Unchained Memory (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 1)

by Donna S. Frelick

  Claussen smirked. “Love is a very subjective term, open to interpretation in any number of ways. Lust, however, is quantifiable and has a measurable impact on judgment. Given your physical attributes, Asia, and Ethan’s long, self-imposed isolation from the fairer sex, I’m not surprised he lost his head. The only question now is how much do you intend to have him suffer for it?”

  “Me?” Anger won out. “You’re the one imposing the sanctions.”

  “Yes, and make no mistake, Asia, those sanctions will be severe. Ethan will lose his license. Permanently. I’ll make certain of it. You know as well as I do what it would mean to him to be unable to use his God-given gift to help people. After a while I suspect he’d even begin to resent you for taking that from him.”

  The room was abruptly quiet, the only sound the monstrous booming of my stone heart from the pit of my belly. The chainsaw had quit. I prayed Ethan would burst into the room and save me; I prayed he would stay outside and save himself.

  When I said nothing more, Claussen pressed his point. “Once the process gets rolling, Ethan will quickly be crushed under the wheels of a very heavy bureaucracy. Still, I may yet be in a position to divert all of this, depending on what you decide to do.”

  I stared at the man who was taking my life apart with no more compassion than a plumber for a stopped-up sink. “You fucking bastard. You’re supposed to be his friend. You would do this to him?”

  “I am his friend. And I’m doing it for him. If you truly love him you’ll do what is necessary also.”

  Damn it to hell. Something in my hardscrabble Tennessee soul had always known it would come to this. Ethan and I came from vastly different worlds. And though we shared a love forged out of a similar kind of pain, who knew how long that love would survive once I’d cost him everything that meant anything to him? We’d been fooling ourselves to think we could live this dream in the real world.

  Fists clenched, I looked up at Claussen. “What would you want me to do?”

  Claussen smiled. “You always were a smart girl, Asia. Smart. And a survivor, from the beginning. We’ll leave this afternoon. I’ll take you to the airport in Syracuse, buy you a ticket to anywhere you like and give you enough money to make a new start. The only thing I ask of you is that you never contact Ethan again. Your relationship with him ends today.”

  A hot knife went through the place in my chest where my heart used to be. Tears stung my eyes. I blinked them back and tried to be practical, though everything in me was screaming “Run!”

  “Why would you do that? You’re holding all the cards. Why sweeten the pot?”

  “Because, my dear, I know Ethan Roberts.” The old man shook his head. “He won’t give you up without a fight. You and I both know this is for the best, but if he thinks he has a chance of holding on to you he’ll risk his career to do it. I’m not a monster, Asia. I care for Ethan. And I know you have few resources of your own. I don’t expect you to start over without help.”

  I wanted to come up with some argument to change what had to be, but there was no need to think it through. What he was saying made perfect sense. I wanted to pretend there was some hope, but there was no need to hold back my tears. What I was feeling was perfect desolation. I should have known this hurricane was coming. The only reason I hadn’t seen the clouds gathering overhead was because I’d forgotten to look up. And now all I could do was hang on as the wind howled and the water rolled.

  “We’re going to hell, Claussen. Both of us. My only consolation is that I’ll get to watch you burn.” Then, red-faced and choking on my pain, I turned my back on him and ran down the hall.

  My hands shook as I took my toilet articles from the shelves in the bathroom and stuffed them in my bag. I kept my eyes carefully averted from Ethan’s things, my gaze sliding off his razor and his toothbrush and the tee-shirt hanging behind the door. Numb, I went back out to the great room and rummaged through the corners for my clothes, folding them as quickly as I could with shock-clumsy fingers.

  I was almost done when I heard the screen door bang and turned to see Ethan standing in the entryway. He barely glanced at Claussen. He just pinned me with those eyes the color of the Arctic Sea.

  “What are you doing?”

  Claussen stood and faced him. “She’s doing the sensible thing, Ethan, what she should have done several weeks ago. She’s leaving. With me. Now.”

  I couldn’t look away from Ethan’s face, the evidence of devastation written there, the loss and hurt so clear in his eyes, the betrayal etched like a flaming scar along his clenched jaw. He never took his eyes off me as he spoke to Claussen.

