Incarnate Page 4

  “He’s actually the chief,” Zack replied, matching her tone.

  “Ah. My mistake. But chief or no, I still can’t discuss Scarlett with you. Doctor-patient privilege, and all that.” She crossed her arms. “Besides, I’m sure you guys have more important things to do with your time—she’s hardly a threat.”

  “Is that a professional opinion?” Zack asked. “Because she just assaulted a guy with a fry bin.”

  “Zack,” Holt murmured warningly. To Kim, he added, “Please forgive my partner. He gets a little nervous around strong, intelligent women.”

  “Flattered,” Kim said, sounding anything but, her gaze not leaving Zack. “But I still can’t talk to you about Scarlett’s case. My hands are tied, I’m afraid.”

  “Understood,” Holt said. “Wouldn’t want my shrink telling secrets about me, either. We all have our jobs to do. We protect the peace, you protect the peace of mind.”

  That, at last, got a real smile out of her. “I suppose you could say that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a full schedule this morning.” She turned and walked down the hall.

  Holt chuckled as they both watched her walk away. “What do you know, son, there’s one woman in Jarvis who can resist those famous Trainor dimples.”

  FOUR

  A day later, Scarlett was back at the hospital for her first official appointment following the incident in the morgue—an incident that Kim had conveniently forgotten to tell Kyle about.

  Shortly after Kim found Scarlett examining the bodies, Scarlett emerged from her trancelike state with no idea where she was or how she’d gotten there. The only bright side to the troubling turn of events was that Scarlett had been frightened enough to agree to treatment.

  Kyle had, thankfully, offered his office for the occasion. Kim and the other resident, Andrea Kaston, shared their miniature counseling office with several interns, and it was frequently double-booked.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” Kim said when Scarlett arrived, taking Kyle’s messenger bag off the spare chair and motioning for Scarlett to sit down. She grabbed Kyle’s chair and scooted it around to the other side of the desk, so she and Scarlett were sitting knee to knee again.

  “I like Dr. Berman’s . . . what are those, exactly?” Scarlett was pointing to the clay worry stones that Kyle had brought back with him from Thailand. He claimed that they had been made by novitiates in a Buddhist monastery, and that when he held them, he was able to focus his mind and achieve serenity even on the most hectic day.

  “Oh, those,” Kim said. “Fossilized mastodon turds. They date back to the Pliocene age. He’s a bit of an archaeology buff.”

  Scarlett blinked. “Oh. Cool.”

  “Scarlett, I understand that Darren isn’t pressing charges. So even if you did . . . you know”—she mimed beating herself over the head with a stainless-steel basket—“my guess is that he provoked you somehow and he knows it. You still don’t remember what happened?”

  “No. I mean, I know I probably did it,” Scarlett said. “But I’m glad that, you know, I’m not getting arrested.”

  “Do you remember anything leading up to the incident?”

  Scarlett shook her head, her eyes downcast. The skin of her eyelids was thin and luminous, showing a fine network of tiny blue veins. She had beautiful bone structure, and her hair would probably be lovely if it hadn’t been hacked off at her shoulder in what appeared to be a home haircut. Also, she could stand to eat something—like a dozen cheeseburgers with a milk shake chaser, for a start, and even then, she’d barely fill out her jeans.

  Kim felt a pang of sympathy for the girl, which was completely unprofessional but all too familiar. She took a breath and vowed to push past it. “All right. No problem. Tell you what—let’s start somewhere else. Tell me a little bit about yourself. About growing up. Things you remember from your childhood, good or bad.”

  “Do I have to?” Scarlett sighed. “I’ve done this, like, four hundred times.” She picked up one of the worry stones and closed her fingers over it.

  “But not with me, right?” Kim said.

  A sharp cry, muffled by the closed door, could be heard down the hall. Scarlett looked alarmed.

  “I’m sorry,” Kim said, dropping her bright tone. “I know that can be distracting, but I can assure you that our patients receive excellent care and we certainly don’t take their distress lightly.”

  “I know,” Scarlett said dully. “I’ve been here before. It’s, like, nothing new.”

