"The Chameleon"

Chapter Four

The next day, Jim was to meet Simon at a Thai restaurant for lunch. He didn't even make any noises about going back to work. There were too many unknowns affecting both Jim and his health, and until he knew what was happening, it would be best for all if he stayed home.

As Jim left his apartment, he inhaled the scent of a beautiful day. It was good to be alive, even with everything that was going on. The restaurant wasn't far and he opted to walk the distance.

He was seated at a table of the ornately decorated restaurant, and the aroma of the house's specialty dishes caused his stomach to growl with hunger. He was waiting for Simon when a fair-haired woman sat down at a table next to him. She was tastefully dressed in a gray suit with a cream-colored silk blouse. Her makeup and jewelry were simple, yet elegant.

She smiled and Jim returned with one of his own. The waitress interrupted their mutual appreciation interlude and brought him some menus, asking if he wanted to order anything before his friend arrived.

"No, I'll wait, but thanks."

She nodded and went on to the next table. Jim felt the gaze of a stranger staring at him. He glanced back in the blonde's direction and found her watching him. He detected a change in her expression that shifted back into a warm smile. She tipped her glass toward him and Jim returned the gesture.

It felt good to be flirting with a beautiful woman after the drama of the past few weeks. Jim subtly sniffed the air, catching a whiff of her perfume, thinking he knew that scent from somewhere in the last few weeks.

As he tried to place it, she opened her menu. The waitress swung by again and Jim's new acquaintance placed her order. "Where are your restrooms?" she asked when she was done.

Jim caught a Southern drawl to her speech. The waitress pointed in the direction of the posted sign and left. The blonde stood and headed that way when she turned her ankle. She fell forward, landing in Jim's lap.

She laughed with surprise and gazed into Jim's baby blue eyes. "Well, this is certainly embarrassing," she said softly but didn't rise from the table.

"Not for me," Jim replied with a smile, and then he paused. "Your perfume . . . it smells wonderful. What is the scent?"

"Poison, by Christian Dior."

"It's enticing," Jim said, taking a deep breath.

She stood finally. "I apologize for landing in your lap."

"Anytime," Jim replied, pouring on charm.

"Thank you for being so gracious, kind sir." Her hand grazed his bare arm. Jim grimaced and she pulled her hand away.

"I'm sorry. Did I scratch you with my nails?"

Jim waved her off just as Simon caught his eye. "It was nothing. Really."

"I apologize once again," she said as she headed to the bathroom.

"Who was that, Jim?" Simon asked as he approached the table. "She's a knockout."

Jim shrugged. He was feeling dizzy again and had to clasp the table with both hands to keep from falling out of his chair.

Simon opened his menu. "I don't know about you, but I'm starved."

Jim wanted to say something to Simon to let him know that it was happening again, but couldn't. Jim tried to take slow deep breaths like Blair had him do the night before, but his heart was racing and his breathing was erratic. What was worse, the room shifted and shimmered in his vision, acquiring bizarre new colors and shapes.

"Jim?"

He felt Simon shaking his arm, but he couldn't do anything about it. He was trapped in that damned scene at the café again, losing all track of his surroundings as he dropped to the floor.

"Damn," he whispered before darkness enveloped him again.

Jim awoke just as his doctor was examining him. "Well, Detective Ellison, I'm glad you could join us."

He recognized his doctor, Virginia Mitchelson, and then saw Simon and Blair standing behind her. She was an older woman with an honest, practical approach to medicine, but today she looked . . . disturbed.

"Doc, what's going on here?"

"Those tests I ran a couple of days ago show you've been exposed to a hallucinogen similar to LSD."

Jim's mouth dropped open, his shock preventing any words from coming out, but Simon didn't have any trouble speaking, "LSD? How did that happen?"

Michelson looked to Jim. "Perhaps he can tell us."

Jim shook his head as he stammered. "I have no frigging idea. I was meeting Simon for lunch and feeling better than I have for days."

Her voice was quiet as she said, "It got into your system somehow, Detective."

Jim's mouth dropped open again. The doctor's diagnosis really knocked him for a loop. "I-I can't remember anything, except waiting for Simon to arrive."

Simon stepped closer. "Jim, you were talking to a woman just as I came in."

Jim looked at Simon in bewilderment. "I was? Why can't I remember her?"

Blair interrupted. "LSD can cause short-term amnesia and flashbacks . . . "

Jim's gaze darted around the room. "But . . . but that would mean I've been drugged several times since this shit started."

"It would explain why we couldn't discern any typical pattern in your attacks," Blair said.

Jim swallowed as Simon jumped in. "Doctor, you're aware of Jim's job as a police detective. This could be a case of someone seeking revenge against him. Or maybe someone who has a grudge to settle. How would they be able to get the drug into his system?"

The doctor rubbed the back of her neck, her long red hair rolled into a bun that day. "Well, this particular variation can be given by mouth or injected, but the dose required to cause the level of intoxication Jim has shown would be large . . . It's not something that could be easily ignored." Michellson still looked like she wasn't completely buying into the revenge theory.

"Come on, Doc, you know me. I've been seeing you for a few years now. Do you honestly think I would be involved with something like LSD?"

Before she could answer him, Blair stepped forward. "Remember that Jim is extremely sensitive to medication. What if it's just a very small dose, but Jim's body reacts as if it was an overdose? Isn't that possible?"

The doctor grimaced, pausing in thought. As she pondered, Jim put a hand over the scratch on his arm. It would be impossible for anyone else to see it, but Jim could and the area was still tender.

Something clicked for Jim. "Could it be given as a scratch to the skin? You know, like that man was killed in London years ago with a needle concealed at the end of an umbrella?"

