Her Daughter's Cry: An absolutely gripping crime thriller Page 2

  Her eyes darted back and forth over the ceiling. “Waking up in the woods. I was lying under some rocks, like a little lean-to made out of the space between them. I was horribly cold and my head was throbbing, and the bright light made it worse. I had no idea how I got there or what to do, so I got up and started walking. I found a river, which was good because I was really thirsty. I drank some water, which probably means I have some sort of parasite now, but I didn’t have anything to boil it with…” She looked up at the doctor.

  He smiled, and patted her hand. “I’m sure you’re fine, but we’ll monitor you. You did the right thing. Dehydration was a much bigger problem just then. Go on.”

  She smiled wanly. “Then I followed the river downhill, the direction it was running. I figured, people live near water, right?”

  Jo shot Arnett a look. Not just anybody would have put that together.

  Dr. Soltero nodded. “Very smart.”

  “By that time, though, I was struggling to keep going. I was thirsty and hot and tired, and felt like I was going to pass out. But I didn’t have any other choice, so I just kept walking until I came to a dirt road, and then I followed that until I hit a paved road. Then I followed that until I got to a town, just trying to put one foot in front of the other.”

  “Didn’t any cars stop to offer you help?” Dr. Soltero asked.

  Zoë quickly looked down before answering. “I, uh, didn’t walk out on the actual road.”

  “Trying to stay in the shade? Also very smart. But you should have come out when you heard the cars.” He laughed.

  Jo glanced at Arnett again, and registered the change in his expression. He’d also seen Zoë’s flicker of hesitation. She looked back at her. “Is that why? Or were you scared?”

  Zoë’s eyes darted over to Jo’s face, and then down again. “Yes.”

  “Afraid of the person who did this to you?” Jo asked.

  “I—I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t know what I was scared of. I just know I was scared. I mean, I didn’t know what happened, or where I was, or anything, and I was just trying not to let myself get hysterical because I knew that wouldn’t help anything. Because you don’t just find yourself out in the woods covered in blood, there has to be something that—” Her throat seized, and she struggled for words through panicked tears.

  Jo squeezed her hand. “That must have been terrifying. But you did the right thing, and you’re safe now. Take a deep breath for me.”

  Zoë nodded, and took several breaths.

  Dr. Soltero continued when she’d calmed. “Then what happened?”

  “That’s it. I just kept going. By the time I found the town, my vision was blurry and I could barely walk anymore. I managed to reach the first building, and the guy called an ambulance for me. They brought me here.”

  “Got it.” Dr. Soltero circled around the bed and patted her arm. “I’m going to order a few more tests for you, including a CT scan. Then we’ll chat again once I’ve had a chance to look at the results, okay? In the meantime they’ll put you in one of our deluxe suites upstairs. We’ll get everything figured out, and before you know it, you’ll be angry at me because you remember all your childhood traumas.”

  Zoë smiled at his joke, and flushed slightly again.

  Jo put on what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “With any luck, we’ll have you identified even before that. Someone must have noticed you missing by now, and must have filed a report. We’ll be back to tell you your real name in no time.” She turned. “Doctor Soltero, may we speak to you?”

  “Of course. I’ll see you again soon, Zoë.”

  Jo and Arnett followed Dr. Soltero into the hall. “We’ll keep it quick, Doctor Soltero, we know how busy you are,” Jo said.

  Dr. Soltero turned on the thousand-watt smile. “Matt, please.”

  “Matt. I know head trauma can be deceptive, but is it possible for someone to lose all their memory from an injury that small?” Jo asked.

  He wagged his head back and forth. “Memory is complicated, especially cases of pure retrograde amnesia like this. A small injury can trigger a minor stroke or epileptic episode we need test results to detect. And, yes, it’s common with even minor insult to have some memory loss. But generally speaking, in a case like this with relatively moderate injury but dramatic memory loss, I’d expect an accompanying psychological component.”

