Firefly Cove Page 6

  “Dino and I discussed that issue for over an hour.” She indicated the man seated behind her. “Dr. Dino Barbieri is the hospital’s chief clinician. He was inclined to hold you for observation. The reasons for confinement are straightforward. You have attempted suicide three times. On this occasion you were actually declared dead by the medical staff. Clearly, you are a threat to yourself. Even so, I was not so sure.”

  Each of her declarations had caused the patient to wince. “Why?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why didn’t you want me locked up?”

  “I already told you, Luke. Every action I have taken, every moment we have been together, has been with one goal in mind. To do the best for you that I possibly can. And I simply was not sure that holding you over was the proper course of action. For you. We had returned here so that I might ask you that very question. Which you have now answered.” She gave that a moment, then asked, “Will you tell me one thing about your current state, Luke? Please.”

  The distress in his eyes carried an animal-like intensity. “I don’t remember anything about . . . who I was.”

  Asha took an involuntary step forward. “Who you were.”

  “I remember waking up beneath the shroud. Before that . . . nothing.”

  “So you don’t know where you live, what happened to your family?”

  “Nothing.” The word cost him terribly.

  Feinnes protested, “An admission of amnesia is not grounds for imprisonment.”

  “I told you. I have no intention of confining the patient.” Asha’s gaze remained on the man in the bed. “Luke, would you like me to drive you home?”

  CHAPTER 12

  They left the hospital two hours later. Five minutes into the drive Lucius was certain that Asha Meisel knew.

  She might not know what she knew. But it was only a question of whether he trusted her with the missing fragments. Because one thing was certain. With every mile they drove farther from the hospital and its known boundaries, the more he needed an ally.

  But the uncertainties could not dispel the wonder he felt. Asha’s car was a relatively modest design, yet everything about it suggested a sophistication he had never seen before. The ride was incredibly smooth, the engine quiet as a whisper. Beyond the sunlit windscreen was a half-familiar world. The traffic was certainly unlike anything he had ever known, and the cars were nothing short of astounding. The buildings they passed and the streets they drove were a mix of the recognizable and the alien.

  His sense of smell was very acute. He registered a multitude of sensations with every puff of air through his open window. It reinforced the shocking changes he had known. Gone were the frigid, salty flavors of the Miramar beach. Gone, too, the hospital. Now that he was outside, he recognized the vast differences between the infirmary he had just left and all the others he had known. The biting scent of carbolic acid and astringent cleaners, the faint shadow of pain and open wounds, all had been absent.

  Instead, the hospital where he had awoken had smelled like . . . nothing.

  He took another deep breath, reveling in the thrills and the fears, and asked, “Did it rain recently?”

  “Did it . . .” She glanced over. “Just before dawn.”

  Lucius wanted to ask why his question caused her to frown so. But just then he was enveloped in a wave of eucalyptus. The tall trees bordered the street now, a gentle bond that reconnected him to everything he had lost. He was still recovering, when a pleasant woman’s voice came over the radio, “In one quarter of a mile, take a right on Monterey Street.”

  Lucius asked, “What was that?”

  Another glance. “GPS. Does it disturb you? I can probably find your house without it.”

  He repeated slowly, “GPS.”

  “Global positioning satellites. Or system. I can’t remember which.” Each word was carefully positioned, the calm statement drawn from a turbulent mind. “Why? Don’t you remember that, either?”

  She was probing. And she had every reason to do so. What was more, he wanted to tell her. Desperately. Despite every reason his past granted him to maintain a distance from any member of the medical establishment, he felt that here was a woman he could genuinely trust. “What is your heritage?”

  The question was enough for Asha to put on her blinker and pull into a parking spot. She turned in her seat, not quite facing him, and said, “My father’s mother is Persian.”

  “I thought perhaps one of the regional Indian tribes.”

  “Native American,” she corrected, watching him.

  “Interesting.”

  “What is, Luke?”

