She picked up her cell and dialed the pre-op area, trying to think of what she was going to tell her patient.
“Good morning, Dr. Wu.”
It was a man’s voice.
Clear. Distinct. Close. To her left.
Rita was so surprised she dropped the phone before her call had connected, and knocked the water bottle off the bench. It spilled on the floor next to the phone.
What was a man doing in the woman’s locker room?
When she spun her head left, in the direction of the voice, she saw no one.
“Can you hear me, Dr. Wu?”
The voice was like marble. Smooth and cold, and so close it was as if he was speaking directly into her left ear. Maybe her injured ear was distorting her sense of direction, somehow inhibiting her hearing. She cupped her left hand behind her left ear, trying to get a sense of where he was.
“Can your hear me, Dr. Wu?”
“Yes,” she answered, swiveling her head from left to right, her hand positioned behind her left ear like a radar dish. “This is the ladies’ room, you know. You’re not supposed to be in here.”
There was something else about the voice, too, which unnerved her.
She’d heard it before.
“I know, Dr. Wu. That’s why I’m not in the ladies’ room.”
That’s weird. No matter what direction she turned, she always heard the man directly in her left ear, as if she were wearing headphones with a broken right speaker.
And how did this guy know her name, anyway? Another weird float in this morning’s parade of disturbing events.
“Look, perv, this isn’t a joke. I’m calling security.” She grabbed her car keys out of her locker, palmed them in her right hand, and wrapped her fingers around them, positioning the longest key so that its sharp tip protruded through her closed fist.
Thank you, YMCA women’s safety class.
Her headache and unhappy stomach forgotten beneath a wash of adrenaline, she walked the length of the room, tensed, searching the rows between the lockers, brandishing the key like a miniature spear.
Nothing.
“Don’t worry, Dr. Wu. I’m not a pervert.”
Where have I heard that voice before?
She crept into the adjacent bathroom. The row of sinks was silent and unattended. She bent over and checked the stalls. All empty.
She straightened up and put her hands on her hips, puzzled. She was alone.
Except for his voice.
“There’s no point in checking the toilets. Or anywhere else. I’m not in there. I’m also not interested in seeing you, or your female colleagues, in any state of undress. Although, as I understand it, you awoke in a rather awkward position this morning.”
Her stomach constricted into a tiny knot.
She dropped the key.
“What—do you mean?” Sweat erupted across her forehead and upper lip. She wiped it off with the back of her hand as she bent over, retrieved the key, and placed it in her pocket.
“Aren’t you wondering how you ended up on the operating table?”
How does he know about that?
“Look.” She struggled to keep her voice steady. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re, ah, playing. But you’re not supposed to be in here. And I’m getting security. Right now.”
“Don’t you want to know who I am, Dr. Wu?”
“No.”
“My name is Morgan Finney.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, halfway to the door.
“What?” she whispered.
Rita grabbed the edge of a nearby sink to steady herself.
Oh my God.
“Do you remember me?” he breathed. “Do you remember her?”
How could I possibly forget?
She was clutching the sink with both hands.
Because this time, there was no stopping the panic.
She was terrified.
RITA
“Dr. Wu?”
Rita stood at the sink, a hand on each side of the basin, drawing breath in short, ragged bursts, her lungs clawing for air. She was shaking all over, trying to hold her panic at bay.
I’m hallucinating.
She had to be. That was the most reasonable medical explanation.
But why was she hallucinating about him?
“Dr. Wu?”
She’d seen plenty of patients over the years hallucinate. She’d listened to their lucid conversations with people who didn’t exist, and as they’d described imagined events in their lives in more detail than she could remember the real ones in hers.
There’d been this one patient: a young man suffering from a severe form of inflammatory bowel disease that had caused him so much pain, he’d needed to have a portion of his intestines removed to obtain relief.
She’d first met him in an exam room. He had bright, penetrating green eyes beneath a widow’s peak and wore a yarmulke. His mother had accompanied him: a thin, fretful woman who waved her hands around as she spoke.
He was direct, confident, and forceful without being overbearing. He asked Rita penetrating questions about the surgery that conveyed a firm grasp of the issues and kept Rita on her toes.
He was, without doubt, a really smart kid.