by R. J. Blain
I was, too. How far could I have been taken following a car accident?
“This here’s Arkansas, son, spittin’ distance from Mississippi. If you’re talking about the Millers’ old place, that there be on the Mississippi side of the line, and if you take a hike a few hours north of here and dodge the river, you’ll hit Tennessee if you’re not careful.”
Terror took many forms, sometimes robbing me of breath, sometimes making me shake, and sometimes, it wrapped cold, deathly hands around my throat and squeezed. I knew the line dividing Arkansas and Mississippi; it followed the heart of the river most of the time, leaving odd holes where nature had run its course and rerouted the riverbed. There was only one such place near Tennessee where the river had once curved into Mississippi, leaving a little oasis of Arkansas on the wrong side of the river. “Old River Lake?”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Close by,” I choked out. A stone toss to the east and north put me right around where I’d grown up, although I hadn’t known Old River Lake had warranted even a gas station. “Lake Cormorant.”
It wasn’t too far from Horn Lake, where I’d killed a man and ruined my life.
“I know it. How long you’ve been up in Indiana? Like it?”
“A few years now. It’s fine, I guess. Different.”
That had been why I’d picked the state.
“All right. What can you tell me about this accident, son?”
“Absolutely nothing. I was driving home, next thing I know, I was in that farmhouse.”
“With duct tape right over your mouth, from the looks of it.”
I lifted my hands and touched my face, grimacing at the patch of smooth skin and my raw mouth. “Yes.”
“Tell me what you can, son, and start with your car. Make, model, year, and who it’s registered to if it isn’t yours.”
Since I doubted a backwater cop would believe me if I told him an angel had warned me I’d be in the accident, I told him some of the circumstances leading up to my leaving work early, informing him I had occasional issues with anxiety and my boss had suggested I take some vacation time. The rest I told him straight up, detailing how I’d escaped.
Talking about it helped a lot more than I expected, especially when the cop didn’t seem like he was ready to mock me for my situation. If anything, he accepted my story readily enough, piquing my curiosity. “You’re not surprised by this.”
“You ain’t the first one, son, and you ain’t gonna be the last. We’ve gotten into the habit of checking that place three times a week now, makin’ sure there ain’t anyone abandoned there. We had two last week alone, one the week before. They’re usually left in the front room and not in the back, and most ain’t clever enough to get free, though you’re the first sayin’ you done got grabbed out of a car accident. First one out of state, too—them folks have all been from Mississippi so far.”
My mouth dropped open, and I stammered something.
The cop must have interpreted my stammering as some form of a question, as he chuckled and shrugged. “Should’ve been here first time it happened. Guess they were right worried no one would check the farmhouse, since we done got a call about it from the Mississippi side of things. We’re closer despite bein’ on the wrong side of the line, so they done gave us jurisdiction to trot on over and have a look-see. Got tired of makin’ the hike themselves. Bagged us a gas station at least to go along with our post office. We’re gonna end up a regular town at the rate we’re goin’.”
“Why the hell would anyone hike all the way up to Indiana to bring me here?”
“Who the hell knows, son. We ain’t got hide nor hair on these people or why they grab folks and dump ‘em there. We’ve got this down to an art, so you just sit easy. It’ll take the ambulance a while to get here, but that’s how it goes. Everyone gets a ride to the hospital for a check, I’ll file the report, and you’ll go on your merry way after the Mississippi folks look you over.”
“All right.”
The cop grabbed his phone and stabbed his pen against the buttons. “Hey, Charlie Dean, I got us another one over here at Old River Lake, and this son ain’t local; driver’s license puts him from Indiana, and looks like they roughed him up a bit more than the others. Son done claims they pulled him out of an accident, and he don’t remember nary a thing about the crash, either. Looks the part, though, and a bit unsteady on his feet, so you better be sendin’ over a good white coat to have a look at him.” The conversation didn’t last long, with the man relaying my name, driver’s license number, my car’s plates, and general description of it before the crash, although I expected there wasn’t much left if Luna was to be believed.
I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore, but there was definitely something fishy going on.
It turned out my kidnappers had had me longer than I thought; the ER doctor estimated I’d been injured at least four or five days ago, and blood tests revealed I’d been pumped full of a cocktail of antibiotics, painkillers, and a sedative. I’d pulled a few of the stitches on my hike through the woods, although all in all, I hadn’t done much damage. The process took six hours, most of which I spent in a sterile room thumbing through magazines a nurse had brought to keep me amused—or at least contained where she wanted me. The only one of any interest was a financial rag I’d read twice already, but read a third time so I wouldn’t end up reading about the mating rituals of animals.
When the test results came in, I endured an hour-long scolding by Dr. Laski, who had spoken with my physician in Indiana. She must have given him a lecture over my stubbornness and general refusal to take medications for my anxiety, judging from the man’s inability to drop the subject. “Medications are there to help you. Is there any reason you insist on refusing helpful medications?”
How many times would I need to have this conversation? I sighed, contemplating if rolling up one of the magazines and beating myself in the head with it would put me out of my misery.
