Rain pounded on the ambulance roof as Claire sat next to Darcy, who was strapped on the gurney. An ER nurse was with them and had checked on Darcy’s vitals—normal but for dilated eyes and a high blood pressure reading, but what did they expect, whisking her away like this? At least the driver had not turned on the siren to alarm her more.
Steve had been given time to see Darcy again before Ken took him in. He’d told her he was going to check their house because of the storm and would see her soon. Nick had gone with him. How had it come to this so swiftly? The shock, the joy—then tragedy again. Steve was under arrest and poor Jilly, who was suddenly without her parents, was clinging to Lexi and that horrible doll.
But if time was a blur to Darcy, everything was that way to Claire as the ambulance drove toward the hospital. She’d taken her nightly narcolepsy meds, but she had to try to keep things straight. She empathized with Darcy, the uncertainty, the panic and fear.
“I don’t think I need an ambulance, but Steve said maybe I hit my head,” Darcy said as Claire leaned close and held her hand.
“Maybe. Your eyes are dilated.”
“And I can’t remember how I lost my phone, because I had my purse, my car keys. Can’t recall leaving Tara’s. I think someone came for some butterflies.”
“Who was that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the men who took care of the dolphin at the zoo.”
Claire was confused. There were no dolphins at the zoo. Even if there were, why would dolphin keepers want butterflies? And she realized she should not be questioning Darcy now but then she could tell Ken—if she was ever speaking to him again—what Darcy said here. But her sister wasn’t making sense. Was she?
“Were you at the zoo today, Darcy?”
“I might have been.”
At least the nurse didn’t seem interested in what Darcy was saying, only in reading the monitors attached to her.
“I think it was raining at the zoo,” Darcy whispered, as if it were a secret. “Or it might have been somewhere people were swimming in little pools, but I could only see their faces.”
Oh, dear God, her sister wasn’t here at all, at least not mentally. Something traumatic had happened to her, but at least they had her back and could help her. Claire kept holding her hand as the ambulance turned into the emergency entrance of the NCH North Naples Hospital. It was dry under the portico as the nurse and driver slid, then rolled out, Darcy’s gurney and extended the wheeled legs. Claire followed along, hefting the duffel bag with things for her and Darcy that Nita had hastily packed.
They went inside and down corridors, used an elevator to the area marked Psychiatric and Psychology Center. A private room was waiting; they went right in, and two nurses transferred Darcy to a bed and got her changed into a hospital gown while Claire hovered. The single room had a sofa-type bed along one wall, so she put her things there. Thank heavens, she could stay right here all night.
A tall, thin, blonde woman stepped in. Her white coat was scripted over the pocket with Dr. Lesley Spizer. Claire stood at the foot of the bed while the doctor, perhaps in her midforties, nodded to her, but stepped closer to take Darcy’s hand.
“Darcy, I’m Dr. Spizer, and I’m going to help you feel better.”
“I’m really all right, just tired. But maybe I hit my head because—because on the wall there,” she said pointing past Claire, “it says it is August 23, and that can’t be. That means I missed my wedding anniversary, but I don’t think I did.”
“Don’t worry about that, about anything,” the doctor told her. “We will do some tests to find out if you hit your head, and your sister can stay here with you. If you missed your anniversary, I’m sure you can celebrate later.”
Dr. Spizer assured Darcy she would be able to go home soon, that her daughter and son could visit, so the doctor had obviously been filled in on Darcy’s background. She didn’t mention Steve. How much did this woman know?
The doctor said goodbye to Darcy “for now” and motioned Claire out into the hall.
Dr. Spizer assured her they would do all they could for Darcy and her family, and that, starting tomorrow when the story broke, there would be police protection here to fend off any “untoward, intrusive inquiries.”
“First, of course,” she told Claire, “we’ll do a blood draw for tests to see if she has any drugs in her system. With those dilated eyes, it’s a good bet. We will try to expedite lab results if it’s anything unusual.”
“We’re so grateful to have her back,” Claire said. “You have obviously been filled in by the authorities about her.”
