What She Saw

by Sheila Lowe

  His eyes held curiosity and concern, but he did not press her. Letting go of her hand, he tipped his head toward Jenna. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “I don’t know.” That was only half a lie. They did not know what had been done to her, but without a doubt she had been experimented on in a way that affected her behavior. Jessica wrapped her arm around her sister’s shoulders and drew her to her feet. “You’re sure we don’t need the fire department?” she asked Zach.

  He shook his head. “Leave it to me; I’ll open up the doors and windows, get this smoke out of here, and I’ll get the burned stuff out to the patio.”

  Jessica gave him a tremulous smile. “Zach to the rescue again.”?

  Guiding her twin like a life-size doll, she walked her past the sodden lump of books that were already wicking up the water that pooled on the tile. A filthy, stinking mess.

  Jessica sat her unresisting sister on the toilet lid. She cleaned the streaks of soot from Jenna’s face and hands and legs, murmuring to her as if she were telling the truth that everything would be okay. Just as she had with her son.

  And all the while Jessica worked, Jenna chanted in a sing song whisper, “Burn it down. Burn it all. Burn it all down.”

  t h i r t y – four

  They were separated in age by ten minutes, but Jessica had always felt like the much older sibling. She knew this because during the night, while she kept a vigil over her twin, some important chunks of her memory had re-emerged from the black hole into which they had disappeared. But for all the painful facts and details she could now recall with aching clarity, nothing in Jessica’s past could have prepared her for the situation in which she now found herself.

  What had Raisa Polzin and her comrade done to Jenna during her ten day absence at the lab? Looking down at the features so very like her own, Jessica considered her sister’s bizarre behavior. Jenna had always been the good twin; the one who was eager to please and do what it took to gain approval and acceptance, especially where men were concerned. Her sudden changes of emotion the day before, the way she had yelled at Jessica, was as out of character as a bunny attacking a tiger.

  Jessica had assumed it was the aftereffects of the trauma and the anesthesia Jenna had been given over so many days. But setting the fire took it to a whole new level.

  As soon as her head hit the pillow, Jenna had lapsed into a deep, coma-like sleep. As the hours passed, too keyed up to sleep, and afraid of what her twin might do next, Jessica sat beside her and waited for morning.

  She could never have handled Jenna and called 911 at the same time. Zach seemed to have a talent for being there when she needed him.

  Listening to him mopping up the mess in the other room, she thanked their guardian angel, or whoever was watching over them, for his fire extinguisher and his readiness to help.

  When the cleaning noises in the living room ceased and Jessica heard the door close, she tiptoed into the living room. Zach had done what he promised and hauled the mess out to the patio. He had left the kitchen window and the sliding glass door to the tiny patio open to allow the noxious fumes to escape, but the place still reeked of smoke and wet pulp.

  Jessica checked the damage, which was relatively minor and confined to the living room. Charcoal burn marks blackened the ceramic flooring and the leather skirting of the loveseat was scorched. Thank God no one had been hurt.

  Except Jenna.

  Jenna woke at seven, asking about the nauseating smell that permeated the apartment. Beside her, half-dozing, Jessica roused herself. “You don’t remember?”

  “Remember what?”

  “Setting fire to the living room.”

  Jenna sat bolt upright in bed, staring at her with wide, uncomprehending eyes. “What?”

  “You. Set. The. Living room. On. Fire. You don’t remember any of that?”

  Jenna slowly shook her head. “I remember being exhausted last night. We went to sleep and I just woke up. You’re serious?”

  “Believe me, I’m totally serious. Thank God Zach heard the smoke alarm.”

  “Holy crap. I set fire—what the hell’s wrong with me?”

  “Isn’t it obvious they did something to you? We can’t fight BioNeutronics on our own. We have to let Dr. Gold help us find a neurosurgeon or...”

  “I know. You’re right, but I—” Jenna stopped mid-sentence. She dove out of bed and dashed to the bathroom. The sounds of her vomiting made Jessica a little green herself.

