Boardwalk Cottage

by Barbara Cool Lee

  The guy started rifling through her purse. "Hey!" she said. "That's mine." Dumb comment, since he hadn't seemed too concerned about her personal space when he bashed her in the head and brought her here. She was at least comforted by the fact that he hadn't touched her after tying her up. Hopefully that meant he wasn't a psycho, just a... "jerk," she muttered.

  He ignored that. Fished her phone out of her bag and checked it. "Another text message," he said.

  "Well, duh," she said. He shot her a look and she decided to shut up.

  Then something in the message seemed to surprise him, because his expression turned even more intimidating, and he looked up at her with a cold, calculating expression that chilled her more than a frosty morning on Madrigal mountain.

  He set the gun down and started messing with the phone, typing something and apparently doing a lousy job of it from all the cussing he did under his breath. Then he stopped and glanced up at her. "Where's that place you went last week?"

  "Have you been stalking me, dude? That is really not okay."

  He picked up the gun to point it at her, and repeated himself, slowly: "Where. did. you. go. last. week?"

  She shook her head, trying to think. "Um, SJB? San Juan Bautista," she said when he looked blankly at her. "Checking out the mission records?"

  "That's it." He started the typing routine again. "There." He smiled at her, a really creepy smile. "Now nobody's looking for you, princess."

  There was a sound above them. She cocked her head to listen, and so did he. The door to the basement opening, maybe?

  He put the phone back in her purse, then stood up. "We have company." He went out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

  "Where's Windy?" Hallie repeated.

  "She's fine," Dr. Lil said. The 60ish woman with spiky salt-and-pepper hair and wise dark eyes smiled reassuringly at her. "Just hold still so I can finish examining you."

  Hallie leaned back in the overstuffed leather chair. Why was she so fuzzy? She felt like the last few hours had been a series of unconnected vignettes. The bus ride from Davis, meeting Windy, then waking suddenly in the car, walking through the fields with Kyle Madrigal, then a flurry of phone calls leading to this: sitting in a big leather chair in the Madrigal living room, with two cops watching her warily from across the room and Dr. Lil shining lights in her eyes and writing things down in a little notebook.

  The doctor wrote something else. "I'm just old-fashioned," she said with a smile when she noticed Hallie watching her. "I intend to make it all the way to retirement without laying my hands on a computer keyboard."

  "But where's Windy?"

  "She's fine," said someone behind her.

  Kyle came around to the front of the chair. "Got a text message. She's off on another research trip. Loaned you the car 'cause she got a ride to San Juan Bautista. She's bummed about the little guy, but is glad you're okay. So that solves that mystery."

  Hallie looked down at the hands in her lap. "Okay...," she said tentatively. "But she was really excited about something."

  "When isn't she?" He smiled gently at her. "Relax. There's no mystery. You've just had a heck of a day." He turned to Dr. Lil. "So, will she live?"

  "I think so," Dr. Lil said with a smile. "But I'd like to run a few tests."

  "Tests?" Hallie asked. "Am I okay, or not?" She hated how doctors always hedged their bets, refusing to give any straight answers.

  Dr. Lil must have read something in her expression, because she said, "you'll be fine. There's nothing seriously wrong with you. But the memory lapse is always a concern. A CAT scan is definitely a good safety precaution."

  "Retrograde amnesia?" Kyle said to the doctor.

  "You always were my best student. Yup."

  "Amnesia?" Hallie scoffed. "Come on." She put her arms straight out in front of her and said in a sing-song voice: "Where am I? Who am I?"

  Kyle and Dr. Lil laughed.

  "Not exactly," the doctor said. "Retrograde amnesia just means you don't remember a period of time before your injury. Nothing mysterious about that."

  "You ought to try it from my end, doc."

  "Okay. I stand corrected. Nothing mysterious about it medically. I'm sure it feels disorienting."

  One of the cops said Kyle's name and he went over to talk to them.

  Hallie didn't buy the doctor's explanation. "I still think there's something I'm missing, Dr. Lil. I think this is all wrong, somehow."

