Forgotten (26 page)

An
ear-splitting silence reigned instead. But, I couldn’t give
in.

With one
final, momentous pool of energy, I screamed.

December 27, 2010

11:25 am

I JERKED AWAKE.

My head was
dizzy, muddled and the sudden light intrusive. I groaned, threw my
arm over my eyes and shut out the world
.

What the shit was happening?

“Just give yourself time,” a male voice
said. “You’ve had quite a nasty shock.”

I had?

“But you will be fine.”

Fine? I didn’t feel fine at all. Who was this
man?

I peeked
beneath my wrist. Although slightly better, everything was still
oddly off-balanced. When I finally stopped blinking, it was to see
a familiar face. “Dr. Camparo? What are you doing here?”

I took a
moment to establish where
here
was. Further peeks informed
me in my unit, stretched out on my back along my sofa, my bare feet
raised unceremoniously on the sofa’s armrest. Something soft and
grey was strapped to my arm, beginning to balloon.

“
Making sure
you’
re okay, my dear girl. Otherwise,
Mrs. Camparo would have my head on one of her horribly menacing
chopping blocks.” I felt his broad laugh ripple through his short,
chubby body and into the sofa.

The Camparos, both retired, both Italian,
lived in the upstairs unit. Since I had moved into Zephyr, almost a
year ago, they had treated me like their surrogate daughter, often
spoiling me with home cooked meals.

Dr. Camparo
ripped the monitor free from my arm. “Your blood-pressure is back
to normal,” he said. “We were worried about you. You were out for a
good fifteen minutes.”

I tried to
straighten up. It was challenging. “I don’t remember what
happened.” I was suddenly aware of the constant drone of voices
behind me. Who were they and what were they doing in my
home?

Dr. Camparo
held my half-raised head and tilted a glass of water to my mouth. I
sipped. It felt good. I sipped some more. Before long, I was
sitting upright, still a little woozy, but feeling a lot less like
a child’s spinning toy.

Centered on
the far wall, directly opposite, was a large, striking profile shot
of Papa and me, taken on my twenty-first birthday. Our foreheads
were just touching, our eyes locked with the other. Categorical and
unconditional love poured from every single living
pixel.

Below was a quote I had stolen from a
poster:

The reason why daughters love their Dads the most,
is
….

That
there is at
least one man in the world who will never hurt her.

A series of
horrible shivers worked through my body
.

“
If it helps
any,” Dr
. Camparo began and then stopped.
He rolled up the monitor, unclipped a nearby, heavy-duty black bag
and slipped the monitor into it.

“If it helps any,” I echoed.

He
side-glanced me and sighed, long and heavy. “You kept calling out
his name,
Simon’s
name.
”

Simon?

I spun in
the direction of the unbroken babble and caught sight of blue
uniforms and white coats. Police. There were police in my
home.

Simon.

Shit.

Using the
side armrest as support, I stood. My legs were rickety but it
didn
’t stop me. I thieved a second or two
to steady them, and allowed the sharp shot of adrenaline to carry
me forward. I ignored the repetitive concerns from Dr. Camparo, the
loud admonitions from the law enforcement, and the unfriendly hands
blocking my way.

I had only one thing in mind.

Simon.

Simon and the bed of flowers.

As I neared
my bedroom, a large hand grabbed my arm. I tried to shake it off
but it was too powerful. “Angel, don’t…
.”

“Ethan,” I said, half-crazed, still lunging
forward. “It’s Simon.”

“What?” Ethan’s grasp weakened. And I
immediately broke free.

Somewhere in the distance, an angered voice
yelled, “Get her out of there!” There was no mistaking that greasy,
autocratic tone.

Weatherly.

Regardless,
I pumped on, that chronic sense of
deja vu
, that repugnant odor of
death once more haunting me. When I reached the doorjamb, I grabbed
it and then gazed numbly at the man on my bed. “Simon…,” I
whispered.

But the man on the bed was not Simon.

I shrank
back. The man was elderly, perhaps sixtyish, grey-haired, his drawn
face heavily stubbled. I buckled over and clasped my now, cramping
stomach.
Where was Simon? Nausea
rose.

I dashed to
the bathroom. I threw my head over the sink and dry retched several
times before finally throwing up. I didn’t even notice Ethan until
I spotted his mystified reflection in the mirror. He was abnormally
lost for words. Adrenaline was fast deserting me along with my
sanity. Ethan helped me to the bath where I balanced precariously
on its ceramic edging.

Within seconds, Weatherly appeared. His skin
was like one who had accidentally fallen asleep in an overlooked
solarium. “What do you think you’re doing traipsing all over the
crime scene?”

Ethan strapped his arms around me. I could
make out a low growl inside his chest. “Piss off, you bastard.”

Weatherly huffed and twitched, looked
sideways a few times, then back at us. “Watch yourself, Sloane.
Don’t think just because you sit under Reardon’s umbrella, that
that’ll protect you, forever.” He grinned that malicious grin of
his and then stormed off.

Ethan
brushed my long fringe off my face. “You could’ve just told me you
didn’t like French toast.” He looked at the once sanitized bowl
where my breakfast remains were most likely still evident. If I
didn’t feel so wretched, I would’ve smiled. “Where’s Saul?” I asked
instead.

“Right here.” Saul stood where Weatherly had
been seconds earlier. He sounded strangely irritated. But, I had no
time for it. I pulled myself up. “It’s Simon.”

Saul glanced at Ethan, then back at me. “Are
you talking about the man in the bedroom? That man isn’t Simon. His
name is Danny Souza.”

I bit my
lip. One of the supposed gun clan? Of course. And, so this
ridiculous pattern continues.

Except that is, for Simon.

