she was looking at Thea’s drawings. Dr. Chen held the paper and turned it slowly, reading the word chains.
The broom handle banged against the door as I entered the room and Dr. Chen looked up.
“Hello,” she said. She couldn’t be more than thirty-five, with a sharp intelligence in her eyes and a kind smile. “Don’t think we’ve met. I’m Dr. Christina Chen.”
“Jim Whelan,” I said. “I can come back.”
“You’re the one who stopped the orderly from assaulting Miss Hughes,” Dr. Chen said. “We’re all so grateful to you. Truly.” The doctor looked back at Thea’s drawings. “Have you seen these? Quite extraordinary.”
“Yeah, I have,” I said, glancing behind me, expecting Delia Hughes to materialize in a cloud of green smoke. “Thea uses them to communicate. I think they’re her memory.”
“Do you?” Her tone was inviting, not derogatory. “How so?”
I crossed over to her. Hell, if I were going to quit anyway, I had nothing to lose. I pulled out the folded drawing I kept in my back pocket. “You see this one?” I pointed to the word chain:
Rue true blue bluest sky eye my smile rile rain pain pain pain
“Those are song lyrics,” I said. “‘Sweet Child O’ Mine.’ I played it for her when I took her for a walk, and she drew this the next day.”
Dr. Chen’s eyes widened. “Has this happened more than once?”
I found and showed her more examples, along with the drawing that clued me in to Brett’s assaults.
Dr. Chen nodded. “I see.”
Hope took flight in my heart. “D-D-Do you?”
She nodded. “Dr. Stevens’ notes regard the word chains as Thea’s brain exercising itself the only way it knows how. But perhaps that’s because he had no context for them.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Do they m-m-mean anything to you?” I asked, my jaw stiffening at that damn stutter.
She cocked her head. “You have a slight disfluency, Jim?” Before I could answer, she said, “I only bring it up so that we can acknowledge it, and you don’t have to feel self-conscious.” Her focus went back to the word chains. “I heard about Thea’s painting. She ruined it as a result of the abuse happening to her at night?”
“Yes,” I said. “Exactly. She r-r-remembers.”
Dr. Chen studied the drawing a final time. “We’ll see. Some tests need to be run, of course.”
“You can help her?”
The doctor gathered the drawings into a stack and tucked them under her arm. “Before coming here, I completed a fellowship with Dr. Bernard Milton, one of the premiere neuropsychologists in Australia. He’s doing amazing, groundbreaking things to restore memory loss in special candidates, using stem cells and nanotechnology.”
I listened, rapt. As if this woman were unspooling the secrets of the universe.
“When my fellowship ended, I knew at once where I wanted to devote my attention—to Thea Hughes. I had no idea what I would find in her, but my professional curiosity demanded I work with one of the world’s worst cases of amnesia.” She gave me a wry grin. “Maybe my ego had a little to do with it, too.”
My throat was dry. “And?”
“Her file reads as if she were a typical traumatic brain injury patient with no hope of recovery. But between seeing her in person and this conversation right now, Mr. Whelan, I’m quite dumbstruck at how Thea’s case and Dr. Milton’s recent work might intersect.”
I stared. “Is Thea a candidate for whatever he’s working on?”
Dr. Chen smiled. “We’ll see. Can we speak again? I find those who work with patients on a daily basis often know more than their physicians.”
“I’m not sure I’m going to be working here much longer.”
“That’s a shame. Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be here.” She held up the drawings. “I’m going to be here quite a lot.”
Chapter 17
Jim
For the next few weeks, Dr. Christina Chen kept every one of her promises to Delia. She spent hours with Thea, observing her, asking careful questions and taking notes. Pages and pages of notes.
Not that I witnessed it myself. I kept my own promises, staying away from Thea, and Rita kept me updated.
“I think Dr. Chen has a plan,” she said. “I think she might be able to do something for Thea.”
I sank into the chair in the break room. “That’s good.”
“Good?” Rita laughed. “Dr. Chen knows you knew Thea needed more than Magic Markers and scratch paper. You should—”
“I’m leaving,” I said.
Rita stared. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to put my two weeks in with Alonzo. I should have done it two weeks ago,