by MJ Rodgers
The snowflakes fell on the frozen ground like a soft benediction, covering the spot where Hazel had been laid to rest. From within their silence and across the years, Hazel’s happy voice came to whisper in Briana’s ears:
Remember, no tears, my dear! Laugh often. And love a lot.
“I’ll remember, Hazel,” Briana whispered back, wiping away the moisture from her eyes. “I’ll always remember.”
And then Briana turned toward the offices of the Lewis Funeral Home, where Michael was waiting with a kind funeral director by the name of Paul, who had given up his Sunday afternoon to help them sort through a three-year-old mystery.
Michael had the door open by the time Briana reached it. When she stepped inside out of the snow, he helped her off with her coat and scarf.
He had understood her need to say goodbye to Hazel alone. And she understood the lingering touch of his hands on her shoulders as the gesture of comfort it was intended to be.
Paul was just returning from a back room. He motioned Briana and Michael to the chairs in front of his desk as he sat behind it.
“I got out the file, as you requested, Dr. Sands,” he said. “There were no services for Mrs. Doud. We could find no surviving family.”
“What about her granddaughter, Briana Berry?” Michael asked. “The nursing home should have provided you with her name and address.”
Paul consulted the thin file on his desk.
“Granddaughter? Oh, yes. Here it is. Briana Berry. She predeceased Hazel Doud by three weeks.”
“Excuse me,” Briana said leaning forward. “Did you just say that Briana Berry died three weeks before her grandmother?”
“Yes,” Paul said. “December third. Some kind of accident in Las Vegas. She was cremated at a funeral home there, to save the expense of transport. Do you want the address of the funeral home that handled it?”
“Yes, by all means,” Briana said, leaning back in her chair as the earth tilted all around her once again. “It’s not every day that I can get a chance to talk to the people who cremated me.”
Chapter Eleven
Getting a flight out of SEATAC back into Las Vegas during the busy holiday season proved the most difficult part of Michael and Briana’s traveling arrangements. They took a plane to Salt Lake City, where they changed planes for San Diego, where they in turn picked up a connecting flight headed for Vegas.
After a night of catnaps interspersed with plane changes, they arrived midmorning, worn and weary. The first thing Michael did when he got off the plane was to find a phone and call Nate.
“Well, you were right, Michael,” Nate said. “There was a convention for architectural designers at the Mirage three years ago, on the weekend of December third. The hotel shows that Bnana Berry checked in, paid in advance by credit card and was just charged for the one night.”
“Anything unusual happen at the convention?” Michael asked.
“It went off without a hitch. I called the professional organization for architects. They said Briana Berry was a member until her death three years ago. And that Lee Willix still is. His firm, Willix and Associates, is in Portland, Oregon.”
“So now we know why we couldn’t find him in Washington.”
“There’s more. Laura called her editor friend at the newspaper and asked her to look through their archives to see if she could find anything newsworthy that happened at the Mirage around that time. She scored. It seems a dress shop lost its ceiling, severely injuring a couple of customers. They were taken to the hospital.”
Michael’s pulse started to race. “Who were the customers?”
“Newspaper article didn’t list their names.”
“What happened to them?”
“Well, that’s the strange part. Laura’s friend said there was no follow-up story. Seems somebody at the paper dropped the ball.”
“Or the ball got intercepted,” Michael said, as new suspicions began to rise in his thoughts. “Nate, where were the injured people taken?”
“Emergency room at Sunrise Hospital.”
“Thanks. And thank Laura for me, too.”
“Michael, hold on a minute. Do you know that Sheldon Ayton has been looking for you two everywhere? He even came by here to ask Laura and me about you this morning.”
“Looks like I was successful in giving his detectives the slip in Louisiana. So what did you tell him?”
“I told him to get lost. And Laura slammed the door in his face for good measure. But I know Ayton has a process server waiting for you and Briana at the institute. And once Briana is served, the court order gives her just twenty-four hours to turn herself in for a psychiatric examination.”
“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be sure to avoid answering any knocks on the door there.”
“Playing cat and mouse with a man like Sheldon Ayton could be a pretty dangerous game.”
“Only if you’re the mouse, Nate,” Michael said before hanging up.
THE EMERGENCY ROOM at Sunrise Hospital was busy. It took a few minutes for them to catch the attention of someone who could direct them to the medical files room.
Once there, the clerk shook her head in response to Michael’s request.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Sands. But since you are neither on staff nor have privileges at this hospital, it would be inappropriate of me to give you the names of any of our patients—even past ones—or let you see any of our records without an appropriate court order.”
“I understand,” Michael said, sending her a deliberate smile as he leaned across her desk. He lowered his voice to a confidential pitch. “But surely it wouldn’t hurt to give me the name of the emergency room physician who treated the accident victims?”
The smile was working. The clerk hesitated only a moment before consulting her computer. She looked around before she whispered, “William Cupper.”
“Where might I find Dr. Cupper?” Michael whispered back.
“He’s on break. I saw him head for the doctors’ lounge.”
Michael thanked the clerk and led Briana there.