“He’s more stubborn than the average rock and equally dense,” a sickeningly familiar voice announced, her tone as cold and hard as the last time we’d spoken five years ago. “He’s hard-headed, rather stupid for someone with his IQ, and prone to giving misleading yet truthful information. If you’d like a rock to discuss his issues with, I can get you one from the parking lot. If my information is accurate, which I believe it is, you’d have better luck with the rock.”
If I closed my eyes and breathed in deep, maybe I could convince myself I was actually trapped in a nightmare, one occupied by one Kennedy Young, who my primary doctor likely blamed for the majority of my issues, of which there were many. The years hadn’t dulled her edge.
She wielded the truth like a sword and had no problems cutting people with it. Fool that I had been—fool that I still was—had loved her for that. She took shit from no one, especially me. Had I sacrificed a too young girl to the judgment of her peers, I supposed Kennedy wouldn’t have left as she had, although I doubted she would have stuck around, either.
Everything would have been different. The doctors in Indiana would have been thrilled with my acknowledgment of that fact, something I’d spent the past three years avoiding with steadfast determination.
In some ways, Kennedy was far more of an angel than I was despite her mostly human heritage. Like most folks, she had her fair share of ‘other.’ What that ‘other’ was I hadn’t learned; it made no difference to me—just like I hadn’t quite gotten around to confessing I was far more angel and demon than human despite what my driver’s license proclaimed.
Pedigree hadn’t been important to either one of us back then.
“This is a private area,” Dr. Laski snapped.
“Kennedy Young, CDC and FBI liaison,” my ex declared, and I heard the crack-snap of a leather wallet being flicked open with a little too much force. “Investigations.”
Way back when, she’d been in school hunting a business degree in advertising while I’d been playing with numbers,
and the memories of meeting her haunted me like everything else. I’d been a semester from my degree when I’d landed in prison, an education I hadn’t finished despite my doctors—all of them—suggesting I should.
If I ignored her, if I pretended she didn’t exist, I might be able to get through the next few minutes without succumbing to my growing unease. It hadn’t quite blossomed to full-fledged anxiety yet, but it would.
It always did.
“When I am done discussing matters with my patient, you may have your turn questioning him. The waiting room is that way, Agent Young.”
“I’m under orders to remain with Mr. Matthews to ensure there are no other incidents. I won’t get in the way, but I’m not leaving.”
“Very well. Don’t get in the way over there, preferably in the hallway. Don’t get in the way of nurses and people who actually belong here. This is a hospital. If you need to question my patient, you may do so outside of my hospital.”
I cracked open an eye and checked the walls, disappointed to discover I was in a room without windows. I didn’t care which floor I was on; had a window been available, I would have quietly let myself out, and I wouldn’t even care if I left a dent in the sidewalk. Since my routes of escape were blocked, I began running through my list of techniques that sometimes helped keep me from making close friends with the floor. First, I counted my breaths, fighting the urge to hyperventilate. Once I started floundering like a fish out of water, I lost.
“Now, Mr. Matthews. As this influences the prescriptions I’ll be writing out for you, please elaborate on your refusal to take certain medications.”
I appreciated how Dr. Laski avoided revealing anything unnecessarily to Kennedy.
I kept breathing. When my doctors in Indiana found out, they’d probably give me a gold sticker for good progress. Not only had I avoided fainting, while the subject of my worst nightmares lurked somewhere behind me, I hadn’t made a run for it yet—or found a piece of furniture to hide beneath.
“If I had a chemical imbalance or other medical issue requiring medication, I would take it, Dr. Laski.” A better man, a wiser man, would have waited until the source of his problems left, but if Kennedy insisted on staying, I wouldn’t accept the blame for what she heard. That ship had sailed long ago, right along with my peace of mind. “All those medications do is mask the symptoms. They do not cure it, for there isn’t a cure short of a complete rewriting of my memories. I refuse. I am the product of my circumstances and choices, and I refuse to be rewritten or erased because I’m not a desirable member of society.”
I refused to claim I hurt nobody being as I was, but I had—I did. Despite what my doctors believed, I listened to them even when I didn’t agree with them. They viewed my endless fountain of guilt and remorse as something positive, a symptom of a killer who hadn’t meant to kill, someone who could be rehabilitated and released back into society.
They liked cases like mine. They believed I could one day live the sort of life they envisioned for me. Sometimes, when I lowered my guard, I wondered if I could. All they knew came from my file, which proclaimed me a victim of the courts, someone who had faced a punishment beyond what the crime deserved.
The sound of silence hung in the room, thick and smothering.
I breathed, and I counted each one. Ten breaths went by, then twenty, before Dr. Laski blew out a gusty sigh. “The painkiller I wish to prescribe has low risk of addiction, but it also functions as a low grade sedative, which puts it in the same class of medications you typically refuse to take. While you are taking it, it will help mitigate some of your general anxiety symptoms. It works well with the antibiotic you’ll be taking. You would be expected to take it for approximately two weeks. The other options have significant impairment.”
“Define impairment.”
“Dizziness, nausea, lethargy, and other inconveniences my preferred painkiller lacks.”
“All right.”
Dr. Laski frowned and leveled a glare at me. “You’re not going to argue or refuse to take them?”
