Wake for Me (Life or Death Series) (16 page)

“Viola, honey,” Calvin hedged. She could almost hear him debating between loyalty to his client and the future of the company he’d worked so hard to build. Viola closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the wall, knowing that in the end, self-interest would win out.

It always did.

“It was the night of your accident,” he finally said, exhaling loudly. “You called me to ask where Aiden was. After he texted you that he wasn’t going to make it. Do you remember?”

“Yes,” she said. “But humor me. I want to hear it again, in your words.”

“Alright, Jesus. You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you? I still don’t know how you two managed to—you know what? Never mind. All I said was, Aiden was breaking things off. He wanted to focus on his music, on his tour. And he didn’t think you would be able to handle the tour lifestyle. You got upset—understandably, if you want my opinion—and you wanted to talk to Aiden. I told you he was at the hotel, and you hung up on me.”

“Thank you, Calvin,” Viola said. “That’s all I needed to know.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, more quietly. “I know I said this before, but…he should’ve had the courage to tell you himself.”

“No,” Viola said, shaking her head. “He was right to be afraid of me. By the way, the next time you talk to him, please tell him I said he can go on tour by himself.”

With that, she hung up.

If that part was true, maybe it was all true.

Feeling all the fight go out of her suddenly, Viola leaned against the wall until she had the strength to move back to the bed. Halfway there, she stopped and dropped into the chair.

She couldn’t afford to fall asleep again. Not today, not when Uncle Jack was coming to see her any minute. She needed to plan, needed to figure out a way to prove what had happened to her wasn’t just an accident.

Why else would she keep seeing Jack where he didn’t belong? At the bar. In the car with them. Watching her drown, holding her mother’s severed head as he nonchalantly stroked her blonde curls. Oh, God. What if, after Jack tried to kill her, he’d succeeded in killing her parents?

The family business.
Nothing more important than family
. She’d seen the will, years ago. If her father died, everything went to her mother. If both of her parents died, everything went to Viola. But why kill her first? Why not wait and get them all together? No. It didn’t make sense. Maybe her accident really had just been an accident. She was drunk, and upset. But her parents, her careful father, her overly-cautious mother…their sudden passing was just too strange.

That was what her subconscious had been trying to tell her, she realized. Over and over, it kept showing Uncle Jack in the passenger seat of a car that was about to crash. A long time ago, Uncle Jack had told her he used to be a mechanic, before Viola’s grandfather had hired him. He must’ve done something to her parents’ car, to make it crash. Sam had been right, when he’d said that it was like lightning striking the same family twice. It was too much of a coincidence. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

Because, just like with Aiden and his lies, there was some part of her that hadn’t wanted to see it. Some part of her had wanted to feel safe, and protected. But she wasn’t safe. And she wasn’t protected. Not from him.

As if her knowledge of his treachery had summoned him, the door opened and Uncle Jack—no longer her Uncle Jack, but the murderer Jacques Gosselin—walked into the room. Viola knew it was him, even before the door opened. He was the only one who didn’t bother to knock first.

Holding her breath, she straightened in her seat, pasting a smile on her face. She couldn’t let him see how afraid she was. She couldn’t let him know that she knew. Not yet. Not until she had a plan to make him pay for what he’d done.

She had to seem controlled. Calm. Like her father would’ve been.

“Hello,” she said, with her heart in her throat. His answering smile was tight and contrived. He was a liar, through and through. She’d simply been too stupid, or too drugged, to see it before.

Trailing on Jacques’ heels, Nurse Bouchard entered the room carrying a tray of hospital food.

“Oh good, you’re finally awake,” she said. “I told your uncle that visiting hours didn’t start until eight, but he said you had important business to discuss.”

“That’s right,” Viola said, swallowing much too loudly. “We do.”

Searching the room with his eyes, Jacques settled on the edge of the bed, because she was occupying the only chair. Viola could tell he was uncomfortable perching there, but she had no intention of moving.

“Nurse B.,” she said sweetly, not taking her eyes off of Jacques’ face. “Could you do me a favor and change the sheets?”

“Right now?” The nurse gave her a look. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come back later and do it after visiting hours?”

