Blind Eye (25 page)

Deer Lodge, Montana

K
im Brown couldn't recall the last time she'd called in sick to work. This morning she had to.

Last night, she'd had a nightmare. It was like that Scrooge story. She was dead, her body lying on a steel plate in a morgue. It was terrifying. Her soul was hovering over her near the ceiling. She saw both her daughters walking into the dark room. Their hands were connected. They had two bodies but it was as if they were one person. They seemed happy. Then, a man in a white lab coat came in, walked past them and yanked the sheet off her face. Marion and Amelia both shook their heads. They pretended they didn't know her. Without a word, they just turned and walked out.

Kim woke up sobbing. She thought she'd been sleeping for days, but it had only been a couple of hours.

She'd been too afraid to go back to sleep. Sitting in bed, her mind had begun to race. Memories of her girls, when they'd both been around, played again and again in her mind. They had gone everywhere as one. They'd walked through their childhood holding hands.

It was Kim who had tried to separate them, but she'd
been the one who'd lost. In the end, she'd lost both of them.

She thought about her past as she'd never done before. She realized her girls could never have been any less than an extension of each other. They were two halves, one completing the other.

She'd put all the enmity she felt for her husband right onto Amelia. She had been so wrong.

As Kim continued to think of the twins' childhood, memories of those other times began to come back to her. She remembered the girls as two dark-haired angels, racing and shoving each other as they hurried downstairs on Christmas morning. She recalled Amelia giving Marion and herself a haircut when they'd been five. As much as Kim had been angry, she remembered the good time they'd had when the girls had talked her into getting a haircut, too—by them. The three of them had looked like bona fide punk rockers.

Kim had grown increasingly miserable as her daughters were growing up. She knew that. She was still bitter about being deserted by her husband. She felt like a failure for having to go back to the town she'd been so desperate to get away from. But it had never been the girls' fault.

The night of memories ended in tears. Kim sobbed, knowing her own failures had driven Amelia away. She'd cried, realizing how much she missed both of them. How much she loved them. She wanted to…to apologize to Amelia. She wanted to hold her daughter in her arms and tell her how sorry she was for everything that had happened. She wanted to tell her that she would take care of her—stay with her.

She wanted to tell Amelia that she loved her. She always had.

They'd told her Marion was dead. But the young man, Mark Shaw, claimed Amelia was trying to give them clues about the whereabouts of her sister.

Amelia had been injured and confined to a bed for years, but she was still trying to help…while Kim was wallowing in her own self-inflicted misery. She had to do something, anything.

It was half past four when Kim left her bedroom and tiptoed downstairs. Outside the windows, there was no sign of dawn. She went into the kitchen and put on some water for tea. Then she took the phone into the living room, called her work number and left her boss a long message.

Everyone at work knew about the news Kim had received concerning Marion. They all expected she'd take some time off. But Kim had not committed to anything. Until now. On the message, she told them that she was not going to California but to Connecticut…to see her daughter, Amelia. Kim guessed word would get around fast. She figured it was time.

Kim didn't own a computer. She used one at work and knew the systems the prison used, but she'd never bothered to learn her way around the Internet. That was what everyone at work used to plan any trip. She went back into the kitchen and opened the phone book and searched through the Yellow Pages for a travel agent. She wondered if people still used them to make flight arrangements. The only time she'd ever flown in her life was when she'd gone on her honeymoon. Kim hadn't even gone to Marion's college graduation. She'd never been to California to see where her daughter lived.

More tears ran down her cheeks. Kim knew she was not just mourning her daughters. She was mourning all the years she'd lost.

She wrote down the name and phone number of a place in town. No one would be there now, but she'd call first thing in the morning.

She saw her father's bedroom light go on. He never closed his bedroom door completely, but she knew him to be a sound sleeper. Kim wondered if she'd awakened him.

“Kim…” he called.

