In This Life (7 page)

“You look pale, Lottie.” Lori tugged on my dress. “Are you even listening to me?”

“Yes.”

I felt Lori’s hands on my shoulders, trying to guide me away from the bar, but I couldn’t sever the hold the mysterious man had on me. He sipped his beer, not once breaking his gaze, and when he placed the bottle on the bar, one corner of his mouth eased up into a knowing grin.

As if he had a secret.

A sultry, spiced scent consumed me and I inhaled deeply. Its warmth radiated over my skin, my body, my spirit, penetrating deeper still. I heard a deep voice and felt a hot, whispering breath against my neck and ear.

“Drink,” he said, encouraging the cup of wine to my mouth. “And let it take you where you need to be.”

When he pulled away, I felt chilled from his absence. I wanted him near me. With me. And yet I could not persuade myself to follow through. There was too much on my mind, and too much right and wrong to be weighed.

He sipped from his own cup, his eyes never wavering from mine. When he was almost done, he surveyed my mood and said, “He is still very much alive in you, but you must let go.” He placed his palm over my aching heart, and my flesh came alive under his fiery touch.

“This is wrong,” I said, though I did not quite believe it. And, looking into his eyes, I knew he did not believe it either.

With a shaking hand, I brought the wine to my lips, closed my eyes, and drank.

And then everything went black.

When I opened my eyes, I was blinded by light. On instinct, I threw an arm over my face and pain fired down to my fingers, followed by a burning, pinching sensation at the bend of my elbow.

“You might want to take it easy,” a soft voice said.

It was David.

“No need to rush. Just take your time.”

My eyes fluttered open and I tried adjusting to the brightness surrounding me. In the space of several seconds, I realized I was in a hospital room on a skimpy, thin bed, wearing a skimpy, thin hospital gown, tethered to monitors and IV drips. The bed gave way when David sat next to me and dropped a kiss on my forehead.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, brushing hair from my face.

“Water,” I rasped over a dry throat. “Need water.”

A small rollaway table stood nearby and he poured water from a pink plastic pitcher into a paper cup and handed it over. My hand couldn’t coordinate with my brain and I spilled half on my blanket. David helped hold it to my lips, and his features came into focus as I downed it in one gulp. The top button of his shirt was undone and his tie had been pulled askew. Dark, thick stubble covered his cheeks and chin, and his eyes looked bloodshot and weary from fatigue.

“Where am I?” I asked, handing David the empty cup and pointing to the pitcher for more.

He poured a refill and watched me drink. “Northside General.”

“What happened?”

“I wanted to ask you that very thing myself,” another voice said.

I looked up and saw a redheaded doctor standing at the foot of my bed. She retrieved a chart from the footboard and her nameplate read Dr. Simonetti.

“You gave David here a very big scare.” She sent me a comforting smile that showed perfect teeth nearly as white as her coat. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, but a little groggy.” I tried sitting up but couldn’t do it, and Dr. Simonetti adjusted my bed with a remote.

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “You’ve been out for nearly twelve hours.”

“Twelve hours!” Panicked, I searched for a clock. “What time is it?”

David checked his watch. “Almost eleven.”

I stared at the ceiling, trying hard to remember the last half day but everything came up empty. “Have I been here the whole time?”

My question was directed at Dr. Simonetti but David answered instead. “Yes.”

“Doing what?” I blurted, and I regretted asking the question because I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

This time David said nothing and Dr. Simonetti pulled up a metal chair and sat down on my left. She remained quiet for a moment, and her hesitation turned my panic into full-blown terror. Doctors only paused when they had something bad to say.

“You arrived last night at approximately eleven in a state that mimicked coma but that we eventually determined as a deep sleep. We ran a series of tests to find the cause but they all came back either negative or normal. It was as if your body had shut down so that it could replenish or repair, perhaps from your recent illness, but we couldn’t find any other specific reason why.” The comforting smile returned. “You’re in perfect health, Lottie. Better than most patients I see.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Maybe we should start at the beginning. That may help us all better understand.” Dr. Simonetti placed my chart off to the side. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

That particular moment came rushing back, hard and fast. It felt as if I’d just been at Nirvana and hadn’t lost twelve hours of my life. I told her about dinner and dancing, and that Lori and I spent time at the bar talking.

