by Jonas Saul
“Without question.”
Kostas got up from his chair and walked over to Oliver, his hand outstretched.
“Shake my hand like a man. Keep your word, and you will be past this mess in under a week.”
Oliver took his hand, his grip as diminished as his fortitude, his hands soft and moist from tears.
Kostas brought his other hand around, in the shape of a fist, and sucker punched Oliver, knocking him off his chair.
“You’ll thank me later,” Kostas said. “Gotta make this part look real.”
He dropped down and continued to punch Oliver until he was bleeding. Every man could take a beating. If that was the worst Oliver got, he was getting off easy compared to what his ex-wife wanted to do to him.
Kostas just wanted to make Oliver’s reunion with Violeta was as authentic as possible, not to mention how much he despised the Payne family for lying to him and using him in their family drama.
It wasn’t Oliver’s fault. But Kostas didn’t care about fault.
He only wanted the stain removed from his police station.
Chapter 15
“There’s got to be a mistake,” Parkman said as Joffrey jumped past him and stopped the doctor from walking away.
“Get your hands off me,” the doctor shouted. “I’ll call security.”
Joffrey flipped open his badge. “I’m Detective Joffrey with Homicide. Earlier this morning, a woman named Sarah Roberts was admitted to this hospital for a gunshot wound to the head.” He lowered his badge and dropped in a pocket inside his jacket. “We spoke with a man who identified himself as Doctor Jacob. He informed us of her diagnosis at the time. I even met with him a second time just recently. So there is a Doctor Jacob at this hospital and there is a Sarah Roberts being tended to. Just because you don’t know about it, doesn’t make it not so.”
The young doctor had taken a step back as Joffrey berated him.
“Is there a problem here?” A hospital security man walked up behind Aaron who had been rendered speechless.
“There’s no problem here,” Joffrey said as he offered his badge for the security guard to see. “We brought a gunshot victim in hours ago and this doctor says she’s not here.”
The security guard looked at the doctor who had backed up against the wall. “Is this patient they’re looking for one of yours?”
“She’s not even on the rounds list. I’ve never heard of her or the doctor they claim to have spoken with.”
“Well, gentlemen, that’s not my area of expertise,” the guard said. “I would just like you to keep your voices down as it is very early in the morning. If you’re not sure where your family member is, you could always check down with admitting.”
“Fair enough,” Joffrey said. “We’ll do that.”
He took down the name of the young doctor and then led Parkman and Aaron to the elevator.
Downstairs at the front reception desk, Joffrey produced his ID again and asked to speak with a Doctor Jacob.
The woman behind the Plexiglas typed something into her computer.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have a Doctor Jacob on staff. Is he a visiting doctor?”
“Look up Sarah Roberts. She was admitted around one in the morning with a gunshot wound to the head. We want to know how she’s doing.”
The woman typed again. After a moment, she asked, “Sarah with an h at the end or without?”
“With,” Parkman said.
The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry, nothing here.”
“Check again,” Joffrey said, becoming increasingly agitated.
What the fuck is happening here?
After typing once again on her keyboard, she turned to them. “There’s no one in our system that has been admitted within the previous six, or even twelve hours, with that name or variants of it. I’m sorry, maybe it was another hospital they sent her to.”
“I want to talk to your superiors,” Joffrey said. “I want your boss. Who is in charge here? What kind of hospital is this?”
“Sir, please keep your voice down. My boss arrives after nine this morning. Most of the supervisors arrive then. You can speak with them—”
“Fine.”
Joffrey stepped away from the counter before saying more.
“It’s got to be Violeta,” Parkman said. “She has done something with Sarah.”
Aaron wandered off, walking aimlessly.
“Hey, Aaron, where are you going?” Parkman asked.
Aaron spun on one heel, the other came around in a roundhouse until it connected with the brick wall beside him. He lifted off his foot and kicked with the other one.
Then he turned and faced them, the anger that fueled those kicks evident in his tormented expression.
“We have to find Sarah and we had better fucking do it before anything happens to her.” He looked directly at Joffrey. “Or you will see a demonstration of what I mean when I say I do things my way.”
“Now, Aaron, calm down,” Joffrey said. He stepped toward him. “We’ll figure this out.”
Aaron now stared at Parkman. “You said the name, Violeta. Who is that? And if you think she had something to do with this, that’s where we start.”
