“Horace,” Sam repeated, glancing down at the letter. “Timothy Horace.”
“And when did you say that this consult took place?”
“Last week.”
There was a long silence before the woman spoke again, this time much less pleasantly.
“I’m sorry, Doctor….”
“Perry, Dustin Perry,” Sam said, and then felt immediately bad about it. Then again, how much trouble could Dustin really get into for asking for a phone number? Sam could always change his alias once he got on the phone with Dr. Horace.
“Dr. Perry,” the receptionist continued, “I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. Dr. Timothy Horace retired from practice over a year ago.”
Even though he knew it would out him as someone who hadn’t done his research, Sam couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“I know he still has admitting privileges at this hospital. Is it possible that he still sees some of his patients? Maybe, I don’t know…” What was the term for doing a casual, medical favor? “Off the record?”
“No, doctor,” she said, more bluntly this time. “Dr. Horace had a stroke. I doubt he could see patients, even if he wanted to. If you ask me, it sounds like someone is jerking your chain.”
“Fuck.” That was exactly what Sam had been afraid of.
“Sorry for swearing. Thank you for your time,” he added, and hung up the phone.
Sam stood in the parking lot, leaning against his mom’s minivan as the weather turned from chilly to freeze your face off. His brain felt like partially frozen sludge, but his heart was beating a mile a minute.
“What do I know?” he asked himself. “What can I prove?”
Nothing he’d found out in the past hour amounted to proof, at least not conclusively. But just like before, his instincts were roaring at him that once combined, all of these seemingly unrelated facts would add up to something bad. Something dangerous. And even though he still didn’t know if Viola was a hundred percent sane, he knew now that that she had a genuine reason to be worried.
What was that old saying? It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
Someone was out to get her; that much was clear. Maybe they hadn’t literally tried to smother her, but that didn’t really matter, did it? The end result was the same: someone was trying to make Viola disappear. And whoever it was, whatever they wanted, they were desperate enough to hire someone to pose as a doctor who’d been retired for a year. Just to prove that Viola’s thoughts and memories couldn’t be trusted. To keep people from listening to what she had to say.
Sam wasn’t sure what was worse: the fact that Viola might be right, and that someone might actually be trying to kill her—or the fact that she’d trusted him enough to tell him, and he hadn’t listened.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“The madman is a dreamer awake.” –Sigmund Freud
After checking into the hotel, Viola went straight up to her room and barricaded the door.
Even standing in the lobby, she’d felt like someone—or everyone—was watching her, waiting for her to slip up and out herself as a dangerous psych ward escapee, or hell, even just a garden variety whack job.
But somehow, by some miracle, her legendary Bellerose self-control had prevailed. At least, until she looked down at the roses on the carpet, and it all came flooding in, like a lungful of icy river water.
Reality.
“Étienne, I don’t know why you always insist on booking the most gaudy room in the place, when a smaller set of rooms would work just as well.”
Her mother had been in rare form that day, actually voicing her complaints aloud instead of stewing over them for hours with her usual tight-lipped expression and long-suffering, yet dramatic sighs.
“LeAnn,” her father had rolled his eyes, setting down his attaché case on the table…. Viola opened her eyes, searching the room. That table, over there. He’d set down his ever-present leather briefcase and said…. She closed her eyes and covered her ears, sliding down the wall to the plush carpeted floor, as if blocking out all present-tense sensory input would help her remember.
“This is supposed to be a bone armoire,” he’d said. No, that wasn’t right. Viola rewound the memory again, trying to recall exactly what she’d been doing in that moment. Just like her father, she’d been rolling her eyes, and standing…by the window. Yes, she’d been looking out the window at the streets and cars below. She had been wondering what it would feel like to fall from such a great height, in the same way that all bored people wonder idly about death.
“This is supposed to be a bonne mémoire,” her father had said. Yes, that was it. A good memory. A family vacation. One of the last. But why…why was it going to be the last? She couldn’t remember. She’d never been told. In fact, looking back now, Viola doubted she had been meant to overhear that particular part of this bonne mémoire.
By the time she’d turned away from the window, her mother had locked herself away in the bedroom to prepare for dinner, and her father had poured himself a glass of wine and turned on the television to some design show.
Later, though, just before the three of them had left for dinner, there had been a call to the room. Viola remembered it, because it had come in the middle of a very important conversation. They had been talking about Columbia, about what she would do when she went away to school in a few months. Away—as in away from home—but the way her father had made it sound, she would practically be living on another planet.
“It may be long between visits,” he’d told her, as he reached across the red brocade sofa to touch her hand lightly. “But I will always be at your beck and call, mon coeur. All you ever need do is call.”
Ce n’était pas mon coeur. Viola’s throbbing brain kicked at her. It wasn’t my heart.
“Mon coeur?” She had laughed at the unfamiliar term of endearment. “What happened to mon chaton? Am I too old to be your little kitten, now that I’m going off to college?”
Her father’s skin had paled for a second, but then he’d laughed. Dazzling. What a dazzling smile he’d had. What a blinding, deceptive smile he’d given her that day. And all the while, his heart had been dying slowly inside him.