She wiped the tears with a tissue and went to his door and tapped lightly, opening it. He was sitting on his bed, staring at his bare feet and the floor.

“I'm sorry, Dad. Did I wake you up?”

He shook his head. His breath was unsteady. “Ni…night…night…mare…abo…gi…girls.”

“I'm calling a travel agent when they open. I'll try to get us a flight for today or tomorrow. We're going, Dad. I'm not going to put it off,” she assured him.

He nodded repeatedly, his gaze remaining on the floor. “You…go…”

“What do you mean?”

He looked up. “It…be…faster. She…needs…you. Am…Amelia.”

“Were you having a nightmare about her?”

He nodded again. “Dan…danger. She…needs…you.”

A week ago, Kim would have stood there and argued with her father that dreams weren't real and that he was overreacting to a bad night.

Today, she didn't. She understood. She felt it.

“Okay.” She thought a moment. “I'll call someone from church to come and look in on you. I'm just going to get dressed, throw some things in a bag, and drive to the airport. I hear people can get on flights standby. I think that would be the fastest. But are you sure you'll be okay?”

“Kim…go,” he ordered. “You…n…need her…too.”

She did need her, Kim thought as she looked at her father. They needed each other.

Waterbury Long-Term Care Facility
Connecticut

T
he ambulance and the police car to serve as escort were ready. Gaylord Hospital was prepared for Amelia. Sid had arranged for Desmond and Nat to move his car to Wallingford later today. This way, he could travel in the ambulance with Amelia. The two neurologists were taking care of the transfer of equipment, as well.

Amelia's room was bustling with staff. Despite the short notice, Jennifer had managed to throw a going-away party for her patient. Before this morning, Sid thought Amelia's eyes were brown. Today, there seemed to be a greenish tinge to them. As he looked at her, he suspected a small amount of makeup had been applied, as well.

Jennifer had dressed the young woman in a hunter-green sweatshirt and sweatpants, and they'd also put a matching green headband on her. Amelia looked flat-out pretty—still pale, but not like someone who'd been confined to her bed for six years.

They had raised the head of her bed higher than before. Amelia's muscles were becoming stronger every day. She was holding her neck up for longer periods.

Balloons and banners hung from every corner. Sid watched Jennifer make a big production out of reading each of the signs. Some of them were really funny, and he'd seen Amelia smile.

He felt totally out of place in the midst of all these people who were anxious to see and talk to Amelia before she was taken away. She was responding to them. She seemed happy. Jennifer appeared to be serving as the mediator between Amelia and the others. Everyone was having a great time.

Sid hovered by the doorway. He couldn't bring himself to let her out of his sight. The Waterbury police had been unsuccessful in finding the party responsible for the wrong prescription last night. As a result, they were providing a police escort for the ride to Wallingford, three towns over. Once at Gaylord, they'd worked it out with the Wallingford PD to keep an officer on duty outside of Amelia's room for the first week or until there was some explanation as to who was responsible for the attempt on her life.

Sid knew that Attorney Viera had been making a lot of noise to ensure the police would come through with protection for Amelia. It had not been advertised publicly, but it was understood by all who were involved that her safety was directly linked to information she'd revealed through the brain scans. This morning, after Mark left, Viera had called Sid, telling him that the technical information they'd printed yesterday had been passed on to the Dean of the Mechanical Engineering department at UCONN, who in turn was going to pull together some of the faculty of his college and someone from Yale in New Haven to go over the pages today. They were supposed to call him as soon as they knew what these documents were. Sid told the attorney the
name of the facility Amelia had given them late last night. Viera was going to pass that information along, too.

At some point in time during this past weekend, Sid had crossed into new territory. He believed everything Amelia was telling them. He believed that her sister was communicating with her.

One of the nurses came into the room to remind Jennifer that the patient needed to be readied for the transfer. Sid was glad he wasn't the one ending the party; there was a lot of moaning and groaning.

As everyone started filing out of the room, Sid made his way to where Jennifer was standing.

