He was right, though; she was exhausted. She’d been up since the brick had sailed through her window.
“Why are you doing this, Brennan…any of it?”
“Life’s short. Why not?”
With that, he shut the door and walked away.
FORTY-SEVEN
Sleep did not come easily to Shyla that night.
Trying to resist the urge to lose herself in a bottle, she picked up her free weights, hoping to work up a sweat and shut down her mind. An hour later, her muscles were shaky and she was sweaty from head to toe, but her mind was still alert and toxic.
Consumed with worry, she gave in and poured herself three fingers of Patron.
Just a little to smooth out the jagged edges, she told herself, but one led to two and, eventually, she was stumbling around the apartment. She was obliterated but pissed off because her mind was still going a hundred miles an hour, only now it was all mixed up.
The more she thought, the more she felt, and the more she drank. In the haze of her stupor, she realized that she’d drunk all of her alcohol. But she wanted more.
“I just know there’s gotta be another stash up here,” she mumbled as she dragged a dining room chair across the kitchen and started digging in the small cupboard above the refrigerator.
The cupboard was empty. The room swayed. She felt the chair under her tip. One moment she was upright, the next she was lying on her kitchen floor. The linoleum felt cool against her cheek but a spot on the right side of her head was throbbing.
“Oh, that’s gonna hurt in the morning,” she said, thinking that she’d had enough excitement for the night. She needed to get to bed. But the cool floor felt so good on her skin. She closed her eyes.
The next thing she knew, her phone was ringing.
A multitude of sensations assaulted her senses as she came to. The pulsing epicenter of pain which shot from a spot on the side of her skull and travelled to the middle of her forehead was the first overwhelming discomfort. Her nose was stuffed and her throat felt raw and parched.
She scrunched her nose. Was that vomit she smelled?
Though she opened her eyes to only a slit, the light was blinding. She quickly squeezed them shut again. Memories of the day before filtered in and the anxiety that went with them returned.
When she first tried to speak only a croak came out. She swallowed painfully and tried again.
“Hello?”
“You sound terrible, Ericson. You okay?” Shawn’s voice seemed unusually loud. Shyla imagined it traveling through the phone line and shattering her eardrum.
“Dandy. Just dandy,” she said, rolling to her back. Every muscle in her body was stiff and sore. She flung an arm over her eyes, “What’s the scoop? You find anything?”
“Uh, well, not exactly. Not Carmen, anyway. But, I came across something else I thought you’d find interesting.”
“Yeah, and?”
“I think it’d be best if you had a look for yourself. Can you meet me down at the station in half an hour?”
She’d rather have jabbed a sharp object into her eye.
“Give me an hour,” she sighed, “this had better be good.”
Fifty minutes later, showered and nearly functional with a second cup of coffee in hand, she shuffled into the precinct building. The spot on the right side of her head still ached, but what was a morning without feeling completely battered? Thoughts of Carmen nagged at her once more.
Shawn was at his desk, his tall frame hunched over the keyboard, pecking out one letter at a time.
“You’ll die of old age before you get a report done. Jesus, Shawn, how in the hell have you survived this long?”
He swiveled in his chair, ignoring her quip.
“Good, you’re here,” he said, “come over here. Look at what I found.”
He pulled the other chair over to the desk, right next to his. As Shyla sat down, she took a closer look at her friend. His stubble was grown out and he had red rims around his eyes.
“Have you even been to bed?” she asked, “You look terrible.”
As if suddenly aware of his appearance, he ran a hand over his thin, blonde beard. “Yeah, for a few hours, but I woke up around four and couldn’t go back to sleep,” he said, giving her a once over, “and you’re one to talk. You don’t look so hot, either.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Shyla waved him off, “that’s why I wasn’t too keen on the idea of coming down here. Now what in the hell is all this about? Unless you’ve got something on Carmen’s whereabouts, I’d like to get back to finding her.”
His gaze captured hers. It settled her just a little.
“Jason filed the missing person’s report first thing this morning. Don’t worry, Shyla, we’ll find her. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.
“Last night, after we did our rounds around town, I went home and crashed hard. Only a few hours later I woke up and my mind was going in about twenty directions but I couldn’t narrow down what exactly it was that was bothering me. Something kept nagging at me and I couldn’t place what it was. Not until, about an hour ago, just before I called you. I think I know who Brennan is.”
Shyla eyed him suspiciously.
“What are you talking about?”
Shawn leaned back in his chair. Despite his fatigue he was suddenly animated. “There was something about looking for Carmen last night that triggered my memory to a missing person’s case that happened not too far from here, about fourteen years ago. It made huge news because the father of the missing boy was an up and coming actor. They ran clips of his parents over and over again, pleading for anyone who had any information to come forward.
“I was about twelve or so, and, though I’d seen kids’ faces on milk cartons for years, it was the first time that it really sunk in that something like that could happen; a child could just disappear and god only knew what could happen to him. It bothered me.”
Shyla was pensive.
“So you’re thinking that Brennan could be that missing boy?” she asked, “That’s a bit of a stretch don’t you think?”
