Sleeper

by Katherine Rhodes

  I pursed my lips. “One of the great mysteries of the mind, I suppose.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Fischer,” she snapped.

  “I don’t have an answer,” I said. “The dark and light men have always threatened me. I didn’t see Wren in them until we met. Now she’s in them all the time.”

  “Wren?”

  “I don’t know how you saw that.”

  “You see Wren in these visions?”

  Swallowing, I nodded. “We share them. Randomly, but we see the same thing.”

  “This isn’t significant to you?”

  “Laxi, I’ve had them my whole life. I don’t know where they come from, or why I have them, but I can’t focus on them.”

  She let my elbow go and stepped back. “Fischer, I was going to tell you to just leave her alone. But that…whatever you just saw, makes me think you do have to talk to her.”

  A painful twinge hit my chest and I rubbed at it. “She’s so much more than just a smart, sexy chick. I don’t want to lose her. But there’s a lot more to me, too, Laxi. She has to give me a chance to explain.”

  It was quiet in the office, and I could barely hear the whispered sound of feet on the carpet. “I will talk to her, see if she’ll meet you. But, Fischer…these visions…”

  “My parents tried to pray them away.”

  “White Western religion doesn’t allow for them, at all,” Laxmi said. “My culture does. Will you let me talk to the pujari at the temple?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You attend temple?”

  She smirked. “Just because I don’t wear saris all the time and light candles to Vishnu doesn’t mean I don’t go to temple. My parents are very religious, and I know all the leaders in the temple. And anyway, unless you know a medicine man or a shaman, I’m all you’vegot.”

  Running my hand over my face, I sighed. “Laxi, I’ve dealt with this my whole life. It’s not a big deal, and I’d just…”

  “Let me talk to the pujari, and I’ll tear up the dissolution.”

  That stopped me dead. “You’d do that? I really don’t want you to dissolve this.”

  “I have two conditions.” She held up one finger. “I can talk to the pujari, and two, you start working on helping the kids you repair and save beyond the operating room.”

  “Laxi—”

  “I don’t care if you have to see a therapist. You have, or could still have, one of the best therapists in the Philadelphia area as a girlfriend if you can sort your shit.”

  “My shit is sorted.”

  “Oh, no, sir, it is not. You have issues and you have to figure out how to cancel the subscription. I’ll get her to talk to you, but you’d damn well better not fuck it up. She will come for your throat.”

  There wasn’t much that could change my mind. But I nodded. I wanted Laxmi as a partner more than I was willing to put up a fight about therapy. I wanted Wren in my life too much.

  “Fine,” I said. “Don’t press her, please. Just tell her I want to talk to her.”

  “It’s been a hell of a weekend, Fischer. The evidence that girl sprawled all over the walls of the room is damning and shocking. It hit all of us.”

  “Just answer me one question, Laxmi. She slept? Wren was able to sleep?”

  “She got five hours,” she nodded. “Miri and I keep track.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Will Haden let me see the images from the room?”

  “You…why?”

  Why did I? If I looked at them, I would be involved. It was bad enough I had gone with Wren to the party, agreeing to get involved that way.

  But a sixteen year old? No. Worse. The girl had been fourteen when she was taken. And there were even younger there.

  It wasn’t fair I asked to help her and not every other child who had been brought in and tortured.

  I hung my head. “I do need help.”

  Wren

  Laxmi staggered into the house, looking wrung out and horrified and lost. Miri ran around the table as I ran over to her from the couch where I had been sitting.

  “Laxi?” Miriam asked.

  I grabbed a bottle of water and put it in front of her. “Laxi, what’s wrong?”

  She looked up and it was clear she had been crying, a lot and hard. A few gasps later she managed a sip of water and immediately started crying again.

  “What the…” Miriam was at a loss.

  “They’ve lied to me my whole life,” Laxmi managed to whisper. “My whole life.”

  “Who?” I asked, pulling up a chair to sit with her.

