looked like a five-star hotel, with lots of plush beige software complemented by matte metal hardware and punctuated by smoked glass everywhere in between, all of it illuminated by elegant underlighting. If Mel were there for a less tragic reason, she would have appreciated the decor way more. As it were, she tried to focus on finding the right area and person who required the information she possessed and who could give her some in return. A security guard with a beer gut and bloodshot eyes directed her down a long hall to the reception desk at the ER.

  She got to the desk. “Jane Jensen. I’m here for Jane Jensen. Is she going to live?” Mel could hear the breathless panic in her own voice though she was employing all of her resources to remain calm.

  The woman behind the computer screen shook her head. “Are you her next of kin?”

  Mel nodded vigorously.

  “You’ll have to wait to speak to her surgeon. Meantime, you can fill out the paperwork.” From the side of her desk, she picked up a clipboard with a wad of forms and held it out.

  Reluctantly, Mel accepted it and spinning around, found and perched on the edge of a vinyl-clad chair to fill out Jane’s insurance and personal history minutiae to the extent possible.

  When she finished the final one, scrawling the last few lines in her illegible script, she returned them to the woman and looked at her questioningly. “Is there no update on her condition?”

  The admin perused the paperwork, delaying her response. After a minute or so, she looked up and answered Mel’s question with one of her own. “Does Ms. Jensen have any relatives nearby?” At Mel’s stern look, she hurried to add, “It’s just that although you are designated as next of kin, you indicated on the paperwork that you have no relation to the patient.”

  She only had to remember that bar conversation to answer so Mel shook her head. “Right… uh, no. She doesn’t. Her parents live in Arizona and she has no one else. That’s why she listed me.”

  “I’m afraid only relatives can be provided the status and visiting privileges of our patients, ma’am.”

  “Well, I’m her stepsister. Why isn’t that enough?”

  “You just said she only had her parents…”

  “Well, I thought you meant biological family but I’m as close as you can get without the blood tie,” Mel lied through her teeth. “So… now can I know? Or see her?”

  The older woman, her hair incongruously bright red with two inches of snowy roots, frowned and regarded Melanie through narrowed eyes. Her hair color reminded Mel of a strawberry shortcake ice cream bar she’d buy from an ice cream truck back in the days when she’d put anything in her mouth. The vanilla ice cream center was ringed by the red stuff. Or was it the other way around? Trying not to stare, Melanie waited patiently for the woman to consider her bald-faced lie. After a long minute the woman shrugged, obviously deciding she really didn’t give a rat’s ass
.

  “Not right at the moment. She’s just out of surgery and in recovery but when she comes out of the anesthesia, her surgeon will be doing an assessment to see if she’s sustained any brain damage. I assume they’d like to speak to you at the very least and then possibly they’ll let you in to see her.”

  Melanie nodded, using her boot toe to try to scratch the back of her leg. It was going to be a long freaking night. “Is there a cafeteria or somewhere nearby where I can get some coffee?”

  “Cafeteria’s on five but it closes in a half hour. There’s a Starbucks half a block away that’s open until midnight.”

  “Ah, excellent,” Mel huffed out on a long breath. “First good news I’ve heard all day. Thanks.” She gave the woman a big, toothy grin because Mel had long ago learned that it never hurts to make new friends. “May I get you one too?”

  The woman returned her smile, revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth that somehow harmonized into a pleasant grin. “No, thank you. I’ll never get to sleep tonight if I have coffee now. By the way, I have a note here attached to Ms. Jensen’s file. Someone came in earlier wanting information on your stepsister’s condition. A friend named Ed Jensen, no relation to the patient he said? He asked that someone from Ms. Jensen’s family contact him with her condition and left a number.”

  “Oh, OK. I’ll take it. Thanks.”

  As she walked away, Mel mulled over that last bit of information. Odd, she thought. But she had no time to dwell on it right now. She’d call him later when she had more information to impart. Right now, she pretty much had zilch. But the question continued to nag at her.

  Who the hell was Ed Jensen?

  Chapter 5

  The phone rang only once before the woman picked up. “Hello?”

  The man spoke rapidly into her ear. “It’s me. I’m on a burner. Just tell me that it wasn’t you who caused the car accident…”

  A throaty laugh sounded in his ear. “It was a stroke of genius, baby. Are you happy?”

  Closing his eyes, he sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth, trying to slow down his pulse, relax his seizing muscles, and untangle the chaos of his disheveled thoughts. “Am I happy?” he finally said with exaggerated calm. “No. I’m the opposite of happy.”

  “Why, baby? It fit in perfectly with our plan.”

  “No. It isn’t at all what we planned,” he said in a low rumble, trying but probably failing to mask the malignancy he felt… and then because he couldn’t help himself he added, “What the fuck did you think you were doing? We never talked about causing a car accident.”

  “I saw an opportunity and I took it. You know, carpe diem. I thought you’d be pleased…”

  “Why would I be pleased over your taking someone out in highway carnage?”

  “For crissakes,” she screeched, “this whole plan is about taking someone out. Or did you forget all of a sudden?”

  He pulled the phone away from his face and jammed his finger in his ear—her strident voice actually hurt his eardrum. Fighting for calm, he kept his tone modulated. “Shh, keep your voice down. We do not need to add to the body count, do we? What is wrong with you?”

