In Case of Emergency

by E. G. Scott

  “I’m really sick, Peter. What did you give me?”

  “It goes by many names and grows from the ground.” He laughs. “Does that narrow it down for you?”

  My stomach painfully contracts and I realize I may very well loose my bowels on the table. I’m so far beyond caring about vanity at this point, though. Any relief from the terrible contractions and nausea would be welcome.

  “Peter, where’s Lucy?” I’m straining to widen my view of the room, but the needles are digging into my neck with even a microinch of movement.

  He snorts. “Look at you worrying about someone other than yourself. How very off brand for you.”

  “Please.” I can barely get a breath out. “She has nothing to do with this.” My voice breaks and the deluge begins.

  “She’s fine. Better than fine. This is actually a moment when you should be worrying about yourself.”

  “I’m worried about you, Peter.” I remember hearing somewhere that when someone is freaking out, saying their name repeatedly can help ground them. “I want to help. You are upset with me. Tell me how I can make it better.”

  He snorts. “Are you seriously trying to convince me that you care about me right now?” I hear a bag being unzipped.

  I’m cycling through each of my medical school peers or other residents. Maybe he was a patient? Or someone at Stony Brook Hospital after I moved back and had my miserable year there? I’m stumped.

  “Peter. This is crazy. Please. I don’t understand. I thought you loved me. I loved you.”

  “Yawn. I fucking despise you. Whatever you thought our relationship was, it was pure imagination,” he snarls.

  I’m trying to keep my crying as contained as possible but everything hurts so much, I’m unsuccessful. “I’m so sorry for whatever I’ve done to hurt you.”

  “Oh dear. We are light-years beyond an apology.”

  My vision is tinted in shades of and yellow and green. I am having a vague recollection of a course about toxic plants used in treatment from my early Chinese medicine days, where we covered one poisonous plant in particular that had this specific psychedelic symptom, but there were so many toxic flowers among us, I’m finding I can’t pin any one thought long enough to conjure the name of it.

  “What have you dosed me with? I’m having a lot of trouble breathing.” As I utter the words, my chest constricts further.

  “A beautiful flower that is deadly as hell at its roots. Absolutely perfect for you.”

  Oleander, hemlock, white snakeroot, wolfsbane. Fuck. My heart starts pounding even faster and harder, exactly the opposite of what I want my vascular system to be doing right now.

  “Wolfsbane?” I squeak.

  “I prefer the scientific name Aconite. Sounds so much less pretentious,” he says.

  My hope plummets, along with my blood pressure. “How much?”

  “My brother introduced me to the wide world of killer plants. He poisoned my dog by feeding him water hemlock as an experiment. I was devastated. He blamed it on me, and I was the one who got in trouble. He was always doing terrible things and making it look like I had done them. No matter how much I tried to convince them, my parents always believed him over me,” he says, acidly.

  “How much Aconite did you give me, Peter?” I gasp.

  “Oh, a good amount,” he says offhandedly. I moan in pain. “As sad as I was about my dog and upset that I got in trouble,” he continues, “the whole event did teach me many formative life lessons.” His voice goes up an octave.

  “Peter,” I say in a pained whisper. “I’m going to die if you don’t help me.”

  “That’s the aim, honey. I’d say you have about fifteen minutes.” His voice cracks with excitement.

  I need to keep my nervous system as calm as possible to slow my metabolic rate. “Peter. There is still time.”

  “Just enough time for a quick surgery,” he quips. “Much quicker than the ones you are used to. Except for maybe Michelle’s—that one went south quickly, didn’t it?”

  My stomach seizes violently and I cry out in pain.

  “Let’s shed some more light on the situation.”

  In my now very blurred vision, I see his shape walk through the gloom toward the light switch and flip it. I shut my eyes quickly. I feel him standing beside me. I am barely breathing. He leans in closely and I force my eyes open, my vision adjusting slowly and painfully. His face comes into shocking focus before a rocket of pain plunders through me and my sight becomes blurry again. I can barely get the words out. “Oh my God. You?”