Cupper was easy to spot, since he was the only one in the small room. He was chronologically young, not quite thirty, but already looking emotionally worn and weary. Michael figured it was the emergency room work that was taking its toll.
Michael introduced himself and Briana. Dr. Cupper gestured toward the empty chairs in front of him.
“So what can I help you with, Dr. Sands?”
“I’m interested in some accident victims you treated three years ago—December third, 1994, to be precise. They had been injured in the collapse of a ceiling in a clothing boutique at the Mirage.”
Dr. Cupper shook his head. “I get so many emergencies in here. I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
“Could you take a moment to check the medical files?” Michael asked.
Dr. Cupper was clearly tired and not eager to rise to the occasion, much less out of his chair. However, Michael was counting on the bond of professional courtesy between doctors winning out. It did. Cupper nodded and headed for the medical records office. When he returned, he had the file in his hands. He plopped back into his chair and scanned the sheets.
“Yes, I remember this now. Two women. Massive head and facial trauma. One D.O.A. One in critical condition. The lucky one stayed in a coma for nearly a week. Her face was so bloody and badly mangled, we could barely find the openings for her nose and mouth to put the tubes through. It was a miracle she pulled through.”
“What were the names of the two women?” Michael asked.
“Bnana Berry and Natalie Newcastle. Berry was the D.O.A. Newcastle was the one who made it.”
Michael had been expecting this. He could tell from the look on Briana’s face that she had, as well. After what they had learned, this was the only explanation that made any sense.
Dr. Cupper’s rounded shoulders suddenly straightened. His eyes went to Briana. “Wait a minute. Didn’t Dr. Sands introduce you a moment ago as Briana Berry?”<
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“Yes, Dr. Cupper,” Briana said. “There seems to have been a mix-up. I’m the one you saved in that accident, not Natalie Newcastle.”
“A mix-up? No. That’s not possible.”
“And yet here I am,” Briana said with a smile, “in living color, Cinemascope, and 3-D, too.”
Dr. Cupper stared at Briana, his look saying that he was still far from convinced.
“You did indicate that both women had serious facial injuries,” Michael said. “Couldn’t that have contributed to their identities being confused?”
Cupper immediately shook his head at Michael’s suggestion. “No, both Ms. Newcastle’s mother and brother were at her side. How could they not know?”
“That’s a very good question,” Michael said. “What notes do you have on the patient through her recovery?”
Cupper took a moment to scan the medical file. “She regained consciousness on the eighth day. Her vital signs were good. But she displayed total amnesia for both the accident and her identity.”
“I didn’t know who I was?”
“It’s not unusual after such a severe head trauma. Full memory is often never restored.”
“Where did your patient go from here?” Michael asked.
“As soon as her condition was stabilized sufficiently for her to leave the hospital, her mother and brother had her flown to a specialist in France to begin the restorative plastic surgery. Our chief of surgery recommended the man—Chennault—as the absolute best. He can work miracles with a laser.”
Michael thanked Dr. Cupper, and he and Briana left the doctor’s lounge. They walked down the hall in the general direction of the parking lot where he’d left his car.
“I’ve been living the life of Natalie Newcastle for the last three years,” Briana said as soon as they were alone. “That’s why I had that dream of her wedding. I was there, her. At least I thought I was. It’s incredible!”
“And there still are a lot of unanswered questions.”
“Well, at least I know now I’m not a multiple personality.”
“Yes,” Michael said. “The suggestion that you were a multiple personality was certainly a clever ploy on the part of Carlie to lead us down that wrong path. It almost worked, too.”
“You’re right. She had to have known I wasn’t her daughter. Why did she pretend I was?”
“She must have had a pretty compelling reason. She got rid of all of Markam’s servants, who would have immediately detected the personality differences between you and Natalie. She even had Natalie’s portrait with her father thrown out, so that no one would notice the difference in your eye color.”
“And she’s still trying to maintain the fiction, despite the fact that she knows I’ve remembered my life as Briana Berry.”
“Yes, she must—”
Michael aborted his sentence and grabbed Briana the second he saw the man who had turned into the corridor up ahead. He pulled Briana with him into an empty patient room.
“Michael, what—?”
“Wait!” he cautioned as he eased the door partially closed. Less than five seconds later, Sheldon Ayton walked by.
“Sheldon’s mother must be here,” Briana whispered, her voice throaty and her breath feathering Michael’s chin. He looked down into her crystal eyes and breathed in her lovely scent filling the small space between them.
“Michael, are you all right?” Briana asked.
No, he wasn’t. His heart had begun to pound. He could actually feel the blood draining to his feet. He quickly stepped back and made a dive for his disappearing thoughts.
“I’m fine,” he lied. “I was just thinking, if Ayton’s come to visit his mother for a while, that gives us our opportunity to have a private conversation with Carlie. Come on, Briana. Your surrogate mother has some explaining to do.”
BRIANA RECOGNIZED KUEN from the Pettits’ video when the manservant answered the door at the Ayton estate. Kuen formally welcomed her home and told her that she would find her “mother” in her suite. Briana ascended the red-carpeted stairs with Michael. The rococo furnishings and family portraits were an exact duplicate of those from her dream.
