Forgotten Place (43 page)

Journey Ireland knew something, and I wasn't
leaving until she found her damned words and told me exactly what
it was.  The clock on the mantle chimed twelve times while
Devlin and I trekked upstairs to the room where Journey slept.

"Merry Christmas Eve," he said.

"We can only hope.  You have to promise
that you won't interfere in what has to happen tonight, Dev. 
I get it that she's sweet on you, and maybe the feeling is a little
bit mutual, but this is no time for kid gloves."

"Do I want to know what that means?"

"We're going to have a
little session of
come to Jesus
therapy
.  Fitting, considering today's
date, don't you think?"

"Helen, you're not gonna go in there and
traumatize that poor girl."

"That poor girl is the only thing standing
between me and the evidence I need to finally figure out why her
father was murdered and why Datello is hell bent on making sure
nobody knows the truth."

"There will be no martial arts involved in
the conversation," he said sternly.  "I draw the line
there.  Understood?"

"A pushy move ripped right out of the Johnny
Orion playbook.  Relax.  I don't plan on beating some
sense into her.  I simply plan to make her understand that
suppressing this memory is the one thing that keeps her and her
mother in danger."

I stepped inside the room and jerked one
thumb toward the door when her personal bodyguard looked askance at
us.  She complied with the silent order and I moved to the
bed.

"Journey."

She smacked her lips and rolled over.

I nudged her shoulder.  "Journey, wake
up.  It's Detective Eriksson.  We need to talk."

Her sooty lashes fluttered before she came
fully awake and sat up.  Wide eyes conveyed how much my abrupt
presence spiked her anxiety.  "Come downstairs with me. 
We need to talk."

She scrambled out of the bed and fell into
step beside Devlin.  I rolled my eyes.  It was probably
the night of all nights for alienating friends, lovers and
colleagues.  Devlin wasn't going to like my approach.  I
didn't see another way to snap Journey into the reality of how
dangerous things had become.

"Sit," I pointed to the chairs at the
kitchen table and disappeared into my office only long enough to
retrieve a pen and notebook.  I waved them in front of
her.  "See these?"

She nodded. 

"You're not going to use them tonight,
Journey.  This has gone on far too long.  I need answers
from you, and you're going to dig deep and find the courage to
answer my questions.  Is that clear?"

She glanced at Devlin.

"Don't look at him.  He's not here to
protect you, Journey.  He's here as a cop, as a man who is
trying to figure out what's really going on."

She opened her mouth.  Not so much as a
hiss passed her vocal chords.

"We caught the man who attacked you
tonight."

Wide eyes almost engulfed her face.

"Do you think that means this is over? 
Do you think it means you're not in danger anymore, Journey? 
You, or your mother?"

Fear radiated from her
body. 
Mother?
Lips moved around the silent word.

"Tell me.  Did anybody
from that nursing home ever ask you about your father's visits to
Isabella?"  At her stunned expression, "Oh yes, Journey. 
Apparently your
father
has visited her in the nursing home.  Not only that, he
calls regularly to see if her condition is stable or not.  Do
you know what I think that means?"  I slammed the notebook on
the table.

She shook her head.

"I think it means your
mother knew something, and the man that killed your father, the man
who attacked
you
last Monday, is afraid she might wake up one day and start
talking."

Her lips moved with
exaggerated enunciation. 
She can't
talk anymore.

"I saw her yesterday.  She spoke to
me."

Journey's jaw dropped.  She opened her
mouth to mime speech again, but I kept talking.

"You're going to remember
what happened to you on Monday.  If you love your parents, if
you want to
honor
them, you're gonna dig deep and remember what that man said to
you, and you're gonna open your mouth and speak the words. 
Are we clear?"

A single tear snagged in her eyelashes,
broke free when she nodded.

"I realize that all this attention has been
very... soothing for you, Journey.  God knows any woman would
love having a guy like Detective Mackenzie fluttering around
playing the white knight, but he's not gonna be around forever, and
I can promise you this.  If one more person is injured or
killed because you don't have the guts to tell me what happened
that morning, Devlin's gonna loose all interest in you."