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  SILVESTRI

  “Have you turned up Lyons yet?”

  Wolcott’s on the other end of the horn. I’ve arrived at Annie Forester’s place, with no sign of Annie. The house is quiet, and her car’s not in the driveway. I’ve just walked around to the back of the house to get a look, and he’s in my ear. “Lyons ain’t our guy.”

  “Shit. You don’t say.”

  “Yeah, found him at home, just kicking back. He’s clean. Alibi and all. But I did finally get a call back from Stacy Phillips.”

  “Really? Where’s he been hiding?” I approach the back door and peek through the glass inset. The house appears empty.

  “He didn’t get back to us right away because he thought he was in trouble.”

  “Huh?”

  “I guess Brooke Harmon reached out to him, looking for closure. He felt guilty, let it spill that her sister’s case was in fact malpractice, due to Thornton’s arrogance. The hospital was afraid they’d lose their funding, so they pinned it on the anesthesia. That email we read? After Brooke sent that to the rest of the surgical staff, Stacy got a threatening voicemail from Thornton. So when we called, he thought he was in hot water for violating the NDA.”

  “Well, that account puts a different spin on things.”

  “Sure does,” he says. “Oh, and this is curious; at one point in the conversation, he asks about Annie. I guess he was fond of her. I make mention of her having enough energy to run a marathon. He can’t get on board with this being the same person he remembers. Thinks I’m confused about who she is, to the point where he texts me an old photo of the surgical team. Remember how Annie made that comment about watching her weight? Seems to have really paid off.”

  “Oh yeah?” I approach an open trash can, jammed to the brim, and see a box of wine sticking out.

  “She must have lost . . . I don’t know. It’s like I’m looking at a different person, Silvestri. Guess the diet’s working.”

  “Looks like she’s been cheating a bit,” I say, discovering a flattened pint of Chubby Hubby wedged in next to the wine box.

  “I’ll text you a photo,” he says.

  As I look at this woman’s trash, an eerily familiar feeling washes over me. “Wolcott, you remember that chat room exchange?” I say, as much to myself as to him.

  “Huh?” he says distractedly.

  I stare at the box. “I’ll see your box of wine and raise you frozen calories . . .” My eyes move to the ice cream container. “Tonight I’m having a ménage à trois with Ben & Jerry . . .” My mind flashes to the bookshelves in Annie’s office. The Ray Bradbury novels. “I keep thinking about that Disney movie from the eighties, Something Wicked This Way Comes . . . ” The phone dings. I pull it away from my ear and open the text that Wolcott’s sent. I’m looking at Annie, standing among the surgical team. She has to be seventy pounds heavier, with straight brown hair. I’d never recognize her. Suddenly, the rest of the photo goes blurry as I lock onto the necklace she’s wearing—the copper Rod of Asclepius coin I’ve seen recently, hanging around a different neck. My eyes burn, my mind races, and my heart’s in my throat. “Holy shit!” I manage. “Wolcott, it’s her!”

  SIXTY-NINE

  CHARLOTTE

  “It’s me!”

  “Lucy?” I squeak
.

  “Well, I’m not Peter, but I’m thinking you figured that one out.” She is really enjoying herself, as I sink deeper into shock both from the aconite and from the realization that she is even less the image of Peter than I ever imagined. I’ve become very cold even though I am profusely sweating.

  “Does it really matter? Lucy, Peter, MaxineKD and the gang, none of them are me, but then again, I guess they all are, aren’t they? I gave you so many clues and you still didn’t figure it out. My actual name”—she pauses for dramatic effect—“is Annie Forester. Remember me? Surprise.”

  She watches me put the pieces together.

  “Been a while since you thought about me, hasn’t it?”

  I’m struggling to keep my vision focused on anything, but I force myself to look hard. Annie Forester, of course I know her name. The anesthesiologist for Michelle Harmon’s surgery. But this woman doesn’t look anything like her.

