by Neal Baer
Back? Back from what? Where did I go?
Then Claire remembered. The bright, clear, blue sky. Wilkes standing over her.
“Nick,” she whispered.
“He’s here,” Fairborn said. “It’s like a police officer’s convention in the waiting room.”
“I was shot,” she said, the memory emerging from her half-awake brain. “Where?”
“In your abdomen,” said Fairborn, sounding like the doctor she was. “You lost a lot of blood, dear. Phil Mecklin had to open you up to stop the bleeding.”
Claire remembered the burning in her back. Though she wasn’t in pain and had never had surgery before, she felt a tightness she knew must be from the incision in her belly.
“A laparotomy?” she asked Fairborn. “Where was I bleeding?”
“The bullet hit your right renal artery and lodged in the renal pelvis of your kidney,” said Fairborn with difficulty. “The damage was too extensive to save it. Phil had to take the kidney out.”
Claire was so groggy from anesthesia that the news barely registered. “That’s okay, I only need one,” she said. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
Fairborn forced a smile. “Your parents will be here soon.”
“Tell them it’s not so bad, they don’t have to come,” she blurted, knowing Fairborn wouldn’t stop them.
“Their plane already landed at Kennedy,” Fairborn said. “The police department is flying them by helicopter here to the helipad on the roof. Same way you got here from uptown.”
Claire was having trouble registering what her mentor was saying. “I was flown here?” she asked, her speech thick from the effects of the anesthesia.
“Courtesy of outgoing Commissioner Farrell,” confirmed Fairborn. “He thought it was the least he could do.”
Claire remembered Nick pulling her arm just as she felt the burning of the bullet.
“Nick tried to save me,” Claire said. “Tell the commissioner he should do something for him. He’s okay, right?”
She looked up at Fairborn. “Please, did something happen to him too?” Claire begged with the strongest voice she had in her.
Fairborn took her hand and stroked it. “There was a second shot. Nick was hit.”
Claire registered this. “How bad?” she asked.
“He’s lucky. He was turning to lift you into the ambulance when he was struck. The bullet chipped his left ulna.”
“He’d have been killed,” Claire said, her eyes welling up, stuck on the image of the bullet hitting Nick in his arm.
“No,” said Fairborn, having to force the words out.
“What?” asked Claire.
Fairborn took a breath. “He was at the head of the gurney. His arm was directly in front of your left ear.”
Somehow, in her fog, Claire realized what this meant. “I would have been shot in the head.”
“But you weren’t,” said Fairborn. “You’re here.”
“Where are Jill and Katie?” Claire asked.
“Are those Nick’s daughters?”
Claire nodded.
“I don’t know, dear,” said Fairborn. “But the police will. Inspector Wilkes says no one else was hurt.”
Still, Claire could feel Fairborn’s discomfort. As if her mentor was omitting some important information.
“You’re not telling me something,” Claire said.
Fairborn shook her head, amazed that Claire, in her present state, would detect her hesitance. “It’s about your kidney. But I want to make sure you’re awake enough to understand me, because it’s important. . . .”
She stopped as the curtain parted and Claire’s parents hurried in, accompanied by Inspector Wilkes.
“Oh, my God,” cried her mother.
Claire tried to sit up but her father stopped her. “Don’t,” said Frank Waters, gently placing his hand on his daughter’s shoulder.
Claire saw the bandage on her father’s forehead and remembered his accident. “Does your head hurt?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about me. It’s time for you to stop taking care of everyone. And for us to take care of you.”
She motioned Wilkes over to her. “I need to talk to the inspector, alone,” she said.
“Your parents know everything,” said Wilkes, in a soothing voice she’d never heard from him before. “I told them the whole story on the way over in the chopper.”
That was exactly what Claire was afraid of. “Everything?” she asked.
“Even the stuff only us cops are supposed to know,” Wilkes said. “And you.”
