Little Girl Gone

by Alexandra Burt

  Copyright

  Published by Avon an imprint of

  HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2015

  Copyright © Alexandra Burt 2015

  Cover design © Alice Moore

  Cover image © Shutterstock

  Alexandra Burt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © September 2015 ISBN: 9780008133177

  Version: 2015-08-25

  For all mothers, especially mine.

  For all daughters, especially mine.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part Two

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part Three

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Part Four

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  ‘Mrs Paradise?’

  A voice sounds out of nowhere. My thoughts are sluggish, as if I’m running under water. I try and try but I’m not getting anywhere.

  ‘Not stable. Eighty over sixty. And falling.’

  Oh God, I’m still alive.

  I move my legs, they respond, barely, but they respond. Light prowls its way into my eyes. I hear dogs barking, high pitched. They pant, their tags clatter.

  ‘You’ve been in a car accident.’

  My face is numb, my thoughts vague, like dusty boxes in obscure and dark attic spaces. I know immediately something is amiss.

  ‘Oh my God, look at her head.’

  A siren sounds, it stutters for a second, then turns into a steady torment.

  I want to tell them … I open my mouth, my lips begin to form the words, but the burning sensation in my head becomes unbearable. My chest is on fire, and ringing in my left ear numbs the entire side of my face.

  Let me die, I want to tell them. But the only sound I hear is of crude hands tearing fragile fabric.

  ‘Step back. Clear.’

  My body explodes, jerks upward.

  This isn’t part of the plan.

  When I come to, my vision is blurred and hazy. I make out a woman in baby-blue scrubs, a nurse, slipping a plastic tube over my head and immediately two prongs hiss cold air into my nostrils.

  She pumps a lever and the bed yanks upward, then another lever triggers a motor raising the headboard until my upper body is resting almost vertically.

  My world becomes clearer. The nurse’s hair is in a ponytail and the pockets of her cardigan sag. I watch her dispose of tubing and wrappers and the closing of the trashcan’s metal lid sounds final, evoking a feeling I can’t quite place, a vague sense of loss, like a pickpocket making off with my loose change, disappearing into the crowd that is my strange memory.

  A male voice sounds out of nowhere.

  ‘I need to place a central line.’

  The overly gentle voice belongs to a man in a white coat. He talks to me as if I’m a child in need of comfort.

  ‘Just relax, you won’t feel a thing.’

  Relax and I won’t feel a thing? Easy for him to say. I feel lost somehow, as if I’m in the middle of a blizzard, unable to decide which direction to turn. I lift my arms and pain shoots from my shoulder into my neck. I tell myself not to do that again anytime soon.

  The white coat wipes the back of my hand with an alcohol wipe. It leaves an icy trail and pulls me further from my lulled state. I watch the doctor insert a long needle into my vein. A forgotten cotton wipe rests in the folds of the cotton waffle weave blanket, in its center a bright red bloody mark, like a scarlet letter.

  There’s a spark of memory, it ignites but then fizzles, like a wet match. I refuse to be pulled away, I follow the crimson, attach myself to the memory that started out like a creak on the stairs, but then the monsters appear.

  First I remember the darkness.

  Then I remember the blood.

  My baby. Oh God, Mia.

  The blood lingers. There’s flashes of crimson exploding like lightning in the sky, one moment they’re illuminating everything around me, the next they are gone, bathing my world in darkness. Then the bloody images fade and vanish, leaving a black jittering line on the screen.

  Squeaking rubber soles on linoleum circle me and I feel a pat on my shoulder.

  This isn’t real. A random vision, just a vision. It doesn’t mean anything.

  A nurse gently squeezes my shoulder and I open my eyes.

  ‘Mrs Paradise,’ the nurse’s voice is soft, almost apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, but I have orders to wake you every couple of hours.’

  ‘Blood,’ I say, and squint my eyes, attempting to force the image to return to me. ‘I don’t understand where all this blood’s coming from.’ Was that my voice? It can’t be mine, it sounds nothing like me.

  ‘Blood? What blood?’ The nurse looks at my immaculately taped central line. ‘Are you bleeding?’

  I turn towards the window. It’s dark outside. The entire room appears in the window’s reflection, like an imprint, a not-quite true copy of reality.

  ‘Oh God,’ I say and my high-pitched voice sounds like a screeching microphone. ‘Where’s my daughter?’

  She just cocks her head and then busies herself straightening the blanket. ‘Let me get the doctor for you,’ she says and leaves the room.

