Recover Me Read online

  “Ten minutes, Evie!”

  Chris’s warning got her moving. Her brother didn’t make idle threats, so she pushed herself out of bed and into the bathroom. The face that reflected back at her in the mirror was more skeleton than human. She’d lost too much weight, indicated by the way her bones protruded from under her skin. As she stared at herself, her image shimmered, and her other self superimposed over her reflection. Every day it became harder to distinguish who she really was, or which Evie she wanted to be.

  She bent and splashed water on her face, trying to shake the image before her. Eva-Ann was taking over, and she was quickly losing the will to fight her off. Everything Evie wanted was in the dream world, and the real world held nothing but a long stretch of empty time. For now, however, she had to get through the evening, so she turned on the shower and tried to shake off the lingering pull of sleep.

  After she dried off and dressed in jeans and a sweater, she walked over to her bed and kneeled down so she could easily slide her hand between the mattress and box spring. She touched upon a plastic bag and pulled it out. Several orange-red capsules bounced about in the baggie. The first chance she could get, she promised herself that she’d sneak back to Chris’s car and take a nap.

  ****

  Bishop sat apart from Groto and Iron Fist in the limo, preferring to keep his back toward the glass partition so he could observe the interchange between the two men. They cruised down the freeway, heading toward the last fight Iron Fist would ever engage in before retirement. The pathetic excuse of a man thought he was walking away that evening, but Bishop knew the truth.

  The pedophile would breathe his last that night.

  “Thank you, Mr. Groto,” Iron Fist blabbered. “Thank you for your forgiveness. I promise to never do it again. You have my word that I’m a reformed man.”

  Sherman Groto’s face revealed nothing. To most, he seemed relaxed, even jovial, but Bishop recognized the ruse. He’d been with the boss long enough to recognize the fury simmering just under the surface.

  “Don’t think my acquiesce to this fight makes me forgive you,” Groto said softly. “Men like you need to have your balls cut off and stuffed in your mouth before being ass raped by every homo in Las Vegas. You can never be forgiven because your sin is unforgivable. Any man who touches a child sexually isn’t a man.”

  Iron Fist was a huge bear of a man, with the force to back up the bulging muscles, but even under the easy nature Groto presented, the man visibly wilted.

  “I swear, Mr. Groto—”

  “I don’t want to hear your fucking lies and platitudes. Just take a dive ninety seconds in and you’ll have made good on your culpability.”

  “I know what I did was wrong,” Iron Fist said. Bishop realized the man didn’t know when to shut up. “I have a weakness, but I promise to get help.”

  Bishop was ready to kill the fucker on those words alone. Only one thing was taboo and that was children. Groto’s own granddaughter had been an innocent victim, a sweet young girl who now had to see a therapist on a daily basis to deal with the abuse she had suffered. Bishop had helped his boss take the pervert apart, piece by piece, and now staring at Iron Fist, knowing the asshole had hurt children, Bishop wanted to exact that same revenge.

  But Groto had a different plan.

  “Thank you for not, you know, killing me or something. I won’t let you down tonight.”

  “I know you won’t,” Groto said. “Mr. Kain will escort you to the waiting pen. I suggest you not leave that area and try to run.”

  “No, sir,” Iron Fist replied, shaking his head. “So this new kid I’m fighting, Blackout, he’s good?”

  “Does it matter?” Bishop asked blandly. He didn’t really expect an answer and Iron Fist didn’t pursue the answer. Instead, he changed topics.

  “I’m going to set myself up in Reno, I think,” Iron Fist continued. “Find a nice community where I can retire and live comfortably. Maybe next to a park or something. Yeah, that’ll be sweet.”

  Bishop had to restrain himself from shooting the fucker. Just the thought of the slimy dickwad anywhere around children was enough to turn his stomach. His hand inched toward his gun but Groto caught his eye and gave a small negative shake of his head. Reluctantly, Bishop pulled back. He may not have the satisfaction of killing the pervert, but he would at least have the pleasure of seeing his face beat to a bloody pulp.

  It was time Iron Fist learned exactly what getting on Groto’s bad side really meant.

  Chapter Two

  Twilight had just begun its decent into night when they hit Interstate Fifteen. Evie still wore her sunglasses, refusing to give up that little bit of petulant rebellion against her brother, even though sunglasses at night was a stupid thing. The only thing she could see were the headlights of oncoming cars.

  Good thing she wasn’t driving.

  “Are you gonna sulk all night long?” Chris asked.

  “Maybe.”

  He sighed. “It’s for your own good.”

  She’d always hated that phrase. “Why do people say that whenever someone doesn’t fall in line with what he or she wants?”

  “All I want is for you not to do drugs.”

  “I don’t do drugs, Chris. I take sleeping pills.”

  He shot her a stupefied look. “You do realize those sleeping pills are addictive, right? They’re controlled substances and you’re abusing them. Same thing as doing hardcore drugs.”

  She turned to stare out the side window, where the fading lights of Las Vegas rapidly fell away. He wouldn’t understand. No one would understand.

  “You’ve changed so much since the accident,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, well, brain injuries can sometimes do that to a person,” she snapped.

