Forgetting Jane (7 page)

“Well, nothing right now. Until we have further evidence, we have to wait.”

“Wait? I put you in charge, McAvoy, to get things done efficiently. I thought you were capable of handling things in a quick manner. Our town isn’t used to terrible crimes. Maybe I
should
have had Tom take over.” Daniel’s shallow threat didn’t go far.

He stood up and leaned forward toward the mayor. “What’s stopping you? I’ll step down right now.” Elias got the right reaction.

The mayor tried getting up but he stumbled back in the seat. “Wait. Maybe I was hasty saying that. Chief, I am only looking out for this town.”

“I know you want to get information this case as quickly as you can, but it doesn’t work that way. Please, let me do my job. The moment I know, you’ll know. All right?”

Daniels stood and walked to the door. “I know I made the right decision listening to Henley. He always said if anything happened to him, I should appoint you in his place.” He touched his nose, and continued. “Hopefully soon.” Daniels walked out.

Elias was speechless.
What the hell did he mean by what Henley had said?

He never understood the reason why the mayor enacted him chief, until now. He assumed Henley would had picked Tom as his predecessor because they were close. Apparently, not close enough.

Tom walked in soon after, and sat in the chair. “That man is something.”

Elias cracked a smile and shook his head.

Nearly twenty years Elias’s senior, Tom had been a part of the Beaver Ridge Police Department for many years. Eli was relieved that the officer hadn’t walked off the job after he took over. If it weren’t for Tom at his back, he wasn’t sure who to trust as his second in command. Tom was a good man, good officer and a good friend.

“Want a drink? What about a cigarette? God, that man can drive anyone crazy.”

“Not funny.” Elias shot him a dirty look. “I’m not in the mood today.”

“Okay,” Tom conceded, holding his hands up. He propped his feet up on the desk and leaned back as though it was his own. “So what did the ass want?”

Elias looked up from his paperwork and eyed Tom’s feet. He didn’t mind. Tom should have gotten this position. “He wanted to know what we’re doing with the Jane Doe case.”

“Hmm. Well, speaking of Jane Doe. What about Harold?”

“Harold is so pigheaded. It’s not going to matter what I say to him, he’s going to do what he wants.” Elias also leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t want him near Jane.”

“I know, but…what is the big deal? Why are you so worked up about this? You know Kantor is harmless. Or was he speaking the truth?” The officer angled his head, wiggled his brows and smiled.

Elias grumbled. “This is purely professional, nothing more.” And, dropped his fist on the desktop and sat back down. “Sorry. But this damn case is getting to me. We have no leads, no real evidence against the person who did this to her. And worse, Jane has amnesia.”

Tom’s mouth dropped open. “Are you sure?”

“She can’t remember a single thing about who took her and tried to kill her. I think she has some delusional issues too. Dr. Rollins thinks it’s caused by the damage done to the back of her head.”

“Delusional?”

Elias scratched at the stubbles on his face and chuckled. “Yeah. She thinks she’s seeing ghosts. I don’t know what to make of it. Walking into that hospital today, I thought I was getting answers. I was dead wrong.”

“What did Dr. Rollins say about getting her memory back?” Tom dropped his feet and sat up.

“It can come back at any time, or never. Sometimes objects or certain events can trigger a memory, but I’m not holding my breath.”

“What of the ghost? Do you have any leads on it?” Tom let out a hardy laugh.

“You’re funny—Hey, I got an idea. I will leave that part to you. You can find out who this ghost is, or was,” he said, without cracking a smile.

Tom almost fell off the chair. He grabbed the edge of the desk and righted himself. He smoothed back his thinning hair and let out another chuckle. “Thanks. But I like to deal with the living and the dead. Not the in-between.”

Eli’s silence and somber stare made the deputy turned ashen.

“You’re not serious?”

Eli couldn’t help but laugh at his deputy’s expense. Since day one they’d always had a great rapport with each other.

Tom stood up and walked over to the door. “Well, if we’re done here, I have Rafferty’s cows on Biggers’s property to tend to. And if I don’t get there soon, there will be dead cows on the property.” Tom tilted his head to one side, clicked his tongue and continued. “I don’t want to get caught for slacking off on the job, so I’m off—Hold on…Do you think cows come back as ghosts too?”

“Get the hell out of here,” Eli countered, throwing a rolled up paper at his deputy.

Tom scooted out, but looked back at Eli with a laugh. “Ghosts.”

