Remember Me

by Sharon Sala

  She groaned. The pain in her head was increasing, as was the nausea. She pulled away from his grasp, clutching her head with both hands.

  “I don’t feel good, Clay.”

  He was shaking so hard he couldn’t think.

  “Hell, Francesca, neither do I. You disappear out of my life for two goddamn years, and then you waltz back into it, talking about wet clothes and cooking dinner as if you’d never been gone. Have you lost your mind?”

  She couldn’t do anything but stare. He wasn’t making sense. Two years? Why did he keep harping about two years? He’d only been gone a few hours. But before she could pursue the issue, the room started to spin.

  Clay saw her lose focus. He was grabbing for her as she started to slump. Within seconds, he had her back on the bed and was dialing 911.

  “What is your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.

  For a second Clay didn’t know how to answer. A wife had come home. A missing woman had been found. And then reality surfaced, and he blurted it out.

  “My wife just passed out. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I think it might be an overdose of drugs. Please…I need help.”

  “Sir…is she breathing?” the dispatcher asked.

  Clay leaned down, feeling the soft ebb and flow of her breath against his cheek. As he did, tears sprang to his eyes.

  “Yes, yes, what do I do?”

  His hands were shaking as he followed her instructions.

  Ah God, don’t let her die. Not here. Not now. Don’t give her back just so I can watch this happen.

  A few minutes later, he became aware of sirens.

  “I hear the ambulance,” he told the dispatcher. “I need to go let them in.”

  The dispatcher hung up, and the moment the connection was broken, he began to panic. He bolted to his feet and dashed toward the front door, waving frantically as the paramedics came running toward the house in the rain.

  His panic increased as he watched them taking her vitals, listening to a jargon he only half understood. When they loaded her onto a stretcher and started out of the house, all he knew was that he couldn’t let her disappear. Not again.

  “Please, let me go with her,” he begged.

  “Sir, there’s just not room.”

  “Where are you taking her?”

  “Mercy Hospital. You can follow us there.”

  Clay ran back in the house and grabbed his coat and keys. He was halfway out the door when it dawned on him he wasn’t wearing shoes.

  “No,” he groaned, and headed back to the bedroom. His hands were shaking as he sat down to put sneakers on. And then it occurred to him that he was going to need backup.

  He grabbed the phone and dialed. He was so shaken that when his father answered the phone, he wasn’t sure he could even make sense.

  “LeGrand residence.”

  “Dad, it’s me, Clay.”

  “Oh, hi, son. Shut ’er down early, did you? Say…why don’t you come over for dinner. Your mom made pot roast. Your favorite.”

  “Dad, I need you and Mom to get to Mercy Hospital as soon as possible.”

  Winston’s heart skipped a beat. “What’s wrong?”

  “Francesca…she came back. She was asleep in my bed when I got home. Something’s wrong with her. The ambulance is already gone. I’m on my way to Mercy now.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence. “Holy mother of…We’ll be right there,” Winston said.

  Clay started to hang up when another thought came. He got another dial tone and made another call. He knew the number by heart. Only this time it was out of self-defense, rather than consideration. He glanced nervously at his watch as he waited for someone to answer. Already four minutes had passed since the ambulance had left. He was starting to hang up when a man’s voice came on the line.

  “Third precinct, Dawson speaking.”

  Clay gripped the phone a little tighter. “Detective Dawson, this is Clay LeGrand. If you’re interested in closing the file on my wife’s case, then I suggest you get to Mercy Hospital right away.”

  Avery Dawson pulled himself up from a slouch. “What are you implying?” he asked.

  Suddenly, the years of anger boiled over. “And while you’re at it,” Clay snapped, “why don’t you call the television stations and the newspapers and every other goddamn member of the media who’s been trying to hang me for the last two years.”

  “Is this a confession?” Avery snapped.

  “You could call it that,” he said.

  “Be there in ten,” Avery said.

