Persistence of Vision Read online

  *** 

  Maggie sat in a small room in some precinct of the LVPD. She had no idea what the station number was or even what part of the city they were in.

  The police responded promptly but had been unable to wake Jonah. The medic leaning over his gurney on the drive to the hospital smacked his head on the ceiling and cursed when Jonah suddenly sat up.

  They had been checked at the emergency room for injuries, including sexual assault. There was no sign of abuse. All their credit cards, cash, IDs, and other important items were intact. As far as anyone could tell, neither Maggie nor Jonah had been robbed or assaulted.

  Maggie heard the doctor quietly asking the nurse to run a tox screen on both her and Jonah. Maggie was officially offended, but she supposed it made sense. Their questions about what substances the siblings had recently consumed weren’t particularly subtle either, but Maggie was too shaken to be indignant.

  The examinations did yield some strange things. On the back of Maggie’s left hand, three straight lines reached from the base of her index finger down toward her thumb, as though a miniature Wolverine had dragged three tiny knives over her hand, leaving a two-inch scratch. Maggie didn’t have that mark before she blacked out; she was sure of it. The strange thing was that it was not a red mark or scabbed over blood. It was white scar tissue.

  Jonah found something similar. Apparently there was a line, paper-thin in width, but almost eight inches long on his inner thigh. It was a disturbing mark, but he said it didn’t hurt. If the doctor hadn’t asked about it, Jonah wouldn’t even have noticed it.

  Like Maggie’s, it looked like an old injury. Maggie didn’t want to think about what kind of injury would leave a mark like that on Jonah’s leg. How could either of them have injuries they didn’t remember that were more than a few hours old?

  After getting the okay from the doctors, they were sent to the police station where they waited to speak to a detective. They’d been over what they knew several times, trying to make the pieces fit. Neither of them remembered anything after being in the bar. Maggie asked careful questions, but from what she could tell, Jonah had not experienced the same flashes she had. She did not mention them to him.

  They’d lost twelve hours.

  It had been between 12:30 and 1:00 in the afternoon when they got to the bar. Maggie had placed the call to 911 at 1:32 a.m. the next morning. Twelve hours of their lives unaccounted for.

  Maggie felt violated. What if something terrible had happened and she didn’t even remember? Even Jonah had a haunted look about him. That scared her most of all; nothing ever bothered Jonah.

  After hours of waiting under the lights in what could only be described as an interrogation room from the twenties, the door opened to admit the detective. The noise startled Maggie, and she jumped.

  The detective put his hands up in a calming gesture. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He was middle-aged with streaks of gray in his thinning hair and thick mustache. His smile was compassionate.

  “We’ve put a freeze on all your accounts, but no one has tried to use them. Your tox reports came back negative, and the doctors tell us there is no evidence of physical or sexual assault. What that amounts to…is that we have no idea.”

  Maggie’s heart fell. “What?”

  “I’m sorry. We can’t find anything that would have caused this. It’s not a known drug, not a reaction to food or drink, not the cause of an obvious injury. There’s simply nothing.”

  “It wasn’t food or drink?” Jonah asked. He was sounding more like himself again, confident and able.

  “Not that we can tell.”

  “But it must’ve been the drinks.”

  The detective leaned forward. “How do you mean, Mr. Harper?”

  “We made an idiotic, tourist mistake. We both ordered mixed drinks but didn’t watch them be mixed. The bartender could easily have slipped something into them. I was sure that was it.”

  The detective leaned back, looking disappointed. “Of course we’ll fully investigate the bar and its owner, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up, if I were you.”

  “Why in the world not?” Maggie burst out. The drinks. Of course! She hadn’t thought of that, but Jonah was right. It must have been the drinks.

  “Because”—the detective’s gaze fell on her—“tourist traps often can’t be traced. The two of you ought to count yourselves lucky that the side effects aren’t worse.”

  “So that’s it?” Jonah asked after another brief silence. “You have no idea, not even any theories, and we’re just supposed to go on our merry way and act like nothing happened?”

  The detective held up his hands in a calming gesture. “Please, try to understand. We do have theories but no evidence. I know it feels violating to you, but we’ve done about all we can do here.”

  Maggie had a sinking feeling that she and Jonah might never know what had happened.

  “Thank you,” Jonah murmured, “I appreciate the truth.” He sounded far away again, and Maggie wanted to cry.

  “I know you’ve both given your statements already”—the detective shuffled through his papers—“but I must ask. Is there anything else you remember? Even the smallest thing might be significant.”

  Jonah shook his head. Maggie thought about the flashes. They were fading. As time passed she was more and more certain they were just dreams. They were just fragments really and would be of no help. She opted not to mention them. They would do the detective no good. She’d seen nothing coherent, and the guy needed hard evidence, not delusional images.

  “Well then.” The detective stood, and Maggie and Jonah followed suit. “Why don’t the two of you get some sleep before heading home? I’ll be in touch, and if you remember anything at all, please don’t hesitate.”