  “Everything.” She was an astonishingly lovely young woman. Her dark hair was pulled back into a French twist, drawn high to reveal a sharply defined neck and jawline. Her lips were full, her skin an olive blend that suggested a permanent need for sunlight. Her eyes were her most remarkable feature, dark and slightly slanted and flecked with honeyed gold. “What kind of car is this?”

  He saw the confusion crease her features once more. But before she could speak, the car was filled with the sound of a ringing phone coming through a number of hidden speakers. Asha lifted a small device and grimaced at what she saw on its illuminated screen. “Oh, no.”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” She turned off the radio, then hit a button on the side of the phone. Instantly the small electronic apparatus went quiet. She remained where she was, studying the blank screen. Ten seconds later, it flashed on again and emitted a softer ringtone. Asha said, “Today of all days.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  She pressed the button, then turned so as to face the front windscreen. When it rang a third time, she touched the screen, then answered with, “I asked you never to call me again. No, Jeffrey, as it happens, now is a terrible . . . I am with a patient. No. I will not call you back. I don’t care to hear about any new crisis . . . No. I don’t care that my mother . . . There is nothing more to be said. Good-bye.”

  Asha lowered the phone slowly. She took a very hard breath. Another. “That was extremely unprofessional.”

  “And very human.” Despite all the reasons for caution, Lucius felt drawn to this young woman. “That was your former . . .”

  She stared at the phone she held in both hands. “It was. Yes. He does that when he is upset, calling repeatedly in hopes he can break into whatever I am doing. His needs are always paramount.”

  “I’m so sorry for whatever it is you’re going through.” Lucius watched her attempt to repress a tight shudder. “Would it help to talk about it?”

  “‘Would it help?’ You’re asking me that?”

  “You are being very kind to me. It is only natural—”

  “Only natural?” Slowly she set the phone in the cubbyhole between their seats. “Luke, whenever something interrupts one of our sessions, you take it personally. You become upset to the point of ourtrage.”

  “That man,” Lucius said, “sounds like a young fool.”

  “What man?”

  Lucius looked down at his hands. His hands.

  When he did not reply, she demanded, “Why won’t you trust me?”

  He nodded slowly. There was no question but that he needed an ally. Lucius could hear the genuine concern in her voice, see it in her fractured gaze. “I will tell you whatever you want to know,” Lucius decided. “If you will please do two things for me.”

  “What things?”

  “Stop treating me as a patient. I don’t need a doctor. I positively loathe most members of the medical tradition. I need an ally.”

  “‘The medical tradition,’” she repeated.

  “Second, I need your help finding someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Her name was Jessica Waverly.”

  “Was?”

  “Yes. In 1969.” He resisted the urge to ask what date this was. He would find that out soon enough. “Whatever you can tell me about her. Where is she? How is she? Is she . . .” He s
wallowed against the upswelling of his own impossible burden. “I need to know. Desperately.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Asha pulled up in front of Luke’s home and cut the motor. Jeffrey’s call had left her feeling extremely vulnerable. The professional distance between therapist and patient had been shattered. And yet, the conversation with Luke had added a new fragment of evidence to her sense of a very real change. She watched Luke rise unsteadily from the car and asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Very weak.” Luke studied the house with a worried expression. “I live here?”

  Luke Benoit’s residence was a modest two-story affair in a neighborhood of sixties-era homes, situated between Old Town and Cal Poly. There was an unkempt front yard and a fine view of Bishop Peak. Various trees sheltered much of the street, and there was the sound of children laughing somewhere out of sight. Traffic rumbled along a major thoroughfare two blocks over, but this street had a remarkable calm.

  Asha replied, “You inherited this from your aunt, who had no children of her own. Your parents helped make the upstairs into an apartment. The downstairs is rented by four graduate students.” Asha studied him across the car’s hood. “You don’t remember anything? Really?”

