Left for Dead (5 page)

But what could she have told him? All that happened was someone had called out her name. A door had mysteriously opened and shut by itself a couple of times. And she’d gotten scared.

With a sigh, Sherita showed the guard her employee parking pass. Except for “thank you,” she didn’t say anything to him.

On her way home, Sherita thought that perhaps she’d imagined hearing someone call her name. Maybe the door to the maintenance area opened and shut on its own. Perhaps the person who called to her was one of the many custodians she knew. It might have been a reporter. The hospital lobby was full of them. It could have been anyone.

But the one “anyone” she couldn’t stop thinking about was Rembrandt.

“Claire, what’s the last thing you remember before you woke up here in the hospital?”

Wearing the lavender robe she’d inherited yesterday from Sherita’s other patient, Claire sat in a wheelchair, facing Dr. Emily Beal. The psychiatrist leaned forward in the beige leather chair. Behind Dr. Beal was a wall full of diplomas, a mauve sofa—and on it, a plainclothes detective with a tape recorder in his hand. Claire tried to avoid eye-contact with him.

“I know it’s hard, Claire,” Dr. Beal said. “Take your time answering.”

Emily Beal was about forty—and pretty, with short-cropped, carefully styled brown hair. She wore the hospital’s white topcoat over her Donna Karan dress. Claire had already had a few sessions with her, and always felt a bit frumpy around the chic doctor.

It didn’t help that Dr. Beal usually talked to her with this condescendingly sympathetic smile—a well-meaning, I-Really-Understand-And-Feel-Sorry-For-You simper that was supposed to reassure Claire, but had the opposite effect. Dr. Beal was giving her that look right now.

“I’m sorry,” Claire muttered. “I can’t remember. I really don’t know how I ended up here.”

She was drawing a total blank. The doctor might as well have asked her to solve a problem in advanced physics.

“It’s all right, Claire,” Dr. Beal said in a soothing tone. “Let me ask you another question. Do you remember driving into Seattle with your friend to go shopping? You were planning to stay the night at a hotel and see a show. Do you recall that, Claire?”

“I’m sorry,” she answered again, shrugging.

Apparently, within the last hour or so, someone must have come forward with this story about her disappearing during a shopping expedition with a girlfriend in downtown Seattle.

“I don’t remember any shopping trip into the city,” Claire admitted.

“It’s okay, Claire,” the psychiatrist said patiently. “We’re making excellent progress. We’re on the road to recovery, Claire.”

She tried to smile. She wished Dr. Beal would stop calling her “Claire” every ten seconds. Since remembering her name yesterday, Claire noticed most of her doctors overusing it. They seemed to try too hard for a sense of familiarity and closeness that just wasn’t there.

The only people who really knew her were her husband and son. So where were they? She’d told the doctors yesterday. She was still a little muddled with figures, and didn’t remember the phone number or exact address. But they could find her husband and son at home: Charles, Claire, and Brian Ferguson on Cascadia Avenue in Seattle. Charlie taught twentieth-century literature at the University of Washington. Maybe they could track him down there.

“You know, my husband might be able to tell you where I was last,” Claire offered, drumming her fingers on the arm of her wheelchair. “Maybe then I’ll remember this shopping trip downtown. Charlie could fill in the blanks for us, Dr. Beal. You know, help clear away the cobwebs?”

Emily Beal’s mouth twisted into a frown, and she shifted a bit in the chair. “Claire, can you remember the last time you saw Charlie?” she asked. “What were the two of you doing?”

Claire stared back at her. Again, she drew a blank. It was an easy question: When did she last see her husband? Was it a kiss good-bye at breakfast as he went off to teach classes at the university? Or was she waving at him and driving off with her “friend” to spend the night in a hotel downtown? Why would she do that—when they lived only about fifteen minutes away from downtown Seattle?

Dr. Beal sighed. “Can you remember where you and Charlie last went out to eat, Claire? Or a present he gave you on your last birthday?”

“A pearl necklace,” Claire answered. “He gave me a single-string pearl necklace.”

It was very simple and elegant, something Dr. Beal would wear. Claire remembered thinking Charlie must have spent at least a couple of hundred dollars, and they couldn’t afford it.

No, that wasn’t her last birthday. It was their anniversary, and because money was so tight, they’d agreed ahead of time not to exchange presents.

Claire remembered how she’d become an expert at coupon clipping, and hunting down bargains at secondhand shops. She knew when they marked down the beef, pork, and chicken at the supermarket. She bought in bulk and froze it.