  Looking up, her lip trembled. “My parents.”

  Miriam was on her knees next to her in the next moment. “Tell us what happened?”

  Laxmi wound her fingers into Miriam’s and took a few deep breathes. “I went to the temple pujari to ask about visions, about darsana. He was wonderful and understanding and we had an amazing conversation about what darsana are, and how to know if you’ve simply had bad curry or an actual vision.

  “I explained to him I believed I’d had a darsana, a glimpse of another life, and he wanted to talk to my parents about how exciting this could be. That there might be a real way to focus the darsana for the good of the people.”

  Miriam let out a deep sigh. “He called your parents.”

  She nodded. “I didn’t think it would be a problem. I was at their temple, talking to the pujari, doing religious things for a good reason. I was actually kind of hopeful that they might be pleased by all this.

  “But they showed up, and had a manila envelope with them. I was so confused until Baba asked me if I had made a spectacle of myself at the party on Saturday. I mean, I did, but I didn’t think they would hear. They don’t run in those circles.

  “But one of their friends’ sisters was there. Saw the whole thing, heard me scream you were mine. And of course, spread that down to my parents. I had really, really hoped to talk to them and break the news gently. I don’t even know if it would have made a difference at this point.

  “The pujari excitedly started to tell them about the darsana, and my father just held up his hand to stop the man. He held out the manila envelope, and sneered at me. Maan didn’t do a thing, except stand behind my father.

  “I grabbed the envelope and flipped it open, but before I could pull a single thing out of it, he and Maan turned away, and started to walk away from us.”

  She pulled her purse off her shoulder and pulled the manila envelope out, slapping it on the table. “Pujari called them back, but only Baba turned around. He pointed at me, and said that I wasn’t welcome in their lives anymore and that even agreeing to raise me was a mistake.”

  Oh, no. My heart fell to the floor. I popped the envelope open, and drew out the papers inside, studying them.

  Adoption Plénière.

  Plenary adoption papers, from France. As well as a birth certificate with her name on it. Just her first name. No parents.

  Miriam put a hand over her mouth. “You’re adopted. You didn’t know.”

  “No idea. I didn’t know I wasn’t born in the U.S. I didn’t know I was abandoned at the orphanage. I don’t even know if my birthday is real!”

  “But why did they give this to you now?” I asked.

  “They disowned me. Standing there in their damn temple, in front of the pujari, they disowned me. No daughter of theirs was going to take a woman to wife.”

  Miriam wrapped her arms around Laxmi and the woman who had become such a friend to me, and everything to Miriam, just crumbled in front of our eyes. I let them stay where they were for a few minutes, and then motioned for Miriam to take her over to the couch. She helped Laxmi stand and they made it to the living room.

  She sat them down and tucked Laxmi against her, dropping sweet kisses on her head. I trotted into the kitchen to make one of Laxmi’s favorite dishes I had mastered: tikka paneer, with peas and basmati rice. The woman would live on it if she could and I figured comfort food was the way to go.

  It took
almost an hour, including a shower with Miriam, to get Laxmi to settle enough to come to the table. She sat down and smiled at the dishes there.

  “You two. What the hell would I do without you?”

  “Probably live a very boring life,” Miriam said, pulling her chair close to Laxmi.

  “Would that really be so bad?” she asked.

  I pretended to think. “Yeah, it would.”

  She laughed lightly and reached for the bowls of food to make herself a plate. “So, the whole reason I went to temple in the first place was because of the darsana.”

  “What is darsana?” Miriam asked.

  “Visions. Hallucinations. Second sight.”

  I jerked my head back as I scooped rice on to my own plate. “Why on Earth would you be asking about that?”

  “Something happened on Monday in the office and it kind of freaked me out,” she said. “I went in there and actually handed Fischer all the papers to dissolve the partnership. He was shocked, but he agreed in the end. I left them in there and started to get set up for the day. I heard him yell and when I found him, he was just standing there behind the door. I grabbed his wrist to make him sit down, but instead...”