“Violeta has been the one orchestrating all this shit from the beginning. This has to be her. But I don’t think she’ll kill Sarah. She would want to use her. A dead Sarah isn’t good for anybody.”
“I agree,” Aaron said.
Chapter 16
The dreams ached like a river of lava burning her skin. And it wouldn’t stop undulating the pain through her head. The pain itself even ached and throbbed.
Movement rendered her stomach weak, reminding her of car sickness, or drinking too much and then lying down. Her abdomen clenched, but she forced the contents of her stomach to remain where they were.
She tried to open her eyes, but the light she detected through her lids changed her mind. She breathed in deep, feeling her chest rise and then descend without pain. Only minor muscular discomfort, which was different from a stab wound, a broken bone or a bullet hole.
How would I know that?
Mentally, she catalogued the rest of her body, working systematically from her feet to her head. Her feet moved freely, but her ankles were bound.
Strange.
There was enough play for her knees to rise an inch, but that’s where they stopped. Moving her torso left and right confirmed no broken hips.
Then what happened?
Her hands were fine. Each finger moved to her relief. She hated broken fingers.
Have I had them broken before?
But her wrists were bound which equated to anger. Who did this and why? Was she drugged? Whoever it was would pay dearly.
She paused in her thoughts, listened to her inner voice, and wondered where the anger came from. There seemed to be a buried darkness deep inside her, surfacing. The kind of darkness that would give a psychotherapist issues.
Like a pro wrestler, her shoulders were flat on the mat, or whatever it was she lay on, neither one able to move. Something bit into the top of her chest, just below the collar bones, like a strap of some kind.
She rolled her head, which was free of restraints, but was governed by padding on either side, as if large pillows locked her head in place.
Her mouth dropped open and she tongued her teeth. All there.
Something moved around her. She desperately wanted to open her eyes, but it was still too bright.
She tried to detect if anyone was close, if they were going to do anything to her.
While she waited, she tried to remember the last time she was awake, what had happened to bring her here. Sifting through scattered memories, she got to her sister. She had parents. Something about a cop who was their neighbor. He babysat her when she was younger, but she forgot the age. Her police officer turned babysitter was a horrible man. Twisted. Made her do things. Lost her virginity to him. Became depressed. Started pulling her hair out and became a victim of tricho
tillomania.
How would I know a word like that?
She wondered how much hair she had left.
Then she tried to remember her name. Nothing came up.
Who am I?
Her stomach twisted with anxiety.
What’s wrong with me? What has happened?
The lights went out overhead.
She fell back under.
The light again.
A voice to her left. A male voice. On the phone. Responding at intervals to periodic questions.
He said her condition had improved.
What condition? My hair condition?
The man said they’d talk after. Shuffling feet. A chair. Someone close.
She opened her eyes, fluttered them, then tried again.
Still too bright.
“Here,” the man said. “Let me get that.”
A moment later the light disappeared and darkness greeted the backs of her eyelids.
She opened her eyes to slits. An engine hummed nearby.
“This,” she tried to say but it came out sounding like the hiss of a snake. “Sucks.” To her ear, that sounded like she only said, ucks, which was an improvement on the hissing.
“Good to see you’re waking. We have a lot of ground to cover in more ways than one.”
She rolled her tongue around her dry mouth, positioned it in the center, opened and closed her mouth and tried to talk again.
“What happened?”
That sounded relatively normal.
“I was going to ask you that very question.”
She got her eyes open enough to stare at the roof.
Where am I?
Gently, she rolled her head until her cheek touched the padded retainer and looked up into the face of a man in his forties. He had a wonderful, pleasant smile, and his eyes were a pretty blue, but his two-day beard growth scared her. A professional doctor wouldn’t come to work like that. His hair was thinning and unkempt and he wasn’t wearing a white coat like other doctors. He wore a black T-shirt with the name of a ‘80s alternative band on it, The Violent Femmes.
“Where the fuck am I?” What compelled me to ask like that?
Something bumped the bed. An engine that hummed nearby, revved.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“Let’s start with the basics, shall we?” The man moved away from her field of vision. “You’ve bumped your head rather hard. I need to ask you a few questions, and then I’ll answer yours.”
“Wrong.”
“Excuse me? What do you mean by wrong?”
“Answer mine first or they’ll be a fee at the end of the program.”