“No, that’s alright.” Viola felt her hands starting to shake, and she folded them together tightly in her lap. “You can do it now.”

“Alright,” the nurse said, in a tone which indicated she thought her patient wasn’t just spoiled, but crazy to boot.

And maybe she was. Because when Viola finally let her gaze drop from Jacques’ face, her eyes trailing over his expensive suit that looked identical to one of her father’s, finally stopping on his hands, which were folded in the exact same position as hers—

Jacques was wearing her father’s ring. Just as he had been in the dream. In all the dreams.

“You bastard!” She screamed, standing up so fast that the chair fell over, crashing against the wall. Nurse Bouchard was so startled, she dropped Viola’s empty water jug.

Jacque’s face remained as calm and impassive as ever; the face of a villain.

“What’s the matter,
mon chouchou
?” He stood slowly, cautiously, as if afraid she would attack. But he extended a hand toward her anyway, keeping his back to the nurse, pretending to appeal to her in his sickening, soothing voice. “Shhh,
c’est bien
. Are you unwell?”

“Don’t you touch me,” she yelled, moving away until her back was against the wall, until there was nowhere else to go. “Don’t come near me! You killed them!
Assassin
!
Meurtrier
!”

Viola sobbed her frustration, unable to control her words as rage and terror took over.

“
Vous êtes celui qui était dans ma chambre
,” she cried, pointing at Jacques and looking at Nurse Bouchard, trying to make her understand. There were more people coming in now. Surely one of them would understand what she was trying to say. Viola’s eyes skittered around the room, searching frantically for Sam. He would protect her. He would understand.

“I think she’s having a breakdown,” Nurse Bouchard said, to one of the doctors in the room. Viola didn’t recognize him. He shook his head and yelled something into the hallway.

“No!” she yelled, pointing at Jacques. “He came…I was…cedar and smoke …smothering me…dying.” But her brain felt like it was short-circuiting. It was like being in another nightmare. She was screaming as loud as she could, but no one could hear her. No one would help her.

“Sam!” Two male technicians came toward her, with grim expressions on their faces. Jeff and Manny. She knew their names—that meant she wasn’t hallucinating. It meant she wasn’t crazy. Didn’t it?

“Please…” she begged, covering her face as they reached down to pick her up. She struggled, because every move brought her closer to Jacques, who was smiling at her. Grinning, behind their backs, where no one could see. “Please…you have to…find Sam…I remember…have to…help me.”

Someone else walked toward her. Jodi, the new nurse. She was carrying something in her hand.

“It’s okay,” Jodi said, smiling the same sickening sweet, fake smile that had made Viola hate her in the first place.

Viola barely felt the sting of the needle sliding beneath her skin.

“Don’t worry,
c’est bien
. It’s all going to be okay.”

With her last conscious thought, Viola wondered if a redheaded nurse from Idaho had really spoken to her in French, or if she’d just imagined it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility,
and most people are frightened of responsibility.” –Sigmund Freud

Sam glanced anxiously at the dashboard clock for the third time in less than five minutes, as if that would somehow make the numbers stop moving forward.

The lady in the car next to him was using the opportunity to change clothes, slowly trading in pieces of business wear for a more risqué nighttime ensemble. The guy in front of him looked to be arguing passionately with his wife, while the teenager in the rear view mirror was singing along with the radio.

The light changed, and only three cars made it through before it became red again.

“Oh, come on!” Sam yelled, pounding the steering wheel in frustration.

He’d never seen traffic this bad, but he’d also never tried to make the drive from his hometown to the hospital in less than five hours, during rush hour. It served him right.

As it was, the clock read 5:24 PM and Sam was still about two miles away from his destination. On the seat next to him, his ancient pager beeped again, for probably the tenth time in the last two hours. He’d accidentally left his cell phone at his apartment two days earlier, and the last call he’d made to the hospital had been from his mom’s house. All the switch board operator had said then was that Dr. Chakrabarti wanted him to come in an hour early for his 6:00 PM shift.