  “I can’t imagine why she would do that, Arthur. She’s not your patient. Actually, she’s no longer my patient, either. This is hardly a situation that requires a therapeutic intervention. And I don’t think you could convince me that she called you for help.”

  God, no! He didn’t think I . . .! Jesus, I was so fucking miserable.

  Claussen wheezed out a laugh. “I’m not here to help the young lady, much as she would seem to need it. On the other hand, you, Ethan, are a stubborn, willful and often blindly idealistic man. I’m here to help you. To save you from yourself, really.”

  “Then you could have saved yourself the trip.” Ethan stood as if he were carved out of stone. “Which brings me to my next question. How did you know we were here?”

  “Oh, that was almost too easy.” The old man lifted a shoulder. “I had some questions after we talked the other night. When I couldn’t reach you on your cell phone, I called the Mickens family. Friendly folks. Of course they told me you hadn’t even stayed for the old lady’s funeral. And that Asia was with you. Then it was just a matter of guessing where you might choose to hide out for a few days. Where else but the family vacation cabin you’d told me so much about? Although . . .” Claussen chuckled, and it made me shudder. The fucker was enjoying this. “This must have been quite a trip for that old jalopy of yours, Ethan. I’m amazed you made it all the way up here without a major breakdown.”

  “It was quite a trip for you, too, Arthur. An unnecessary one. You could have said whatever you needed to say to me at my office in Nashville in a few days.”

  “I’m not certain you would have been listening.” Claussen waved his hand. “You seem to be doing all of your thinking with the wrong part of your anatomy these days.”

  Ethan lunged forward, taking more than one step before he stopped himself, his muscles quivering in an effort to keep his anger in check. Then he smiled, a feral baring of the teeth that was more warning than retreat.

  “You know, you’re right, in a way. I’ve been listening a lot more to my heart lately. At last, after all these years, I’ve discovered the ability to feel something more than just pain. I love Asia. She loves me. You won’t talk me out of that.”

  Claussen snorted. “Ethan, please. Do I have to point out how fortunate it is that I was the one that found you here shacked up with your patient in your little hideaway, and not a member of the Professional Ethics Committee?”

  “You are a member of the Professional Ethics Committee.”

  “Actually, I’m the Chair of the Committee, but I am also your friend and mentor, Dr. Roberts. And I’m offering you—and Asia—a way out of this mess.”

  “Fuck you. This isn’t a mess, and I don’t need a way out of it.”

  Oh, God. He was going to talk his way right out of this deal if I didn’t do something. I took a step in his direction.

  “Ethan, don’t.”

  “You’re very much mistaken if you think I’m bluffing,” Claussen warned. “I have what it takes to ruin you. Your girl knows enough to do the right thing. Why don’t you listen to her?”

  Ethan’s voice got menacingly quiet. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  I put myself between the two men. If they kept arguing, either Ethan would end up strangling the old man, or I would lose my nerve. “Go on out to the car, Doctor.” I struggled to sound like I meant it
. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “I’m not through with him.” Ethan started forward.

  I put a hand on his chest and held his angry gaze. “Yes, you are. I’ll explain the rest.”

  I sensed rather than saw the frown on Claussen’s face as he turned to leave the room. He paused to lay a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “It really is for the best, my friend.”

  Ethan pivoted and flung off the offending touch like so much garbage. Then he curled up a fist and went after the old man, and if I hadn’t been close enough to grab him, he might have ended any chance at all of saving his future. As it was, Claussen stood backed up against the counter for an endless moment, looking as if his obedient Labrador retriever had suddenly ripped off his arm. Ethan returned his stare with an icy blue hatred until the man who had once been his friend found his feet and scrambled out the door to his car.

  I was trembling all over now, and my legs turned to water as Ethan turned back to look at me. I dropped to the edge of the bed, my arms wrapped around my body in a futile attempt to hold myself together. He came no closer, but stood watching me from a few steps away, hurt and accusation burning so intensely in his eyes that I wanted to shrivel up in the heat of it.

  “Asia, what’s going on?”