  Kim said gently, “I’m sorry. I know this is— This probably sucks for you. But indulge me a little, okay? I want very much to help you, and—”

  “—to help me you have to understand me,” Scarlett cut in with a wave of her hand. “I know, I know.”

  “Scarlett . . . mental illness isn’t anything to be ashamed of. If we can figure out if an underlying disorder is causing your episodes, then we’re that much closer to figuring out how to help you live with it.”

  “Do you want to know how many disorders I’ve been diagnosed with?” Scarlett demanded, her nostrils flaring and a spark of defiance in her eyes. “OCD, ADHD, psychotic episodes, schizophrenia—that’s always a favorite—”

  Kim held up her hand. “I understand. It’s really frustrating that despite all the advances we’ve made in medicine, the brain remains a mystery in many ways.” She tried to keep her breathing even, calm. She couldn’t let Scarlett know how much this brought back memories of her own teen years; things had to stay professional if Kim would possibly be able to give her any help.

  Scarlett shrugged. “Yeah. And when I fail to match up with whatever diagnosis they’ve given me, my shrinks always start trying to figure out what fucked-up thing from my past made me this way. But the thing is, there isn’t anything. No one ever believes me, but our family is totally normal. I mean, okay. Kenny Latham showed me his penis when I was six, but I wasn’t abused or molested. There were no skeevy uncles or online predators. My mom left when I was fourteen and, yeah, that blows, but my crazy stuff started way before then. I’ve smoked pot three times, but the only other drugs I take are the ones you guys prescribe.” Scarlett rolled her eyes. “And there’ve been a lot of drugs, if you want to pursue that angle. But this started first, obviously, or else no one would have given me drugs to begin with. Hmm, what else? I’m not sexually active ’cause who’d want to get freaky with a freak. Anyway . . .” Her rant petered out in another shrug. “Whatever.”

  Kim set down her notepad and regarded Scarlett thoughtfully. “I hated therapy, too,” she said quietly. “Answer the same stupid questions over and over again, but no one ever really gets it.”

  Scarlett’s head snapped up, and she finally met Kim’s eyes. “You were in therapy?”

  “After my parents died, I lived in a psych ward for three years,” Kim said carefully. In general, she tried to keep the focus entirely on the patient, but in this case, her gut told her that revealing their common experience might help her gain Scarlett’s trust. “Look, I know, therapy sucks. But . . . if you’re willing to do the work, it can help. It helped me.”

  Scarlett looked a little taken aback. Kim picked up the personal information form that Scarlett had partially filled out the day before, finally asking the question that had been weighing on her mind.

  “Last time you were here, you started to fill out this questionnaire. It says your address is 653 Madigan Lane, and your age is twenty-two . . . ?”

  “That’s not my address,” Scarlett said, startled. “And I’m nineteen. I wouldn’t have written that. Are you sure it’s mine?”

  Kim nodded. “You also wrote that your name is ‘Izzi.’ ”

  Scarlett stared at her blankly.

  “Listen,” Kim pushed on, “have you ever heard of DID? Dissociative identity disorder?”

  Scarlett shook her head, mystified.

  “They used to call it multiple personality, or split personality, though those aren’t very accurate terms,” Kim said, keeping her
tone light. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of. Scarlett, you have a few of the . . . signs. Like this.” She held up the paper. “Maybe you thought you were twenty-two when you wrote it.”

  Scarlett looked like she was about to ask question, but then another panicked cry sounded, closer to Kyle’s office, followed by someone speaking in low, soothing tones. Abruptly the first voice started yelling. “No, no, no! You’re hurting me, stop it!”

  “Don’t worry,” Kim said, cursing the interruption that came just as they were making progress. “I promise you, no one is being hurt. Sometimes patients suffering from delusions—”

  She broke off at the sound of a strangled yelp. “Help me!” the voice came, sounding ever more desperate. “Oh my God, help me!”

  Kim was about to reassure Scarlett again when she noticed a change come over the girl’s face. Another episode. Kim sat completely still, torn between wanting to help and needing to observe in order to know better what was going on. Scarlett was blinking rapidly, and then her features tensed up, her mouth contorting in a rictus of a grin before going slack, the muscles of her face twitching. Her eyes fluttered and her arms and fingers went rigid, gripping the arms of the chair so hard her knuckles turned white.

