Where All The Dead Lie
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Taylor truly didn’t know what to expect, and when Willig locked the door, sat down across from her and showed her the tray, she became even more confused. There was what looked like a Walkman, with a headset and two pods.
“It’s for EMDR,” Willig said. “We’re going to rewire your brain.”
EMDR—Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Willig explained—was painless. She ran through the procedure. At its most basic, EMDR used several kinds of cognitive therapies to heal the unseen wounds of trauma victims.
“We have a lot of success using this on PTSD. The more we actively utilize the specific methodology, the more we can blur the lines of anxiety in your mind. We’ll interlace the moments of fear with moments you control, happy thoughts, and literally desensitize you. It works wonders. I’ve used it to treat several PTSD patients, with great success.”
Taylor started to shake her head, but the doctor cut her off. “Seriously, Lieutenant, you’ve got classic symptoms of PTSD. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Post-traumatic stress disorder affects millions. It’s not reserved for abuse victims or soldiers. Car accidents, intense illness—anything and everything can trigger it. For you, getting shot in the head by a serial killer who’d planned to do much worse, this is rather uncomplicated. You nearly died. It’s a miracle you didn’t. It’s a miracle that your brain seems okay, physically. You just can’t talk now because you’re scared.”
Taylor wasn’t liking this. She wasn’t scared. Hurt, angry, frustrated, yes, but scared? Hell no. She stood up, tossed the pods back onto the tray. They fell with a short bump. She’d missed her target and they sprawled on the floor like black worms.
“Come on, Lieutenant. I thought you wanted to get better. If that’s going to happen, we’re going to have to be honest with each other.” Her voice softened. “There is nothing to be ashamed of.”
She searched Taylor’s eyes with her own, was apparently satisfied with what she saw. Willig gestured for Taylor to take her seat. Taylor breathed deep, closed her eyes, and sat. Let Willig think what she wanted, all Taylor really cared about was getting back to normal. And if that meant letting Willig think she was afraid, so be it.
“Good. Thank you. I’m going to ask a lot of you today, and over the course of our sessions. We’re going to go places you aren’t going to want to go, but that’s how this works. You’ll relive the situation, and using my voice and eye movements coupled with both auditory and tactile sensations, we’re going to rework your thought process. There are several steps, and we’ll take it gradually. I’m almost one hundred percent convinced that this will work, but you’re going to have to let it. Okay?”
Taylor nodded. There were about a million things she’d rather do than relive the situation. God, she wished everyone would stop calling it that.
“I’ve reviewed the details of the case, but there are parts that I don’t know. Dr. Baldwin typed up his recollections for me, so I’m there from his perspective. But I’m going to need you to do some homework, too. I need to know everything that happened in that attic. When I can re-create the scene for you, then I’ll be able to guide you through it, help you detach and let go. Are you willing to write it all down for me?”
Taylor had already written an account of that afternoon’s events. She’d had to explain to Baldwin the few moments that led up to the shooting, try to make him understand how she’d managed to get herself shot.
She had the write-up in her notebook. She pulled it from her back pocket, opened to the right page and handed it over.
“Oh, fantastic. Give me a second here.” Willig’s eyes moved quickly across the page, moments of recognition showing here and there as Taylor’s version matched what she’d read from Baldwin’s case notes.
Why wouldn’t it? She’d given him what he wanted to hear, too. She’d glossed over some of the details, but no one needed to know that.
After a few minutes, Willig shut the notebook and handed it back, looking thoughtful. Respect and compassion shone in her eyes. “Wow.”
Yes, wow. That about summed it up.
“Okay then. Are you ready?” she asked.
As I’ll ever be.
Taylor put on the headset, settled the two pods in her palms and grasped them carefully. She felt like an idiot, all wired up like this, but she was willing to do most anything to get herself back up to snuff, so whatever Willig had planned, she was going to try her best to comply.
“This is just a quick test that makes sure everything is running properly.”
Taylor jumped a mile as the headset and pods came to life. Her ears were filled with pings, and the pods in her hands pulsed in time. Left, right, left, right, left, right, metronomic, perfectly in time with the ponging in her ears. After the initial sensation, she relaxed.
