by Willow Rose
“JOSIE!”
She was getting agitated now, and I took her hand in mine, trying to calm her. It was obvious that I had upset her with my question. She yelled it again, repeating it over and over:
“JOSIE! JOSIE! JOSIE!”
People were turning to look at us, concerned looks in their eyes, some even pulling their children away fearfully. I got up, smiling awkwardly at them, then started to push her back toward the house while she still kept yelling our daughter’s name.
Chapter 20
“She was yelling, you say?”
Jean looked at me over the steaming cup of coffee. After my walk with Camille, I had put her back to bed, where she had finally calmed down and fallen asleep. I needed to get out, so I walked next door and knocked. Jean served us coffee and a piece of chocolate pie she had baked that smelled divine. Two of my favorite things were chocolate and pie.
“Yes, everyone was staring, and I couldn’t get her to stop. I feel terrible for admitting this, but I was really embarrassed. I can’t stand seeing her like this. I hate to say it, but it’s almost like it’s worse than when she was just a vegetable, you know? Now, she’s awake, but not much has changed, really. I still can’t communicate with her, and I can see that she is trying to.”
“It sounds like she was trying to tell you something, and the words just wouldn’t come; her brain wouldn’t cooperate. I’ve seen it before in patients who suffered brain injury. I think she might be trying to tell you something. Maybe you need to give her some time, and then it’ll come.”
She sipped her cup, and I mine while feeling awful in my stomach. Had Camille sensed I was embarrassed about her? Had she simply been frustrated because I didn’t understand her? Was that why she was yelling?
I shook my head. “I’m sorry for coming here like this. You must think I’m…”
“No,” she said, placing her hand on my arm. “I am glad to be here for you. For all of you. You know I am.”
I looked up, and our eyes met. On another day, in another lifetime, I’d have leaned over and kissed her in this instant. Instead, I pulled my arm away and leaned back.
“There’s something else on your mind, isn’t there?” Jean said. “I know you, Hunter. Something is going on in there. What is it?”
I exhaled. Jean knew me so well.
“It’s Josie.”
She sipped more coffee and ate her pie.
“What about her? Is she having trouble?”
I leaned forward, at first debating if I wanted to tell her this, then decided if anyone would understand and wouldn’t laugh at me, it was Jean.
“She started having these dreams. Ever since she got the new heart, she’s made drawings of them. It scared me half to death, to be honest.”
She gave me a look. “Why?”
“Because they showed how Emilia died.”
Jean put the fork down on the plate. “Her donor?”
I nodded. “Yes. You know how her mother drove the car into the water down at the harbor. She’s drawing that, and I don’t know where she got the information. I haven’t told her how Emilia died, have you?”
Jean shook her head. “I couldn’t see why I or anyone would tell her that.”
“And there’s more in the picture than what we know, and that’s what has me puzzled, to put it mildly.”
“What is it?”
“A man. There’s a man standing on the port, up on the dock, looking down at them. Josie says he’s always standing there in the dream, and he scares her. She also says that he somehow made the car fall in the water.”
“I see,” Jean said. “And now you’re worried that maybe it wasn’t a murder-suicide, that it was, in fact, something else, am I right?”
I nodded.
“I fear they were both murdered, yes.”
Chapter 21
“I just can’t understand how on earth Josie would know about this. That’s what I’m struggling with,” I said and sipped more coffee. “I mean, if I choose to believe this, to believe that they were actually murdered, then what do I do next? I can hardly reopen the case based on my daughter’s dreams, can I? They’ll all think I’ve gone nuts. More than usual.”
Jean thought it over for a few seconds.
“It’s actually not that uncommon. There have been lots of reports of organ transplant receivers claiming they seem to have inherited the memory, experiences, and emotions of their deceased donors, even though they never knew anything about them. I know they did a huge research project recently where a doctor found sixty-something transplant patients and collected their accounts. He wrote an entire book about it, which I read; I just don’t recall the title. But it was quite stunning how they had changed in personality, and how they carried memories that, when it was researched, turned out to have belonged to their donors. A woman who had never liked beer started to drink beer and eat green peppers and chicken nuggets suddenly after receiving a heart from an eighteen-year-old man. She kept dreaming about him too and knew his name was Tim and ended up going looking for him. Others say they have suddenly developed a taste for classical music…stuff like that. There was also a girl who was gay before the heart transplant, and after, she wasn’t. I think I have the book here somewhere,” she said and got up. She walked to the living room, then came back with a book between her hands.
“This is the one.” Jean opened it to a page. “Here’s one that is very similar to Josie’s story. This is a woman who says that she dreams about her donor’s accident every night. She says she can feel the impact in her chest as the car slams into her. She also says she hates meat now, even though she loved it before. Here, you can take the book home and read it if you like.”
Jean slid the book to me across the table.
I stared at her, then down at the book in front of me.
“So, it’s really a thing?”
