—
CHAPTER 15
Ever since DiSalvo cleared him of any wrongdoing, Sheldon has been making regular use of Amy's car. Thankfully, she took the time to teach him how to drive last year.
The car bucks when he hits the gas to accelerate away from the stop sign. She's going to need to have her car serviced when she gets back. Sheldon's transition into second gear doesn't go much smoother, and it makes him wish once again that Amy had chosen to buy a car with an automatic transmission. The third pedal that he needs to operate only adds needless complication to an already awkward task.
He remembers the patient way that she taught him how to operate the clutch all those months ago, and how no matter what she had instructed, he still mixed up the pedals from time to time. Though she would smile and gently tease him about it, she never made him feel inferior for his mistakes. Instead, she kept insisting that she had every confidence in him and encouraged him to continue trying his best.
Distracted by the more important task of searching for her, he has been grinding the gears of her car a lot these past few days. The memories are pleasant, but Sheldon longs for the real thing. He wants to have Amy back at his side so that she can tease him about his poor driving skills in person.
There are five houses for sale along the stretch from the medical clinic to the trail entrance. Three of the first four he checked are still being occupied by the owners. When he checked those three, the residents were startled by his appearance on their doorstep, but they were cooperative enough folks once Sheldon explained the reason for his presence.
The fourth house proved to be empty of any and all furnishings. The windows had no curtains, blinds, or shades, so it had been an easy enough task to peek in the windows with the aid of the flashlight setting on his cellphone. There had been no sign of any interlopers, bespectacled brunettes or otherwise.
It's the final house that piques his interest the most anyway. The closest to the trail, it would've been the most likely hideout, if his theories about Amy's rescuer turned captor are correct. After all, how far could a man carry an injured woman without anyone witnessing the incident?
When he sees the 'for sale' sign, Sheldon pulls over to the side of the road across from the house in question. Once he turns off the headlights, he realizes how quickly the night has become dark after sunset. Stepping from the car, his heart pounds in hopeful anticipation. While intuition is nonsense, hokum, balderdash, he remains certain that Amy is here.
He walks across the quiet street, noting the lack of light coming from the house. That will make it easier for him to approach the place undetected, but it also might mean that there are curtains or other window coverings that will obscure his attempts to peek inside.
With as much stealthiness as possible, Sheldon strolls up the yard at the side of the house. Tense and on edge, he listens for any signs of life. His cover of darkness is partially lifted when the streetlights in the neighborhood begin to wink on. It startles him, but it's nothing compared to the startling feeling of something brushing up against his pant leg.
He gasps and leaps back from the sensation. When he looks to find the source of his disturbance, he breathes a sigh of relief to see that it's only a sleek black cat who is responsible. It stares at him, its green eyes shining in the increasing light from the street.
It seems to be quite friendly for a cat. He would've expected indifference, but even in the face of Sheldon's brusque retreat, this animal closes the distance and rubs against his pant leg once again. In better times, he would've bemoaned the accumulation of cat hair on his clothing and then inevitably succumbed to the adorable charm of this little fur ball. These are not good times.
The cat's ears perk up, and in the next instant, it bolts away at top speed. Whether it's on the hunt or on the run, Sheldon can't tell. He begins to suspect the latter when he creeps up closer to a side window and starts to hear the muffled sounds of people talking inside the house.
His heart pounding anew, Sheldon freezes his forward momentum. Despite the fact that the sounds are soft and indistinct, he would recognize that voice anywhere. Amy really is here. Goosebumps break out over his body, and he can't stifle his sharp gasp of elation at having found her. It's not difficult for him to rein in his joy, though, tempered as it is by his ongoing fear for her safety. He stretches one hand out and presses it against the cool, smooth glass of the window. She is so close to him right now, but she's not anywhere near close enough.
Even though he fully anticipated the possibility that she would be here, he has to think carefully about what he should do next. Getting help seems like the most obvious first step. Not wanting anyone to overhear him speaking, he decides to text DiSalvo in lieu of calling 911.
