Лиза Макманн - Fade

She’s breathing hard, in and out, and she cries hot tears, because all she wants is to open her eyes. But they feel open.

“I need my glasses,” she cries out in a broken voice. “I can’t see.”

“Janie, it’s me, Cabel. I’m right here. I have your glasses, and you’ll be able to see in a few minutes. You’re safe.” His voice breaks and he pauses. “You’re safe. Just sit back and rest. Wait for it. You’ll see shadows in a minute, and then everything else will come back, okay?”

Janie slumps back.

She shudders, but she can’t remember why.

She tries to breathe, in and out.

“What time is it?” she whispers.

“Six fifteen.”

She hesitates. “Morning?” she guesses.

“Yes, morning.”

She breathes again. “What day?”

There is a short silence. “It’s Sunday morning, sweetheart. March 5.”

“Is Stacey O’Grady in this room?”

“No, baby. She’s down the hall.”

“Is the door closed?”

“Yes.”

Janie doesn’t understand, but her brain is still fuzzy, like her eyes. And then slowly, bits of things return.

And she knows there are two very important things she told herself to remember, even when everything was out of control. She speaks slowly.

“Cabel?”

“Yes?”

“GHB. Mr. Durbin cooked it up himself out of paint stripper and lye.

That’s my guess. I looked it up before. I didn’t see him do it. But he has the stuff. And, obviously, the ability.”

She breathes, exhausted. “Only twelve hours before it’s out of the body. Urine tests. Everyone. Every fucking one.”

She doesn’t see him blink.

“Good job,” he murmurs, and he’s on the cell phone. Talking gibberish.

She’s trying hard to focus. There’s something else. What is it? She can’t remember.

He stops talking on the phone, and he’s rubbing her arm.

And then she remembers. “Meatballs,” she says. “The drug was in the punch, but I swear to god I didn’t drink the punch. Not that I can remember. I tested it. The tests are in my jeans pocket. Right side.” She pauses. Sobs a little. “He must have put the GHB in the meatball sauce, when I was in the bathroom, testing the punch. God, I’m so stupid.”

She drifts off, still blind, and sleeps fitfully for a few hours.

9:01 a.m.

Janie blinks awake. The light above her on the ceiling is blinding.

“Where the hell am I?” she asks.

“Fieldridge General,” Cabe says.

She sits up slowly. Her head aches. She holds her hands to her face.

“What the fuck,” she says.

“Janie, can you see?”

“Of course I can see, you asshole.”

He does a double take, looks at the woman next to him, who chuckles, and he closes his eyes briefly. “You feel like talking?” he asks carefully.

She blinks a few more times. Sits up. “Where the fuck am I?” she asks again.

Cabel plants his forehead in his hands. Captain steps to the plate.

“Janie, do you know who I am?”

Janie peers at her. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. And who is this?”

“Cabel Strumheller, sir. You remember him, don’t you?”

Captain buries a grin. “I do, now that you mention it.” She pauses.

“What do you remember?”

Janie closes her eyes. Her head aches. She thinks for a long time.

They wait.

She finally speaks. “I went to the party at Durbin’s house.”

“Yes,” Captain says.

Cabel slips out of his chair and begins to pace the floor.

“I remember setting up the food.” She strains against the fuzziness.

“That’s good, Janie. Take your time. We’ve got all day.”

Janie pauses again. “Oh god,” she says. Her voice shivers and falls.

“It’s okay, Janie. You were drugged.”

A tear slips down Janie’s cheek. “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” she whispers.

Captain takes her hand. “You did everything right. No worries. Just take your time.”

Janie sobs quietly for a moment. “Cabe’s gonna be mad,” she whispers to Captain.

“No, Janie. He’s fine. Right, Cabe?”

Cabel looks at Captain and Janie. His face is ashen. “I’m fine, Janie,” he manages to croak.

Captain captures Janie’s eyes. “You know this, Hannagan, goddamnit.

Anything that happened as a result of you being drugged against your will is not your fault. Right? You know your stuff. And you know that.

And whoever did anything to you will go to jail, okay? Not your fault.

Don’t turn soft on me, Janie,” she adds. “You’re a strong woman. The world needs more like you.”

Janie swallows hard and turns her head away. She wants to bury herself under the covers and disappear. “Yes, sir.”

“Would it help you remember if I mention some of the names?”

Captain asks.

“Maybe,” Janie says. “I don’t remember much. Just wisps of things.”

“Okay. Let’s start with Durbin. What happened with him.”

Janie sighs. Then she opens her eyes wide. “GHB,” she says, and sits up. “GHB.”

Cabel gives Captain a frightened look. “Settle,” she says to him, under her breath. “She doesn’t remember talking earlier. It’s normal.” She turns back to Janie. “What about GHB, Janie?”

Janie thinks. “I tested the first punch,” she says. “I thought for sure there’d be rooffies in it. But it was clean. Just vodka. That’s what he told me.”

“Good job. You are a professional.”

“And then people started getting weird. Durbin brought out a new bowl.” The wisps are a little stronger.

Captain sits quietly, letting her think.

“He made all the guys come upstairs from the basement. They were watching TV. He said they should start eating, because the girls wouldn’t do it.”

Captain scowls, but holds in her disgust.

“And then…” She thinks. “Wang gave me some punch and gave me shit about being trailer trash. What a fucker,” she says, her eyes stinging. She cries for a minute, and then pulls it together.

“He was messed up by then,” she continues. “I thought something was going on. So I took the punch he gave me and tested that—I didn’t drink any. The paper turned blue, and I flushed it all down the toilet.”

She closes her eyes again.

“I went downstairs,” she says slowly. “I checked the chemicals on his lab table, and I didn’t see the ones I was looking for—GBL and

NaOH. Those two chemicals combined make GHB, a drug-facilitated, sexual-assault weapon. I studied about it, like you told me to.”

Captain nods.

“But when I got upstairs, I remembered seeing some bottles on top of his refrigerator. Paint stripper and lye. The same chemicals that create

GHB.”

“By then I was paranoid and worried. All the soda was in open twoliter bottles, and I didn’t even want to get a glass of water, because he had one of those water-filter things on the tap, and I thought he maybe put the drug in it. So I grabbed a beer—I’m so sorry, Captain—and drank it sort of fast, but I had food by then too. And a beer, honestly, is not too much for me. I don’t know what happened,” she says, crying again, covering her face. “I screwed up, didn’t I?”

Captain closes her eyes. “No, Janie. You did fine. We should have thought to send you with some individual water bottles or something.”

Cabel stops pacing and rests his forehead against the window. Bounces it against the glass a few times. Mutters unintelligibly.

Captain carefully continues. “You told us a few hours ago, something about the meatballs. Do you remember that?”

Janie is silent. Confused. “I don’t remember meatballs.”

Captain nods at Cabel. He looks quizzically at her, then he nods. He dials his phone. Talks to someone. Eventually hangs up.