False Memory

stranger’s house.
    The knives.
    She went inside, hesitated, and closed the door behind her.

    20
    Although Skeet’s hands were badly irritated, they were not as raw-looking as they had been a few minutes ago, and they were not scalded. Tom Wong treated them with a cortisone cream.
    Because of Skeet’s eerie detachment and his continued failure to respond to questions, Tom drew a blood sample for drug testing. Upon checking into New Life, Skeet had submitted to a strip search for controlled substances, and none had been found either in his clothing or secreted in any body cavities.
    “It could be a delayed secondary reaction to whatever he pumped into himself this morning,” Tom suggested as he left with the blood sample.
    During the past few years, through the worst of his periodic phases of addiction, Skeet had exhibited more peculiar behavior than Donald Duck on PCP, but Dusty had never before seen anything like this semi-catatonic glaze.
    Valet enjoyed no furniture privileges at home, but he seemed to be so troubled by Skeet’s condition that he forgot the rules and curled up on the armchair.
    Fully understanding the retriever’s distress, Dusty left Valet undisturbed. He sat on the edge of the bed, beside his brother.
    Skeet lay flat on his back now, head propped on a stack of three pillows. He stared at the ceiling. In the light of the nightstand lamp, his face was as placid as that of a meditating yogi.
    Remembering the apparent urgency and emotion with which the name had been scrawled on the notepad, Dusty murmured, “Dr. Yen Lo.”
    Although still in a state of disengagement from the world around him, Skeet spoke for the first time since Dusty had initially mentioned that name when they had been in the adjacent bathroom. “I’m listening,” he said, which was precisely what he had said before.
    “Listening to what?” “Listening to what?”
    “What’re you doing?”
    “What am I doing?” Skeet asked.
    “I asked what you were listening to.” “You.”
    “Yeah. Okay, so tell me who’s Dr. Yen Lo.” “You.”
    “Me? I’m your brother. Remember?” “Is that what you want me to say?”
    Frowning, Dusty said, “Well, it’s the truth, isn’t it?”
    Although his face remained slack, expressionless, Skeet said, “Is it the truth? I’m confused.”
    “Join the club.”
    “What club do you want me to join?” Skeet asked with apparent seriousness.
    “Skeet?”
    “Hmmm?”
    Dusty hesitated, wondering just how detached from reality the kid might be. “Do you know where you are?”
    “Where am I?”
    “So you don’t know?”
    “Do I?”
    “Can’t you look around?”
    “Can I?”
    “Is this an Abbott and Costello routine?”
    “Is it?”
    Frustrated, Dusty said, “Look around.”
    Immediately, Skeet raised his head off the pillows and surveyed the room.
    “I’m sure you know where you are,” Dusty said.
    “New Life Clinic.”
    Skeet lowered his head onto the pillows once more. His eyes were again directed at the ceiling, and after a moment, they did something odd.
    Not quite certain what he had seen, Dusty leaned closer to his brother, to look more directly at his face.
    In the slant of the lamplight, Skeet’s right eye was golden, and his left was a darker honey-brown, which gave him an unsettling aspect, as if two personalities were staring Out of the same skull.
    This trick of light was not, however, the thing that had caught Dusty’s attention. He waited for almost a minute before he saw it again: Skeet’s eyes jiggled rapidly back and forth for a few seconds, then settled once more into a steady stare.
    “Yes, New Life Clinic,” Dusty belatedly confirmed. “And you know why you’re here.”
    “Flush the poisons out of the system.”
    “That’s right. But have you taken something since you checked in, did you sneak drugs in here somehow?”
    Skeet sighed. “What do you want me to say?”
    The kid’s eyes jiggled. Dusty mentally counted off seconds. Five. Then Skeet blinked, and his gaze steadied.
    “What do you want me to say?” he repeated.
    “Just tell the truth,” Dusty encouraged. “Tell me if you snuck drugs in here.”
    “No.”
    “Then what’s wrong with you?”
    “What do you want to be wrong with me?”
    “Damn it, Skeet!”
    The faintest frown creased the kid’s forehead. “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.”
    “The way what is supposed to be?”
    “This.” Tension lines tweaked the corners of Skeet’s mouth. “You aren’t following the rules.”
    “What rules?”
    Skeet’s slack hands curled and tightened into half-formed