Silent Scream (6 page)

“You don’t remember me?”  The woman stepped back off the elevator, and the doors closed behind her.  Her hand touched his shoulder softly.

Gabriel scrutinized her features, uncomfortable with her complacent familiarity.  Friendly blue eyes peered at him, and a smile he’d seen a million times before greeted him.  Of course he remembered.  Before he’d even thought about it, he embraced her.

“How are you, Tammy?”

Leaning against him for just a moment, she rested her head against his chest and then pulled away.  “I’m doing well,” she said.  “I finally finished my practicum hours and am working as an LPC.  I just moved into a new apartment over at the Eastside complex.”

“Really?  Do you like it?” Gabriel asked, warmed by her smile.

Tammy nodded.  “Yeah.  Now if you had asked me that last weekend when I was moving all the furniture up three flights of stairs, I would’ve told you that you were crazy, but today I’m good.”  She looked him over from head to foot.  “And you?  What are you doing these days?”

“I’m a firefighter over at Station 17, have been for a good ten years now.”  He marveled at how different she appeared these days than when she’d dated his brother, right before Jessie’s murder—right before life had changed drastically for both of them, and he’d started believing in Hell.   Her hair, although she’d pulled it away from her face, was a longer, darker blonde than he remembered.  “You look really good.”

“Thanks,” she said and nodded.  “How’s Sam been?  We haven’t exactly spoken since....”

“Since he told you he didn’t need some future shrink poking around in his brain?” Gabriel finished for her.

Taking a deep breath, she nodded.  “Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”  She looked down at the keys in her hands.  “I guess my directness  is a quality most people hate.”

“It’s not the directness, Tammy,” he said, patting her softly on the shoulder.  “It’s the fact you don’t lie, and sometimes everybody needs to be lied to a little, even if we know it’s a lie.”

She shoved her purse strap higher on her shoulder.  “So how is he?”

“He’s a cop in Owens.  Still single.  He still mentions you from time to time.”

“Both of you still trying to save the world?”  She looked directly into the depths of his blue eyes, searching.

“We do what we can,” he replied, looking toward the elevator.

“What are you doing here?”

“Visiting an acquaintance,” he said.  His watch beeped, letting him know noon had arrived.  “You?”

“Working—or trying to.” she said, shaking her head.  “Therapy doesn’t do much unless a person is willing to let you help.”  She rubbed the smooth end of one key with her forefinger.  “I thought of Sam today when I was talking to this woman, trying to make her understand how therapy can help her.”

Frowning, Gabriel asked, “Why’d that make you think of Sam?”

“The case is similar to Jessie’s.  Except this woman lived through it.”

Taking a deep breath, Gabriel clenched his teeth. 
She’s working with Maddie,
he thought.  “Let me guess, she doesn’t want any of it, does she?”

Tammy kept tracing the key.  “No, she doesn’t.”

He folded his arms across his chest.  “I guess that would remind you of Sam,” he said, and mentally added,
And me.

“She says she’s fine, but she needs help.”

Gabriel thought of his nightmares.  “But you can’t make her see that, Tammy.  She has to come to that herself.”

“Yeah, I’ve been down that road once or twice before.”  She started to walk away, then turned back.  “Will you tell him I asked about him?” she asked.  “I know he must have thought I was trying to use him as a case study, but there’s a fine line between doing something because you have the skills and doing something because you love someone.  Maybe I was wrong.”  She shrugged.  “But then again, maybe so was he.”

Gabriel brushed his hands through his hair.  “I’ll tell him, Tammy.  The next time I talk to him.”

That was strange
, Gabriel thought as he stepped onto the elevator and headed to the third floor.  How long had it been since he’d seen Tammy?  Ten years?  That would be about right, considering that was about the time Jessie was killed and his brother had tried so damned hard to push everyone away, including Gabriel.  Losing Jessie had taught Sam one thing–sometimes it was just too painful to love people because you always lose them in the end.  Even though Gabriel hadn’t been daunted–he’d recognized the signs of grief because he’d felt it, too–Tammy hadn’t been prepared for Sam to take all his anger and hurt out on her, trying to drive her away.

Although Sam had shut Tammy out, Gabriel had found solace in talking to a friend who’d known his sister.  She’d kept him sane inside walls of grief that seemed too high to climb.  She’d helped him accept what he could not change.  But not Sam.