  He was pacing now but it wasn’t helping. If anything, his temper was on the rise. He had to spew it to release some of the volcanic pressure—Krakatoa-sized. In his head, he yelled at her: you stupid cunt. What were you thinking? Aloud, he only said, “We had a definite plan…”

  “Look, an opportunity presented itself, and it was too damn good to pass up. I was driving home from my meeting with her—just as we planned. Everything went off without a hitch and I wasn’t recognized. By the time I left, I figured the stupid bitch was long gone since I met with Pernod afterward but on the way home, I stopped at a gas station right off the highway, and lo and behold, there she was. I just thought that if I could cause her to have a fatal accident, it would work to our advantage. And it was so ridiculously easy. Too easy.”

  “You also killed a complete innocent. You know that, right?”

  “You mean the man?”

  “Yes, I mean the man,” he echoed in a high-pitched voice, mocking her. He couldn’t help it—he was furious with her. They had a carefully crafted plan and she deviated from it. That’s how mistakes were made and stupid people got caught. He did not intend to be one of them. Lucky for her she was on the phone miles away and not in front of him—he was that angry.

  “Yeah, well… that was unintended. He was just in the wrong place. It’s called collateral damage.”

  Because every word she uttered was high-octane fuel for his wrath, he pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment to rein in his fury as best he could. It would serve no purpose, and they had to make this work, had to keep going with the plan. After a few deep breaths, he returned it to his ear and gentled his voice. “Whatever. I was trying to get Jane Jensen’s condition but the hospital wouldn’t release any information. I don’t suppose you have any way…?”

  “No, but with any luck if she doesn’t die, she’ll turn into a vegetable. That way we won’t have her death on our conscience but things still go our way. Wouldn’t that be lucky?”

  He huffed out his breath, and a bitter little laugh hitched a ride. “I’m tempted to call the whole damn thing off now, thanks to your improvising. These kinds of things have to be meticulously planned, or we’ll get caught. Please remember there’s a lot at stake—our futures, to be precise. You just can’t go and do things off the cuff. I thought you were smart enough to know that.”

  “Too late to call it off. Pernod’s already got the cash, and he’s planning on doing it soon. I wouldn’t know how to get to him in time since it’s very difficult to reach him. Just relax, okay? It’s almost done.”

  “Yeah,” he scoffed, “relax. Just please do me a favor and don’t fuck up anything else. All right? Answer me.”

  “Yes, all right, all right.”

  “And by the way, pick up your own drop phone and use that to call me at this number in an emergency. Do not, I repeat, do not call me on any other phone. Got it?”

  Disconnecting the call—or thinking he did—without waiting for her acknowledgment, he stomped over to his duffel bag and pulled out his running shoes. He had to get this mounting frustration off him before he exploded, and running was his therapy, the endorphins his drug of choice. He loved being outside, feeling the power of his legs, shoving his body beyond its natural endurance. After switching out the shoes, he started his run while still in the building, almost taking the heavy glass door off its hinges with the violence he used to swing it open on his way out.

  From his pocket, he suddenly heard her screeching. “I really don’t understand why you are so upset about it. I honestly don’t. Hello? Mason?”

  Chapter 6

  Jane was falling deeper…

  Deep and fast into a black hole and there was no way to arrest or even slow her descent.

  Her head still throbbed in fiery pain but with each layer of deeper unconsciousness, it bothered her incrementally less. She heard muffled voices that kept receding into the distance until they were silenced entirely. She thought maybe one was her mother. Earlier her parents had been here, she thought anyway, unless she was dreaming. Her mom had been holding a baby.

  “It’s your daughter, Jane,” her mother had said, her voice oddly flat. Devoid of any emotion.

  “My daughter? I don’t have kids—I’m a kid.”

  “You’re ten years old, and this is your baby,” came her amplified voice. Why did it sound so loud? Jane’s mother continued, “What will you name her?”

  Jane was confused. Was this really happening? She thought she was speaking to a doctor who told her she’d been in a car accident. He’d said something about her memories when she told him she was in ninth grade. Almost fourteen, not ten, Jane realized. Her mother was psycho. But that was nothing new.

  And Jane didn’t have a daughter, for God’s sake. She would have remembered that. Why was her mother even here? It’s not as i
f she cared about Jane—she’d never cared. Jane couldn’t figure out why she’d start now. Or maybe they’d grown close and she just couldn’t remember?

  There was someone else in her life… but Jane couldn’t recall exactly who it was. Someone she wanted with her. She had a friend… somewhere. Maybe that friend would come help her. What did the doctor say about her memories? She couldn’t remember exactly what they’d discussed. Her head ached so much and a metallic tang filled her mouth.

  And now there were these rolling waves of darkness, like standing on a beach at midnight and not seeing the ocean but knowing the waves were coming at you. It was kind of terrifying—what if there was a really giant one that would take you out? That’s sort of how she felt now, but she thought maybe the waves, ominous or not, would bring sleep if not oblivion. The pain increased and receded with each wave that rolled over her.

  She needed sleep. Or was she dreaming right now? She couldn’t tell what dimension she was in, but she kept hearing her mother’s voice, always needling her about something. Going in and out like the waves. The waves were gentle, though, unlike her mother.

  The darkness rolled in like an approaching storm. When it finally reached her, it came like a blackout… and it came at her, consumed her, and she ceased to feel any pain nor have any thoughts.

  Her last thought was of death—her own. It stood to reason that the encroaching blackness was death itself. Unless she’d already died? But if she had, why was she still having thoughts? And hearing her mother’s voice. Hell? Why was she dropping from some great height? Jane could almost feel the speed picking up as if she were falling down a deep hole, going faster with each unit of measure. She kept sinking into it, unable to stop or slow her momentum as she fell and fell until she hit bottom—defying gravity with a soft landing—at a depth where everything shut off: there were no thoughts, no dreams… no nothing.