“Hello, can I help you?” she asked, greeting Mary.
“Yes, thank you. I’m here to see Sue Bales.”
The receptionist looked at her screen. “Ah yes, you must be Mary Creece.” She typed something into her computer and stood up. “If you’ll please follow me,” she said, with a polite gesture. She led Mary through the open area, past several glass-fronted offices. Upon reaching the wall, they turned right and headed toward the far corner office.
The receptionist knocked gently on the door that read “S. Bales” and stuck her head inside to make sure she was ready for Mary.
A moment later, Mary walked in with a smile on her face as Sue Bales rose from behind her desk. “Mary!” she cried, and came around to give her a hug.
“Wow, look at you!” Mary replied, squeezing her tight. “I like the new location.”
Sue shrugged. “Ah, we pay too much for it, but it has a nice view.” She motioned at the floor-to-ceiling glass windows behind her.
“Not bad. How the heck have you been?” Mary glanced around the rest of the office and noted the two walls with tall bookshelves behind her, packed with large, thick medical books and journals. Some were so wide, she wondered how the bindings were strong enough to keep them together.
“Good, how about you? How’re Rick and the boys?”
“They’re great,” Mary said, smiling again. “How about you guys? I was expecting to have to meet you at a soccer game.”
“Nah,” Sue laughed. “Johnny stopped playing when he got to high school, and Kelli discovered boys about the same time.”
“Oh, dear.”
Sue rolled her eyes. “No kidding. Come on, have a seat.” She pulled out two chairs from in front of her desk and turned them to face each other. “So to what on earth do I owe the pleasure? It must be important if you drove straight down here; not to mention you sounded a little cryptic on the phone.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be. I’m just trying to figure something out and was hoping I might be able to get your help.”
The two women had been close friends since their nursing school days together. But not long after graduating, their careers parted ways when Sue realized she’d made a mistake. Nursing was not necessarily her forte, but something else was: research, medical research to be exact. And not medical research as it was known today, such as developing new drugs.
Even before she quit nursing, Sue had developed a peculiar habit of finding arcane details relating to rare illnesses: facts that ultimately saved several lives, but also embarrassed some very prestigious doctors. Shortly after one doctor was almost sued as a result of her research, Sue was officially encouraged to pursue those skills outside her nursing career, or somewhere else entirely.
However, Sue soon found a match made in heaven—medical litigation. She’d been at it ever since, and her reputation for finding obscure and often case-winning facts was downright legendary.
After catching up, Mary explained in detail Evan’s strange experiences and the frightening symptoms she had witnessed in him just hours earlier. When she described what Evan claimed to see during the experience, Sue leaned forward with deepening interest.
She raised her eyebrows, intrigued. “He saw the paper and the writing on it?”
Mary nodded with her own look of amazement.
“And how low did this kid’s temperature get?”
“Ninety-six.”
“Wow.” Sue’s eyes opened even wider, and she leaned back in her chair. “That fast?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“How fast did his temperature recover after he woke up?”
“Almost as fast. But I have to tell you, it sure scared the hell out of me.”
“I can imagine.” Sue’s eyes narrowed slightly as she thought over the information. “I have to admit I’ve never heard of anything like this. The heart rate and blood pressure make sense, but that temperature drop . . . and you said he was sweating too, all in three minutes?”
“I haven’t seen that kind of sweat in a sauna. And yes,” Mary confirmed, “three and a half minutes, tops.”
“And he’s okay now?”
“He seems to be.”
Sue folded her arms. “Well, speaking strictly from a physiology standpoint, those signs don’t mix. In fact, I’d say they’re almost polar opposites, which makes me think that kid was in some serious trouble. He’s darn lucky you slapped him out of it.”
Mary gently nodded her head. “I haven’t been that scared in a long time.”
Sue smiled. “And that’s saying something with your background.” She shifted in her seat. “Let me ask you this: do you think this paper test of yours could have been in any way, I don’t know . . .” She shrugged. “Coincidental?”
Mary thought the question over, even though she’d just spent the last forty-five minutes contemplating it in the car. “Anything is possible, but I can’t imagine how. I’ve tried to think of any possible way—a reflection, subtle or subconscious clues—I just can’t think of anything. I really have no idea how else he could have done it.”
“Very strange.” Sue rested her elbow on the chair’s arm and brought her hand up to her face, tapping her finger against her cheek. “Regardless of what might be going on in his head, it sure seems like his body was trying to do everything it could to kill him.” A wry expression spread across her face as she looked back at Mary. “And you said you’re looking for help.”
“Well, ‘hoping’ might be a better word. I just can’t help but wonder whether there’s anything like this on the books; maybe some person with similar symptoms, a study, anything.”
“Well, I’ve certainly never heard of it, but that’s not exactly definitive.” Sue stood up. “I’ll spend some time on it.”
Mary breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Thank you, Sue. I hate to dump this on you, but I’m pretty worried.”