  “I just want my sister back.”

  “I’m right here, Chris. Stop being so melodramatic. So what if I want to sleep more? Am I hurting anyone?”

  “If you think you’re not hurting me, then you’re sadly mistaken.”

  The sentence sliced through her heart and some of the defensive chip on her shoulder broke away. Once upon a time she and Chris had been close, more like best friends rather than siblings, but she didn’t know how to explain the transformation she’d gone through while in coma. People dreamed about a world where love conquered all and happily-ever-afters were right around the corner, and perhaps she was no different. Perhaps her damaged mind had taken the opportunity to run with that desire so it created a world to give her body time to heal. It was unfortunate she’d woken up before her dream could finish, leaving John’s fate unknown. That was what made her go back time and time again. He may be a fantasy lover, but she needed to know how the love story ended.

  Evie rubbed her temples, hoping to ease her frustration. Chris didn’t deserve her surly attitude and truthfully, she didn’t enjoy being a bitch. He’d stayed by her side through the accident, had nursed her back to health, and had helped her through her rehabilitation. If anything, her brother deserved a medal.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I swear I’m not trying to be difficult.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment and she let him have the time to figure out if he could forgive her or not.

  “How do you get your pills?” he asked softly. “You have someone giving them to you.”

  “It’s not hard to get them,” she admitted.

  “Who’s giving them to you? Just … tell me a name.”

  That was one thing she couldn’t give him, because she gave her word. He sighed disappointedly.

  “All right, then tell me why you want to sleep all the time,” he said. “Are you depressed?”

  She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Kinda. But not like you think.”

  “I think nothing, Evie, except you might be depressed and need help.”

  “Psychiatric help?”

  “There’s no shame in admitting you might need a doctor and medicine to get you over the nightmares of the accident.”

/>   “It’s not nightmares, Chris. I don’t take the sleeping pills to not dream.” She gave a self-depreciating snort. “Just the opposite, in fact.”

  “What?”

  She waved a hand in the air, as if that would erase what she just said.

  “No, don’t do that,” he urged. “Don’t dismiss it. If it’s important to you, it’s important to me.”

  She wavered, wondering if she could put into words all that was going through her head. The raw emotions were hard to articulate.

  “Something happened to me when I was in the coma,” she said, deciding to try voicing what was going on inside her. “I … woke up in a different body.”

  “Um, I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t either,” she admitted. “I don’t know what happened, how it happened, or even why, but I dreamed … or lived … in some other woman’s body for a time. Maybe it was … I don’t know, a past life, or just a fantasy. Whatever it was, it was as real to me as you and I are right now having this conversation.”

  To his credit, he didn’t laugh or scoff at her claim, although he didn’t jump in with accepting platitudes either.

  “What did this past life look like?” he asked thoughtfully. “Can you tell me a year? Or who this woman was?”

  “I don’t know the year, but I … she … wore long skirts. And it was some type of mining town named Byron City. It was me and my father and we had to get there by a wagon because the train didn’t go that far.”

  She hesitated, not wanting to voice John’s name out loud. If she said his name, it made her memory of him more vulnerable to scrutiny, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to demolish the mental image she held of him.

  “Is that all?” Chris asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied, lying. She couldn’t say any more because she wasn’t ready to share John, at least not yet. “That’s all.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Thank you for sharing that with me, Evie. We can work on that together.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said Byron City. That’s a stepping point we can use to begin research. You don’t need to go back to sleep to figure out what happened. We can look online and find out about this mining town.”

  “You believe me?”

  “I believe that you believe you saw something,” he said, shrugging. “You had a traumatic brain injury so if you’ve experienced something profound, I want to help you figure it out, even if it was just a chemically induced experience.”

  His words confirmed he didn’t understand. Not fully. What she said had been just the tip of the iceberg, so she was extremely glad she hadn’t revealed all of it. Chris was handling her declaration like he did everything else, with a practical grain of salt, but she wasn’t sure if he would like knowing she’d fallen in love with someone in her coma-induced hallucination. Because no matter what he said, she was determined to find him again, to find out the end to the story, and if that meant using more sleeping pills, so be it.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “The abandoned water park,” he replied. “There’s a big fight going down between Iron Fist Mahony and a newcomer named Blackout.”

  “Blackout?”

  “Yeah. Supposedly, when he hits you, you black out. Get it?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Lame.”

  “Most fighting names are.”

  “So how long is this fight going to last?”

  “There are a few fights before the big one, so I’d say we’ll be there for several hours. Why? Got a hot date?”

  She didn’t answer because she knew her reply would piss him off. Her date consisted of going back to sleep so she could be with John.

  “Evie?”

  “No. No hot date. Just wondering what I’m going to do with myself for a few hours since I don’t find grown men punching each other out very stimulating.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Chris replied dryly.

  The abandoned water park, located along the long Interstate Highway that linked Las Vegas and Los Angeles, had been a stupid idea from the get-go. One of the most precious commodities of the desert was water, and a theme park wasting it made no sense. People driving the six hours between the two major cities probably weren’t going to stop over for a bit of fun, especially not when they had to pay top dollar for it. After the initial buildings had been built, the investors had fled, leaving behind an abandoned monstrosity where ghosts were more likely to play. Walls, slides, and cartoonish faces now slowly succumbed to the sand and heat chipping away the surface, layer by layer.

