by G. M. Ford
According to hospital staff, Grace sat there for better than six months reading to her comatose mother. Reading the newspaper. Reading every known medical text on the subject of head trauma. Telling family stories when her eyes got too tired to read. Often falling asleep in the chair, but never giving up.
And then, one rainy afternoon in April, the miracle happened. Eve Pressman opened her eyes, and Act III began. Eve recovers from the shoulders up. Donations start rolling in. Questioned by a Denver Post reporter, Eve swears she could hear what everybody in the room around her was saying the whole time she was in a coma, but was unable to respond in any meaningful way.
Eve claims that the physical sensation was akin to lying in a pool of warm oil, except that after a time, she began to experience the sensation of becoming diffuse, of “spreading out toward the edges.” Of being everywhere at once, as it were. According to Eve, she eventually came to exist only as a series of waves that rolled gently though the warm oil, while still completely aware of what was going on and being said in the room.
Grace’s responses to media questions regarding her part in the arousal were, from the outset, considerably more guarded. She simply described the process of arousing her mother as helping her mother “reestablish her boundaries.”
But that was enough.
Eve and Grace were immediately inundated with hundreds of requests for help. Families from all over the country showed up on the Pressmans’ doorstep, often with an ambulance in tow. Finding the attention disconcerting, they went underground.
Mickey padded back into the kitchen and poured himself another couple of fingers of whiskey. He thought about going to bed, but decided to go through another file or two before packing it in for the night.
Wasn’t till he got to Shirley Bossier that things got interesting. All the newspaper articles celebrating Shirley’s unexpected return to the land of the living were from the Bergen Evening Record, a paper, as Mickey recalled, native to Northern New Jersey.
All except one. That one came from something called The Call. That was it. Just The Call. No other information available. The article was entitled “Return from the Edge.”
Whereas the Bergen Evening Record’s clippings had been pretty much the usual “we don’t know how this happened, but we’re extremely joyful about it” stuff, The Call took a different line of inquiry altogether.
There was no byline. Just an interview with Shirley’s sister Adelle, who claimed that Shirley’s sudden awakening had been neither a medical nor a religious miracle, but instead had been precipitated by a young woman whom she claimed to have found on the Internet. A young woman with what she called “unusual psychic gifts.” According to Adelle, this woman, who by solemn agreement was to remain nameless, had singlehandedly coaxed her sister back to consciousness. In the last paragraph of the article, she referred to this woman as the Silver Angel.
Mickey Dolan was still pondering the turn of phrase when the phone began to ring. He checked the clock. One forty-seven in the morning. Calls this late were never good news. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a call this late. Probably the last time somebody in the family had died. Mickey pushed the “Home” button on the phone. BLOCKED. He sighed as he thumbed the green button.
“Dolan,” Mickey said into the phone.
“Mickey . . . it’s Charlie Hellman. Hope it’s not too late.”
“Naw,” Mickey lied. “What can I do for you, Charlie?”
“So I’m notifying next of kin, dealing with some very distraught people today—some of whom, I’d like to mention, are talking lawsuits—and, right in the middle of all this, who do you think gives me a jingle?”
“I’m too tired for guessing, Charlie,” Mickey said.
“Edwin Royster.” He gave it a second to sink in. “Calling to express his condolences. Right? I mean those poor guys were looking for his missing family, when this tragedy came down. That’d be the decent thing to do. Right?” Hellman didn’t wait for an answer this time. “Fuck no! That son-of-a-bitch tells me we’re fired. Can you believe it? The nerve of that bastard. We been doing his dirty work for something like fifteen years. From back when he was just an ambulance chaser. We got two dead boys laying on slabs and that asshole’s screaming at me and telling me how incompetent we are and that he’s canning us, as of right now.”
Mickey stood up and stretched. Hellman was big-time worked up over this. Sounded like he might rage all night, so Mickey tried to ease the conversation out the door. “I’m sorry about your guys, Charlie,” he said. “Lives thrown away that young . . . those are really tough.”
“You guys get anything?” he asked.
“You know I can’t discuss the case with you, Charlie.”
Pin-drop silence, and then, “What I called you for . . .” he began.
“Yeah?”
“So . . . you know, after Royster gets through giving us the boot, he tells me that the only way he’s going to settle up for the account is if we hand over all of our files. Says he’ll send somebody over to pick up the stuff later in the day.”
“So?”
“So . . . about three o’clock these two gorillas show up asking for the Royster material. Wasn’t such a damn sad day, I’d have laughed in their friggin’ faces. You know, buzz-cuts and aviator shades, fatigue pants tucked into big shiny boots. The whole black ops starter kit. Like something off TV. I make them sign for the files. Just so there won’t be any bullshit about it later.”
Dolan failed to stifle a yawn. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”
“Worst of my life,” Hellman admitted.
“I’m still pounding on some paperwork,” Mickey said finally. “Thanks for the . . .”
“They signed for the stuff as employees of Relentless Technology.”
Mickey sat down hard in his chair. “Why would Royster hire those guys?” he asked, as much to himself as to Charlie. Relentless provided security services for the rich and famous. Drivers, bodyguards, armed courier escorts, that sort of thing. Serious muscle work. Sort of like a private secret service. Very expensive, very hush-hush.
