The Dark Side

by Danielle Steel

  “I can’t stop her.” Cathy sounded disappointed. They had gotten the confirmation Austin wanted, but no weapons to use against her.

  “Keep me posted on this. It’s an interesting case.”

  “It’s more than that,” Cathy said emotionally, “she’s a sweet, innocent kid in the clutches of a monster if what you and Austin believe is true.”

  “I’m sure she is. I’d be happy to testify if they ever want me to. I make a great expert witness, I’ve done it before.”

  “I’ll tell Austin,” she said, and Paul had to catch his flight.

  “See you when I get back.”

  “Thank you for reading the file and the good advice.”

  “It’s not what he wants to hear, about moving forward to stop her. But I agree with his mother. I think it’s fairly certain that the child’s mother has Munchausen by proxy. That’s something at least.”

  “Have a good time in California.”

  “I’ll call when I get back.”

  She hung up and waited until nine-thirty to call Austin at his office. She repeated everything Paul had said, verbatim, as she remembered it and from notes she had jotted down when she talked to him.

  “Talk about good and bad news,” Austin said, sounding depressed. “He agrees with my mother’s diagnosis, and my suspicions, and we can’t do a damn thing about it.”

  “Yet. Or you can if you want to, we can report it at any time.”

  “But we can’t prove the case. And he’s right, Jaime’s injuries were all minor, even if there were a lot of them. I guess we have to do what he said. Watch and wait.” The prospect was even more painful now, because being with Zoe was becoming intolerable. He felt as though aliens had stolen the woman he’d fallen in love with and left someone else in her place. She had seemed so sweet and pure and earnest when they’d met. Her extreme anxiety and neurotic behavior had only surfaced after Jaime was born. And their relationship had never been the same again.

  He didn’t feel the way about her he had before, but they lived under the same roof every day, and shared a bed. He didn’t know how he was going to pull it off, but he knew he had to for Jaime’s sake. It was all for Jaime now. He was determined to give her a good life and keep her safe. He owed her at least that. He wished he could take Fiona into his confidence, ask her to watch Jaime more closely, but he couldn’t tell anyone, except his mother, who had seen it first. She was a smart woman, and his ally. Zoe no longer was. Overnight, she had become his enemy. She was trying to hurt his child, their child, in silent sneaky ways. It was like a poison gas that had filled their home when he wasn’t looking.

  He thanked Cathy before he hung up, and then sat thinking about his daughter. She deserved a better life than this, a mother who was trying to kill her, or might do so by accident if she went too far in her bid for attention as the star mother of a sick or injured child. He wondered if it was Zoe’s unconscious revenge for all that she had suffered, or if she was too broken inside to care about their daughter and protect her.

  He put his head down on his desk and cried, as he thought about it. He had to be strong for Jaime. He was all she could rely on.

  He thought about his wife as he got up to go to a meeting. He thought about how much he had loved her, and now it was all slipping away on a tidal wave of fear for his daughter and an overwhelming sense of loss. And then he suddenly realized he hadn’t lost Zoe. He couldn’t. He had never known her.

  Chapter 15

  Austin did everything he could to maintain a sense of normalcy at home, after Cathy had told him what Paul Anders had said. He tried to be hypervigilant and anticipate any possible accident Jaime could have, while appearing not to. He was warm and friendly with Zoe. It took every ounce of energy to seem relaxed when he wasn’t and not let her see the anger and fear boiling inside him, knowing that Jaime was at risk anytime she was with her mother, or her safety could be manipulated at a distance, if Zoe set up some dangerous situation for Jaime at home while she was at work. Anything was possible. He realized that now. He spoke to his mother about it, and no one else. He didn’t want to burden Cathy with their situation, but he knew that she would warn him if Zoe showed up with some medical situation she created. It was all he could do for now. And nothing untoward had happened since he’d realized what was going on. The lack of incident almost lulled him into thinking that they were wrong, but that was exactly what Zoe wanted, his mother reminded him, for Austin to let down his guard. Maybe she sensed that he was watching her or Jaime. In essence he had to outsmart her, which was no small task.