  “Baby, we knew this day was coming.” From the first day I walked into his office and couldn’t stop my heart from leaping against my ribs. From the minute our lips touched and our bodies melted in that hotel room in Bristol. I had no regrets. But we had both known there’d be a price. It was time to pay up.

  Ethan shook his head in dismissal. “You think his threats mean anything? I’ll have friends on any review board he puts together. You’re no longer a patient. I’ll probably get off with a warning and a fine. We’ve got bigger problems to worry about.”

  “No.” My fear and my anger put an edge on the word that was only sharpened by the frustration that he wouldn’t take the danger seriously. “You shouldn’t fight this. He’s determined to bring you down if you oppose him. That’s what he says, and I believe him.”

  Ethan knelt in front of me and took my hands in his. “Asia, did you think I would let you go without a fight?” His eyes searched my face for the answer. “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I won’t live my life without you. I’ll take whatever the review board has to dish out, even if it means I never practice again.”

  Shit. I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough. God, please help me.

  “No. You have to listen. Your work is too important to just throw it away. And you know if you go up against that review board, even if you win, your career is shot. How many of your clients come from Claussen? He’s offering you a way out that won’t leave any marks on your reputation.”

  Ethan blew out a breath in exasperation. “What the hell are you talking about? Damn it, Asia, what did that bastard say to you that he wouldn’t say in front of me?”

  “He said that he would put me on a plane this afternoon and pay for me to disappear. Set me up in a new place.” Despite the tears that stung my eyes, I tried for a lighter tone. “I’m thinking maybe Santa Fe.”

  Shock constricted his voice and left him grasping for words. “Asia, you can’t.”

  I pushed on. “In return, he won’t haul your ass in front of a review board.”

  “You know we can’t trust him.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “Then for God’s sake, Asia! Why would you do this?”

  I didn’t want to answer him, because I knew this was the clincher, the final blow in a fight I didn’t want to win, but needed to. In the depths of hell, the Devil was laughing.

  “Because someone out there is looking for me, Ethan. One day soon they’re going to find me. They’re going to use me like a monkey in a lab, and there’s not a fucking thing we can do about it. Unless I disappear. For good.”

  Ethan shook his head. “Asia, you know I would die before I let them take you.”

  I put a finger to his lips. “Yes, but I can’t let you do that. I won’t let you.” I stroked his cheek with a shaking hand and tried hard not to cry at the desolate capitulation I saw in his eyes. “Claussen may not have the right reasons, baby, but he just may have the right idea. A new place. A new identity. What better way to shake those guys? If I have to go, at least I’ll know that you’re okay.”

  “Don’t do this. We’ll find another way.”

  He gathered me up and held me, his embrace fierce and desperate and full of everything that could never be again for us. God, I wanted to stay there, wrapped in the love we had for each other. It took all the courage I had in the broken chip of rock that was my heart to pull out of his arms, to look at his face for the last time, to say the words that I knew would break his heart.

  “I have to go.”

  “Promise me you’ll let me know where you are.”

  I stood up, gripped my bag and headed for the door.

  He grabbed my arm. “Promise me, Asia.”

  I wouldn’t lie to him, so I waited until he let go. “I’ll never stop loving you, Ethan. No matter where I am.”

  Then I walked out, and I shut the door behind me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Ethan watched Asia cross the yard to Claussen’s car, no more able to stop her than if she were fully alive in a newly created world and he nothing but a ghost caught in the disintegration of the old one. Everything he’d begun to live for was passing with her into that new reality. His life, his dreams, were dying along with all that had once been. The din of destruction roared in his ears.

  He stumbled out onto the porch and threw out a hand to support himself on the railing. Claussen slammed the sedan in gear and scratched out of the yard, spitting gravel into the sparse grass as the wheels spun. Ethan saw Asia’s tear-streaked face at the side window, and her gaze, full of love and regret, caught his. As the car snaked up the drive and out of sight, his broken heart twisted in his chest.

  “No,” he whispered. Then louder, “No, damn it!” How could it end like this? After all they had been through together. After all the pain they had suffered before they had found each other. Anger rose in him that was beyond words, beyond thought, almost beyond control. He knew it wasn’t like him. He knew it was dangerous and nonproductive and unhelpful and all those other things psychiatry was established to take care of. But he was like a bear in a pit-trap, maddened and in pain, with no way out. He only wanted to lash out at whatever came near, to use his body to smash things and his strength to wreak havoc.