On at least two occasions that Mickey knew of, their agents had been involved in shootouts, in the course of which people had been killed. The interesting thing was that, on both occasions, after highly publicized court cases, and much to the chagrin of local law enforcement officials, the Relentless agents had walked away scot-free. Hiring Relentless was akin to having your own private army.
“Thought you’d like to know,” Charlie Hellman said. “Body bags seem to follow those guys around.”
“Thanks Charlie,” Mickey said, before breaking the connection. He took a short pull on the Bushmills and picked up the files. Wasn’t till he put the files in chronological order that the obvious emerged. Eve was first. That much he was sure of. Who was second was a question not so easily answered. By the time he figured it out, the answer was staring him in the face.
Turned out that the second person Grace Pressman had supposedly brought around was a young woman named Mary Rose Ross from Denver, Colorado. Like Eve, she had been a victim of an act of domestic violence. Blunt force trauma. She’d lain in a coma for just over a year, until that fateful day when she’d suddenly opened her eyes.
Apparently, she’d staged a complete recovery. As of this year, she was remarried, the mother of two girls, and teaching the fifth grade in Golden, Colorado. What got Mickey’s attention was a Boulder County, Colorado, “Missing Persons” report stapled to the back of the file.
The MP’s name was Daniel Wayne Ross. Twenty-six years old at the time of his disappearance. Mary Rose’s abusive husband. Out on bail. Charged with everything from felonious assault to attempted murder. He’d walked out of the Denver County Courthouse just before noon on April thirteenth, and had never been seen again.
At the bottom of the clippings file, somebody n
amed Carla Henderson had written a follow-up article, several months after Daniel’s disappearance. A “how the family was coping” kind of thing. Daniel’s father Ruben had some questions regarding who had put up Daniel’s bail. His family claimed it wasn’t any of them, ’cause even if they’d wanted to, which they didn’t, they could never have come up with the two hundred thou in cash it took to spring young Daniel. The bail bonding agent was no help. He’d received the bail order along with a cashier’s check drawn on a bank in rural Montana. The check was good, which was as far as his interest extended. No help there.
Mickey thumbed through the missing persons information. For some reason they’d included a copy of the Rosses’ marriage license. Daniel Wayne Ross had been joined in holy matrimony to . . . Mickey laughed out loud.
3
“Come on girls, we don’t want to be late on our first day, do we?” Cassie Royster trilled.
Maddy appeared in her bedroom doorway, looking a bit short of thrilled. “I’m ready,” she said, as she threw her backpack over her right shoulder and stared resignedly out the window.
“Tessa,” Cassie crooned into the hall. No answer.
The front door opened and Gus came into the room. “Morning,” he said.
“Good morning Gus,” Cassie sang.
Gus kept his face together, trying not to let on how much he hated it when she got all singsongy like that. It was like spending the day with Mary Poppins. He kept expecting a talking umbrella or some such crap.
“ ‘It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,’ ” she sang, slightly off-key.
Gus figured somewhere in the universe, Fred Rogers had to be contemplating suicide. “We ready?” he asked, with as much faux glow as he could muster.
“I’m going to take the girls to school by myself this morning,” Cassie announced.
“I don’t know . . .” Gus began. “Maybe we should . . .”
“You’re not always going to be here, Gus. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to get used to doing it by myself, and now is as good a time as any.”
Gus kept his mouth shut. When she got like this, nothing short of sedating her was going to make any difference. If he pushed it, they’d end up having a dustup folks could hear out on the sidewalk.
“Tessa,” she called again. Again nothing.
Gus stepped around Cassie and walked down the short hall to Tessa’s room. He knocked softly on the door, and then, not getting an answer, eased it open.
Tessa was sitting on the edge of her bed, looking as if the end of the world was surely nigh. She looked up at Gus.
“I don’t want to go to that school,” she said with all the conviction she could muster.
Gus went down to one knee. He put a big hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be alright,” he said softly. “It’s just for a little while. Next thing you know, you’ll have a new life going on and you won’t remember any of this stuff at all.” He nudged her with his elbow. “I’m betting there’s a boyfriend in your future,” he said.
She almost smiled. “You think?” she asked.
“You’ll be beating ’em off with a stick,” he assured her.
He picked up her backpack. “Come on,” he coaxed. “School menu says they got whole-grain muffins and milk for breakfast.” He held out his hand. Tessa took it, and together they walked out into the living room.
“Ready to go,” Gus announced.
Cassie held out her hand. Gus dropped the rental car keys into her palm.
“Careful,” he said.
“Of course,” Cassie chirped.
Gus followed them out the front door. He watched as Cassie got everybody strapped into the rental car. Tessa waved at him through the window. He waved back, with a great deal more enthusiasm than he felt.
“You look like death warmed over,” Marcus Nilsson growled.
Mickey started to speak, but found himself unable to stifle a massive yawn. He held up an apologetic finger as he unsuccessfully tried to gain control of his quivering lower jaw. “Up late,” he eventually chattered out.
