Erased, page 21
The message clicked off. Gemma stood motionless for a long time. Eventually, the shiver running down her spine caused her to move. She pressed a button on the phone to replay the message. Dani’s voice, clear and calm, held no irony or bitterness. She seemed to be sincere. But Dani’s message of goodwill was not the reason Gemma listened so carefully to each word. There it was again, the second time. Dani had said “Bloody Betty.” When the message concluded, Gemma slid into a kitchen chair, stunned and confused. She had never told a soul about Bloody Betty. Nobody knew about her. Nobody. But Dani knew. She not only knew the name, but she knew what it meant.
She sat staring at the wall, unseeing, for a long time, until Bear rubbed against her leg, rousing her.
Then she called Miko. “I need to talk. Can I come over? Something’s very wrong.”
As soon as Gemma was inside Miko’s apartment, she sank into the sofa and burst into tears. Miko sat next to her, patting her knee.
“What happened?” she asked impatiently, then shoved a box of tissues toward her.
Gemma took one and dried her eyes, then blew her nose, trying hard to get control of herself. After a few minutes, she finally felt capable of talking.
“Miko, I’m so confused.” She crumpled the tissue in her palm.
“This is about Dani again, isn’t it?” Miko sighed melodramatically.
Oreo came up and put his nose against Gemma’s knee sympathetically. She reached down to pat him on the head.
“Is she still on the loose?” Miko asked.
“Apparently. She left me a voice mail today.”
“Are you afraid she’s going to come back? You can stay here for a while if you’re afraid.”
“Thanks. But I’m not afraid. I don’t think she’ll be back. Oh, Miko, you should have seen the look in her eyes Saturday. She felt so betrayed, so bewildered, like she could never have imagined I would do something like that to her. It broke my heart. It scares me to death to think I could have gotten her killed.”
Miko patted her arm. “Gem, you did the right thing. You can’t have lunatics running around the city with guns. You did the right thing cooperating with the police.”
“I don’t know. I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Why not? What should you have done instead?”
Gemma shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m telling you, I’m confused.” Gemma rubbed her hand across her wet eyes. “She thinks I’m her wife. She thinks she’s in love with me, that we had a life together. And then…I betrayed her.”
“Oh, don’t start crying again, Gem. Whatever she thinks, it’s not your doing. I hope they find her and get her the help she needs. That’s the best thing. What did she say in the voice mail anyway?”
“She said she forgave me for setting her up with the cops. She said she loves me and…well, it sounded like a good-bye.” Gemma dabbed the wadded tissue into the corner of her eye. “I just don’t know what to do. If she dies while I have the means to save her, I may as well have killed her myself.”
“What are you talking about, if she dies?”
Gemma put her hand in her pocket and wrapped it around the metallic tube there, bringing it out to display in her palm. “This is the thing she came for Saturday, the reason she came over.”
They both stared at it before Miko said, “But you didn’t give it to her?”
“I had no chance. The way things happened, there was no way. For one thing, I thought they were going to arrest her, so I thought it would be better if I kept it for her. I didn’t tell the police about it. I hid it in my room. I actually didn’t think it mattered. When I asked her to come over, it was just the excuse, and I thought this was just a piece of junk, some kid’s toy.”
“And now you think differently?”
Gemma shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. I didn’t think there was a chance in hell she was telling the truth until…” Gemma closed her hand over the device.
“Until what?” Miko leaned in, her eyes narrowing.
“She mentioned something from my past that I’ve never told anybody. It was my secret, a name I gave my alter ego. An invisible friend type of thing. That name has only ever existed in my own mind.”
“Really? And Dani knows it?”
Gemma nodded.
“Could you have said it in your sleep?” Miko lifted Oreo into her lap.
“I doubt it. I haven’t even thought of it in a long time. And she didn’t just know the name. She knew what it meant to me. So for the first time I’m wondering if her story could be true. That in some reality she and I are together, have been together for years and I’ve told her things like that.”
“Okay, you’re freaking me out now. What is that thing anyway?”