  Waxy-faced and shivering, Jenna lurched back into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. “My head hurts. My stomach feels like hell.”

  “It’s a reaction to the drugs and then the smoke,” Jessica said, doing her best to hide her rising fear. What was happening to her twin?

  Jenna buried her face in the pillow, her words muffled by the soft down. “I feel horrible, Ariel.”

  “Ah, Belle, I’m sorry. Want me to brush your hair like when we were kids? You always said it made you feel better.” How comforting it was to have an old memory to call on.

  “Yes, please, Ariel.” Jenna curled onto her side and drew her knees up to her chest the way she had while she slept. “I’m so scared. I don’t know what’s happening to me. Something’s wrong inside my head.”

  Jessica fetched a hairbrush from the bathroom and began to draw it through her sister’s shoulder length hair with smooth strokes. “We’ve got to get out of here this morning. We can drive down to my place. I want you as far from BioNeutronics as we can and get you some help.”

  “We have to go see that guy who left the study—Matthew Casey. All those other people who dropped out are dead.”

  “He’s on the way to Escondido. We can stop in and see him and—what’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

  Jenna reached a hand up and touched a spot near the top of her skull. “It’s very tender right here. It feels like a bruise. Can you see anything?”

  Remembering how she had asked Dr. Gold to do exactly the same thing, Jessica knelt on the bed with a spooky sense of déjà vu.

  She gently parted the hair on Jenna’s scalp. What she saw turned her blood to ice. “There’s a little area that looks like it was shaved—the hairs are shorter there—but it’s well hidden. It almost looks like an insect bite in the center. I mean, it’s not, but it’s sort of a pinpoint red spot.”

  Jenna twisted around and stared up at her in anguish. “Oh my God. Oh my God, Jessica! That’s what Kevin Nguyen was talking about—the experiment. They’ve implanted the device in me! They made me act crazy. They made me set the fire.”

  For the second time, Jenna scrambled out of bed and made a mad dash for the bathroom. But this time there was nothing left but dry heaves. Tears were streaming down her face when she returned.

  “What are we going to do, Jess? I have to get this thing out of me.” She seized her head with both hands as if she would like to rip it off her neck. “What else are they going to make me do?”

  Jessica limped over to the closet and pulled out her backpack and a small suitcase and tossed them onto the bed. “Pack some clothes, Belle. We’ll leave right now. We’ll visit Matthew Casey, but I think we need to get to my apartment and finish checking out the Project 42 files.”

  First, they would have to buy a new laptop to replace her wine-soaked one, but that seemed of little consequence compared with what was facing her sister. “We should call Detective Jovanic,” Jessica added. “He’ll know what to do.”

  Jenna, feverishly plucking clothes from dresser drawers, made no argument. “Let’s get out of here now. We can call him from the car. We have to go!”

  Jessica was in the kitchen putting food into a bag to eat on the road. A moan from the bedroom sent her rushing back. “Belle, what’s wrong?”

  Jenna was doubled over on the bed, clutching her stomach, her face pinched with pain. “Cramp. Ah man...hurts.” The cramp held on for about sixty seconds.

  Jessica felt helpless, the way she had while she’d been imprisoned in the basement, a
nd she hated that feeling. She said, “When we get away from here, we’ll find a hospital and...”

  Jenna, who was pulling on a pair of jeans, threw her a look of incredulity. “And do what? Tell them I’ve been implanted with some kind of microchip without my permission and it’s making me act like a wacko? Might as well say I was abducted by aliens. We don’t even know what the device is supposed to do. It’s sure as hell not programmed to make me have better sex.”

  “The implant will show up on a scan.”

  “No scans! The specs said a CT scanner or MRI could cause severe burns around the implant.” Another cramp overtook her then and she rolled into a ball on the floor, rocking herself.

  Jessica stepped around her and unplugged the flash drive from the computer. She dropped it into her backpack and finished packing their clothes. The sooner they got on the road, the better.

