Fugue State Read online

  FUGUE STATE

  M. C. Adams

  Fugue State

  Copyright © 2013 by Michelle Christy Adams

  Published by Cardinal Press

  All rights reserved.

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events; to real people, living or dead; or to real locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Art: Rita Toews at Yourbookcover.com

  Editor: Tamara Hart Heiner at TamaraHartHeiner.com

  Visit the author at HER WEBSITE

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  To Will, because he supports all of my crazy ideas, and I am forever grateful.

  CHAPTER 1

  Alexa DeBrow adjusted her black-and-gold brocade Valentino pencil skirt. It hung more loosely than she remembered. Easily ten pounds lighter today than she’d been nine months ago, she gathered the spare fabric in her fingers and counted down the dress sizes she had lost. Two, one, zero. She nodded in affirmation. Zero seems fitting. Zero is nothing.

  The hollow words echoed in her empty head. For the first time in months, she examined the woman looking back at her in the mirror. “Hello, Alexa,” she whispered aloud in an attempt to recognize her own reflection. Her cheeks had lost their fullness, yet she maintained her curves on her new slender frame.

  She fastened the gold buttons on the sheer, black silk chiffon three-quarter sleeve blouse she wore over a fitted camisole. Long blonde locks contrasted with the dark chiffon. “Alexa Demure,” she said, an ugly smirk marring the pretty face in the mirror. Too attractive to be a doctor. The words she had heard too many times to count crept into her brain. Demure was the goal. She clothed her barely bronzed skin from elbow to knee in an attempt to keep the unwanted glances at bay. Experience had taught her beauty didn’t belong in medicine; it distracted intellect.

  Her shoulders slumped. Does it really matter anymore? Nothing I do will shield me from their judgment. I could attach a yellow star or a scarlet “A” to my chest and receive less public scrutiny. Everyone who watches the news or listens to gossip knows Dr. Alexa DeBrow, and their eyes follow me like shadows. The publicity was wholly alienating. I’ve lost everything that is important to me. Yes. Zero is fitting. She took one last glance in the mirror. She tucked the loose fabric that hung around her waist into her skirt and pressed the front flat. It’s a good outfit to resign in. She grabbed her sunglasses and headed to the car.

  Exiting the driveway, her hand went to the stereo knob. She pulled away as if she’d stuck herself with a needle. No radio. No need to catch the latest news on the Alexa DeBrow trial secondhand when I get the scoop before it hits the presses. I don’t want to hear any housewives phoning in and telling disc jockeys their thoughts on why I should be tried for manslaughter or murder. Her fingernails dug tiny crescents into the leather steering wheel. Why listen to their mock sentencing? I’ll have my verdict soon enough.

  She drove to her office at Community Northwest Hospital in silence, and in silence, the haphazard thoughts surfaced from her subconscious. She pushed the unwanted thoughts away, but it was like trying to dodge bullets. Inevitably, she took a direct hit.

  She thought of Dawn and Stacey, her two closest friends in Austin for the past three years. What are they doing now that we’ve lost touch? Have they moved on? Pushed my drama out of their lives? Is Dawn’s divorce finalized? It was her divorce party that started everything.

  One night out with two close girlfriends turned her world upside down. She had relived the night time and again throughout the course of her trial. Now, her mind flipped through the pages of the worn memory without prompting by the police or prosecution.

  Thursday, August seventeenth. The three girls went downtown to Costello’s on Sixth Avenue for cocktails to celebrate Dawn’s divorce. Alexa dressed as if she were in college again, clad in a scandalous, cleavage-bearing top and a mini skirt that Dawn insisted she wear. Alexa had laughed out loud at the ensemble, which was far from chic, and the girls celebrated as if it were a bachelorette party.

  In hindsight, the outfit was a poor choice. Her attorney told her that a conservative jury would say she was “asking for it.” She told him, “No one asks for that.” Too late, she realized how many of her decisions that night would be incriminating.