  “Maybe if I take my glasses off?” She does and laughs hard. “I don’t really need them anyway.”

  I can start to see some resemblance, if I imagine her with different hair and about eighty more pounds on her. The weight made her look younger, and the drastic haircut and color have transformed her. Now I understand the vast amounts of loose extra skin she was concealing. Even if I had seen that earlier, though, I never would have made the connection.

  She spins around. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? A lot has changed about me since we were in the OR together.”

  I’m gobsmacked and utterly confused about what is happening. The poison in my system is severely impeding my cognitive function.

  “Why, Annie?” I say weakly.

  She reaches behind me and grabs something. She is now standing over me with a McKenzie leucotome in one hand. The sight of it brings me back to the first time I held one by its narrow metal shaft with wonder, before inserting it into the back of a cadaver skull and cutting my first piece of brain tissue. It was simultaneously the most exhilarating and scary moment of my career, until I did the same thing for the first time on a live patient. She sees me eyeing the instrument.

  “It is astonishing what you can find online. You know what else you can find? Geovernment IDs and passports of dead people. Easily doctored.” She winks at me. “I will give you credit for taking a hard line with Peter over giving you proof about his job. The whole secret agent thing was pretty outrageous, but fun as hell to go along with.”

  I am swallowing regularly to keep my salivary glands active and blinking rapidly to keep my eyes alert.

  “The secret flower code was probably my favorite Peter flourish; you were such a sport to go along with that. When I sent the bouquet with Brooke’s credit card after I killed her, I was a little sad because I knew it would be the last one I would get to send. I wanted to make it extra special,” she chirps.

  I am trying not to look directly at the sinister tool she is brandishing closer to my face.

  “Don’t worry, it’s clean,” she assures me.

  I’ve begun to pant, and cardiac arrhythmia is getting more pronounced, which is a sign that my respiratory system is worsening and I’m getting into an advanced stage of poisoning.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I thought I would do a little reenactment of Michelle’s surgery today. A do-over, for closure, you know? But instead of boring old anesthesia, I thought I’d make things interesting with a little Eastern flavor. The ultimate integrative practice. East meets West.” She hums as she rubs the leucotome down with a polishing cloth. She’s fucking insane. I’ll get her to talk about herself to keep her distracted, since she doesn’t seem to be able resist that.

  “Annie, why did you kill Brooke? I don’t understand. She lost her sister, for God’s sake.” I struggle to string the words together.

  “I was trying to help her. I felt awful about what happened to her and her parents. I thought if I couldn’t bring her sister back, I could try and become another sister to her. Before my brother got me sent away, I was a very good sister to him. Because I have compassion, Charlotte, something most people say they have, but don’t actually.”

  She’s talking and scanning the room manically. I don’t interrupt her. As long as she rambles and I keep myself conscious, there’s still a chance that one of the cops outside will realize how long I’ve been out of communication and check in.

  Annie continues. “I reached out to Brooke after Michelle died in spite of that goddamn settlement saying we couldn’t have any contact. I found out which dog park she walked her cocker spaniel, Butter, at and brought my pug, Thor, along. I led her to believe that my brother had died much more recently than he actually had, and confided in her about how much I was struggling, and we became a major support for each other. At first she didn’t know who I was—she never saw me in person the day of the surgery—and we became friendly.” Annie pauses pensively.

  “But once she found out who I was because someone from the hospital recognized me when we were together, she turned on me fast. Because of that lie you all agreed to, she held me entirely responsible. I tried to tell her the truth, but she wouldn’t listen. I would have given all of the money back just to clear ny name. She turned all of her rage and vengeance onto me,” she says dejectedly.

  “You agreed to that settlement too,” I whisper, realizing that Annie is far more concerned with not being seen as making a mistake than with Michelle Harmon’s death.

