“I’ve been through worse. I’ll get over it.”
Kathleen nodded and made a few scrawls on the notepad she kept. “Let me explain what our purpose is here today so we both have the same expectations.” She set her pen down and squared her gaze on Julia. “Eli tells me that you want to undergo a forensic interview to help you remember details of your attack.”
“Exactly.”
“Have you ever been through anything like this before?”
“No.”
“You didn’t partake in any sort of counseling after your attack?”
Julia shook her head. “I didn’t have any memory of it, and I was too busy trying to rebuild my life to take the time to do it.”
“Eli tells me you think you’ve remembered some details.”
“He’s right, but I can never really see the attacker’s face. That’s what I’m hoping you can help me with.”
“Before you started to get these flashes of your assailant, do you think you’ve had any mental health issues that pertain to this traumatic event in your life? Anxiety? Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder?”
Julia’s neck ached. Was she truly ready for this? “I don’t like to be restrained or confined. Really tight places give me the creeps.”
“That makes sense to me on several levels.”
Julia settled her hand over her throat. “Can we just focus on why I’m here?”
Kathleen set her pen down. “Considering your circumstances, I am willing to do that, but I want to encourage you to see someone when this crisis is over—and it will be over. I have every faith in Eli that this man will be brought to justice. But I think for you to be whole again, it would be helpful for you to confront what’s happened. Even though your memory is patchy, this incident had a heavy emotional impact, and managing that will only make you stronger.”
Julia considered her statement. Health-care professionals were the worst at caring for themselves, and Julia was no different. “I will. I promise.”
Eli returned to the small living room. “All clear. Where’s the best place for me to be?”
“Can Eli stay?” Julia asked.
“Yes, with your permission, but I’ll only allow it if you don’t censor what you’re going to say. If you feel like Eli’s presence will inhibit our goal for today, I’ll put him elsewhere.”
Julia knew in her heart that she could be open in front of Eli. Above everything else, she didn’t want to hide anything from him. “It’s better for me if he’s here.”
Eli bowed his head and took the chair next to Kathleen.
“And, Eli—you need to be silent. I don’t want you putting any extra pressure on Julia to come up with an answer. We don’t want her mind filling in any details that aren’t true in an effort to be helpful to the police.”
“Understood.” He smiled at Julia. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
“Great. Julia, what I’m going to do is walk you through the attack, but we’re not going to start on that right away. I’d like to start with the week before this incident. Let’s get your memory warmed up, primed to this time frame. What do you remember on the days leading up to this event?”
Julia snuggled into the corner of the couch and grabbed one of the throw pillows to hold in front of her body. “I remember it was a hard week at work.”
“How was it difficult?”
“I was working in the pediatric ICU then. We had a run of deaths. Some odd things had been happening in the unit over the last several months and there was a feeling among the nurses that we had a black cloud hovering. We were waiting...”
Julia’s voice trailed, her mind drifted back to those beds. The children she had cared for. “Waiting for what?” Kathleen asked.
“For the third death,” Julia said.
“What does that mean?” Kathleen asked.
“Deaths usually come in threes.”
Kathleen nodded. “So there were two previous deaths close together?”
“I don’t know how to explain it. We had our usual code events. Children we tried desperately to save but, in our hearts, knew the probability of their survival was nil. These incidents, though hard, were expected and easier to deal with. But we’d also had a run of what the hospital terms sentinel events.”
“Explain that to me.”
“A sentinel event is a patient death that occurs in the hospital as the result of a medical error.”
“And there had been two such deaths?” Kathleen clarified.
“Yes. All this is confidential, right?”
“Absolutely. You can talk about your patients here.”
Julia glanced Eli’s way. “Same here,” he said.
“One patient, a preteen around twelve, died from equipment failure.”
“What type of equipment?” Kathleen asked.
“His ventilator malfunctioned. It was a new type the hospital was trialing. The machine delivered successive breaths without allowing the air to come out and it blew out both his lungs. He never recovered.”
“The other incident?”
“A medication error. A patient received a fatal dose of potassium.”
“How did that happen?”
“A nurse placed an incorrect weight in a patient’s chart. She accidentally entered it in pounds instead of kilograms, making the child significantly heavier. When the doctor placed the potassium order, the pharmaceutical safety systems that catch potential medication errors didn’t trigger because the dose was correct for the inputted weight, but toxic for that child.”
“What was the staff feeling?”
“Horrified. Uneasy. We were all feeling scrutinized. The administration was on the unit all the time. Lawyers became involved in each of these cases. I cared for the boy who died as a result of the ventilator malfunction during the shift when he succumbed to the complications of that event and I knew I was going to face a deposition in the case—at some point.”
“Whether or not you felt responsible for this boy’s death is not the reason you’re here today—we’ll set it aside for now, but I want you know that I think it’s a worthy avenue to explore.”
