Fractured Memory

by Jordyn Redwood

  Eli focused on the mountains as he thought about her request. It was his favorite time of day when the sun drifted down below their peaks and shadowed them in varying hues of blue—almost flat. The view was deceptive. It made the grandeur of the mountains seem like a young child’s painting.

  What Eli was becoming more aware of from being in close proximity to Julia was how the traumatic things he saw affected him and how much he worked to deny it. Finding Julia so close to death had marked a point in time for him—an emotional burden he carried. Was he unwilling to allow her to suffer more pain just to save himself?

  “Okay, I’ll call someone I know. She retired last year, but is well respected in the field of forensic examination. I trust her.”

  “Great. It’s settled, then.”

  Why was his heart dying when it was the happiest she’d been all day? “I’ll call her tonight and see if I can get something set up for the morning. Let’s get you home so you can get some sleep. See if we can have two uneventful nights in a row.”

  * * *

  Julia relished being home. Even though just a few days had passed since she was here, it felt both foreign and welcoming at the same time.

  “Everything checks out. I promise.”

  “Thanks, Ben,” Julia said. “For everything. If you two don’t mind, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow, I need to call to get replacements for my credit cards since my wallet is underwater. Who’s up for going to the DMV with me?”

  “I’d be happy to, Julia,” Eli said. “Right after we meet with Dr. Powell.”

  “Dr. Powell?” Ben asked.

  “Julia thought it would be a good idea for someone to jog her memory. Since she’s been remembering some new details—why not see if a professional could help?” Eli said.

  Ben frowned, looking at Julia. “You’ve been through so much, and memory is a tricky thing. What you remember might not be the truth, and we don’t want to contaminate the case with any unnecessary details.”

  “Eli’s already expressed his concern about it. I want to help get a quick resolution to this case. If you don’t take me, I’ll drive myself there.”

  A rush of tension burned in Julia’s chest. The feeling wasn’t unfamiliar to her. It was a rare event to confront a physician about an order that could harm a patient, but she felt the same in those instances as she did now.

  Don’t. Mess. With. Me.

  She turned on her heel and marched up the stairs into the quiet cavern of her bedroom. After lighting several candles in her bathroom and soaking in the tub for a good thirty minutes, she started to feel the tension ease from her muscles. She dressed for bed and turned on her bedside lamp and pulled the covers down. From the bottom of the bed, she grabbed the black leather Bible that Eli gave her.

  At first, a moment of grief washed over her as she opened the unmarred, crisp pages. All her notes, highlights, little doodles were waterlogged fish food. So much of her young life had been marked by grief. In her profession, she dealt with death—children dying, no less. Not daily, but too much. The loss of her memory. The loss of feeling safe and protected—and the hope that she and Eli could see if they were a good match together. Was she so broken that no man would ever want to be with her? The death of her parents. Not being able to contact her grandfather. Her Bible.

  She opened the Bible to the New Testament and began to read, but frustration overwhelmed her.

  A genealogy for Jesus. And hers was...severed.

  She yanked open her nightstand drawer to pull out a package of gel highlighters. There were several notebooks there. As she rustled around, she found the journal where she’d make notes about the patients she’d cared for. Despite the potential patient privacy violation, it was a way for her to process the emotions she couldn’t convey at work and no one knew about it or ever saw it.

  No one appreciates a sobbing nurse who can’t do her job. This is a way to safely decompress.

  Setting the Bible aside, she grabbed the journal and opened it up. Some pages were wrinkled from her tears as she wrote about the death of a patient. She looked over some of her early entries from nursing school and smiled at what a novice she had been. One of her first patients on the medical unit was an elderly woman contracted into the fetal position and whose mouth gaped open but never spoke any words—her body ravaged by a stroke. Julia had stood there for the longest time trying to figure out how to get the blood pressure cuff on her arm when it was bent at ninety degrees. When she tried to ease the leathery muscles straight—it was evident the arm was not to be coaxed into any different position. Not knowing what else to do, Julia went and got her clinical instructor, who, without any qualms, threaded that blood pressure cuff around the elderly woman’s arm and got the reading in about thirty seconds.

  After reading a few entries, Julia got brave enough to look at the months that led up to her attack. Were there any clues here that could help her tomorrow during her interview with Dr. Powell? Would it be possible to recall these events, or was her mind so fractured that her past was inaccessible?

  Journal entries from two months before her attack.

  A newborn with sepsis. One of the most difficult cases to manage as a nurse in the pediatric ICU. So much needed to be done to save the baby’s life. Multiple labs. Trying to ease tiny catheters into threadlike veins. This particular newborn, a baby girl just three weeks old, had rapidly deteriorated and been placed on a breathing machine.

  Warm softness eased through Julia’s body. In the middle of that crisis—of that baby almost dying—she remembered the respiratory therapist assigned that day. Brin was her name. After they had stabilized the patient, Brin placed her hand over the baby’s forehead and said the sweetest prayer.

  Lord, I ask Your blessing upon this child. That You would heal her tiny body. That You would let her grow up to experience the splendor You have created for her here. Amen.

