Hiding in the Shadows tbscus-2

by Кей Хупер

  She's dying. I know that. How can I tell him?

  And like a distant answering whisper in her mind came the words, You can't tell him.

  "Faith?"

  Steadily, she said, "I don't think so. There was something vaguely familiar about the hallway of that building where I was looking for evidence, but I have no idea what or where it is. In fact, I have no real sense of where either of those two memories took place."

  "Do you think you'd recognize either place if you saw it again?"

  "That hallway, yes. The other ... I don't know. But the hallway, that would seem more important. If I was looking for evidence there — and if I found something — then it has to help us find Dinah. Doesn't it?"

  "I wish I knew."

  "We can look for it. Begin with places that seem likely — the building where I worked, others in the area. It's a start, isn't it?"

  "Yes. Of course it is."

  She gazed at his face, feeling a strong pang of loneliness. He was entirely focused on Dinah, thinking of nothing except possible ways of finding her. It reminded Faith yet again of how unconnected she was, to anything or anyone.

  "I wish I could be more help," she said. "I'm sorry."

  Kane looked at her. "You are helping, Faith. You've given me more pieces of the puzzle than I've been able to find in all the weeks since Dinah disappeared."

  "But we still don't know what the puzzle is supposed to look like."

  "We'll figure it out," Kane said.

  Faith hoped he was right. But all she could do at the moment was wonder wretchedly if it was all her fault that Dinah was dying. And wonder what Kane would do when he found out.

  "There's really nothing more I can tell you, Miss Parker." Dr. Murphy closed the folder and gazed across her desk. "Your visits here during the time you've been my patient have all been unexceptional, regular checkups or very minor complaints. I continued the prescription for contraceptives you'd been using before you came to Atlanta, but the only other medication I prescribed was a course of antibiotics for a mild infection."

  Faith wasn't sure how to phrase the questions she wanted to ask. Finally, she chose bluntness.

  "So I was sexually active?"

  The doctor's brows rose slightly, and a flicker of sympathy showed in her eyes. "You don't even remember that?"

  "I don't remember anything before waking up in the hospital."

  "That's ... quite unusual. Amnesia tends to center around the traumatic incident. The patient seldom recalls the events just before the trauma occurred. But in virtually every case I know of, the missing time is only a matter of hours or days."

  "In my case, years are missing. A lifetime, in fact."

  Faith managed a smile. "And I'm trying desperately to collect the pieces of my life and put them back together. So anything you can tell me, Doctor ..."

  Dr. Murphy laced her fingers together atop the file on her blotter and gazed at Faith steadily. "I see. I hadn't realized your amnesia was so extensive. That would, however, explain the changes I see in you."

  "Changes?"

  "In your manner and bearing, your eyes. You said you visited Haven House yesterday. They told you there was abuse in your background?"

  "Yes. Though Karen didn't know any details. I gather my ex-husband was ... physically abusive?"

  "Physically and emotionally. You told me you had warned this man to stay away from you, and that you had some confidence that he would because you had medical evidence of past injuries that could end his career and put him behind bars."

  "Is he the reason I came to Atlanta? Did I want to get three thousand miles away from him?"

  "I couldn't say, Miss Parker. You never said as much to me. And I honestly don't know if you were afraid he'd follow you here. I referred you to Haven House because you displayed many of the aftereffects of abuse. You had tension headaches and a low resistance to infection, a poor appetite. Your sleep was disturbed more often than not, and you were reluctant to make friends or form emotional attachments. I thought it would be healthier for you to spend time with other women who had suffered abuse, especially since you had done so the last few months you'd lived in Seattle."

  "And did it appear to you that Haven House and the women there helped me?" Faith had no idea where her dispassionate voice was coming from; all she knew was that they were discussing what seemed to be the life of a stranger.

  "I believe so. I saw steady improvement."

  "And yet you say that I'm more different now?"

  "Yes. There's a certain look many abuse victims share, a certain tension in their bearing and actions. That was evident the last time I saw you. It isn't today. If I didn't know, I would never guess you'd been abused."

  Questions about that abusive ex-husband rose in her mind, but Faith was all too aware that the doctor could not answer them.

  "I wish there was more I could tell you," Dr. Murphy said with obvious sympathy. "But you were reluctant even to confide in me as much as you did, and probably wouldn't have except that you said your doctor back in Seattle had urged you to make me aware of the history of abuse for medical reasons."

  "Medical reasons?"

  "The effects of abuse can last for years, Miss. Parker, both physically and emotionally, and it's always wise to make your doctor aware of the background in such cases. You had no lingering problems from physical injuries, but knowing your history would make me more apt to Spot Complications in the future."

  Faith decided not to ask what those complications might be. Instead, she said, "I see. Thank you, Doctor. For the information, and for taking time out of a busy morning to talk to me."

  "You are my patient, Miss Parker." For the first time, Dr. Murphy smiled. "I only wish there was more I could tell you."

  "You've ... told me a lot," Faith said.

  "You were a long time," Kane said when she got into his car outside the clinic. "Did you have to wait for the doctor?"

  "No, she saw me right away."

