The Chick and the Dead (21 page)

It was a good thing I'd never had a chance to set down my purse when I walked into the house. My car keys were handy, and I didn't hesitate. I jumped into the Mustang, turned the key, and gunned the engine.

I wanted answers and I wanted them now. Bound and determined to find them, I headed to the other side of town and to the hospital where I'd first bumped into Dan the Brain Man.

"Dan, did you say? Dan Callahan?"

Dr. Cecilia Cho had changed little since the day I smacked my head on Gus Scarpetti's mausoleum and woke up in the ER to find her peering down at me, stethoscope in hand. She was still dressed in scrubs decorated with little pastel butterflies. She was still wearing glasses, and her dark hair, of course, was still shot through with gray.

But the day of the accident that had spelled the beginning of the end of my life as I knew it, and the end of the beginning of my Gift, Dr. Cho had struck me as professional, take charge, and competent. Now as I sat across her desk from her, all she did was look confused.

"I'm not sure who you're talking about," she said.

I blubbered for a moment, and who could blame me? Of all people, I had expected Dr. Cho to provide me with clear and logical answers. Faced with her uncertainty, I found it hard to put together a coherent thought, much less a lucid sentence. "But you've got to… You must know Dan," I stammered. "This is where I met him. In the ER. He came into the examining room to check my head X-rays and my CAT

scans. Not that first day I was here. Not the day of the accident. It was a few days later. When I came back to see you. You must have a record of the fact that I came back to see you." Dr. Cho checked the notes in the file folder that was open on the desk in front of her. "You were having trouble sleeping," she said. "And you were exhibiting some strange behaviors. You talked about hallucinations."

It was the day after I'd first met Gus, and at the time, I was desperate to prove to myself that he was nothing more than a brain blip.

These days, I knew better.

"I did," I told the doctor. "Talk about hallucinations, that is. But I didn't. Hallucinate, I mean. And I know I didn't hallucinate Dan. Dan Callahan, PhD. That's what his hospital ID tag said. Cute guy. Really." Thinking about the last time I saw Dan and the way he had appeared out of nowhere, saved my life, and kissed me goodbye, my cheeks shot through with heat. "I wasn't imagining things."

"If you say so." Dr. Cho grabbed a pen and made another note in my file. From where I was sitting, I couldn't see what she'd written.

"So tell me, Pepper…" She tapped her pen against the paper. "When this…" She consulted the file again. "When this Dan Callahan stepped into the examining room to talk to you, was I here, too?" I thought back to that afternoon. "You'd just walked out," I told her. "You must have passed right by him in the hallway. You couldn't have missed him. Shaggy hair. Wire-rimmed glasses." I thought about Dan's fashion sense. Or more accurately, lack of it.

"He always looked like he got dressed with his eyes closed. You know, navy pants, brown shirt. That sort of thing. And he was smart. Really smart. There are more diplomas hanging on the wall of his office than I've ever seen anywhere and—" In the middle of this logical recounting of the whole mystery that was Dan, my stomach flipped. I took a good, hard look at Dr. Cho.

"Do you think I'm crazy?"

She laughed. It wasn't exactly a silvery sound, but then I wasn't exactly in the mood to be humored. "Of course that's not what I'm saying. We can't possibly know that. Not with any certainty. Not from just what you've told me here today."

"But I didn't imagine him, Dr. Cho." I was whining, and I knew whining made me sound desperate. I told myself to get my shit together and raised my chin, giving Dr. Cho as sane and reasonable a look as a woman who talks to the dead could muster. "I saw Dan. I talked to him. We went out for a drink together, and he walked me home. He called me on the phone and left messages at my office more than once."

He wasn't a ghost, either.

I'll admit it, the possibility of Dan being from "over there" had occurred to me ever since the day he started showing up out of nowhere and vanishing again just as quickly. Then, as now, I dismissed it. Ghosts were incorporeal. They couldn't touch things. They couldn't move things. They couldn't talk to people.

Any people except me.

But to stick to the point… I'd seen Dan do all those things. When we went out for drinks together, he'd talked to our waitress. When we met for coffee, he'd gone up to the counter to order my latte. When a hit man had me in his sights and was all set to blow me to smithereens, it was Dan who'd knocked him out with a roundhouse kick and a couple of slick karate moves.