Gemma opened her palm to reveal the device. “She says she needs it to go back to the future.”
“Seriously?” Miko put Oreo on the floor again and took the tube from Gemma’s hand. “Looks like a lipstick tube. Did you open it? Maybe it’s my shade.” She pulled on one end, trying to pull it apart.
Gemma snatched it back. “I don’t think you should mess with it. It could be dangerous. Sergeant Tyler seems to think Dani could be involved in last week’s bombing on the Peninsula.”
Miko jumped back to the far end of the couch. “Really? That could be a bomb and you just let me try to pull it apart?”
“Well, Dani said…”
“Really, Gem? Do we believe what Dani said? That if she misplaced her bomb in your apartment, she’d tell you she was looking for a bomb? If there’s any chance that thing can blow up, you need to get it to the police ASAP. If they arrest her and find out you’ve been hanging onto that, even if it doesn’t explode, you’re going to be in a shitload of trouble.”
Gemma remembered how Sergeant Tyler had seemed unconvinced that Gemma was telling everything she knew. And she’d been right. Gemma had told them nothing about Dani’s fantastical time travel story. Tyler could tell she was holding back and might suspect her of deeper involvement, perhaps even in a crime. “I guess you’re right.”
“Damn right, I’m right!” Miko sprang off the couch and walked purposefully to the door. “Now get that thing out of here before you blow up my place, girl!”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dani sat on the low wall at the edge of Union Square, people watching. It was a chilly, clear evening, and her clothes were insufficient for the weather. She didn’t have a coat and didn’t see much point in buying one. Her uniform would have kept her much warmer, but she hadn’t worn it since last week. She couldn’t wear it now that she was a “person of interest.” That’s how the news referred to her. They had a sketch, which was fairly accurate, but no photo. As long as she didn’t wear the uniform and didn’t tell anybody her name, she figured she could move around the city more or less openly. She wondered if Gemma had been the one to talk to the sketch artist. Maybe it had been Tyler herself. Of course they had no photo, she realized. There were no photos of her anywhere, not a single one. There were no baby pictures, no school photos, no picture of her graduating from the academy, no wedding photos, none of the dozens of goofy selfies she and Gemma had taken together. She could remember them vividly, but they no longer existed.
She pulled out her phone and held it at arm’s length, smiled, then snapped a photo of herself with a red tour bus in the background. With bitter amusement, she realized this was the only photo of her that would ever exist.
She watched the elevator ride up the side of the St. Francis Hotel toward a gray sky. Across the street, several floors of Macy’s presented their displays to downtown. Looking at Macy’s windows made her think of the holidays. Macy’s windows at Christmastime, it was a big deal. Here in Union Square, the big tree would go up around Thanksgiving and the absurd little ice rink would beckon incompetent California skaters who’d never been on ice before. She and Gemma always came to watch them. She hugged her arms closer, thinking about how she wouldn’t be a part of that world—or any other—by then.
The holidays reminded her of gifts, and that reminded her that her sister was getting married in three days, on Saturday. The church would be full of people Dani knew. She was still debating about whether or not to go. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to go, if she would still be well enough to get around. Even if she didn’t attend in person, she thought, she could still send flowers. Why not?
She consulted her phone to look up the nearest flower shop. It wouldn’t connect to the Internet. She tried again. Nothing. This damn burner, she thought. It was a lemon from the beginning. What does it matter? She stood up and tossed the phone in a nearby trash can. There was nobody to call and nobody who would call her, other than maybe Sergeant Tyler thinking she was stupid enough to answer.
She remembered a florist not far away on O’Farrell St. It would be an easy walk. Walking was a good idea anyway to shake off some of the cold. She left the park and walked down Geary Street past the art galleries and an Asian import store. Everything was familiar. There were memories for her everywhere she went in this city. She’d been walking for a couple of days, going to places she knew, places she wanted to revisit, and sifting through all those memories, most of them good. She was saying good-bye. She’d keep on walking until she didn’t have the strength to continue.
