I See You (22 page)

S
till holding Sydney’s hand, Adam pushed open the door to Hannah’s room and looked inside. There was a light on over the bed but the bed was empty. Outside the window, the bright light of day had faded to charcoal gray, and a sliver of moon rose over the trees. From the doorway Adam could see that the bathroom door was open but the room was dark. There was nobody inside …

‘Where is Mom?’ Sydney asked fretfully.

‘I’m not sure. We’ll ask the nurse,’ he said.

Just then a young nurse in cheerful panda-bear scrubs came walking past.

‘Excuse me,’ he said.

‘Can I help you?’

‘My wife,’ said Adam. ‘She was in this room but she’s not here. She can’t really walk.’

‘Oh, your wife. I’m so sorry about what happened to her,’ said the nurse. ‘Honestly, you never know. You have to be on your guard all the time.’

‘What do you mean?’ he cried.

The nurse looked startled by his reaction. ‘I mean about that nut pushing her in the subway,’ she said.

‘Oh, right. Sure. Well, luckily, she’s getting better. You all are taking good care of her here. Do you, uh, know where she is?’

‘Yes. She’s down in the solarium. I saw one of our aides pushing her down there in a wheelchair earlier.’

‘Thank you,’ said Adam, relieved. He bent over and spoke to Sydney. ‘Come on. I know where to find Mom.’

Sydney was more than willing to accompany him. In fact, she wanted to skip ahead in the long corridor with its shining floors, but Adam gripped her hand tightly. They walked down the hallway toward the lounge at the end of the hall.

A lot of people passed the door to the lounge but Adam did not see anyone going in.

He hurried Sydney along, and arrived quickly at the door and looked inside.

At first, the dimly lit room, which was half-lounge, half-greenhouse, looked empty. Then, Adam made out the figure of Hannah. Wrapped in an oversized robe, she was sitting in a wheelchair near a window, partly shielded by the bank of plants which flourished in the normally sunny room. She was staring out the window, though it was really too dark to see anything but shadows.

‘Babe,’ he said.

Hannah did not turn around. If it had not been for the bandages wrapped around her head, Adam would have wondered if perhaps he was in the wrong place, if this woman sitting in the gloom was someone other than his wife. But Sydney did not hesitate. She cried out and rushed over to the wheelchair and tried to clamber up onto Hannah’s lap.

‘Sydney, no. Stop that,’ Adam exhorted her. ‘Mom’s had a lot of stitches.’

Now that he had reached her, Adam could see that, though she said nothing, despair was written on Hannah’s face. She did not cry out at the child making herself comfortable in her lap. She grimaced but wound her arms protectively around Sydney.

‘How’s my girl?’ she whispered.

‘I miss you,’ said Sydney.

‘I miss you too. But Pop says you’re staying with Miss Kiyanna and Mr Frank. Is it fun staying there?’

The child nodded sadly.

‘You like them, don’t you? Kiyanna and Frank are nice, aren’t they darlin’?’ Adam asked the child gently.

‘I want Mom,’ she insisted. ‘And you, Pop.’

Hannah looked up at her husband, puzzled. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘I’ve been sleeping here,’ he said. ‘They let me have a bed so I would be here when you woke up.’

Hannah reached out and clutched his warm, familiar hand. ‘I should have known,’ she said.

‘Tell you what,’ said Adam to Sydney. ‘Why don’t you come over here and sit? I brought this so you could watch a story. You want me to put Clifford on?’ he asked, referring to the series of books and videos about a Big Red Dog that Sydney enjoyed. He pulled a small-screen DVD player from his pocket. ‘You can watch Clifford while I talk to Mom.’

He tried to lift Sydney off of Hannah’s lap but she began to kick and cry out, ‘No. I won’t.’

‘Don’t kick, sweetheart,’ said Hannah. ‘It hurts.’

Sydney put a pudgy hand up to Hannah’s cheek. ‘Sorry,’ she said woefully.

‘It’s OK. You go look at your story. Everything’s OK. I’m right here. I won’t leave. Go on now.’

Reluctantly the child obeyed, and allowed herself to be stationed in the corner of a nearby sofa, the small screen clutched in her hands.

Adam came back and sat down beside Hannah.

He looked worriedly at his wife. ‘What’s the matter, babe? You looked better when I saw you earlier this afternoon. Did something happen?’

Hannah nodded. ‘Yes. I spoke to the police,’ she said.

‘How did that go?’