  “Like when someone blocks out something traumatic that happened to them during childhood, but then recovers the memory later?” Jo asked.

  The doctor raised his eyebrows. “The whole issue of adults recovering memories of childhood trauma is very controversial. But your gist is right. You’re asking about dissociative amnesia—people who experience something traumatic, even without an accompanying injury, and have extensive memory loss.”

  “So this probably wouldn’t just happen as the result of a random car accident?” Arnett asked.

  He grimaced. “I don’t want to say it couldn’t happen, because it could. But I’d say in that case it’s more likely the memory loss would be limited to a few hours, maybe days, surrounding the crash.”

  “What if the patient had been attacked and crashed their car in the process of getting away from something traumatic?”

  “Definitely closer, yes. Probably the best way to put it succinctly is, you can get this type of memory loss from a traumatic brain injury, or for psychological reasons without any injury at all. So the less severe the injury is, the more likely I’d hypothesize something traumatic accompanied the event.”

  Jo nodded. “Got it. And I’m guessing there’s no way of knowing when or if she’ll get her memory back?”

  He shook his head. “Excellent guess, that’s also complicated. Most likely it will come back, but there’s no telling when. Sometimes within hours, sometimes not for years, and sometimes only partially. Older memories are more likely to be recovered than newer ones, and more likely to be recovered sooner.”

  Jo and Arnett both nodded.

  The doctor reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out a card. “I’d like to keep her overnight for observation, but if her memory doesn’t come back by tomorrow, we’ll need to place her in some sort of care.”

  Jo traded him a card of her own. “Right. So you’ll keep us updated?”

  “I’ll contact you as soon as I get a look at her test results.” He smiled, and held her eye a moment longer than necessary.

  Chapter Four

  “So, who pissed in your Wheaties today?” Arnett asked as they walked back to the car.

  Jo started at him blankly for a moment before connecting the dots to her conversation with the ER doctor. “Oh, that. I’ll admit, I came down on her a little hard. But she had it coming.”

  “Of course she had it coming. But normally the bigger assholes people are, the less butter melts in your mouth.”

  Jo laughed. “Look at you, stealing my favorite sayings. But you’re right. I’m not sure why it got under my skin that way. Maybe Hill of Beans gave me decaf by mistake.”

  “Lucky for you, I know the perfect remedy.” He reached for the driver’s side door of the undercover Chevy Cruze. “Double meatball sub from Sal’s makes everything right with the world.”

  She slipped into the passenger seat. “What about your dinner?”

  “Laura’s got her book club tonight, so I’m fending for myself,” he answered. “And besides, that blood on Zoë’s clothes isn’t sitting right with me, I’m worried about who it belongs to. I’d like to find out who Zoë is tonight, if we can.”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice. Make it so.” She pointed in the direction of Sal’s. “And I agree. That much blood means someone somewhere may need help, but the question is where? She could have come from any direction out in the woods before she hit that stream she followed, and who knows how long she ran before she passed out last night. This could have happened anywhere in the county, behind God only knows what tree or in what house. We’re looking for a needle in a
forest full of haystacks unless Zoë remembers who she is. But I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight until we check for a missing persons report on her, or any accidents that might be related.”

  They took their food to go, and jumped into the search. Half an hour later, Jo wiped a glop of marinara off her desk as she broke focus with the database in front of her. “From what I can see, there aren’t any crashes with abandoned vehicles, or that would otherwise fit Zoë’s situation, anywhere near the Taltingham area in the last two days. Pretty much all of the roads in the area would have been traversed by now, so anything like that should have been reported. I don’t think she could have been out in the woods longer than that?”

  “Seems unlikely, but we can check with Marzillo to see if she can zero in on the timing any better,” Arnett said, referring to one of the senior medicolegal investigators in their lab.

  “Maybe she drove off the road where nobody can see the vehicle? If so, who knows how long before it’ll be reported.” Jo shook her head, frustrated.

