What She Saw

by Sheila Lowe

  “All six hundred of them.” Claudia scooted her mug to one side. “The box was on the porch when Joel and I got back from Ventura last night. I started going through them right away. I figured Jenna’s sample would be on the bottom, but wonders never cease—it was near the top of the stack.”

  From the folder she withdrew two sheets of paper, one of which she showed Zebediah. “This is the sample you’ve already seen; the one she wrote for me here last Saturday.”

  He took a long look at the small printed writing.

  “It looks lonely and shy,” he said. “I remember you said it indicated insecurity and avoidance of reality.”

  “Yes. It’s not the writing of a weak person, but there are some deep problems with her ego. I would hazard a guess that she suffered some kind of abuse early in life. Not necessarily sexual, but her ego was battered. More like neglect or abandonment.”

  She offered him the second sheet. “This is the sample she wrote at the convention.”

  Zebediah Gold took the paper and looked at the two lines of handwriting. He looked over at her, his eyebrows raised. “This is a completely different style.”

  “Yes it is, my dear doctor,” Claudia replied. “Well-observed.”

  “I don’t have to be a handwriting expert to see the obvious, sweetie. The one from the convention is larger, it’s got loops, the words are spaced close together.”

  She smiled. “Good job.”

  “You’ve taught me enough to know these differences indicate widely varying styles of functioning.”

  “They do indeed. The printed one—let’s call it the Jessica sample—as I’ve said, shows an insecure loner. The cursive one, which we’ll call the Jenna sample, is a more outgoing person with a strong need for love and affection. She’s softer than what we see in Jessica. See how this t-cross bends in a cup shape? She’s easily led and it’s hard for her to say no if someone she looks up to or perceives as stronger wants her to do something. Her writing is also quite neat and regular, a perfectionist.

  “And she’s more emotionally dependent. In its way, despite the ego problems, the Jessica sample is the stronger, firmer, more self-reliant.”

  Zebediah scratched his beard, taking in what Claudia had told him. “In a fugue state where the patient has memory loss they may take on a new identity, as Jessica seems to have done.”

  “And experience a complete personality change.”

  He nodded. “Like a mini case of Dissociative Identity Disorder. And if the personality changed, the handwriting would, too, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes. But there are two other points of note that I haven’t mentioned yet.”

  “Okay. What are they?”

  “Jessica is left-handed. As you know, handedness can’t be identified conclusively from handwriting, but there are some indicators. For example, she crosses her t’s from right to left, as lefties often do. In the Jenna sample they’re crossed from left to right. And look, it’s noted on her sample that she’s right-handed.”

  “I see,” said Zebediah. “What’s the other point?”

  Claudia put the two handwriting samples side by side on the counter top and tapped them with a fingertip. “Where two very different-looking writings are done by the same hand, I would expect there to still be some subtle similarities.” She looked over at Gold. “I don’t see any here.”

  t w e n t y - f i v e

  Jessica Mack sat on the concrete, smothering under a blanket of darkness.

  Once her circulation had returned to normal and her fingers obeyed, she tore off the watch cap. But even without the foul thing blinding her, she was able to see nothing but a faint sliver of light outlining the bottom of the door.

  The only sound that reached her ears was the distant hum of machinery. The faint smell of pine cleaner burned the linings of her injured nose. Where was she—some kind of janitor closet?

  “Hello?” she called in a thin whisper. “Is anyone here?”

  No answer. All at once, all of the fear, the grief, the pain she had been holding inside overflowed. Jessica stopped trying to be brave and gave herself over to the spate of emotions that rose up and overwhelmed her.

  I don’t want to die for something I don’t even know about.

  You don’t remember your useless life anyway.

  I could make a new life.

  Not now, dumbshit.

  The malignant voice carping at her was almost welcome. At least it was company

  How pathetic, talking to yourself.

  Well, maybe I won’t bother if you’re going to be so damned critical.