“When was the last time you slept?” she asked him.

He couldn't remember. “I'm not tired.”

“You're a liar, Dr. Conway.” She smiled. “Are you going to stay with her on the trip over?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Good. But then you need to get some rest. This study of yours can wait a day or two, can't it?”

The study. They had barely started this phase of it, and already there were so many aspects that they hadn't planned for. Study goals could always be revised, he told himself. They were making groundbreaking discoveries in the field of neurological science.

The fact of the matter, though, was that professionally and personally he wanted to be nowhere else.

“Seriously, at some point you should go home and take a shower. A change of clothes would be nice, too.”

He looked down at the jeans he'd been wearing all weekend. “I'm not too bad. I changed my shirt. And I did take a shower last night, before all hell broke loose.”

He frowned, thinking over the events of last night. Actually, the water had barely touched him when he'd
gotten a horrible feeling something was wrong. Sid didn't know where the feeling had come from, but he knew he had to get back to Amelia's room. He knew she'd needed him.

Perhaps it was a terrible thing in a doctor—especially in one at the very beginning of his career—to go with gut feelings over scientific data. Maybe it was, but when it came to her, he found he was no longer waiting for the objective results of blind studies. When it came to Amelia, gut feelings seemed to work just fine.

Sid was certain Mark wouldn't have allowed anyone to inject anything into Amelia until he got back. But the prospect of what could have happened was terrifying.

“You do know that night nurse is innocent,” Jennifer said, reading his expression. “She'd never do anything to hurt any one of the patients. Especially Amelia.”

Sid looked at her. “I know. The woman was
very
upset. I might have leaned on her more than I should have, but I was upset, and they almost got to Amelia. Whoever is behind this went through a lot of planning. Pat just happened to be the one working at the time.”

Jennifer glanced at Amelia. “Who
would
do that? Who would want to hurt her?” The nurse paused. “It's a little unnerving to think that this person had access to our files…to our building. They had to be inside to leave the prescription and the note at the nurses' station. If you or Mark weren't here, they could have walked right in and injected her themselves.”

Sid shook his head. He didn't want to think how vulnerable Amelia was. Still, he wished he had the answers.

“Mark is working on it. So are Attorney Viera and the police.”

Their conversation was cut short as a gurney came
into the room. Sid saw Amelia's attention immediately focus on the rolling bed and the two men pushing it.

Sid found Jennifer checking the men's badges. Clearly, he wasn't the only one who was anxious. He, for one, was happy that the local police department was taking what had happened last night seriously enough to offer the escort.

Jennifer lowered the head of the bed and readied Amelia before allowing the two men near her patient. “I'm going to bring over her bag.”

Sid knew of the circumstances under which Amelia had arrived at this facility. He looked at her curiously. “Something you put together for her?”

“I didn't do it alone. Everyone pitched in. Don't forget, she's had a number of birthday parties over the years and there are gifts that we've saved up. Now she'll finally get to use some of the things and hopefully enjoy them.”

Sid wasn't going to ask what they were. He was touched, though, by the gesture. Regardless of what the media every now and then presented about substandard care in long-term nursing facilities, he knew there were a hell of a lot of very dedicated people working in them.

Jennifer left the room. Sid double-checked the equipment to make sure everything was packed and ready to go for Desmond and Nat. He pulled on his jacket and zipped it up.

He frowned. That sensation was back. There was a nervous fluttering deep in his stomach. He looked over at Amelia.

The two paramedics had the gurney up against her bed. They were getting ready to shift Amelia.

She was staring at Sid, her gaze unwavering. He saw her hand. Her fingers were barely off the sheet, but they were reaching for him.

“They've told you that I'm coming in the ambulance with her?” he asked one of the men. He moved to the other side of the bed from the gurney.

“No. Nobody said anything about—”

“But that's fine,” the other one said, finishing his partner's sentence.

Amelia's head turned and she continued to keep eye contact with Sid.

