by Cleo Coyle
Finally, I did. “Where is my daughter, Joy? I want to see her.”
“She’ll be here soon,” the sandy-haired detective promised.
His voice sounded hoarse, and those striking blue eyes never left me as he fumbled with a recorder. Something about his demeanor made me shy, and I pulled up the sheet to cover my skimpy hospital gown.
“Tell us, Ms. Cosi,” the intense cop asked. “What is the last thing you remember?”
“Today or yesterday?”
This time the wannabe gangbanger spoke, his voice a low rumble. “How about we start with today, from the moment you got outta bed?”
Once again, I told the story of how I woke, not in my bed, but on a park bench in strange clothes with no knowledge of how I got there and no wallet, keys, or ID. I explained how I walked to my old employer’s business to use the phone, and how two baristas I’d never met before acted as if they knew me.
“Then my ex-husband arrived, and I felt suddenly ill. An ambulance showed up, and here I am, in an ugly pink room being grilled by you, Detective—sorry. What was your name?”
“Sergeant Emmanuel Franco. You can call me Manny or Franco.”
His gruff voice was like a low, woody reverb from a bass guitar. But it was the intense detective who kept drawing my eye. Rubbing the brown stubble on his square chin, he asked me to describe what I had done yesterday.
An easy enough question, but I strained trying to remember—and came up blank. “I can’t recall,” I finally replied. “Most likely, I tested a few recipes and wrote my In the Kitchen with Clare column.”
“Do you remember talking to anyone? Or seeing anything that may have upset—?”
Before the intense detective could finish his question, a commotion broke out on the other side of the closed door.
“I need to see her!”
A young woman was arguing with others in the hallway. Her voice sounded frantic—and strangely familiar, though I couldn’t quite place it.
“Wait! Don’t go in there!” a man called. This voice I could place. My ex-husband had arrived.
“Stop her!” the doctor urged.
The door flew open and a woman in her twenties rushed into the room. She moved so fast, she eluded the grasp of the cheerful nurse and the young detective with the shaved head.
“Mom!” she cried, hurrying to my bedside. “I was so worried! You were gone for days!”
The young woman continued to speak, but nothing registered beyond her first word. Mom?!
I was about to tell this person that she’d made a terrible mistake. Then I blinked and stared. Those green eyes. That heart-shaped face and chestnut hair. How odd, I thought, this stranger looks just like my daughter, only all grown up.
“Joy!” The younger detective pulled her back. “This isn’t helping!”
Joy?
As I anxiously searched those familiar green eyes—now filling with tears and an almost heartbreaking expectation—understanding dawned.
But understanding and acceptance are two very different things.
How could this person be my darling eleven-year-old? How could my child become a fully grown woman in just one night?!
Gasping for breath, I felt the world begin to spin.
“Mom! Mom!” Joy cried, hope turning to alarm.
The cheerful nurse, no longer so cheerful, hurried to my side. As she took my pulse, I slumped backward and heard my ex-husband groan.
“Well, so much for that slow process of reality orientation to avoid emotional trauma.”
As I watched in dumbfounded confusion, the young cop with the shaved head put his arm around my impossibly full-grown daughter and guided her out of the room. Before they disappeared, the sandy-haired officer with the blue eyes called out to her.
“Don’t worry, Joy. A specialist is coming to examine your mother. Everyone says he’s one of the best. It may take time, but we’ll get our Clare back.”
As the Pepto walls burred and faded, I dizzily whispered—
“What do you mean, ‘our’ Clare?”
FIVE
MADAME
THE next day, Clare’s condition had not improved, even after the arrival of a specialist to oversee her case. Several more days passed, and Madame Blanche Allegro Dubois grew anxious. She asked Detective Quinn to arrange a meeting with the specialist and wasn’t at all surprised when her son insisted on joining them.
Blanche considered including her granddaughter, but she could see the girl was having trouble coping with her mother’s memory loss. Better to speak with Joy after the meeting, she decided, and keep the consultation as unemotional as possible.