  The line went dead in Clay’s ear. He dropped the receiver back into the cradle and headed for the door.

  “Did he really say he was going to confess?” Ramsey asked.

  Dawson glanced at his partner and then back at the road. Driving this fast in this kind of weather was risky, but he couldn’t get over the notion that if he delayed, Clay LeGrand would change his mind about the call he’d just made.

  “He said I could call it a confession,” Dawson muttered, and then quickly braked as the car ahead of him suddenly hydroplaned and spun out into the center median.

  “Shoot, that was close,” Ramsey muttered, and tightened his seat belt.

  Dawson glanced in the rearview mirror. “Looks like they’ll be needing a tow. Call it in.”

  Ramsey nodded and proceeded to notify dispatch. The flashing blue light on the dash of Dawson’s car illuminated the strain on his face. The disappearance of Francesca LeGrand had eaten at him in a way few of his cases ever had. From the start, he’d felt frustration at their lack of clues. And, in spite of months of dogged investigation, he still had not been able to uncover enough to convince the district attorney to take Clay LeGrand to trial. Just thinking about LeGrand’s call made him jumpy. He didn’t trust the offer. He’d gotten away with the crime. Why confess to it now?

  “There’s the hospital,” Ramsey said, pointing to the stoplight up ahead.

  “Yeah, I see it,” Dawson muttered, and took the turn on a yellow light. As he did, Clay LeGrand’s company truck suddenly appeared in front of them.

  “Hey, there he is!” Ramsey said, pointing.

  “I see him, “ Dawson said.

  They pulled into the emergency-room parking lot almost in tandem. Clay was out of the truck and running toward the doors before Dawson could unbuckle his seat belt.

  “He’s in an awful big hurry for something,” Ramsey muttered.

  They followed, running through the rain and splashing water up over their shoes. By the time they got inside, they were soaked.

  To their surprise, Clay LeGrand’s father was waiting for them by the door.

  “Detectives. Follow me.”

  Both men looked startled. What was LeGrand playing at?

  “Look, Mr. LeGrand, we came to talk to your son, and we’d rather talk to him out here.”

  Winston shrugged. “Suit yourself. But if you want to know the truth, follow me.”

  He turned and started down a hall toward a cluster of chairs, where his wife was waiting for him to return.

  “Hey, there’s LeGrand,” Ramsey said, pointing past Winston to a man leaning against the wall.

  Moments later, the two old adversaries were once again face-to-face.

  “So, LeGrand, what do you have to say?”

  Clay’s expression was blank as he pointed into the doorway. “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce my wife, Francesca LeGrand. Sometime today, she showed up at the house, a little the worse for wear. She passed out while we were talking. The doctor is still examining her, but the needle tracks on her arms are a pretty good sign of what’s wrong.”

  Ramsey pushed past Dawson, who was staring in shock at the woman stretched out on the examining table.

  “Is this a joke?” Dawson snapped.

  Clay stared at the detective as if he’d just lost his mind. “Do you see me laughing?”

  Dawson and Ramsey moved past the trauma team for a closer look at the woman on whom the doct
ors were working.

  Pain was roaring through the tunnel in Frankie’s mind. From a distance, she thought she could hear Clay’s voice, but she couldn’t focus on the words long enough to understand what he was saying. She turned her head in his direction, giving the detectives a clear view of her face.

  “Holy mother of God,” Ramsey muttered, and made the sign of the cross, while Dawson just stared.

  Betty LeGrand stood up from where she was sitting.

  “Yes, this is a miracle, isn’t it?”

  “Looks like,” Dawson said, and moved away.

  Betty put her arms around Clay. He looked stunned, almost as if he didn’t know what to do next. She took him by the hand.

  “Clay, sweetheart, come sit down by me,” she said softly.

  At the sound of her voice, he blinked and then focused.

  “Thanks, Mom, but I don’t think I could sit still.”

