Lotus Effect

My first impression of Detective Dutton:

Fat and lazy. With a protruding belly that flopped over his black duty belt, he appeared to me the very essence of what was wrong with the world, America in particular. Do just enough to say you’re doing your job, but don’t strive for anything greater.

God forbid he actually listened. I don’t think Dutton believed me, or he didn’t care enough to find my killer. For him, the threat was gone…if it ever existed in the first place. I could tell by the way his watery, cataract eyes scrutinized me; he was from the old boys’ club—the one that thinks women get what’s coming to them if they don’t behave.

Per procedure, Dutton brought in the doctor to check my vitals and run tests before I was permitted to speak with him. Then he dove straight into questioning.

“Do you remember being at the Dock House?”

“Do you recall who was there that night? Who did you talk to…see?”

“Can you remember anything at all?”

My answer to every question: I don’t remember.

This incensed the detective. He was anxious to put the case to bed, and I couldn’t help his case. But I was in disbelief. As he revealed what was known about the night of my attack, it was as if he was relaying a story about someone else.

He rushed through his speculated theory about what happened:

Cameron and I went to the Dock House. Drew, still enraged from our fight, tracked me to the bar and cornered me on the dock after closing. We fought, and he stabbed me ten times, then tried to hide the evidence by disposing of my body in Dead River. The dark irony of the river’s name was not lost on me. Only nothing but alligators move in Dead River (which, according to Dutton, I was lucky ‘not to be eaten by a gator’). So a rare current must have swept me closer to Lake Eustis, where I washed up onto the lake’s shore and, hours later, was discovered by an early morning fisherman. I was nonresponsive by the time paramedics arrived, presumed dead.

But they revived me.

I had a pulse, although faint. I had lost a lot of blood. I was rushed to Silver Lake Memorial.

“It’s been eight days,” Detective Dutton stressed. “It’s critical that you try, Cynthia. Try to remember what happened that night. Do you recall seeing Drew at the bar?”

I had no memory of the things Dutton revealed. My heart rate spiked, the beeping of the heart monitor increased. A deep ache bloomed beneath the sharp, physical pain, and I struggled to breathe. It’s not true. Only somewhere hidden in my subconscious the truth was surfacing. I felt the familiar sickness in my soul; the twisting blade of betrayal.

Chelsea was pregnant.

I fought with Drew.

Cameron and I went to the Dock House.

And then…

I shook my head. “I don’t remember.” Pain lanced my brain; a rift, a fault forming a divide.

Dutton frowned. “According to your friend Cameron, you walked down to the pier. Do you remember who else was there? Did you see Drew?”

The mention of Cam sparked a flicker of memory. For some reason, hearing my best friend’s name triggered anger. I was upset with her…but I didn’t know why.

“I want to see her,” I said, my throat raw.

The detective crossed his arms, moved close to my bedside. “Don’t you want to see your parents first?” he asked. “They’ve been worried sick.”

Right. My parents. “Yes, please send them in,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

I was fuzzy from the morphine, and generally discombobulated from what my body had suffered, but I could still discern the way Detective Dutton looked at me, the judgmental gleam in his narrowed eyes. He analyzed me like a suspect.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll pick this up again once you’ve had time to recover more. Please reach out to me if you do remember anything at all…no matter how trivial. Maybe you’ll start to get your memory back when the drugs wear off.” He laid his card on the tray and tapped it twice.

We both knew that wasn’t true. The first hours of any investigation were imperative to find the perpetrator. As such, the first recollections from a victim are vital. Chances were, any recovered memories would be suspect to media influence, and what my family and friends revealed to me. The narrative of my attack would be lost until my mind decided otherwise.

I found the strength to push myself up on the bed as my parents entered the room. Seeing my mother’s face in that moment… It was like a blow to my shredded stomach. She had aged ten years since I last saw her, and my father—the ever stubborn, unmovable rock in our small family—was a withered shell of his former self.

I bore the hugs, the touches, the fretting over my comfort, only because they didn’t probe or demand to know what happened. Their relief over their only daughter being brought back from the dead was their sole focus, their moment of rejoice. They didn’t want to taint the reunion. I was grateful.