  Alexa had two cocktails, a lemon drop, and a 007 martini. Not quite sober. Not intoxicated, either. She wasn’t sure what difference it made, but the prosecutor seemed very interested in the quantity of alcohol she had consumed. She feared it was an attempt to better define her “poor character.” The prosecution seemed to equate martinis with immorality.

  After a few hours of dancing and karaoke, Alexa left the bar alone around 1:45 a.m. But she didn’t feel alone. Music filled the air from the various bars around her, and the street still felt alive. She hummed the chorus of their finale song and pressed the unlock button on her car keypad. She heard the heavy breathing at her neck an instant before she felt the dull thud on the back of her head.

  Damn, that hurt! Her small frame landed hard on the asphalt below, and she lay stunned for a moment, floating just above unconsciousness. A second, maybe two, passed before she could react. Her attacker grabbed an arm and a wad of blond hair and dragged her across the asphalt. Hairs uprooted from scalp, and skin scraped against pavement as he hauled her away from the echoes of the street.

  Alexa tried to scream, but the fall had knocked the breath out of her, and the noise that came out sounded like the muffled cry of an alley cat. Strong hands grasped her shoulders and flung her body into a dark side alley. A pang of terror hit her chest as her senses returned, and a wave of nausea ran over her body as the sounds of other human beings faded away. The shadows of the alley swallowed her like a black hole, and while only a few yards from her car, the music evaporated. In another second, he flipped her thin frame over. Again, she tried to scream. The sound was the same. In response to her cry, large black hands slammed the back of her head into the ground. Her skull bounced with a thump against cobblestones. A steel-toed boot landed one swift kick to her gut, and again Alexa went breathless.

  The attacker yanked her skirt up to her stomach. It was the first time she saw his face. His dark features melded into the blackness of the alley. All she could clearly make out was the glimmer of his eyes — dark brown pupils swimming in a sea of yellow. The smell of whiskey and tobacco emanated from him.

  Something shiny and reflective cut through the black night. He straddled her with a knife in his hand. The blade pierced her skin in the center of her right thigh and carved up toward her hip, severing the elastic of her panties. Sharp pain swept over her like an electric shock. His hands went to his belt. While she heard his fingers work the buckle, Alexa scrambled to counterattack. Her keys remained clutched in her right hand. She adjusted the larger car key between her second and third fingers and gripped the remaining ones in her palm. The moment he looked up from his belt, Alexa jabbed the key into his left eye. She stabbed the key deep into his medial canthus, where his eye met the bridge of his nose. He let out a deep half moan.

  The knife fell from his right hand and rattled on the bricks of the alley. The knife! I must get that knife. She scrambled to find it. Her nails scraped across the moist, muddy cobble
stones, and her fingers found the cold metal blade. She wrapped her palm around the handle of her new weapon. Her attacker lunged for the knife at the same moment she attempted to strike him. He fumbled his aim. Alexa did not.

  She thrust the knife into the right side of her attacker’s neck. More than half of the three-inch blade was lodged in flesh. Warm, sticky blood oozed from the wound. Venous blood. She had plunged the knife into his right internal jugular vein. Her attacker jerked away, but Alexa reached up and gripped the handle with her other hand, strengthening her hold. She pulled the knife hard across his neck from right to left. It tore through the soft tissues of his neck, and blood began to pour out of the wound, pumping steadily. Arterial blood. She had severed his carotid artery. Her hands became gloved in his blood. The warm goo flowed over her body as she lay underneath him.

  Unexpectedly, his fist knocked against her temple as he covered the wound on his neck with his other hand. The blow blurred her vision momentarily. His body collapsed onto hers. His face landed on her chest. Her sight cleared, and she looked into the eyes of her attacker. She saw hate in the yellow-tinged sclera of the man atop her. Jaundice. The tension in his brow and the twisted curl of his lips relaxed, and Alexa focused on the little brown orbs floating in yellow pools as she watched his life slip away. Then she turned her gaze away from him.