  She patted his arm and then sat down by Winston, taking comfort in his presence, as she’d done so many times over the years. In spite of what was happening, there was something about Frankie’s condition that didn’t add up. She’d never seen anyone who’d overdosed before, but she’d read about it, and some of these symptoms didn’t fit.

  Meanwhile, Dawson turned to Clay, still suspicious of this miraculous reappearance.

  “Where the hell has she been?” Dawson asked.

  Clay’s eyes darkened angrily as he pointed back into the room.

  “You tell me,” he said. “She wasn’t wearing those on her arms when she left.”

  Dawson looked again, this time focusing on the bruises and needle marks on Frankie’s arms.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

  Ramsey glanced at his partner, then shoved his hands in his pockets. “Look, Mr. LeGrand, I’m sorry we were so tough on you, but you know how things looked.”

  Clay stood. “Yeah, I know how things looked from my side of the fence, too.”

  Dawson had the grace to flush. He extended his hand. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  In the examining room, Frankie suddenly moaned and then screamed, as if she was in terrible pain.

  Clay’s heart skipped a beat. He was inside the room before they could stop him.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Sir, please wait outside,” a nurse said, and started pushing him out of the room when Frankie suddenly jerked.

  “Look out for that bus!” she moaned.

  An alarm began to beep. Clay looked frantically at Frankie, and at the machines surrounding where she lay. Before he could focus on which one had gone off, they had pushed him out of the room.

  Three

  The hospital room was quiet, unlike the busy corridor outside Frankie’s door. Clay stood with his back to the window, staring down at his wife. She had yet to regain consciousness. Any anger he’d felt at what he viewed as betrayal had long since turned to worry. No matter what she had done, he could never wish her ill. He loved her. Would always love her. Even if that love hadn’t been enough to make her to stay.

  He sighed, letting his gaze rake her features. Her heart-shaped face, the straight, perfect nose, that wide, sensuous mouth. All of them made up the woman who was his wife. Yet, standing there, it hit him how little he really knew of her past, and that, only what she’d told him.

  Orphaned at four, she’d spent the next fourteen years of her life at Gladys Kitteridge House, an orphanage in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After that, college in Denver, sandwiching studies in library science between two part-time jobs. Clay remembered walking into the steak house where she had been working. Slender almost to the point of skinny, she had been balancing a huge silver tray loaded with four steaming orders of steak. And she was laughing. He could still remember the knot that had formed in the pit of his stomach. He’d wanted her then—even before he’d known her name. He sighed. But that was a lifetime ago, before she’d walked out on him—before the bottom had fallen out of his world.

  A muscle in her left cheek kept twitching, and her eyelids were fluttering. He wondered if she even knew where she was. Her breathing was slow and shallow. The tumble of dark hair spilling across her pillow only accentuated the pallor of her skin. He frowned. She was too damned still. From what he’d read, her symptoms did not fit addiction withdrawal. Yet what other explanation could there be for the tracks on her arms? And there was that strange outburst just before she’d passed out. Something about a bus. What the hell did that mean?

  He thrust his fingers through his hair, momentarily separating the short dark strands. They fell back into place as he began to massage the muscles in his neck. He didn’t know what hurt worse, his head or his heart. He still couldn’t believe this was happening. On the one hand, Frankie’s reappearance was like a dream come true. But why had she left him in the first place? For most people, getting high didn’t require going into hiding.

  Unconsciously, he leaned closer, wishing he could penetrate her mind. He needed explanations, not more mysteries. But there were no obvious answers, only more questions.

  A lump began forming in the back of his throat. Overwhelmed that she was really here, he took a deep breath, willing himself to touch her. Careful not to disturb the IV in the back of her hand, he reached out, his fingers shaking as he traced the length of her arm. He’d spent the last two years refusing to bury her memory, yet now that she was here, he was afraid to let himself hope. When she got well—if she got well—would she stay?