“Wait,” Eli called out. “Why were you and the love birds in the back room?”

Tom stuttered in his step as he closed the door. “Hm. I was hoping you forgot that.”

He narrowed his eyes at the deputy. “Do I want to know?”

“Give the kids a break. They are in love,” Tom said. “You’ll be in love one day.”

“Right. Send them in here,” Eli directed as he looked down at the same paperwork in the past hour.

Tom saluted before he closed the door.

A minute later, Officers Beth and Ryan Banning walked in. Beth’s head hung low and Ryan’s shoulders were slumped. Both faces were flushed pink from ear to ear.

Eli knew exactly what the two had been doing in the back room. He’d caught them once before, right after they returned from their honeymoon. They’d been mauling each other like teenagers since they got married a couple months ago.

He tried to enforce the rule about married officers and had split their shifts. Beth took the first and Ryan had the second, but an hour overlap gave way to quick liaisons.

He stared at the two as they stood side by side. He realized what an odd couple they made. In looks, they were polar opposites. Beth barely reached to Ryan’s shoulders. Where he was thin and lanky, she was short with meatiness to her build.

Love must be truly blind.

“Do I need to separate you two by giving Ryan the third shift? Or should I be firing one of you?”

In sync, both popped their heads up and looked at him. Beth had watery eyes, while Ryan went from pink to pale. They shook their heads no.

“I don’t want to lose either one of you, but your actions need to stop now. You two need to fi—”

The radio chirped. “Dispatch. There’s an accident on Route U5, near marker 9. A hit and run, two victims. Request ambulance and back up.” Tom’s voice came over with urgency.

Before the dispatcher, Cindy Lee, answered back, Eli responded. “10-4. On route now. Cindy get on…”

“Already on it,” the short blonde shouted out as she passed the doorway of the office.

Eli shot up from his chair and grabbed his jacket. “Ryan, stay here. Beth, you’re with me.”

E
li and Beth arrived on the scene within ten minutes. A Volvo had crashed into a large balsam fir that grew out near the ditched road. The way the car hit, the front end was smashed against the tree and the back end sat wedged on the rim of the ditch.              

As Eli pulled over to the side Tom rushed over to his side of the truck.

“Both victims are breathing. The man’s out but woman’s awake. Eli, I think it was Harold who ran them off the road. From the way the woman rambled on about a red truck, it has to be him.”

Eli got out of the vehicle. “We got this. Go bring him in.”

“Wouldn’t be better if you went?” Tom asked.

“No.” Eli gave a hard reply.

“Okay, Chief.” Tom got in his squad and raced off.

Eli ignored Tom’s barb, got out of the truck and focused his energy on the vehicle. “Beth, grab the blankets in the trunk and the med kit.”             

He looked down at the ditch. The slope pitched almost in a ninety-degree angle with a few crags jutting out. The small patches of ice and snow made it difficult to find footing. Eli could have slipped under the car.

Afraid the car would tip forward and crash front first into the ditch, Eli dug his feet into shallow divots and carefully opened the driver side door.

The front end started to creak as he opened the door wider. Without wanting to test the stability, Eli left the door ajar halfway. It was wide enough in case he needed to pull the driver out.

Eli touched the man’s neck; his pulse was strong. The woman had passed out. He unlatched the seatbelt and waited for Beth to reach the passenger side.

The female came awake and turned her head toward him. Her eyes were glazed over with fear. She mumbled about a red truck and then a girl in a yellow dress.

Girl in a yellow dress?
Eli paused. Too coincidental to ignore. “Ma’am, can you tell me what happened?”

Beth opened the passenger side door with cautious care. The car creaked again and jerked forward slightly. The officer jumped back and let out a small yelp. Eli looked over and gave a silent
don’t move.

Once the car stopped, Beth proceeded to open the passenger side door.

“Careful,” he warned with a whisper. “I don’t want the front end to give out.”

With sloth-slow movements, Beth checked for the female’s pulse. She gave a nod of okay. “Her pulse is strong.”

The woman began to get agitated. “Why was the girl in the middle of the road?” She frantically yanked at her seat belt, and the car shook, which made both women scream. She tried to get out of the seat, but Beth placed a hand on the lady’s shoulder to keep her still.

“Please, I need you to stay still for me, ma’am—Your head is bleeding. What is your name?”

The woman calmed down. “Brenda… James.”

