Death Perception

by Victoria Laurie

  HERE LIES DUTCH RIVERS AT PEACE WITH OUR LADY OF SAINTS

  Another line on the surface of the stone wanted to form, but I couldn’t read it, nor did I want to. Instead I opened my eyes and turned to the paramedic sipping a cup of hot coffee and said, ‘‘I’d like to go to the hospital now.’’

  * * *

  I was driven away from the accident before anyone like Robillard had a chance to question me. It was the perfect getaway and allowed me a little more time to sink into that quiet detached numbness. I shivered all the way there, even though the attentive paramedic piled on the blankets. ‘‘Abby,’’ he said gently. ‘‘You’ll need to stay awake for me, okay? Your heart rate is a little slower than I’d like it to be, so try and stay awake.’’

  I ignored him. I didn’t care what the hell my heart rate was. But there was no way I could sleep right now anyway. Dutch was dead. My crew had confirmed it. And my own grandmother had suggested there was a risk that Dutch could die unless I did something to prevent it—but what had I missed? How had I let this happen?

  And for that matter, how had my crew let this happen? And why, when I dug down into my broken heart, didn’t I sense that he was dead? Why didn’t that deep internal visceral feeling jibe with the imagery my crew had shown me? Because when I tried to sync up Dutch’s death with that leaden heavy feeling I knew I’d feel if he’d crossed over, it wasn’t there. In my gut there was a lighter feeling, one that felt hopeful.

  I moved my arm and pulled up my cell phone. I had Dutch’s picture loaded onto my phone, and maybe if I could really see his flat plastic image there, it would help to convince me there was nothing more for it. But when I flipped open the lid, all I got was a black screen. Sometime in the night the battery had died. Shit.

  ‘‘How you doin’?’’ the paramedic asked.

  ‘‘I’m tired,’’ I said, letting my hand fall back to the blanket. ‘‘And I want to go home.’’

  ‘‘Where you from?’’ the paramedic asked casually. I could tell he was trying to keep me talking.

  I sighed. ‘‘Michigan.’’

  ‘‘I’ve been there before,’’ he said with a smile. ‘‘They get a lot of snow in the winter.’’

  I didn’t respond. He tried a few more questions but gave up when I just stared at the wall of the ambulance and refused to talk.

  We pulled into the hospital bay and I was wheeled out of the cab and hurried along a corridor while the paramedic gave a woman in a white lab coat all my stats. I stared blankly to the side. It was official. I had checked out.

  The woman in the lab coat introduced herself, ‘‘Hello, Abby, I’m Dr. Robinowitz.’’

  My eyes shot up to her face. She looked tired too. ‘‘Hey,’’ I said.

  ‘‘I understand you’ve been having a tough night?’’

  I shrugged one shoulder and we came to a stop at one of the curtained bays in the emergency room. My sleeve was pulled up and a blood pressure cuff was wrapped around my arm. A nurse pumped and pumped and pumped and after a moment I could feel the throbbing in my right arm. ‘‘One twelve over sixty,’’ she said to the doctor.

  ‘‘We’re going to give you a dose of glucose IV drip, okay, Abby?’’

  My eyes cut to her again, but otherwise I didn’t move. ‘‘Is there anyone I can call for you or have check in on you?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ I whispered. ‘‘I just want to lie here for a while.’’

  Dr. Robinowitz gave my arm a pat. ‘‘I hear ya,’’ she said. ‘‘You take all the time you need,’’ and she left me alone.

  I don’t know how long I lay there. An hour? Two? Three? Long enough for the drip that went into my arm to make me feel like I had to pee, and when I couldn’t take the uncomfortable feeling anymore, I rang for the nurse. She came and unhooked the IV from my arm and pointed to the end of the hall where the bathroom was.

  I shuffled down that way, passing other patients. As I got to the door, I noticed that in the last bay was a woman with blond hair and a cut on her lip, and scratches on her face and arms. A large bandage covered her forehead, but she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. It took me a minute to place her, but the cast on her arm eventually clued me in. She was the woman who had been in Dutch’s car holding his phone. She had to know what happened to him!