She crossed Mason amid a crowd of tourists and shoppers and stopped in front of the Pinecrest Café. On this corner, as usual, Sally Kirkland held out her hand to passersby. This was her corner, hard won and lucrative. The mostly well-off theater patrons had to pass this spot on their way to the Geary or Curran theaters. Sally, with her stooped, frail body and lined, sad face raked it in. She made enough to afford a small apartment not far away, which she shared with her sister. Enough for rent and food and basic cable. She had her problems, but she did okay.
Dani went down Mason toward the florist. Along the way, she passed a homeless man she knew. He didn’t do as well as Sally because he was younger, around forty, and looked able-bodied. But he was far from employable. His problems were many, both physical and mental. He held a black and white cat gently in his lap. The cat didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the heavy stream of foot traffic. Dani fished a bill from her pocket and tucked it into Jerry’s cup.
“Bless you,” he said, looking up to meet her eyes. She nodded and walked on. At the next corner, she stopped to get her bearings, trying to remember which direction the flower shop was. Hearing a man hollering, she turned to see Jerry, his cat tucked under his arm with all four legs dangling, hobbling quickly toward her, a determined look on his face.
“Lady!” he called frantically. “Lady!”
Moving through the crowd like a runaway rumble cart, Jerry managed to get the attention of the entire block. The pedestrians parted for him like the Red Sea. He did not move fast, as he was lame, but he moved large and erratically. Dani faced him and waited for his arrival. He pulled up to her and stopped, out of breath. He held up her contribution and said, “Lady, this is a hundred-dollar bill!”
Dani smiled. “I know. You’d better put it away before somebody rolls you for it.”
“But a hundred-dollar bill,” he said again, as if he had been unable to make her understand.
“It’s okay, Jerry. Why don’t you go into Macy’s and buy yourself a pair of pants or a new shirt?”
He carefully folded the money. “Oh, I might buy a new shirt, yeah, but not at Macy’s. I’ll go to the thrift store!”
“Very smart.”
He peered into her face. “Do I know you?”
“Once upon a time,” she replied, then patted his shoulder and turned to cross the street.
“Thank you!” he called after her.
After she ordered the flowers, she stopped into a grocery store to get some supplies. She wouldn’t need much, just a few days’ worth of food, some bread, cans of soup, something easy on the stomach. Feeling tired, she decided she had done enough for today and set off toward her sad little apartment.
By Thursday, Dani felt truly lousy. She was too sick to eat anything and stayed in her room all day, venturing out the door only once, to visit her neighbor, Mr. Molson, who by now she knew to be a disabled vet of the war in Iraq. She gave him the pink slip and car keys to her Jetta. “What’s the catch?” he asked.
“No catch. I’m leaving town and I don’t need it. I don’t have time to sell it and I don’t know anybody else to give it to. It runs okay. If you don’t need a car, you can sell it. It’s not worth much, but you might get a couple thousand for it. It’s in the garage across the street. Stall 433, which is paid up for the rest of the month.”
He looked puzzled, then chuckled. “It’s not stolen, is it?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I just bought it. Didn’t even get it registered, so you can put it in your name.”
“Thanks!” Molson looked at her more intently, into her eyes. “Are you okay? You look kinda beat up.”
“I’m feeling lousy, actually. Food poisoning. That’s what I get for eating at cheap dives.”
The answer seemed to satisfy him.
Tying up loose ends, that’s what she was doing. She couldn’t do much for Sergeant Tyler about the mystery of her identity. When they found her body, along with the uniform, police badge, her driver’s license and her credit cards, all in the name of Daniella Barsetti, they’d be left without answers. She knew how that would eat at Tyler for years.
There was one more thing, the money. She’d given out a few hundreds to the homeless, but she still had around ten thousand dollars. She’d been trying to think of something she could do with it, something that would really help somebody. She didn’t want to leave it here for the police to confiscate. She didn’t have much more time to mull it over, but she was confident that something would come to her.