The pressure within Julia’s chest rose. Even if she wasn’t directly responsible for the boy’s death, she had been his nurse, and nursing was all about advocating for patients. Nursing wasn’t about being doctors’ handmaids and blindly carrying out their orders. Part of her job was educating families about the doctor’s medical plan and helping families weigh the choices presented by the doctor, then circling back to the physician with any concerns the family had.
“What were the deaths that happened just prior to your attack?”
“One was related to child abuse and the other a child with a malformed heart.”
“Expected but tough.”
“Always.”
“Before we get into what happened on the day of your attack, Eli explained to me that you have amnesia related to your brain being deprived of oxygen as a result of the hanging.”
Julia pulled her knees into her chest. “That’s right.”
“To me, it explains the period of amnesia after the injury—when you were so sick in the hospital and into some of your rehab time. But your mind was fully functional when this person came into your house, correct?”
“That’s true, but—”
Kathleen continued. “I know the brain is the organ we understand the least and amnesia is even trickier, but what I will say is that I believe you have a full recording in your mind as to what happened during this event and there may be several factors as to why you’ve closed it off, but it’s there.”
Julia tried to swallow over the lump in her throat. All the bravado in the world could melt away when someone was confronted with what they had promised to do—no matter how since
re they were at the time.
“Let’s start with what you remember about that day.”
“I just got up and was getting ready to work my third day shift in a row. It was around five o’clock.”
“Did you have a routine that you followed before work?”
“I would usually do some devotion time and then get in the shower.”
“Is that what happened on this day?”
Julia closed her eyes. She’d just come downstairs, dressed in her scrubs, about to put her shoes on... “I got a phone call.”
“From who?”
“A neighbor. Harriet Wilson. She’s an elderly woman who lived next door to me.”
How could Julia have forgotten this?
“What did she want?”
“Eggs.”
Kathleen scratched a few notes on her pad. What could be so important about eggs? “Was it unusual for Harriet to call you?”
Julia smoothed her hands over her face. “She had some health issues. I was helping her—keeping tabs on her. I’d shovel her walk when it snowed. Make sure she was okay when it got too hot. That sort of thing.”
“So she’d call you on occasion with these sorts of requests.”
Julia reached back in her memory to her interactions with Harriet. Most often they discussed Harriet’s medical problems. An issue every nurse faced was people offering too much personal information about themselves. Harriet didn’t have any close relatives. Her siblings were dead, and she never married.
Harriet wasn’t a woman to bake or cook...ever.
“My neighbor never asked me for ingredients before. I’m not sure she could cook. Plus, it was early in the morning and she was a late riser.”
“Did Harriet request anything else?”
“She said she’d walk over and get them.”
Another odd statement. Julia’s eyes searched Eli’s—it was as if he was keeping them directed away from her, trying to diminish his presence.
“Harriet had dysfunctional mobility. She could walk with assistance but rarely ventured from her house. Her church was delivering meals, and every so often, I’d run by to see if she needed any food. I always bought things that were easy to put together. Cereal. Sandwich makings. Microwave dinners. Definitely not the healthiest, but I knew she wouldn’t starve.”
“What happened after the phone call?”
“Someone knocked on my door.”
Kathleen looked at Eli, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Was his being present too much for him? Or was he feeling what she now knew—that the person at the door wasn’t her neighbor? That it had all been a ruse?
“You said someone, but you were expecting Harriet. Why do you think you said that?”
Julia folded her hands together, bending her fingers back to help ease the ache that spread from her neck all the way down her arms. She couldn’t differentiate if the increasing pain was soreness from the car accident or physical distress at confronting this emotional trauma. “I was surprised.”
“At what?”
“That she could make it to my door so quickly.”
“Were you feeling anything else?”
Julia saw herself walking to her front door. The impatient, successive knocks. Relentless pounding. “I’m scared.”
“Why?” Kathleen asked.
Julia became light-headed. The sound of blood rushing in her ears like a tornado she couldn’t stop.
Just breathe. You can do this. You have to do this.
“Can you feel your feet on the floor?” Kathleen asked.
Julia pressed her feet into the carpet.
Stay here. Stay in this moment. He can’t hurt you.
She wanted to look at Eli but couldn’t let herself fall into that emotional well of confusion.
Lord, You are the only one right now who can help me do this. Help me remember. Help me stop this person so I can have my life back.
Kathleen’s voice. “This is a safe place, Julia. Nothing bad is going to happen to you here.”
Julia exhaled slowly. “I’m thinking it’s not Harriet at the door.”
“What else?”
“I’m calling out Harriet’s name, and she’s not answering me. But this person will not stop knocking on my door.”
The pounding in Julia’s temples matched that sound—the echo like a cannon firing. She pressed her fingers to her forehead to counteract the pain.