  “No.” He did not move. “One of the tenants found . . . my body?”

  “Water was dripping through the ceiling of his bedroom. He went up to investigate.”

  He shuddered. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Thankfully, no one was at home. Asha watched as Luke slowly climbed the stairs. When he reached the landing he gripped the rail and swayed slightly, his eyes clenched against the sudden weakness. Asha waited and observed. His strength of will was clearly evident, and this defied everything she thought she knew about him.

  They entered the ratty sitting room that Luke had often described as his haven against the world. Only now, Asha thought, Luke Benoit appeared dismayed by everything he saw. He stood in the center of the parlor and made a slow circle, taking in the dishes that covered every flat space in his kitchenette, the dirty clothes piled by the washer-dryer, the stained sofa and chairs, the massive flat screen and mountainous stereo speakers that formed the only nice elements to the otherwise bleak room. He walked over and threw open the dusty French doors leading to his narrow balcony. He asked no one in particular, “Who lives like this?”

  Asha nodded in silent agreement. The answer was, Luke Benoit was a young man in utter and wretched despair, who had given up hope that life would ever offer him anything of value. She watched Luke inspect the place with very real dismay and asked, “Will you tell me what you’re thinking?”

  “I will tell you everything.” He hesitated, then amended, “Everything you are willing to hear. But first . . .”

  “You want me to locate this missing woman,” Asha offered.

  “I don’t know if she’s missing or not. Just try. Please.”

  She took another step into the parlor and closed the door leading to the stairway. “Does this mean you are refusing future therapy?”

  He pondered that for a time, staring at the threadbare carpet by his feet. “First I will tell you what you want to know, then we will discuss the therapy issue.”

  “If you wish.”

  “I’d like to ask your help with something else.” Luke lifted his gaze. “I know you are an extremely busy professional. I’ve taken far too much of your time. You must tell me if you need to be elsewhere. I will understand.”

  Once more, what would have been a normal statement from most people was utterly unlike anything she had ever heard Luke speak before. “All of my day’s other appointments were rescheduled because of your . . . incident. What do you need?”

  “Does . . . Do I have any money?”

  “Your parents left you a small trust.” Asha knew the answer because her bills were sent to the law firm that handled Luke’s inheritance. “You own this home. The rents are also managed by your trustees. What do you need the money for, Luke?”

  He cast another bleak glance about the room. “Will you help me find another place to stay?”

  * * *

  Asha insisted that Luke change and pack some belongings. He clearly did not want to spend an instant longer in the apartment, but did as she said. When he entered his bedroom, Asha started to put her purse down on the kitchen counter, then thought better of it. The grout between the cracked tiles was grayish brown with old dirt. Every surface she could see needed to be boiled and sterilized. Asha crossed the living room and stepped onto the narrow balcony. The folding aluminum chairs with their frayed straps looked as unappealing as the rest of the apartment. Asha leaned against the iron banister and used her phone to book Luke into a B and B her grandmother had once used. Then she decided to try and see what she could find about the woman Luke had mentioned.

  Jessica Waverly was a remarkable name, something from a Victorian novel. Asha actually wondered if the person existed at all. But then the search engine flashed a series of pages linked to the name.

  Two hundred thirty-nine thousand pages, to be exact.

  Asha stared at the search results, then scrolled down to the Wikipedia link. The online encyclopedia often contained a wealth of incomplete or utterly false data. But Asha had used their overviews on a number of occasions as a basis for further research.

  This time, however, she searched no further. She couldn’t. What she found on the Wikipedia site left her more confused and alarmed than ever.

  CHAPTER 14

  Asha had set aside Thursday to do a final proof of her master’s thesis. It had been a lot of work, but in many respects it had gone more smoothly than she had expected. That left her worried that she might have neglected some crucial element, or gotten it completely wrong. Just the same, she decided late that afternoon that the work was ready for review, and sent it off as an attachment to Dino, her supervisor.

