Obsession

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  This time the bullet was so close she could feel the wind of its passing in her hair.

  There was only one chance of escape. Katharine took it.

  I have to get out of here. . . .

  Hurtling forward, leaping like she had never leapt in her life, she grabbed the doorknob and window frame for leverage and threw herself headfirst through the rectangular opening in the top of the door where glass had formed a barricade moments before.

  For a mixed-up instant as she cleared the door and tumbled earthward, she got a glimpse of starry sky and the leafy branches of the young maple in the backyard swaying in the slight breeze, and the luminescent eyes of a neighborhood cat staring at her from beneath the neatly trimmed bushes that crowded against the detached garage.

  Then she slammed hard into concrete, and the world went dark.

  “Katharine. Katharine, can you hear me?”

  It was a man’s voice, slow and heavy with the drawled cadences of the Deep South. The tone was authoritative. She must have been hovering on the verge of consciousness anyway, because when she heard it she opened her eyes.

  Only to be practically blinded by the bright beam of a penlight shining directly into her face. Her eyes squinched closed again, fast. She took a deep breath, only to discover that she couldn’t breathe. At least, not through her nose. When she tried, pain shot through her sinuses.

  God, what was up with that? She was dragging in air through her mouth like a landed fish, she felt heavy and sluggish and totally out of it, and to top it off, she had the mother of all headaches.

  “I’m sorry.” He sounded genuinely contrite. “Look, the light’s off. Can you open your eyes?”

  Now that she had given up on the whole trying-to-breathe -through-her-nose thing, the pain in her sinuses merged with the pain in her head to settle into a dull throb behind her eyes. Unpleasant, but she would live. Anyway, there was something about that voice. It was deep and soft and compelling, and she wanted to obey it. Raising her lids cautiously, she did.

  Everything was blurry, but she was immediately aware of a light-colored ceiling and walls and knew that she was indoors. Her surroundings were gloomy and gray, shadowy with the absence of any direct light, although there seemed to be enough light from some nearby source—a hallway, perhaps?—to allow her to see shapes, to see him. She was lying on her back on a bed, narrow and faintly uncomfortable, not her own. She wasn’t lying flat, though: Her head and upper torso were elevated as the surface beneath her rose at a slight angle. His head dominated the center of her field of vision. His face was lean and tanned, topped off by a thatch of longish dark blond hair that waved back from his forehead. A profusion of curls flipped out untidily around his nape, but, with the light source behind him, she could not yet make out any details of his appearance beyond that. He leaned closer, peering down at her intently, blocking her view of the rest of the room. With his shift in position, the source of the light was no longer directly behind him, and she was able to see him a little better. He was frowning, she saw, and he wore glasses with narrow wire frames. The penlight, turned off now, was in his hand.

  Even though his features were still slightly indistinct—that was the fault of her vision, she decided, as much as the absence of adequate lighting—she felt an immediate strong sense of familiarity.

  Along with a little frisson of—something. Tension of some sort. Not a good kind of tension.

  “Hi there,” he said as their eyes met and held. There was definitely some kind of connection between them, but the harder she tried to latch on to it, the more elusive the memory became. Then, after the briefest of pauses in which he almost seemed to be waiting for something, he turned on the small lamp near the bed. Blinking in its sudden low-wattage glow, she realized that she was in a hospital room. It was all there, the heavily curtained windows limned with grayish light that managed to creep in around the edges, the dark TV affixed to the wall at the end of the bed, the banks of medical equipment, none of which, fortunately, seemed to be attached to her. Oh, wait, there was one narrow tube snaking out from the inside of her right elbow. Following it from where it emerged from beneath a strip of white tape up to the plastic bag half-full of clear liquid that hung from a shiny metal pole beside the bed, she realized that she was hooked up to an IV. Not good. Before she had time to think any more about the ramifications of that, he added, “Remember me?”