On Saturday, though she was not at all up to it, Dani decided to go to Rachel’s wedding. It was her last chance to see her family and she couldn’t resist the opportunity. She started the day off by eating an unbuttered piece of toast, then throwing it up. She followed that with a slowly sipped half a ginger ale, which had thankfully stayed down. She took a taxi to St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Noe Valley. It was a beautiful and magnificent cathedral, not the church her family normally attended for mass, but only for special occasions. When you wanted pomp and circumstance, this place delivered much better than their neighborhood church. She tried to be unobtrusive by coming in close to the time for the beginning of the ceremony when everybody else was more or less seated and by sitting near the back. She didn’t want to run into her mother for a number of reasons, but mainly because Aunt Kathy and Uncle Marcello might be in the building, and how could she explain that she wasn’t their daughter after all? If her mother asked them about their police officer daughter, she’d learn that Dani was an imposter. But Dani didn’t expect any of these questions to come up until the reception, which she did not plan to attend. The mystery of Daniella Barsetti would never be solved, not for Sergeant Tyler and not for Nora Barsetti. She tucked herself into a rear pew against the wall.
She could see her mother in the front pew along with other near relatives, but she didn’t see her brother Nick. On the other side were the parents and siblings of Rachel’s groom. A piano stood in readiness for the beginning of the ceremony and flowers were strategically arranged, including the ones she had sent, an ostentatious spray of white, yellow and orange. She hoped the ceremony would go quickly, as she did not feel well and didn’t know how long she could stay awake.
She noticed a young man in the pew in front of her, a family friend the same age as Nick. He’d been a neighbor of their family when they were kids. He sat with his head bowed, absorbed by his phone.
“Hey, Troy,” she said, sliding over behind him.
He looked up, then turned around to face her, his expression one of perplexity. She’d completely forgotten that he wouldn’t know her.
“I…” he began, then opted for the wedding stand-by question. “Groom or bride?”
“Bride,” she answered. “We met ages ago when you were a kid when I was visiting Rachel’s family. I’m a distant cousin. My name’s Dani.”
He nodded. “Yeah, sorry, I don’t remember.”
“No reason you should. But you’re a friend of Nick’s, right?”
He nodded again. “I used to be. When we were kids.”
“I haven’t seen him here today. Have you?”
Troy jerked his head oddly. He was clearly surprised at the question. “You’re a really distant cousin, aren’t you?”
“I guess. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this side of the family.”
He looked embarrassed. “Well, it’s not a secret. Everybody knows. I mean, everybody around here knows.”
“Knows what?”
Even though “it” wasn’t a secret, Troy whispered. “Nick’s in prison. He’s been there almost two years already.”
Dani reeled back in the pew. “Prison?”
“Yeah. He went down for breaking and entering and aggravated assault. He broke into some dude’s house and the dude tried to hit him with a baseball bat. Nick took it away from him and beat him with it.”
Dani gasped, her hand instinctively going to her mouth.
“He didn’t kill him, but it was ugly. It wasn’t the first time, burglary, I mean. He did it to support his habit. They got him for possession too and a couple of other drug-related charges.”
“Oh, God!” Dani said. “How horrible. I had no idea.”
Troy shrugged. “Yeah, it’s too bad. He was really smart, had so much potential. Until he went off track. People tried to help him. It just didn’t do any good.”
After Troy went back to his phone, Dani sat back in her pew, stunned and saddened. This was all her fault, she thought. Because she wasn’t here. In her timeline, Nick was a model student at Cal Poly. His brief detour during high school into drug use had never gotten a strong hold on him. The bad guys he’d started to get involved with had found themselves up against a strong deterrent—Dani. They didn’t want to be around a guy whose sister was a cop, especially after she came down on them. And Nick. She came down on him too. She watched him constantly and kept him straight until he was on solid footing again. Their parents never even recognized the signs. They didn’t know he was in trouble until Dani told them. In this timeline, there was nobody there to tell them. No wonder her mother had looked so stricken when she had thought of her son.