  Once again, I wanted to puke. That had been the prevailing feeling lately, the urge to barf. I managed to keep myself under control. “Instead what?”

  She pushed the peas around on the plate. “I had a vision. A darsana, a peek, into another world or life or something like that. It wasn’t this world and it wasn’t right now. The end of it had a... well, a dark angel shoving a sword through his chest and that’s when we both jerked out of it.”

  Miriam threw a look at me. She’d known about my hallucinations, visions, whatever, but she was clearly asking me about Fischer’s.

  “So, you saw something when you touched Fischer?” I asked.

  “Yeah, and I offered to talk to the pujari about it. Darsana are sacred and revered in most temples and this was weird that we both saw the same thing at the same time.” She speared a chunk of the cheese in the tikka sauce. “He tried to tell me to forget it, it wasn’t worth worrying about, but a dark man and a light man with weird flaming blades didn’t seem like nothing.”

  “Did he agree?”

  “I told him I’d tear up the dissolution if he agreed.” She smirked. “He did. I tore it up. I just don’t understand why he wouldn’t have gone to talk to someone about them before.”

  “Before?” Miriam asked,

  “He said he had them his whole life.”

  My fork clattered to the table. “What?”

  Laxmi looked worried she had done something wrong and paused before repeating herself. “He said he’s had them his whole life.”

  “That lying son of a motherless goat!” I roared.

  “He never told you about them?” Miriam asked.

  “No! Not even after he and I—” I froze, looked at Laxmi terrified for just a moment then tossed it all to the wind. “Not even after he and I started having them together, as well.”

  This time, Laxmi’s fork fell to the tabletop. “What?”

  “I’ve called them hallucinations, but I’ve had them my whole life, too,” I said. “And when Fischer and I met, we started having them together. The dark man, the light man, the swords and lots of filthy things going on between us.”

  “What the hell?” Laxmi murmured.

  “You said it.” I didn’t know if I was pissed or disgusted or just tired, but I had to drop my head into my hands to just hold myself together. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “He’s been trying to call you all week, but he keeps chickening out,” Laxmi said. “I think that whatever happened between you two, you knocked some sense into him.”

  Sighing, I pulled out my phone from my pocket and showed them all the texts I hadn’t sent to him that week. “I’ve been chickening out too. I just can’t deal with his leave it at the door attitude.”

  Laxmi nodded. “I get that. I mean, that was the whole reason I was going to dissolve the partnership. But something happened. Two somethings, I think. You walked away from him. That really got under his skin. He really is invested in your relationship, and in the six years I’ve been working with him, I’ve never seen that. But I also think Ellie’s situation is getting to him. There’s something about the girl and her predicament that gets to him. I’m not saying this is all going to change overnight, but he’s never been this unsure about what to do. He’s a cocky bastard.”

  “Ya think?” I laughed.

  “He’s also lazy. So all of his cocky is deserved. He’s really this smart and it scares me sometimes what he might be able to do if he was to really apply himself,” Laxmi said. “But when I showed him the picture of the ringleader, I saw his face fall. He mentioned like nine times this week that there was no way to find this Average White Dude in a sea of average white dudes.”

  It was our biggest problem. Average dude was average, and that was his best attribute.

  Laxmi put her hand on mine. “So, let me get this straight. The entire time you and he have been dating you’d get these shared random visions?”

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “I think that alone qualifies the guy for a second chance.”

  “I really like him,” I admitted. “But I can’t if he doesn’t see that by not helping these kids, he’s spitting in the face of everything I do.”

  She and Miriam nodded.

  “Talk to him?” Miriam asked. “Just talk to him.”

  “I can do that,” I said. I scrolled through my phone and found one of my less exasperated texts that was more on the side of sweet. I hit send, and hoped he would still be willing to talk to me—though from what Laxmi was saying, it wasn’t an issue.

  How was I going to convince him to stop closing the doors on people who needed his help?