He squirmed a little bit and frowned at
me.  Fortunately, Devlin didn't choose that moment to
argue.

"I came into that parking garage and heard
voices.  Your voice and the man we arrested earlier.  You
recalled offering to let him take whatever he wanted. 
Something happened, Journey.  You went from doing the right
thing, not risking your life over a purse or a car, to fighting
this man.

"I heard you hit him, heard
his grunt.  He yelled
bitch
!  And then I made my
presence known.  He cut your throat and left you for
dead.  What did he say to you, Journey?  What made you
abandon all common sense and fight a man with a knife to your
throat?"

She opened her mouth and a
soft hiss passed her lips.  "
Give me
the disk, or do you want to end up dead like
daddy?
"

That damned disk again.  I started
pacing. 

Her voice squeaked.  "What did Mother
say to you?"

"The same thing she did when she last spoke
to you.  Honor thy father."  I thought about Ireland's
references again.  My head tilted to one side, and I braced my
arms on the table.  "Journey, what's the deal with that
phrase?  Were your parents that superstitious, that fearful
that you'd grow up and dishonor them that they were obsessed with
the ten commandments?"

"No," what little voice she had was fading
fast. 

I slid the notebook across the table. 
"Write it down."

Devlin and I watched the
words scrawl across the blank page. 
They weren't crazy religious.  I never remembered
hearing that phrase before Daddy died.  In fact, Mother first
spoke those words to me after his funeral.  She took me to the
headstone and said I must always remember – honor thy
father.

Frustration knotted in my gut.  This
was about as helpful as Painless Carl's gun to the back of my
head.  My fingers reached back and skimmed the tender oozing
wound.  Yep, it hurt.  I was still alive and not living
in a continuously looping nonsensical nightmare.

"At the funeral?" Devlin asked.

Journey
nodded. 
Mother had it put on his
headstone.

Our eyes met. 

"Oh my God.  Devlin, are you thinking
what I'm thinking?"

"I'm not sure."

"EX2012.  Exodus
20:12.  Honor thy father and mother that thy days may be long
upon the land which the lord thy God giveth thee.  She put it
on his
headstone
,
Devlin.  It's been right in front of us the whole time! 
David's disk!"

"You've lost me."

"Journey, I need your permission to do
something.  I want you to know that we wouldn't ask if it
wasn't important."

She nodded.

"I need to exhume your father."

Journey recoiled at the mere
suggestion.  I never understood the bizarre sentimentality
over the final resting place of the dead.  They had no
awareness of life anymore.  It seemed silly to revere a
corpse.

"Why?" she croaked.

Gloves off.  "We may have caught the
man who tried to kill you, the man who did kill your father," I
said, "but the one who hired him to do it is still out there. 
He's looking for your father's disk.  He's looking for the
information your father took with him to his grave that implicates
him in something serious, something illegal."

"We'll be respectful, Journey," Devlin
promised.  "I think Helen's right.  This will never be
over until we arrest the man who hired someone to murder your
father.  You won't be safe.  Isabella won't be
safe.  Will you consent to let us search your father's
coffin?"

"Will you put him right back?" she
whispered.

"You'll never know he was moved.  I
promise."

Journey acquiesced, mostly because I was
right about her feelings toward Devlin.  He could probably
talk her into anything if he put his baby blues behind the
effort.

"Call Ned," I told him.  "I'll get
Journey back upstairs."

"Detective Eriksson, who do you think is the
man trying to destroy my family?" she whispered.

I was about to tell her when my cell phone
rang.  I held up one finger and answered.

"Eriksson."

"Helen, it's Crevan.  You need to be
here."

"Here?"

"The hospital," he said.

My heart froze.  "What's wrong? 
Tell me what happened.  Oh my God, that idiot doctor was
wrong."  I charged down the stairs yelling Devlin's name.