  I took a step toward her bed, but then I heard voices approaching and I chickened out, ducking into the bathroom and closing the door. From the outside I could hear the voices nearing and they seemed to stop right outside my door. ‘‘. . . CT scan showed only a fairly severe concussion, no sign of internal bleeding in the brain. We’ve set the arm and taken a blood sample. We’re still waiting on the full tox screen to come back, but we think she might have been on some sort of depressant when the accident took place.’’

  ‘‘Did she say anything to anyone since she was brought in, Doctor?’’

  ‘‘She was semiconscious when she arrived, but she wasn’t able to tell us her name or describe what had happened.’’

  ‘‘How soon before she wakes up?’’

  ‘‘Probably a few hours,’’ the doctor said. ‘‘We gave her a mild sedative to help her body rest and heal. I’d like to keep her quiet until at least tomorrow.’’

  ‘‘That won’t do,’’ the other male voice said. ‘‘Wake her up, Doctor.’’

  ‘‘Agent Robillard, I must insist that wouldn’t be prudent nor in the best interest of the patient.’’

  ‘‘Do I look like I give a shit about what’s in the best interest of some bimbo car thief? I’ve got a kidnapped businessman, an abducted bodyguard, a felony count of forgery at one of your local banks, and a missing federal agent. That alone, Doctor, is a matter of national security! Now wake her the hell up!’’

  I was shaking as I listened at the door. Robillard’s voice sliced the ER like a knife and I had the feeling he was well used to getting his way. Everything was quiet for a bit, but then I heard someone moan. ‘‘Can you hear me?’’ the doctor asked, sounding like he had moved farther away from my door. ‘‘Hello? Miss, can you hear me?’’

  ‘‘Wha... ? Where... ? Where am I?’’

  ‘‘What’s your name?’’ Robillard barked.

  ‘‘My arm hurts,’’ said the woman. Her voice sounded garbled. ‘‘Where am I?’’

  ‘‘You’re at the hospital,’’ the doctor said. ‘‘Do you remember anything about what happened to you?’’

  ‘‘Why am I at the hospital?’’ the woman asked, a little more clearly. ‘‘Who are you?’’ she demanded, and I had the feeling she was talking to Robillard.

  ‘‘Who I am is not important,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s who you are that’s relevant here.’’

  ‘‘I’m—I’m—I’m,’’ she stuttered. ‘‘I don’t know.’’

  ‘‘I’ll bet,’’ Robillard scoffed. ‘‘Where is Agent Rivers?’’

  ‘‘Who?’’

  ‘‘The man whose car you stole. Where is he?’’

  ‘‘Car I stole?’’ she said. ‘‘What are you even talking about?!’’ Panic seemed to rise in her as she realized that she couldn’t remember anything about who she was or what had happened.

  ‘‘That’s enough,’’ the doctor said, and a moment later the woman was quiet again.

  ‘‘I had more questions for her,’’ Robillard said.

  ‘‘I don’t care. She’s clearly suffering from trauma-induced amnesia and I will not subject her to more stress that might worsen her condition.’’

  ‘‘I need to know where my agent is,’’ Robillard insisted.

  ‘‘And I’m telling you, right now she can’t help you. The best thing to do is to let her brain recover from the concussion and hope that her memory returns.’’

  ‘‘What do you mean, ‘hope’?’’ Robillard said.

  ‘‘In some of these cases the memory loss is permanent.’’

  Robillard made a derisive sound. ‘‘Fabulous,’’ he grumbled. ‘‘Fucking fabulous.’’ There was a pause, then, ‘‘I’
ll send a tech team over to get her prints. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll be in the system.’’ His voice began to float away from the door, but his next sentence I clearly heard. ‘‘Now tell me where this other girl is, the one brought in later who says she’s Rivers’s girlfriend.’’

  ‘‘I wouldn’t know about her, Agent Robillard. She must be Dr. Robinowitz’s patient. Let me page the doctor and send her to you.’’

  ‘‘Fine, but move on it. We’re losing time we don’t have.’’

  I opened the door a crack and looked down the hall. Robillard and the other ER doctor were walking away down the corridor. Quickly I closed the door and hurried to the toilet. I did my business, then crept out of the bathroom and inched over to the sleeping woman on the gurney.

  I considered her for a long time. My radar insisted she was the key to finding out what happened to Dutch, but first I had to know who she was. My eyes darted to a small plastic cup in a plastic wrapper on the little side table beside her gurney. Quickly I pulled out the cup from its plastic sleeve and picked up her right hand while watching her face to see if she would wake up—she didn’t.