  Julia had been jealous of the freedom Brin had in expressing her faith at the bedside. What she had done had been a dangerous thing—if the family complained, she likely would have faced disciplinary action.

  Brin.

  Joyful. Full of life. The best, most sarcastic sense of humor.

  Short. African American.

  Julia pictured the woman in her mind. Her heart began to race. There was something her fingers itched to remember.

  The hit package.

  Julia threw her bedcovers aside and raced down the stairs in time to see Eli headed out the door.

  He wasn’t going to say goodbye?

  “The hit package!” Julia cried. “I need to see it.”

  Eli walked back into the house. “Why?”

  She implored Eli with her eyes. “Do you have a copy? Please, I need to look through the pages again.”

  Eli shook his head. “Not on me. Ben?”

  “Sure—in my briefcase. Hold on.”

  Ben left Eli and Julia alone in the foyer.

  “You were going to leave without saying goodbye?” The lump in her throat made it difficult to say the words in the nonchalant manner she wanted to present.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that would be important to you.”

  Why should it have been? Eli had made it clear they were only to interact in a professional way. Even then—it would have been polite to let her know. And what—was Ben staying overnight? Even though he’d spent most of the day there?

  “I just thought...” She shook her head. Why get into this now? “You never told me what time I needed to be ready to meet this doctor in the morning.”

  “Right. We’ll need to leave here by eight.”

  Ben handed her the manila envelope, and she opened it and skimmed through the pages. The photos that Eli had shown her of the other victims weren’t there.

  “I need to see the photos...of the other victims.
”

  Ben shrugged. “I don’t have a paper copy. We can probably find them on the internet.”

  Eli pulled his phone from his jacket and a few finger taps later he handed it to her. She scrolled through the faces.

  Brin.

  Julia thrust the phone toward Eli with Brin’s picture. “I know her. We worked together.”

  Eli took the phone from her. “She’s a respiratory therapist, but Children’s didn’t have any record of her being an employee.”

  “Then you didn’t ask the right people or the person you talked to didn’t know what he was talking about. She was from an agency—not employed by the hospital, but contracted to work for Children’s when we were short-staffed.”

  “I don’t know how this pertains to what’s happening now,” Ben said.

  Eli put the phone back in his pocket. “I disagree. We didn’t really know how the victims were tied together other than they were all medical professionals. We thought that was perhaps Dr. Heller’s type, and he chose them based on that.”

  “And now?” Julia asked.

  “If you know this person and you worked together, then perhaps we’ve thought about this case the wrong way. Maybe you weren’t chosen by the Hangman because you were a medical professional, but based on where you worked. That would make more sense as far as his hunting ground goes. We know you and Mark Heller worked together, but we didn’t find a significant tie to the hospital with the other victims. The victim found in Wyoming totally threw us off.”

  Eli scratched his head. “What this tells me is that we need to go back and verify whether the link could be the hospital and not just some random choosing of health-care workers like we thought before.”

  Ben smiled. “Good work, Julia. Did you suddenly remember this?”

  “I used to keep a journal of the patients I cared for. I know with patient privacy and all that I probably shouldn’t, but it’s a way for me to process what happens.”

  “How long have you kept this journal?” Eli asked.

  “Since I started nursing school.”

  “And when did you stop?”

  “The day I was attacked.”

  “You didn’t keep journaling when you went back to nursing?” Ben asked.

  “Maybe I was dealing with too much just trying to survive the day to think about processing anything extra.”

  “Julia, would you mind if I looked through it tonight?” Ben asked. “I’ll be up anyway and I’ll see if I can find any more clues that could give us insight into your case.”

  Instinctually, she resisted Ben’s suggestion. Of course, she wanted to do whatever she could to help solve this case. To get her freedom back. But there was too much there—her soul bared on the page. What would he think of her?

  No, it was too much to ask.

  “I’ll—”

  “Julia, it’s okay. I can see your reluctance.” Eli turned to Ben. “Let her look over it, and I’m sure she’ll let us know if there’s anything relevant. Tomorrow, after your appointment, we’ll see if we can tie the victims together. Okay? Are we good here?”

  Julia was. The look on Ben’s face suggested otherwise.

  TWELVE

  Julia laid in bed watching the soft breeze caress and curl her curtains with a playful whimsy she wished she could swallow up to ease the pressure she felt in her chest. She missed Eli. Missed everything about him. His quirky half smile. The glimmer of his blue eyes. The feel of his soft lips against hers. Was there any hope for the two of them? Perhaps that was the benefit of her case going unsolved—she and Eli could be together. Even if they couldn’t be together in the way she was beginning to dream and hope for.

  Without warning, a concussive blast wave tore through the room. Heat surged on Julia’s face before the sound of the explosion hit her eardrums. The rupture of light confused her. Shards of glass raked across her face as if she’d been slapped by a cactus.

  She bolted up in bed. Wind blew unencumbered through her broken bedroom windows, her curtains in shreds from the glass that tore through the thin fabric propelled by the force of a fiery air mass displacing the quiet of the night. When Julia glanced out her window—all she could see was red-hot angry flames consuming the house next door.

