Andrea Kane - The Girl Who Disappeared Twice

The nurse had soothed her and assured her that their time together had been tender and warm, and the hug had been tight.

Why couldn’t she remember?

She lowered her head into her hands and began to cry.

“Lorna?”

Her head came up. A plump, middle-aged nurse she didn’t recognize had stepped into the room.

“What’s wrong?” the nurse asked.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Nurse Amato. I heard you crying. Are you in pain?”

“I don’t know you. Where’s Nurse Greene?” the woman demanded.

“She hasn’t come in yet.” Nurse Amato walked over, put a hand on Lorna’s shoulder. Lorna could see her name tag now. Denise Amato. A stranger.

She shook her hand away. “I don’t know you,” she repeated. “I want Nurse Greene.”

Nurse Amato gave her a placating smile. “I understand that you don’t want to confide in me. We don’t really know each other. But I don’t want to leave you sad. Would you like to take a walk? We could go to the gardens. Nurse Greene says that the flowers always cheer you up.”

“She said that?”

“She certainly did.”

“But it’s noisy outside. Those men are always hammering and drilling.”

“We won’t walk toward the new wing. We’ll go in the opposite direction, and walk around back. We can get to the gardens either way.”

Lorna wiped away her tears. “All right, then. We can go to the gardens. But Nurse Greene always pushes me. I’m too tired to walk all that way.”

“Of course you are. Wait right here.”

The nurse vanished, returning a few minutes later with a wheelchair.

“Here we go,” she said cheerfully. “Shall I help you?”

“No. I can get up myself.” To demonstrate that she still had some measure of control over her body, Lorna rose and made her way over to the wheelchair. She gripped the arms and sat down.

“Excellent. Let’s take our walk.”

The gardens were lovely. Nurse Greene had been right. There were pink flowers, and purple flowers, and some pretty yellow flowers, too. She knew what those were called. She just couldn’t remember. But she’d had them in a line on her front lawn. They’d grown there a while ago. She wasn’t sure how long.

Nurse Amato continued to chat as they walked. Lorna only half heard what she was saying. She was watching the sun rise, wondering if her baby was seeing the same thing. Did it rise the same way everywhere? Or did it look different from different places?

A shimmering reflection caught her eye, and she snapped back to the present.

“What’s that?” she asked in a high, thin voice. She already knew. She could sense it even before she saw it.

“It’s the lake,” Nurse Amato said cheerfully. “The water is calm and beautiful at sunrise. I thought you’d like to see it.”

“No!” Lorna’s heart began pounding. Sweat broke out on her body and trickled down. Scrambling wildly, she jumped out of the wheelchair, almost toppling to the ground in her haste to get away. She gripped the arm of the wheelchair to steady herself and then stumbled off toward the building.

“Lorna!” Nurse Amato rushed over and gripped her firmly around the shoulders. “Wait! You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Let me go!” Lorna shook the nurse off violently, lurching forward a few steps before falling to her knees. “Let me go!” she sobbed again, trying to crawl away.

There was the sound of running footsteps, and then the welcome voice of Nurse Greene.

“What’s happening here?” She knelt down and put gentle hands on Lorna’s shoulders. “Shh, it’s all right. Everything is all right.” She looked up at Nurse Amato. “Why did you take her here?”

The other nurse was clearly baffled. “I-I don’t understand,” she stammered. “I thought she’d enjoy the view.”

“Next time, read the file more carefully before you take charge of a patient you’re unfamiliar with.” Nurse Greene sounded very upset. “This patient is never, under any circumstances, to be brought to the lake. That is listed clearly at the top of her file.”

“I’m sorry,” the other nurse said. She looked like she wanted to say more, but didn’t. And Nurse Greene didn’t wait around to further discuss the issue. She just turned the wheelchair around and helped Lorna into it. “Let’s head back,” she said in a soft, calming voice, starting to push the wheelchair toward the facility. “I’ll make you a nice cup of chamomile tea and you can drink it in the day room sitting near the big bay window you like so much. The flowers are in bloom. You’ll love all the colors. Before you know it, breakfast will be served. I think I saw some croissants being delivered.”

“Those are my favorite,” Lorna said.

“I know. Mine, too.”

Lorna was already starting to feel better. The water was behind her. It got farther away with each step. And that other nurse wasn’t with them. Lorna didn’t like her. She didn’t know the things she should.

Her heart rate slowly returned to normal, and the sweating stopped. Most of all, the overwhelming sense of panic, the loss of control, was dissipating.

It would be all right now.

Soon, she’d be sipping tea and eating a croissant. Since she was early, she might be one of the lucky patients who got one with chocolate inside. She really liked chocolate. It always tasted sweet. And it made her happy.

She hadn’t been happy before.

But she could no longer remember why.

Denise Amato waited until the two women were out of viewing range. Then she made her way across the opposite section of grounds, stopping at a trailer labeled Bennato Construction. She pulled open the door and stepped inside.

“It’s done,” she said.

“And?” Bill Parsons turned, his eyebrows arched in question.

“And the poor woman nearly had a coronary. If that’s what Tony was looking for, he got it.”

A nod. “That’s what Tony was looking for. That means his information was good. And it’ll point the Feds, the cops and that nutcase Navy SEAL in a different direction. Thanks, Denise. I owe you one.”

Casey hadn’t slept well.

Long after Hutch was out cold, his breathing deep and even, she’d been tossing and turning, trying to figure out what was bugging her. It wasn’t Hutch. If anything, tonight had been an important turning point in their relationship. They’d set some boundaries, and acknowledged the depth of their involvement.

No, it was that damned note she’d been left, and its all-too-elusive meaning.

She got out of bed just after dawn, shrugged into her robe and walked across the hall to her little kitchenette, where she brewed a pot of coffee. Hutch found her there a half hour later, sitting at the counter, hunched over her cup.

“Hey, the bed was cold,” he commented, tipping up her chin and kissing her lightly on the mouth. “I’ve obviously lost my touch if you’re running away at dawn.”

Casey gave him a wan smile. “You haven’t lost anything. My body aches in places I never knew I had.”

“But the case is eating at you.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Well, I can give you more information, but it’s not going to cheer you up. I just got a call from Quantico. The lab finished their results in record time. Unfortunately, those results add up to a big goose egg. Zip. Nothing.”

“No fingerprints at all?”

“Oh, yeah, there were fingerprints, but they were smudged. Nothing the lab could match to an entry in CODIS. So we have no way of knowing if the DNA was that of a previous offender.”

“Meaning we’ve got nothing.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. The fingerprints didn’t give us a name, but they did tell a story. They were lightly covered with dirt.”

“Dirt?” Casey straightened. “What kind of dirt? The kind you find on a lawn or in a garden, or the kind you find at a construction site?”