“Perfect,” Willig said. “Everything is in working order. Okay, Taylor. I want you to think of a place that’s very safe. A place where you feel completely at home, where you can let your guard down. Someplace that is strictly about you and your happiness. It can be a memory, or a physical spot. That’s where you’re going to be spending some time, so pick something that’s very strong, very immediate for you.”
Someplace I feel safe?
Taylor had to think about that for a moment. Home was out, though that normally qualified. Right now it was too intertwined with Baldwin, and that brought mixed emotions. Her cabin in the woods, the place she’d lived before she met Baldwin—that was good. But ruined by the events that forced her to move out. No, neither of those would work.
Unbidden, a memory rose to the surface. She was eight, gangly and awkward, with slightly buck teeth and freckles, her long hair wrestled into submission in a single braid down her back. She was at camp, a whole summer away from home, and while the other campers were sad and lonely for their parents, she felt a kind of freedom she didn’t fully understand. She rode horses for the first time, and fished in the lake. Attended bonfires and had a mad crush on a boy much older, thirteen, from the neighboring cabin. Scandalous. Just thinking about it suffused her with joy, and she felt the corners of her lips rise.
Willig nodded. “Excellent, I see you have it. Let it fill you. Let yourself remember the happiness. Focus on how good that feels, to be happy, and safe. Now, we’re going to go back to the moment you entered the room and saw Sam tied to the chair. Think about what you saw, how you felt. I want you to rate your emotions on a scale of one to ten. Give a numerical valuation to how you feel right now, thinking about it.”
Taylor’s mind was shoved back to reality, to the vision of her best friend handcuffed to a chair, tears streaming down her face as blood ran over her stomach and dripped onto her legs. She held up four fingers on each hand. Eight. High enough to reveal her fear, not enough to feel too far out of control.
The pulsing started in her palms.
“What did you feel when you saw her, Taylor?”
Fury. Anger. Hurt. Fear. No, no, no, no. Something else under all that.
She let the emotions wash over her, felt her throat constrict. Willig kept up a soothing instructional flow, having Taylor watch her finger as it moved in front of her face, back and forth. She guided Taylor’s thoughts through the attic room, to the chair, looking down on Sam from above, to the actions that allowed her to be freed. As Sam, intact and liberated, left the imaginary room, she glanced back with imploring eyes. Taylor tensed, and Willig told her to shut her eyes and think about her happy place.
The intensity of the ponging increased, wiping out all other noise, and her hands began to tingle. She thought about camp, about that horse she learned to ride on named Tonto, about how ridiculous she thought the name was, but couldn’t help herself, his velvety nose was so sweet and he loved carrots….
“Okay, Taylor. Come on back to me now.”
Taylor opened her eyes. She was exhausted, and slightly relieved.
“How do you feel? Rate the emotions again, on the one to ten scale,” Willig said.
She thought about it. Maybe a six?
“Mmm…mokay.” Taylor said. Wow, was her voice working? She tried a few more words, but nothing came. Damn it.
“It’s okay, Taylor. You did great. We’re already seeing progress. EMDR is a wonder tool, and you’re responding to it well. We’ll go deeper tomorrow. But think about Sam now. Think about that moment in the attic. Does it hurt as much?”
She thought about it in astonishment. It was still there, the searing, awful pain of her friend’s hurt, but the sharp edges that tried to control her were muddled a little bit. Wow. She had to admit, that was impressive. She smiled at Willig, who smiled back.
“We’ll go through every step of that afternoon, and I promise you, we’ll get you back to normal in no time.”
Taylor hoped so. She stood and shook Willig’s hand. She couldn’t get over the sensation in her palms, and her ears were ringing. She pointed to her left ear and Willig smiled.
“Yeah, it might ring a bit for an hour or so. Just promise me this: if you have flashbacks of the day you were shot, revert yourself to the happy place. Don’t go trying to sort things out on your own. I’ll help you get through this, Lieutenant.”