Her friend smiled. “And now I am too. If what you say is true, and this boy can actually see things, then the tradeoff he got sure doesn’t sound like it’s worth it. You’re sure he’s okay now?”
She nodded. “At the moment. But I can’t stop picturing him on that couch. I’m telling you, Sue, whatever was happening to that boy, it looked like the life was being sucked right out of him.”
11
Shannon silently drove north on Verdugo Road and turned her BMW into the IHOP parking lot. She found a space near the front and parked, leaving the car facing the restaurant’s entrance.
She turned the ignition off and faced Evan in the passenger seat. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
He nodded. “I’m fine.”
Even though he’d slept for over two hours and looked fine, she was worried he still wasn’t being completely open with her. “Listen,” she said, stopping him as he reached for the door handle. “I have something I need to talk to you about.” She was nervous and could feel her heartbeat increasing. She’d gone over this conversation multiple times in her head but still couldn’t seem to find the right words.
Evan turned to her expectantly.
Shannon took a deep breath. “Actually there’s something I need to tell you.” She realized that she was squeezing the steering wheel and forced herself to let go. “Evan, I haven’t been entirely . . . candid with you.” She glanced at him nervously, but his face was expressionless. “You have to understand, I want to help you. I really do. But there’s another reason I’ve become so interested in these episodes of yours—a personal reason.”
Evan’s face finally began to change, taking on a look of curiosity.
She felt the nervousness in her hands, and swallowed hard. “Evan, something happened to me and my family . . . to my daughter.” Shannon hesitated, trying to hold her chin still as she felt it began to quiver. “She was taken.”
She hadn’t said the words in over
a year and found that still, after all this time, she had to force her mouth to say them. “My daughter was kidnapped. She was seven.”
Even a year later, nothing had changed. The pain was still there, along with the dread and the horror of it all. Shannon could feel the tears forming in her eyes yet again. She couldn’t stop it. “We never . . . we haven’t found her. She’s been gone for a long time, and we still haven’t found her.”
Evan was stunned. It was the last thing he had expected to hear. He sat in his seat dumbfounded. Finally, he blinked. “How long ago?”
“Eighteen months.”
A jolt of recognition hit Evan. Wait, he remembered the news broadcasts on the local stations. He didn’t remember Dr. Mayer, but he remembered pictures of her daughter, young with dark hair and green eyes. He had no idea it had been Dr. Mayer’s daughter. He looked absentmindedly at the console in front of them, speechless.
Shannon closed her eyes briefly, which sent two tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Evan, I didn’t mean to involve you. I didn’t mean to let you get hurt.” She wiped the tears away and glanced at him. He was still staring straight ahead. “When you told me you saw Tania eating her sandwich that day, I didn’t believe it. It was impossible. It had to be. My training told me it was a coincidence, a trick, something I was missing. But at the same time, something deep inside wanted to believe that maybe what you were seeing was real. I secretly began to wish that it was somehow possible. That you could see those things, and if you could, then maybe, just maybe, you could see something else too.”
She shook her head again, ashamed. “Deep down I wished for it. I wished for it so badly that I let myself put you in harm’s way to find out. I’m sorry, Evan. I’m so sorry. I crossed the line. What you saw today was a terrible mistake. It was a terrible decision, because I wasn’t your doctor today. I was a mother. A mother who desperately wants to find out what happened to her daughter.”
Evan was watching her with a saddened look on his face. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
Shannon sniffed and nodded. “Yes, I do need to be sorry. I helped you recreate these episodes, Evan, without even knowing if they were safe. Maybe without even wanting to know, and it was all for me. But it should have been about you.”
Evan shrugged innocently. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay,” she snapped. “Not as a doctor, not even as a mother. I had no right to do that to you.” Shannon wiped her eyes again and turned away. She used him. She used a kid.
Neither of them spoke for a long time until Evan finally broke the silence. “There’s something that I haven’t told you either,” he said quietly.
“What’s that?”
Evan lowered his gaze and peered at the dark carpet under his feet. “You asked if I’d seen anything else, other than what we talked about. I lied and said I hadn’t. But the truth is I’ve been seeing a lot of things. And a couple of those times, I saw you.”
Shannon was surprised. “Me?”
Evan nodded.
“When did you see me?”
“A couple times at night. I didn’t mean to; it just happened.” He frowned. “You were sitting alone at a table in a dark room, crying. I think you were eating dinner.”
“By myself?”
“Uh huh.”
She took a deep breath. “Did you see anything else?”
“No,” he looked back at her, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I wanted to tell you but . . . I just, you know.”
“It’s okay.” Shannon blinked several more tears away and thought about what he’d said. “Evan, what exactly do you see when these episodes happen? I mean, what’s it like?”
He thought a moment, imagining how to describe it. “It’s like a fog, I guess . . . a wall of white fog. I can’t see through it, but if I stare at it long enough it starts to clear, kind of like a tunnel that opens. Sometimes I can see through to the other side.”
Shannon turned to him. “Do you think this is real, Evan?”