  The doctor nodded. "The confusion is normal after the concussion and loss of memory."

  Hallie gripped the chair arms and leaned back. "But I do remember. I know my name. I know what day this is. I know everything but how I ended up driving the Little Guy into a ditch."

  Dr. Lil put a hand on one of Hallie's scarred fingers, and Hallie jerked away, folding her hands in her lap again.

  "Let me explain it this way, Hallie. When something traumatic happens—a hit in the head, a car accident, even a serious illness—your brain tries to protect itself. Think of it like a computer that restarts after a crash. You might lose the files you were working on at the time, but everything that was previously saved is okay."

  "I thought you didn't touch computers, Dr. Lil."

  "I don't. The explanation comes care of my former apprentice." Dr. Lil looked over at Kyle with a fond smile.

  Hallie remembered something Kyle had said about being pre-med before his parents died, and wondered if that was what he'd meant when he'd talked all that garbage about having a mission in life. But she returned her focus to the current conversation.

  "So I might never remember what happened today?"

  "Uh huh. Or it might come back. Or part of it might come back and part of it might be lost." She looked down at Hallie's hands. "The mind is a mysterious and powerful thing, Hallie. We can't always predict how we react to injury." Her expression grew serious. "Now, about your hands—"

  "—It's nothing." Hallie cut her off and turned her head away.

  "None of that nonsense, young lady."

  "I got hurt. It's been...," she thought back. "15 months now since it happened."

  "Since what happened?"

  "The details don't matter."

  "They do if you're not using your hands."

  "I'm using them. They just don't work well."

  "Did your doctor give you exercises to do?"

  She watched Kyle, talking easily with the two cops. He seemed to know them well. He probably knew everybody in town well. That's what happened when your family lived in one place for generations.

  "Hallie?"

  She looked back at Dr. Lil, whose kind expression just annoyed her. "Exercises. Right. I did 'em."

  "No." The doctor stated it as a fact, not questioning or accusing, but just denying that she could have done all those stupid exercises that accomplished nothing.

  "It's not your job to tell me—"

  Dr. Lil raised an eyebrow. "Yes, it is my job. That's exactly my job." She spoke softly, and her compassion just made Hallie more angry.

  "It's none of your business."

  The doctor continued as if Hallie hadn't spoken. "The exercises will ease the tightness of the skin over the scars. And your muscles will get stronger and your flexibility will improve, expanding the range of motion. You can have much more use of your hands than you currently enjoy."

  "Enjoy?" Hallie spat out the word contemptuously. "It doesn't matter. They're as good as they're going to get. The doctors told me I'd never get back to a hundred percent."

  "So you've decided to settle for fifty? When I was a kid, we used to call that cutting off your nose to spite your face."

  Despite herself, Hallie laughed. "That's stupid."

  "You can't have a hundred percent so you refuse to try for ninety. What do you call that?"

  "Facing reality. If I can't have a hundred it doesn't matter…." She turned her head away.

  Kyle cleared his throat, and they both looked up at him. One of the cops was with him. Kyle introdu
ced him as Deputy Serrano.

  "We've found some gray primer paint on the car's rear bumper, and on one of the front fenders," the deputy said. "Higher up. Probably an SUV or pickup, something like that."

  Everyone looked at her like this should make her remember something, but it didn't.

  So the deputy continued: "Definitely looks like you were rear-ended or sideswiped by another car. But it's not much to go on."

  "Gray primer?" she said.

  "Does it trigger any memory?"

  "No."

  "All right," the deputy said. He turned to Kyle. "We'll go back to the crash site and take some measurements, see if we can figure out anything else. But without more than a pickup or SUV with gray primer paint, we don't have much to go on. Trucks aren't exactly rare around here. Face it, you and I both have trucks parked in your driveway right now."

  "But neither of them is painted gray, Joe," Kyle pointed out. "Although both of them are driven by lunatics...."

  The deputy chuckled. "Speak for yourself, Madrigal." He turned back to Hallie. "I'm sorry, Ms. Reed. I know you've had a scare. But with so little information, there's not a lot we can do at this point. I'll be in touch if we learn anything more."