  She writhed beneath him, struggling to roll the two hundred pound corpse off of her. The blood stopped oozing from his neck, and the liquid-iron odor filled her nostrils. Fighting fatigue, she staggered to her knees and pushed her skirt back into place. She felt woozy. Sick. The stench of his blood stifled her breath. The world spun, and she lurched for the building next to her.

  Trembling steps led her out of the alley and into the light and liveliness of the street. She looked back at the body, but it was too dark to see him. She couldn’t help but think if it were her body left in that alley, no one would discover it anytime soon.

  Music flooded out of a nearby nightclub. She followed the sound and met a bouncer just inside the door. She peered over his shoulder and saw a dive bar with an odd crowd. People clad in all black with colored hair and multiple piercings shuffled toward the bar. Flamboyant tattoos covered the skin of dancing bodies, and there were a few twenty-somethings dressed as vampires sporting fangs.

  The bouncer didn’t seem startled by Alexa’s blood-soaked appearance. Maybe he thought she was in costume and would be followed by a gray-skinned zombie date. Still heaving oxygen in gasps, she tried to yell, “Call the police!” But it came out breathy and indistinguishable. She pressed the palms of her hands to her ears and tried to speak over the loud music playing inside. The pale, heavyset man just stared at her, his expression behind the braided beard and pierced nasal septum conveying disinterest.

  Breathe, Lex. “Call the police,” she stated, her words clearer now.

  His eyes softened. He blinked twice and leaned closer to Alexa, as if straining to hear her. “What did you say?” he asked. “I -I can’t hear you.”

  Exasperated, she snapped. The unbearable music that drowned out her words was a song from a nineties band. Nine Inch Nails, “I Want to Fuck you Like an Animal.” The irony of the lyrics sent her over the edge. Hot angry tears formed in her eyes and frustration ripped through her body. “Turn off the music!” she screamed at the bouncer, her face heaving toward his.

  His brow furrowed, and for an instant his face looked like a fuming bull with that ring in his nose. Alexa cleared her throat and said, more calmly, “Call the police.”

  He nodded, then turned away from her, shaking his head side to side as if in a state of disbelief while reaching for the phone.

  Alexa sank into the brick wall behind her. She couldn’t control her quivering body as she collapsed downward and crumpled to the floor. Her rear stung when it smacked against the cold concrete. She pulled her knees up to her chest and curled into a ball, careful to adjust her skirt and legs to cover her exposed crotch, painfully aware that her torn panties were still lying in the alley. She sat in a daze, head throbbing, trembling until the police arrived. Her mind raced and was blank at the same time, until reality slipped away from her.

  Alexa failed to overhear the bouncer’s conversation with the police dispatcher. But the recording played at her trial. The judgment in the bouncer’s voice echoed in the courtroom, cold and real. “Yeah, I think I got a hooker here. She looks pretty beat up — like she’s been in a fight or something. I don’t know, maybe she pissed off her pimp.”

  When the audio paused, she didn’t have to look at the jury’s faces. She could feel their scornful glances burning into her skull. If only she had heard him speak with the police, she would have demanded a rebuttal. But it was too late. It was too late to undo any of the mistakes she had made regarding the incident.

  CHAPTER 2

  Alexa turned into the physician’s parking garage, her left eye twitching from chronic sleep deprivation. She popped open a canned energy drink from the glove box and quickly slurped it down. Don’t look tired or depressed. Don’t let them see the hurt. Remember, you’re resigning, so they don’t fire you from the career you’ve worked your life to achieve.

  As a neuroradiologist, Alexa interpreted advanced imaging studies of the brain and spine. She evaluated patients with neurological problems such as seizures, brain tumors, and trauma. She took pride in her expertise, which made quitting even more difficult. Her own lackluster attitude was more than she could tolerate. Relax, Lex. It’s just one more goodbye. Goodbyes are a cakewalk these days.