  Her father and Pam came to town for one of their visits, and they had them to dinner at the apartment. Brad had come up with a new line of children’s books that were more modern and high tech than Ollie, and they were doing well. He had a magic touch in the world of children’s books. Pam was thinking about retiring. They wanted to travel now that their children had grown up. Zoe never saw her half-siblings, and scarcely knew them. She preferred it that way.

  Jaime still had the bandage on her cheek from the dog bite when they visited, and Brad ranted and raved about people who let their dogs run around off leash, particularly big ones. Pam said nothing, and for a fraction of an instant her eyes met Austin’s, and he wondered if she knew, but he wouldn’t have dared say anything to her, in case she said something to Zoe’s father and he told Zoe what Austin suspected.

  Secrecy was part of his life now and essential to Jaime’s well-being. But Pam was an alert, observant woman, and he had the sense that she knew that something was wrong. Zoe told them how brave Jaime had been with the dog bite, and Austin said that Zoe had been the hero, she had saved Jaime from a fierce German shepherd that might have killed her. She’d screamed at the owner and fought off the dog, and Zoe glowed when he spoke up. It would have been confirmation of his suspicions, but he no longer needed it. He was sure now. He had read a second book on Munchausen by proxy, which was even more detailed than the first, and more frightening, and he kept it in his office, and then sent it to Cathy in a confidential envelope, without comment. She had been doing some reading in medical journals too, and was heartbroken by what she knew was facing Jaime, and Austin, when he finally confronted it.

  “Take care of yourself and your girls,” was all Pam said to Austin when they left town. Zoe had given them a tour of the shelter and the recent changes they’d made. It was easy to see how adored she was when they walked around the facilities. Pam was active in volunteer work in child abuse too, and always expressed a particular interest in the shelter. Zoe had recently won an award for her outstanding work in the field, with an article about her in The New York Times. It was one of the high points in her career.

  Paul Anders had read it with interest and called Cathy, and commented on it when he reminded her of their promise to have dinner. Austin had signed a more formal release by then, which allowed Cathy to share Jaime’s files with Paul.

  “She’s quite a woman, isn’t she?” he said about Zoe. “That may feed her ego for a while. Anything new on that front?”

  “I haven’t seen Zoe since the dog bite incident the day I saw you. But no news is good news, I guess.” She knew Zoe had been busy and she’d called to congratulate her on the award when she read about it. All she’d said was that Jaime’s cheek was healing nicely, and you could hardly see the scar under her chin. Cathy didn’t know if that was good or bad, if she needed visible signs of Jaime’s accidents, or if the fact that they’d happened was enough to satisfy her. The whole situation made Cathy feel sick.

  They invited her to dinner, and Cathy went to see how Jaime was doing. She looked fine, and only had to wear a small Steri-Strip on her cheek now, and Austin said again when Jaime was out of earshot that Zoe had saved her from being severely mauled. He was playing the game now, and did it well. Cathy sensed no argument between them, and she wondered whether he had been lulled into fooling himself
or was a great actor. Zoe said she had a man she wanted to introduce Cathy to. He was a new member of the board, and Austin disagreed. He said that he was boring, and had never been married at fifty-four, which he thought was a bad sign and probably meant he was phobic about permanent relationships. He was an important investment banker on Wall Street, and was involved in numerous charitable causes, particularly those involving children, and Cathy said it would be interesting to meet him, just so Zoe felt appreciated. In reality, she felt the same way as Austin about men who had never been married at his age, and didn’t care if she met him or not.

  Cathy had dinner with Paul Anders, as they’d promised, and talked about Jaime and Munchausen by proxy the entire time. He was a treasure trove of information. Cathy read everything she could about it now, as did Austin. He was seeing his mother for lunch more frequently than he had in years. He could speak openly to her, which was a relief.

  “Sometimes I think I imagined the whole thing, and I wonder if I’m crazy. She’s so perfect, so brilliant at everything she does. Her work at her shelter, the outward appearances of motherhood, being a good wife. How could someone like that want to hurt a child?”