Willig sounded so earnest Taylor couldn’t help but smile. She wrote How long? on her notepad, and Willig said, “Give me four sessions, then we’ll revisit. We can meet three times a week. Can you come back tomorrow? I like to overload you the first few times. Next visit we’ll jump in faster, and go deeper. Okay?”
Taylor grabbed her notebook.
Can anyone provide this kind of treatment?
Willig knit her brows for a moment. “Any qualified therapist who’s been trained. It’s not as uncommon a therapy as it was several years ago. Why, you thinking about cheating on me already?”
Might be going away for a bit. Just checking.
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
Taylor nodded, and mouthed, “Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Lieutenant. This is what I do best.”
Taylor left Willig smiling in the middle of her office and went to meet Baldwin at the CJC’s entrance. All in all, she felt good about her chances of making it back. The EMDR had helped a bit.
She wondered, though, how much Willig would be willing to help if she found out the whole truth about that day.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sam pulled herself together and finished the afternoon’s work. She needed to talk to someone. She didn’t have many friends; it was hard to keep folks on her side when they found out she cut up dead people for a living. No matter how politely they tried to incorporate it into conversation, they eventually came to see her as a ghoul. She was used to it now. She tended to have people around who understood why she’d chosen to become a pathologist.
She and Taylor came from the same world: wealth and privilege. But unlike Taylor’s incendiary home life, Sam’s parents had loved her to the point of smothering. They were gone now, both dead much too soon, her father of liver cancer, her mother, Sam was fully convinced, of a broken heart, less than four months later. She missed them—their enthusiastic encouragement, their grounding force.
Her father had been an inventor, with an engineering degree under his belt and multiple patents, though he rarely would discuss what they were. He’d had something to do with the modern electrical plug and some little gadget Sam barely understood. Her mother used to have a glass of wine at parties and intimate that his inventions were in every house in the world. It had made him millions on top of his already hefty trust fund.
He’d been a quirky man, lively in a way Sam rarely saw from scientists. Jovial. Outgoing. Her mother had adored him. Sam’s mom liked to joke she was at Vanderbilt getting her MRS degree when she met Stan Owens.
Despite her parents’ social conditioning of their only daughter, Sam always felt apart. An outsider, distant from those around her. She was a quiet girl, fascinated with science, biology and genetics, and determined to be a doctor. She’d decided on her course when she was five. Right around the time she met Taylor.
Sam was a better debutante than Taylor, more interested in the niceties, the responsibilities that came with affluence. But where Taylor was tall and elegant and heedless of her own beauty, Sam had to work on hers, learning how to do makeup to enhance her looks, forever fighting her too-limp hair, carefully managing her diet and exercise regimen. She envied Taylor her effortlessness, wished she could go out without makeup and her hair tossed in a lazy ponytail. Oh, she probably could, but her mother’s face popped up just as she was walking out the door in her moments of cultural defiance—honey, just a little lipstick, maybe some blush. And why don’t you let your hair down? You look like a skinned rabbit with it pulled back so tight.
She was better off with people who couldn’t talk back. There were no awkward moments with the lifeless. No worry about how they perceived her.
Sam loved Nashville, and she loved Taylor. She looked at their relationship as a partnership on several levels—best friends, sisters and responsible for the city’s people. Taylor protected the living inhabitants of Nashville; Sam uncovered the secrets of its dead.
Right now, Sam just wanted to talk to Taylor. They were family. Families found ways to put the past behind them, to forgive.
And Taylor couldn’t talk back right now. Sam could vent her frustrations on the phone, and Taylor would have to listen. She always had been a good listener. Sam’s favorite confidante.
She closed the door to her office and dialed Taylor’s cell. It rang three times, then Taylor answered, said, “Mmm,” so Sam would know it was her.
“Want to get a drink?” Sam asked.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“You at home?”
The phone disconnected, then her text dinged.
So glad you called. I’m downtown at the office. Baldwin’s supposed to pick me up. Why don’t you grab me and we’ll go somewhere?
Ten minutes, Sam texted back, then stowed the phone in her bag. She was mad at Taylor, sad for Taylor, and sad for herself, but she couldn’t not see her best friend. At least Sam was getting a chance to heal; her wounds were hidden, on the inside. Taylor had to parade around town with her scars, and without her voice.