  “What do you do at these fights?” Evie asked once Chris had given a password to the two huge guards at the entrance gate.

  “I’m a cashier,” he said.

  “Like at a concession stand?”

  “No, Evie, I’m a bookie. I take bets and then calculate the payouts based on what the odds had been at the final bell.”

  That shocked her. She hadn’t known that was what he did when he worked nights. Lately, he’d been working extra-long hours so she’d always thought he simply picked up extra shifts at the casino.

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  He shot her an incredulous look. “If it was legal we wouldn’t have to drive out to some abandoned water park in the middle of nowhere. But Sherman Groto pays out a helluva lot more for this gig than just working in the casino.”

  “Who’s Sherman Groto?”

  “No one you want to mess with,” Chris warned. “He’s a shark, and not just in the metaphorical sense of the word. He’ll chew you up and spit you out and has the capability to make you disappear, so don’t bring attention to yourself.”

  The chipped and broken asphalt of the parking lot had a layer of sand covering it, along with weeds tenaciously clinging to life in the surface cracks. Chris parked and motioned for her to follow, even though she wanted to lay back and sleep. So she trudged after him, more than a little annoyed.

  “Hey, Chris!”

  Both stopped and looked behind them to see a man hurrying, trying to catch up.

  Chris smiled and held out his hand. When the two met, it was the typical clasp-hands- shoulder-bump that only two male friends can do.

  “I didn’t know you were working here tonight,” Chris said.

  The man shrugged. “Needed some cash. Glad to see a familiar face.”

  “I hear ya. This is my sister, Evie. Evie, this is Craig Brogan.”

  Evie gave him an impersonal smile, not that she was trying to be rude, but she knew this was going to be a long night. As the two men walked forward, talking between themselves, she dragged her feet, following.

  “Stay with me, Evie,” Chris tossed out behind him.

  She rolled her eyes at his retreating back as he and Craig hurried off for their work. They joined others who waited to receive their aprons filled with opening bankrolls. Activity was everywhere and soon Chris seemed to have forgotten about her as he and Craig got ready to start the evening bets. Evie left them behind as she explored the venue, watching the hustle and bustle of the employees as they rushed to get organized. A construction crew quickly assembled a huge cage made of chain link, forming a large circle, impenetrable to break out of. It was beginning to look like something out of a Mad Max movie and she hummed the theme of Beyond Thunderdome under her breath.

  Sometime later, the initial rush of people arrived. Mostly men with gorgeous women in scintillating attire, all moved toward the mezzanine layer where the best view could be had. All had an air of expectation about them, and the flash of jewels and gold Rolex watches only emphasized the ennui that seemed to encompass the spectators. Evie found a nice spot to people watch, and when the first fight was announced, it conjured up a frenzy as people rushed to place their bets. The amount of money she saw exchanging hands in the ten-minute window until the second bell rang was mind boggling.

  Evie stood on her tiptoes to check out the two fighters who entered the newly built cage arena. To h
er surprise, both were on the smaller side, without bulging muscle and horrendous cauliflower ears. The only padding allowed was the tape wrapped around their knuckles. The announcer made a dance and pony show as he introduced the two men who were about to beat each other’s brains out, then he exited the cage and the fight started.

  Evie winced with each powerful blow between the two contestants. Every time blood and spittle flew, the crowd roared with excitement. For what seemed like an eternity, the men battled each other, giving no quarter and having no breaks. They were equally matched in skill, but after a few minutes, it became clear who was the dominate fighter. The winner pounded his opponent until the other man fell face-down, and still the victor didn’t let up. He jumped on top of the downed man and beat him some more until the loser was nothing but a rag doll. That was when the so-called referee stepped in and ended the fight. The crowd roared its approval and people rushed to collect money as well as to place their next bet.

  Evie watched it all with a sickening feeling in her belly. She’d never liked fighting to begin with, and seeing the brutality live and in color nauseated her. No way could she watch the next fight. So she left her little alcove and moved further away from the perimeter of the cage, heading toward the back of the makeshift arena.

  As she threaded her way through the thick throng of bodies, a tingling awareness danced over her skin. The last time she’d experienced such a weird feeling, she’d slipped off a cliff and ended up in a hospital. Deciding to be cautious, she stopped and turned in a slow circle to study the people around her. As if an invisible hand guided her, Evie looked to her left.

  A man moved through the crush of people, parting them as if he were Moses at the Red Sea. He was a complete stranger, and she had never seen him before, yet there was something about him that sparked a familiarity. She pushed forward, trying to get through the dense crowd to get a better view of his face. His height worked to her advantage because she was able to easily follow, but she halted once she saw him going up a set of concrete stairs guarded by a few big burly men. For a split second, he turned her way. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest and every fiber of her being wanted … needed … to touch him, but he disappeared out of sight. She searched the second level until he came into view once more, and she was able to breathe again.