“Yes. Actually, I was also following the story in the media. I’m a certifiable news junkie—so I guess there’s something off-kilter about all of us.” She touched Claire’s shoulder. “Detective Jensen said you are a forensic psych, so that will give you some knowledge about how things will go here. We’ll start with her body, but we’ll have to probe her mind, too.”
“Anything I can do to help, to support her, please let me know.”
“I have a sister I couldn’t do without,” the doctor said with a sharp nod. “I know it’s hard, but try to make yourself—and her—at home.”
It was after ten o’clock that night when a nurse came into the room to whisper to Claire that her husband was in the waiting area down the hall.
Darcy had gone to sleep after blood tests, and they had eaten a light meal, but Claire had just lain on the sofa bed wide-awake, thinking, worrying, wondering.
Though hesitant to leave Darcy in case she woke and wondered where she was, Claire hurried into the waiting room and into Nick’s arms.
“How are Steve and the girls?” she asked.
“The girls are shook but both Kris and Brit stopped by with little gifts and diversions. Steve has been booked. I got him bail bond through his company. He’ll see a lawyer friend of mine tomorrow. He’s been released, under Ken’s temporary condition he not barge in here for twenty-four hours. I took him back to our house where he’s trying to deal with Jilly and his own stupid behavior. He admitted to me he did confront Larry Ralston when he figured out from Heck that Fly Safe was hostile to Tara’s butterfly farm. He admitted to me—not to the police—that he did have an argument with Ralston, shoved him around. Steve got a cut on his face there, then used a paper napkin from the bar to wipe the blood.”
“And probably accidentally dropped it on his way out so the police could eventually find his DNA. Nick, I fear for Darcy’s sanity already, and if she hears about Steve...”
He tugged her over to the table and pulled out chairs for both of them. At least this late, the area was deserted. “So fill me in on what’s happened here so far,” he said.
“I like her doctor, Lesley Spizer. They drew blood, did other kinds of tests. Results pending, at least I haven’t heard. Dr. Spizer asked me for possible questions to ask Darcy, and she said I could sit in on that if I mostly listened and didn’t prompt. I gave her some basic queries like ‘Did you go anywhere but the Flutterby Farm? Did someone come to take the butterflies?’ Darcy said someone came to take them, but she didn’t know who. She said something about seeing people swimming in little pools, but she saw only their faces.”
“Sounds delusional at best, but it’s got to mean something. What else?”
“Questions like, ‘What happened to your phone? Since you were late coming home, where were you?’ Then I ran out of questions except for going back in time to be sure she has those memories—she knew Steve and Jilly, so... Nick, I was terrified when she was missing, but I’m still scared for her. Something awful happened, and she won’t be really safe until we—or Ken Jensen—find out what.”
“I know, sweetheart, and—”
Dr. Spizer came into the room with her little laptop in hand. “I heard your husband was here. Let me share some prelim findings with both of you. I understand Darcy’s husband needs to be informed also, but Detective Jensen, whom I called first with these results, tells me you can pass on this early information to her husband.”
Nick stood and shook the doctor’s hand. She sat across the table from them and lifted her laptop lid. The glow from the screen lit her gray eyes.
“I asked the lab to rush the findings,” she told them. “Darcy had faint traces of a drug called propranolol in her system. It’s a beta blocker, fairly new, used to blunt post-traumatic stress disease—and, frankly, to blunt stressful memories.”
“To make her forget what’s happened,” Claire said.
“Yes. It specifically targets trauma. It has even been used for stage fright. I tend to think of it by the nickname Prop—a prop for those who have nightmares and trauma. Its most important uses are to help handle, even erase, such disturbing and haunting events as war, accidents, rape and natural disasters.”
Claire gripped Nick’s hand so hard he winced. He said, “So it doesn’t let the person calmly recall memories, but actually buries them, so to speak.”
“Exactly. But the sufferers may have flashbacks. Now that she’s off the drug, that could happen. But it’s up to us to pull those memories out, help her deal with them. And, of course, in this case it may be evidence for a crime.