"Helen, calm down.  He's waking
up."

I sank to the bottom step, one hand clasped
to my chest.  "Does he want me there?"

"Don't be ridiculous.  Of course he
wants you here.  Or he will.  I said he's waking up, not
that he's awake.  I know Tony's pissed, Helen, but I think
Johnny will be devastated if you're not here right away."

Devlin's shoes entered my peripheral
vision.  "We'll be right there."

I was shaking too much to navigate through
the city even in the dead of night.  Car keys were pressed
firmly into Devlin's hand.  No words were necessary to
communicate where I needed to go.  I was already crying
again.  I guess he took it as a sign that Johnny wasn't doing
as well as expected.  He sped across Darkwater proper like the
autobahn relocated to the western states.

Fear gripped my heart outside Johnny's
room.  Crevan told me that the doctor was testing him, some
test he didn't understand.  I did.  They had to determine
if his cognition was intact.

No one exaggerated when they said the party
moved from Hennessey Island to the hospital.  The waiting room
overflowed with tuxedos and formal dresses.  I felt the eyes
on me, accusing, judging, offended by my very presence.

Finally, the door to his room opened and a
new doctor emerged.  "Helen Eriksson?"

I stepped forward.  "I'm here."

Dr. No Name beckoned with one hand and
started walking down the corridor away from the throng pushing in
behind me.  I wasn't sure why they didn't follow, but
suspected Devlin might've had a thing or two to do with
it. 

The ID badge read
Kervilles
and identified
him as part of the neurology service.  His voiced dipped
low.  "You're Mr. Orion's next of kin?"

"His family is deceased.  Tell me
what's happening."

"I was told he spoke to you before he lost
consciousness at Dunhaven."

I shook my head with such force that the
dried blood and hair stuck to my sweater pulled the gash on my head
open.  Another warm gush oozed out. 

"He never said your name at the scene?"

"Before the police arrived," I said. 
"He said my name."  Sort of.  Was it a technicality that
he called out that nickname I tried so hard to break him of
using?

"He said Helen?" Kervilles fished more,
little furrows of skepticism aligning vertically between his
eyebrows.

"It was a nickname," Jesus, did he want me
to explain it?  "It's something he only calls me."  At
least that's what I thought.  "Doc," the word tumbled from
trembling lips.  "He called out Doc."

"I see."

"What aren't you telling me?"

Kervilles glanced past me down the hall.

"Johnny Orion would want you to tell me
what's going on with him.  He's my –"  My what?  My
partner in crime?  My friend?  My professional
colleague?

"He's asking for someone else, ma'am."

One hand shot out and strangled his
wrist.  "Who?  Who is he asking for?"

"Someone named Gwen."

"Oh my God."

"You know her?"

I nodded, didn't give a damn about the warm
trickle that reached the back of my neck.  "She's dead, Dr.
Kervilles.  He's asking for Gwen Foster."

The name sparked a memory. I could see it in
the doctor's eyes.  "That seems to explain a few things."

He's not intact. 
He's not intact
.  The knowledge
battered my body.  All of that tightly coiled, adrenalin
fueled energy rushed in a flood out of my body through the tips of
my toes and pooled in defeat around me.  "He doesn't remember
anything."  Dull, flat words thudded out at the plodding rate
of a heart too tired to fight another moment.

"I suspect he remembers plenty, ma'am."

"Detective Eriksson," I muttered with the
enthusiasm of an automaton right off an assembly line.  Or
maybe more aptly, one ready for the junk heap.  "He doesn't
remember anything about me."

"Oh."  As in
oh
.  "I'm sorry
detective."  One shoulder rolled toward his ear.  "It
could be temporary."

"Or not."

"We'll need to conduct more testing,
possibly do more in depth memory –"

"I'm aware." 

Memory loss was not uncommon during properly
conducted electroconvulsive therapy.  Typically, it was
transient and not permanent.  God only knew what Johnny was
facing after the abuse Southerby and company inflicted.