In the end, Sam had gotten what he’d wanted–Tammy felt she had no choice but to leave–but Gabriel had always wondered if losing Tammy had really been what Sam had been after, for losing Tammy had been, in its own way, as distinct a pain as grieving alone. 

The question was, what would Sam say when Gabriel mentioned he’d seen Tammy?

The elevator stopped, and the doors slowly parted, allowing Gabriel to step out into the third-floor foyer.  A custodian vacuumed the floor, barely acknowledging Gabriel as the fireman made his way to Maddie’s room.

The door was open, and he peered inside to see her staring out the window.  He softly rapped his knuckles on the door, and her gaze snapped in his direction.  At first, her eyebrows arched in surprise, but as she recognized him, they lowered. 

“Can I come in?” he asked, one hand thrust deep into his jean pocket.

“Sure,” she replied, folding her arms across her chest.  Instead of focusing on him, she peered out the window again.

As he crossed the room, his boots tapping the linoleum, and he sat in the chair. “How are you feeling?”

Her hand crept to her neck, and she massaged the taut muscles there.  “I’m fine.  Ready to go home.”

“I take it your doctor doesn’t see things from your perspective.”  Gabriel leaned back and stretched out his legs.

“Why do you say that?” she asked, shifting uncomfortably.

“Because if he did, you wouldn’t still be here.  You’d be home.”  He tapped his fingertips on the armrest.  
Which isn’t the place I’d say you needed to be at present,
he thought
.

Maddie touched the cast.  “There isn’t a whole lot left they can do for me here.

Gabriel winced as he felt the wall Tammy must have run into.  “No, I don’t suppose there is,” he finally agreed.  A movement in the doorway caught his attention, and he turned to find David there, holding a file folder and pen.

 “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” David said, pointing a chiding finger at Gabriel. 

Gabriel shrugged.  “If you’d stop following me, we wouldn’t keep running into each other,  would we?”

“Did you need something, Officer Ferguson?” Maddie asked softly.

“Yes, Ma’am.”  David pulled off his hat. “I wanted to let you know we found your car.”

Maddie clenched a wad of blanket in her fist.  “Was it still on the road?”

“No, Ma’am,” he said.  “We found it overturned in a ravine.  It had been set on fire.”

Inhaling sharply, Maddie closed her eyes.  “Dear God.”  The color drained from her face, and Gabriel stifled the urge to lean toward her and ask if she was all right. He knew she wasn’t.  A moment later, her eyelids fluttered open.

“How can you be sure it was mine?”

 David flipped through the documents before facing her.  “Although a lot of the car had been destroyed by the fire, we were able to read part of the license plate, and the vehicle identification number was still legible.”

Maddie drew the covers higher upon her body as she began to shiver.  “Where did you find it?”

“Along the ravine,  not far from where you said the wreck occurred.”  He shoved the folder under his arm.  “I am sorry, Miss.  I wish the news were better.”

“That’s all right,” she said, staring out the window as Ferguson left.  Under the harsh fluorescent lights, her skin appeared damned pale, the bruises on her face a deep bluish-purple.

“Why did you come?” she asked softly.

Gabriel stood and drew the blinds open wider.  “I knew they were going to tell you about your car.”  He peered out at the snowy landscape spread out below.  The snow dusted everything, and more flakes now spilled from the sky.  “I thought you might feel better if you weren’t alone when you found out.”

“But why would that concern you?”  She rested her head back against the pillow, closing her eyes.

He clenched his teeth, forcing himself not to say what he thought:
because you remind me of someone I loved very much.
  “I was trying to be thoughtful,” he finally managed.  “One of the nurses told me just what a great doctor you are,” he said.  “They said you like to help other people.”  He walked from the window back to the chair.  “But I’m willing to bet no matter how hard you try to keep an objective perspective about those you treat, you can’t always do it.”  He sat in the chair again. 

Maddie brushed her fingers through her hair.  “I see you’ve met Yolanda.”

“Yolanda?”  Gabriel shook his head.  “No, Becca.  This was after she decided I was harmless.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.  Tears pooled in her eyes, and she kept blinking furiously, trying to send them away.