Leaving Clare at the hospital, Blanche, Matt, and Detective Quinn shared a cab uptown to the specialist’s office. After genial greetings, the consultation began.
Dr. Dominic Lorca had plenty of charisma. Blanche could not deny that. His faint Portuguese accent, dark eyes, and curly hair completed the charming picture.
The display of celebrity patient photos on his office walls was obviously meant to impress. As a psychiatrist to the stars, Dr. Lorca often appeared on cable news shows as an expert on mental health. He had even worked with the NYPD on several baffling cases. That connection, Blanche assumed, was how Clare’s gallant fiancé had come to know the man. The generous doctor even insisted on donating his services.
Still, Blanche wondered if Detective Quinn wasn’t regretting his decision after hearing Lorca’s directives for Clare’s treatment. Her son certainly didn’t care for the doctor’s opinions, and he was quite vocal about it—
“Who are you to say I can’t see Clare? She’s my wife!”
“Ex-wife,” Detective Quinn corrected. “As far as Clare is concerned, you two just split up because you cheated on her. Repeatedly.”
Fuming (and, frankly, without a defense), Matt faced the doctor. “Clare and I worked out our differences. Nowadays we get along great—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Quinn went on. “Clare’s lost those years. As far as she’s concerned, you’re persona non grata.”
Before Matt could reply, Dr. Lorca cleared his throat. “I’m afraid the detective is correct, Mr. Allegro. In my examination of Ms. Cosi, she did not speak . . . fondly of you.”
From behind his large desk, Lorca’s demeanor appeared cool and professional. With palms together, his delicate hands formed a steeple, which he dipped to aim directly at Matt.
“You must understand, Clare’s feelings toward you are quite raw. She is experiencing all the pain and negativity associated with your divorce, as if it had occurred only recently.”
“Maybe,” Matt replied. “But at least she knows who I am. Quinn here is nothing to her now. A complete stranger.”
The unnecessarily blunt retort was obviously meant to wound the poor detective, but Quinn’s death-mask expression failed to show it. Instead he focused his glacial gaze on the doctor.
“When can detectives schedule a second interview with Clare? She may not recall anything yet, but—as you already know—she’s a witness to a major crime. I’m not in charge of that ongoing investigation, but I’d like to sit in on the questioning—”
Dr. Lorca silenced Quinn with a raised hand.
“The patient currently has no recollection of the incident you mentioned. Over the past few days, I tried several approaches, including hypnotic regression, but nothing broke through. Pressing her for answers now will only cause her distress. Any further questioning by authorities, therefore, must be done while I’m present—and you should not be taking part.”
“I understand,” Quinn said. “I admit, I have a conflict of interest in the case. But I do want to see her again—”
“No. I’m afraid that’s out of the question. I intend to keep Ms. Cosi isolated from the life she has forgotten.”
“Isolated?”
The doctor nodded. “She will either regain her memory on her own or evolve into an entirely new person, if her past life should fail to return.”
Mike Quinn looked as if he’d taken a gut punch.
Matt folded his arms. “Did you hear that, flatfoot? She might be peeved at me, but at least she remembers we were married. You, however, are going to remain anonymous.”
Quinn’s jaw tightened. “If worse comes to worst, Allegro, at least I can try again with a clean slate. You, however, are going to remain a man she can’t stand the sight of.”
Blanche sighed. It was never a good idea putting two men who cared for the same woman together in a room. From a distance, it seemed romantic—Bogart and Paul Henreid loving Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. But the reality was as messy as that King Arthur fiasco with Lancelot and Guinevere, which, if memory served, hadn’t ended happily for anyone.
Before these two (apparently) grown men could inflict more emotional scars on each other, Blanche decided to speak up.
“Dr. Lorca, can you tell us anything more? Exactly what is wrong with Clare, from a medical standpoint?”