  “Yes,” she said instantly, because she did, absolutely, positively, no doubt about it at all. Then she got stuck again. Try as she might to pull his identity out of her subconscious, it wouldn’t quite come.

  But that little frisson of something was still there. Was it . . . hostility?

  Blinking in consternation, she concentrated as his features came into sharper focus. What she registered first was an overall impression that here was a good-looking guy. His eyes, which narrowed as he watched her, were medium blue beneath the thin, rectangular lenses that didn’t distort them in any appreciable way. There were crinkles at the corners of his eyes, which came partly from the sun but mostly, she thought, from the intentness with which he was regarding her. They were nice eyes, mild, intelligent, maybe a little reserved, set off by short, stubby, fair lashes and unruly slashes of ash-brown brows that formed thick, straight lines across his forehead. He had high cheekbones, a long, masculine, slightly off-center nose, a thin-lipped mouth, and an angular jaw with a stubborn-looking chin. He was tall, maybe six-one, although it was difficult to judge when she was lying on her back looking up at him, broad of shoulder, lean of build, probably in his late thirties. There was the faintest hint of stubble on his chin, more three-o’clock than five-o’clock shadow. He wore a limp blue oxford-cloth shirt with a slightly frayed button-down collar, no tie, open at the throat, with a white doctor ’s coat pulled on over it.

  It was the coat that gave her memory the nudge it needed.

  “Dan . . . Howard.” The name popped into her mind on a wave of relief. “Dr. Daniel Howard.”

  Once she had the name, everything else fell into place. Of course, he was her next-door neighbor, the physician. He had lived in the adjoining town house since—when? Maybe the beginning of the summer. Not that she had seen a whole lot of him. She couldn’t quite remember specific occasions, but probably they had introduced themselves once, then said hi whenever they happened to cross paths dragging trash cans to the curb and such. Had they had words at one time? Maybe his trash cans had blocked her garage, or her cat had walked on his car, or something? A minor dispute of that nature would account for the tiny flicker of antagonism, if that was indeed what it was, that had flared up inside her when she had first set eyes on him. Whatever, it couldn’t have been too serious, because it was already fading away into the mists of her subconscious.

  “That’s right.” Dan nodded, looking pleased, and she relaxed a little, as if pleasing him was important to her. Why that would be the case she couldn’t imagine, though. Then, as the thought pricked at her, she wondered if she was shallow enough so that the answer was just because he’s a hottie. Yeah, probably. That was also probably the reason she had been able to dredge up his name.

  As she worked that out to her own satisfaction, she felt herself relaxing again.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  "O-kay.” She drew the word out, because what she really meant was okay, except for the headache and the impossibly stuffed nose and the small but sharp pain that shot through her chest whenever she moved and the nagging conviction that all was not right with her world, with which she was presently afflicted. It also didn’t help that her voice sounded funny, all thick and nasally and not really like her voice at all. In other words, she was definitely not okay.

  Not that she meant to say so.

  “Good.” He sounded pleased again.

  “Where am I?” There was something wrong with her face. Or, more precisely, her nose. It felt weird. Thick and hot and, as she had previously discovered, totally congested. Swollen. Sensitive when
she tried to wrinkle it, but not really—exactly—painful.

  Just . . . weird. Sort of like the rest of her.

  “Washington Hospital.”

  She absorbed that as she lifted a questing hand to her nose—her arms were bare, and she realized that she was wearing a blue hospital gown and a blue hospital gown only beneath the tan blanket and white sheets that covered her to her armpits—and discovered a bandage taped across it.

  “My nose.” Careful to keep a light touch, she felt the bandage, which pretty much covered her whole nose. Jeez, beneath the plastic the thing felt as big and shapeless as a baked potato. She only hoped there was a whole lot of gauze padding to account for most of the bulk.

  “You got it smashed up pretty good.” He seemed to be carefully studying her face. Then his eyes met hers again. “Not to worry, though. Once the swelling goes down, it should be good as new.”

  “When will that be?”

