by CJ Lyons
“PXA? Is she going to end up like Jacob?” He clamped his lips shut. Anger hunched his shoulders. How could Rossi have not told him how bad it really was? How dare she try to face this alone?
“Her tox screen shows no sign of any in her system. This is an extreme form of the fugue state that her disease causes. It wasn’t an overdose, Matthew. But you need to be prepared. These episodes are brought on by stress and extreme fatigue. It will happen again.”
He turned his back on Rossi and Louise, needing a moment. He drew a breath in, smelling the antiseptic, the charcoal, and Rossi’s scent, more acrid than usual. The nurses had said that to get as dehydrated as she was in the few hours since he’d last seen her, her body temperature must have been dangerously high, creating a heatstroke-like condition. Just sitting there, like a zombie, in a trance. Not moving, not even to save herself…
God, what if Littleton had found her like that? He swallowed a curse. No. They’d fought. The crime scene showed that clear enough. Rossi had won. Only to be overcome by this…fugue?
He closed his eyes, squeezed them tight, then reopened them. Nope. Not a dream. But it felt like one. Felt like he was caught in a color version of Night of the Living Dead.
“How long does she have?” he asked.
“Her genetic tests were indeterminate, so it’s difficult to be exact…”
“How long?” he snapped, not looking up, his gaze filled with Rossi’s face.
“Five months. Probably less.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry, each case is different. There are only a few dozen people in the world suffering from this disease. There’s just no way to know.”
He puffed his chest out, ready to—to what? Take out his fury and frustration on the woman in front of him? On Rossi?
His breath escaped him, and he felt shrunken, a smaller man. He wanted to run. This wasn’t his world, this world of strange diseases that could strike down a passionate woman in her prime. Now he finally understood why Rossi had locked him out of this part of her life. No amount of reading about a mysterious, rare disease could prepare him for the reality. This wasn’t what he had signed up for.
Yet, Rossi had named him her next-of-kin.
“No way to know.” The words circled around them, finally dying in the silence. “And this is only the second stage?” He swallowed hard. Didn’t really want to hear more. Between them, Rossi’s chest rose and fell. If she could bear it, he could.
Ryder turned and shuffled to the surgical sink, fumbled with the controls, grabbed a washcloth, and wet it with pink soap from the dispenser. He returned to Rossi, gently washing her face as Louise looked on.
“There have been case reports of people in the second and third stages leading functional lives,” Louise said, her voice sounding dim as if she were at the end of a long tunnel, far away from him and Rossi. “It’s simply not a so-called normal life. More akin to walking a tightrope, balancing medication, stress, physical activity. Her sleep-wake cycle will be chaotic. She’ll feel like she’s living in a world outside of our everyday reality. In many ways, she will be. Patients report having periods of extreme lucidity, allowing them to accomplish great feats. One mathematician solved a theorem no one else in the world had been able to solve while he was in one of these fugues.”
Charcoal had puddled in Rossi’s ear. He circled the cloth around his pinky and wiped it clean. Job finished, he finally looked up at Louise. “But she’s in there all alone. That’s not Rossi. She needs people.”
Louise met his gaze, her expression now anything but clinical. “I expect that’s why she put your name on the form, Matthew. Although she’d never admit it.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
My eyes were closed, but I knew I had to be awake—everything felt so crisp. Starched sheets sandwiching my body, icy fluid flowing in one arm. An IV?
The clatter of wheeled carts, the tones of a distant alarm, brisk footsteps on linoleum. A hospital. Felt like Good Sam. There was more. A person sat beside me, softly breathing, not quite snoring. I knew that rasp, knew his scent. Even through the sharp antiseptic perfume that bathed the air, there was no mistaking it.
I opened my eyes, squinted them shut against bright afternoon light coming from the window beside me. Everything was blurred and ringed by halos—the nurses must have put ointment in my eyes. My tongue felt sticky, my teeth wrapped in layers of lemon-flavored cotton candy. The hospital’s solution for oral hygiene in an unresponsive patient. I licked my lips and swallowed. Throat hurt—NG tube? Or had they intubated me?
