Exception (75 page)

Detective Diana Bronson stood in front of her whiteboard, her buttocks leaning against her wooden desk. She took a long swig of her third coffee. The caffeine was definitely giving her a buzz, but was doing very little to wake her up. She guessed that, with only six hours of sleep during the past two days, no amount of coffee would keep her up. Still, she had to stay awake. She’d made a promise that, for the last two days, she hadn’t been able to keep.

Yes, she had found Taylor’s car. Big deal. Her promise to Emily was to find a man and without so much as a positive ID on the body, her promise was still unfulfilled.

Guilt crept up her spine as it always did when she handled a failed operation. Consciously, she knew it wasn’t her fault. The circumstances were beyond her control, and she had followed every procedure to the letter of the law. The fire marshal, with whom she had talked more than she had with her own husband since Taylor went missing, informed her that the crash looked intentional, which was one of the main reasons for her lack of sleep.
Why would you kidnap someone and intentionally crash the car?

She scratched her eyebrow, completely lost in her thoughts, and took yet another swig of her coffee. Her eyes searched the scribbled notes on the whiteboard again, in the hope that something new would jump out and give her the answers she needed.

Nothing did; instead, her desk phone rang. Startled, she spilled coffee all over her blue blouse and cursed loudly.

“Bronson,” she greeted curtly, trying to wipe the liquid with some Kleenex.

“Ma’am, I have Detective John Dempsey from Bangor for you on line two,” the boy said in a serious tone. “He said they have a positive ID on both victims inside the car and an urgent new discovery.”

His words made her forget all about her stained blouse and her manners. Without so much as a thank you, she pressed the button connecting the call. “Hello John. What you got?”

I can’t breathe…

Emily’s eyes opened with a start. She could still feel the coldness of the lake around her, but the blinding light told her she wasn’t underwater anymore and, most importantly, Taylor wasn’t around.

I lost him again. No.

A waterfall of desperate tears fell from her eyes as she scrunched them back shut and prayed for sleep to take her. She wanted to go back to the frigid water and see him again.

I’ll stay on the dock, I won’t speak or breathe or even think . . . I just want to see you.

She finally knew where to look.
The last door. He’s at the last door
, she kept repeating inside her mind.

The annoying ringing of a phone broke her focus and kept her awake. She wished she had the strength in her body to chuck the cordless phone at the wall.

When the noise finally died down, she thanked her lucky stars and focused on going back to sleep. The blackness and fog was about to claim her mind when the door flew open.

B
EEP .
. .
whoosh . . . beep . . . whoosh . . .

Breathe Emily, just breathe,
she thought. Her lungs obliged, expanding with a large inhale of disinfectant-scented air. The beeping and whooshing continued around her; they were extremely soothing, almost hypnotic. Emily leaned forward, resting her head on the arm she had extended over the bed in front of her. Surrendering herself to the powerful sounds around her, she allowed her mind to drift into her most recent memories.

It was weird how her last zombie-land dream, the one where she’d found and lost Taylor once again, was more vivid in her memories than the reality that followed. She remembered details of the dream, like the red sweater he was wearing beneath his navy jacket, and the way the wind that was blowing around her smelt like a storm. She remembered her skin crawling with panic at the sight of him going down into the ice, and the needles piercing her skin when she jumped in after him. It was all so real that she could barely believe it hadn’t actually happened.

With the exception of the pain and longing she felt once her eyes popped open, everything else was a haze. There were voices invading her room and her sadness. They were loud, confusing and maddening.

Next, there were arms and water. Loving hands washed her body and hair while she absently moved a toothbrush inside her mouth. The hands belonged to Tina, of that she was certain. She also remembered finally discovering what being cared for by a loving mother felt like. It was comforting and wonderful. When the water stopped and Tina turned for a towel, she said something that Emily couldn’t remember. However, the words made her fall to the floor.
It must have been a nasty fall. My ass still hurts,
she thought, moving her buttocks on the chair and feeling the shooting pain up her spine.

She continued to remember the day. Her next blurry memory involved a large sandwich and an equally large disposable cup of orange juice. She didn’t want anything to do with either, but forced them down her throat anyways.

After that, there was a car and an elevator and a helicopter. The helicopter was the only thing she remembered well for two reasons. The first was because that’s where they met the smiling and annoyingly chatty Detective Bronson; the woman’s behavior made Emily want to either punch her teeth in or toss her out of the flying vehicle. The second reason was all the beautiful shades of green she could see out of her window as they passed a vast forest, the sight so breathtaking that, not even in her absent state, could it be ignored.