  He shrugged. “A week or so, maybe. I’m more concerned about the blow to your head. How’s that feeling? ”

  “I have a headache,” she admitted.

  “I’m not surprised. Other than your nose and the bump on your head, though, you don’t have any significant injuries. Everything else is just random assorted scrapes and bruises. You’re going to be just fine.”

  “You work here?” It seemed to her that she should know the answer to that. She knew his name, that he was her neighbor and a doctor. But she also felt like there was this big treasure trove of knowledge about him lurking somewhere in her subconscious that she couldn’t quite access. She probably did know. She probably had Googled him or something once upon a time. After all, whether she had a boyfriend or not, she was only human. And he was cute.

  “Sometimes. Not today, though. I’m here strictly because of you. When I got home last night, the first thing I heard was you screaming your head off. I ran up from the garage to see what was going on just as you came flying through the window. The police arrived about the same time, and an ambulance a few minutes after that. They loaded you up, and I came on into the hospital to make sure they were treating you right.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” She thought that over for a minute. “You probably saved my life last night.”

  “Not a problem. That’s what we good neighbors do.” He smiled at her. It was a quick, wry smile that riveted her gaze. This she definitely remembered. She had seen him smile like that before. Had it set her heart to fluttering? Try as she might, she couldn’t quite remember. But it was unmistakably familiar.

  He continued, “In case you’re wondering, you should probably be getting out of here soon, maybe even as soon as later today.”

  “Today?” To her dismay, she drew a blank there, too. What day was it, anyway? Anxiously, she realized she couldn’t recall. Here was something she definitely should know—the date—but she didn’t. The thought that she didn’t know things she should was starting to really worry her. “Which is . . . ?”

  “Saturday, July twenty-ninth.” He glanced at his watch. “Six-forty-seven a.m.”

  The specter of a clock reading one-fourteen in glowing red numbers on a black background flashed into her mind, and she shuddered reflexively. She had the uneasy feeling that she was moving closer to some of that hidden knowledge, and that maybe she didn’t want to go there after all. Whatever this thing was, she pictured it as something dark and immense and ugly hovering just out of the reach of her consciousness, like a middle-of-the-night monster a little kid just knew without looking was under his bed.

  “Cold?” Dan asked, and picked up her wrist to check her pulse. It was only as she felt the warmth of his fingers against her skin that she realized that she was, indeed, cold. Freezing, in fact.

  “A little,” she said.

  He released her wrist without comment and pulled another tan blanket, which had apparently been folded at the foot of the bed, over her, stretching it all the way up to her neck and tucking it in so that her arms and shoulders were covered.

  "Better?” he asked.

  “Yes.” The blanket was scratchy against the bare skin of her arms and neck, where it was pulled past the sheet, but the extra layer was welcome. “Thank you.”

  He gave a nod of acknowledgment.

  There was no avoiding it any longer. For the sake of her own sanity, she had to know what was waiting for her there in the dark.

  Her stomach tightened. She took a steadying breath. Her eyes met his. “So what happened? Last night? Why am I in the hospital?”

  His expression changed ever so subtly. There was, she thought, a kind of wariness in the way he looked at her. The caution was subtle, but there. Great. She knew already that she wasn’t going to like what she was getting ready to hear, and his expression just made her doubly sure. Her pulse accelerated with dread.

  “You don’t remember?” he asked.

  She thought. And shook her head.

  “Nothing?”

  She frowned.

  “Take your time,” he said, watching her. “Relax. It’ll come to you when you’re ready.”

  She thought some more. Just as he promised, after a moment the fog began to clear and the images slowly began to crystallize in her brain. Terrible images. Frightening images. Even as they remained tantalizingly shadowy, her pulse began to race.

  “There was a robbery—at my house. Some men broke in.” Her mouth was dry from breathing through it, and she had to swallow before she could continue. “Two men, in black ski masks. They had guns.”