  “Help me!” she echoed, in a voice eerily similar to the one outside the door. “Oh my God, help me! Help . . . help . . .”

  She looked wildly around the room, but Kim had the feeling that what she was seeing wasn’t the bland decor of Kyle’s office. She pushed away from Kim, backing her chair into the far end of the room, panting shallowly and shaking. Her terror seemed absolutely genuine.

  Kim jumped up from her chair, then stopped herself from going to Scarlett, which might only further disorient her. But if the girl truly did suffer from DID, it wasn’t Scarlett at all, but an alternate identity who was cowering in the corner. Moving very slowly, Kim lowered herself to the floor, kneeling in front of Scarlett. “You’re safe here,” she whispered soothingly. “It’s okay.”

  Scarlett whimpered and looked around frantically. “No, he’s—he’s—”

  Continuing to reassure her softly that she was safe and that everything was okay, Kim maneuvered herself so she was directly in front of Scarlett, forcing her to make eye contact.

  “Hi,” she said, more calmly than she felt. “I’m Kim. What’s your name?”

  “I know you,” Scarlett mumbled in a voice unlike her own, both higher-pitched and with a more nasal accent. “I saw you.”

  “You saw me? When?”

  “You know. In the morgue. When I was trying to find . . . my body. When I was trying to find out if I was dead.”

  “Why did you think that—that you died?” Kim said, willing herself to act as though the conversation was completely routine, as though they were discussing nothing more important than the weather.

  “I . . . don’t know. I’m here, right? With you?”

  “Your name is Izzi?”

  Scarlett’s features relaxed slightly and she gave a sigh of relief. She ran her fingers through her hair and then flipped it over her shoulder. “Yes. My mom still calls me Isabel but everyone else calls me Izzi.”

  “Isabel is a pretty name,” Kim said.

  The girl nodded. “Isabel Wilcox.”

  Kim suddenly felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. “Wilcox . . . ? Really?”

  “I know, right?” Scarlett scowled, twisting the ends of her hair around her fingers. “Boys had a field day with that one. Izzi Will-Suck-C—”

  “No, wait, I think you’ve made a mistake,” Kim said, her heart hammering. “I think you may have borrowed that name. Did you maybe see it on a missing-persons flyer?”

  Scarlett’s eyes narrowed, and she looked at Kim with a mixture of suspicion and fear, her fingers stilling in her hair. “Missing persons?”

  Kim grabbed her phone and did a quick Google search, bringing up the Jarvis Police Department’s website. She clicked on Bulletins and there, right at the top, was an image of the flyer. She held out her phone for Scarlett to read. The girl stared in shock for a moment, then started shaking her head. “No. No, that’s not, it isn’t— Where am I? Please, you’ve got to tell me, where?”

  She tried to get to her feet and push past Kim, but she was trapped in the corner of the room between Kim and the wall. Her trembling intensified as she fell to her knees and tried to crawl around Kim, her hands scrabbling ineffectively on the carpet.

  “Izzi. Isabel,” Kim said, putting her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Please, you’ve got to stop. It’s time for you to—for you to take a step back and—”

  Scarlett gave her a tremendous shove, and Kim fell back against the coffee table, shattering the glass. She felt a shard slice through the heel of her hand as she tried to push Scarlett back, away from the glass, but Scarlett continued to struggle. She scrambled to her knees, trying to crawl again, cutting her knees and hands. Kim got shakily to her feet, blood pouring from her hand.

  “Isabel, I need to talk to Scarlett,” Kim shouted, trying to shield the girl from the worst of the glass. But Scarlett seized a large shard and brandished it in front of her, wielding it like a knife.

  “Leave me alone! Get the hell away from me, you fucking slag!”

  Kim raised her hands defensively. “I’m—all right, Izzi, I’m not going to hurt you, I swear. Please, tell Scarlett to come back. Scarlett. Now.”

  Scarlett went still, her face slack, her nose twitching slightly. “Scarlett . . . isn’t here. I am. Izzi. You have to talk to me.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that right now,” Kim said more firmly, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. “I promise not to let anything bad happen to you, Izzi, but I really need to talk to Scarlett now. We can talk again another time.”