  They took the 101 south. No meandering along the Coast Highway today.

  A couple of times Jessica glanced in the rear view mirror, but the car she thought might be following them hung back, making it impossible to know for sure. She did not tell Jenna that she had noticed the same white sedan a few cars behind them almost from the time they had left the apartment.

  More than likely it was a coincidence, but she kept a careful eye on the vehicle until it exited at Van Ness Avenue in Sherman Oaks.

  She drove fast, eager to get out of Ventura and closer to their destination. Jenna’s cramps were worsening and Jessica intended to take her to a hospital when they got to the Venice area, whether she wanted to go or not.

  They were merging onto the 405 when Jenna’s cell phone rang. The ring tone was a song called Just Can’t Get Enough by The Black Eyed Peas. “It’s Simon,” she said with a shamefaced duck of her head.

  “Don’t tell him anything. Remember, he thinks you’ve been at work for the last two weeks.”

  Jenna answered the phone. “I’m not coming in today, Simon. I’m sick.” Her face crumpled, as if hearing his voice was too painful for her. “Why don’t you listen? I told you I don’t want to see you anymore.... I can’t do this, I—” She closed the connection and set the phone in the cup holder between them.

  “I’m sorry, Jess,” she sobbed. “I’m such a screwup. I know I should never have gotten involved with—” Jenna broke off with a soft groan, rocking her body back and forth.

  Jessica glanced over and saw a dark stain spreading high up on the leg of her twin’s Levi’s, confirming a suspicion that had been forming. “Oh, Belle, you’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

  “Two months. I wasn’t sure, but—”

  Jessica finished the sentence in her head. Not anymore.

  By the time they arrived at the emergency room at St. John’s Medical Center in Santa Monica, Jenna’s skin was sickly white and she was hemorrhaging. Against her protests, the on-call doctor admitted her for observation. He had wanted to examine the injuries to Jessica’s chin and cheekbone, too. She looked like somebody’s punching bag, but she ignored his pointed inquiry and suggested he stick to taking care of her sister.

  Jenna’s cold hand squeezed hers with a desperate pressure. “You have to keep the appointment with Matthew Casey. You have to go as me.”

  Jessica squeezed back to remind her that they were together in this, wherever it led. “Yes, Belle, if you want me to, I’ll keep the appointment.”

  “Find out what happened to him, please.”

  The hospital was less than ten miles from Matthew Casey’s house. Leaving a change of clothes from Jenna’s suitcase, Jessica promised to return to the hospital later and fill her sister in on her meeting with the one surviving volunteer who had left the BioNeutronics program.

  She left a voicemail for Detective Jovanic to call her back and headed south on Lincoln Boulevard. On the way, she detoured at a CVS and purchased some heavy pancake makeup designed to camouflage serious blemishes.

  Everything about Matthew Casey was average—build, hair color, looks.

  He was the type you passed on the street and never noticed. Even his modest home was indistinguishable from its neighbors, which was saying a lot, since homes in Venice tended to be unique.

  Jessica’s first glimpse of him was one brown eye, peering out at her with suspicion through a small grate in his entry door. He just stared at her, waiting for to speak.

  She had practiced aloud the alias Jenna had given him over the phone the day before so that it would come out effortlessly. Still, Jessica found she was nervous anyway. Doing her best to keep the quaver out of her voice, she said, “Mr. Casey? I’m Mary Jones from BioNeutronics. We spoke on the phone yesterday.”

  Matthew Casey’s spoke almost in a whisper. “Show me some identification. Hold it up so’s I can see it.”

  That was something she hadn’t counted on. Luckily Jenna’s employee ID badge was in Jessica’s pocket, where she had left it out of habit. She fumbled it out and flashed it at him, making sure to cover the name “Jenna Marcott” with her finger.

  Casey flicked a look at the photo of Jenna, then looked at Jessica. “Your hair’s different,” he said.”

  She gave him a bright smile. “Yes. I just got it cut last week.”