“She is displaying unique symptoms of what appears to be a rare form of dissociative amnesia, which can be either transient or permanent. Right now it’s far too early to know if she will ever regain her memories.”
“How could this have happened?”
“I can only tell you that there are several causes of amnesia: disease, deficiencies, injury, including alcohol or drug abuse. Rarer, but just as real, are emotional traumas. I’ve seen Ms. Cosi’s test results, and I can confidently rule out the physical issues.”
Blanche’s brow furrowed. “I still don’t understand your isolation approach. If she’s free of injury and disease, why can’t she be released from the hospital?”
“Though she’s healthy on a physical level, Ms. Cosi is emotionally fragile.”
“Fragile? Clare Cosi?” Blanche suppressed a laugh. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but you don’t know the woman like I do.”
“That’s just it, Mrs. Dubois. She’s not the same woman. And consider this. If I released Ms. Cosi from the hospital, where would she live? She speaks of some little house in the New Jersey suburbs, but that property was sold years ago.”
“She would live in the duplex apartment above our coffeehouse,” Blanche insisted. “It’s her home, after all.”
“I doubt very much Clare would be able to function mentally. She still believes she writes a column for a defunct New Jersey newspaper. Her memory of managing your coffeehouse is so far in the past that your current staff would be unknown to her.”
Matt spoke up. “And you think this is because of some emotional trauma? Something Clare saw or experienced?”
“According to the police, before Ms. Cosi went missing, a private security camera captured her witnessing a crime.”
“And you think witnessing a crime was novel for my ex-wife?” Matt snorted, throwing a glance his mother’s way. “Clearly, you don’t know our Clare’s history.”
“Her history is no longer relevant, Mr. Allegro. If she doesn’t regain her memories naturally, then Ms. Cosi’s understanding of her personal history will be rewritten by Ms. Cosi herself. In the meantime . . .” The doctor made a show of looking at his watch. “I should have a bed for her by next week.”
“What do you mean?” Quinn asked. “She already has a bed. She’s been admitted to a Manhattan hospital.”
“The hospital needs that bed for more urgent care. Since there’s nothing physically wrong with Ms. Cosi, she’ll be admitted to my clinic . . .” Lorca went on for a moment about the important research going on at his Lorca Institute for Brain Studies and Mental Health. “Once we’ve moved her upstate, she’ll be in the very best hands.”
“Upstate?” Quinn’s calm façade was starting to crack.
“Yes, now that she’s agreed to the treatment, we should have her there in the next few days.”
“You can’t just take her away!” Quinn stood up. “Clare Cosi is a witness to a felony. If the perpetrator suspects she can identify him, she might be in jeopardy herself.”
“Do calm down. Ms. Cosi is under twenty-four-hour observation. She’s certainly not in jeopardy. And I must insist you control your temper, or I’ll be forced to call security.”
“Call them!” Planting both hands on Lorca’s desk, the detective loomed over the doctor. “From what we know, Clare was present during the abduction of hotel heiress Annette Brewster. Clare herself was missing for a week, and we have no idea where she was. It’s probable she was taken, along with Mrs. Brewster, and she somehow managed to escape her captor—or captors if the man was working with others. With the perpetrator still at large, Clare’s life could be in danger. We need answers, Lorca. And Clare deserves at least a chance to reconnect with the people in her life!”
“I’m her doctor, not you, Detective. And I’m not at all comfortable with this volatile display. I need you to sit down right now—or leave this office.” He pointed to the door. “Your choice.”
Quinn clenched his fists. “You’re not taking her,” he said, then turned and left, slamming the door behind him.
Blanche sighed. So much for keeping the meeting unemotional.
Lorca shook his head. “Sad to see such loss of control in a grown man. And he’s quite wrong. Ms. Cosi will be leaving the city for treatment.”
“How long?” Blanche asked. “How long will she be in your facility upstate?”
