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  Lydia did know. Dylan had wanted good things for her. Dylan had wanted to keep Lydia safe. Dylan had wanted Lydia to move up the ranks at work. But did Dylan ever really love her? Lydia doubted it. After many near breakups, she was glad she had finally rid herself of him.

  “Clara, I want you to do something. Take this,” Lydia directed as she crossed the room and handed her patient a legal pad and a pen, “and write down one thing you know to be true. One thing you believe in wholeheartedly. We can continue to build a foundation upon what you know, rather than what people want you to know.”

  Clara took the paper and pen with a brief smile. She studied the blank surface and turned the heavy metallic pen in her right hand. After some time, Clara looked up at Dr. Lindenhurtz hoping for guidance, a hint, a subtle suggestion. Dr. L’s face was blank, not in a cold, stony way. No, it was more of a painting with soft, warm edges, and a kind face waiting patiently, suspended, not frozen, but suspended in time. Clara returned to the yellow paper. Her right hand found its way to an empty line and wrote a single truth.

  Clara ripped the paper from its binding, folded it with care, and delivered it to her doctor, the only person she felt she could trust, who was now again sitting behind her mahogany desk. Lydia unfolded Clara’s only truth and read the words which had been scrawled on the page:

  I KNOW YOU BELIEVE ME.

  Lydia did not look up for several seconds. She had not quite decided what to say in response. Clara knew this to be true, but did Lydia believe it? Could Lydia’s doubts about Clara’s parents be substantiated?

  As Clara turned to make her way back to the safety of her comfy chair to await more disappointment—what would Dr. L say? What would Dr. L do?—something caught her eye. For weeks, Clara had stared at the back of that paperweight. For weeks, she had seen a key suspended in that paperweight. But today, something was different. Clara scooped up the paperweight which was much heavier than she thought it would be causing her to almost sweep it right into the floor, and there at the bottom, she read the inscription. Clara knew those words. Those words were a part of her in the deepest measures of her soul.

  “Dr. Lindenhurtz, where did you get this? Where did this come from?” Clara all but demanded, shaking the object as if to emphasize the need for an immediate answer. Her heart, now in her throat, raced, and she broke out in beads of cold sweat.

  Lydia, who was still reeling from those five little words scrawled across the paper, examined Clara’s face, now a mirror of shock. It was her go-to move when she sensed crisis near: evaluate the situation, collect data, analyze the problem.

  “Dr. L! Where did you get this?” Clara implored again, this time pulling a chunky, oval-shaped locket out from under the safety of her thick sweater. “I think it means something. I think it opens this!” She thrust the locket forward. “ I’ve had this locket since before I got...confused. Look!”

  Lydia examined the necklace as her heart began to race along with Clara’s.

  “Ollie! Ollie, you son-of-a-bitch, you know something, don’t you?” Lydia grunted under her breath.

  “This does mean something, right, Dr. L? It’s like…a clue?” Clara said, desperately trying to hold it together.

  “I don’t think this is a clue, Clara. I think this could be the answer to everything. What’s inside that locket?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been able to open it. When my mom…” Clara stumbled over this word, so used to repressing her memories, “I mean, when it was given to me, the key had already been lost.”

  “The key?” Lydia inquired as she and Clara simultaneously peered at the paperweight and then back at one another.

  Almost immediately, there was a knock at the door and the two exchanged knowing glances. They didn’t know exactly who would be on the other side, but they knew it wouldn’t be good. They both tensed with mouths agape at the same time—mirrors once again. Lydia shoved Clara’s files into her briefcase and reached for Ollie’s gift, sweet, perfect, knowing Ollie’s gift and was able to catch it just as it tumbled from Clara’s bewildered hands. She chucked the paperweight inside her briefcase and snapped it shut, surveying the room for anything else that might be useful, spying a letter opener.