  “True. On to missing persons.” Arnett wiped his hands and pulled his keyboard closer.

  “What do you think, radiate out by county?” Jo asked.

  “Probably best, she could be from anywhere. Lots of camping up there even this time of year among the hard-core set. Time frame?”

  “I say start with cases reported yesterday or today, but we may have to go back farther. She may even have been abducted and held, for God knows how long.”

  Arnett shook his head, expression grim. “You take Oakhurst, I’ll take Hampden.”

  The work was arduous, and disheartening. Although Zoë looked to be in her forties, they had to keep their age range wide. Visual estimates of age could be wrong, especially after the ordeal she’d been through. Even with the tragic reality that most missing women were under the age of eighteen, a considerable number of cases remained to slog through.

  When Marzillo called them two hours later, they’d only found two possibilities, who, when viewed through squinting eyes, might have been Zoë. But phone calls to the families in question had quickly ruled them out.

  “I hate those calls,” Arnett said as they strode down the corridor to the lab. “You raise the family’s hopes, even if it’s only for a second, then the pain’s back in their voice, fresh like the day it happened.”

  Jo nodded, and pulled open the door.

  “Guys, how’s it going?” Christine Lopez whipped around toward them from her now-permanent set-up on the right side of the room, sending her long black ponytail swinging. During a brief period when Jo had been lieutenant of the department, Lopez had partnered with Arnett. When Jo asked to be made detective again, Lopez, still new to the force, had been assigned to another partner. When he’d been hospitalized the previous fall, Assistant District Attorney Rockney asked Lopez to use her considerable computer and internet savvy to help out in the understaffed lab, working with whichever squads needed her. After a few months on that detail, she’d asked interim lieutenant Martinez if she could make the switch permanent.

  “Frustrating. Still enjoying lab life?” Jo asked.

  “Happier than a dog in a vat of peanut butter.”

  “I always did think you missed your calling. Whenever I picture you, I see you in a room surrounded by five monitors and stacks of illegal high-tech gadgets.” Jo dropped into the desk next to hers.

  Marzillo emerged from the back of the room perched on her usual cork platforms, several pencils spearing her dark curls into a tight bun. “Only problem is, now I gotta listen to her music all day. And I use the word music very, very loosely.”

  “Still hate headphones, huh?” Arnett asked, grabbing another chair.

  Lopez grimaced. “You can’t hear anything around you. Anybody can sneak up on you, zombies could overrun the room, you name it, and you’d never know it.”

  Marzillo stared at her. “Seriously. Stop it with the Resident Evil, I’m begging you. It’s warping your mind.”

  Lopez pointed at her with a zombie troll doll. “Classic directional causality error. I play Resident Evil because my mind is warped, not the other way around. And, bee-tee-dub, if you think Resident Evil is the only shooter with zombies in it, you’ve got another think coming.”

  Marzillo stepped closer for a better look at the doll. “Oh my God, that’s horrifying. Please tell me where you found it so I can never, ever shop there.”

  “Psh. I didn’t find it, I made it. I am a woman of many talents.” Lopez grinned.

  Marzillo held up a hand and turned away. “Yep, done with you. Fournier. Arnett. Let’s get down to it, since time may be of the essence.”

  “Even grumpier than usual.” Arnett glanced at Jo. “What, there some sort of epidemic going around?”

  Jo shot him a laser glare.

  “Nope, I’m not even gonna ask,” Marzillo said. “So, you got the same rundown of Zoë’s injuries I did. Contusion on the back of the head, several scrapes and bruises, sunburn. You mentioned the doctor thought this was caused by a car accident?”

  Jo nodded. “She said most likely Zoë wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and was ejected from a car during a crash. But I wouldn’t trust her to diagnose a wart on a witch’s nose.”

  “Excellent call, because it’s total bullshit. The only way she could sustain these injuries from a car accident is if she’d been driving, or riding, while sitting backwards. And in the very unlikely event that happened, she’d have serious soft tissue injury, neck or spine issues, and nothing here mentions that.”