And unlike the time Gus had tried to grab my arm to keep me from walking into the path of an oncoming car, I didn't freeze up like a Sno-Kone when Dan touched me. And certainly not when he kissed me. Oh no. When Dan kissed me, chilly had nothing to do with my reaction.

"I know Dan is real," I told Dr. Cho, letting her think I was talking about delusions because it was better than explaining about the ghosts. "Like I told you when I walked in here, I keep seeing him around. That proves it, doesn't it?"

"Does it?" Dr. Cho tapped a stack of papers into a neat pile. "I have no doubt you believe what you're telling me, Pepper. Yet if that's so, I've got to wonder why you're here asking about Dan. Could it be that in spite of the fact that you're trying to sound so certain, you're really doubting yourself? That you're looking for confirmation?"

I answered without hesitation. "No. I'm sure I've seen Dan." (I wasn't, not exactly, but this wasn't the time to quibble.) "I'm sure I met him here in the hospital. I even came back a couple of weeks later so that I could participate in that study of his."

"He's conducting research?" Dr. Cho took another note. "Here at the hospital? I don't suppose you can tell me what he's studying?"

"Of course I can. Aberrant behavior and occipital lobes. My high propensity for hallucinatory imaging and—"

I knew I'd stepped in it, but it was too late to call the words back.

Dr. Cho nodded knowingly. "The fact that you've been here twice since your accident is a sign, Pepper," she said.

"It is?"

"Whether you realize it or not, it's a cry for help."

"But I don't need any. Help, that is."

"Are you sure?"

"Look…" My frustration was building along with my temper. I scraped a hand through my hair. "I'm not looking to have my head shrunk or anything. So as much as I appreciate your concern, thanks but no thanks. All I need is for you to tell me where to find Dan. This little game of hide-and-seek he's playing is pissing me off and—"

"Have you always had these anger issues?"

"I don't have anger issues!" My protest would have been a little more convincing if I hadn't pounded my fist on the desk to emphasize my point. "The only issues I have are Dan issues."

"And there's only one way I can help you with those." Dr. Cho opened the top drawer of her desk and took out a planning calendar. "We can't possibly know for certain what's going on with you, Pepper, without a battery of tests. They're pretty thorough, not to mention exhausting. Depending on what your health insurer will allow, I'd suggest you stay two nights, and it looks like we can fit you in next week. Let's just schedule it right now, why don't we? This way, we can get everything out of the way, and you won't have to keep coming back."

"For—?"

Dr. Cho reached into another drawer and took out a brochure. She slid the slick paper with its colorful pictures across the desk to me. "It's not nearly as scary as it sounds," she said. "See. Here are some pictures. You'll feel like you're on vacation. Our psychiatric facility is very homey."

"Oh no!" I leaped out of the chair and away from her and the ridiculous (not to mention terrifying) suggestion. "I don't need to be poked and prodded and analyzed. All I need…" All I needed was all I needed all along: to find Dan, and it was clear that Dr. Cho wasn't going to be any help. Without bothering to finish the sentence, I raced to the door and hightailed it out of the ER. But I didn't leave the hospital.

Just inside the wide revolving door that led to the parking garage, I paused and looked behind me. No little men in white coats. No Dr. Cho. Satisfied that at least for now I wasn't headed for the loony bin, I got my bearings and thought back to the times I'd met Dan at his office. I knew that if I crossed the lobby and went upstairs at the next bank of elevators…

Before I knew it, I was standing outside Dan's office.

There was no one around, and when I knocked on Dan's door, no one answered. I turned the knob. The door opened easily, but not all the way, and I tried again, bumping the door with my hip. When that didn't work, I mumbled a curse, reached around the door, and felt along the office wall for a light switch. With the light on, I could peek inside and see what was holding things up. What was holding things up was a bucket and a mop. The big, industrial-strength kind. Weird?