They had to find a way to lean on each other. No one else could understand exactly what it had been like in that attic.
It took her five minutes to get out of the office. She snuck out the morgue doors into the loading bay, walked around the back of the building to her car in the lot up front. She just didn’t feel like facing anyone. It was embarrassing not to have control of her emotions. Even though she wasn’t pregnant anymore, her body was still laden with crazy hormones. She was mortified by her outburst this afternoon. She didn’t like people to see her cry, and she certainly didn’t like to step out of an autopsy because she was on the verge of exploding.
The snow had begun to fall in earnest. Sam drove downtown carefully, mindful of the slick roads.
Sam saw Taylor sitting on the steps outside the CJC. Her bottom must be frozen; she only had on jeans and a short leather jacket. Sam snuggled deeper into her red down coat, chilled at the mere thought. But Taylor seemed completely unfazed. Lost in thought, actually.
She spied Sam’s car and stood up, graceful and tall, started down the stairs like a gazelle. She was in a good mood; Sam could see that from a hundred paces. She even waved and smiled. Sam waved back, felt a grin spread across her face. She’d never been able to stay mad at Taylor. She wanted to fix things between them.
She heard a car horn’s frustrated beep, then saw a low green Jaguar out of the corner of her eye. It was coming up fast, flying, actually. James Robertson Parkway was a busy street, especially with all the people parking in the garage and making their way across to the courts and the CJC. A group of people were crossing the road, but the Jaguar didn’t slow.
Sam watched in horror as the car sped through the intersection, ignoring the red light, and clipped the last person trailing across the street. A Hispanic woman, probably forty years old, took the brunt of the impact. She cartwheeled into the road, upended, a scream frozen on her lips. She hadn’t even seen the car that hit her.
Taylor took off toward the woman. Sam slammed her car into Park and got out. They made it to her at the same time. Blood spilled from her mouth and head. She needed treatment immediately. People were shouting and screaming, rushing around, and Sam flipped open her phone and dialed 911, despite the fact that she was standing outside police headquarters.
Taylor had her coat off and began CPR, though on closer inspection Sam could tell it was all a moot point. The woman had landed forehead first. Her eyes were already rolled far back in her head. The thick, ripe scent of urine and waste rose as her body gave up its fight.
Squashed her noggin, as her mom used to say.
Taylor stopped the chest compressions, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, stood up and looked east, up the street. Sam followed her gaze. The green Jaguar was long gone.
The scene was swarmed immediately. EMTs came screeching around the corner. The people who had been with the woman crowded around, their wailing cries mingling with the sirens and shouts.
Taylor stepped back with blood on her hands. Snow dusted the hair around her forehead like a silver halo.
Sam reached for Taylor’s hands and wiped the blood off with a tissue, then handed her a bottle of antiseptic gel from her purse. Taylor rubbed her palms together vigorously, then grabbed her coat from the asphalt and shrugged back into it, settling the warmth around her in consolation.
Death surrounded them. Again.
Taylor’s eyes met hers and Sam could read the thoughts of her best friend clearly.
That was no accident, the look said.
CHAPTER NINE
It took two full hours to get the scene under control. Taylor had remembered the license plate on the Jag, but a quick search revealed that the plates had been stolen off a truck that had been left out on Eastland Avenue overnight. East Nashville—half beautifully gentrified, half crime-ridden and dangerous. Taylor knew who’d win in the end. The stubborn landowners would force the drug dealers and prostitutes and ruffians out and be left with a quiet little oasis with excellent restaurants and cool shops. They were probably sixty percent there already.
The family of the woman, if that’s who they were, had clammed up. They wouldn’t say why they were coming to the courts, or who the woman was. Their faces were pinched, eyes darting, tawny skin white with fear, and Taylor knew without asking that they were probably all illegal. A search of the afternoon’s court docket revealed nothing that would explain the woman’s presence; no outstanding warrants matched her description, and no one had a Hispanic woman her age on their current case lists. She wasn’t on the rolls for jury duty. She was a mystery, and Taylor felt the stirrings of life at the idea of figuring out the story. But she wasn’t allowed. Without batting an eyelash, Huston gave the case to Marcus.