“Yes, Harry. You’re not going crazy, and neither is Josie. The theory behind this phenomenon is that memory is accessible or processed through the cells, and since the heart possesses cells similar to the brain, and it has been proven that the heart sends information to the brain, it may be possible that information about memories and traits may be transferred to the recipient’s brain.”
“So, let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re telling me that heart transplant recipients can receive information through the donor’s heart after it has become part of their body?”
“That’s the theory, yes,” she said, “but read the book and you’ll know more. I found it very interesting.”
Jean looked at her watch.
“Anyway, I should get to work. I have the evening shift tonight.”
I left her house and walked back to mine, book in my hand. I made myself another cup of coffee, then sat with the book in the living room, reading through all the accounts, one after another, startled and pushed in my beliefs of what was possible for the human body. I had to admit, it all made a lot more sense: the sudden cravings for avocadoes and root beer, her sudden ability to draw, and her new-found interest in creepy stuff that she had never had before.
It all made so much more sense.
But it also meant that, if this was true, if what Josie was dreaming actually happened, then somewhere out there was a murderer who had killed Emilia and Jennifer García, and who was getting away with it.
Chapter 22
The rain drummed on the roof of the car and poured on her windshield so hard the wipers almost couldn’t keep up. It was a typical Florida afternoon thunderstorm, and it always clogged the traffic through downtown. People slowed down, some almost till they came to a stop, and now Savannah was barely moving forward.
She looked in her rearview mirror at the car behind her to make sure it kept its distance. In the back, she had her case with her violin. She had been at practice with the orchestra, and now she felt tired. It had been a long day. The kids at school had been impossible. They were so loud, and their instruments sounded awful. There was especially one kid who
always gave her trouble. His name was Jarrett. As usual, he hadn’t practiced for today and kept stopping when they just got into it. He was the only one in class who played the double bass, and that meant he had to know his stuff; otherwise, he threw them all off.
Savannah finally reached the intersection where she had to turn to get to her small street, then drove down the wet road through the puddles. As she parked the car in front of her townhouse, she looked in the rearview mirror again and thought she saw the same car that had been behind her all the way home.
Savannah turned her head to look, but the car continued past her, accelerating down the street, where it took a turn at the end.
“That was odd,” Savannah said and wrinkled her nose. She could have sworn she had seen the same car parked outside her house several times this week. Was it following her? Was someone watching her?
You’re being paranoid again. You’re turning into your mother.
She walked inside and put down her case. She hung her keys on the hook, then walked into the kitchen, where she grabbed herself some water that she drank while looking into the street. She didn’t like it. It had been going on for weeks now, this paranoia, this feeling of constantly being watched.
Maybe she should see someone about it?
Except there was something that made her think she wasn’t completely off, that it wasn’t her going crazy. She knew she had a reason to be cautious, a reason to fear for her life.
Because of what she knew. Because of what she had seen.
Savannah shook her head in distress. She didn’t like to even think about it. It made her so anxious, it almost hurt. Yet, as she stood there in her kitchen, she couldn’t help herself. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t escape the images in her mind…images of the man with the steel-gray eyes and big hands. Of the dead body on the ground. Of the blood on the ground.
Savannah dropped the glass she was holding. It slid out of her grip and fell onto the tiles below, where it shattered. Small pieces of glass were everywhere, and she began to clean them up but cut her finger on one of them. She stared at the blood from the tip of her finger, while images of the body and the blood on the ground flashed through her mind, making her lose her balance. She reached over for the kitchen table and closed her eyes, trying to replace the images with something nice, something pleasant.
She looked over at the violin case, then wiped the blood off on a paper towel, opened the case, and took out her beloved violin. She touched it gently, then took out the bow and placed it on the strings.
She closed her eyes and started to play, drifting off into the world of music. She played like this for hours and hours on end, not even realizing it had become dark out and nighttime was fast approaching. Savannah kept playing, pressing her tears and fears back till her fingers hurt, and she had no more strength in her arms to hold the violin.
Then she finally put the violin down with a loud exhale. She slid into a kitchen chair, thinking she ought to feel hunger, but she didn’t. She was too upset, too exhausted for that.
As she decided to call it a night and turned off the lights in the kitchen and walked to the stairs, she heard a noise coming from behind her. She gasped and looked toward the back entrance leading to the yard. A shadow was standing there, wearing a raincoat. The water from his jacket was dripping on the floor.
Chapter 23
I was up most of the night reading the book Jean had given me, taking notes along the way. There was so much of what these patients said that was similar to what I had experienced with Josie. Mostly the small quirky changes in personality. Yet, I was still skeptical and not completely ready to cry bloody murder. Josie could, after all, somehow have heard about the child and mother being pulled out of the water at the port before she had her heart failure…before she got the heart from Emilia. It happened three weeks before the heart transplant, and she could have seen it on TV or read about it online. Maybe she had even forgotten that she had heard about it.