  Another knock, this time more urgent. Whoever was out there wanted in. Now. And Lydia knew she couldn’t let that happen. She also knew that the only way out was through that door. She snatched the letter opener in her right hand and clutched the leather-bound briefcase in her left. Lydia assumed—knew—at that very moment that every single person for whom she worked was a liar. She was sure that she was a part of something bigger than herself. Everything was making sense now: the sideways glances, being required to video each session, the secretary who asked too many questions. She wondered now if every last one of them was in on whatever this was, and they were now enemies. They had seen the exchange between herself and Clara moments before, and were swooping in to intervene before things spun out of control. That must be why they were knocking instead of charging in—so that they could talk the doctor down from whatever crazy idea the kid had put in her head and continue “treatment”. Lydia now knew the kid had been telling the truth all along. She took a deep, courage-collecting breath, and in a raspy whisper told her patient, “We have to get out of here.”

  Lydia flung open her office door, and as she did, a man entered with purpose: “We’ll need to calm her down.” He was heading toward Clara who was momentarily frozen between Lydia’s desk and her comfy chair. He approached her, but as he reached for her arms to detain her, Lydia shot toward him.

  “No!” She screamed, startling him. He angled toward the shriek just as Lydia stabbed at him with the letter opener. Blood. She had made contact. The man was holding the side of his face.

  “RUN!”

  Before Clara knew what she was doing, her body reacted. She would make it down four flights of stairs and halfway to the lobby’s outer door before her mind registered enough to inquire, “What’s going on? Who are these people!?”

  “Less talking, more running, Clara!” Dr. Lindenhurtz huffed in chopped syllables. “We can sort out the specifics later! Don’t think, just go!” Dr. Lindenhurtz ordered just as Clara’s brain caught up with her feet. She dashed for the door, not knowing why or what truths may lay on the other side.

  A few more feet, and Clara would be out of this building. This building that has been a nightmare, then a nuisance, and now? Well, now she didn’t even know what this building meant to her. Clara was hoping Dr. L would help her figure that out later. Just as her hands closed around the horizontal brass handlebar of the revolving door with freedom on the street outside, a large, calloused hand closed around Clara’s tiny wrist. The hand which she now saw was connected to Jameson, the security guard for Breemont Medical Facility. Dr. L was only a few steps behind Clara and when she realized that Jameson was one of them, she once again rushed to her patient’s aid. She used all her might to whirl her leather bound briefcase, heavy with the glass paperweight from her desk and Clara’s lengthy file, around in a complete circle before the momentum of the reinforced corner struck Jameson’s temple with a sickening thud.

  Dr. L’s briefcase had connected with such force that it had flung open, sending the paperweight sailing through the air. It landed with the same thud as the briefcase had made when it connected with Jameson’s temple before skidding across the lobby and coming to rest under a leafy oversized fake fern near the elevators. Now papers floated this way and that, softly arcing, before finding a home amongst the strewn mess of papers already on the cold, tiled floor. It was an oddly calming moment in the midst of all the chaos.

  Blood had already begun to trickle down Jameson’s face as he lay on the floor. He was unconscious, Clara knew, not dead. His chest was slowly rising and falling, almost in rhythm with the few remaining airborne papers.

  Dr. L dropped to her knees and slid across the floor in her black dress slacks grabbing what papers she could and stuffing them back into her brie
fcase. As Clara watched her do this, she heard heavy and fast footsteps approaching. The fourth floor bozo, still bleeding, was catching up quickly and he had found a friend. Clara instinctively scooped up two handfuls of paper, crumpling them as she did so, and shoved them clumsily into the leather case. She wasn’t sure what was on them, but what she did know is that they must be important if Dr. Lindenhurtz was worried about collecting them as they bore down on them.

  “They’re coming! We have to go!” Clara screamed. The lobby was a moment frozen in time, save for the two crazy women scrambling to their feet and the three business men in their business attire, who clearly meant business as they closed the gap between them. The front desk receptionist at the main help desk stared in awe at the spectacle unfolding before her. Her usual slightly annoyed countenance was now one of confusion with a possible sprinkling of amusement. She held the receiver of the phone to her ear, but did not answer the person on the other end of the line.

  “Dr. Lindenhurtz, come on!” Clara urged, but Lydia gathered the remaining papers, clicked her briefcase shut, and lunged in the wrong direction. “Dr. L! What are you doing? They’re coming!”