Claire turned to her parents. “Was he able to make it through a sentence without swearing?” she asked.
Wilkes snorted a laugh and shook his head in amazement.
“Yes,” said Frank, “and apparently he just got through two more curse-free sentences as well.”
“Then I pronounce you cured,” Claire said to Wilkes, drifting off into la-la land, prompting Fairborn to bring the visit to an end.
“We’ll have a room for her shortly,” she said, “and you can see her there. In the meantime, let’s let her rest,” Fairborn said to Wilkes, more an order than a suggestion.
It was the last thing Claire heard before she dozed off.
She saw Amy, being carried away by Mr. Winslow, the man who’d kidnapped her. Mr. Winslow shoved her best friend into his white BMW. Claire could not see her face until Amy turned to look out the rear window. But Claire didn’t see Amy. Instead, she saw a girl with her own face, her freckles and her brown hair—Amy had blond hair. . . .
Who is this girl? Claire wondered. Why does she look like me?
Claire felt movement. She opened her eyes, squinting at the fluorescent lights passing above her, which hypnotized her. She realized that she was being wheeled to her room. Then sleep rescued her once again.
The next time Claire opened her eyes, the light was much dimmer. The head of the hospital bed was raised, and she was looking out a window, west, at the last vestiges of a pink and orange New York City sunset.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Charlotte Waters, sitting at the side of the bed. Claire noticed that her mother’s always fastidiously kept blond hair was disheveled.
She fell asleep. Sitting in that chair. Next to my bed.
“Yes,” said Claire, her voice stronger. “It’s gorgeous.”
“How do you feel?” asked Charlotte.
“Grateful to be able to see the sunset.”
She knew she was in the hospital tower, but the room she was in didn’t look like any at MSU she’d seen before.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital.”
“I know, Mom. What part of the hospital?”
“The VIP floor,” said Charlotte, a touch of pride in her voice. “Doctor Fairborn set it up. I better watch out for her before she takes my place.”
“Nobody can take your place,” Claire assured her mother.
“These people care about you,” Charlotte said, looking around the room. “Treating you like this. Doctor Fairborn, that detective ... inspector, whoever he is. Seems you’re pretty important to them.”
She said it as if she’d never realized how much her daughter had accomplished. Claire knew it was her mother’s backhanded way of saying how proud she was. Charlotte Waters had always been the most emotionally shut down person Claire knew. Her mother tried to write it off as stoicism in contrast to her father’s open, emotional personality. It was no mystery to Claire that, personality-wise, she was her mother.
She turned her head back to the window. “How long have I been here?” she asked.
Charlotte checked her watch. “They let me in just after three. And it’s almost eight now. You’ve been asleep for most of it.”
“I don’t remember waking up in this room.”
“You didn’t, exactly,” said Charlotte, brushing a wisp of her daughter’s hair away from her face. “You were talking, though.”
Oh shit, Claire thou
ght. What did I say?
“You were calling for Amy,” Charlotte continued, as if reading her daughter’s thoughts. “Do you remember any of that?”
Claire remembered her dream, but she didn’t want to talk about her childhood friend. She was shocked when Charlotte said, “Honey, you can tell me. I’m not afraid to hear anything you want to say.”
There’s so much I want to say to you, Mother. I’m not sure you’re ready to listen. But what have I got to lose?
“I still blame myself for what happened to Amy,” Claire said, staring straight ahead as the sun dipped below the buildings of midtown Manhattan. “But in my dream, Amy wasn’t kidnapped. It was me, only I had blond hair just like Amy did.”
When Charlotte didn’t respond, Claire thought this would be another one of those times that her mother couldn’t find the right words.
The sound of a sniffle turned her head toward Charlotte just as a tear dropped from her eye. Claire had never seen anything close to her mother crying and was surprised at how deeply this disturbed her.
“Mom?”
“Don’t take care of me,” Charlotte sniffled.
“I’m going to be okay.”
