“What diagnosis?”
“Sensory-modulation disorder, with the subtype of sensory over-responsivity. You should know this.”
Molly leaned forward over the table. Lynda pulled the French toast out from under her just before Molly’s breasts dipped into the syrup.
“I had no idea he had been diagnosed. He never told me.”
Lynda frowned, dragging a fork-load of hash browns through a puddle of country gravy. “Maybe he felt like he couldn’t tell you. You can’t deny that sometimes you’re a little smothering, Molly.”
Molly drew back, Lynda’s words stinging like a slap across the face. “Well,” she said coolly. “Maybe you can take care of him while I get my own shit together, then.”
Her friend reached across the table to squeeze her hand, her frown melting away. “Let’s not fight, Molly. I’m just trying to be honest. I wouldn’t bother if I didn’t care about both of you.”
With effort, Molly let go of her anger and squeezed back. Lynda smiled with relief.
“Tell me about your professor.”
“What’s to tell? He’s helping me research the origins of those books.”
“And?”
Molly pulled her plate back toward her, cutting up the rest of her French toast as she decided how much to tell her friend. “Maybe I’m in deeper than I expected, and maybe I’m not sure that’s a good place to be.”
“Is he a good man?”
“I believe he is.”
“Then maybe you’re overthinking this. You tend to do that.”
“I had an affair with him during the missing year.”
Lynda’s fork clattered onto her plate. Her mouth hung open. “Molly, no one remembers the missing year.”
“I remembered that much just last night.”
“That’s impossible. All the experts say the radiation erased memories. No one can regain them.”
“I think the experts lied.”
Lynda’s mouth worked over words her tongue couldn’t seem to form, and then she closed her eyes for a few seconds, drew a deep breath, and said, “The superstorm aside, what about the man? Did you have an affair while you were his student?”
“No. It started after I received my grade and the term ended.”
“Then what’s the trouble? It might be sketchy, ethically speaking, but don’t sell short your allure, Mols. Men find you attractive.”
“He’s married.”
Lynda blinked and cradled her head in her hands, shaking it back and forth. “Molly, Molly, Molly. What am I to do with you? We’ve always sworn off married men.”
Her tone of mock-betrayal made Molly smile. “He said he was separated. I believe it, especially now that we’ve reconnected. His wife has been missing since the superstorm.”
“Maybe she died while they were separated.”
“He’s looked.” She pushed the syrup around on her plate with a piece of French toast, then set her plate aside, staring morosely into her coffee cup.
Still cradling her head in her hands, Lynda watched her for a moment, her eyes burning into her. Molly resisted the urge to look up. How could she explain to her friend the anxiety she couldn’t even explain to herself, the feeling of a guillotine poised right over her neck, rigged to release with the proper chain of events? And she was triggering those events without even meaning to. The certainty held her firmly in its grip, a deep-seated belief that grew every day, refusing to be shaken, its origin a mystery but its hold inescapable.
“What was I like before the superstorm?”
“What kind of question is that? You were funny and warm and cautious with men and very attached to your mother. You spent a lot of time with your brother, and you worried about him. You’re not any different now than you were then—the affair with a married man aside.”
“I don’t think I’m that person anymore—or maybe not so much that as I’m afraid I wasn’t that person during the missing year. I think . . . I think I did things that weren’t so good.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Molly? Open up to me. I’m your best friend. You can talk to me about this.”
So Molly spilled it, her words at first halting and hesitant, and by the end tumbling over one another to get out as fast as possible every worry or concern she’d had since meeting Cary: the risqué wardrobe, the irresistible draw she felt to him, the presuperstorm connections they had, her utter lack of resistance to his larger-than-life presence. The new red lace camisole, ripped asunder and discarded in a bag of old clothes. The missing wife whose absence made her feel like an interloper, a usurper. A thief.
Lynda absorbed it silently, somehow making sense of all the information fired at her like bullets. When Molly’s words dried up and she sat miserably, head hung in shame, Lynda said, “Are you sure you aren’t Catholic?”