  “It’s the ‘too good to be true’ syndrome. I never trust that,” Constance said at one of their lunches at Da’Giulio. “She wants you to believe that and see her as perfect. She needs everyone to think that about her, but there’s someone very different behind the mask. The act is convincing, that’s why people with Munchausen by proxy are so hard to identify.” He had come to hate the words.

  He didn’t tell his mother but sometimes he realized he still loved Zoe, and felt guilty for sharing his fears with others, like Cathy. What if he was wrong about her, and the incidents really were accidents? There was a seed of doubt in his mind, but it never grew beyond that, when he read more about the disorder, and saw again how perfectly the criteria matched up to his wife. But his heart ached when he saw her in a tender moment with Jaime, or how happy Jaime was with her, and how much she and Zoe loved each other. It was a kind of passion, and they left him out at times.

  Cathy felt that way too, and also had doubts occasionally, and wondered if they’d gotten riled up, and panicked for nothing. As time passed, the previous incidents seemed less ominous and their menacing quality began to fade. She and Zoe had spent a particularly nice Saturday together, shopping uptown at Bergdorf’s when Austin liberated Zoe by taking Jaime to Central Park, and they met up for tea afterward at the Plaza. Zoe told Jaime all about Eloise, the mischief she got up to, and how much Zoe had loved her as a little girl. She pointed out a portrait of her in the lobby, with her pug dog and turtle, and Jaime loved seeing it. Zoe promised to get her the book. She really was the perfect mom, or so it appeared.

  Austin, Zoe, and Jaime had brunch at a restaurant with an outdoor terrace in SoHo the following weekend. It was the first really warm spring day, and they were relaxing in the sunshine, as Jaime finished the donut she’d had for dessert. It was one of their specialties, and the restaurant was known for them. Jaime got flushed after she ate it, and Zoe put more sunscreen on her, thinking she was getting burned. Austin was drinking a cappuccino and struggling with the New York Times crossword puzzle when Jaime started to choke and gasp for air. She wasn’t eating at the moment, so there was nothing in her throat, and no Heimlich necessary. But she couldn’t stop wheezing and coughing, and she looked panicked as she glanced at her mother.

  “I can’t breathe, Mommy,” she whispered. Her face was red and swelling, and Austin put down the paper with a look of panic.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” Zoe looked terrified too. “She just started choking and gasping for air,” and then suddenly Jaime stopped talking, she was wheezing, and they could see that she couldn’t get enough air. Zoe called 911 on her cellphone, and her hands were shaking, as she held it and told the 911 operator her name, location, and what was happening. They said they would be there in five minutes as a man came over from the next table and said he was a doctor.

  “I think she’s having an allergic reaction, an anaphylactic reaction.” Austin was holding her, and Jaime looked wild-eyed. She couldn’t breathe.

  “All she had was oatmeal and a donut, and some banana. She’s had bananas before, and she eats oatmeal almost every day.”

  “Is she allergic to honey? The donuts are honey-glazed.” It said so on the menu. The doctor was taking her pulse and it was racing, and he was watching her closely. He could tell that her airway was closing. She was dying in front of their eyes, it was a severe reaction, and Austin was silently wondering if Zoe had poisoned her.

  “She’s never had honey,” Zoe said frantically. “I read somewhere that they shouldn’t have it till they’re four or five.” They could hear a siren approaching, and seconds later, the paramedics rushed onto the terrace and spotted them immediately. The doctor told them what he thought.

  “Do you have adrenaline, an EpiPen?” he asked them, and one of them nodded, as the other paramedic questioned Austin and picked Jaime up. “You’re going to need it in a minute, or even now,” the doctor said, and as he did, Jaime went limp in the paramedic’s arms and passed out as they rushed her to the ambulance. Austin threw two fifty-dollar bills on the table, and he and Zoe rushed after the paramedics, as he muttered a hasty thank-you over his shoulder to the doctor.