I thought so. After all, the last time I'd been here, Dan's desk was along one wall, and another was filled just about floor to ceiling with diplomas. There was a credenza behind his desk where he kept the file folders for his study. And in front of his desk, the chair where I'd sat the day I came in and he hooked me up to some machine that measured brain waves and proved—at least to Dan—something about that whole high-propensity-for-hallucinatory-imaging thing.

And now…

I pushed the bucket and mop out of the way and stepped into the room.

The desk and credenza were gone. Instead of the bookcases that should have taken up most of the wall on my left, there were metal shelves. They were filled with cleaning products, rolls of paper towels, boxes of latex gloves.

"Can I help you, please?"

The voice from behind me brought me spinning around. I found myself nose to nose with a young guy in gray pants and a matching shirt. His name badge said he was Jose and part of the housekeeping staff.

"No, thanks. Really." I stepped across the bare cement floor and back into the hallway. "I was just looking for Dan. You know, Dan Callahan. This was his office. I mean, before they turned it into a utility room."

Jose shook his head. "You're lost maybe? This is the room where we store things. You know, soap and such."

"Yeah, I know. I saw. But… " I took another look around just to be sure. "I know I'm in the right place. I've been here before. Why just a couple of weeks ago—"

Jose scratched a finger behind one ear. "I have worked here six months," he said. "And for six months, this is where I come to get my mops and my brooms. This is where I put them away when I am done with them. You are mistaken, I think, senorita."

I was almost afraid to ask the question and it almost didn't make it past my lips, anyway. My mouth was suddenly dry. My voice was tight in my throat. "And Dan?" I asked. Jose shrugged. "Callahan, you say? Nobody named Dan Callahan ever worked anywhere around here."

So, was I crazy?

Hell, no.

At least not in the way Dr. Cho thought I was crazy.

Utility room or no utility room, I knew what I knew, and propensity for hallucinatory imaging aside, I knew that Dan Callahan was not a figment of my imagination.

No figment could possibly be as good a kisser as Dan.

My mind made up, I decided I'd deal with him the next time he stuck his cute little nose into my not-so-cute little business, and I put the problem of Dan on the back burner. There seemed no better way to prove my sanity than to get back to work and accomplish something. But like I said, I wasn't crazy. When I talked about accomplishments, I didn't have Merilee's gala invitations in mind. Or even trying on the gown Ella had brought me to wear to the event. (Though I will admit to being curious about the dress and a little worried, too, since Trish was originally supposed to wear it and Trish was…

well, I didn't want to speak unkindly of the dead, but let's face it, Trish was not exactly a role model for the fashion conscious.)

When I said
accomplish
, I was talking about solving Didi's mystery. With that in mind, I was determined to make the most of the afternoon. Lucky for me, there were plenty of phone books near the pay phones in the hospital lobby. Even luckier, Susan Gwitkowski had never changed her name.

I jotted down her address, but I didn't call and ask if I could stop by. If I'd learned anything from my association with the local mob, it was that there was a certain value in catching people off guard. After all, Susan Gwitkowski must have been just about the same age as Didi, and if Didi were still alive…

I did a couple of quick mathematical calculations.

The woman I was going to talk to was by now a little old lady, and believe me, after dealing with two fussy grandmothers and the countless senior citizens groups that came through Garden View on tours, I knew all about little old ladies. I didn't want her to have too much time to think about the past and realign her memories. Better to shake her up a little and see what fell out. About Didi. About swimming upstream in the steno pool. Oh yeah, and about fifty-year-old office gossip, too.

Did I say
little old lady
?

The woman who answered the door of a grand old mansion with turrets, a slate roof, and leaded glass windows that winked at me in the afternoon sunlight was short and slim, and her hair was curly and cut stylishly short. No way was the mahogany color real, but hey, I had to give her credit for trying. She was clad in leopard-skin capris and a skin-tight black shirt, and the whole presentation was accented by her gold lame sandals and the gold that glittered from the dozens of chains around her neck. They skimmed breasts that weren't anywhere near as lush but were certainly as perky as mine. I couldn't help myself. I wondered if she was one of my dad's patients.

"I'm sorry to bother you." Even if she didn't look old, I figured Susan would appreciate a show of old-fashioned manners. "I wonder if I might talk to you for a minute." She looked me up and down. "About… ?"