“Did anything unusual happen prior to your episode? Something that might have triggered your response?”

“No, not that I can think of. We were at the bar for maybe twenty minutes.”

“Did you eat or drink anything you normally wouldn’t at any point during the night?”

I shook my head.

“Did you feel angry or upset by anything during your conversation with Lori?”

I hesitated.

“What is it?” David asked.

I didn’t answer because it was a conversation that I couldn’t bring up now. Not with a stranger in the room.

“Lottie?” David’s voice deepened. “What happened?”

I closed my eyes and let the memory take me. “A scent,” I said, and I had an odd sensation of feeling bereft of something intimate, and maybe even important. “An intensely exotic scent.”

I inhaled, trying to find that powerful aroma again, but I couldn’t recreate it no matter how hard I tried. Frustrated, I let out the breath, opened my eyes and focused back on where I was.

“Was it a perfume or cologne?” Dr. Simonetti asked.

“Neither.” I was surprised by the frustration and disappointment I heard in my voice. While I couldn’t tell them what it was, I couldn’t tell them what it wasn’t either. “But I do know that I smelled it just after I made eye contact with a man on the other side of the bar.” I looked at David. “I think that’s when I passed out.”

David’s eyes narrowed. “Did you know him?”

“He seemed familiar somehow but I don’t know from where.”

“Work? Gym? Volleyball?”

“I don’t know, David. I really don’t.”

“Did he come near you?”

“No.”

“Speak to you?”

“No.”

“Did Lori recognize him?”

“I don’t think she even knew he was looking at me.”

“Or that you were looking at him,” David said, and there was a strange quality to his voice that I didn’t expect. Not quite jealousy but something close to it.

Dr. Simonetti stood up, hung my chart on the footboard, and turned to me. “Well, the good news is that you’re cleared for release. For the record, I consider last night to be an isolated syncopal episode — a fancy term for fainting — that was brought on by the physical stress of a previous illness, a crowded bar and maybe pushing yourself too soon and too fast. I’d suggest that, in the future, you give your body the rest it needs after you get sick. I’m going to write a prescription for bed rest for the balance of the weekend and complete your paperwork so you can get out of here by noon. Sound good?”

I nodded.

“Feel better.” She looked at David. “Take care of Lottie and make sure she rests.”

David nodded, too.

When the door closed behind her, I looked at David. “You told her about my episodes.”

“Yep.” David tugged the loosened tie from his neck and shoved it into the breast pocket of his jacket. “She seems to think it’s related to your flu.” Before I could say
I told you so
he added, “And I don’t believe her either.”

I frowned.

“Did it happen again last night at the bar?”

I didn’t want to tell him because I didn’t want to fight about it. I also didn’t want to worry David more than he already was.

With fingers to my chin, David coaxed my gaze back on him. “We made a promise, Lottie.”

The promise was to never lie to each other again. About three years ago, David and I broke up for nearly a year and it was a breakup caused mostly by lies. It was a horrible time for the both of us and one we never wanted to live through again. When we reconciled, we made the promise to always tell the truth, and we swore to live by it forever.

“It was a small memory this time,” I told him. “But I can’t place from where, David. It links to the others I’ve had but I’m not sure how.”

“What kind of memory?”

I didn’t know because only feelings remained. Fragments of very intense, very passionate feelings combined with a lingering sensation of guilt.

“This is three times in a little more than a day, Lottie. And you promised me that if you had another episode, you’d see a professional.”

“I know.”

“And?”

I blew out a breath, feeling rushed into the decision. But, a promise was a promise and I owed David that much. “I’ll see Paul when I go back to work on Monday.”

“No.” David shook his head. “You and Paul have a history. I think Denise Rivera would be better. She’s the best psychiatrist at PROs and if anyone can help you get to the bottom of this, it’s her. I trust her implicitly. She’s helped me in the past and I know she can help you, too.”