Molly gaped. That was it? That was her best friend’s sage advice and nonjudgmental understanding?
“No, seriously, Mols, what’s with all the guilt? So you met a man you like. He’s separated from his wife. She’s asked for a divorce. You’re no longer his student. There’s no longer anything stopping your relationship. Why are you feeling so guilty over it?”
“Maybe because his wife is missing, Lyn. Did you miss that part? She’s missing. As in not seen in over a year—maybe longer, but who knows because of the memory loss. Missing.”
“Ahhhh,” Lynda drawled with sudden understanding. “I get it now. She’s missing—but what if she comes back, and you find out that you weren’t involved with a man in the midst of a divorce but with a truly, fully married man. You don’t trust him.”
“I do trust him. I’m just afraid that I shouldn’t.”
Her friend stared at her incredulously. “You are just one big ball of misplaced anxiety. I say we go to your place, get ripped, watch shamelessly romantic chick flicks, and then you go screw his brains out.”
“Lynda!” Molly gasped, and then burst out laughing. “And where will you be during this? I’m not into exhibitionism.”
“I’ll be hunting down that delicious brother of yours. Come on. You buy lunch, and I’ll buy the booze.”
Lynda wouldn’t take no for an answer, dragging her through Total Wine & More to purchase more booze than two women could drink in a month and then through Safeway for enough snacks to keep them alive until July.
And as she sipped on her second Long Island Iced Tea, she reflected that maybe Lynda was right. It was no more complicated than her desire to be with Cary, and his to be with her. Missing wives and solar storms and radiation-induced amnesia were secondary, less important factors.
At least, it wasn’t complicated until the sensation of being watched crawled over Molly’s skin. For some reason, the memory surfaced of when she’d dropped Magnus off downtown so he could roam the antique shops. The weight of someone’s gaze had pressed heavily upon her that day, as it had for most of the last week.
Your books leak magic. Keep them wrapped in black silk to contain the magic.
Perhaps it wasn’t the weight of someone’s gaze, but that of the magic that enveloped her like a too-tight glove. Wrapped in black silk and hidden away in the garage, their siren song should have been drastically muted, but in the glow of the bright images from the television, her arms pebbly with gooseflesh and the hairs standing stiff, she doubted the black silk’s efficacy.
She glanced behind her when the prickling of her skin could no longer be ignored. The doorway held the shadow of a man, silhouetted by the dim hallway light. She let out a startled scream, half falling out of her chair.
“What, Molly? What’s wrong?” Lynda sprang from her chair to help Molly back into hers and caught sight of the shadow. “Jesus, Magnus, can you stop sneaking up on people?”
Molly’s thudding heart calmed considerably as Lynda snapped on the lamp. His clothes unkempt, his hair disheveled, purple half-moons underscoring his eyes, Magnus looked like he hadn’t slept in a year. He stared at Molly, his eyes burning like hot coals in his wan
face.
Then her heart raced frantically toward cardiac arrest as she saw him clearly.
Lynda’s gaze swept over him, and she saw it at the same instant Molly did. “Holy Jesus! Molly!”
A pool of blood filled his cupped hands, spilling in rivulets over his trembling fingers.
∞3∞
“Once again, just how did you manage to do this?”
“Opening a cheese package with a steak knife.”
“Why didn’t you cut away from yourself? You could have sliced off your thumb!” Molly looked away from his hand, her eyes landing on his T-shirt, soiled with bright-red blooms of blood.
“It’s just a small cut, Molly.”
It wasn’t. It was a huge, gaping wound that pulsed with every beat of his heart. The metallic scent of blood in the air brought bile up the back of her throat. The world narrowed to a pinhole of sight: thick, red liquid spilling from the slice in his palm, just below the base of his thumb, pooling in his cupped hand and dripping from his fingers. She had seen blood pulse like that somewhere . . . some when . . .
“Molly, sit.”