“I know,” her mother said, brushing the tears away as she stood up and slid her chair into a position where she could face her daughter.
“Then what is it?” asked Claire.
“While you were sleeping,” she said as she sat back down, “Doctor Fairborn came in. Your father was here too, and she wanted to talk to us. She wanted to tell you what I’m about to, but I insisted that I be the one. And you know I can be very insistent.”
Claire nodded—at least that much was true.
“Well, she told us that because you lost a kidney, they ‘typed your tissues,’ whatever that means, in case your other kidney fails and you need a transplant.”
Claire couldn’t understand why her mother needed to tell her this. “It’s standard procedure, Mom,” she said. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worried about your kidney—the doctors say it’s fine.” Charlotte stopped, not sure how to continue. Then she took a breath. “Doctor Fairborn came here an hour ago. And she told us that the DNA from your kidneys is different from the DNA in your blood.”
It took more than a moment for what Charlotte said to sink in. Claire knew there could be only one explanation for such a phenomenon.
“I’m a chimera,” she said, thinking back to her days in medical school when she studied embryology. She recalled that a chimera is formed when cells from one embryo are absorbed into another early in gestation. Claire knew the reason the DNA from her kidneys was different from the DNA in her blood was that the kidneys came from the cells of the twin she’d absorbed.
Claire turned toward her mother and could tell from the sorrow on her mother’s face that there was more to this story.
“What is it, Mom?” Claire asked. “You look so sad.” Then the rest of the story came to her. “You always knew, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “When I had an ultrasound early on in my pregnancy, there was evidence of twins. And then when I went back to the doctor the twin was gone.”
Claire was stunned. Does this explain why I always felt that something was missing inside me?
Charlotte could see the pain in Claire’s eyes. She took her daughter’s hand in hers. “Ever since you could talk,” Charlotte said, “you’ve been asking for the ‘other girl.’ Even though you never said it, I knew that you felt there was a part of you missing, someone you were reaching out for. And I knew what you were missing because I was missing that child too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Claire asked.
“First, I didn’t think you’d understand. Then I was afraid you’d think it was your fault your twin didn’t survive.”
“Mom, I’m a doctor. I know how these things work. It happens at the embryonic stage. There’s no way it could be my fault, your fault. Anyone’s fault.”
“I never said my thoughts were always rational,” Charlotte said. “After a while it just didn’t seem important anymore. It didn’t seem to affect your life when you got older.”
If you only knew, Mom, how much it’s affected everything in my life. How knowing would have helped me deal with the loss I’ve always felt.
“But I was wrong, wasn’t I?” Charlotte continued. “Or I was just in denial about how it affected you.”
It was as if her mother had just read her thoughts. Something Claire couldn’t remember her ever having done before.
“What do you mean?” Claire asked, wondering what her mother saw that she didn’t.
Charlotte’s eyes met her daughter’s. “Even after you found Amy’s remains last year, you couldn’t let go of what happened to her.”
“I know it wasn’t my fault, Mom,” Claire said.
“Maybe logically you knew, but emotionally you never could come to terms with it, even now,” Charlotte said. “But this—survivor’s guilt, whatever it is you’ve been walking around with all these years—I think it started long before Amy.”
Claire was still too groggy to register the shock she felt.
“Why do you think that?” she asked.
“Because, from the day you were born, you were unstoppable,” Charlotte said, the tears flowing from her eyes. “You mastered everything you laid your hands or your eyes on. As if you were doing the work of two people. Or making up for something that was missing in your life—I don’t know which. Maybe it’s both. You’re the shrink. . . .” She trailed off into quiet sobbing.
Claire found the button to raise the head of the bed and brought herself further up. “Mom, please.”
Charlotte looked up at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see it. . . .”
“How could you have?” Claire said, trying to comfort her mother. “You’re right. I did feel something even before Amy was kidnapped. I’m the shrink and I didn’t even realize what was going on until you just said it.”