“Sometimes,” he’d said, standing and sweeping her suddenly into a dance position, “my heart is so full of love for you, mon chaton, that I cannot believe it is not made from you.”
“Oh my God, Papa,” she’d laughed, rolling her eyes in grand Bellerose fashion. They were eloquent to a fault, except when it came to expressions of affection. They rolled their eyes and made sarcastic declarations of bombastic love, loving to make digs at one another in the form of snide commentary. “Sometimes, you are just way too French.”
That was when the hotel phone had started to ring. Her father had picked it up, and listened for a few seconds. Then he’d said two words: pas encore. Not yet.
Later that week, Viola had found herself wondering who the call was from, but her preoccupied mind had promptly moved on to something more pressing—her plans to run away and follow her boyfriend’s band. The rest of her subconscious had been left alone to wonder, why had her father seemed so pale for the rest of that evening?
But had that conversation or that phone call really happened? Or had Viola simply invented the whole day in her mind, a tragic and dysfunctional dream? That’s the multi-million dollar question, a little voice whispered snidely, isn’t it?
Feeling suddenly cold, Viola pulled herself up off the floor and stumbled across the room, kicking off her shoes before crawling into the king sized bed and pulling the fluffy white blankets up to her chin.
They were like clouds, these blankets. No heat could be derived from them, not like the heavy brocade quilt she used to sleep under as a child. They sealed in body heat, which was great, if the person sleeping under them produced any warmth to begin with. As it was, Viola shivered, curling into a ball so as to touch as little of the cold sheets to her cold-blooded skin as possible.
But now, there was no future. There was only this. Fear, and hiding in expensive hotel rooms, with blankets that would never feel quite warm enough.
The bleakness of it all was unbearable, and Viola had never been one to let herself wallow in self-pity. Mustering the last of her strength, she struggled out of bed and emptied the entire contents of the hotel suite’s mini-bar into the skirt of her dress. Then she got back into bed, and opened up the first miniature wine bottle—an unspecified vintage of middle-of-the-road pinot grigio.
“Ceci c’est pour vous, Papa,” she said, and threw it back. Actually, her father would’ve been horrified to see her treat any sang du raisin in such a fashion, mediocre or no. But he wasn’t there, so she finished it with a second swallow and opened up another.
Everything that had seemed so important a few weeks ago was fading to a dull roar.
Meanwhile, every time Viola tried to close her eyes, the little things pricked at her like needles. For the first time, it dawned on her that her parents would never argue politely in front of her, ever again. Her father would never make grandiose descriptions of mundane and silly things, just to give her a reason for an eye roll and un prêté pour un rendu. Her mother would never sigh disapprovingly at something shocking her only daughter said or did.
“And here’s to you, Mother.”
Viola toasted her mother’s memory with a bottle of Heineken, chugging it quickly because her mother had always had a beef with ladies drinking beer straight from the bottle. Afterward, she burped loudly, giggling at her own audacity. Maybe being crazy wasn’t so bad after all, she decided. It was actually shaping up to be kind of fun.
Half an hour later, she was down to the last one—a little bottle of sparkling wine that had been incorrectly labeled as champagne, manufactured by Bellerose Co.’s top competitor. Feeling somewhat proud of herself for remembering such an inane detail about her family legacy—even while horribly drunk—Viola caught her lip between her teeth and focused everything she had on figuring out how to open the tricky little bottle.
When the cork flew off, she actually screamed, but she quickly calmed herself by sucking the foam from the top of the bottle before it could land on the pristine white bed clouds. When the foam had settled, she regarded her last drink as soberly as she could.
“This one,” Viola slurred to herself, “this one is for Sam. We would’ve drunk cheap champagne at our wedding, and Brady would’ve said something embarrassing during his toast, but I would have loved it.” She hiccupped, suddenly feeling a return of clarity, and dreading it. “I mean, I would’ve loved you. Possibly forever.”
That, ironically, was when the fourth stage of grief—depression—finally made its appearance.
For uncountable hours, Viola sobbed fiercely into a pillow, only pausing long enough to draw breath, blubber nonsensical apologies to her dead parents, and dial Sam’s cell phone and hang up several times, before she eventually passed out.
***
I’m drowning again.
The cold, grey water is rushing in all around me, from places I can’t see. It’s ridiculous, but I try to reach out and stop it with my hands. When that fails, as it should, I try to get out. But I can’t get out. The windows are fogging up on the inside, even as the water runs in around the cracks.
Naturally, I panic at first, but then I eventually give up and let myself drown. Thoughts go through my head, not thoughts of panic, but of anger.
You’re so stupid. How could you not have seen it? This is your fault.
You deserve to die. This last comes from another voice, from the man sitting in the car next to me. I know that he’s right, at least partially. I might not deserve to die, but I don’t deserve to live, either.
But I can’t die. I close my eyes and will myself to live, to fight. I’ve never fought before, but this time I have to. For myself. For him. For the future I don’t deserve, but desperately want.
Because I never told him, and he has to know. He deserves to know.
Sam, I love you.
“Were you waiting for someone?”