  He was still struggling with questions when Frankie suddenly inhaled, almost gasping for air. Clay jerked, watching as her eyes flew open. For a moment he could have sworn they were filled with terror. Then cognizance faded, her eyes glazed over and her lids drooped. Seconds later, she was out again.

  He bent down until his mouth was only inches away from her ear.

  “What is it, Frankie? Why did you run?”

  She sighed.

  He watched, his heart breaking as a single tear suddenly slipped from beneath her lashes and ran down the side of her face and into her hair. Then he moved his mouth just a bit to the right, and for the first time in more than two years, he kissed the woman who was his wife.

  Hours passed. Hours in which Clay’s thoughts had gone from one scenario to another, trying to make sense of all this. But no matter how many ways he tried to explain her absence and her dramatic return, it was impossible.

  Suddenly the door to Frankie’s room swung open. Clay turned. It was Carl Willis, the doctor who’d examined her.

  “There you are, Mr. LeGrand. I’ve been looking for you.”

  Clay’s heart skipped a beat. “Do you have the results of my wife’s tests?”

  “Most of them.”

  Unaware he was clenching his fists, Clay took a step forward. “The drugs?”

  Dr. Willis shrugged. “I don’t know what she’s been injecting into herself, but it wasn’t the kind of drugs you’re implying. Added to that, her symptoms do not coincide with any drug withdrawal I’ve ever seen. There were no traces of any illegal substances in her body. The only things out of the ordinary were traces of sedatives. Did she have trouble sleeping?”

  Clay was stunned. No drugs? He turned and stared down at Frankie, trying to assimilate this new information. If not drugs, then what?

  “Mr. LeGrand?”

  Clay jumped. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

  “I asked if she suffered from any form of insomnia.”

  “No…no, not to my knowledge.” He touched the side of her face again, cradling her cheek in his hand. He wanted her to wake up. He needed to tell her he was sorry. He needed her to tell him where the hell she had been. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Right now she’s suffering from a pretty severe concussion. And she has some faint bruising on one side of her back and shoulder that would coincide with injuries from a wreck.”

  Clay flinched, remembering what she’d said before she’d passed out. Look out for that bus! “Can you tell how
long ago it might have happened?”

  Dr. Willis had been briefed on this couple’s history by the detectives when she’d been processed. He remembered reading about Clay LeGrand. To his shame, he’d believed the man guilty of murder. Now that he knew better, he was even more curious to help solve the mystery of where this woman had gone, as well as what had brought her back.

  “The cut on her head is still seeping, so I’d guess within the last three or four hours.”

  Clay paled, remembering how angry he’d been. His voice shook.

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  Dr. Willis hesitated.

  It was enough to make Clay’s belly roll. “What?” he asked.

  Willis sighed. “Barring any unforseen complications, I expect her to make a full physical recovery.”

  Clay’s belly tightened even more. “Only physical?”

  “I believe you told me that she seemed confused about the time that had elapsed since her disappearance?”

  “I thought she was lying,” Clay muttered.

  Willis shrugged. “Maybe. But there’s also the possibility that she simply doesn’t remember. The blow to her head was pretty severe. Add stress and mental trauma to that, and you could have yourself a case of selective amnesia.”

  Clay looked back down. “Will she get it back? Her memory, I mean.”

  “Probably, but when it comes to the mind, there’s no guarantee.”

  “You mean I might never find out what happened to her?”

  Dr. Willis tried to put encouragement in his voice, but he’d never been very good at hedging bets.

  “There’s every reason to believe that, with time, she’ll make a full recovery. But until then, you’ll have to be patient.”

  Clay sighed. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” the doctor said. “There are a couple of detectives outside who want to talk to you.”

  Clay glanced at Frankie and then headed for the door.

  Avery Dawson stood up as Clay stepped into the hall. Ramsey, his partner, was coming around the corner carrying a couple of cups of coffee.

  “Dr. Willis said you wanted to see me?” Clay asked.