Fractured Memory

“By phone around nine o’clock last night. She was asleep an hour later,” Jace said.

“What about Ben?”

Will looked down at his laptop. “He’s not visible on any of the camera views.”

Intuition fired through Eli’s mind. “Call Julia,” he ordered.

“But she’s sleeping,” Will said from inside the car.

“I don’t care. Call her. Get her up.”

Eli rounded the car, opened the door and ripped the laptop from Will’s hands. Jace had the phone up to his ear. Eli could hear the phone ringing through the miniature speakers.

Julia didn’t move.

Will shrugged. “Maybe she’s a heavy sleeper. I’m telling you—Nothing. Happened.”

“That’s the problem.” Eli circled his finger in the air. “Call her again.”

Jace rolled his eyes and with dramatic flair dialed Julia again. Eli would address the tone of those movements when he wasn’t scared something had happened to Julia. This time, she did stir. Eli exhaled. On the feed, he could see her grope for the phone on the bedside table.

Her movements were stilted...clumsy.

Taking the laptop with him, Eli grabbed the phone from Jace in the moment Julia answered the phone. “Julia?”

Breathing. No words.

“Julia—are you okay?”

Was he overreacting? Perhaps she was a heavy sleeper and he’d hastened her from bed the one morning in a long time she was sleeping in. Stress. Being hunted by a killer could definitely sap a person’s strength.

“Hurts...”

He looked back at the laptop feed. She was sitting up rubbing her hand against her forehead. No, not the right words. She was barely able to hold herself upright. Her body would drift to the side and she would jolt herself back into a sitting position.

“Are you sick?” Eli asked.

She slumped backward on the pillows. “Bad headache.”

He pulled the phone from his ear and set it against his chest. “Will, was she drinking last night?”

“Tea—”

“I mean liquor.”

Will laughed out loud. “Julia doesn’t strike me as one who imbibes.”

On the screen, Julia’s arm dangled off the bed and she dropped the phone. Eli shoved the laptop and Jace’s phone at Will. “Call 911.”

“And tell them what?”

“Give them the address. Tell them it’s a medical emergency.”

Eli’s feet pounded the pavement with Jace’s footfalls close behind him. Trees rushed by as he pumped his hands faster to get his legs to pick up speed. Nothing looked disturbed from the distance as he rounded the corner and nearly pummeled the door as he dropped his speed. He jabbed the key code into the lock.

It didn’t release.

He tried again.

Nothing.

“It’s Monday. The lock’s code has changed,” Jace said with his hands on his knees as he huffed from the short sprint.

“Get it.” Eli seethed.

Jace patted his pockets and held his hands up empty. His phone was in Will’s possession. Eli reached for his and keyed in his code and handed it over to Jace and then began to pound on the door. “Julia!”

“I got it. I’m sure she’s fine.” Jace entered the code.

The door released, and Eli almost tripped over Ben’s body crumpled at the base of the staircase. He kneeled down and placed his hand in the middle of Ben’s back. “Ben! Can you hear me?” Ben groaned in response and tried to lift his hand up, but it immediately flopped back down. “Jace, carry him outside for the medics.”

Eli raced up the staircase and straight into Julia’s bedroom.

She remained in the same position he’d last seen her in on the computer screen. Eli sat next to her on the bed and grabbed her shoulder. “Julia. Julia!”

Julia shook like a rag doll under his touch. He licked his finger and placed it under her nose. A faint wisp of breath crossed his finger. He pinched the muscle between her neck and shoulder as hard as he could—a trick from his police days to see if an unconscious person could be roused.

Nothing.

Glancing around the room, nothing seemed out of place. A cup of clear liquid was the only other thing on the table next to her bed. He took a quick sip. Definitely water. No pill bottles.

Will came through the doorway. “What’s going on?”

“Did Jace get Ben outside?”

“Yes, but he’s not waking up. What’s wrong with them?”

“I don’t know.” Eli lifted Julia’s limp body. She was a deadweight in his arms. His throat tightened. Immediately, his mind raced back to the moment he’d cut the rope from around her neck, catching her lifeless body as she fell into his arms. Her skin...so cold and pale. How his breath seized in his chest that he’d been too late to save her.

Just as it did now.

Lord, you cannot do this to me again.

He carried her to the couch, where EMS would have more room to work.

Eli teased her eyelids open and examined her pupils. They seemed normal size—not the dark black holes of the dead or drugged. Julia still didn’t move. The subtle rise and fall of her chest the only evidence of life.

At least this time she was still breathing.