  Austin and Zoe climbed into the ambulance with one of the paramedics, and they took off with the other one driving. The paramedic put an oxygen mask on Jaime and an IV in her arm with expert speed, and had a defibrillator near at hand.

  “She’s having an anaphylactic reaction, probably to something she ate,” he said and fired questions at them about Jaime’s health and allergies. He never took his eyes off her. She was deathly pale, and her heartbeat was getting weak. He gave her a shot of adrenaline, and she opened her eyes for an instant and then lost consciousness again. Almost as a reflex, Austin called Cathy, got her immediately, and told her what was going on.

  “What hospital are you going to?” she asked him and he asked the paramedic.

  “NYU,” he said, focusing only on Jaime. Austin told Cathy what was happening.

  “I’ll be right there,” she cut him off, and they were at the hospital by then. The paramedics rushed her into the familiar emergency room that they hadn’t seen in a while, and nothing had changed. They took her in through the ambulance entrance, and shouted to the nearest nurse that she was coding. She hit an alarm button, and half a dozen doctors and nurses came running, and changed the bag on the IV pole to something else. Austin heard the words “Benadryl,” “prednisone,” and others he didn’t know through a haze. They had Jaime in an exam room by then and her clothes off, with a defibrillator poised if her heart stopped. They expected it to and were prepared, as her parents looked on in horror and the paramedics watched. She was so tiny on the adult table with so many doctors and nurses around her and frantic measures. Zoe was gulping sobs and clutching Austin, and he was crying too. They gave her another shot, and Jaime opened her eyes and looked at them and started to cry, which was a good sign. She could breathe again and wasn’t choking. She was scared more than anything and didn’t know what was going on. As the panic receded, Austin was filled with terror again, wondering if Zoe had orchestrated it. It brought back everything he had recently learned, and all his most virulent fears.

  Cathy arrived at that moment in workout clothes with wet hair, and glanced at Austin and Zoe. “Sorry, I’m a mess. I was at a spinning class.” She spoke to the doctors then, and explained that she was Jaime’s pediatrician. They filled her in on what had happened and what they had administered. It was clear to Cathy and all the medical personnel that Jaime had almost died. But the adrenaline, cortisone, antihistamine, and other medications they had given her had brought her back. She told Austin and Zoe that Jaime would be all right now, but she’d have to stay in the hospital for several
hours, and she might have some minor residual allergic reaction for several days.

  Austin and Zoe kissed Jaime then, and she told them she couldn’t breathe at the restaurant. “We know.” Zoe smiled at her. “That’s why we’re here.”

  “Mommy called 911 for you,” Austin said, remembering to give her the credit she craved if she was MBP. But did Mommy poison her? It was the only question in his head now, as everything he’d read rushed back into his mind. It didn’t seem possible that a donut could have given her such a severe reaction that almost killed her.

  The code blue team left the room with the paramedics, and a nurse and an ER doctor stayed with Jaime, talking to her.

  “We have to take her to an allergist ASAP,” Zoe said to Cathy, and she nodded.

  “I use a great one,” Cathy reassured her. “I’ll get her in tomorrow.” They asked Austin to register her, and Cathy went with him, while Zoe stayed with Jaime in the exam room.

  “Oh my God,” Austin said, after they were halfway down the hall, and looked at Cathy. He was sheet white. “What was that? What did she give her and when?” He was back to believing Zoe had MBP, without a doubt.

  “Nothing. That was real. A severe anaphylactic allergic reaction,” Cathy reassured him. She was certain of it.

  “What makes you think so?” He looked confused, as they stopped to talk for a minute. There was no rush now.

  “Because I’m a doctor, and that’s what it looks like. Jaime has never had honey, and apparently the donuts were honey glazed. Zoe told me. The only way she did this is if she knew about the honey allergy, but she couldn’t have. She’s always told me she won’t let Zoe have honey. She read that it’s dangerous and possibly toxic under the age of five. She may also be allergic to bees. We’ll test for it. You’ll have to carry an EpiPen for her from now on,” Cathy said seriously.