“Claire,” she went on, looking now only at her, “you mentioned her speaking of seeing people in pools, water, a dolphin. These could be fragmentary memories of where she was and what happened. However, you will be relieved to know that the physical examination we did indicates she was not forcefully violated, nor did she have any signs of a struggle. No bruises or cuts, nothing under her fingernails. She’s been hydrated but not well-fed, I would surmise from findings,” she said, looking down at the screen again. “It won’t take long for us to reverse that, so I hope we can discover why she was given the Prop. What was it her abductors were trying to make her forget?”
“Tomorrow, we’ll begin listening and counseling sessions, which I will allow you to attend if you let me take the lead and only weigh in if I ask you.”
“Yes. Yes, thank you. Might I sit behind her and raise my hand if I can think of something to say or advise you?”
The doctor’s gray eyes narrowed for a moment. She looked at Nick, who shrugged as if to say, That’s my Claire.
“Yes, all right,” the doctor said with a curt nod. “You handled it very well when she asked why the policeman was in the hall and you assured her it was standard procedure for this area.”
“I hate to lie to her. But, Doctor, I will do anything to help and protect her. We were blessed to get her back—physically. Now we have to get her back mentally and emotionally, too.”
Claire finally fell asleep on the hard sofa. The room wasn’t really dark the way she liked it with the lighted movement on the monitors and the muted glow in the attached bathroom. After much agitation, Darcy was on her back, breathing in a regular pattern. It had to be long after midnight. Of course, as in every hospital where Claire had been, nurses came and went all the time, but at least they didn’t wake Darcy. But what were her dreams that made her so restless? Maybe that was what they had to find out—and then face.
Claire shook her head at the thought that there were two of them here who needed help—the sister with the possible PTSD med in her and the one with the narcolepsy meds. What a pair, always had been. What would Mother have thought? But then she’d had her problems, too, and could have used tests and meds and counseling.
She thought of Tara and Will. Nick had said he would tell them that Darcy had come back, but that she had some kind of amnesia. He promised to thank them for all their help and support and ask them not to talk to the media if they came calling one way or the other.
She had also told Nick that she suspected Lexi’s horrible doll of perhaps spying on them, though they could hardly blame Nita and Bronco for giving it to them. Someone very clever—diabolical—must have seen Nita as a perfect, naive way to get that doll into their lives.
“Someone must have set them up—set Darcy up—us, too,” Nick had said. “Someone who knows too much about us. So that pretty little doll violates US privacy laws? Damn, I’ll look into that, but first things first with Steve and the girls. You just take care of Darcy.”
“What if that doll is kind of like a Trojan horse?” Claire had asked. “You know, we take it in because it’s such a gift, and Lexi needs it, but its insides are full of deceit—a trap. If we could just trace who set up Nita to ‘win’ that.”
“But if I tell anyone—Ken, especially—and he takes the doll to tear into it...”
“I know. I know,” she’d said, holding to him after the doctor had left. “Then Lexi might go off the deep end, too.”
Darcy’s cry jolted Claire from that memory.
“The fish doesn’t have much room to breathe!” she cried.
Claire got up and bent over her. She was thrashing, murmuring. It was suddenly like she used to comfort Darcy after Daddy had left them, when Mother used to get so strange, sobbing at night, crying out like—like this. But Darcy was so young then...
“It’s all right, Darcy. I’m here with you. Everything’s all right.”
“It isn’t! There’s not much room, and that dolphin needs to come up for air. I do, too—a mask, a mask on my face. Not Halloween.”
“No, it’s not Halloween. You don’t have a mask on your face now. It’s all right.”
“People are floating. They can’t breathe in there. Stop it. I don’t want to die!”
“You won’t. I’m here. You’re here with me now, and—”
The door to the room opened. A shaft of light from the hall sliced across Darcy’s bed.
“Her blood pressure...” the nurse who came said. “I’m not to sedate her, but—”
“She’s all right,” Claire told the nurse. “Darcy, everything is all right now,” Claire crooned to quiet her. Amazingly, Darcy nodded and went almost instantly to sleep. The nurse took her pulse, reread the monitors and finally, with a nod, went out. But Claire heard her tell someone in the hall before the door closed, “The doctor was right. PTSD from something terrible that happened.”
But, Claire thought, that memory—something horrible and haunting during her abduction—was buried deep. At least, thank God, Darcy wasn’t.