  Arnett shook his head. “The doctor didn’t mention anything like that, and Zoë said only her head hurt. She was moving around just fine, and they hadn’t medicated her because of the concussion.”

  Marzillo pulled up a folder on her main computer and opened a file. A picture of Zoë’s left shoulder appeared. “Also, these bruises. This I don’t blame the doctor for, because the shapes might have still been developing when she first examined Zoë. You can only see the shape faintly.”

  Jo’s brows popped up. “Fingers.”

  “Maybe someone pulled Zoë from the car?” Lopez had come over to look at the pictures.

  “You can’t have it both ways. Either she was ejected from the car and that’s how she got the injury to the back of her head and the cuts and scrapes, or she was pulled from the car, and couldn’t have sustained that head injury. And how do you pull someone out in a way that leaves that mark?”

  They all thought for a moment, miming reaches and holds, but came up empty. “Maybe whoever left the mark did it first, and then she crashed her car getting away from him—but no, that can’t be, or those bruises would have been just as developed as the others.”

  “Nicely caught.” Marzillo smiled at her.

  “So you’re thinking some sort of attack?” Jo asked.

  She nodded. “I can’t say for sure, but that’s what seems to fit best. Look at the location of the contusion, above this curve on the back of her head. It’s hard to fall in a natural way and hit your head like that, you’d have to slide into something. Not impossible, but unlikely. My guess is there was some sort of altercation, maybe an attempted rape. My guess is the attacker, who I’d bet was taller than her, hit her on the head at some point, and they struggled, but she ultimately got away.”

  “Attempted rape. So there’s no evidence of rape in the kit?”

  “No evidence of any recent sexual activity at all, forced or otherwise.”

  “What about the blood she was covered in? We’re worried about the source.”

  “The blood isn’t hers, which we knew before I tested it, since there’s no way that much blood came from a contusion with no laceration.”

  “So maybe she hurt her attacker?” Arnett asked.

  “Could be. But whoever it was, it’s very possible they’re dead or dying somewhere. You don’t lose that much blood without needing medical help. Especially considering the patterns.” She clicked on another picture, of a checked button-down shirt an
d jeans. “Look here, and here.” The bloodstain ran from the top of the collar to the hem of the shirt, and down the length of the jeans. Marzillo pointed with a pen to an area near the shoulder.

  “Blood spatter?” Arnett asked.

  “You win the zombie Kewpie doll. This top part is spatter. The kind you get when someone’s being bludgeoned, or hacked at.”

  “Any chance someone was only bleeding from an arm, say, and flung that arm during a fight or some such, causing the spatter?”

  Marzillo’s eyebrows popped up. “Interesting. It’s possible. I can’t rule that out.”

  Jo nodded. “Either way, this happened right in front of her.”

  “You sure she was the victim?” Lopez asked.

  “No. But since she ended up on the run with a head injury that took out her memory, I’d say it’s more likely she was fighting back than attacking,” Jo said.

  “Do you stick around long enough to do that much damage if you’re just trying to get away?” Arnett asked.

  “Sure. I’m a big fan of the principle of double tap, myself.” Lopez pointed two fingers in a gun shape. “And her wounds, especially the bruises, suggest someone was pulling at her rather than pushing her away. That’s defensive.” Lopez tapped the Kewpie doll’s foot on her desk.

  Jo nodded. “Let’s pull it apart. Scenario one, someone is attacked in front of her. Maybe she and someone else were tied up together by their attacker, who killed the other party, but she managed to get away before it was her turn. Scenario two, someone came up behind her and bashed her on the head but didn’t knock her out, or some such. She fights back, somehow gets the upper hand, and does considerable damage to her attacker. And scenario three, she’s the attacker.” Jo paused, and pointed at the picture. “There was enough blood to soak through her shirt onto the jeans?”