“How long?” My voice was scratchy, unfamiliar.
Ryder stirred beside me. He came awake instantly as he was prone to do, his right hand slipping to his hip where his gun rested. His gaze circled the room, searching out any hidden danger, then finally returned to me.
God, he looked a wreck. Stubble clouded his cheeks and chin. His eyes were sunken, clothing in disarray, as if he’d slept more than one night in them.
“How long?” I asked again. My mind was as hazy as my vision.
His face went from tight concern to wide-eyed relief. He blinked—surely those weren’t tears, not from Ryder—then his mouth quirked into a halfway smile, and finally, he leaned forward and kissed me full on the lips, his palms framing my face. I responded to the kiss. Ryder was a very good kisser; it was one of my favorite ways to wake up. Didn’t even mind that he tasted of stale coffee and smelled of sweat and exhaustion.
When he pulled back, he didn’t go very far. He lowered the bed rail and edged his hip alongside mine, wrapping his arms around me, deftly avoiding the IV and monitor wires. “You’re back.”
His voice sounded worse than mine. Dark echoes shadowed it, as if he’d been the one wandering lost in a nightmare dreamscape instead of me. I remembered what I’d found inside Littleton’s mind and shuddered.
“I’m the one who found you.” He looked away, but I felt the tension in his body. He shook his head, itched at the stubble of his beard.
“You found me?” Which meant he’d seen Littleton. Did he know what I’d done? How could he not, finding Littleton bound by duct tape, dead on my kitchen floor? I waited apprehensively, wondering if he was here not to comfort me but to arrest me.
Then I remembered. The man who’d moved me. I thought he might have removed the duct tape, maybe even have taken the body as well. Although I had no idea why, unless he was trying to protect me from the police. I was certain it hadn’t been Ryder. At least I thought I was. Confusion muddied my thoughts.
“I thought maybe it was a drug OD. I saw your stash of pills and whatnot. Scared the shit out of me, I’ll tell you that—the ER docs as well. Then Dr. Mehta came along, and she put you under with drugs so that you’d really sleep. You’ve been asleep for,” he glanced at the clock above the door; almost two in the afternoon, “thirty-one hours.”
Shit. More than a day I’d lost. Shit, shit, shit. What the hell had happened?
“Some Christmas,” I finally managed to croak out.
“Christmas Eve,” he corrected.
“Wait.” I turned to face him. “Louise told you about my condition? She had no right—”
“You listed me as your next-of-kin, your emergency contact.” He stared at me as if hoping I’d have some deep, heartfelt explanation.
“No, I didn’t.” I’d left the space blank…Oh yeah, the anal-retentive insurance clerk at the clinic had insisted I fill it in during my last visit. Ryder’s had been the first name to come to mind, the only one I trusted.
“I guess I did. List you as next-of-kin.” Slowly, I raised my gaze to meet his, gave him a half smile. “Surprise.”
It was a second before he returned my smile—his was clouded with doubt. “Surprise.” He squeezed my hand tighter.
“Jacob?” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the question, held my breath, waiting for the answer.
“Still hanging in there. Guarded, Louise said.” Hospital-speak for nothing more to do except watch and wait.
I sat up straight in the bed. “I want to see him.”
The world whirled like it was caught in a blender and I sank back into the pillows, eyes closed against the vertigo. Ryder hit the button to raise the head of the bed and unkinked the IV line.
“Think you’re going to be sick?” he asked.
I opened my eyes and laughed. I couldn’t help it, the sight: Ryder, gun on his belt, unshaven, expression on his face that of a warrior entering battle, holding a pink plastic emesis basin at the ready.
“No.” I sat up again, more cautiously. No more spinning. “I’m fine.” And I meant it.
He relaxed and exchanged the emesis basin for a glass of water and a straw. As I drank, it felt so good, soothing the sandpaper scratch of my throat. I finished the water and returned the glass to the bedside stand, felt strong enough to ask, “Are you here to arrest me?”