  The tears finally eased. Sick of keening alone in the dark, sick of crying and feeling powerless, Jessica licked her fingertips and rubbed her face on her sweatshirt sleeve.

  Doing what little she could to wipe away the sticky blood smeared on her upper lip was a momentary distraction, anyway.

  When she had done all she could, she half-crawled over to the door, her knee protesting every flex of the joint, she stretched out flat and laid her cheek against the concrete. The half-inch of space below the door offered a view of unfinished floor.

  Fighting to ignore the pain in the various injured parts of her body, she got to her feet and rested her hands flat against the wall. The light switch was easy to locate next to the door, but when she flipped it nothing happened.

  Where were her captors? Were they even now discussing her fate with whoever had sent them to take her? And who was giving them orders? Not Simon. He had been too worried when he thought Christine Palmer had hurt Jenna. Palmer herself? How was she involved in Project 42?

  As long as they didn’t know where the Project 42 files were, she might be able to buy some time—for what? She wasn’t naive enough to believe she would be allowed to go free. What could be so important for her to have risked her job, her life, ended her relationship with Simon to hide it?

  If she could just remember what Project 42 meant.

  To what lengths would they go to make her tell them what she knew—which was nothing. And once they got her to confess what she had done with the downloaded files, what then? Whatever choice she made was going to be a no-win for Jessica Mack.

  I am so screwed.

  Don’t be such a defeatist.

  Keeping the fingertips of her left hand in contact with the wall and stretching out her right arm, she took a step into the dark space. Empty air.

  She limped four steps to the right and came to the first corner. Made a right turn. Eight paces to the next corner. Right turn. Six paces. Corner. Right turn. Eight paces. Corner. One pace. The door. In her entire circuit of the perimeter, she had encountered nothing but bare concrete walls.

  Move farther away from the wall.

  I don’t want to.

  A flash of memory. A skinny blonde child, maybe four or five years old, shivering on the deck of a backyard swimming pool. Lowering clouds, a sharp breeze. Not a good day for a swim.

  A tall, dark-haired woman yelling: “Go on, Jessie, jump. Don’t be so stupid, you big chicken.” The little girl started crying that she was scared, that she didn’t know how to swim. She shrank away from the water, but with a cruel laugh, the woman gave her a push that sent her belly flopping into the deep end. The water closed over little Jessica’s head and she inhaled a big swallow of water. Choking...

  Grownup Jessica came crashing back to the present.

  I’m still afraid.

  So why don’t you stay there hugging the wall, stupid! Just stand there and wait for them to come back and kill you.

  I’m not stupid! Stop saying I’m stupid.

  She repeated it out loud. “I’m not stupid. I’m Jessica Mack and I’m an adult now.”

  With those words she recognized that something significant had happened. Her memories of her past were still just as missing, but she had accepted her identity and all that it meant. Like wrapping herself in a tattered old coat, the sensation was not especially comfortable, but there was a familiarity in it.

&
nbsp; Feeling her way back to the wall opposite the door, Jessica slid to the floor and sat on Farley’s knit cap to provide a little insulation from the cold concrete. Grateful for her sweatshirt, she hugged her knees and fastened her eyes on that little sliver of light under the door.

  How long would they leave her here? Were they going to come back for her at all? Or did they intend to let her starve to death and return one day to collect her remains? It shouldn’t take all that long, she was already pretty thin.

  She imagined what it would be like to gradually waste away. How long would it take? Two or three days for the onset of severe hunger pangs gnawing at your stomach. You could go without food for weeks, but you had to have water. How long for your flesh to start to shrivel from lack of hydration, your organs to begin to desiccate?

  The grisly images helped her fend off the other thoughts scratching the edges of her consciousness. Thoughts of a perfect little boy with black curly hair and mischievous eyes that reflected the fierce love she had felt for him.

  A love that had not been fierce enough to save him.

  Time was the enemy, sucking at her like quicksand, dragging her under, one wretched second after another. In this place as dark as her thoughts, she found herself drifting in and out of a half-dream state. Impressions, fragments of memories, thrust their way to the surface.