  Chapter 2

  Voices enter my room like a slow drift of clouds, merging with the scent of pancakes, syrup, toast, and coffee, making my stomach churn. I feel a hand on my arm.

  ‘Mrs Paradise? I’m Dr Baker.’

  I judge only his age − he is young − as if my brain does not allow me to appraise him further. Have I met him before? I don’t know. Everything about me, my body and my senses, is faulty. When did I become so forgetful, so scatterbrained?

  He wears a white coat with his name stitched on the pocket: Dr Jeremy Baker. He retrieves a pen from his coat and shines a light into my eyes. There’s an explosion so painful I clench my eyelids shut. I tur
n my head away from him, reach up and feel the left side of my head. Now I understand why the world around me is muffled; my entire head is bandaged.

  ‘You’re at County Medical. An ambulance brought you to the emergency room about …’ He pauses and looks at his wristwatch. I wonder why the time matters. Is he counting the hours, does he want to be exact? ‘… on the fifth, three days ago.’

  Three days? And I don’t remember a single minute.

  Ask him, go ahead, ask him. ‘Where’s my daughter?’

  ‘You were in a car accident. You have a head injury and you’ve been in a medically induced coma.’

  Accident? I don’t remember any accident. He didn’t answer my question. He talks to me as if I’m incapable of comprehending more elaborate sentences.

  ‘They found you in your car in a ravine. You have a concussion, fractured ribs, and multiple contusions around your lower extremities. You also had a critical head injury when they brought you in. Your brain was swollen, which was the reason for the induced coma.’

  I don’t remember any accident. What about Jack? Yes, Mia’s with Jack. She must be. One more time. ‘Was my daughter in the car with me?’

  ‘You were alone,’ he says.

  ‘She’s with Jack? Mia’s with my husband?’

  ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’

  The blood was just a vision, it wasn’t real. She’s with Jack, she’s safe. Thank God. Everything’s going to be okay, he said.

  ‘We’re not sure of any brain damage at this point, but now that you’ve regained consciousness we’ll be able to perform all the necessary tests to figure out what’s going on.’ He motions the nurse who has been standing next to him. ‘You lost a lot of blood and we had to administer fluids to stabilize you. The swelling will go down in a few days but in the meantime we need to make sure you keep your lungs clear of fluids.’

  He picks up a contraption and holds it up in front of me. ‘This is a spirometer. Basically you keep the red ball suspended as long as you can. The nurse will give you detailed instructions. Every two hours, please.’ His last comment is directed towards the nurse.

  The gurgling in my chest is uncomfortable and I try not to cough. The pain in my left side must be the fractured ribs. I wonder how I’ll be able to stay awake for two hours or wake up every two hours or use this contraption for two hours, or whatever he just said.

  ‘Before I forget,’ Dr Baker looks down at me. He is quiet for a while and I wonder if I missed a question. Then he lowers his voice. ‘Two detectives were here to talk to you. I won’t allow any questioning until we’ve done a few more tests.’ He nods to the nurse and walks towards the door, then turns around and offers one more trifle of news. ‘Your husband will be here soon. In the meantime can we call anyone for you? Family? A friend? Anybody?’

  I shake my head ‘no’ and immediately regret it. A mallet pounds against my skull from the inside. My head is a giant swollen bulb and the throbbing in my ear manages to distract me from my aching ribs.

  My lids have a life of their own. I’m nodding off but I have so many questions. I take a deep breath as if I’m preparing to jump off a diving board. It takes everything I have to sound out the words.

  ‘Where did this accident happen?’

  Why does he look at me puzzled? Am I missing more than I’m aware of?

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you much about the accident,’ he says. He sounds subdued, as if he’s forcing himself to be composed in order to calm me. ‘All we know is that your car was found upstate at the bottom of a ravine.’ Pause. ‘You have a lot of injuries. Some are from the accident. Can you remember what happened?’

  I reflect on his words, really think them over. Accident. Nothing. Not a thing. There’s a large black hole where my memory used to be.

  ‘I can’t remember anything,’ I say.

  His brows furrow. ‘You mean … the accident?’

  The accident. He talks about the accident as if I remember. I want to tell him to X-ray my head, and that he’ll find a dark shadow within my skull where my memory used to be.

  I’m getting the hang of this; concentrate, think of the question and repeat it in your head, take a deep breath, then speak.

  ‘You don’t understand. I don’t remember the accident and I don’t remember anything before the accident.’

  ‘Do you remember wanting to harm yourself?’

  ‘Harm myself?’

  I would remember that, wouldn’t I? What is he talking about? I’m getting frustrated. We’re going in circles. It’s difficult to stay awake.