Lynda pushed her into a chair at the kitchen table and took her spot at the sink beside Magnus, turning his hand over the drain to dump the puddle of blood. She turned on the tap and held his hand under it to wash away the blood. Something about the scene struck Molly as strange, but she couldn’t think over the buzz in her ears. The light dimmed. Must be Annis, because neither Lynda nor Magnus had moved toward the switch.
“She’s passing out, Lyn,” Magnus said, his tone more matter-of-fact than it was concerned.
A cold, wet hand at the back of her neck shoved her head down between her knees. “Deep, even breaths, Molly.”
Molly obeyed without thought. Gradually, the floor tiles sharpened into focus. The buzzing faded from her ears. She took a few more breaths, and Lynda removed her restraining hand, moving back to the sink to wash fresh blood from Magnus’s wound, leaning close to his hand to examine the cut. He in turn watched the top of her golden head as though hypnotized.
He was letting Lynda touch him. Not only that, he was letting her touch him without flinching away or grimacing. He wanted her to touch him. Jealousy burned away the last vestiges of her faintness. Why was Lynda’s physical contact acceptable, but Molly couldn’t even give him a hug or a kiss on the cheek without him wanting to put the distance of a few counties between them? She was his twin, for God’s sake. She should at least be closer to him than her best friend was.
“She never used to pass out when she saw blood,” Lynda murmured, the sink muffling her words. “That’s new.”
“Ever since the car accident,” Magnus said, and then “Ouch!” as she prodded the cut.
Lynda straightened abruptly, wrapping his hand in a clean towel Molly had taken from a drawer when they first came into the kitchen. Before she’d become unnecessary.
“I think we should take you to get stitches. It’s not necessarily large, but it’s pretty deep. It won’t stop bleeding.”
“Harborview.”
“Valley Medical is closer.”
“There’s a doctor at Valley Medical he despises, and he always seems to get him,” Molly said.
As though she hadn’t spoken, Magnus said to Lynda, “You’d better drive. Molly shouldn’t be behind the wheel.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” Lynda didn’t even look at her; she was tucking the ends of the towel into the folds to make it stay on. “Your voice still has that disconnected sound to it. You may ride along, my dear BFF, but you are certainly not steering this ship.”
Lynda bustled them out to the car with a discernible air of capability, her profession as an elementary-school nurse holding her in good stead all the way through check-in at the emergency room.
Magnus went back by himself when called. Molly exchanged a knowing look with Lynda, both of them wondering how long until someone came to get Molly. Sure enough, within twenty minutes an orderly came from the back. To her surprise—but, judging from her friend’s expression, not to Lynda’s—the orderly called for Lynda. She signaled to him as she gathered her things, and he crossed the room to them instead of waiting for her, glancing between Lynda and Molly.
“Which of you is Molly?” Molly gave a halfhearted wave. “Your brother said to tell you that he asked for Lynda only because you almost passed out when you saw his blood. There’s going to be more of it while they stitch him, so he didn’t want you fainting.” He looked at Lynda. “You’re aware of his special needs?”
“Yes,” Lynda said, and without further ado, she was whisked into the back, leaving Molly in the waiting room feeling bereft, oddly fragile, and not a little disgruntled.
She read on her phone while she waited, drank strong, bitter coffee, and directed frequent glares at the secured doors that separated the waiting room from the rest of the ER every time they opened and didn’t eject Magnus and Lynda. This time when they opened, though, she recognized the man who exited. As though feeling the weight of her gaze upon him, Harvey Cohen veered off his intended path to the parking-lot exit and claimed the chair beside her.
“Miss McKinley, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Molly made a face. “Do you often say that in the hospital emergency room?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” He smiled at her and sank lower in his chair. Exhaustion hung on him like an ill-fitting coat.
“I hope no one in your family has been hurt.” Her mind immediately jumped to Cary. I don’t want to have a convenient car accident. Had he—
“Oh, no, everyone’s fine,” he assured her. “Stabbing victim who will be a homicide victim by the end of the night unless she gets a miracle. She was dumped in a remote area and found by hikers.” He frowned. “You ever have déjà vu?”