Dejected, Taylor let Sam drive her home.
They didn’t talk on the way. The horror of watching a woman die in front of them was enough to steal Sam’s tongue as well.
Taylor’s head was pounding. She palmed a Percocet from the bottle in her pocket. Sam usually had a juice box or two lying around in the backseat, but there was nothing today. She dry swallowed the pill, hoping it started to work quickly.
When they were close to Taylor’s neighborhood, she put a hand out and signaled to the side of the road. As Sam pulled to the curb, Taylor wrote her a note.
Memphis invited me to Scotland.
Sam took one glance at it and turned to her in horror. “Surely you’re not thinking of going? That’s insanity!”
Taylor shook her head.
I just think a break would be good.
Sam put the BMW into Park and adopted her most exasperated tone.
“Taylor Bethany Jackson, you are a first-class fool if you think that running into the arms of the Viscount of what’s its-name will solve anything.”
Dulsie.
“Fuck Dulsie. Don’t fuck Memphis. That will ruin your life, I guarantee it.”
I’m not planning to fuck him. I’m thinking a little time apart would be good. Baldwin and I aren’t exactly getting along.
“So you run off to Scotland, to the man who’s desperate to make you his own? Girl, are you out of your mind? Are the drugs they’re giving you addling your brains?”
Sam’s voice was going up an octave with each declaration. Her face was turning red, and Taylor had to fight not to laugh.
He won’t be there. I’ll be alone at the estate.
“Ooh, the ‘estate.’ Don’t you mean his castle? He is the son of an earl, isn’t he? They do have a castle, don’t they? You can go play Rapunzel.”
Cobwebby. Hard to heat. At least that’s what he said.
Sam slapped the steering wheel. “Don’t get smart with me, girl. And don’t pretend like you’ve never looked it up online, either. Taylor, this is a mistake. A huge, huge mistake.”
I haven’t looked it up. What’s the point in that? Besides, I’ll ask Baldwin to come.
“Brilliant, kiddo.”
Sam took three deep breaths through her nose, shut her eyes for a moment. Taylor waited her out.
“Good grief. I called you for an escape, and now look at me, yelling at you. And you can’t yell back. That’s not fair.”
Sure it is. I deserve it. Sam, I’m so sorry.
That did the trick. Sam burst into tears, and Taylor took her in her arms.
She couldn’t say the words aloud, so she stroked Sam’s hair and thought hard at her, hoping she could at least feel the energy.
I’m so sorry, Sam. I failed you. I won’t let that happen again. I think I should go away. I have to get my head straight, too. I think this might fix me. Please be happy again, Sam. It breaks my heart to see you cry.
Sam started to snuffle and regain control. She pulled a tissue out of the box in her dash and wiped her eyes.
“You’ve already decided?”
Taylor nodded, realizing as she did that, yes, she had. She wanted to go. She wanted to get away from everyone, everything. To escape into a world that wasn’t her own, just for a little while.
“Just don’t do anything stupid, okay? Memphis can be dangerous, on too many levels to count. I love you too much to see you fall apart again.” Taylor wrote I promise then opened the car door.
“You want to walk in?” Sam asked. “It’s freezing out there.”
Taylor nodded again. She needed to stretch her legs and try to get the smell of death out of her head.
“Don’t stay out in the cold too long, okay?” She touched Taylor on the cheek, a butterfly caress. Taylor got out of the warm car and breathed deeply. She felt so much better. They’d needed to have that fight. Things weren’t fixed, not by a long shot, but at least she knew Sam still cared.
And now, she needed a few minutes alone to figure out what to tell Baldwin.
Taylor walked in the cold, chilled to the bone. She didn’t want to capitulate to the weather and head inside, not just yet. One foot in front of the other. Again and again and again.
She’d always been stubborn, a true Taurus, bullheaded, as her mother would pointedly say. She knew deep inside that it was her stubbornness that would get her out of this mess and back to normal, even though she barely believed the small voice inside her who promised all would be well.