Meaning, he didn’t trust Paul.

“Paul can be very objective,” I said. “He’s who I go to when I can’t talk to you and he’s also a very good friend.”

“And he’s biased and too close to you. And you also have to consider Deborah’s suicide last year and the fact that she was also Paul’s niece — ”

David stopped when he realized he’d dredged up the wrong memory at the wrong time. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how hard it’s been for you to deal with what happened to her, but you have to think about Paul’s bias. See Denise instead. For me.” He paused. “Please.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You promised, Lottie. You said if it happened again — ”

“I know, but this is different.”

“It’s not different at all. If anything, this is getting worse.”

Frustrated, David turned away and pretended to be interested in a flock of small birds circling an evergreen outside the room’s window. I watched along with him, using the time and the silence to let the strain between us lose steam.

“Doctor Simonetti was right about what she said before.” David kept studying the birds. “You scared the hell out of me last night.”

I watched his brooding profile and felt the tension in his body vibrate between us, and realized he was only trying to do right by me because he loved me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He turned and his eyes searched mine. Penetrating, determined eyes that were trying their damnedest to conceal doubt and concern, and that were shadowed by exhaustion. He’d been through too much since last night and was having a hard time handling it. In fact, the both of us were.

I shifted and patted the empty space beside me in the bed. David shrugged off his suit jacket and kicked off his shoes, eased in and spooned me from behind. He felt warm and strong and sure, and I watched the clock tick away the minutes while the tension in David’s body eased and exhaustion drew him into slumber.

An alarm sounded outside the door and a torrent of voices followed, responding to an emergency that needed attention. David tightened his hold and snuggled in closer, murmuring something about not wanting to lose me again. His breath felt warm and soothing against my skin, his arms powerful around my body. I let myself relax with him and, for the first time in days, felt my lingering edginess recede. I closed my eyes and started drifting off with him, and in that twilight sleep I saw shimmering gold linen and bright blue skies, and smelled sweet lilies and cinnamon spiced wine, and felt another man’s body on top of mine. I felt the depth of his love, sensed the darkness of betrayal, and watched the sharp glint of a sword arcing down in a final, decisive blow.

I jerked awake, heart hammering and sweating, clutching the sheets with the sensation of the world slipping out from underneath me. Something was out there, outside of my control, shifting and changing direction.

And it felt like death.

“I hung with Neil from the phone company while you were at the hospital and guess what we found?”

Nat sat slouched in a saddle colored leather chair in my den, both legs outstretched and crossed at his booted ankles. He looked comfortable there despite the tight blue jeans and T-shirt. Then again, I couldn’t remember a time Nat didn’t look comfortable in our house because he’d practically made it his second home ever since David and I moved in two years ago.

“We found a transmitter packaged all neat and pretty at the telephone pole down your block.”

This caught David’s attention and he went still. “So that’s why the call to Lottie’s cell phone the other morning looked like it originated from here.”

“Yup. Someone’s been messing with your phone lines.”

“Which means we’ve been tapped,” David said.

Nat pointed his finger and pulled an imaginary trigger. “Exactamundo.”

“Dinner is just about ready,” Lori called out from the kitchen. She ducked into the oven and poked at her lasagna with a fork, and my stomach growled. It had been almost a full day since I last ate a decent meal.

“Were you able to trace the call?” David asked.

“Nope. Damned thing was pretty sophisticated and had a heartbeat.”

“What’s a heartbeat?” I asked.

David looked at me. “It basically means that someone inserted a device into our phone line that, if tinkered with or removed, would delete any programming associated with it.”

“So,” Nat added, “we’d have no way of finding who went to all the trouble.”

I looked from Nat to David, confused.

“The heartbeat sends a signal to the person doing the tapping,” David explained. “Mess with the heartbeat, as Nat and the phone company unknowingly did when they checked the tap earlier, and the man who called you quickly knew someone was snooping around. And the deleted programming guarantees that no one can ever track back to him and what he was doing.”