False Memory

Martie sat at the breakfast table by the rain washed window to sip the ginger ale, trying to decide if she preferred to go out this evening or stay home. Over dinner — assuming she could eat — she intended to share the unsettling events of the day with Dusty, and she worried about being overheard by a waitress or by other diners. Besides, she didn’t want to be out in public if she suffered another episode.

On the other hand, if they stayed home, she didn’t trust herself to cook dinner.

She raised her eyes from the ginger ale to the rack of knives on the wall near the sink.

The ice cubes rattled against the drinking glass clutched in her right hand.

The shiny stainless-steel blades of the cutlery appeared to be radiant, as though they were not merely reflecting light but also generating it.

Letting go of the glass, blotting her hand on her jeans, Martie looked away from the knife rack. But at once her eyes were drawn to it again.

She knew that she was not capable of doing violence to others, except to protect herself, those she loved, and the innocent. She doubted that she was capable of harming herself, either.

Nevertheless, the sight of the knives so agitated her that she couldn’t remain seated. She rose, stood in indecision, went into the dining room and then into the living room, moving about restlessly, with no purpose except to put some distance between herself and the knife rack.

After rearranging bibelots that didn’t need to be rearranged, adjusting a lampshade that was not crooked, and smoothing pillows that were not rumpled, Martie went into the foyer and opened the front door. She stepped across the threshold, onto the porch.

Her heart knocked so hard she shook from its blows. Each pulse pushed such a tide through her arteries that her vision throbbed with the heavy surge of blood.

She went to the head of the porch steps. Her legs were weak and shaky. She put one hand against a porch post.

To get farther from the knife rack, she’d have to walk out into the storm, which had diminished from a downpour to a heavy drizzle. Wherever she went, however, in any corner of the world, in good and bad weather, in sunshine and in darkness, she would encounter pointed things, sharp things, jagged things, instruments and utensils and tools that could be used for wicked purposes.

She had to steady her nerves, slow her racing mind, push out these strange thoughts. Calm down.

God help me.

She tried taking slow, deep breaths. Instead, her breathing became more rapid, ragged.

When she closed her eyes, seeking inner peace, she found only turmoil, a vertiginous darkness.

She wasn’t going to be able to regain control of herself until she found the courage to return to the kitchen and confront the thing that had triggered this anxiety attack. The knives. She had to deal with the knives, and quickly, before this steadily growing anxiety swelled into outright panic.

The knives.

Reluctantly, she turned away from the porch steps. She went to the open front door.

Beyond the threshold, the foyer was a forbidding space. This was her much-loved little home, a place where she’d been happier than ever before in her life, yet now it was almost as unfamiliar to her as a stranger’s house.

The knives.

She went inside, hesitated, and closed the door behind her.

20

Although Skeet’s hands were badly irritated, they were not as raw-looking as they had been a few minutes ago, and they were not scalded. Tom Wong treated them with a cortisone cream.

Because of Skeet’s eerie detachment and his continued failure to respond to questions, Tom drew a blood sample for drug testing. Upon checking into New Life, Skeet had submitted to a strip search for controlled substances, and none had been found either in his clothing or secreted in any body cavities.

“It could be a delayed secondary reaction to whatever he pumped into himself this morning,” Tom suggested as he left with the blood sample.

During the past few years, through the worst of his periodic phases of addiction, Skeet had exhibited more peculiar behavior than Donald Duck on PCP, but Dusty had never before seen anything like this semi-catatonic glaze.

Valet enjoyed no furniture privileges at home, but he seemed to be so troubled by Skeet’s condition that he forgot the rules and curled up on the armchair.

Fully understanding the retriever’s distress, Dusty left Valet undisturbed. He sat on the edge of the bed, beside his brother.

Skeet lay flat on his back now, head propped on a stack of three pillows. He stared at the ceiling. In the light of the nightstand lamp, his face was as placid as that of a meditating yogi.

Remembering the apparent urgency and emotion with which the name had been scrawled on the notepad, Dusty murmured, “Dr. Yen Lo.”