“Brenda, can you tell me what happened?” Beth asked while she placed the gauze square on the victim’s forehead.

The woman stopped talking. The blood drained from her face. Her eyes turned wide with terror. She pointed straight ahead and screamed again. “Do you see her?” the woman shouted.

Eli shifted his footing to see all around him. “Beth, do you see anything?”

Beth bent over to look out the front window. “No, Chief. I don’t see anything, or anyone.”

The woman grabbed at Beth’s jacket, which caught the officer off guard. She lost her footing and slipped down to the bottom of the ditch. She stopped face up, under the vehicle.

“Get out from under the car,” Eli shouted. He wasn’t sure if the woman would try to move, but for the moment, he needed his officer safe.

The woman yanked at her seatbelt, which made the car shudder. The tree shook and the car groaned.

“Move your ass, Beth!” he yelled. Eli hurried to the passenger side and grabbed the woman’s shoulders. “Brenda.” His voice turned hard as steel. Just as fast as her screams began, the woman collapsed into her seat and passed out.

Beth emerged on the driver side with mud on her face, the right side of her jacket and hands.

“Are you all right?” Eli asked. He was finally able to take an even breath.

“Yeah. I’m good.” Beth looked at her hands, then at the chief. “She kept repeating ‘the girl
’.
I didn’t see anyone.”

“Neither did I,” he admitted, scanning the area around them.

They stood by the victims until the fire truck and ambulance showed up. Not wanting to push their luck, they waited for the fire department to remove the victims. They were taken to Beaver Ridge hospital.              The officers followed.

The moment he entered the building, he thought of Jane. The sudden urgency to see her seemed unnatural. His pulse quickened and a knot formed in his gut. Almost anxious.
That’s ridiculous
. Eli visited every day since she was found and hadn’t once gotten the need to rush to her room. Why now?

He instructed Beth to get the statements when the victims were conscious, then turned and rushed through the white metal door that led to the staircase and flew up to the second floor. Eli stopped within the threshold of Jane’s room and watched her.

Eli stood there like some stalker, which annoyed the hell out of him. So he stepped inside, staying quiet.

Jane was sound asleep, though he couldn’t help but take in the serenity of her face, even in its battered state.

The late afternoon sun ribboned through the blinds and masked the discoloration on her skin. The swelling of her yellow bruised cheeks was nearly gone. Her natural beauty was more apparent.

Her body showed frailty, but it didn’t camouflage the strength she had hidden within her. He still admired her, despite her claim of seeing ghosts. Maybe, more than admire.

The way he’d treated her before wasn’t right. That had to be the reason he felt so uneasy. He’d acted like an ass.              

As Eli stepped closer, Jane’s breathing stopped and her eyes popped open. They were cold and honed in on him. The fury shone stalled his breathing.

Jane’s vulnerability vanished. The serenity was gone and replaced with something ugly. Her brows furrowed deep and her unwavering eyes were dark, almost black. She didn’t utter a single word. Just glared at him with a snarl across her face.

He didn’t move. He didn’t dare. Eli let out a slow exhale and saw his breath crystallize. The room became ice cold. It made no sense. Frost coated around the edges of the window, like the bathroom mirror. He grazed his hand around the pane and found nothing to let in the cold. He turned his attention to the thermostat. It blinked seventy-two degrees, then shot down to sixty-five and then lower.
What the hell is going on?

Eli looked back at Jane. Her eyes were closed and the sound of her breathing evened out again. Peace returned to her features. The room wasn’t cold any longer and the frost evaporated from the panes.

He knew he wasn’t going nuts. Or was he? Lack of sleep could do that to a person, but this—this was right. He saw Jane’s face, the way the temperature dropped and how the window frosted up, could it be something unnatural?

The events that led up to this point were making him rethink his non-belief in the supernatural—This was fucking crazy
.
Demented. Questioning his own mental stability seemed like a daily factor, every since Jane had entered his life.

One thing was for certain; he had to check out if a girl lived in the area of the accident. It was the only logical explanation. The yellow dress she wore had to be purely coincidental and not connected to Jane.             

Though looking at her, he remembered the way he found Jane in the bathroom. A very small part of him wanted to believe in her ghost remark.

The crackle of Tom’s voice on the radio pulled him out of his thoughts instantly. He shook off any remnant of the chill and walked out into the hallway.

“Go ahead, Tom.”