He jerked back. “God, no.”
“Don’t I need to talk to someone? About what happened to Littleton?”
“Louise kicked the detectives out yesterday. It was pretty clear you weren’t going to be doing any talking any time soon. Told them she’d call them when you’re medically cleared.”
“It’s not a conflict of interest for you to be here? I mean, you won’t get in trouble?”
His frown was all the answer he’d give me.
“What do you remember? Before your…fugue?” He stumbled on the word.
My memory was as tumbled as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle still in the box. “Devon and I saw Littleton at the restaurant. Manny? Littleton said he was one of the leaders of the Brotherhood.” That much I remembered. Devon had gone after Manny, and I’d told Ryder. “Is he talking?”
“Manny’s dead. Someone shot him before either Price or I could get to him.”
I sucked in my breath. I hadn’t liked Manny, but that didn’t mean I wanted him dead. “They didn’t want him to talk.”
“Because he was one of them? Or because he was innocent and Littleton was using him as a smoke screen?” He slipped away from me and began to pace the small room. Ryder did his best thinking on his feet, in motion. A lot like me that way. He reached the far wall and whirled. “I don’t think there is any Brotherhood. I think all this—Tymara, the school, Manny, Jacob—I think it’s all Littleton and a single partner.”
I thought about that. “Tymara was blindfolded for the second attack.” The violent, brutal assault that had left her near to death. “She heard voices but not close enough to identify. Said she wasn’t sure how many were involved.”
“When was Littleton at your place? What happened?”
I told him everything I could remember, up to the point where I duct-taped Littleton and forced the PXA down his throat. That I left out. Too ashamed at my weakness, the way I’d betrayed everything—worse, the way I’d surrendered, assuming that breaking my oath meant nothing because I was dying and there were no longer any consequences that mattered.
Ryder. He was a consequence. He mattered. I couldn’t lose him.
“He collapsed, hit his head, just stunned, though. He was still alive,” I finished, still uncertain about what had happened next, with the stranger in my apartment. Had that even happened? Or had it been a fugue-induced delusion? “My fugue overtook me before I could call for help.”
“He couldn’t have shot Manny. Timing doesn’t fit.” He frowned with his mouth, but after a moment smiled with his eyes. “A blender and a bunch of plates? Seriously?”
“We Rossis are known for our aim with crockery. And our tempers.”
He sobered. “You must have hurt him more than you thought. Otherwise, he would have finished what he started. I found him dead on your kitchen floor. The ME said he had bleeding in his brain, along with swelling.”
Littleton was dead. I was too confused to feel much. Had I entered his mind there at the end? Before the stranger came into my apartment? Or had it all been a hallucination?
“What about his partner? Or partners?”
“We don’t know.” He surprised me by framing my face between his palms and kissing me tenderly on the forehead. Then he lowered his face until his eyes became my entire world. “I just thank God he didn’t hurt you worse than he did.”
God, it felt so good, being with him, no matter the where or why. I gathered my strength, ready to tell him everything, when my mom barged into the room without knocking.
“About time you woke up,” she said. “Did you hear about Evie?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
My mother. Perfect timing. As usual. Ryder and I parted as Evie ran in behind Patsy. She threw her arms around me, hugging me so tight that she jostled one of the monitor leads and an alarm sounded.
“I’m so glad you’re awake,” Evie cried gleefully. “Dr. Mehta says I don’t have it. I’m going to be all right.”
Ryder turned the alarm off. He seemed much too comfortable around the medical equipment. I doubted he’d left my side the entire time I was unconscious. That would explain why he looked so awful. Same suit he’d worn at Tymara’s trial two days ago, I finally noticed.
“I’m happy for you,” I told Evie, meaning every word.