  As fast and as firmly as I could, I pressed her fingertips along the cup, being careful not to add my fingerprints to hers. I then boogied around to the other side of the bed, lifting her left hand and doing the same collection of her fingerprints. I then carefully reinserted the cup into the plastic sleeve and moved away from her bed.

  Poking my nose around the curtain, I made sure the coast was clear and trotted to the gurney that had been assigned to me. Snatching my purse, I shoved the cup into it, then rolled down my sleeve to cover the small bit of IV tube still jutting out from my wrist and took another quick peek around the curtain to see if I could dart out without notice.

  I could see the nurses’ station with Robillard standing there drumming his fingers on the countertop while a nurse spoke into a phone. On the loudspeaker I heard, ‘‘Dr. Robinowitz, please come to the nurses’ station. Dr. Robinowitz to the nurses’ station.’’

  I waited while my heart thumped loudly in my chest and the moment Robillard turned his back, I scurried around the curtain and headed down a side hallway. There were some double doors in front of me and I pushed through them like I knew exactly where I was going. I turned down another corridor and then another, feeling very much like a rat in a maze, when I finally located a sign that said to follow the yellow line to get to reception.

  I tracked the yellow line and let out a breath of relief when I spotted the reception desk. I hurried to it and waited behind an elderly couple looking for radiology, then stepped up to the counter.

  ‘‘Good morning,’’ a lovely woman with silvery white hair and wire glasses said. ‘‘Welcome to Sunrise Hospital. How may I direct you?’’

  ‘‘I need to hail a cab. Can you call one for me?’’

  ‘‘Certainly,’’ she said, reaching for the phone. ‘‘Where do you need to be taken?’’

  ‘‘Back to my hotel,’’ I said.

  I hovered at the desk while she made the call and as she hung up, she said, ‘‘They’ll be about ten minutes, dear. Why don’t you have a seat in our lobby? You’ll be able to see through the window for the Lucky Cab driver.’’

  ‘‘Thank you,’’ I said gratefully, and hurried over to a chair in the corner where I was partially hidden but still had a good view to the outside. As I was watching for my cab, my radar gave a small twinge of warning and my eyes darted away from the window and scanned the lobby area. Over near the reception desk I saw a man in a black suit and a hospital security guard looking about. Quickly, I yanked up a magazine and tried to make myself as small as possible.

  Over the top of the magazine I risked a quick peek and saw that the security guard was leading the man in the suit over to the reception desk. There was a family of four asking the receptionist who’d helped me for some directions, so I figured I had less than ten seconds to think of something or my butt was cooked.

  From outside I heard a honk, and to my immense relief I saw a yellow cab from the Lucky Cab Company sitting near the double doors to the hospital. I didn’t think twice. I bolted.

  I made it outside and yanked open the car door. ‘‘I need to get to the Wynn!’’ I said. ‘‘Fast!’’

  As I pulled the door closed, I could see the receptionist now talking with the security guard. She looked past him to me and our eyes locked. ‘‘Drive!’’ I yelled at the cabbie, and he took off like a rocket.

  We pulled out of the hospital’s driveway and onto a main road. I kept glancing over my shoulder to see if anyone was following us, but no one appeared to be. ‘‘How far is it to the hotel?’’ I asked.

  The cabbie eyed me in the rearview mirror. ‘‘Not far,’’ he said. ‘‘Five, ten minutes tops.’’

  I sank back against the cushions. Thank God we were close. I needed to get to my room and hide out for a little while—I just wanted some time to sort everything out. I didn’t know what had happened to Dutch. What lead was he pursuing last night—and what had he meant when his note had suggested that my radar was right on target? What had I been right about?

  The one thing I didn’t want to do was talk to Robillard. That man had some of the nastiest energy of anyone I’d ever been close to. I had felt it nearly radiating off of him as I hid in the bathroom. He was bad news and my radar said he was dangerous to me in particular and I needed to keep my distance if I could. And what was all that about Dutch’s disappearance being a matter of national security? Dutch was looking for his cousin— what the hell did that have to do with national security?