“It was a stretch. I came into the office and started searching the database. I found out that that case had been closed about six years ago, when they identified a skeleton found down by the border. It was that boy. But that’s not what I dragged you down here for. During my search, I came across this.”
With a few jerky keystrokes, the computer screen changed and a missing person’s file flashed on the screen.
Shyla scooted to the edge of her chair, peering at the picture of the boy looking back at her with eyes that were identical to Brennan’s. They were younger, cockier with youth, still untouched by the horrendous acts he had yet to encounter, but they were his nonetheless. It took her breath away.
“Oh, my, god! It’s him.”
Shawn let out a huge sigh and leaned back.
“I knew it right away,” he said, “but I needed you to confirm it.”
Shyla could not tear her eyes from the screen. She held her breath as she read the text on the screen:
Missing: Brian Miller
Age:16. Brown hair, blue-gray eyes, approximately 6’ tall, 185 lbs.
Last seen: August 16, 1996 wearing blue jeans and red t-shirt.
Shawn reached over, clicked back, and brought up a new screen, showing newspaper clips covering details of the boy’s mysterious disappearance. Shyla held her breath as she read. Police were baffled by the lack of clues or leads into the case. Clara and John Miller had put up a small reward for any information which would lead to their son’s whereabouts. There was a small picture in the heading of one of the articles. The couple held tightly to one another; the woman clutching her husband, her face showing her desperation. The husband had his arm around her protectively, his shoulders squared as he looked into the camera, his eyes communicating a fierce determination.
“I have to show him this,” she said breathlessly.
Shawn swiveled around to face her.
“What? Why? This is for our information. We can finally figure out who this guy really is and maybe understand what his relationship to Victor is all about.”
Shyla squeezed between Shawn and the keyboard. With a few deft motions she began to copy and paste documents to a new file. She was going to print up everything that he had.
“He doesn’t know who he is, Shawn. He has no memory of his life before he was taken.”
Shawn grabbed her by the arm and whipped her around.
“Whoa. What? I knew you had to know more about him than you were letting on. What else have you been keeping from me? Who is this guy?”
Shyla looked down at the firm grip he had on her bicep then raised her eyes to meet his with a look of warning.
“I don’t know a whole hell of a lot,” she said.
Shawn took the hint and released her arm.
“All I know,” she continued, “is that he has amnesia. He doesn’t know who he is or where he came from. He remembers nothing past about age 16, about fourteen years ago.”
Shawn narrowed his gaze.
“Well how come he has no record, no prints on file?”
Shyla shrugged and turned toward the screen to finish her chore.
“I don’t know,” she said, “if he was only sixteen when he disappeared, it would be unlikely that he would have prints on file.”
“So what exactly do you hope to accomplish by showing him these?”
In her own state of frustration, Shyla turned to face him once again, her head cocked to the side and a hand on her hip.
“Don’t you think he would want to know, that he has the right to know? Wouldn’t you? Besides, the closer I can get to Brennan, the more I can build trust with him. That trust will lead me closer to Victor. If he finds out who he is and reclaims his former identity, maybe he won’t feel so alone. Maybe he’ll finally start to question his loyalty to Victor, if he’s not the only person in his world anymore.”
“That’s a lot of ifs, Shyla,” Shawn said, “but…if he really does have amnesia, and this really is him, then it’s a case that could be solved. It needs to be explored.”
Nodding her head, she hit the print option and closed the screen. For her, the conversation was over. She was already trying to imagine how to approach Brennan with this revelatory information. How would he react? What would he do?
She gathered the papers from the printer and stuffed them into an empty manila envelope.
Shawn stood up and blocked her path.
“Wait, you’re not going right now, are you?” he asked.
“What’s the point in waiting? Why would I just sit on this information, Shawn? Like you said, it needs to be addressed,” Shyla stepped around him.
“Fine,” he sighed, “I’m going with you.”
Spinning on her heel, she faced him with a look of defiance.
“No, you’re not. I have an understanding, a…certain kind of trust that I’ve been building with Brennan that I can’t afford to breach. I’m going alone.”
Shawn’s skin began to flush hot with anger.
“Dammit, Shyla, this is so typical of you. Haven’t you learned yet that this whole ‘I work alone thing’ isn’t working? You damn near got yourself killed last time you insisted on going by your own rules.”
Refusing to feed off his anger, she remained calm.
“This is completely different,” she said, “I’m not going anywhere near Victor.”
“No, just his sidekick.”
“Say what you want, Shawn, but I’m going alone. Besides, we still haven’t found Carmen. That’s the station’s priority right now. As soon as I talk to Brennan, I’ll be joining you. The more time passes, the lesser chance we have of finding her. You know that.”
Shawn pursed his lips.
“Fine. Keep your phone on you, and don’t, for any reason, go anywhere near Victor.”
It still baffled Shyla, how protective Shawn was over her. She patted her back pocket.
“I’ve got my cell phone on me,” she said, “and I’ll have Brennan meet me somewhere neutral, somewhere safe.”