“How are you feeling, Maddie?”

Gabriel whirled to face the door and saw a doctor standing there, holding her chart, scanning the notations the nurses had made.

“I’m ready to be discharged,” she replied, sitting up straighter.  “There’s nothing that keeping me here is going to help.  I’ve had enough of this place, Malcolm.”  She glared at the IV in her arm.  “And I really want this thing out.  The site is starting to get sore.”

He closed the chart.  “I’m sure you do, and I don’t blame you.  I see no reason you can’t be discharged today.  You’re blood pressure is still a little elevated, but we can monitor that without you being here.  I’ll send you home with a narcotic prescription for the pain.”  He set her chart on the table next to her empty lunch tray.  “Have you talked to Tammy?”

Maddie glared at him.  “I’ve said hello, and that’s all I need to say.”

Malcolm looked from Maddie to Gabriel and back again.  “All right.”  He picked up her chart.  “If that’s the way you want it, but for what it’s worth, I think she could help.”

Maddie turned from him, and the sunlight spilled through her dark auburn hair, haloing her head.  “I don’t.”

Malcolm stopped.   “I’ll send a nurse in with discharge papers.”

“Thank you.”  She watched him leave and sank deeper into the mattress.

“Although you may not want to hear it, he’s right about Tammy,” Gabriel finally said.

Maddie’s eyes widened.  A flush lined her cheek.

“I know who Tammy is, and I know what she does, Maddie.  I also know that in a case like this it’s SOP for a counselor to  talk to you.”

Tugging at the tape on her arm around the IV site, she shook her head.  “That’s just it, Gabriel.  I don’t want to talk about any of it to anyone, let alone someone who wants to crawl around inside my head to see what makes me tick.”  She jerked a piece of the tape free and started working on another one.

“Tammy’s not like that.”

The flush lining her cheeks deepened.  “And how would you know?”  Her fingers trembled so badly she couldn’t latch onto the tape, especially using her broken arm.  “Your specialty is helping people out of burning buildings, not counseling.”

Gabriel could feel a heat building in his cheeks as he realized just how sharp her defense mechanisms were.  “You’re right.  I don’t have training in that area.  But I do have personal experience, since she was the one who helped me deal with my sister’s death,” he said in a quiet voice.  He watched her fumble with the tape and grab a new piece she tore free.  “Shouldn’t you let a nurse do that?”

She glared.  “As a doctor, I think I can handle it.”  More of the tape came loose and trickles of blood spilled onto her arm and gown.

Yeah, the whole “physician, heal thyself” thing,
Gabriel thought.  He pulled the keys from his pocket.  “I guess I should go.”

She stopped pulling at the IV and looked at him.  “I didn’t mean to be hateful.  I’m sorry about your sister.”

Gabriel nodded.  “That makes two of us.”

“Thank you for coming by,” she said. “I know I don’t seem appreciative, but I am.”  She waved her arm around the room.  “I just really hate this place.  It’s getting to me.  If I don’t get out of here soon, I’ll be having conversations with the walls.”

Gabriel stepped toward the door.  “It’s all right.  Really.  No offense taken.  Good luck in going home, and if you need something, let me know.  Do you still have my card?”  He reached deep into his left jean pocket, knowing he still had one or two cards in there he could give her if she had lost the previous one.

Maddie looked at the dresser.  “It’s in that top drawer.”

Nodding, Gabriel walked out of the room and reflected on the anger in her voice.  Anger to mask pain.   He could understand that.  He’d seen it often enough in his brother after Jessie had died.   She really didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything that had happened.  Was it an issue of trust that kept her from talking?  Or was something else at work, something more ominous that had bought her silence? 

He shrugged and walked to the elevator, knowing  it didn’t matter either way.  She wasn’t going to open up any time soon.

Chapter Six

“You can stay as long as you’d like, Maddie.”  Yolanda set the thick quilt on the bed and peered around the room.  “It’s not like anybody else has been in here since Karen left for college.”

Maddie, too, peered around the small bedroom.  Although the room appeared a harsh white, a rose-patterned border broke the harsh brilliance.  Besides the bed, there was a mirrored bureau and a small nightstand with a phone.  An armoire stood against one of the walls, next to the doorway to a small bathroom.