"You're talking about clandestine operations. I don't think that's involv-"

"I remember reading a book once where the murderer would kill using something sharp like a pin that had been dipped in poison and was hidden in a ring . . . " he said as his mind raced ahead, thinking of the various encounters he'd had lately where a person caused him pain with a simple touch, and then he fell victim to an attack.

Jim had the room's undivided attention, and he kept a hand over the sore place in his arm. "Is that possible?"

The doctor hedged for a moment before nodding. "I suppose it's possible, but-"

"A woman. There was always a woman around when I'd have an episode that put me out of it for days. I can even remember her perfume. She said it was something called Poison."

"Who is 'she'?" Simon asked.

"The woman at the restaurant, Simon. I remember her now. She told me that right before I passed out. And I can remember detecting that same scent a couple times in the last week."

"Oh my God," Sandburg whispered.

Simon turned to the speechless doctor. "I'm posting a guard at Jim's door. I want all personnel coming into see Jim to have the proper documentation or else they aren't coming in."

She nodded in agreement. "That can be arranged."

She paused, looking Jim straight in the eye. "I was beginning to suspect illicit drugs were involved. My apologies."

Jim shook his head. "It's understandable given the circumstances. I'm just relieved that we are finally getting to the bottom of this. I was beginning to think I was losing my mind."

"Well, I'll leave you in the safety of your friends and make the necessary arrangements with the staff."

"Thanks again, Doc," Jim said as she paused in the doorway.

"This may be one for the medical journals," Michelson said before entering the hallway and disappearing from sight.

"If you only knew the whole story, Doc," Jim muttered, shaking his head.

"Jim, I want you to make a list of possible suspects who might be able to pull this off. Think back over your cases since joining the department. I'll have Taggert go over your old case files, looking for likely candidates. This isn't the typical M.O. for a person seeking revenge. They should stand out like a Roman candle."

Blair nodded. "You're right, Simon. Whoever this person is . . . she wanted Jim to suffer or she would have killed him right off the bat. The average person injected with the type of doses the doctor was talking about would only experience mild symptoms . . . loss of attention, low grade hallucinations, that kind of thing. Maybe enough to impair their ability to do their job, but I don't think they were planning on Jim's violent reaction to the drugs."

"If that's the case, why didn't they ease off on the dose?" Simon asked.

Jim listened to them brainstorm about his possible stalker, his mind still numb with the revelation of drugs in his system. Blair answered Simon. "Maybe she's really sick and decided she liked Jim's life-threatening situations. Who can know for sure except the stalker herself? All I know is we have to keep her away from Jim at all costs."

He looked to Jim, spurring him to come out of his trance-like state. "It makes a lot of sense, Simon, but I just can't think of any of my old cases that would have someone able to organize something of this magnitude."

"Don't worry about it right now, Jim. Give yourself some time to absorb all of this information," Blair said.

"I've got to head back to the station, but I'll call ahead and order a uniformed officer to come over."

Jim nodded, still stunned by their discovery.

"Are you okay, Jim?" Simon said, moving closer to Jim.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Go do what you have to do and we'll do the same here."

Simon nodded and left. Jim let his mind wander as he tried to process his feelings. His head dropped back to the bed and he sighed. "If it was drugs, Blair, why did I have those episodes whenever I tried to think back to Peru?"

Blair bounced on the balls of his feet for a moment. "We might have two separate issues going on at the same time here. Your body was already weakened by repeated exposure to the drug and maybe it left you more open to physical reactions when it came to remembering painful experiences."

Jim frowned and shifted in his bed. "I just wish I knew for sure the problem is related to suppressed memories. So far, there's just a jumbled mess of images."

Blair shook his head and sat on the edge of Jim's bed. "Remember last night? There were memories there that didn't immediately come to the surface. I was watching your face as you tried to fight the memories. Something's there and I still think you have to face it in order to move on."

Jim put a hand over his eyes. "One emergency at a time please," he murmured.

"Fair enough," Blair said. "Why don't you try to rest for a while? I'll stay here until the uniformed cop arrives for guard duty.

"Guard duty . . . Now that's a role reversal if I ever saw one."

"Don't complain, Jim. At last, we're onto something solid. Simon will get to the bottom of it one way or another."

Jim nodded and let his hand drop to his side. His mind wanted to dive into the investigation with both feet, but his body was agreeing with Sandburg. He needed to rest before he'd be any good to anyone. "You're the boss, chief," he whispered.

He took a couple of slow, deep breaths and was out before he realized it.

Jim woke up in a cold sweat. A nightmare centered around his time in Lima had startled him awake. Glancing around the room, he saw Sandburg was gone and the guard was sitting in a chair outside his door.

Rubbing a hand over his face, he tried to steady his breathing. An old friend, Kenny McCormack, floated to the forefront of his thoughts, his strawberry blonde hair accentuating his freckled face. He was Jim's second-in-command at the Lima posting. If anyone would know what had happened to him back then, Kenny would know.

Jim reached for the phone, but had to grab hold of the bed rail when the room started spinning with his movement. He had to admit he wasn't completely past the latest drug overdose, but it wasn't going to keep him from calling Kenny.

A few minutes later, Kenny had agreed to come see him at the hospital. Jim hung up the phone with a certain sense of trepidation. Maybe he should call Sandburg and let him know what he was doing. He quickly tossed aside that notion. All he would be doing was talking

to an old friend who might be able to offer some information about a blank spot in Jim's memory. There was nothing dangerous with that.

He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the past wash over him again, hoping it would carry him away on that creek Blair had described, but he cautiously held back from allowing the water to take him too far. He had a feeling that would happen soon enough on its own.

10

Chapter 4