Charlie was in graduate school, working as a teacher’s assistant. They lived in a rented two-bedroom rambler she fixed up with nails, glue, paint, and window treatments. She had an art studio in the basement, but could steal away only a few hours a week to paint. Her work was slightly derivative of Edward Hopper, but good for an occasional two or three hundred bucks a month when a piece sold at some café or street fair.

Most of Claire’s time was spent with their two-year-old, Brian. Sometimes she also babysat a neighbor’s son the same age as Brian. It brought in some extra money.

“This is what happens when you get married and have a baby while still in college,” Claire’s mother declared during a weekend visit around that time.

“Actually, we’re very happy, Mother,” Claire told her.

But on that anniversary, when Charlie went against their pact and bought her a gift, Claire wasn’t happy. It didn’t help that Brian had pitched a fit when a neighbor-friend picked him up for the night. And Claire’s attempt to cook Charlie’s favorite meal (beef brisket, twice-baked potatoes, and green bean casserole with the Durkee’s Onion rings on top) was a disaster. The brisket was one of those reduced cuts of beef she always bought on sale. An old shoe, marinated and cooked at 350 for an hour, would have been more tender and flavorful.

She was still crying over the dinner when Charlie gave her the fancy-wrapped, small gift box—which just had to be from a jewelry store. They were sitting at the folding card table in the kitchen, and she’d replaced the ever-present, washable plastic tablecloth with a checkered polyester one. Cosco wine goblets took the place of jelly glasses. There was a candle glowing on the table—along with their plates and the half-eaten dinner.

“But we had an agreement,” she said, unwrapping the gift. “We weren’t supposed to exchange presents…”

Then she opened the box and saw the pearl necklace. “Oh, my God, Charlie! What were you thinking? We can’t afford this.”

“Do you like it?” he asked, smiling hopefully.

“That’s not the point!” she snapped. “I don’t know how we’ll pay this month’s phone bill and you’re making out like Donald Trump! Where am I going to wear this anyway?”

Then she saw the hurt look on his handsome face. Claire apologized, and kissed him.

That night, she came to bed wearing the pearl necklace—and nothing else.

She loved telling her girlfriends that story. Maybe that was why she remembered it so well. She still had the pearl necklace, of course, and always wore it on special occasions. She remembered wearing it to a funeral. But she couldn’t remember whose funeral it was.

Her memory was coming back in fragments. There were big pieces still missing. She could remember Tammy Lampley from high school, and her girlfriends from college. So—how come she didn’t know this woman who accompanied her shopping in downtown Seattle? What was she blocking out?

“Charlie gave me that necklace years ago,” Claire murmured. “We were living in Oregon at the time. It was before we even moved to Seattle.”

She glanced over at the detective on the sofa. He quickly looked away. This time, he was the one who seemed to be avoiding eye-contact. Claire turned to Dr. Beal, who intently stared back at her.

“I’m not remembering something,” Claire said. “And I don’t mean when I was attacked. It’s something else. I’ve blanked out on a big chunk of my past. And you know what it is, don’t you?”

Dr. Beal’s mouth twisted to one side. She glanced down at her notes.

Claire leaned forward in the wheelchair. “What’s the missing piece? Why can’t you tell me?”

The psychiatrist sighed. “I think it would be better, Claire, if you remembered these ‘missing pieces’ yourself.”

“Obviously I don’t want to remember.” Claire sat back. “It’s something painful, isn’t it? Why do you want me to work so hard—only to relive something painful?”

“Because we’ll need you to do just that, Claire,” she replied. “How else are we going to know how Rembrandt got to you?”

The police guard sat in a folding chair outside room 311. Lanky and handsome, the twenty-nine-year-old black cop kept his hair cut so short he was nearly bald. The name tag on his uniform read: Taj Harnell. The door beside him was open. Taj had his nose in a copy of
Sports Illustrated,
but then he saw someone out of the corner of his eye, and glanced up from the magazine. “Hey, doc.”

“Oh, hi, Taj,” the doctor said, very soft-spoken. He stood by the door opposite 311.

Taj didn’t remember meeting him before, but so many doctors came and went in there. For a moment, he thought the doctor was trying to peek past him inside the room.

“She isn’t in, doc,” he said. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

The doctor nodded at the empty bed inside room 311. “That’s Jane Doe’s room, right?”

“Yes, but she’s not a ‘Jane Doe’ anymore.”

“Oh, so they’ve identified her. Good.” He craned his neck to look inside her empty room again. “I’m one of the surgeons who operated on her when they first brought her in. I was just checking up on her. So—they must have tracked down her family then.”