Anxiety
gnawed at me. “You have to listen, Saul. It’s the same as Simon,
the whole position of the body, the colored flowers, the
distinctive tilting of the head….”

I choked on the last words as I recalled the
unearthly experience I had while passed out, as I recalled Simon’s
loving words, the absolute finality of his closing eyes. I pressed
my messed-up head into my hands.

Had Simon really existed? If only for a
moment? Or had it been nothing more than my subconscious working
overtime.

It had certainly felt real.

And our love
more than.

I recalled my absurd, embryonic feelings for
Saul. And just as quickly, I sensed a massive disloyalty to Simon.
The bathroom walls began closing in on me, shrinking the space I
needed to function. I was suffocating, smothering under my own
rising mania.

I had to get out of there.

“What do you mean?” Saul asked me.

My voice was
less urgent. In fact, with each retreating step, numbness began to
spread throughout me. “Check the police records. And you’ll see;
it’s the same.”

“
But that
was almost fifteen months ago,” Ethan piped in. “Why would anyone
go to so much trouble to copy
that
particular crime?”

Saul was
doing the whole, frantic rubbing of his brow thing. “I don’t know,”
he said, in a un-Saul like edginess. “Maybe, maybe someone who
really wants to tilt Claudia over the edge.”

Well, touché.

“
I have to
sit outside.” I didn’t wait for a reply from either man. I steered
my way past the disparaging-looking police, collected my
leather ballet flats and pulled them on. I then
stepped onto the patio and slumped into one of the chairs. I tried
to focus on the ocean but somewhere in the past hour, its beauty
had subsided and its ability to pacify had waned.

“
You okay
for a while?” It was Saul. “I’ve a few more things to do and then
I’ll take you home.”

“
Home?” I
laughed. It came out more as a cough. “Saul, I
am
home.” But even as
those words left my lips, I knew that that would never be the case
again.

Saul said nothing.

“Did Milo ever turn up?” I asked.

Saul’s no was emphatic.

“Then why ask to meet me here?”

Unless….

“You don’t think he would’ve known about
this?” Even suspecting such a thing appalled me.

Saul stepped closer. “I’ve already thought
of that.”

“But that’s not him, Saul. And you know what
Weatherly will think.”

“
Weatherly
doesn’t know. I haven’t told him, not until we find out the
truth.”

I felt
immediate relief. However, unpleasant Milo was, I didn’t believe he
could be accountable for something so horrible.
So where was he?
“You called
Weatherly.” It was almost an accusation.

“
There’s a
dead body laboriously laid out in your bedroom. Even
I’m
not so far above
the law that I can conceal that. But Ethan gave it his once over
before Weatherly arrived.”

“
So where
were you?”

Saul
looked offended. “Where do you think? With you
of course. You had passed out. I couldn’t wake you. Tony
immediately got Dr. Camparo.”

I felt
annoyed but I didn’t know why. “Seems to be becoming a habit, this
constant rescuing me from dead bodies.”

Saul winced,
landed his hands on his hips, paced a bit. I swallowed hard, felt a
dull throbbing in my hands, looked down and saw my contorted
fingers. An errant salt-tinged breeze rushed past, hot with
impatience.

“One more thing before I go,” Saul muttered,
already half-turned. “You said Nate had keys to your car.”

Saul knew this already.

“
So who had
keys to this place? Nate again?”

Of course,
he did. But then so did my parents, as did Mel. I passed this onto
Saul, fully twigging onto his question. Like my car, there were no
signs of a break-in. Someone had to have the keys to both the car
and the unit. I stared blankly at Saul. Either one or more people
in my family had to be
involved.

I felt
nothing. Maybe the wind swept all my feelings away. Saul gave me a
sad, lingering look and then disappeared through the slider. I
wallowed for a while in my semi-state of nothingness. Until I could
bear it no longer. I then forced my thoughts on my anti-social
brother.

Why would he
text me and then not show up? Was he the involved family member? Or
at the very least, one of them? My instincts said no. Milo wouldn’t
hurt me… not intentionally at least.

Trust your instincts
, both Saul
and Papa had said.

I
’m
trying
, I mouthed to the empty,
friendless balcony.

What about
Papa? Papa knew most aspects of Simon’s murder scene. It wouldn’t
have been complicated to duplicate it. But to do so, would be
unimaginable. The suffering I had endured following Simon’s death
was indescribable. If it were at all possible, the pain my father
suffered watching me, would’ve almost equaled it.

No,
Papa
couldn’t have done
this
.

No one who loved me would.

I
visualized Danny Souza in my bedroom. A clan
member of long ago. Did that then mean my father could be next? I
wrapped my arms around me as if I were cold. Perhaps, I was.
Perhaps, I was simply trying to hold on to what little reality I
had left.

I thought of Simon, to those precious, few
minutes I had with him. Whether he had been real, or just a
fleeting apparition, he was trying to tell me something.

Ask the question.

I tried to recall Simon’s casual, loving
face, that husky voice of his, both still so achingly familiar. But
the pain became too intense, too frightening. I immediately pulled
up the well-rehearsed barriers from the last year and stopped.

And sighed.
And decided I was tired of the same old fight.

It was time to end it.

I bolted
upright and searched for Saul. He was bent over on the kitchen
bench, with his forearms crossed, talking to Ethan. He caught my
eye and threw me a long, wan look. I searched the room for an
undetectable route but found none. I recognized my bag containing
my wallet and phone on the table where the police stood nearby. I
decided the importance of them was inconsequential.

I turned,
spanned the small balcony and found my opportunity. I glanced at
Saul. He was now speaking on his mobile. Ethan was nowhere in
sight. I double-checked that everyone else, including Weatherly,
was attending to something other than me. I only needed a few short
minutes.