Hannah looked back out at the darkening day. ‘They had a surveillance video of the accident.’

‘If you can call it an accident,’ Adam observed grimly.

‘Right,’ she said faintly.

‘Did you … did they ask you to look at it?’

Hannah nodded. ‘I looked at it.’

‘No wonder you’re shook up,’ he said. ‘I’m sure that had to be traumatic just seeing it unfold when you’re helpless to stop it.’

‘That’s not why,’ she said.

Adam frowned. ‘Why, then?’

‘The person who pushed me was on the tape. They kept referring to my attacker as “the guy in the hoody”. But I was able to see the face … Just for a second.’

‘And …?’

Hannah turned her head and looked her husband squarely in the face. ‘The police asked me if I recognized him. On the off-chance this attack might not have been random. I said that I didn’t have any idea who he was.’

Adam did not reply but looked at her and felt himself dreading what she was going to say next.

‘That was a lie, Adam. I only saw her face for a second, wearing dark glasses, her hair covered up. But it didn’t matter. It was her.’

‘Jesus,’ he breathed. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’d know her anywhere.’ Hannah gazed at him hopelessly. ‘My own daughter pushed me in front of that train.’

Adam hung his head. ‘Oh, God.’

‘How am I supposed to live with that?’ she said.

‘Oh my God. I don’t know,’ he said. They were silent for a minute. He clutched her hand, which lay limp and unresponsive in his. Sydney, who was lying across the lounge on a sofa, laughed out loud at something on her screen.

Adam sighed. ‘This means she found us. She must have seen the YouTube clip. And figured it out from there.’

‘Apparently,’ said Hannah. ‘She must have been watching us. Waiting.’

‘Did you tell them anything? The police?’

Hannah looked at him bleakly. ‘No. How could I? You and I are fugitives. Kidnappers.’

‘I know,’ he said.

‘She must have been watching the house,’ said Hannah. ‘She must have followed me to the subway.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Adam.

‘You haven’t been back there, have you? To the house?’

Adam shook his head. ‘As I said, I’ve been sleeping here. And Sydney’s been at Kiyanna’s.’

Hannah nodded and sat clutching the arms of her wheelchair, staring out into the night descending on the Philadelphia skyline. ‘You can’t go back there.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘To the house. You have to avoid the house.’ She glanced over at Sydney, who was lying on her back, enjoying the show on her screen. For a moment her gaze softened. Then, she pressed her lips together in a determined line. ‘I’ve been thinking, ever since I saw that surveillance tape.’

‘Thinking what?’ he asked warily.

‘My being in the hospital. This is an opportunity.’

‘An opportunity for what?’ he asked.

Hannah reached over and grasped his hand. She looked at him earnestly. ‘Adam, Lisa doesn’t know how my recovery is going. She knows I’m here, obviously. She put me here. And it’s been on the news. All she has to do is call the hospital to check on my condition. They wouldn’t let her speak to me, of course, but they would tell her that I’m still here. They might tell her my condition but that’s it.’

‘So …?’ he said.

‘So, she knows that I am still in the hospital.’

‘Well, it’s not like she’s worried about you.’ He punched his fist into his palm. ‘Honest to God, Hannah. I wish I could wring her neck.’

‘But you wouldn’t,’ Hannah said flatly. ‘You wouldn’t.’

‘Probably not,’ he admitted. ‘Though I almost wish I could. How could she do such a thing? Push you onto the subway tracks? You loved her. You were a wonderful mother to her. OK, I understand that she must hate us for taking Sydney. But she knows why we did it. She brought it on herself. We had to try to protect Sydney from her.’

‘Oh, I’m sure she hates us for that,’ said Hannah.

‘Yes. Because she didn’t think there was anything wrong with her plans to offer her toddler to the biggest pervert she could find. What kind of a monster did we raise, anyway? It makes me feel so … helpless, knowing how ruthless she is. Knowing that she just doesn’t care. I keep asking myself, why didn’t I see it? How could I not have known this about her, somewhere along the line? She lived with us all her life, and we didn’t know her at all. Not anything about her. Now I can’t even remember what I used to love about her.’

‘I can,’ said Hannah, with a sigh.

Adam wiped his eyes. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s so crazy about it. I suppose I do too.’

‘We can’t think about that now,’ said Hannah. ‘We have to decide what to do next. I’ve spent the afternoon thinking about it.’

Adam reached up and laid his palm against the bandages wrapped around her head. ‘Are you supposed to be thinking?’ he said, smiling slightly.