  The big, log-splitting ax was resting against the woodpile at the other end of the yard. A jumble of oak logs waited to dry before they could be split easily into fireplace-size pieces. They were still a little green, but Ethan was hardly in the mood to be reasonable. He jumped off the porch, strode across the yard, grabbed the ax and the nearest round and went at it like the madman he was.

  He didn’t think about the pain still lingering in his side from his cracked ribs. He didn’t think about Claussen. He didn’t think about aliens or Men in Black. He didn’t even think—much—about Asia. He just swung the ax. Over and over. Angrily. Hating the wood. Murdering it. Making it suffer like he was suffering. Splitting the wood to its heart like he had been split to his heart.

  Until he swung the ax, and it hit with a thunk and stuck deep in the unyielding center of a green oak round a foot across. Cursing, Ethan pulled and rocked and tried to wedge the ax out of the wood with no luck. The blade was buried deep and was not coming out without major intervention, meaning most likely the chainsaw.

  Defeated, the sweat rolling off him in the thin late-autumn sun as if it were midsummer, Ethan kicked a piece of wood toward the woodpile and turned back toward the house. The thought of going inside the empty place to face the reality of Asia gone tightened his chest with despair. God, how was he going to get through this? She had only been gone half an hour. How would he survive the afternoon? Tonight? The rest of his life?

  He blundered
into the kitchen and opened the cabinet next to the sink. He pulled out a bottle of bourbon and took a long swig without bothering to get a glass. The liquid seared his throat and burned a fiery pathway to his unquiet stomach. Tears started in his eyes that thankfully had nothing to do with Asia. He took another drink and carried the bottle with him to the bathroom. He flipped on the shower and began to strip out of his clothes. He saluted himself in the mirror.

  “Maybe you and me will just get drunk tonight, old buddy,” he told himself. “Won’t be the first fucking time.”

  But then he lifted the top of the clothes hamper and saw just a single item in the bottom—a tee-shirt. Asia’s tee-shirt, a little blue one with long sleeves and a scoop neck that had always made him want to kiss her at the place where her pulse throbbed in her throat. He pulled it out of the hamper and held it to his face, inhaling her smell off the soft fabric, a smell like desert wind and honey, and the tears did threaten then. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to sob like a child because that smell brought back what he could never have again and damn it he wanted her so bad that he was aching and hard and shit!

  It was all he could do not to sink to the floor and give in to the misery, recognizing with the tiny part of his brain that was still functional that this was a necessary part of the grieving process. A last scrap of pride kept him on his feet, pacing and miserable and unaware of the passage of time. He had no idea how long it had been before he stumbled into the lukewarm shower, but at least he was able to breathe by the time he got out again. And he was clean.

  He pulled on fresh clothes, upended the bottle of bourbon once more—he wasn’t feeling any effects yet, that was a bad sign, he knew from past experience—and padded through the hallway into the great room. Fuck! It was freezing cold in there. He’d neglected to start a fire, and the afternoon had long since begun to slide into evening.

  Adding another long stream of curses to his opening salvo, Ethan piled wood into the woodstove and got the blaze going. He had enjoyed the task when Asia had been there. He’d loved hearing her puttering around in the kitchen while he worked, loved knowing she’d be curling up in front of the fire as soon as it started to roar, loved just having her someplace nearby. Now he resented every second of the work. He cursed the darkness, cursed the cold, cursed the emptiness in the house and in his heart. The tears stung his eyes again, and he cursed himself. He slammed the door shut on the woodstove and didn’t bother with the fireplace. Come on, man, get a grip. He straightened from the fireplace and reached for the bourbon once again. He started to pace and found himself in the kitchen, staring out the window at the failing light. Mist was gathering over the lake, softening the edges where the trees stood like sentinels against the purple twilight sky. In the yard by the house he spotted the ax stuck in the green oak round still where he’d hurled it in frustrated rage, the split wood scattered like dead bodies around the woodpile.