“Everything will be fine,” he said to her gently. He took her hand. Her fingers immediately clutched to his, holding tight. He was surprised by her strength.

“We're ready to move her,” the first paramedic said, looking over at their joined hands.

Sid tried to pull back his hand, but Amelia's grip was tight.

“She's nervous,” he told them. “This is probably the first time that she's left this place in quite a while.”

Both men seemed impatient. They were only interested in getting their job done. No small talk. No friendliness. They hadn't spoken a word to Amelia. She could as well have been a piece of furniture that they were told to move. Sid found himself growing annoyed.

“If you come over to this side of the bed, we can move her,” the same one spoke.

As he tried to loosen her grip, she struggled to hold on, a stressed noise rising from deep in her throat. He knew it would only be a matter of time before she discovered her voice and found her ability to talk again.

“I'm right here. I'm only going around to the other side.”

She'd been conscious since last night. She'd heard all the conversations going on around her. She knew someone had tried to take her life. But there was nothing she could do to protect herself. She was totally helpless.

Sid felt honored, touched that she'd chosen him as a person to trust. Attorney Viera had told him earlier that he received a call from Kim Brown early this morning. She was flying East today. She planned to go directly to Gaylord Hospital. Viera had said that Kim was suddenly concerned about Amelia. The attorney had decided not to mention anything about the threat last night. The mother could learn the facts when she arrived.

Sid wondered if Amelia would remember her mother. And frankly, he was worried what Kim's plans would be regarding her daughter's future care.

He was honest enough with himself to admit that he was also nervous about what Kim Brown might think about how attached Sid had become to her daughter. The study was no longer his top priority. The welfare of the patient…okay,
Amelia's
welfare now took precedence over everything else, by miles.

He reached over and took her other hand as they hoisted the sheet and shifted her to the gurney.

Amelia's grip was even tighter than before. She watched only Sid. One of the paramedics started putting the straps around her.

“Can one of you guys hand that bag to me?” he asked. Sid wasn't going to try to detach himself from her again.

The shoulder bag was handed to him.

“Where's the ambulance?” he asked.

“In the back of the building,” one of them said brusquely.

They were quick. Amelia was strapped on the bed, and they started pushing her out of the room.

“One of the nurses is getting the patient's things,” Sid told them.

“She can catch up to us in the parking lot.”

Sid considered ordering them to wait, but considering how upset Amelia seemed to be, there were advantages to getting her settled into the ambulance.

A few of the nurses were gathered in the hall, and words of goodbye and good luck were showered on Amelia. Sid told one of them to send Jennifer to the back door.

“You're quite popular,” he told Amelia as they moved quickly through the halls.

She refused to look at anyone but him.

“There's nothing to worry about. We're talking maybe a forty-five minute ride, tops.”

Soft sounds left her mouth. She was trying to tell him something. Sid couldn't make out the words, but it wasn't long before they'd maneuvered through two sets of doors and emerged from one of the back entrances of the building.

Sid was familiar with this entrance. It was the door they'd used to move in their equipment. A low loading dock of sorts was located right outside the door. Backed up to the building, Sid saw the open doors of the ambulance. Next to it, there was a police car with two officers standing by.

The late October weather was sunny but crisp. A breeze ruffled through dried leaves, sending them up in spirals occasionally and pushing them across the pavement. Sid noticed Amelia take a deep breath as soon as they rolled the gurney out. Her gaze immediately fixed on the trees overhead.

“Hold it,” Sid ordered the men. They were ready to push the bed right into the ambulance. “Give her a minute.”

She stared at the sky with amazement. He wondered how many times the staff had taken her out of that hospital
room for fresh air over the years. If they had, she hadn't been at the level of consciousness where she could enjoy it.

Yellow and red leaves were dancing around his feet. He leaned down and grabbed one and held it up for her before placing it next to her hand. It was a maple leaf, brilliantly red.