Left for Dead by Kevin O'Brien Read Free Book Online

The screech echoed throughout parking level C. Sherita froze for a moment, then peered into the rearview mirror. She reached back and patted the empty seat. No one.
    Catching her breath, Sherita drove the three levels to the garage exit. The cashier on duty sat in his booth. Sherita was glad to see a familiar face. She thought about telling him what had happened down at level C, maybe even suggesting the police search the area.
    But what could she have told him? All that happened was someone had called out her name. A door had mysteriously opened and shut by itself a couple of times. And she’d gotten scared.
    With a sigh, Sherita showed the guard her employee parking pass. Except for “thank you,” she didn’t say anything to him.
    On her way home, Sherita thought that perhaps she’d imagined hearing someone call her name. Maybe the door to the maintenance area opened and shut on its own. Perhaps the person who called to her was one of the many custodians she knew. It might have been a reporter. The hospital lobby was full of them. It could have been anyone.
    But the one “anyone” she couldn’t stop thinking about was Rembrandt.

Chapter 5
    “Claire, what’s the last thing you remember before you woke up here in the hospital?”
    Wearing the lavender robe she’d inherited yesterday from Sherita’s other patient, Claire sat in a wheelchair, facing Dr. Emily Beal. The psychiatrist leaned forward in the beige leather chair. Behind Dr. Beal was a wall full of diplomas, a mauve sofa—and on it, a plainclothes detective with a tape recorder in his hand. Claire tried to avoid eye-contact with him.
    “I know it’s hard, Claire,” Dr. Beal said. “Take your time answering.”
    Emily Beal was about forty—and pretty, with short-cropped, carefully styled brown hair. She wore the hospital’s white topcoat over her Donna Karan dress. Claire had already had a few sessions with her, and always felt a bit frumpy around the chic doctor.
    It didn’t help that Dr. Beal usually talked to her with this condescendingly sympathetic smile—a well-meaning, I-Really-Understand-And-Feel-Sorry-For-You simper that was supposed to reassure Claire, but had the opposite effect. Dr. Beal was giving her that look right now.
    “I’m sorry,” Claire muttered. “I can’t remember. I really don’t know how I ended up here.”
    She was drawing a total blank. The doctor might as well have asked her to solve a problem in advanced physics.
    “It’s all right, Claire,” Dr. Beal said in a soothing tone. “Let me ask you another question. Do you remember driving into Seattle with your friend to go shopping? You were planning to stay the night at a hotel and see a show. Do you recall that, Claire?”
    “I’m sorry,” she answered again, shrugging.
    Apparently, within the last hour or so, someone must have come forward with this story about her disappearing during a shopping expedition with a girlfriend in downtown Seattle.
    “I don’t remember any shopping trip into the city,” Claire admitted.
    “It’s okay, Claire,” the psychiatrist said patiently. “We’re making excellent progress. We’re on the road to recovery, Claire.”
    She tried to smile. She wished Dr. Beal would stop calling her “Claire” every ten seconds. Since remembering her name yesterday, Claire noticed most of her doctors overusing it. They seemed to try too hard for a sense of familiarity and closeness that just wasn’t there.
    The only people who really knew her were her husband and son. So where were they? She’d told the doctors yesterday. She was still a little muddled with figures, and didn’t remember the phone number or exact address. But they could find her husband and son at home: Charles, Claire, and Brian Ferguson on Cascadia Avenue in Seattle. Charlie taught twentieth-century literature at the University of Washington. Maybe they could track him down there.
    “You know, my husband might be able to tell you where I was last,” Claire