I did some research online and read up on the details that had been told in the newspapers and on TV from when the car was found in the water. No one had witnessed it drive into the water, but someone at the port, working on a container ship close by, had heard the splash and seen the roof as it went down. He had called nine-one-one, and they had sent in divers to pull Emilia and her mother out. But no one had seen it go in.
At least no one that had come forward.
I dozed off at around three a.m., reminding myself to get some work done on my Four Seasons case the next day. Fowler had called earlier and left a message, asking me how things were progressing. I hadn’t called him back because I didn’t have any news to tell. The case hadn’t been on my mind much lately, but I knew I had to get back to it soon, or Fowler would get in one of his moods and start talking about taking me off it. I needed to prove my worth to him, and that I was still one of the team. It wouldn’t be long before Josie would be back in school, and then I’d be able to get back to work properly. Camille wasn’t as dependent on me anymore, and she could easily spend the hours alone while I went to work. My dad said he’d be able to take her to therapy every day once she started.
I was dreaming of seagulls for some reason, seagulls hovering about my head, trying to grab food from my hand when I heard the scream. I opened my eyes with a gasp, then jumped out of bed and ran to Josie’s room.
Inside, I found Josie sitting up in bed, lights on. She had pulled the covers up over her head, and she was shaking badly.
“Josie? What’s going on? Did you have another nightmare?”
I sat on the edge of the bed. She didn’t answer, just kept trembling. I pulled her covers off, then pulled her into a hug. I held her in my arms, caressing her hair.
“My heart, Dad, it’s racing so fast.”
“Shhh, it’s gonna be okay, sweetie. It was just a dream.”
Josie shook her head. “N-no, Dad. This wasn’t just a dream. You don’t get it. This was…so real.”
“Was it the one where you’re inside the car again?” I asked. “The one from the drawings where the car ends up in the water?”
She shook her head. “No. This one was different. Completely different.”
I nodded. “Okay, and what was it about then?”
She looked up at me, her eyes wide and scared. “A…It was a body, Dad. A body lying on the ground. There was a shot, a loud bang…actually, three of them, and then…there was this guy on the ground with blood around him.”
“Okay? And then what?”
“That’s it. I…I think I know where it happened. I think I know where the body is buried. There was a hole in the ground. Someone had dug a hole.”
“Excuse me?”
She looked down like she was certain I wouldn’t believe her. “I think it’s real, Dad. I have this feeling…”
I didn’t know what to tell her. Did I say that she was nuts? That her mind was playing tricks on her? Or did I indulge her? What if what she was seeing was, in fact, real like the people in the book? Many of them had seen actual events in their donor’s lives, things that turned out to have actually happened.
Was this what it was?
There was only one way to find out.
“Get dressed,” I said and threw a shirt at her.
“Why?”
“We’re going for a little drive.”
Chapter 24
Josie’s hands were clenched tightly around the coffee cup from Starbucks. We had stopped at a drive-through for a couple of necessary lattes and chocolate croissants to help keep us awake. Bugs were dancing in the beam from our headlights of the Chevrolet given to me by the city. I could tell Josie was uncomfortable doing this, but I still thought it was the best thing to do.
We had to know.
“Take a right over there,” she said and pointed.
She had told me she didn’t know the address of the place from her dream, but she knew exactly where it was.
I drove up in front of the City of Mia
mi Cemetery, and she asked me to stop the car. I looked at the sign above the entrance in front of me.
“Here?”
She nodded. “Yes. I remember that sign from my dream. Come.”
I got out of the car and followed my daughter as she walked up to the pavement and continued toward the entrance to the cemetery. She stopped by the bars and the closed gate.
“It’s locked,” she said.
“Of course, it’s locked. Cemeteries are locked at night,” I said. “Says here, it closes at ten.”
She turned to look at me. Her eyes were gleaming in the light from the streetlamp above. A mosquito bit me on the neck, and I slapped it.
“In my dream, the gate was open when the man was killed. He was shot in the head and fell to the ground, limp as one of those rag dolls. We need to get in there.”
I pulled the large gate. “But we can’t, Josie. We’ll have to come back later.”
She shook her head. “No, Dad. I remember it now. I have it fresh in my memory exactly where the hole had been dug in the ground and where the man was shot. We have to do it now. We’ll climb the fence. It’s not that hard, see?”
She grabbed the bars and started to climb, pulling herself upward.
“Josie,” I said. “This is too hard for you. You have to be careful with your heart; you know this. No strenuous activity.”
“I’m fine, Dad, look,” she said as she reached the top of the fence, then jumped down on the other side. I watched her hit the ground, my heart nearly stopping at the sight of her flying through the air and landing in the grass on the other side.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She rolled to the side. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“And your heart? Is it okay?”
“It’s fine, Dad. Geez.”
“Okay, I’m coming in after you.”