  The more my thoughts tumbled around inside my head, the more questions I realized I had that lacked any answers. What I really needed was just a quiet place to sit, think, sort things through, and figure out what to do next. I didn’t feel I could trust the FBI, and I didn’t know if that meant that I couldn’t trust the local police either. Brosseau had been a lovely man and so kind to Dutch and me. But if the FBI was looking to talk to me, then I suspected Bob would hand me over without any questions; he struck me as one of those ‘‘man of duty’’ types.

  The cab rounded the corner and I looked out the window. We were passing a strip mall and I suddenly yelled to the driver, ‘‘Whoa! Could you pull in here for a quick pit stop?’’

  He did and I directed him to the other end of the mall, where there was a UPS Store. I gave him some cash to hold him and told him I would be right out; then I dashed inside and was relieved to discover there was no line. ‘‘Can I help you?’’ a woman in a brown polo shirt asked me from behind the counter.

  Digging into my purse, I pulled out the plastic cup with Jane Doe’s fingerprints. ‘‘I need to overnight this to Michigan,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Absolutely, we can totally do that,’’ she said.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later I was out the door again and looking for my cabdriver. He was long gone. ‘‘Bastard!’’ I growled, and looked around. I could see the behemoth hotels that dotted the Strip: the castle of Excalibur, the towering skyscrapers of New York-New York, and the pyramid of the Luxor Hotel and Casino. I knew that the Wynn was at the other end of the Strip. ‘‘Great,’’ I said. ‘‘Looks like I’m hoofin’ it.’’ I began jogging down the sidewalk, trying to gauge how far I had to go. In Vegas the wide-open space hemmed in by mountains and the gigantic hotels that dot Las Vegas Boulevard throw your perception of distance way off. It wasn’t long before I was breathing hard and not feeling like I’d gone very far.

  I kept at it and again sent a silent thanks to Candice for pushing me every morning in the gym to keep me in shape, and finally, after jogging about two miles, I could see the Wynn only a few blocks up. I was hot and sweaty by now, so I ducked into the same Shell gas station where I’d bought Dutch his Gatorade, to pick up a bottle of water. While I was in line waiting to pay for my water, I noticed a big bin of disposable, prepaid cell phones. My eye kept lingering on the little phone in its neat plastic wrapp
ing. As I moved up the line, my radar hummed, and almost without thinking, I grabbed one of the phones and paid for it along with my water.

  Back outside I turned the phone over in my hand, wondering why my crew had suggested I needed one of these, but I couldn’t come up with a reason, so I tucked it into my purse and started my jog again. About ten minutes later I’d found my way into the Wynn and went directly up to my room.

  As I opened the door, I came up short, the breath catching in my throat as I stared across the room at the huge bouquet of red roses on the tabletop. Relief washed over me. ‘‘Dutch!’’ I called, shutting the door and rushing into the suite. ‘‘Dutch!’’ I said again as I surveyed the sitting room, then dashed to the bedroom. The bed had been made and the room had been tidied up, but there was no sign of my boyfriend.

  I glanced again at the bouquet of flowers. There was a note propped against the bottom of the vase. I picked it up and read that it was from the hotel manager apologizing for not delivering the flowers to my room when they arrived. There was a mix-up and they were held behind the desk. He was terribly sorry and was leaving us tickets to Cirque du Soleil with his compliments.

  I reached for the card that came with the beautiful long-stemmed roses. It said:

  Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.

  Remember your promise. If anything happens to me, you know what to do.

  I love you, always and forever,

  Dutch

  I clutched the card to my chest and felt a sob burble up to the surface. I closed my eyes tight, but felt the sting of my own tears against my lids. Then I laid my head down on my arm and cried for a long, long time.

  * * *

  Sometime later I’d collected myself enough to be able to think again. Moving over to my backpack, I dug around for my cell phone’s charger and plugged it in. It took me several minutes, but I finally found the courage to scroll through the photos of Eggy and Tuttle to get to the single photo of my boyfriend loaded onto my cell phone.

  I took a deep breath, held it, and looked at his picture. He was there smiling so handsomely in the afternoon sun of a day we’d spent at the beach off Lake St. Clair, but I wasn’t looking at his photo for nostalgia’s sake. I had to see if Dutch was still alive. Unfortunately, the camera on my cell phone didn’t allow me to see him clearly. I couldn’t tell if he appeared flat and plasticlike, the way people look to me if they’re dead, or if it was just the camera.