  Lydia made a beeline in the direction the paperweight skidded, scouring the floor for any sign of it. The man from the third floor, whose posse had now had a grand total of three, was in the lobby now. Just as Lydia located and lunged for the paperweight, partially hidden beneath the fan shaped leaf of the fern near the elevator, two of the three men appeared before her. Lydia screeched to a halt, torn between diving for the paperweight, or turning tail and fleeing the building. Ultimately, the only option was to run fast and run far. Lydia spun on her heels and darted for the outer lobby door. The suits were quicker and caught her by the elbows. Their captive struggled for a moment, attempting to squirm this way and that, but she was no match. They were bigger and stronger. Lydia’s one small victory was that despite their uncomfortably tight grasp, she did not let go of her briefcase.

  The men began to lead her slowly out of the building. To anyone in the lobby watching, it looked as if this woman had assaulted a seemingly innocent man, and was now being escorted out by security. In reality, this was a woman who was attempting to rescue a young girl and as a result, was being kidnapped by these two brutes to be taken God knows where for God knows what.

  As the trio reached the door, Lydia’s heart sank. She was sure Clara would have had time to have gotten away, but the third suit had made it to her first. He was not physically restraining her. Instead, Clara seemed to be obediently standing next to him. Lydia gave Clara the look she had given her on so many occasions during their sessions together, the look that said, “What are you thinking? What are you not telling me?”

  Clara knew this look all too well, and she answered by mouthing the word gun while mimicking the action of pulling a trigger.

  A shot rang out. The ceramic floors and walls provided no absorption of the sharp blast, but instead reflected and seemed to amplify the gun’s report. The men’s instinctive flinch from the shock of the shot would have been enough to give Lydia time to escape their momentarily slackened grasp, however the shot fired was from the third captor’s pocket. The gun had discharged a bullet directly into his right leg. It traveled through his thigh and completely through his femoral artery. When he saw the sheer quantity of blood his partner was losing, the first of Lydia’s captors let go of her and rushed to help. While he applied pressure in vain with one hand and fumbled to remove his belt in the hopes of creating a makeshift tourniquet with the other, Lydia bolted back across the lobby diving into the fern. She emerged victorious with the paperweight in hand. She shot back past the bloody heap, grabbing Clara’s wrist and pulling her out of the lobby’s revolving door. When lug number two realized what was happening, he made for the door as well. Clara, finally snapping back into the moment, knew he was coming for them. She pulled a waste can from the sidewalk and turned it on its side, wedging it in the revolving door. Number Two had almost made it outside, but was now stuck in a separate wedge of the door. No matter how hard he pushed, he could not budge the door far enough in either direction to free himself. Clara and Lydia crossed under the small awning into the parking garage, finally escaping their three captors—in addition to a fourth who was just showing up to the party, only to find one of his cohorts kneeling over the lifeless body of another, and yet another imprisoned in the glass revolving door of 417 Canal Street.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lydia, thankful to have chosen sensible shoes rather than flashy heels like some of her more feminine counterparts, corkscrewed up and around the first and then the second floor of the multi-level garage, while Clara trailed a few steps behind. Her doctor, who was fumbling for her keys, was leading her toward the truth, only this time it was in the most physical sense.

  “Dammit!” Lydia spat into the echo-ey gloom, instantly aware that cursing in front of patients was altogether unprofessional. Lydia was the type to care about professionalism and rules even when all the rules had been broken. She needed order, structure.

  “What’s wrong, Dr. L?” Clara already knew.

  “It’s fine. It’s nothing; just keep running!” Lydia continued to search her pockets in vain as they made their final approach to the silver sedan. Sensible shoes, sensible car. Those were the only two aspects of this situation that were sensible. “I can’t believe I forgot my keys. How could I have forgotten my keys,” she muttered. She could see them just inside the front pocket of her leather purse that lay in the top right drawer of her desk. “How could I have not grabbed my purse!” The realization that after escaping the building, they were still trapped set in as they reached the car. Lydia tried the handle, knowing it was futile.