She stepped back, joining Patsy, who hadn’t stepped more than a foot into the room. “She insisted we come tell you straightaway,” she said, as if she needed an excuse to visit her dying daughter. “That nice Italian doctor—”
“Tommaso,” Evie put in, making the neurofellow sound like a dreamy movie star. Evie was only two years younger than me, already finished with husband number one and looking for a suitable replacement. The expression on her face was all too familiar. Tommaso had better watch out.
“He was able to test her without waiting for blood results,” Patsy continued. “A new test using a nasal washing. Cutting-edge.”
As if my old-fashioned genetic blood test that Louise had performed was second-class. Only the best for Evie.
How sick and twisted did a family have to be that wonderful news about one daughter being healthy turned into a competition?
I wasn’t playing Patsy’s games. Not any longer. I’d done my penance long enough. Especially since, as it turned out, I’d committed no crime. Neither had Dad. It wasn’t his fault he’d inherited fatal insomnia.
Ryder slipped his hand into mine, standing by my side, saying nothing but making it clear we stood together.
“I’m glad you’re going to be okay,” I repeated. I took a deep breath. Faced my mother. It was more difficult than I’d imagined. “Because I won’t be around much. I have a lot to do and little time. I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?” Evie frowned. “Where would you go? What about Christmas? You have to at least stay for dinner tonight.”
Right. The family Christmas party. I wasn’t sure if any amount of rest could give me the energy to face that.
“You must be there tonight,” Patsy told me, her tone stern. “You look fine. I’ll talk to the doctors, make sure they release you. After all, it’s only fitting you honor Jacob’s memory.”
Jacob? I felt the blood rush down my body, draining away. Ryder’s grip tightened, keeping me anchored. “Did he—”
“He’s still alive,” Evie reassured me. “But the new treatment isn’t working.” Her expression clouded. “They’re not sure how long…”
I slumped back against the pillows. Ryder tucked me in, pulling the covers over me. Not treating me as if I was a child or weak, but rather as someone he cared about.
“You should go now,” he said without looking at my family, his gaze focused on me. “She needs her rest.”
Patsy hesitated. Not because she wanted to stay—that much was clear—but because she hated losing a power struggle.
At least, that’s what I thought. Until, for the first time in twenty-two years, she surprised me. She stepped to the other side of my bed, ignoring Ryder’s protective glare, and took my hand in hers, her fingers caressing the tape around the IV in the back of my hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her tone
tentative.
Her words stunned me. Evie stood, watching, slack-jawed.
“Whatever happens,” Patsy continued, not meeting my gaze, “you always have a home here. I just want you to know that.” She dropped my hand and left. Evie followed after her, throwing a quick, puzzled glance over her shoulder before she closed the door behind them.
I stared after them. What had just happened? Had my mother actually finally forgiven me? Or was it all an act? I honestly could not tell.
I blinked hard, my eyes still too dry for tears. Then I realized I had none. My family had made me who I was today, and without that strength, I’d never have been able to survive what happened last month or two nights ago, much less what was still to come.
I’d never have met Ryder. I turned to him. He still held my hand, but wasn’t hovering. More like he was waiting, giving me space to decide what I needed. “Tell me about Jacob,” I finally said. “All of it.”
Without releasing my hand, Ryder sat on the bed beside me. “Louise said they had to decide about a DNR for him.”
He’d started calling Jacob by his first name. Ryder did that with victims in his cases. The rest of the world? It depended on how seriously he took them. Hence, Jacob had been Voorsanger, while Manny Cruz was always Manny. I guessed Louise was Louise and not Mehta because she’d never let anyone call her by her last name.
“Is it the PXA?”
He nodded. “Louise tried a new treatment, something called chelation? It helped a little, but not enough. Now she’s trying hemofiltration. But—”
“Jacob would never want to have his life sustained if there’s no hope.” I stared at our joined hands, unable to look up. His hands were so different from Jacob’s. Rougher, with scars and calluses.
“That’s what the ethics committee decided after they reviewed his case. He’s still in the ICU getting treatment, but if it fails and his heart stops…”
I could fill in the blanks. “I guess I’d better get dressed.”