  ‘Either that or you were shot.’

  Was I shot or did I harm myself? What kind of questions is he asking me?

  I turn my head as far to the left as possible, catching a glimpse of an outstretched leg of a police officer sitting by the door, out in the hallway. Hardly normal procedure. I wonder what that’s all about.

  Dr Baker looks over his shoulder and then faces me again. He steps closer and lowers his voice. ‘You don’t remember.’ He states it matter of factly, no longer a question, but a realization.

  ‘I don’t know what I don’t know,’ I say. That’s kind of funny, when I think about it. I giggle and his brows furrow.

  Then he tells me about my voice. How it is ‘monotone’ and that I have ‘a reduction in range and intensity of emotions,’ and that my reactions are ‘flat and blunted.’

  I don’t understand what he’s telling me. Should I smile more, be more cheerful? I want to ask him but then I hear a word that puts it all to rest.

  ‘Amnesia,’ he says. ‘We’re not sure about the cause yet. Retrograde, maybe post-traumatic. Maybe even trauma related.’

  When you hear amnesia from a man in a white coat it’s serious. Final. I forgot, sounds casual, oh, I’m forgetful.

  I have amnesia, I’m not forgetful after all. Is he going to ask me what year it is? Who the President is? If I remember my birthdate? That’s what they do in movies. I don’t have to rack my brain, I know the answers. But why don’t I remember the accident? What else did I forget?

  ‘Retrograde means you don’t recall events that happened just before the onset of the memory loss. Post-traumatic is a cognitive impairment, and memory loss can stretch back hours or days, sometimes even longer. Eventually you’ll recall the distant past but you may never recover what happened just prior to your accident. Amnesia can’t be diagnosed with an X-ray, like a broken bone. We’ve done an MRI test and a CAT scan. Both tests came back inconclusive. Basically there’s no definitive proof of brain damage, but absence of proof is not proof of absence. There could be microscopic damages and the MRI and the CAT scan are just not sophisticated enough to detect those. Nerve fiber damage doesn’t show up on either test.’

  I remain silent, not sure if I should ask anything else, not sure if I even understood him at all. All I grasp is that he can’t tell me anything definitive, so what’s the point?

  ‘There’s the possibility that you suffer from dissociative amnesia. Trauma would cause you to block out certain information associated with the event. There’s no test for that either. You’d have to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The neurologist will order some more tests. Like I said, time will tell.’

  I take a deep breath. The medical facts he’s relaying to me are one thing, but I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s something he is not telling me.

  ‘They found me where again?’

  ‘In a ravine, in Dover, upstate. You were transferred here from Dover Medical Center.’

  Dover? Dover. Nothing. I’m blank.

  ‘I’ve never been to Dover.’

  ‘That’s where they found you, you just don’t remember. It’s part of the memory loss.’ He slips the pen back in his coat pocket. ‘You were lucky,’ he adds. He holds up his index finger and thumb, indicating the extent of the luck I had. ‘The bullet was this far from doing serious harm. There is extensive damage to your ear but
I want you to remember that you were really lucky. Remember that.’

  Remember that. How funny. My hand moves up to my ear, almost like a reflex. ‘You said there’s damage to my ear. What happened to it?’

  He pauses ever so slightly. ‘Gone. Completely gone. The area was infected and we had to make a decision.’ He watches me intently. ‘It could have been worse, like I said, you were lucky.’

  ‘That’s some luck,’ I say but when I think about my ear I don’t really care.

  ‘There’s reconstructive surgery.’

  ‘What’s there now, I mean, is there a hole?’

  ‘There’s a small opening draining fluids, other than that, there’s a flap of skin stretched over the wound.’

  An opening that drains fluids. I’m oddly untouched by the fact that a flap of skin is stretched over a hole in my head where my ear used to be. I have amnesia. I forgot to lock my car. I lost my umbrella. My ear is gone. It’s all the same; insignificant.

  ‘And you call that lucky?’

  ‘You’re alive, that’s what counts.’

  There’s that buzzing sound again and then his voice goes from loud to muffled, as if someone’s turned a volume dial.

  ‘What about my ear?’

  He looks at me, puzzled.

  ‘I remember you told me it was gone.’ Completely gone, were the words he used. ‘I mean my hearing, what about my hearing? Everything sounds muffled.’

  ‘We did an electrophy‌siological hearing test while you were unconscious.’ He grabs my file from the nightstand and opens it. He flips through the pages. ‘You’ve lost some audio capacity, but nothing major. We’ll order more tests, depending on the next CAT scan, we just have to wait it out.’