  She was sitting in an old rocking chair, a tiny bundle in a blue blanket cradled in her arms. Baby eyes gazed up at her, possessed of some secret knowledge of a centuries-old connection to her.

  She had held him close to her heart and promised that she would always love and protect him. A promise too soon broken.

  Her mind slid away from that image and went to the accident. Once again she was staring through the windshield into the emptiness that waited over the edge of the cliff. Rolling and rolling. Her son’s whimpers were the last thing in her ears before she lost consciousness.

  The first break-in. In the Escondido apartment, sitting at her computer, talking to—no, wait, that wasn’t right. Jessica snapped to full wakefulness. Bagshot and his flunkies had invaded the Ventura apartment both times, not Escondido. And in none of her nightmares had she been talking to anyone. To whom had she been speaking? Someone on the phone?

  Web cam.

  She heard the words in her head as plain as if they had been spoken aloud. They made no sense, though. She had run from the apartment “like a bat out of hell,” according to her neighbor, Peyton Butler. Why would she go to Ventura and speak to someone there on the web cam? Who? Not her husband, Greg; he was already in jail. Simon? That didn’t jive with her waking up on the train.

  The more she thought about it, the more confused and agitated the questions left her. Unfolding from a position that had grown cramped and stiff, she pushed herself to her feet and groped her way across the room. Battering at the door with the side of her fist, she yelled as loud as she could: “Let me out! Goddamn it, let me out of here!”

  She yelled until her throat was raspy, but nobody came to tell her to stop. Nobody came for any reason.

  Jessica pressed her hands to her temples. How long would it take to go crazy under these conditions? Would you starve first or would you lose your mind?

  Left alone in the dark with nothing to do but imagine the gruesome things that were going to happen to you, she put her money on losing your mind.

  She considered saying a prayer, but even with her memory gone, something told her that she had not prayed in a long time. Why would she? If God had not heard her prayers to keep her baby safe, how could she expect him to save Jessica Mack from this hell?

  t w e n t y - s i x

  Finally, through the silence, the sound of hydraulics reached her ears.

  Had she been in the dark place for ten minutes or forty? Two hours or twenty? The sensory deprivation gave her no means to gauge the passage of time.

  Part of her wanted to shrink into the corner and find a place to hide, but another part refused to allow it. In that other part, defiance had formed into a mass as solid as concrete. Whatever her jailers were going to do to her, she intended to face them head-on.

  When the footsteps in the hallway stopped, she was standing in front of the door. A key turned in the lock.

  After hours in the dark, she had to squinch her eyes against the light in the hallway. At first she could not discern the shadowy figure in the rectangle of the door frame, but it was not nearly large enough to be Bagshot or even Farley.

  It was a shock when Kevin Nguyen’s voice spoke. “Why is it so dark in there? My God, what did you do to her? Are you people crazy or something?” The BioNeutronics Director of Security drew a sharp breath. “Holy crap, what happened to her face?”

  “She tripped,” Bagshot lied.

  “You idiot!” Nguyen turned back to Jessica and spoke to her in a soft voice. “Are you all right?”

  All the tears she had shed had not begun to touch the deep well of rage, which gushed up like boiling lava.

  Jessica launched herself at Nguyen, pummeled her fists against his scrawny chest. “Do I look all right?” Hysteria choked her voice to a near-squeak.

  The security chief stumbled backward, his horn-rim glasses clattering to the concrete. Bagshot stepped around his boss and grabbed for her, but Jessica was too quick for him this time. Her fingernails raked down his cheek, the satisfying wetness of his blood letting her know that she had hit her mark.

  Bagshot’s hand went up to his face. “What the fuck—bitch!”

  Putting all her strength into it, she drove her knee into his crotch. He doubled over, clutching his genitals. Straightening, his look held murder.

  Kevin Nguyen shouted, “Stop!”