  "So? Did she prescribe muscle relaxants?"

  Faith shook her head. "No."

  Kane had his hand on the gearshift, but paused before putting the car into motion and gazed at her questioningly. "What else did she tell you?"

  Impossible to keep the information to herself, no matter how much she wanted to; for all Faith knew, that violent ex-husband might lie behind all the violent things that had happened. So she told Kane, staring through the windshield all the while because she couldn't meet his eyes.

  "That gives us another possibility, I suppose," she finished, her voice very steady. "It doesn't seem to fit with what I've been remembering, but it's conceivable that he's somehow involved. But the doctor didn't know his name, and I can't remember it. Easy enough to find out, I suppose."

  "Faith." Kane put a hand on her shoulder and turned her until she looked at him. "I'm sorry."

  She wondered if the return of her memory would mean she'd be unable to bear a man's hands on her. It seemed an all possibility at the moment.

  "There's no reason to be sorry, not about this. I don't remember him hurting me, I've told you that. I don't remember anything about him."

  She thought she sounded indifferent, and she even managed to smile, but apparently something betrayed the misery she felt, because Kane's fingers tightened on her shoulder.

  "I'm sorry there's been so much pain in your life. If I could do anything to..."

  "To make it better?" This time, her smile felt more natural. "You can't. But my amnesia might turn out to be a blessing when all's said and done. I don't remember the pain or the grief. Honestly, it's like it all happened to somebody else. But at least the facts are coming together. With a little luck, if I finally do remember, at least I'll be prepared."

  Kane nodded. "Still, it's a hell of a way to find out about yourself and your past."

  "I don't seem to have a choice." She fought a sudden and almost overpowering urge to throw herself into his arms and cling with all her strength. Afraid that showed as well,
she went on hastily. "So we add my ex to the list of things we need to investigate further. And go on. Where to now?"

  He didn't answer immediately; his eyes searched her face as though looking for something, but in the end he didn't voice whatever it was that disturbed him. He released her and put the car into gear.

  "The emergency room where you were first brought after the crash."

  That made sense; he was still looking for something to connect her accident with what had happened to Dinah weeks afterward.

  "You said Dinah visited me the day she disappeared?"

  "She did. And since the police traced her movements of that day very carefully, we know she spent in little more than half an hour with you in the morning."

  "And then?"

  "She went to her office and was in and out several times until early afternoon. Doing routine things, according to her editor. Sometime between noon and one P M., she left her office — and hasn't been seen since. Except by her captors, of course."

  Faith didn't want to think about Dinah's captors, about what was taking place in that cellar. She was agonizingly aware of the minutes ticking away. Of Dinah's life energy fading away.

  There's so little time left ... Her realization? Or Dinah's?

  She forced herself to think. "Between noon and one. But it was night when that dog attacked her, I'm sure of it. So if what I saw actually took place, and took place that day, where was Dinah during the hours before dark?"

  "So far, nobody's come forward to admit having been with her. She walked out of her office building and might as well have been swallowed up by a black hole."

  Faith thought of that hallway in her dream, and of the shadowy, lonely parking garage. Had that been Dinah's office building?

  "Can we go by Dinah's office later?"

  "Of course." He shot her a quick glance. "But why?"

  "Hallways. I'm looking for one I can recognize from my dream. It probably wasn't in Dinah's office building — why would I have been creeping around a place she had to have been far more familiar with?

  "but it's something else to check, just to be sure."

  "We also need to go to the building where you worked. Talk to your supervisor again, co-workers."

  "Yes."

  Kane patted the inner pocket of his jacket, where he carried his cell phone — a restless gesture he had repeated several times that morning.

  "With a little luck Noah will call later today to tell us what he found out about that restricted file."

  More appalling and mystifying facts about her past) Faith tried not to shiver. Despite her brave words to Kane, she wasn't sure she could take many more such revelations.

  Not many at all.

  Faith pretty much stayed out of the way admiring the way Kane pursued the answers he to wanted. He appeared to have a knack for getting people to talk to him despite the rules and issues of legality, and as she watched him patiently work his way through the tangle of red tape, she could only admire both his persistence and his self-control.

  It had to be hell for him, this endless, tedious piecing together of one tiny fact or bit of information after another, and yet he had been at it now for weeks. The strain of the search showed in his face and haunted his eyes, but despite the exhaustion he had to feel, he showed no sign of willingness to slow down or give up. He was utterly determined to find his Dinah.

  I can't tell him. I can't tell him she's dying.

  He wouldn't believe her anyway, that's what she told herself.

  Wouldn't believe such a horrible truth unless or until the proof was undeniable.

  Like a body.

  Faith shivered and crossed her arms over her breasts, rubbing her hands up and down in an effort to find warmth. Or comfort. But there was little of either in the cold desolation of her thoughts. Dinah was dying, and Faith was desperately afraid they wouldn't be able to find her in time.

  "Excuse me — are you a patient?"

  She jumped when a hand touched her arm, then gazed up at a harried young doctor. "No. No, I'm not."

  He frowned at her, mild blue eyes puzzled behind the lenses of his glasses. "You look familiar."