  Ben crashed through her door and ran to her bed, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her from the warmth of her covers.

  Her mind reeled back to a moment in time she didn’t want to relive. The same crash of a male form through her door and grabbing her—overpowering her and knocking her backward onto the floor, then...

  She cocked her arm and with all her might swung her fist into the man’s jaw.

  This will not happen to me again.

  The man backpedaled, rubbing his chin where her fist met his flesh. “Julia! It’s Ben. The house next door...”

  Julia brushed her fingertips over her face, collecting warm thick fluid. She blinked several times and came back to the present. “What’s happening?”

  Ben approached her more slowly, his hands raised yet reaching for her. The light from the flames next door illuminated the room enough that she could see Jace enter her bedroom, as well. “There’s been an explosion. The house next door—is just gone. We need to evacuate you.”

  Julia’s adrenaline-laced mind tried to make sense of what he was saying.

  Her heart hammered in her ears.

  Were her neighbors home?

  Julia raced past the two men. She could hear Jace talking into his wrist mic behind her—notifying whoever was on the other side to dispatch 911 to their location. She heard Eli’s name in the litany of commands he listed off with hastened breath. Julia’s feet hit the steps, and she missed the last one, falling hard on the landing on her knees and elbows. Plywood still covered her picture window. As she clambered up the door to release the lock, Ben dropped his body weight on her legs—trapping her.

  Bile raced up her throat and filled her mouth. Her mind switched to her old house. A shadowy figure trapped her legs there, too. She kicked, hard—a foot getting loose and connecting with the man’s face.

  “Julia, what is the matter with you!” Ben yelled. “We need to evacuate.”

  She scrambled to her feet, swallowing several times to clear the cool rush of saliva from her mouth. She threw the dead bolt open.

  “You can’t go out there without us.” Ben reached for her, and she backed up to the door.

  Jace cleared the staircase. Julia turned and yanked the door open. After rushing a few steps outside, she saw Mrs. Jones and her son, Levi, lying on their front lawn.

  Even at this distance it felt as if the flames would melt the flesh from her bones. Charging past Ben back into her house, she rushed into her kitchen and grabbed a toolbox from underneath her sink.

  What it contained was a far cry from the hammer and screwdrivers most men carried—it was her personal trauma kit, and she needed it now.

  Ben rushed in behind her and blocked her from exiting the kitchen. His chest heaved. “Julia—you have to listen to me. I don’t want to detain you, but you’re not leaving.”

  You’re not leaving.

  Those same words. How was it possible? Julia withered to her knees, her body shaking so badly she couldn’t make sense of what was happening.

  Whatever caused the explosion next door—it was triggering memories from her attack. She pulled the toolbox toward her and stood up on shaky legs. “I’m going next door. You and Jace can either help or get out of my way. If you detain me, I’ll hire a lawyer and file charges against you. I’m not your prisoner!”

  Ben’s eyes widened. He tossed his hands in the air and stepped aside. Somehow, even with jellyfish legs, she rushed by him and down her porch steps.

  She positioned herself between Mrs. Jones and her son and threw the lid open on her
first aid kit. Levi—the definition of a towhead blond if there ever was one—was crying, his hand clutching a piece of glass that punctured the right side of his chest. His mother lay crumpled on the ground next to him, unmoving.

  Julia placed a calming hand on his forehead. “Levi, it’s Miss Julia. Is your dad home?”

  He threw his head side to side—the pain a muzzle to his words.

  One good thing. If someone was still inside their house, they would be beyond rescue.

  “I’m going to help you, but I need to check on your mom first.”

  He continued to cry. Ben and Jace hovered next to her, uncertainty clouded their faces. Jace had a gun drawn and scanned the area like a hawk looking for prey.

  “Ben, you’re a certified first responder, right?”

  He nodded and kneeled down next to her.

  “I need to get her on her back so I can see if she’s breathing, but I need to protect her spinal cord. Can you help me logroll her?”

  Julia scurried to the woman’s head and placed her hands on either side of her neck. Ben reached across her body and placed a hand on her hip and shoulder.

  “On three.”

  Ben nodded and Julia counted out loud. In one seamless motion they eased her onto her back. Blood dripped from the woman’s ears. Julia settled her cheek over her mouth. A soft, panting breath puffed against her skin. She placed two fingers in the side of the woman’s neck.

  A pulse was present.

  “She’s breathing with a decent pulse. Not much we can do for her until rescue gets here.”

  Walking on her knees to Levi, she grabbed a pair of trauma sheers from her first aid box. Quickly, she cut up the middle of his shirt and through each sleeve and lifted the fabric from his chest. A large glass shard was embedded in his chest on the right side—near the base of his lung. Blood oozed at a steady pace from the wound. Julia threw on a pair of gloves, handed a set to Ben and grabbed a package that held several square pieces of gauze.

  “Put the gloves on and then place these around the glass and press. We need to control the bleeding.”