He chuckled. “A fee? What program?”
“I don’t know why I just said that.” She swallowed. “But it sounded right. Am I someone who gets their own way?”
“I imagine so.”
“I don’t sound like a nice person.” She stared up at the ceiling. “Is that why I have a head injury? Did I upset someone?”
“I would say something like that happened.”
“Can you tell me my name?” she asked.
“You’re not aware of it?”
“No, I just like asking stupid questions when waking up from a head injury to fuck with the doctor taking care of me.” She closed her mouth. “Sorry, there it goes again. It’s like a first response.” Then, her voice lower, more to herself, she said, “Maybe it has something to do with the babysitter.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. My name?”
“As I said, my questions first. Then yours.”
“Talk in circles like a jerk and I’ll start calling you Doctor Circle Jerk. How would you like that for a new name?”
Again, the doctor let a small laugh escape.
“Hey, do I have any friends?” she asked. “I’m not sure I would like me.”
“You have friends.”
“I win.”
“What?”
“You answered my question first, so I win. It’s one nothing now. Go ahead. Your turn.”
“Can you remember anything recent, anything personal? Like where you live, a boyfriend’s name, the car you drive or are your parents alive? Anything?”
Her emotions welled up when nothing came to mind other than her parents. Then her eyes welled up.
“Why don’t I listen to you first,” she said. “Tell me a little of what happened here and we’ll piece it together.”
Something bumped the bed again. This time her entire body shifted.
“What is going on? Are we moving?”
“We’re in a large vehicle on a highway somewhere south of the Great Lakes.”
“What? Why? Do I live down here? Where are we going?”
“We’re taking you home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Santa Rosa, California. We should be there in a few days.”
She rolled her eyes to study the roof again and tried to think about the name. “Santa Rosa means something to me, but it doesn’t feel like home. Why’s that?”
“You’ve been shot in the head.”
She lifted up against the restraints, stressing them. Her chest didn’t get far, but her wrists rose a full inch. “What are you talking about? Who and when? Did I shoot back? Because if I didn’t—”
He stepped into sight. “Calm down.” He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and eased her back.
Her body loosened, but a subtle pain rose inside her head, like the beginning of a migraine.
“I think I’m getting a headache. I need something for it.”
“Soon. Right now you’re lucid. We need to talk.”
“About what, sadist?” She averted her eyes. “How come on the inside I feel like a good person, but on the outside my mouth has its own agenda? Have I got some kind of Tourette’s?”
“Not that I’m aware of, but I do love how lucid you are. Just relax and listen to me for a second.”
She waited, moving slightly with the susurrations of the vehicle.
“With the injury you’ve endured, you may experience dizziness, headaches, weakness, nausea, trouble sleeping, and you could encounter abnormal levels of fatigue.”
“Great. Sounds like a ball of fun.”
“I want you to know what to expect with a head injury. These things can be common when a bullet enters the skull like the one that hit you. You seem to have memory issues, but that’s hardly permanent. It’s not like in the movies. Most of it will come back to you. It’s called Retrograde Amnesia. Also, you could experience difficulty understanding others and go through periods of poor concentration. Until you’re back to a normal routine in months to come, I suggest you keep daily activities to a minimum.”
“Noted. I’ll start keeping all activity to a minimum right now.” She paused. “There. Look at me. Quite reduced in what I can do secured to this bed-like thing in a large moving vehicle.”
“The straps are so you don’t roll off the bed when the vehicle turns. As soon as you are able to stand and walk, which I think we should try in a few hours, the straps will only go on when you go back to sleep. I can’t have you rolling off the bed and bumping that head of yours again.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“Yes, overall, it could take a few months for all symptoms to clear up, but the one I think you’re experiencing the most is tinnitus.”
“Why do you say that?” She rolled her eyes to look at him. “Actually, what is tinnitus?”
“You shouted out in your sleep. I wrote some of it down, but stopped when it got violent.”
“Tinnitus gets violent?”
“It’s a fancy word for a perception of noise in one ear or both, or simply noise inside the head.”
“You mean schizophrenia? Am I a paranoid schizo?”
“No, you’re not hearing voices in your head, just noises. Foreign noises. Ones that aren’t normally there. They’ll go away, though.”
“And you think I have this already?”
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The doctor moved away and clicked something.
“What are you doing?”