As soon as Briana entered Carlie’s suite, she recognized it as the place of her dream argument. Carlie looked up from some paperwork, her face registering surprise, then pleasure.
“Natalie, honey! You’ve come home!” She rose and circled Briana in a hug.
“Please, Carlie,” Briana said, drawing back out of the embrace. “Don’t make this any more difficult than it is.”
Carlie looked up at Briana with dismay. “You still don’t know who you are?”
“Oh, I know. I’m Briana Berry, an architect from Washington State. Three years ago I came to Las Vegas for a convention at the Mirage. The ceiling of a clothing boutique caved in on me and Natalie Newcastle. We were both badly injured. An ambulance took us to the hospital. I survived Natalie didn’t”
Carlie blinked at her. “Didn’t survive? Where are you talking about—”
“I know you switched my identity with Natalie at the hospital.”
“Switched what?” Carlie gasped, her hand flying to her heart. It was such a theatrical gesture. And yet the anguish on her face looked so real that it made Briana sick to her stomach.
“Why did you do it, Carlie?” Briana asked. “Please tell me.”
“She can’t tell you,” a voice said suddenly from the door.
Briana and Michael both whirled around to see Rory standing there.
Rory closed the door behind him and came to stand at his mother’s side. He wrapped his arm around her waist and turned to face Briana.
“You see, Mama didn’t do it. I did.”
Carlie gasped again as she looked up into the face of her son. “No, Rory, you can’t be saying this is true!”
Rory sighed as he looked into his mother’s anguished face. He withdrew his arm from her waist and clasped her hands within his.
“Mama, I’m sorry. I would have done anything to spare you this, believe me. Natalie—the real Natalie—is dead. She died that night three years ago.”
Tears fell from Carlie’s eyes as she crumpled against Rory in a sob. He pulled her back to her chair and sat her on it, his hands remaining on her shoulders.
“You have some explaining to do, Mr. Taureau,” Michael’s voice said, and there was a flat command in it that Briana had never heard before.
Rory must have heard it, as well. His chin jerked up. His dark eyes went to Michael’s face.
“I had to do it,” Rory said, his square jaw jutting out.
“Tell me why,” Michael said.
“Mama went to Natalie after Markam died. She just wanted her daughter back, to explain why she had been forced to give her up. Natalie threw her out.”
Briana watched Carlie’s face. Her wince at Rory’s words, and the pain in her eyes, told Briana they were true.
“Six months later,” Rory continued, “I found out my knee ligaments had deteriorated. I needed an operation. I had no medical insurance. Mama sold off her house, everything she had. It wasn’t enough. We were destitute. Mama crawled back to Natalie, begging for a room in the servants’ quarters.”
Rory paused to snort in disgust. “She gave us one—the smallest one at the estate—and it came with a hefty price. She made Mama her private secretary, on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the next five years. All at no pay. Just room and board.”
“That’s slavery,” Briana said.
“Yes, it was. Only Mama never told me the conditions Natalie had extracted from her. I thought my sister was employing Mama to make it easier for Mama to accept her financial help without feeling dependent. I thought she had softened. I thought she now understood that Mama hadn’t willingly abandoned her when she was a child.”
“When did you find out the truth?” Michael asked.
“Just before the accident at the Mirage. Natalie had dragged Mama along. I was getting around pretty well by
then. I had convinced Natalie to include me on her gambling trips so I could share the burden of her incessant demands on my mama. Natalie was happy to. And why not? It meant she had two slaves to attend to her, instead of one.”
Rory paused to exhale heavily.
“Natalie was losing at the tables, in a foul mood. I made the mistake of telling her it might be a good time to quit before she lost too much. She got angry and told me that she’d have a lot more money if my mama hadn’t been forging Natalie’s signature on checks.”
“Was this accusation true?” Briana asked Carlie.
Carlie took a deep breath and nodded as she exhaled.
“The checks were made out to the doctors and hospital, to cover my continuing medical treatments,” Rory said immediately, in his mother’s defense. “I thought the money was coming from Mama’s salary as Natalie’s private secretary. I didn’t know about her slave contract.”
“Until that night,” Briana guessed.
“Yes. I begged Natalie not to let her own mama be prosecuted. I promised her that I was nearly well, and I’d be getting a job and paying back all the money Mama took from her. With interest.”
“What did Natalie say to your offer?” Michael asked.
“She told me it was too late. She had already advised her accountant of the check forgery. She had him doing a signature verification on all checks issued over the previous six months.”
Rory released his hold on Carlie’s shoulders. “As soon as we returned to Louisiana, Natalie was going to collect the evidence from him and call the police. I was racking my brain, trying to think of some way to talk her out of it, when the ceiling of the boutique fell in on you both.”
Rory stopped to stare at Briana. “I rode in the ambulance. You were both battered and bloodied beyond recognition. I knew it was Natalie who died. When the ambulance attendants turned all their attention to keeping you alive, I got an idea. I switched your purses, put her rings on your fingers, and told the emergency room staff you were my sister.”
“What were you hoping to accomplish?” Michael asked.
Rory looked at his mother and shrugged.