The deputy is quick to respond that help is on the way, and he also texts back his demands that Sheldon not try to enter the house by himself under any circumstances. That request is absurd, of course. He can't even come close to convincing himself that staying back is a viable option. If Amy is being held here against her will, if she's in any kind of danger whatsoever, then he can't risk waiting for much longer. The Palmdale Sheriff's station is over twenty minutes away, and Sheldon is impatient now.
In this uncertain moment, he finds himself coming to appreciate one of the old hillbilly sayings of his father. As a child, he was often told that 'a good Texan man always carries a gun'. Sheldon has always considered that pithy bit of folk wisdom to be dangerous nonsense, but right now he finds himself wishing that he had followed the man's advice just this once.
—-
Simon is so tired of dealing with this woman's bullshit.
He sighs and turns on the dusty table lamp that rests on the table next to Amy's bed. The scant light from the moon doesn't illuminate the room very well through the closed blinds, and the old lamp isn't much better. It flickers and gives off only a muted glow. Whether it needs a higher wattage bulb or a cleaner lampshade is unclear. There's a good chance it's both.
With this added light, Simon can make out the mix of anger and fear that show up in Amy's facial expression. She is glaring at him, but her eyes dart around like a trapped rabbit. Her chest rises up and down while she obviously ponders the age-old, animalistic question of fight versus flight. She wiggles up into a seated position, leaning against the headboard of the bed. Flight's not a viable option, as she's no doubt just discovered, and he's pretty sure that she's all out of fight.
"Of course you want to go home. Quite honestly, I'd like nothing better than to not have to deal with you for even one more day. In fact, if I ever come across your injured body in the wilderness again, I'm going to turn around and run like hell instead of going out of my way to help you. Why do you keep being so damn angry?"
She is clearly still building up to a full head of steam, so he stays quiet, waiting to experience the full brunt of her wrath. Maybe then he'll finally be able to figure out what the fuck her problem is. He doesn't have to wait long.
"You can't seriously expect me to believe that? If you wanted me gone, then I wouldn't still be here. If you really wanted to help me, you would've gotten me to a hospital."
"I already explained that to you, several times over—"
"No!" she hollers. "Instead of waking up somewhere safe, I found myself here, tied to a bed by a man that I don't even know. You told me that I'd been fighting you, that you'd changed my clothes, and that you'd been drugging me."
That's accurate, but when she says it all out loud like that, he realizes how bad it sounds. At least her voice is stronger and bitchier than he has heard it be over the last few days, a good sign that she is healing well. He finds himself speechless, but that's fine because it looks like she isn't done with her tirade anyway.
"You insisted that I shouldn't try to leave, that I'd be sorry if I tried, and that you couldn't try to help me contact my friends. Don't stand there now and act like you've been innocently trying to help me!"
Stunned by her recitation of events, Simon takes a step backwards and sits on the edge of the comfortable recliner. "That's… holy shit, it sounds kind of rapey when you put it like that."
"Kind of rapey?!" she shouts. Her voice has reached an entirely new level of shrill.
"Don't get me wrong, under different circumstances, I'd be happy to get it on. But like this? Forget it. I'm not some pervert."
She stares at him with flushed cheeks and shiny, angry eyes, and he decides that maybe he should have kept part of that to himself, that such a flippant reply is inappropriate at a time like this. Still, he'd prefer to be completely honest. That reminds him to add one more thing. "Well, I am a pervert, but not like that."
"You kidnapped me, you bastard!"
It's so ridiculous that Simon wants to laugh, but he doesn't want to provoke her and make things even worse. He had never actually considered what all of this must be like from her perspective. If that has been her interpretation of events, then it's no wonder why she's been fighting him like he's some kind of monster. All of her strange behavior is starting to make a lot more sense.
In spite of her barrage of accusations, he tries to keep his voice calm. "I didn't kidnap you. I saved your life. Today is the first day that you've even been coherent enough to ask me about contacting your loved ones and going home."