“Every now and then.”
“I’ve had it bad for a few days now, but nothing so strong as when I went to the dump site. I know I’ve been in a similar place before, but I just can’t remember when or exactly where.” He shook off the thought. “I hope no one in your family has been seriously hurt?”
“My brother sliced open his hand with a steak knife, trying to open a cheese package.”
“It’s the little things that get you.”
“Not such a little thing for your stabbing victim,” Molly said quietly. “Where was she found?”
“Seventy-Six Gulch area, near Monte Cristo—the ghost town—just southeast of the old town site. We’ve little hope of finding where she was actually attacked. She was dumped there and then crawled half a mile back toward the town site before she collapsed.” He shook his head. “I can’t shake the familiarity, but I know when I go back to the station, I’ll find nothing in the database.”
“The missing year,” Molly said dully. Her mind threw up an amazingly vivid image of a woman crawling through the forest duff, her mud-smeared skin tinged blue from the cold, her gaping wounds surging blood with every lunge of her legs. Twigs and sharp stones left their own marks as she dragged her naked flesh inch by agonizing inch toward salvation.
Molly’s heart thudded. Her breath stuttered in, shuddered out. The phantom stones dug icy divots into her skin. The frigid air draped her, a hypothermic cloak that swirled over her and around her, until she realized the ER doors had slid open, a gust of glacial wind propelling before it a frantic woman. The vision vanished as the check-in staff pointed toward Molly, and the woman turned and rushed toward them, stopping in her tracks halfway there. Molly straightened in her chair.
“Brenda?”
“Molly? How did you hear about it?” She crossed the remaining distance. Molly had barely gained her feet before Brenda clutched her in a desperate embrace.
Harvey Cohen also rose from his chair. “Ms. Nelson? I’m Detective Cohen. I’ll be leading the investigation.”
Brenda pulled away from Molly to shake his hand, then fixed Molly with red, shell-shocked eyes. “I don’t understand how you knew.”
Brenda’s mouth worked silently. Her dilemma was clear; did she say, “We’re book-club nemeses,” or did she opt for something more neutral? She darted a glance at Molly, panic-stricken that her brain couldn’t find an answer.
Molly took pity on her. “We’re book-club friends.”
Relieved of the responsibility of explaining their connection, Brenda clutched his arm. “Genevieve—is she alive? Is she going to be all right?”
Cohen guided her down into a chair. “I’m no doctor, Ms. Nelson. I just know that Ms. Stratton’s condition is critical.”
Molly’s world tilted. “Genevieve? Genevieve is your—” She broke off abruptly. She’d been about to say murder victim, but Cohen had said the victim wasn’t dead yet.
“Oh, it’s horrible, Molly!” Brenda wailed, sinking into a chair and covering her face with her hands. “She went to the bookstore yesterday evening buy a copy of The Grapes of Wrath and get takeout for dinner—we were going to read for a while and maybe watch a movie, have something to eat. She never showed up. She never answered any of my calls or texts.”
Molly sat down hard. She disliked Genevieve, but she never would have wished upon her something like this.
“We discovered her purse near where she was found. Otherwise, we might never have been able to identify her. Her cell phone was found under a large rock, smashed,” Cohen said, claiming the seat next to Brenda. “We might be able to track her movements prior to her abduction from the cell towers the phone communicated with.”
Brenda wiped her streaming eyes. “Oh, I can tell you where she was shopping. She went to Southcenter—to Barnes and Noble and then to Mayflower China for takeout. She probably called ahead to order—she usually does.”
Whatever else Brenda and Harvey Cohen discussed was lost on Molly. Cary had picked up takeout from Mayflower China last night. Had he been there at the same time as Genevieve? Maybe he would remember if someone approached her inside the restaurant or in the parking lot.
Burning Books Page 22