“I’ll take them as prescribed.”
“I had been informed you were unreasonable over this issue.”
Why wasn’t I surprised? Why couldn’t any of my doctors comprehend I only wanted to take medications when necessary? “You’re prescribing the medication for the right reasons. If I’d been in a car accident at home and they were prescribed to address injury or infection, I’d take them.”
“Then I will expect these to be taken exactly as prescribed.” Dr. Laski’s gaze shifted to the doorway behind me. “Perhaps you can make yourself useful and make certain that happens since you’re his assigned babysitter.”
While the implication I needed a babysitter stung, I had to admit the man had lobbed a well-aimed verbal bomb in Kennedy’s direction.
Her slow clap almost made me smile. “I wasn’t aware I was attending kindergarten classes today. It seems I overdressed. If you’re quite done, I’d like a chance to question Mr. Matthews sometime today. I would request you hurry, but I’d rather the pharmacy not lose precious hours attempting to translate scribble. Perhaps you should have Mr. Matthews do the majority of the handwriting, unless this kindergarten class happens to have discovered the existence of computers?”
Within five minutes of them bickering and hurling childish insults at each other, I wondered when I had become an example of sanity in a world gone mad. After ten, I contemplated routes of escapes.
After twenty, I had had enough. “If you two are done fighting like an old married couple, I’d like to at least start the paperwork so I can go home sometime this year.”
I should have known better than to draw attention to myself.
Chapter Six
Dr. Laski called in my prescriptions, repeated his instructions for taking them enough times I was ready to lose my temper along with Kennedy, and sent for a nurse, who brought a big stack of papers for my discharge along with an invoice. My insurance had declined coverage due to the hospital’s location, leaving me with two thousand reasons to find a new provider the instant I got home, one that acknowledged hospitals and doctors existed outside of the state of Indiana.
I scowled at the papers and tried to pretend Kennedy wasn’t near the door watching me. Clicking the pen kept me from stabbing it through the forms. Once I reclaimed some semblance of control over my temper, I went to work, the act of keeping my handwriting legible helping to distract me from my mountain of other problems.
“You’re going to have to acknowledge me at some point.”
Since ignoring the problem wasn’t going to make her go away, I finished the page I was working on and focused on my breathing again, counting until I could resume writing without my shaking hands betraying me. Maybe there was something to the theory exposure helped. The jolt of hearing her voice didn’t seem as bad as when she’d first come into the room, taking fewer breaths to work through until I could function without my vision fading around the edges.
“Reed?”
Hiding wasn’t an option anymore; when I was honest with myself, it never had been. All I’d done at the office was delay the inevitable, especially considering she’d made the hike from Indiana to Mississippi to hunt me down. If I were more stubborn than the average rock, she was a diamond ready to grind me to powder. “Just ask your questions so you can leave and go back to doing whatever it is CDC and FBI liaison investigators do. Better yet, go ask the cop from Old River Lake. There’s nothing for me to tell you I haven’t already told him.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
I clenched my teeth and concentrated on filling out the forms, pulling out my wallet to get out my insurance card, not that the damned thing was worth the amount I spent on it each month. I copied the identification number and contemplated throwing it in the trash. With a single flick of my wrist, I could express my opinions on what I felt about our last meeting.
Instead of the fear I’d feared so much, I ended up with a deep-seated rage, the
kind that boiled beneath my skin and threatened to burst out in an inferno. I firmed my grip on the card, focused on the trashcan, and sent the card sailing across the room. It hit the wall, ricocheted against the corner, and toppled inside, the plastic bag rustling. “Pity.”
“Is there any reason you just tossed your insurance card in the trash?”
“Not much point in keeping what does me zero good.” I signed the last sheet, got to my feet, and careful to keep my eyes focused anywhere other than her, I headed for the door. “I’ll be getting a new insurer once I’m back in Indiana—one that’s actually useful out of state.”
I hunted down the nurse, gave her the papers, and waited for the next phase of the discharge process, which involved my credit card and a payment terminal since the hospital didn’t want to do a delayed billing. I probably could have talked them into it if I’d been inclined to put in the effort, but I had more pressing concerns, including ditching one Kennedy Young.
Kennedy missed the memo and followed along. The click of her shoes indicated she wore heels, something she’d avoided before I’d gone to prison. I’d always thought it interesting about her. Given five minutes, access to a closet, and a pair of stilettos, she could have taken the modeling world by storm if she wanted. Instead, she had gone a different route, wanting to make other model-pretty people rise to stardom from the background.
Once upon a time, she’d tried to get me to pose for a camera. I’d done it exactly once and hated the whole process of sweating under hot lights, pretending to be someone I wasn’t so some company could use my image to make a pretty penny. In that case, I’d been modeling underwear, something I found almost as distasteful as Kennedy’s unabashed enjoyment of me showing off my chest for the photographer.
They’d even used baby oil so I’d look all glossy for the camera.
I’d lost all the muscle and tone, refusing to do the work to gain it back, leaving me thin and lacking the six pack many women desired, which worked well enough for me. My Friday and Saturday night outings didn’t feature models anyway. Their appearances meant little to me.