  Apparently satisfied with her answer he opened the front door a crack and stuck his head around it. He gazed over Jessica’s shoulder with anxious eyes and looked up and down the street as if searching for someone. Not seeing anything suspicious, he opened the door a little wider and allowed her to squeeze past him, locking it behind her as soon as she was inside.

  His clothing was as average as he was: off the rack light blue Oxford shirt, fastidiously tucked in; tan slacks, brown loafers. His skin was pallid, as if, despite living close to the beach, he spent most of his time out of the sun.

  Jessica followed him along a short hall to an office-cum-den at the rear of the house. The small room, which had undoubtedly been a second bedroom in a previous incarnation, had the appearance of a solitary man’s abode. Forty-six inch TV, red plaid sofa, a well-worn recliner. A laptop computer sat on an ottoman in front of the chair.

  “We can’t be seen from the street back here,” Matthew Casey said in a low voice that sent a shiver up Jessica’s back.

  “Are you worried about being seen?”

  Casey went over and closed the laptop so Jessica couldn’t see the website he had been viewing. He indicated that she should seat herself on the sofa, while he took the recliner.

  “They’ve been watching me,” he said. Had his eyes always darted around the room the way they did now, as if he were on high alert for danger? Or was it his experience with BioNuetronics that had left him hypervigilant? Jenna had said the volunteers were all screened for mental health issues.

  “What makes you think you’re being watched?” Jessica asked.

  Casey stopped his surveillance of the den and tapped the top of his head. “I can feel it here.” He zeroed in on her. “Why are you here, Mary Jones? What do you want from me?”

  Jessica, already suspecting that she had entered the presence of a nut job, gave him the warmest smile she could muster.

  “We like to follow up on people who are released from the study, see how they’re doing.”

  “I already signed all your papers. I took your damn payoff.” Casey’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not going to complain to any authorities about what happened to me. So what I want to know is, why would you care now how I’m doing?”

  “We do care, Mr. Casey. Can you tell me about your experiences with our lab? This interview is confidential and independent of the research project. I don’t have your records. I do know that you left the study early.” Jessica knew she was taking a chance with this approach, but something in his face told her it had been the right thing to say.

  “You don’t know what happened to me?”

  “No, I’d like to hear your story. How long did you participate in the study?”

  He hesitated. “I lasted three weeks.”

  “Can you tell me what happ
ened?” Jessica prompted when he didn’t continue.

  “I—I—” Casey’s breathing quickened. “After the implant....”

  “Was there a problem with the, er—insertion?” She couldn’t think of what else to call it, but he shook his head.

  “No, that was totally painless. For a few days, I even thought I might be one of the placebo subjects—you know—where they didn’t do anything but made you think they did? They told me that was a possibility when I signed up.”

  Jessica understood that in pharmaceutical research a certain number of anonymous subjects were administered a placebo instead of the genuine drug. “Did you meet with a psychologist at the lab before entering the study?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah, I sailed right through that,” There was a degree of pride in the way he said it. “No problems there. I never had any of those kinds of problems before.”

  Jessica waited a few seconds, noting that his forehead a fine sheen of perspiration had broken out on his forehead. He took a folded paper towel from his shirt pocket and patted it dry.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Casey?”

  “Call me Matt.”

  “Okay, Matt. Would you like me to get you a glass of water?”

  In obvious discomfort, he dabbed the paper towel against his neck. “No. Let’s do this.”

  “Okay, you were telling me about your experience after the implant.”

  Casey sat silent and unblinking, his eyes suddenly as empty as a hologram on pause. The seconds stretched out.

  Jessica’s heart rate picked up as she waited for him to say something, His blank expression reminded her of the way Jenna had looked when she was looking for the matches and again, after the fire. After thirty seconds had passed in silence, she leaned forward. “Matt?” Jessica prompted.

  Casey seemed to catch himself, frowning at her with an expression of puzzlement. “Uh, why am I talking to you again?”

  “I’m following up on the BioNeutronics study,” Jessica said, enunciating her words carefully.