  Too-old-and-stubborn-to-ever-retire Norma Pate served as the garage attendant. Norma’s eyebrows rose nearly up to her hairline when Alexa’s Mercedes SLK pulled up next to her. “Dr. DeBrow,” Norma said with a tone of condescension. “I didn’t think you were with us anymore. I thought you were . . . locked up somewhere.”

  Ah, Norma, you old bat, you must be the welcome party. Alexa wiped the go-to-Hell look from her face and replaced it with a look of complacency, tightly pressed lips with upturned corners. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I’m out on bail,” Alexa said, handing out her parking pass.

  The old bat frowned so heavily her seventy-two-year-old face could have passed for the remnants of an Egyptian mummy. “Humph,” she fumed. Her eyes scanned the permit through her developing cataract clouds, and she thrust it back in Alexa’s direction. Alexa’s eyes met the old woman’s testy glance, and she fought the urge to speed away in contempt.

  Now at the height of her trial, the public appearance made her stomach flip-flop. As she pulled into an empty space, she used the last swallow of the highly caffeinated beverage to wash down a double dose of antacids. She addressed the rumbling in her midsection. Sorry, can’t avoid the hospital today. She’d tried to avoid the leering glances of her peers since the trial began. Five months ago, she emptied her office and lived as a recluse, interpreting the overnight emergency department studies from a computer system she had set up in her home. But the stress of the trial had corrupted her abilities, and she was no longer fit to read anyone’s MRI.

  She refrained from removing her Burberry aviator sunglasses as she walked through the shadows of the parking garage. Maybe I should leave them on. Why not shield myself from their scrutiny? She hesitated when she got to the revolving door and slowly pushed the aviators to the top of her head. Always a martyr. Let them look.

  She squared her chin and entered the hospital corridors with a glassy glare as patients, employees, and visitors stared her down. Eyes rose from all directions and followed her intently when they met her face. People whispered. Someone pointed. One man chuckled. She blinked and bore her look of complacency and hoped her face didn’t show the pain she carried with her every step. She made her way to the radiology department, and to Dr. Jimmy Thornton’s door. Jimmy, the youngest senior partner in her radiology practice, served as her immediate supervisor. Although they spoke often over the years, she never really understood his character. At times, the arrogance he display
ed was intolerable. His ego dominated both his short stature and his mid-gut paunch. He seemed to have a need to belittle those around him in order to feel less mediocre.

  Jimmy’s self-centered nature stopped with Alexa. He seemed to have a genuine interest in her. He asked questions about her personal life and listened carefully to her stories. He always left a simple, tasteful card — nothing lewd or disgraceful — on her desk on her birthday. She tried to forgive his many faults for that reason. But in the end, she didn’t like him.

  Jimmy had left his door open. He’s expecting me. The click-clack of her heels on the linoleum must have stirred him. Jimmy’s head popped out of the doorway, and he invited her in. “Ah, Alexa. It’s good to see you.”

  She winced at the trepidation in his voice and found the lighthearted façade reproachable. Everyone at the office must have known this day was coming. She’d asked to meet with him at the lunch hour, knowing the ancillary staff would be gossiping in the break room and swapping their desserts, so she wouldn’t have to face them when she walked in. They were her coworkers, people she’d known well and whose eyes she couldn’t bear.

  “How are you holding up?” Jimmy asked, taking a seat. It felt good to think for a moment that someone still cared about her well being, even if his words were merely a polite banality.

  “I’m fine, Jimmy. Thanks for asking,” she lied. She wasn’t fine, and they both knew it. If she were fine, she would be working her usual daytime hours, not spending her days in a courtroom while struggling to interpret a few MRIs at night.

  “How’s the trial going?” Thornton asked and motioned toward another chair. The words fell from his lips slowly, as if treading lightly on the subject.

  She hesitated before she sat. Today was the only day all week she wasn’t scheduled to be in the courtroom. Please don’t make me talk about the trial.