Since he’d gone back to batching it, Mickey had become quite the nine-to-fiver. Mr. Salaryman. Up at the same time every day. Dead-ass asleep by ten thirty every night. He hadn’t fallen asleep until sometime after 2:00 a.m. last evening. Felt like he hadn’t slept in a week, and, if Nilsson was to be believed, he looked it.
“Tell me you came up with something,” the Chief said. “The mayor’s so far up my ass I can smell Vitalis.”
Mickey shrugged. “I’ve got a pretty good idea why we can’t find any of the people we’re looking for. Problem is, it’s not gonna do us one damn bit of good.”
“Try me.”
Mickey laid several documents on Nilsson’s desk, then stepped aside and watched him scan the paperwork. Outside in the office area, the city painters had arrived and were in the process of draping everything with canvas. He watched as Joan waved them this way and that. Not there! Over there.
“No shit,” Nilsson said after a few minutes. “The Ross woman is Vince Keenan’s little sister.”
“And apparently, Grace Pressman woke her up from a coma.”
Nilsson shot Mickey a disgusted look.
Mickey shrugged. “It’s the only explanation, sir. Either she woke the girl up or she managed to convince Keenan and his unconscious sister that she did, when she really didn’t. And I don’t about you Chief, but to me that first one sounds a whole lot more likely than the second.”
Nilsson frowned but didn’t say anything, so Mickey kept talking. “By the time she woke up Mary Ross, the heat was already on. Social Services and DA’s investigators from about five different jurisdictions were looking hard at the Women’s Transitional Center. I don’t have the exact figures, but by that time they were suspected of having intervened in about half a dozen civil custody cases. Hospitals had restraining orders taken out against Grace.
“At the same time, every grieving relative of a comatose patient was after Grace to perform a miracle. Collectively, they were under a hell of a lot of pressure. They needed someplace they could operate without being harassed. So . . . about the time Vince Keenan is saying thank you for bringing back his little sister, he has a magnanimous moment and asks if there’s anything he can do to help the cause. They tell him their problems, and he offers the island as a sanctuary.”
“And you’re telling me this honey can do what medical science can’t?”
Mickey waggled a hand. “Sometimes. From what I’ve read, she gets a pretty wide range of results. Everything from complete recoveries to people who wake up for a few days and then die, because their systems have so atrophied that they won’t function on their own. It’s not magic or anything like that. She spent six months reading to her mother . . . every available piece of information about comas. She knows enough about it to know what kind of head trauma offers some hope of waking up and which don’t. They’re pretty good at picking the ones they might be able to help.”
“I don’t see how this gets us any closer to finding the Royster family.”
“Unless you want to get a warrant to go looking for them,” Mickey pointed out.
Nilsson snorted. “Fat chance. Christ. Even if we had probable cause . . . which we don’t . . .” He threw a hand in the air. “Even if they were shooting at us from the rooftops. You’re talking about our county’s largest employer. Biggest taxpayer. Biggest charitable donor. Whole bunch of shit nobody’s gonna want to lay a glove on. Short of catching them building nuclear weapons, nobody’s kicking in that door anytime soon.”
Nilsson sat back in his chair. The air in the office was suddenly thick and heavy. The Chief sighed, and set his palms on the desk. “I think we better keep this to ourselves for the time being, Mickey. Social Services gets wind of this, they’re gonna want me to send an armored division out there, and I don’t want to even think ab
out the fallout from that.”
“Charlie Hellman called me last night. Says Royster fired Western Security and hired Relentless Technology as his new goon squad.”
“Yeah . . . I was wondering about that. I got an email from the DA. Relentless had their lawyers down at the DA’s office first thing this morning. Courtesy call, they said. Just letting us know they were in town.”
“Nice of them.”
“I was touched,” Nilsson sneered.
Maddy unbuckled her seat belt and leaned toward her mother. “I’m okay,” she said.
“I don’t need you to walk me in.” She kissed Cassie on the cheek, popped the door and got out. Maddy waved goodbye to her sister. Tessa just frowned.
“Have a good day,” Cassie trilled, as the door swung shut.
Cassie looked back over her shoulder at her youngest daughter. “Why don’t you ride up front with me?” she suggested cheerily.
Tessa shook her head.
“Come on sweetie,” Cassie said. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No it’s not,” the little girl said. “It’s not going to be alright at all.”
Cassie started the car. As they pulled away from the curb, she said, “We’ll go to Burger King on the way home. How’s that?”
“I don’t want to go to Burger King,” Tessa said. “I want to go to school with Maddy.”
“Oh honey . . .”
Tessa began to cry.
Cassie pulled over and stopped the car. “Don’t cry, honey,” she said.
Tessa sniffled and turned her face away.
“Be a big girl now,” Cassie gently chided.
Cassie felt the familiar tide of defeat begin to rise in her chest. Something that went all the way back to her beginnings. Maybe even before that, like it was part of the box she came in. In rare moments of clarity, Cassie recognized that moments such as this were the places where things always fell apart for her. That the choices made at this particular intersection had shaped her life in ways she was unable to acknowledge.