“I got Harold at the station. He is full of piss and Scotch right now. He’s ranting that a girl caused the accident. He keeps saying it isn’t his fault. I think he’s lost it.”

Haven’t we all?
“10-4. I’ll be right there.” He glanced at the doorway of Jane’s room before he headed back downstairs.

He found Beth talking to one of the ER doctors. He called her over.

She flipped through her notepad. “The male is still unconscious, but the woman, Brenda, said that a girl in a yellow dress appeared out of nowhere and stood in the middle of the road. She said that the oncoming red truck swerved into their lane and ran them off the road.

“I tried to get more from her but she became hysterical when the doctor checked her pupils. They had to give her something to calm her down. The man is patched up and brought upstairs.”

Has everyone gone crazy? The same details from three different people were too coincidental. The acknowledgement of a ghost clawed his sense of factuality, but he couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“I need you to stick around and get more information about this girl she saw. I have to get back to the station. Tom has Harold locked up. Radio Ryan to come and get you when you are finished here.”

“All right, Chief.”

“Beth?”

“Yes, Chief?”

“You did good.” He gave her a slight smile and headed out.

Eli passed through the sliding doors into the parking lot where he saw Caroline leaning against his driver’s side door.

“I don’t have time for your shit, Caroline. I have an emergency and you need to get out of my way,” he said as he tried to open his door. She blocked the handle with her rear end.

“Come on, Elias. I’m your emergency. I need to be taken care of, right, now.” She tried to sweep her arm around his neck but he took a step back from her. “You’ve been ignoring me for way too long. I can’t take it anymore. I want you, and I know you want me,” she said with a pout.

He looked down at her as though she spat in his face. “Caroline, I don’t know what drugs you’re on, but get sober. I don’t like you. Never did. Now get over it or you’ll be taking a ride in the back of my truck and I’ll book you for harassment. Your call.”

Caroline’s eyes turned wide and her mouth gaped opened. She puffed out her chest. “Fine.” She took a step away from the vehicle.

Eli glanced down at her chest and then back at her scowling face. It didn’t impress him how large her breasts had become since last year.

He reached for his handle while Eli dismissed her.

“You’ll pay for this, Elias. Mark my words, one day you’re goin’ to want me and I won’t be around for you.”

“Don’t make me any promises.” He got in the truck and started it without giving further thought to her threat. He slammed the shift into drive and headed for the station.              

Lights flashing and his siren sounding off, Eli made it in less than five minutes. He didn’t want to leave Tom and Harold together too long.

“Where’s Tom?” he asked Ryan.

“The deputy headed back out for patrol. He’s pissed.”

Eli went straight back to the cells. To his surprise he found Harold curled up in one corner on the cement floor. He rocked back and forth, mumbling, “Not my fault. Not my fault.”

Eli grabbed hold of the bars that separated them. “What happened, Harold?”             

Harold’s right eye was red and swollen. “Did Tom do that?” Eli unlocked the door and stepped into the cell.

“I swung at him first,” Harold confessed. His head fell forward, and broke down into tears. “I didn’t see that car until it was too late. I swerved to get out of the way but I killed them, didn’t I?” His body shook. It was hard to see his friend cry.

The fear etched on Harold’s pale face softened Eli’s anger. He sat on the cot, pushed back his hair and rubbed at his neck. “What should I do with you, Harold?”

Regret and sadness swirled inside Eli. Having Harold behind bars didn’t seem right. He wanted to believe his friend, but the law held him accountable for the accident.

Thin as a rail, Harold’s pale sallow skin was a drastic contrast to the dark smudges under his blue eyes. He had problems, which dated back many years. Always into doing stupid crap, but never to the point of taking someone’s life.

Reeked of scotch, Eli’s own addictive call for a drink choked at his throat.

“Tell me, Harold. Were you drinking and driving?” Eli asked sternly.

“I only took a small swig.” Harold wiped his eyes with his hands.

Eli’s shoulder relaxed a bit. “What happened then?”

“I left here to go straight home. I saw a girl standing in the middle of the road. I slowed down and veered out of the way but she disappeared. Then next I saw a white car coming straight for me. I tried to avoid them. I don’t know what happened next but…I kept on going.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to see the girl again. She scares the shit out of me, Eli!” Harold cried out.

Eli blew it out a heavy breath. Jail wasn’t the place to talk about ghosts. He already regretted his decision, but out of loyalty, he temporarily let Harold go. “Come on, I’ll drive you home. We’ll talk in the truck.”