I reached for his shoulders, stood up on my toes, and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for being here. I appreciate it. But I think I’ll take a rain check. The same outfit at work for three days, even if it’s clean, will get people talking, and seriously, you don’t know Fred. He mopes if I’m not there. It’s really sad to see his little blue betta fins all drooped. Bye.”
As I walked away, my phone buzzed, and I opened the text message:
Dylan: FRESH SALMON?
He definitely wasn’t playing fair. Cooking wasn’t my thing.
I started my car and looked in my rearview mirror. Dylan hadn’t pulled away. He hadn’t even gotten into his car. Instead he was leaning against the Charger, his long, jean-covered legs crossed at the ankles, his black, short-sleeved shirt looking too damn good stretched over his chest. I backed my car out and drove toward him. His face lit up, glowing triumphantly from his sparkling eyes to his shiny white teeth.
I came to a stop and rolled down my window. “You’re not playing fair! You know how I am about your cooking.”
He laughed. “You know how I feel about yours. That’s why I offered. I’ll cook some salmon on the grill, with some asparagus, a few cold beers . . .” He pouted. “But if you’d rather hang out with Barney.”
I shook my head. “Give me an hour and I’ll call you. No promises.”
He winked. “I’ll be waiting.”
I rolled up my window, cranked the air conditioning, and headed back to the station.
Even the thought of his cooking made my stomach rumble and growl, but no, I couldn’t go back to his house tonight. It wasn’t that Bernard needed me, though I needed to call him to tell him the body wasn’t Mindy’s. What I wanted to do had nothing to do with work or with the drug distribution happening at the port. What I wanted was to call Dr. Tracy Howell and find out why she’d called me down to the morgue twice, and what she was really trying to tell me.
I reached for my phone to call Bernard and saw my wrinkled slacks. I definitely needed to go home. Turning my car toward my apartment, I decided to call Bernard and do more research from home.
CHAPTER 7
Sara
After I heard Jacob walk Dr. Newton to the door, I expected him to explain what the doctor meant about my training.
Will I be left alone with Sister Lilith? Will Raquel or Elizabeth be there? For some reason, I suspected that this was a women-only thing. Do I remember that or do I just suspect it?
Instead of talking to me, however, Jacob resumed his pacing. Back and forth, four steps. Though he was still taking big strides, his shoes didn’t pound the floor with the force and intensity they had last night.
One, two, three, four—turn, one, two, three, four—turn . . .
I lay back and searched for my memories, hoping for something, a clue, a crumb . . . anything. I couldn’t understand how I’d willingly come to this place, a place where shadows of perversion lingered outside my reach. I also wondered why I’d want to do training and if I’d done it before. Does everyone do it? If I did, why am I doing it again? I tried to clear my mind, to think about nothing, in the hope that something would come. Nothing did.
It didn’t make sense. Everyone here knew me. Everyone knew my past . . . except me. I wasn’t ready to face the reality that the problem must be me.
Time passed as tears slid silently from beneath the bandages and down my cheeks. Even that felt wrong. I wasn’t a crier. Then again, maybe I was.
I didn’t try to stop the tears. They were my wordless appeal to my husband, my unspoken request for support. I needed more than him fighting for me while others were present. I needed him to help me when we were alone, to explain why this all felt wrong. Mindlessly I wiped away the tears that I’d vowed to let rain free. The longer they fell, the more I understood: my tears didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
“Sara.”
Lost in my own thoughts, I startled at Jacob’s voice beside me. I hadn’t heard his pacing cease. I didn’t move or turn in his direction. It was too late. I didn’t care anymore. If showing weakness was what it took to get his attention, then I didn’t want him or his support.
Instead what I wanted was to get away . . . away to a place where I wasn’t powerless, where I had a voice, where I belonged. I didn’t know where that was. All I knew with increasing certainty was that it wasn’t here. Here, I was trapped.
My dampened face fell toward my chest as my tears morphed into sobs, each one deeper than the one before. The cries didn’t come from my throat but from my soul, consuming me. Each sob thrust deep into my heart, splitting it open, crying out for my stolen sense of self.
Under this onslaught, my heart was unable to beat at its normal rhythm, instead thudding in my chest, a dull repeating sound echoing in my ears. Without its steady rhythm I’d cease to exist. Then I realized . . . it had already happened. I no longer existed.
Whoever I really am is gone.