  “Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Lydia shouted as she stomped her sensible shoe on the pavement beneath her feet, instantly alarmed by the impressive volume of her usually subdued voice. Defeated and breathless, she turned to Clara who was nowhere in sight. They’d gotten her. After everything, they’d still gotten her. But when? How? Clara had just been behind her a moment before.

  “Got it!” Clara triumphed, as she sprung up from behind the rear passenger wheel. She pumped a fist clutching the magnetic box she had just located beneath the rear bumper—a box containing a spare key to the silver Lumina that Lydia didn’t even know existed.

  “Get in!” Lydia screamed. She had heard footsteps in the distance, but growing closer and fast! Clara clicked the key fob and they slid in to the car in sync. Clara reached over from the passenger’s seat, slid the silver key into the silver car’s ignition, and turned.

  “Buckle up!”

  As their seatbelts clicked, Lydia threw the car in reverse and peeled out of her usual parking space. Her tires spun as she shoved the lever into drive and stomped on the gas. Clara couldn’t help but think of the last action movie she had seen where some hero somewhere did the same thing they had just done. Except in that movie—in a lot of movies Clara had seen—the squealing tires were pealing out on a dirt road in the middle of the desert. How did no one notice that tires don’t screech on dirt and gravel? That always drove Clara insane…details, people, details! She chuckled at the thought: Yep, that’s what drove me “insane”, alright. Bad movies.

  The sedan swiveled back down the corkscrew enclosure with such speed that both women had to fight to sit upright in their seats. Just before the usually unoccupied guard shack and automatic lever, Clara spied a single man waving his arms. He was dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit, not unlike that of a mechanic, and he was standing in front of the black and yellow lever that separated the sedan from the open road. Lydia lay on the horn. What did this guy want? Why, today of all days, was someone on duty in the guard shack? Perhaps he was on duty every day at this time. Lydia normally didn’t leave work at 2:30 in the afternoon, so how would she know. Still, the man stood his ground, waving his arms. Lydia continued to honk as she decreased her speed slightly. The poor man didn’t know what was going on, and he certainly
didn’t deserve to be hit by Lydia’s car for simply doing his job on a Tuesday afternoon!

  “Clara, NO! What are you doing?” Lydia screamed as Clara gripped Lydia’s right leg with force and smashed her foot into the pedal. It was all Lydia could do to maintain control of the steering wheel as her silver car bulleted toward the parking attendant.

  At the last fraction of a second, the man—whose name tag, which Lydia was now close enough to make out, read “Mike” in cursive on a white patch sewn to his navy jumpsuit—lunged and rolled out of the way. As her car crashed directly through the parking garage arm, in the rearview mirror, Lydia saw the attendant untuck from a roll, bounce up to his feet and reach into the opened front of his unbuttoned jumpsuit. She found herself swerving to avoid a direct aim of bullets in the next instant. After a few terrifying clinks of connection—the back bumper and possibly a graze along the driver’s side, Clara let go of Lydia’s leg, which was now doing the job on its own, and gasped a sigh of relief as the crack of gunshots diminished with distance.

  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” Lydia cried, speeding toward I-70. She was still out of breath from running in addition to the tumultuous events of the last few minutes, and her knuckles were bone white death grips on the steering wheel—10 and 2—still sensible in the midst of chaos and confusion.

  Both driver and passenger were silent for a time as in their minds they unraveled what had just transpired. They were nearing the on ramps for the interstate. Clara answered the question that had been forming in Lydia’s mind: “West,” Clara directed. “I think we should go west.”

  Lydia submitted and signaled that she was turning right, took the on ramp, signaled that she was merging left, and entered the highway. Always procedural. Forever a rule follower. Mostly, anyway: She accelerated to 74 miles per hour and engages the cruise control feature. At some point she had been told an officer wouldn’t pull you over if you were going less than five miles over the speed limit. As she clicked the button with her left hand, she drew in a deep breath and pushed it out of her lungs with exasperated force. Clara cautiously turned toward her doctor, now her chaperone and chauffeur, and peered at her with worried green eyes. “Where are we going!? What are we going to do?”