‘Probably not,’ she said, ‘but there’s no stopping me.’

‘OK. What have you been scheming?’

‘First of all, I know you’re not going to like this …’

Adam frowned at her.

‘Just hear me out. As I said, this is our opportunity. And, in a way, nothing has changed. The only thing that really matters is Sydney. And this is our chance.’

‘To do what?’ he said wearily.

‘You know the bags I packed? And put in the attic? Now they will come in handy. We’ll ask someone to go in and get them. You can’t go in there, or she might see you. And follow you. So we’ll have somebody get the bags and bring them to wherever you are.’

‘Wherever I am?’ he asked skeptically.

‘So then you’ll have what you need,’ she said.

‘For what?’

Hannah looked at him with an unflinching gaze. ‘To start over. You and Sydney have to leave.’

‘Leave? What? Leave Philly?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Leave Philly.’

‘You mean leave you here all alone? Oh, Hannah. Don’t be stupid.’

Hannah leaned forward in her wheelchair so that her face was close to his. ‘Adam, listen to me. She knows you. She knows that you would never leave me alone while I was in the hospital. That’s why this is a golden opportunity. She won’t be expecting it. She’s probably planning her next move for when I get home, when we are all back in the West Philly apartment. So we have to seize this opportunity. You have to take Sydney and get far away from here.’

‘Do you hear yourself?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘She’s already proved that she would do anything to hurt you. You think I’m going to leave you behind?’

Hannah reached out and wrapped her cold fingers around his wrist. ‘I mean it, Adam. I’m not being hysterical. I’ve never felt more certain of what to do. Whatever happens with Lisa, I can face it. But Sydney deserves the best protection we can give her. There’s only one way to ensure that.’

‘What you’re proposing is suicidal,’ he said grimly.

‘Please try and understand,’ she continued. ‘At some level I don’t care anymore. My child, my own flesh and blood, tried to kill me. I don’t know if it’s possible to feel lower than I do today. Depressed doesn’t even begin to describe it.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s devastating. But you can’t give up like this. We’ll figure out a way to do this together.’

‘Adam, this is the only way. We have this brief window of opportunity, when you two can flee from here and she won’t be expecting it. She won’t be looking for you. I’ll still be in here for several days, and she’ll expect you to stay by my side. She may not have any love or loyalty herself but she knows that you do. That’s exactly why you have to leave now.’

‘It’s out of the question,’ said Adam, shaking his head.

‘Darling,’ Hannah said in a low, urgent voice, ‘this isn’t how we planned our life. But this is the life we have. We created Lisa. We raised her, and somehow … she’s amoral. She has no inner … conscience. No … sense of right and wrong. Nothing anybody says about psychopaths being born and not made will make me feel one bit better about this. She is out there in the world, free to harm anyone she wants to. It’s hard to describe how much I feel like a failure.’

‘That’s not fair,’ he said. ‘We tried everything. We had a happy home. She never wanted for anything. We cheered her on, no matter what she wanted to do. You were the best mother in the world. Always on her side. Always thinking of ways to make her life happy. You can’t blame yourself.’

‘But I do,’ she said. ‘At the end of the day, I do feel responsible.’

‘Well, so do I,’ he said. ‘But we can’t change what’s already done. In spite of all our best efforts, this is the result. And we can’t do a thing to change it.’

‘No, we can’t. But we can be sure that Sydney doesn’t pay the price. For Lisa’s … insanity. For our blindness to it. No matter what it costs. So you have to take her far from here, now, when Lisa’s not expecting you to leave.’

‘And leave you at her mercy?’

‘I’m ready for that,’ said Hannah. ‘This is my fate. I will face it.’

‘Don’t talk like that. It’s crazy,’ he insisted.

‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘You know I do.’

He met her gaze apprehensively.

‘Adam, I can’t make up for what Lisa has done. I think she killed Troy Petty and then slandered him in court. And I actually approved of that. It makes me sick to think about it. I can’t right that wrong, though I feel it so keenly. His poor family.’ Hannah shook her head. ‘I’m her mother. I have a lot to answer for.’

‘She’s the one who has to answer for it,’ Adam insisted. ‘We did what any parents would do.’

‘Maybe. I’ll never know. The only good thing that I can still do is to guard Sydney. Make sure she’s all right. And you are the only one I trust to protect her. You have to do this. For me. Take her and go. Don’t look back.’