“I think so,” he replied, with his head still down.
“Evan, I have to be honest with you. I’ve been a psychiatrist for a long time, and I’ve helped a lot of people. But I’m not sure I know how to help you with this. In fact, I’m not so sure I even know where to begin.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t fix it, yet.”
Her face showed surprise. What did he just say?
Evan didn’t continue immediately. Instead, he turned and peered through the front windows of the restaurant. He could see his mother working inside, wearing a light pink uniform. It looked like she had just taken someone’s order and was walking back to the counter. He thought of how hard his mother worked for him, how much she gave and how much she gave up so that he could go to a good school, have clothes, and have food. And it wasn’t just him; she was always helping people.
Evan watched his mother for a long time before he turned back to Shannon, who was still looking at him with a puzzled expression. “I don’t want to try to fix the problem yet, Dr. Mayer. I want to try to help you.”
Shannon was shocked. She stared at Evan with her mouth slightly open, but said nothing for a long time.
“Evan . . . I can’t even begin to tell you what that means to me. And let me tell you, you’re a pretty amazing kid, but I can’t let you do that.”
“Why?” he asked, confused.
“Evan, what happened to you in my office today was . . . alarming. And that’s putting it mildly. I don’t know what happens to your body during these episodes, but it nearly scared me and my sister to death. It’s very strange and very frightening.” She cocked her head, curiously. “Did you actually feel any of it?”
Evan shook his head. “I don’t think I felt the things you saw. Inside it kinda feels like . . . an emptiness. Like a hole, right here.” He touched his chest lightly. “It doesn’t feel like pain . . . it feels like fear.”
“Fear?”
“Mostly.”
Shannon studied him. “Why do you think you’re experiencing fear?”
“I’m not sure.” He thought about the question. “Maybe because I don’t think it’s really fog that I’m seeing.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. Something else, something worse.”
Shannon put her hand lightly on his arm. “This is exactly what I mean, Evan. Whatever this is, I think it’s dangerous, and I can’t risk something like that happening to you again. Not because of me.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Evan, are you listening to yourself?” she asked, incredulously. “You didn’t see what happened to your body back there in my office. I did. It was really scary, believe me.”
He kept his gaze down, contemplating, before finally accepting her answer with a sigh. “Okay.” After an uncomfortable silence, he reached for the handle and opened the door, pushing it outward. “Thank you for the ride, Dr. Mayer.”
She watched him as he stood up. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
He glanced back down and gave her a quick grin. “I’m sure.” With that, he pushed the car door closed.
Evan walked to the entrance of the restaurant before turning around to watch her drive away. His gaze followed her car all the way back out to Verdugo Road. He still couldn’t believe it was Dr. Mayer’s daughter who was kidnapped. When the BMW disappeared from sight, Evan turned toward the glass door, accidentally brushing his pants with his right hand. He felt something in his pocket. Curious, he reached in and pulled the object out. It was the quarter the little girl had given him.
12
Shannon barely made it to the end of her driveway, and put the car in park before completely breaking down. She dropped her forehead on the top of the steering wheel and sobbed.
What on earth was she supposed to do? She missed Ellie so much. She wanted so badly to f
ind her. So badly that now she had risked Evan’s life. She felt like an awful person, yet all she wanted was her Ellie back. What was she supposed to do, give up? What if this thing with Evan was real?
There were a thousand what-ifs, none of them any more likely than the next. Was this what she was mentally and emotionally reduced to, believing in any possibility no matter how bizarre or how hopeless? God, why not just believe in magic?
She sat crying in her car for a long time. After what felt like hours, she slowly leaned back against the headrest with tears still streaming down her face. The pain never stopped. Why her? What horrible thing had she done to deserve this? What had Ellie done?
Eventually she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. She looked out over the empty, manicured lawn wondering why she even bothered. Who cared about the lawn, or the hedge, or the paint on the side of the house for that matter? In the beginning, she had it maintained because it would be one of the first things Ellie saw when she came home, but after that hope faded she kept the gardeners on just to maintain some stability in her life. Now, a year and a half later, even that didn’t matter. Who cared about any of it?
She opened her car door and stepped out onto the driveway’s smooth concrete. She tucked her purse under her arm and gently pushed the door shut behind her. Shannon stood staring at the house, feeling the sense of dread fill her body again. She hated coming home. It felt like living in a graveyard.
Once inside, she closed the oversized front door and walked down the short, darkened hallway. As she walked, the clicking from her heels echoed off the wooden floor. The kitchen looked immaculate, with nothing out of place, but upon closer inspection it was evident most of the items had not been used in a very long time.
Shannon dropped her purse onto the counter and stood still, listening. With a heavy sigh, she walked back toward the door and began climbing the stairs.
Dennis Mayer didn’t hear his wife approach from down the hall, nor did he hear her open the door. He sat in a small chair, staring out the window as the sun began its afternoon descent. Outside, the trees swayed gently in the breeze.
Through the Fog Page 4