Getting to his feet, Taj pulled a pen from the top of the clipboard. “Can I tell her you stopped by, doctor—?”

The doctor smiled and shook his head. “Oh, no, that’s all right. I was just popping by—like I said. In fact, I stopped in about an hour ago, and no one was here, not even you.”

“The patient has been gone most of the morning,” Taj said. “But she should be back from Dr. Beal’s office within the hour. Sure you don’t want to leave a message?”

The doctor shook his head again. “No, but thanks anyway.” He gave a cocky, little salute and started to back away. “I’ll come by later.”

Taj watched the doctor walk down the hallway until he disappeared around a corner.

The detective on Dr. Beal’s sofa was beginning to look very uncomfortable. Claire figured he also knew about the “missing pieces” of her past. She shifted in the wheelchair, then turned to Dr. Beal. The psychiatrist had that same sad, sympathetic smile.

“Earlier you mentioned that you live on Cascadia Avenue in Seattle,” she said. “What can you tell me about that house, Claire?”

“We bought it, because of the third bedroom,” Claire said.

She remembered that they’d planned to turn the extra room into a nursery. She’d been pregnant when Charlie had taken an offer from the University of Washington. At last, they had some money, which promptly went into the new home. It was one of the happiest times in Claire’s life. She painted the nursery walls: a cartoon jungle with friendly tigers, giraffes, Curious George–inspired monkeys, and smiling elephants.

When Julia Maye Ferguson was born, three different sororities from the university sent flowers. Mrs. Donovan flew in and stayed for a week, helping with Julia. She’d been a considerate—though slightly distant—grandmother to Brian, but she simply adored the new baby. Claire’s mother had always been rather critical of her. But with Julie it seemed Claire had at last done something right as far as her mother was concerned.

Charlie, who had been working practically around the clock when Brian was a baby, made up for lost time with his new daughter. At night, Claire often found him waltzing around the nursery with Julia in his arms. The cartoon jungle creatures on the walls seemed to smile at them, while Charlie softly sang “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

Like any only child who suddenly has to share the spotlight, six-year-old Brian was slightly jealous, but very much in awe of his little sister. Claire and Charlie did their best to make sure he didn’t feel neglected. Brian worked toward the same goal. He found all sorts of ways to demand their attention. If he wasn’t suddenly throwing his arms around his mother or father—and not letting go—he was getting into trouble.

One afternoon, Claire was lulling Julia to sleep. It took several choruses of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” and one too many
“a-whimbo-whack-a-whimbo-whacks”
before the baby finally succumbed. Brian was back from kindergarten, snacking in front of the small TV in their breakfast nook. Claire hoped to grab a short nap on the sofa. She was just nodding off when she heard a shriek from the kitchen. She could tell, it wasn’t the TV.

She sprang from the couch and raced toward the kitchen. Reaching the doorway, Claire stopped dead and let out a scream.

Brian lay sprawled on the tiled floor. His golden hair was matted down, soaked with blood from his forehead. His eyes were open, and he stared back at her. For a moment, Claire thought he was dead. “Oh, My God!” she cried.

Then Brian started to giggle.

She realized the “blood” was ketchup. The half-empty bottle was still on the counter. Brian began laughing so hard that he curled up on the floor.

“Oh, real funny!” she hissed, a hand still over her heart. “You almost scared me to death! I’m not amused, no sir…”

But Claire cracked a smile. Brian brushed at the ketchup on his forehead and licked his fingertips. “I want french fries with this!” he loudly declared, rolling on the floor.

Past Brian’s dizzy laughter—which, by now, was a bit forced—Claire thought she heard Julia crying up in the nursery.

“Hey, hey,” Claire whispered. “All this screaming, if you woke up your little sister, you’ll wish you really were dead. I mean it now, simmer down. Clean yourself up and put what’s left of the ketchup back in the fridge.”

Claire wondered if it was too much to wish for a measly twenty-minute nap. She went to the foot of the stairs and listened for a moment. She didn’t hear a peep, but went upstairs to check anyway.

She crept toward the nursery door. Still, not a sound—except the TV downstairs, and Brian running the water in the kitchen sink. Claire tiptoed to the crib and gazed down at her daughter. She felt a sickly pang in her stomach.
She’s not breathing.

For a moment, Claire told herself she was being silly. How many times in the last three weeks did she go through this panic, this same false alarm? There was nothing wrong, there couldn’t be.