  Her thoughts returned constantly to Luke Benoit. Over the course of the day Asha phoned him three times. She had no idea what was the norm in such cases. But she decided to err on the side of caution. Twice they spoke briefly. Luke sounded tired, subdued. But his answers were clear, his responses good. The third time the guesthouse receptionist said he had gone out for a walk.

  At noon on Friday, Asha’s grandmother arrived in San Luis Obispo for one of her regular visits. Sonya Meisel liked getting away from Los Angeles for a night. Their visits followed a routine, sort of. Her grandmother disliked the idea of adding to Asha’s burdens. Instead, Sonya’s aim was to be a useful friend. She arrived in the late morning, made herself a cup of jasmine tea, and napped. By the time Asha finished with the day’s patients and studies, her grandmother would already have made her way through the fresh markets and purchased what was necessary for their evening meal. Asha’s primary responsibility was to decide upon their dinner menu, leave Sonya a shopping list, and clean the apartment for her grandmother’s arrival. Sonya was a stickler for neatness. Asha was the exact opposite. Without this regular goad her home would have resembled a hurricane’s aftermath.

  They met as usual in a café midway between the hospital and the town’s main market area. Theirs had always been an easy relationship. It was not Sonya’s way to pry, neither about Asha’s demolished love life nor her patients. Instead, Sonya allowed Asha to choose the topic; then she handed down her opinions in the manner of a queen giving directions. Most of the time Asha smiled and dropped her grandmother’s advice in the great circular file of life. Her grandmother did not mind. In fact, she seemed to enjoy Asha’s ability to absorb whatever opinion Sonya cared to give, and then make her own decisions. She was genuinely proud of Asha and her intelligence and her determination.

  But fifteen minutes into their meeting, Sonya noted, “You are not with me today.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  Her grandmother was a woman isolated by mannerisms drawn from a different epoch. She was as lofty and opinionated as a Persian countess. She belonged in a world of palaces and servants, where supplic
ants approached on bended knee. Today she was dressed in a Chanel suit of black-and-white herringbone checks, with a woven gold chain around her neck. Her dark hair was laced with silver, and her cheeks were creased with age. Sonya Meisel remained a striking figure, regal and intent. If she even noticed the looks she garnered from men and women alike, she gave no sign. She never did. “You should have said something if you did not want me to travel up.”

  “It’s not that.” Asha reached across the table. “I can’t tell you how much these visits mean.”

  “Even today?”

  Asha withdrew her hand. “Today especially.”

  Sonya surprised her then. For the first time ever, she asked, “Is it a patient?”

  “Yes. I’m scheduled to meet with him at four. Only he doesn’t want to be a patient. He wants to be my friend.”

  “As in, romance?”

  Asha had considered that very seriously. “No. I am fairly certain he does not see me in that light.”

  “Then what . . .” Sonya stopped talking because another shadow had fallen over their table.

  Asha looked up, then said, “Dino!”

  “I was passing by and saw you through the window. Am I disturbing?”

  “Not at all. Dino, this is my grandmother. Nana, this is—”

  “Dr. Barbieri. What a distinct pleasure. My granddaughter speaks so very highly of you.”

  “I am pleased to hear it, madame. Your granddaughter is a credit to our profession.”

  “Please, good sir. Do us the honor of joining us.” Sonya was in her element now. “I fear there is no table service in this establishment.”

  “No matter. I’ll be right back.”

  When the doctor stepped to the counter, Sonya said, “You never mentioned that your superior is so extremely hand-some.”

  “I . . . Nana, he’s twelve years older than me.”

  Sonya sniffed her disagreement. “You young people. You see the shell. The clothes, the hair, the skin, the age. Bah.”

  In truth, her grandmother’s words left her feeling almost giddy. She had never spoken to anyone about her infatuation. Asha felt her face flame as she whispered, “Nana, that man is my boss and my supervisor. And do you see the way he dresses?”