  “That’s right.” He nodded. His eyes never left her face. “What else do you remember?”

  She had to concentrate hard to recover more details. It wasn’t easy with her head throbbing and breathing an effort and the fog just waiting to descend again.

  “They were after . . . some jewelry, which I didn’t even have. I was asleep, and then I woke up, and there was a man in my bedroom . . .” Her heart lurched, her stomach clenched, and her eyes widened with horror. “Oh my God! Lisa!”

  Her gaze locked with his, silently asking him the question she couldn’t bear to put into words. Before he even opened his mouth to reply, she knew from his expression that the news was bad.

  “Is that your friend who was visiting?” He was stalling, she could tell, trying to gauge the impact of the truth on her.

  She nodded as the terrible coldness that was raising goose bumps on her skin started to creep through her insides, too. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  His eyes darkened, and she thought she saw a flicker of some emotion—sympathy for her?—there.

  “Yeah, she is. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, God. Oh my God.”

  Even though she realized that she had known, somewhere deep inside, about Lisa all along, his confirmation hit her like a fist to the solar plexus. Sucking in air through her mouth, she wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes as a great wave of dizziness broke over her. Her ears rang. Her throat tightened. Her pulse galloped. Lisa was dead. Lisa, bright, bold, always-smiling Lisa, had been horribly murdered right before her eyes.

  She remembered everything now. She wished she didn’t.

  Tensing, Katharine waited for the tsunami of grief she knew was going to hit. She could feel it rushing toward her, feel the darkness of it, the weight. Then, suddenly, before it could reach her, she felt—different. Strange. As if she were suddenly far away, as if the awfulness of what had happened had been muted, as if it were now somehow coming to her over a great distance. She felt disassociated from the reality of it, as if it were a story she had seen on the evening news and was vaguely sad about but that really had no connection to her at all.

  Yikes. Her thought processes might be a little warped at present, but they were not so warped that she didn’t recognize that the way she was feeling—or, rather, not feeling—was wrong.

  Abnormal, even.

  She forced herself to open her eyes.

  “Did she make it to the hospital?” Her voice was a croak. Even as she asked
, ghastly images replayed in her mind: the two of them in the laundry room, the bullet slamming into Lisa, Lisa being thrown against the door ... Yes, she remembered, all right. She just couldn’t feel it. Not like she should.

  His lips compressed. She could tell he didn’t like what he had to say. “No. She was pronounced dead at the scene.”

  Blood gushing from Lisa’s chest . . .

  “I can’t believe it happened.” Despite the hideously graphic quality of the pictures in her head, her voice was surprisingly steady. She knew what had happened, knew the horror of it, knew that she had suffered a terrible trauma and a grievous loss, but once again that curious detachment intervened before her emotions could fully engage.

  You’re in shock, she told herself firmly. The realization was almost a relief. It explained so much. Shock was only to be expected. Shock was the norm in a situation like this. Shock would go away.

  “It shouldn’t have happened.” Dan’s voice had hardened, and his expression was grim. When their eyes met, he seemed to check for an instant at whatever he saw in hers, then added in a milder tone, “Hey, the reason we pay so much rent is because our neighborhood is supposed to be safe.”

  "Yes,” she agreed.

  The phone by the bed rang, making her jump.

  Instead of answering, she frowned, hesitated, and automatically glanced at Dan. Should I pick up? Fortunately for her own dignity, she didn’t ask the question aloud.

  What is wrong with you? she demanded of herself even as the thing continued to ring and she reached for it. Of course you should answer it. It’s your damned phone. You don’t need permission.

  Clearly the ordeal she’d been through had totally scrambled her wits.

  “Hello?” she said into the receiver.

  “Katharine? Is that you?” a voice boomed in her ear.

  It was masculine, and forceful, and something about the intonation told her that the speaker knew—or at least thought he knew—her well. Without waiting for her to reply, he continued, “What the hell happened?”

  Unfortunately, the voice didn’t ring a bell.