Charlotte found a tissue in her purse and wiped her eyes. “I wish I’d said it earlier.”
“You can’t say what you don’t know,” Claire reassured her.
“But I could’ve helped you,” her guilt-ridden mother shot back.
The hint of a smile appeared on Claire’s face. “You just did,” she said.
Charlotte half laughed, half cried. “Better late than never, I guess.”
“Does Dad know?”
“Yes, he found out when I did. He wanted to tell you for years. The only reason he didn’t was because I wouldn’t allow him to.”
Claire knew that as devoted as her father was to her, he was staunchly loyal to his wife. As if on cue, Frank came through the door, carrying a cardboard tray that held two large cups and a white paper bag containing what smelled like burgers and fries.
“How’re we doing?” her father asked.
Claire wondered if he was smiling because he was spared having to be there when her mother told her the news. “I know about the twin, Dad.”
“Finally,” said her father. “After what your Doctor Fairborn told us, I was going to throw your mother under the bus until she volunteered to step in front of it.”
“Good thing you didn’t,” Claire said. “You’ve suffered enough damage from a bus to last a lifetime.”
She meant it to break the ice and end the discussion. The smiles she brought to her parents’ faces confirmed her strategy had worked.
Frank turned to his wife. “I got you an iced tea and a hamburger with nothing on it,” he said.
“I may have to ask you to eat it outside,” said Claire. “I’m having trouble with the smell.”
But her queasiness passed and she was okay. While her parents dove into their sparse meals, Claire used her segue about the bus to ask her father more about his car accident. “Did they ever find out what happened?” she asked.
“My God, we never got to tell you the rest,” Frank said. “Apparently this wasn’t j
ust some kid climbing a fence and stealing a bus for a joyride. There was a murder involved.”
“Who was killed?” Claire asked, suddenly more alert.
“The guard at the gate of the bus depot. Shot in the head at point-blank range. The cops have the whole thing on video.”
“Do they know who did it?”
“No.” said Frank. “The shooter knew enough to look away from the cameras. That’s why the police think it was an inside job.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Claire said, pushing as hard as she could through her groggy state. “Why kill someone to steal a bus?”
“Good question,” he replied. “All the police know is that after the bus hit my car and crashed into that telephone pole, the guy driving it was caught on another security camera two blocks from the bus depot, where he got into a car and took off. He hit another car too, in his rush to get away. So at some point the police will find a red Jeep with white paint on it.”
Claire would have sat up if she had the strength. “Are you sure it was a red Jeep?” Claire asked.
“It was all over the news. An old Jeep Cherokee, New York plates . . .”
He stopped when Claire threw the covers off and tried to get out of bed.
“What on earth are you doing?” he asked, taking her shoulder to stop her.
Agitated, Claire grabbed her father’s hand. “I need my cell phone,” she said.
“Who could you possibly have to call now?” asked her mother, rising from her chair and looking for the closet.
“Inspector Wilkes. I have to tell him what happened to Dad.”
Claire’s mother found her daughter’s purse in the closet and rummaged through it.
“But, honey, it happened in Rochester,” her father said. “Why would the police here need to know about it?”
“Because it wasn’t an accident.”
Claire saw her parents look at each other, convinced that the emotional and physical trauma she’d suffered was affecting her mind.
“That red Jeep belongs to Nick Lawler.”
“Your detective friend,” Frank remembered. “I’m sure he’s not the only one in New York State or any other with a car like that.”
“You don’t understand,” Claire said, trying to wake herself up. “I was driving that car last night. I left it around the corner from my building. This morning, it was gone, stolen. This afternoon, the man who stole it kidnapped Nick’s daughters. I saw the car after Nick rescued them and it had a dent with fresh white paint on it. The man who stole it is the man who kidnapped the girls and shot me, the killer Nick and I have been looking for.” She turned to Frank. “And he tried to kill you because you’re my father.”