  Kyle shook hands with Joe and led him to the door.

  He came back and sat down in a chair opposite Hallie's. "They'll do their best."

  "I wouldn't just drive off a cliff for no reason," Hallie said sullenly.

  Kyle's quick smile startled her. "Everyone knows that, Hallie. You're among friends here."

  She didn't really believe that. They were strangers. Windy was the only one she knew here, and she'd taken off for some crazy reason. "I'm sorry," she said aloud. "I think the hit in the head has gotten me pretty confused."

  "Of course you're confused," Dr. Lil said. She stood up. "You've had a bad day. Can you bring her by the clinic for a CAT scan?" she added to Kyle.

  He nodded. "When?"

  "Before six tonight?"

  He nodded again. "No problem." He stood up, too, and escorted the doctor to the door. "We'll come by after she has a chance to rest for a bit, okay, Doc?"

  The sound of their voices faded as they went out, and Hallie was left alone in the living room. She tried to put the accident out of her mind and just relax. She leaned back in the comfy chair and looked around, really taking in the room for the first time.

  The big main room of the rancho had an overstuffed, lived-in look, with dark antique furniture, and a huge fireplace that dated from a time when the fireplaces served as the main heat source in the huge house. The hearth was bracketed by tall glass doors opening onto a covered patio. The room's walls were cluttered with an odd combination of old and new: a shelf of trophies from horse shows and basketball tournaments, a huge painting of the rancho as it must have looked a hundred years ago, family photos, and a poster of a berry festival from last summer placed high up on one wall, presumably in the only empty space they could find.

  The walls themselves were about twelve feet tall, reaching to a ceiling framed by heavy, dark beams that arched to meet in the center about twenty feet over her head. The walls were made of foot-thick blocks painted a warm cream—blocks made from adobe mud, she remembered Windy telling her. The Madrigal Rancho itself dated from around 1800, and had survived revolutions, earthquakes, and changes in government while staying in the hands of the same family for all that time.

  Just like the Madrigals themselves had survived. They were still here, on this same land they had received in a land grant from the Spaniards in, when was it?

  "1795," she said to herself.

  "Los Pájaros," Kyle said. He had come back into the room. "The land was granted to Antonio Bartolomé Madrigal, then passed down—"

  "—in an unbroken line to the present day," Hallie finished. "I've been Windy's roommate for nine months now, remember?"

  Kyle smiled that easy smile of his again. "She is a bit obsessed, I guess."

  "I don't mind. It's interesting to me. I don't have any family myself, so I can't quite imagine what it's like to be surrounded by your own family's legacy all the time."

  Kyle looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. "I don't know what it's like not to be surrounded by it. It's everywhere." He pointed to the corner. "That rocking chair traveled around the Horn to California with my great-grandmother's family."

  "The great-grandmother who planted the cherry trees on the hill?"

  He nodded. "Rose Aiden. I got my middle name from her. She was the daughter of the local lighthouse keeper, and she ran off and married my great-grandfather, Arturo Madrigal. Their marriage caused a big scandal sometime around 1920. And he's the one who scandalized the family by building the amusement park you'll be working at this summer. It's all connected."

  "Must be nice."

  "It has its moments."

  He slapped his hands on his jeans as if brushing all that off. "So. You need to rest, and I need to make some calls. You want to just hang out here, or should I show you to your bedroom so you can lie down?"

  "No. I'll just sit here if it's okay." She didn't want to say it out loud, but she felt a little uncomfortable at the thought of falling asleep. Would she wake up to find another gap of time? Would this turn out to be a dream? It was too creepy. She'd rather stay awake.

  "Okay," Kyle said, apparently not noticing anything. "I'll be in the office down the hall. Call me if you need anything. I'll take you to the clinic for that scan when we go to town to pick up the kids."

  The kids. Windy's twin younger brothers. That brought her thoughts back to Windy, and the odd change in today's plans. Maybe Zac would tell them what Windy's secret had been.

  Kyle was already heading down the hall when she called out to him. "Kyle?"