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a prepaid phone. Not daring to go near her in her current state, he tosses the device over to her where it lands in the bunched up sheet near her knees. Continuing his explanation, he adds, "To solve that problem, I went out tonight to get one of these cash paid phones. They're untraceable and private enough for occasions when phone calls are unavoidable. You're stable enough at this point that you could easily go home, assuming you don't keep trying to exert yourself in the stupid way you did tonight. Well, you're physically stable, if not otherwise. Do you always assume the worst in people?"
Amy's angry gaze wavers for the first time. She looks puzzled in the instant before she shifts her attention to the phone next to her. Picking it up and examining it, she seems amazed to have it in her possession.
"Everything I've been telling you is true. I took you here because I've grown to fucking hate hospitals and because I'm more than capable of taking care of the kind of injuries you sustained. I restrained you for your own safety. If you'd been acting crazy and trying to get up in a way that would cause yourself harm, they would've done the same at a hospital. In fact, everything that I did is exactly what would've happened at a hospital. I changed your clothes because you were filthy, and I gave you drugs to help ease your pain."
She swallows hard and wrinkles form on her forehead. It's clear that she's trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Hopefully, this time she will end up with a more accurate picture.
He decides that it's best to be straightforward about the things she has been insinuating. "I have never had any intention of keeping you here against your will. My plan was to help you and then for us to go our separate ways. I'm no worse of a pervert than anyone else, and I sure as hell don't sexually assault people. When I looked at you, even to change your clothes or clean you up, I never saw you as anything other than another injured patient. Clinical detachment is second nature to me."
Amy stares at her knees, holding her head in her hands. He stays quiet to give her time to contemplate his words, for her injured brain to weigh the truth of what he has said, to work the new information into her previous assumptions. A few minutes pass before she drops her hands to her sides and leans back to rest against the headboard again. With her eyes closed, he starts to wonder if she has fallen asleep again. She looks exhausted.
Her skepticism may be fading, but he can still detect it in her weary voice when she asks, "I don't doubt that you worked as a doctor. You're probably right that my wrist and ankle are just sprained. As a scientist myself, however, I am very aware of the seriousness of a head injury. How am I supposed to believe in your good intentions when I could have wound up dying from some unseen complication?"
Simon rubs his own tired eyes. It's difficult not to feel insulted by her various accusations. "First of all, your head laceration was bleeding a lot, just like most head wounds, but it wasn't deep. I wrapped your head with a t-shirt and that stemmed most of the flow. Beyond that, there wasn't much that I or anyone could do for you until I hiked the mile to get you to civilization. By the time I got you this far, I had a very accurate sense of your condition. You obviously don't remember this, but you were in and out of wakefulness even from the very beginning. You weren't actually unconscious because you were able to respond to stimuli. I'm not a shitty doctor. Your symptoms were signs of a concussion, but nothing like a diffuse axonal injury or traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage. I know all of the warning signs to look for, and if you had started showing more serious symptoms, I would've knocked on doors or flagged down a passing car. You weren't in grave danger at any point. I'm not the fucking monster that you seem to think I am."
Amy runs her finger along the phone, undoubtedly savoring the available connection to her home and loved ones. She looks Simon in the eye, and for the first time, she doesn't look at him with fear or outright hatred.
Sensing that he has been successful at helping her begin to unravel the truth, he lets some of his own anger at the situation come to the surface. "I saved your life, finding you out there and bringing you back. Even though you made it difficult, I treated your injuries, kept you hydrated and comfortable. Hell, I even robbed a clinic I used to volunteer at to get the supplies and drugs you needed. I've never stolen anything in my life before that, and now I'm probably caught on some surveillance tape committing a crime. You think I'm a criminal, and you're right, but it was for your benefit."
He tries to control his rant. Under his breath, however, it still leaks out, and he mutters, "All of this thankless bullshit only for you to accuse me of being a rapist, kidnapper, or psychopath. Fuck."
It's not clear whether she hears that last bit or not, but she sounds more apologetic than skeptical when she voices her next question. "Then why did you do it?"
After everything he's been through for her, this is the easiest question of all to answer. "Because once a doctor, always a doctor. I might not want to practice anymore, but that doesn't mean I can pass by a person who is suffering and not do everything in my power to help make them better."
—-