  “You’re just saying that,” Scarlett mumbled. “You’re lying. You’re a lying bitch.”

  “No, Izzi,” Kim said, slowly reaching for the hand holding the glass. She closed her fingers gently around Izzi’s blood-soaked wrist, and the girl’s fingers flexed, the glass falling to the floor. Kim bit back a jagged sigh of relief, but she didn’t let go. “It’s all right, Izzi. You can go now.”

  Her pupils seemed to dilate, then return to normal. The trembling slowly subsided as she sank back on the floor, her knees pulled up under her chin. She suddenly looked very young.

  Scarlett was back. Kim was sure of it. “Dr. . . . Dr. Patterson? Oh my God, what happened? You’re bleeding!” Scarlett looked down at her own hands, turning them over so she could examine her palms. “I’m bleeding. Oh no, please, please, tell me what I did this time!”

  FIVE

  Kim didn’t see Scarlett again that day after escorting her downstairs for stitches. The staff insisted she let them attend to her own injuries, and as she endured the sting of the antiseptic and the application of several butterfly bandages, she thought about what had just happened upstairs.

  An alternative identity—the identity of a missing young woman—had taken over Scarlett Hascall’s mind and body. Kim was absolutely sure of it. She’d dealt with a lot of delusional and dishonest patients in the past, and was confident that Scarlett was neither; her body language, both when under the influence of an alter, and when back to herself, was too authentic to be faked. It was like two different people had been in that room with Kim, though they shared the same body.

  On the other hand, true incidents of dissociative identity were so rare that Kim’s exposure to patients suffering from the disorder had until that moment been purely anecdotal. Could she really trust her own diagnosis, based on so little clinical experience?

  When the attending physician was finished, Kim went to the desk to ask if she could see Scarlett but was told that her father had already come to take her home.

  Kim left the hospital as the sun was beginning its descent over the distant snow-topped mountains. Waiting at one of Jarvis’s three stoplights with the windows down, a rare enough pleasure in a town whose average temperature
was only thirty-five degrees, Kim inhaled a big lungful of cool, pine-scented Alaskan air . . . with top notes of deep fryer and singed cheese.

  The Burger Barn loomed just ahead. Struck by both inspiration and hunger, Kim pulled a semilegal U-turn, earning the ire of a man in a jacked-up Tundra with a set of moose antlers mounted on the front grille. Giving a sheepish wave and a shrug, Kim squeezed her ’98 Civic into a narrow space between a couple of hulking Chevy Silverados, which seemed to be the most popular vehicle in town. There were advantages to driving a car like hers, at least during the few months a year that snow was unlikely.

  Kim had arrived in Jarvis four months before, during an unseasonably pleasant May. She had enjoyed her first mild summer and had easily adapted to daylight lasting until midnight. Now it was September, and winter loomed terrifyingly near. In a month or so, Kim hoped to have banked enough overtime to upgrade to, say, the rusted-out F-150 that her neighbor currently kept up on blocks in his front yard.

  Inside the Barn, desultorily cleaning up a mess of food wrappers, cups, and smeared ketchup littering one of the booths, was just the man she wanted to see.

  “Hi, Darren!” she said brightly. “Check it out—samesies!” She held up her bandaged hand, which paled in comparison to the huge, puffy white bandage that was taped from Darren Fenstrom’s purpled, swollen jaw to his partially shaved head.

  He glared at her balefully. “She go after you, too?”

  Kim winked. “If she had, I would’ve had the sense to duck.”

  “I narrowly missed having skin grafts taken from my ass, so forgive me if I’m not laughing along with you. Fucking kids.” He picked up a burger wrapper on which someone had drawn an anatomically disproportionate penis and testicles in Sharpie. “Their parents ought to lock them in cages when they’re not in school.”

  “Or send them to the Lower Forty-eight,” Kim suggested, hoping to get on his good side. Adopting the locals’ contempt for transplants to the state was a cheap move, but Kim wasn’t above it. “Hey, how about I buy us both a couple of Barn Bacon Doubles and we can have a nice little chat.”