  He came right back, and knelt down by the chair. "Yes? Something wrong?" Those green eyes showed a deep concern that made her uncomfortable.

  "I'm fine. I was just wondering...."

  He waited, a brow arched in question.

  "...Well, could you show me the message from Windy? I know it's stupid, but—"

  He smiled. "Not stupid. Here." He pulled his iPhone out of a back pocket and called up the message, then handed it to her.

  She read on the screen: 2b@ Park found smt wuz4dina? p-za? ADBB

  "To be at Park—what's that?"

  "The amusement park."

  Hallie nodded. "Found something—see? I knew she had something on her mind."

  "Yeah," he said. "But then she wants to know if we're having pizza for dinner, so it's not like she's exactly worried about something."

  Hallie looked at the screen. "But this message is from eleven a.m.! That's before she picked me up!"

  He took the phone back. "Oh, yeah. This is the last message." He handed it back.

  She looked at the screen again. Glad Hallie's OK. Loaned her car. I'll be in SJB for couple of days.

  She frowned, which made her head hurt. "She doesn't even care that I crashed her car?"

  He shrugged. "She's not upset about the car. She knows I'll pound out the fender."

  Hallie lay back in the chair. "Okay...."

  He went back down the hall, and she heard the sounds of drawers opening, and then Kyle on the phone with someone. Sounded like he was going over numbers for something for the rancho—leasing land to someone for an orchard, it sounded like. He wasn't worried about Windy, so why was she? She just needed to relax, and get over this weird day.

  She tried to take deep breaths, breathing in one nostril and out the other as her first physical therapist had taught her after the injury.

  She looked up to see Kyle watching her from the hall. He smiled. "I wasn't sure if I should wake you up yet. Are you feeling better?"

  She sat up and stretched. "Yeah. I guess I needed the nap. What time is it?"

  "After four. We should head to the clinic and get that scan done before too long."

  She stood up, wobbling a bit. He was at her side in an instant.

&n
bsp; She waved him off, and straightened up. "No need to catch me again. I'm okay."

  "Good. No more fainting."

  "I promise."

  He went into the kitchen, and she followed him.

  Like the rest of the house, this was a mixture of old and new, with a massive green enameled stove that looked like it had come around the Horn with the rocking chair, and a state-of-the-art stainless steel fridge. Copper pots perched on open shelves, dried chiles hung in long strings, and some sad-looking potted herbs sat on the windowsill.

  He saw her looking at the herbs. "Windy's idea. She thought I needed to spice up the cooking. But I guess I should water them more often."

  Kyle ran a hand through his hair. "We need to get to the clinic before it closes. I also need to go get your stuff out of the car before we do anything else. You don't even have a toothbrush."

  "I guess I forgot." She sat down at the kitchen table, all of a sudden realizing how tired she was.

  "Understandable. You've had enough excitement for one day. For tonight, I think we should get your toothbrush, have dinner, and then get home early for a good night's sleep. Exciting agenda, huh?"

  "Sounds good to me."

  He grabbed a denim jacket from a peg near the back door and put it on.

  "I've gotta go pick up the boys from the beach, so while we're in town we can get a pizza or something."

  "The beach? Isn't it kind of cold to hang out by the ocean?"

  "Summer in Pajaro Bay is always foggy. But I was talking about your new job—the Pajaro Bay Boardwalk. Zac and Chris are pushing brooms there this summer to try to earn a car by their sixteenth birthday." He checked his watch. "I'd better check messages on the home phone just in case they talked Tom into giving them some overtime."

  He went out into the hall. Hallie listened from the kitchen while he played back the messages on the answering machine. She heard him skip through one about the next city council meeting, another about a second cousin's baptism in Paso Robles, then a baritone voice came on: "Hi, Kyle. I'm staying over at Brandon's tonight, so don't wait up for me." The voice cracked a little, and Hallie smiled at that dead giveaway of the adolescent caller's true age. There was a mumble in the background, then, "Oh, yeah. Tell Chris to feed the horses for me—give Smoky some extra grain, too." The caller hung up abruptly.