The doctor sat back, hands steepling again. “Ms. Cosi is a fascinating subject, and I’ll need time to observe her condition, evaluate her brain activity, and settle on a treatment protocol. It will take weeks, certainly. Perhaps months—”
“Months!” Now Matt stood up. “You’re crazy!”
Lorca pointed to the door.
“I know, I know! My emotional display is making you uncomfortable.” He folded his arms and sat. “Okay?”
Blanche took a steadying breath. She was beginning to feel as frustrated as the men she had brought with her, but she wisely tempered her response.
“Dr. Lorca, I realize you’re doing what you believe is best, but I still don’t understand. Why take Clare away from the people who know and love her?”
“The people who know and love her are also the people who will confuse and confound her efforts to regain her mental stability. Trust me. I am working toward the best outcome. This is the same technique I used in the Riverside Park case . . .”
Blanche had wondered when the doctor would get around to mentioning that famous incident, the one that had become the subject for the man’s bestselling book, soon to be a cable TV movie.
Five years ago, a university professor and his wife had been walking through Riverside Park near their Upper West Side home when the woman was struck by a careless cyclist and sustained a head injury. When she awoke from a two-month coma, the woman had no memory of twenty-five years of marriage or her three grown children. In her mind, she was still married to her first husband and her eldest child was a mere toddler.
Most experts gave the family little hope that the woman they knew as wife and mother would ever recover her past. Then Dr. Lorca stepped in.
After a year of treatment, the woman made a partial recovery. The couple’s public renewal of their marriage vows at the very location of the accident made international news.
“Will your ‘treatment’ be painful for Clare?” Blanche asked.
Lorca nodded. “At times. But I assure you, she’ll be surrounded by a dedicated staff, and we’ll be using cutting-edge brain-health supplements and anxiety-reducing drugs as needed in her therapy.”
Matt scowled at the word drugs. “Does Clare herself have any say in your big plans for her?”
“I’ve discussed the situation with her, and she’s agreed to be treated by me. Moreover, in my estimation, Ms. C
osi is a danger to herself. As her physician, it is legally my duty to decide what is best for her.”
“May I see her?” Blanche asked as politely as she could manage. “Clare remembers me well, and in a very positive way. I don’t see why I can’t speak with her—at least to say goodbye for now.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Dubois, but I can’t allow it. I can’t trust that you won’t contaminate her.”
“Contaminate her!” Matt cried.
“Confuse her with subjects or events that she won’t recall. Just give it time.” He forced a toothy smile. “Trust me.”
As Matt slammed out of the room, Blanche followed, her thoughts in turmoil.
Clare Cosi—a person she loved like a daughter, the heir to her landmark business, mother to a devoted young woman, and fiancée to a worthy man—was about to be taken upstate to some mental institution and completely isolated from everyone who cared about her.
There had to be another way!
SIX
WHILE Matt quickly left the building to “walk off” his frustration, Blanche stopped to talk with Detective Quinn. She spotted him in the corner of the marble lobby, finishing up a phone call.
“Why did you storm out like that?” Blanche demanded. “Why didn’t you try harder to set Dr. Lorca straight?”
“Because he holds all the cards.” Quinn rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “I just spoke with the hospital administrator. She told me Clare signed off on the doctor’s care, legally agreeing to Lorca’s isolation therapy.”
“I can’t believe she’d want that! Lorca obviously snake-charmed her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Look at the man. He’s tall, dark, and dreamy with adorable curly hair and an air of cool confidence. I’m sure he could sweet-talk any woman in Clare’s confused and vulnerable state.”
Quinn grimaced. “Whatever the reason, she agreed. It’s done.”
“You should have seen the opportunistic twinkle in Lorca’s eyes when he spoke of Clare as being a fascinating subject.” Blanche exhaled in disgust. “Subject of a new bestseller, most likely. And what exactly is this ‘cutting-edge’ drug therapy he’s convinced her to try? Is our Clare about to become Lorca’s personal lab rat?”