“Breathe with me, Julia. In through your nose like you’re smelling flowers and then exhaling through your mouth like you’re blowing out candles.”
Julia hadn’t realized how quick her breathing was, but she felt the tingle setting into her hands from hyperventilating. She closed her eyes and did as Kathleen instructed. “I go to the door. I’m thinking maybe something happened to Harriet and someone else is trying to get help for her, but...”
“What are you physically feeling?”
Julia pressed her hand against her chest. You have to stay in this moment. You have to open this door. You have to see who it is that almost killed you. “My heart is racing. I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“What happens next?”
“I grab the key and put it in the lock, turn it and put my hand on the doorknob.”
“And?”
“A man shoves his way into my house. I’m so close to the door that it knocks me over.”
Julia’s eyes popped open, flitting around the room until locking with Eli’s.
“You’re okay, Julia. I’m here,” Eli said. “I’m not leaving you.”
His reassurance gave her strength in unexpected ways. There’s nothing I can’t do as long as he’s with me. What happens when this time is over and he has to move on? Can I bear it?
“I try to crawl away, but this man is grabbing at my legs and pulling me toward him. I break free once and try to stand, but my socked feet slip on the hardwood floor—”
And then, just as quickly as Julia felt strength, it leached from her like sand through water. Pain flared in her chest like a lit piece of dynamite. Her breath came in short staggered gasps. She grabbed her knees and lowered her head, trying to convince her body what her mind knew, and she began to rock.
Your heart is not dying. This is just a panic attack. You can...no you will overcome it. You have to get control back. Lord, give my mind peace—let me see his face.
Eli stood from his chair and faced Kathleen. “She’s been through enough. You have to stop. It’s too much.”
Through the noisy rush of static in her ears, Julia could hear Kathleen’s voice, quite a bit lower than Eli’s, pulling her from the throes of fear her body has trapped her in.
“Julia, slow your breathing down. This is not happening now. Just freeze the picture in your mind and slow down what’s happening. What does the man do next?”
Julia clenched her teeth and slowed the scene down—advancing it frame by frame.
In between strobe-like flashes she got glimpses of her attacker’s features. Striking green eyes. Long, dark hair tied back in a ponytail. Never one clear look at his face. He made one final grab for both her legs and yanked her backward. Her fingers clawed into the floor—and then he planted both knees in the middle of her back. She tried to twist her body to throw him off, but he inched higher—her arms unable to reach and grab any part of him.
Then a rag was smashed to her face—a sickingly sweet smell. Julia slithered her hands underneath her and in one last attempt to save her life—she pushed up and threw him to the right, into the wooden spindles of her staircase, but then blackness tunneled her vision.
“That’s the last I remember.”
Julia placed her elbows on her knees and smoothed her hands over her face to coax her heart into beating at a slower rate. Eli stood from his cha
ir and neared her, placing his hand on her back and rubbing her tense muscles.
His touch was exactly what she needed. The faint sound of a phone vibrating pulled his spare hand to the inner pocket of his suit jacket for his phone.
“What is it?” Julia asked.
“They found him—Ryder Dymond. He’s in police custody.”
FOURTEEN
After the interview, Eli knew exactly the next step he needed to take, but he also knew Julia needed a break. He had taken her out for some distraction to the only place where he could unwind after a long day—an ice cream parlor. Giving her space to decompress after her forensic exam was just as important as letting her in on his game plan.
Julia sat before him, more playing than eating her mint chocolate chip with a hefty dose of fudge smearing the top. In her eyes, he could see the blackness that consumed her during her retelling of her attack still lingering. She settled her hand on the table, and he clasped his hand over hers, caressing the back of her hand with this fingertips.
“What are you thinking?” Eli asked.
Julia sniffed hard, pulling her hand away and grabbing her napkin to wipe her nose. “Just what a miserable failure I am. My big plan to help break this case wide-open didn’t do you any good. I never got a good look at his face. Or if I did it’s frozen and my mind won’t let me remember it.”
Eli pushed her ice cream bowl to the side and grabbed her hand, pressing it between his own. “That’s not true. You don’t know how valuable the information is that you shared.”
“How can you say that?”
“I want to propose a plan to you. I’ll need your help, but I think it will help us find out who this man is.”
Julia looked skyward, her eyes closed. “Eli—”
He wanted to press her fingers against his lips, kissing them once with all the tenderness he felt in his heart. Could one kiss portray all that he felt toward her? He resigned himself to the fact that he was emotionally over the cliff for Julia, but if he could keep those feelings from spilling over into a physical expression, then maybe he could keep it hidden from her. With every ounce in him he didn’t want to cross over his professional ethics again like when he’d kissed her at the doctor’s cabin—at least until this case was over—but he knew his toe constantly broached the chalked white foul line.
Fractured Memory Page 14