Sam had looked at his mother’s kitchen clock, done a quick travel time calculation, and then immediately taken off through the front door, not even saying a proper goodbye to Caroline and his mom. The way he figured it, if he got the spot on Chakrabarti’s study, he could call home from the hospital and share the good news. That would hopefully make up for any hurt feelings his rude exit had caused.

Unfortunately for Sam, it looked like by the time he actually got there, Chakrabarti would’ve already died of natural causes. And it pretty much went without saying that he could wave goodbye to any future promotions. There was one unbreakable rule of being an intern, and Sam had broken it. He’d let a page go unanswered—the ultimate sin.

When he finally pulled into the packed employee lot, it was 5:41 PM.

Swinging his bag over his shoulder, Sam locked the car and sprinted into the building. He didn’t bother to swipe in, since his actual shift didn’t start for about fifteen minutes, and who knew if he’d even still be working there when 6:00 PM rolled around? He’d never missed a page before, so theoretically anything was possible.

When he finally got to Chakrabarti’s office, Sam’s shirt was drenched in sweat. He was still wearing his oldest pair of jeans, which were splattered in paint. He’d never looked more homeless, or less like a doctor.

 He knocked on the door, resigning himself to making some pretty fancy excuses.

But when the door opened, Sam was surprised to be facing not his attending, but Viola’s father’s business partner, the guy she called ‘Uncle Jack.’ He’d only seen the man once from afar, but since the only other French guy with cufflinks Sam knew of wasn’t around anymore, it had to be Jack.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything. I can always come back.”

“Come in, Dr. Philips.” Chakrabarti’s voice came from deeper inside the room. Without hesitating, Sam obeyed. The Frenchman eyed him with distaste and backed up a step, probably worried that some of Sam’s stink was going to rub off on him.

“Sorry I’m late Dr. Chakrabarti. I drove as fast as I could without breaking the speed limit.”

Okay, so that wasn’t strictly true. Sam had driven exactly nine miles an hour above the speed limit almost the entire way. He’d bent the hell out of that speed limit.

“It’s alright, Dr. Philips. Please, sit down.”

The moment Chakrabarti let Sam’s supreme tardiness slide, he knew something was wrong. He glanced to his right, but the Frenchman was still standing. The expression on his face was grim.

Oh, no
. Sam looked back at Chakrabarti. “Has something happened to Viola?”

Please, he silently prayed. Please say no.

But instead of saying no, Dr. Chakrabarti nodded.

“Is she….” Sam couldn’t even bring himself to say the word ‘dead.’ But his mind filled in the blank with all kinds of terrible substitutes. Deceased. No longer with us. Passed away. Gone.

“No, nothing so dire,” the Frenchman said, answering before Dr. Chakrabarti could. Sam looked to him, waiting for him to explain more, but his face remained blank. You’d think that he’d at least look happy, Sam thought. Whatever had gone wrong, she wasn’t dead.

Unless… “Did she lapse back into a coma?”

“No.” Finally taking pity on him, Sam’s attending spelled it out. “But earlier this morning, she suffered a violent and delusional episode.”

“What?” Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Viola might be strong-willed, but he never would’ve suspected her of being violent.

“It is true,” the Frenchman said. “It was…very disturbing. And I am sorry to say, this was not the first time Viola has struck out at those around her.”

“What do you mean?”

Dr. Chakrabarti gestured for the Frenchman to explain.

“Dear Viola has had a problem with…shall we say, reality, since she was a very young child. Her parents were so loving, they were very sparing with their discipline. As a result, her harmless, childish stories soon turned to outright lies. When she was fifteen, she started a rumor about a fellow student. It led to a suicide attempt by the poor girl it concerned. Truitt, I think her name was.”

Sam shook his head, unable—or maybe unwilling—to believe that Viola would intentionally, let alone willingly, take part in something like that.

“And that was not the first time,” the Frenchman continued, ignoring Sam’s gesture of denial. “Six months ago, she accused a maid of stealing the Cartier watch her father had given to her as a present for her eighteenth birthday. The watch was found a few days later, but by then the maid had already been fired. Because her visa was sponsored by Bellerose Co., she was also deported back to Venezuela.”