  “I was bullied into it! Henry Thornton made my life a living hell until I had no choice. When I first pushed back on the settlement, he sent men to my apatment to intimidate me. He only cared about saving himself and getting someone ‘lesser’ to take the blame. No one would have believed that Stacy, a lowly nurse in his eyes, would have any real impact on the patient, so that left me. And of course you enabled him in the lie! You and I both know what happened that day, Charlotte. Michelle Harmon’s blood is on your hands. Not mine.”

  “But so much blood is on your hands now. Brooke’s. Rachel’s,” I cry weakly. Probably mine soon, I think.

  “Brooke brought it on herself. Once Brooke made the connection about who I was, she came at me worse than Henry had. She hated me with a vengeance. She was out of control and looking for someone to feel the pain that she was. Every job I tried to get after that ordeal, she found out about and called my potential employers and told them I was a murderer. I wasn’t even trying to work in medicine any longer, but no one was going to employ me with Brooke Harmon making it her misson to take me out. She got me evicted from my apartment, she spread rumors about me with my friends at the dog park, and then, Thor”—Annie’s voice cracks—“my baby, Thor, died from antifreeze poisoning! I know it was Brooke who did it! And if it wasn’t her, it was that asshole Henry Thornton trying to scare me for contacting Brooke.

  “After that, I had nothing left to lose. Brooke Harmon ceased being that poor woman who lost her sister and became only my contstant abuser in my eyes. I had to put a stop to it. It was self-defense!” Annie is wild-eyed. Her ranting is clearly crazy, but the longer she is talking, the longer it is that she not is cutting into my body.

  “Why did you kill Rachel?” I whimper. “She had nothing to do with this.”

  “She was collateral damage. Rachel was snooping. God, was that woman nosy as hell. I wasn’t planning on it, but she kept digging into Peter and filling your head with doubt and suspicion. She was getting in the way. But she did add some value,” she says, amused. “I mean, the fight at your house alone provided me with so many fun twists. Rachel getting there right after I left the box for you was priceless. And I never could have planned on you leaving your car at the restaurant for me to use!”

  “I don’t understand.” I’m moaning and crying now.

  “I wasn’t planning on going into your house that night, but after I left the box, I had to hide when I saw Rachel riding up on her bike.”

&n
bsp; Every word is sapping me of energy. I’m in agony. “You were in my house that night?”

  “I was there for the whole fight with Rachel.”

  “How? Where were you?” I ask.

  “During the fight I was lying on your bed, actually.” She laughs maniacally. “I was laid out like I was at the beach and I had a front-row seat for your and Rachel’s tiff through the window, which I opened just a few inches, to hear what was going on. And then I hung out under your bed when you came inside. My fear that you would somehow look under the bed and discover me was gone when I realized how tipsy you were. And with the bedroom door open, I had the perfect view of the living room. I let myself out before you fell asleep on the couch.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “And then when the detective came over and you told him that you’d left your car in the parking lot of La Vid, I was struck by a stroke of brilliance. I waited until you’d passed out cold, took your keys and bike, and helped myself to your car. I paid Rachel a visit and then returned your car to La Vid’s parking lot and your bike back where I found it. No one was the wiser! It was like the universe was just laying things in my path left and right to even the score. It was all meant to be.”

  SILVESTRI

  “I think she’s in the office!” I yell into the phone to Smith, who’s parked in the lot keeping watch over Charlotte.

  “Who?” he asks.

  “Our perp is a she!”

  “Ten-four,” he spits back. “We’re on it.”

  CHARLOTTE

  I am stricken with a violent wave of chills and my teeth begin to chatter loudly. Annie is undeterred. “It wasn’t the first time I’d been in your house. It was usually when you weren’t home, but sometimes when you were sleeping I just let myself in. I got curious about you, and it was useful to know things about your life that you weren’t volunteering when I was playing the role of your ‘soulmate,’ Peter.” She makes a gagging sound. “I had to cool it, though, as much of a habit as it had become to invade your space. Obviously, when things heated up with the cops and your mother came on the scene, I had to stay away.” She takes a step closer to me, the end of the metal catching the light.