  The first thing was, I had to figure out why he closed the door in the first place.

  Fischer: I’ve missed you so fucking much.

  Fischer: Can I take you to breakfast?

  Wren: If it’s Amy’s Omelet house, yes.

  Fischer: There’s nothing like a woman who appreciates a good omelet.

  Wren: Is that what we’re calling it now?

  Fischer: I got a table.

  I walked up to the door and was really glad he had grabbed us a table. The place, one of the best breakfast joints in South Jersey, was always crowded. Even on a cold March day like today, the tables outside on the covered patio were filled. We were seated just inside the door, though, and there was a cup of hot coffee sitting on the table just waiting for me.

  I pulled my coat off and wrapped my hands around the warm mug and sighed in delight. It was still early, and coffee was the best thing ever at this point in time.

  After I could feel the heat of the mug seeping into my fingers, I finally looked up. “Hi.”

  Wow. The man looked haggard. Sexy, but haggard.

  “Hey.” He smiled, relief drifting through his eyes. “I wasn’t sure...”

  Snapping my hand across the table, I grabbed his. “I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t serious.”

  A little more of the worry slipped from his face as he nodded. “We need to talk about...well, every fucking thing under the sun, really. I don’t want to risk losing you again, and you need to know everything.”

  “Same here,” I agreed, and lowered my voice, “but let’s skip the fucking part. We’ll never talk if we start with that.”

  He chuckled, and leaned in. “Even my left hand wasn’t doing it this week.”

  I almost choked on the air I was breathing, and then shook my head violently. “Nope, no. Not going there. We need to talk.”

  “We do. Let’s order, and we can chat over the food.”

  “We’re not going to be able to talk all day here,” I said.

  “No, but we need a table between us to start the conversation.” Fischer smiled, and his thumb ran over my knuckles.

  I understood exactly what he was saying. As
soon as his eyes hit my gaze in the next moment, it was as if nothing in the room existed. The heat between us was already raging and we just weren’t in a spot to let the fire consume us. Not yet. Not until we talked through what was going on.

  He pulled his hand back and wrapped it around his own coffee mug, turning the burn down by several hundred degrees. It was a relief and a loss at the same time. I wanted to pull it back, but we’d be out in the back seat of one of our cars in a heartbeat if I did that. So I just wrapped it around my own mug again.

  “Wren, I can’t say I’m sorry for what I did Saturday,” he said. “It’s my default setting, and it’s defined everything I do since I was a little kid. I don’t like the court system. I haven’t ever.” His voice was filled with painful sadness, but I resisted the urge to touch him. Bad idea. I wasn’t even mad he wasn’t apologizing—I hadn’t been planning to either. Neither of us had been wrong, we just hadn’t talked about it.

  “What happened, Fischer? Why do you hate the courts? What makes you leave all the caring I see inside you behind the operating room doors?”

  He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, studying the menu. I didn’t want to interrupt his thoughts, so I just let him look at the menu. He saw that I didn’t have my menu open, and raised an eyebrow. I grinned.

  “I have five omelets I rotate through. Today, we’re at omelet 104, the Maine. I realized I had to do that or I’d end up reading all 200 of them over and over.”

  He laughed a little and that seemed to calm him down. “Okay, fair enough. This is pretty insane.”

  “It is, and worth every cholesterol-laiden bite.”

  The waitress walked up, refilled the coffee we had barely sipped and waited for us to order. I rattled mine off, and Fischer glanced at the menu one more time. “I’ll have the 190, no onions.”

  She nodded and walked off.

  I raised an eyebrow. “The Polish Cowboy?”

  “I like kielbasa. Sue me.”

  I laughed. “Not on a bet. I love it. We’ll go to Port Richmond for some good kielbasa and I’ll make you some.”

  “Cooking up some sausage for me, Doctor?”

  “Stop. You’re not going to throw us off track here.” I waved him off, and swallowed the urge to grab him and take him back to my house, to hell with breakfast.