  Faith got a grip on herself. "A few weeks ago, I was a patient here. They brought me in after a traffic accident."

  "That probably explains it then. I never forget a face." He smiled at her. "Well, you look fine now. Was there some reason why you..."

  "Faith." Kane was suddenly there, and she was a little surprised when he put an arm around her and drew her toward him — and away from the young doctor — in a gesture that was curiously protective. "I see you found Dr. Blake."

  Faith blinked at the name tag on the doctor's green scrubs. "I guess so," she murmured, feeling oddly out-of-sync.

  Kane said, "Doctor, if you wouldn't mind answering a few questions about the day Miss Parker was brought in here..."

  Sound seemed to be fading in and out. She'd hear a few words of what Kane or Dr. Blake said, then the words would fade and she could hear only a distant rushing sound, like ... water? Maybe. Like water from a fall, or gushing out of a pipe under great pressure ... It was the strangest experience, not frightening but unsettling. She looked around her, seeing people talking, seeing noises she should have heard and yet didn't, like the crash of several boxes falling from a shelf, and the despairing wail of a woman bent over the still body of an injured child.

  All she could hear was the rushing water. It went on and on, filling her ears, all her other senses, her mind. She looked at Kane, watching his lips move, saw Dr. Blake respond, his face serious and a bit perplexed.

  She realized she was barely aware of Kane's physical nearness; she stood in the shelter of his arm, yet felt as if she were somewhere else, where water rushed and the musty smell of cold earth surrounded her. Where she felt a smothering sense of claustrophobia, the panic of being trapped and helpless. She was alone. And she didn't know which was worse, the awful musty smell and cold or the devastating knowledge that she couldn't ... that she'd never ... Faith groped for knowledge just out of her reach, and found only blackness. She could hear the water, smell the moldy earth all around her, but the emotions had faded once more into silence. Part of her wanted to close her eyes and concentrate, but remembering the abrupt unconsciousness of another such attempt stopped her.

  That wasn't all that stopped her. She was afraid and she knew it. Afraid of what she might see if she closed her eyes and really looked at that place she could hear and smell. Afraid of what awaited her there. It was fear of the unknown, of a nightmare, of the darkness that lay just beyond what the mind understood.

  She didn't want to look, didn't want to go there.

  Didn't want to feel those horrible emotions or to see...

  "Faith?"

  Like a soap bubble popping, the sounds of rushing water were gone, and as she looked up into Kane's concerned eyes, what she heard was the normal activity of a busy emergency room.

  "Yes?" Her voice sounded absentminded even to her.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Fine. I'm fine."

  Kane frowned at her. "Are you sure?"

  She wondered when the doctor had left them.

  "Quite sure. But I'm afraid I ... I wasn't listening. Did Dr. Blake tell us anything helpful?"

  He looked around and said, "Let's get out of here."

  He put her in his car and drove them a few blocks to a restaurant that wasn't crowded; they were given a booth near a window, where the waitress quickly brought them coffee and left them alone.

  Still distracted, Faith said, "What did Dr. Blake say about the accident?"

  "The way he remembers it, preliminary tests showed some ambiguous results. Maybe there were alcohol and muscle relaxants in your system, and maybe not. All he knew for sure was that your vital signs were strong and was fairly normal that something had put you into a coma. He didn't think it was the head Injury and suspected something more toxic than alcohol and medication in your system, so he ordered further te
sts. He went off duty shortly afterward. When he came back the next day, he was told you'd been transferred upstairs. He assumed that happened because you were stable, and that your regular doctor had taken over your case."

  Kane paused.

  "Funny thing, though. The paperwork that's supposed to be kept there in the ER seems to be missing."

  "Could it have been sent upstairs with me?"

  "A copy should have been, and some paperwork was certainly part of the file that ended up with Dr. Burnett. But the admitting records should be on file in the ER. They aren't."

  "I don't suppose we have much chance of finding out what happened to them?"

  "You saw how busy that place was — and on a Monday morning, hardly their busiest time. My guess is that we'll never be able to trace what happened to those records between the time you were admitted and when you were put under Burnett's care. But we can assume any number of people had access and could have tampered with the test results."

  "What about the lab that did the tests?"

  "It's there in the hospital. Their procedure is to keep a copy of all results in their own files. But in this case..."

  "Let me guess. Missing paperwork."

  "Afraid so. And the blood and tissue samples they used for the tests were destroyed afterward, per standard procedure."

  "Am I being paranoid in thinking all this missing and misplaced paperwork means something other than simple human error?"

  "I don't think so. When there are this many glitches in a normally efficient system, it usually means someone's been tampering."

  Faith sipped her coffee, grateful for the warmth because she'd felt chilled ever since her strange experience in the emergency room. "Then it's a safe bet that we'll never know for sure if there was actually alcohol in my blood or I was drugged intentionally."

  "Probably not. But I'm willing to put my money on your having been drugged."

  "It seems strange to hope that that's what happened, but I really didn't want to find out I'd been stupid enough to drink and get behind the wheel."

  Kane's gaze was intent. "No, I doubt you were so reckless."