  Bagshot gave Jessica a rough shove against the wall and took a step back. He extracted a handkerchief from a pocket and held it to his bloody face.

  “The young lady has a right to be upset,” said Nguyen. He picked up his glasses and wiped them on his suit coat before sliding them back onto his nose. “You go away now. I need to speak with her.” He flapped his hands at the big man like an old washerwoman shooing geese. “Go on, you go. Wait for me outside the med suite.”

  Without speaking a word, Bagshot spun on his heel, an obedient soldier obeying his superior officer, and marched down the narrow corridor, his massive back stiff with anger.

  When he was gone, Kevin Nguyen spoke to Jessica in a quiet voice, as if he feared that a louder tone might set her off again. “Please. You must be calm now. I’m sorry for what happened to you. Please come with me.”

  “Come where?”

  Still vibrating with emotion, Jessica pulled away from the helping hand he tried to put under her elbow.

  “To my office. It’s along the hallway here. It’s not very fancy, but...”

  “Fine. Just get me out of here.”

  If they were close to Nguyen’s office, they must be in the BioNeutronics basement. This was a vastly different section than the one she had visited last week when Simon Lawrie had called her down to the lab. Here, the walls and floors were unfinished. Galvanized air conditioning duct work ran overhead along the ceiling. Nobody would ever have thought of looking for her here.

  Jessica followed Nguyen a few yards down the corridor to a locked door. “What time is it?” she asked.

  He consulted his watch. “Seven twenty-three.”

  “Morning or night?”

  “Morning.”

  “What day?”

  He turned a curious look on her. “Tuesday.”

  She would not have been surprised if the security chief had told her it was Wednesday night. It seemed unfathomable that a scant five and a half hours ago she had been lying on her bed, trying to deny the information Detective Jovanic had brought her.

  Nguyen’s office was a windowless utilitarian room. Jessica could not see what was on the screens, but four computer monitors claimed most of the space on his wide metal desk. She guessed they allowed him to keep an eye on the comings and goings of employees aro
und the building.

  Against the back wall an old filing cabinet and a small refrigerator were both stacked high with folders.

  The lone guest chair was piled with magazines and files, DVDs in handwritten jewel cases, and a video camera. Nguyen flashed tobacco-stained teeth at Jessica in a self-deprecating smile. “I’m getting too old for all of this. Maybe time for me to retire soon, eh?” When she failed to reply, he stooped with a grunt and moved the contents of the guest chair onto the floor, making room for her.

  Grateful for the padded seat after the unyielding floor, Jessica sat down and glared at him. “Let’s finish this.”

  “Yes,” Nguyen said. “Let’s.”

  He rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his gnarled hands under his chin, regarding her with a solemn expression. “First, you have my deepest apologies for Mr. Bagshot’s behavior. He stepped beyond the boundaries of his authority and his instructions.”

  “Ya think so? They broke into my apartment in the middle of the night, destroyed my things. They kidnapped me, beat me up—” Jessica started getting worked up afresh. “Look at my face!” She had not seen the damage, but the throbbing in her cheek made her wonder if it was fractured.

  Nguyen shook his head. “It was a terrible misunderstanding. I will see to it of course that anything that was broken is fixed.”

  “Some things can’t be fixed,” Jessica retorted sharply, thinking of the ruined relics of her past that Farley had left littering the apartment. Maybe someday she would remember what they had meant to her and be able to properly mourn them.

  “Don’t worry, you will be well compensated. However...” Nguyen’s pretense of sympathy slid away, supplanted by something far less agreeable.

  Alarms went off in Jessica’s head as he sat back in his chair clasping his hands together in front of him and cleared his throat.

  “There is still the matter of missing files that Mr. Bagshot so overzealously attempted to recover. The fact is, you did download proprietary information from a workstation here at BioNeutronics. You can’t deny this.” He tapped the monitor closest to him. “The evidence is in here. Now, you must tell me what you did with the information that you acquired. Who did you sell it to?”