A couple of men had waited for them at the helipad. They were both faceless to Emily’s eyes—only their clothes registered in her mind. One wore a moss-green ensemble that she now recognized as being hospital scrubs, and the other wore the most hideous suit ever made. The thing was at least two sizes too big, made of some synthetic fabric in the saddest shade of brown known to man. Over a wrinkly white shirt he wore a mustard tie, and his shoes were black and way too pointy.

The hideousness of the man’s suit wasn’t the only thing she remembered of him. She also remembered his deep voice; it had a raspy quality that reminded her of her favorite blues singer, and a drawl that was very unnatural to northern Maine. But the thing she remembered the most was the words he spoke, because they turned her world on its head.

“Once our lab was able to analyze the DNA sample from the men inside the car and the results indicated that they were related, we were forced to look into other possibilities.” Those words registered through her haze of grief and drew her attention to him as he continued. “One of those possibilities was a report of a John Doe brought to this hospital that very night by a retired ambulance driver. We were too busy looking into the case, and we let it slip past us. But, after I read the report, I knew it had to be Taylor. All we need to close the investigation is a confirmation by a family member.”

At that moment, Emily had thanked her lucky stars that Tina and Penelope had ignored her requests not to be touched and were holding her hands. She knew she would have fallen on her behind yet again if they weren’t.

The man in green scrubs and the hideously dressed detective had led Rick, Tina and Emily down past a set of double doors that opened into a large square space, with several smaller rooms lining the walls. They all continued to the farthest room and unceremoniously entered the glass door.

That’s when the beeping and whooshing begun. That’s also when breathing stopped being something instinctive, and became a conscious effort for Emily, something she had to remind herself to do.
Fill your nose with air . . . let it go down to your lungs . . . now, let it out, slowly, through your mouth . . . repeat . . .

The doctor and the detective stood at the entrance to the room, watching as her and Taylor’s parents closed the distance between the doorway and the figure of the man lying on the bed.

The two-step breathing ritual Emily developed became more labored and her eyes filled with tears again. The man was covered from the waist down with a white cotton sheet. His naked skin above the fabric was marked with ugly purple bruises, cuts of various sizes, too many reddish scrapes to count, a large blistering burn and more than a few white bandages. Tubes and wires connected various parts of his body to the several machines that beeped, and a thicker tube left his open mouth and ended inside the machine that whooshed.

Her hand went up to cover her mouth.

“That’s him. It’s Taylor.” Her voice had been weak and alien, tinged with the joy and fear.

She’d moved closer to the head of the bed. Her eyes had searched his face and their surroundings, hunting for any clue that it was just another sick dream. A voice inside her head had begged, cried and pleaded for her brother to show up. When he didn’t, she’d gathered the flesh inside her cheek in between her teeth and bit on it until the coopery taste of blood filled her mouth—but the reality was still the same. The white room was still filled with machine-like noise, the disinfectant smell still filled the air—and the love of her life was alive and within her reach. It was all too much and her legs gave out, dropping her to her knees as the tears poured from her eyes.

Forming memories was hard; they kept slipping out of her reach.

Flashes of memory popped into her mind. They were mostly sensations, like the buzz of voices and the tightness of embraces, the annoyance of being removed from the room by a severe looking middle-aged blond woman and the warm feeling of soup slipping down her throat. The only clear memory she had was of a tiny, very pregnant doctor, impeccably dressed in a tangerine dress and a white lab coat. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, with her long bangs falling over her Tiffany glasses.

Pink light had shone outside the window as the woman sat by Emily’s side. She was kind and polite and patiently explained what had happened to Taylor in words Emily could understand. Being used to Zack’s doctor tone, Emily had known the lady was downplaying his injuries and she was grateful for it because, even downplayed, her words had been scary as hell. Apart from the dehydration, road rash, cuts and bruises that were extensive but rather simple to treat, a long shard of glass had pierced his liver, and he had suffered a major contusion to the head. The doctor had explained that they had performed a surgery to repair the damage done to his liver and to alleviate the pressure in his brain.

Emily had listened to the words that validated the reality, but she still refused to believe in it. She knew that, until he opened his eyes, smiled at her and called out her name, she wouldn’t allow herself to discard the possibility of this whole hospital being anything but a zombie-land dream.