Suddenly, I’m back at the bar. Or the warehouse. Whatever. Irritation fills my mind. I’m waiting for Aiden to come and take me away, and he hasn’t even bothered to show his face.
But that isn’t right. It’s not Aiden, after all. It’s never been him.
“Yes,” I say, looking up into Sam’s eyes. This time, I can see them with full clarity, all the shards of green and gray that combine to form such a dazzling kaleidoscope of warmth and love. I’m waxing bombastic, I know, just like my father. But I don’t care. “I’m waiting for you. I’ve always been waiting for you, Sam.”
Sam smiles, and the blue neon light catches his face in such a way that I’m momentarily distracted. I follow the glare across the room, and I’m staring into Uncle Jack’s face. I realize now why I didn’t recognize him before—it’s not the face I’ve seen almost daily since I was a child. This version of Jacques is contorted, livid with anger and jealousy.
“You deserve to die,” he hisses, turning into a snake, yellow, but bathed in neon blue light. With the two colors combined, he almost looks green: jealousy, I think. He wants what I have. What I’ve always had. He thinks I’m ungrateful, a disgrace. And maybe he’s right.
“Finish your drink,” he says, slithering toward me through the gyrating forest of strange limbs. “It’s time for you to go.”
I reach down to pick up my wine glass. I raise it to my lips. It looks like wine, but smells like blood.
The scene shifts, and I’m back in the car. Now it isn’t water rushing in around me, but wine. Warm, fragrant wine that smells of cedar and spices. But that’s strange, because everyone knows that wine barrels should be made of oak. Smoke from a cigar drifts across my face, and I breathe it in, choking on the noxious purple fumes.
That’s when I realize my car sits above the river, not in it. I’m waiting, suspended, while someone straps me inside. I don’t struggle, because I can’t.
“Shhh…” he says. “Just close your eyes and go to sleep. T’endors, mon chouchou.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m alone in the car. My eyelids are heavy. It feels like I’m being gently rocked to sleep.
I’m falling.
***
Viola sat up with a start, feeling like she’d been tugged free of the nightmare just before it had a chance to reach its conclusion. For some reason, that last little detail seemed terribly important. But then she blinked, and it was gone.
Disappointment clutched at her chest, and she realized that the nightmares would never be over. She would be plagued by that night, by her doubts, for the rest of her life.
Reaching up to rub the sleep from her eyes, Viola realized the room had gone dark. Her throat felt like it was on fire. When she moved to get out of bed, to get some water to drink, she was startled by the sound of clinking glass. Empty bottles littered the blanket, at least a dozen of them.
“Your father would be ashamed to see you in such a state,” he said.
Viola froze, still tangled in the blankets she’d been trying to escape. Fear, coupled with confusion and recent sleep, caused her mind to revert to a childlike place.
“Uncle Jack? Is it really you? How did you get into my room?”
“No, mon chouchou,” he told her, standing up to flip on the bathroom light. “You are still asleep. All of this is just a dream. Soon, you will wake up and everything will be the way it should be.”
“Oh.”
Viola sat back against the pillows, regarding him curiously. In this dream, Uncle Jack looked very different. His eyes were bloodshot, and in the harsh yellow light from the bathroom, the lines on his face stood out like creases in a badly sculpted mask.
Uncle Jack smiled, and Viola felt suddenly uncomfortable. Something about this sce
ne was off, but she supposed that was how it had always worked with these dreams. He turned and picked up the leather attaché case that was leaning up against the chair he’d been sitting in.
“I’ve got a present for you, mon chouchou,” he said. “Don’t you remember how I always liked to bring you sweets? You were so agreeable then, as long as someone catered to your every whim, of course.”
“I remember,” Viola told him. “But my mother made me stop taking them from you. She was afraid I would get fat.”
The smile on Jacques’ face died instantly. “Yes, LeAnn always was such a stupid, vain woman. It’s amazing you’ve got even half a backbone, as it is. But then, I suppose you must have inherited that from Étienne.”
The way Jacques said her father’s name, it was almost like a prayer. Especially when compared to how he spoke of her mother, with undisguised disdain. And how he used mon chouchou—my pet—the nickname he had for Viola, which she’d always secretly hated.
As Viola watched, he pulled a bottle of wine out of the bag. It was one of theirs, a 1986 cabernet sauvignon. She told him as much, thinking Jacques would be pleased that she recognized the label.
“Very good,” he said. But his voice was condescending. He took a folding cork puller from his pocket. It was a mark of his trade, the fact that he always carried it with him. Just like her father had done, when he was alive. Strange—she was dreaming. In theory, her father should still be alive, or she should at least be able to blink and will her father back to life.
Viola tried it, closing her eyes and mustering all of her thoughts into a single image of her father. Nothing happened. Instead, she opened her eyes again at the sound of a cork popping from the neck of a bottle.
“This is a very special bottle,” he told her, in that same sickeningly oily voice, as he filled a glass from the dresser. “If you drink it all up, you will close your eyes and fall asleep.”
Just close your eyes and go to sleep. T’endors, mon chouchou.
Wake for Me (Life or Death Series) Page 27