“Sounds good,” he nodded, “I’m going to drive over to Mrs. Dunsworth’s and see if she’s heard anything yet. I’m hoping the father will be there. We still haven’t had a chance to talk with him. I’d like to hear what he has to say, get a feel for him.”
“Great. I’ve never met him, either. Maybe he can give us a better idea of where Carmen might have taken off to. I’m not going to be long with this; I’m too worried about her. I’ll call you in an hour.”
FORTY-EIGHT
As he crossed over the Sundial Bridge, Brennan spotted Shyla sitting at a park bench not too far off the trail from where he’d seen the doe and fawn with her earlier that summer. Though he knew she would have heard his approach, he noticed she kept her back to him. Her long, dark braid trailed down her straight back. She wore jeans and a blue rain parka.
As he rounded the bench she looked up at him pensively.
“Good morning, Brennan.”
He didn’t like the way her lips were pinched together. Glancing down at the small manila envelope that sat under her folded hands, he suddenly felt like he had walked into some sort of trap. Snapping his gaze up to meet hers, he skipped greetings.
“What’s going on?”
She held his gaze for a breath of a second then, without saying a word, slowly opened the envelope and pulled out a thin layer of papers. Setting them on the park table, she turned them his direction so he could see them straight on. His heart rate quickened as he stepped forward and looked down at the top sheet.
Nothing could have prepared him for seeing his own face staring up at him. He was younger, more vibrant, with a hint of defiance in his eyes, but it was unmistakably him. A flash of memory passed behind his lids; the sound of a woman’s laughter, the smell of stew cooking in the crock pot, and him rushing down the stairs of a two storey house which felt like home. Recognition was clear. His house. His mother. A thousand breaths of history blurring together. A chill ran down his spine.
Reaching down, he picked up the flyer. It felt as if he were in slow motion, moving through thick molasses as the world around him ceased to exist. Only the photo held between his thumb and forefinger existed. Scrolling down, he focused on the text below the photo.
“Brian Miller,” he whispered, his cold breath coming out in plumes, “Brennan Miles…Brian Miller…not so different.”
He looked over the paper and down at Shyla. She was quiet, staring up at him patiently.
“Not so different at all,” she said.
“Somewhere, in the back of my mind, it’s all there. It always has been, just waiting to be rediscovered,” he said before pausing.There were hundreds of thoughts, ideas, revelations, rising to the forefront of his mind, all of them vying for attention. It was overwhelming. He sat down on the bench across from Shyla,“where did you find this? I mean, how…”
“Shawn came across it early this morning while he was sifting through missing person files. We’re still looking for Carmen.”
Distracted, Brennan nodded his head.
“Of course.”
“They’re probably still looking for you, Brennan,” Shyla’s voice was softer than usual but the statement cut through the haze of his chaotic state of mind.
He looked back down at the paper in his hands. His younger self looked up at him as if waiting for him to connect the dots and find where he had been hiding all those years.
Sliding the flyer behind the others, he saw that the next was a photocopy of a newspaper article. In the upper right-hand corner was a picture which altered his universe. It read; John and Clara Miller stand united as they make an appeal to anyone who might have information in regards to the whereabouts of their son.
His parents. John and Clara Miller. Their faces swam in and out of focus. The sound of her laughter once again floated on the breeze and it was no longer a whimsical dream. It was a memory.
He looked across the table at Shyla again. There was an expression on her face that showed her compassion. She was worried about him; it was tangible. She had brought this to him knowing how earth-shattering it would be. She had sat patiently, like a friend, and watched him, waiting to be whatever he needed her to be in that moment.
“Thank you,” he said.
The corner of her mouth turned up with a small smile. Her eyes were soft and gentle. He’d never seen her quite like this before.
“I can help you Brennan,” she said, “We can find them. It won’t be hard.”
As she spoke, thoughts and visions, ones which were so much more vivid and real, rose up to the surface. His life in the institute, the torture he’d endured, the violence and gruesome, murderous acts that he’d committed over the years. He shook his head. “No. No,” he said, “that’s not an option. I couldn’t…I can never go back.”
Shyla reached out and lightly covered his hand with her own. Her skin was smooth and warm.
“Brennan, I know that you’re scared…”
He jerked his head up and her grip tightened.
“I know you’re scared,” Shyla continued, “but it doesn’t matter anymore. None of that matters anymore. It’s over. It’s in the past. It doesn’t define you. They need to know that you’re okay.”
Brennan wanted to believe what she was saying. He wanted to pull her close and hold her tight shutting away the fear she was speaking of. Instead, he pulled his hand from hers and stood up. He held up the papers.
“This boy is dead to them. He no longer exists.”
He turned and stomped up the small, grassy incline to the path.
“Brennan!” Shyla shouted.
A cold wind picked up. Brennan turned one last time as fat, icy rain began to pelt down on his already frigid skin. Shyla had stood up but was still down by the park bench, her face turned up into the wind, undisturbed by the raging storm that was brewing.
She was beautiful. She seemed to always be able to bring him to the doorstep of so many emotions. At that moment, he couldn’t bear them all.