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CHAPTER 1 - - THE HOSPITAL

     Mattea Isabella Barrett Chandler was in trouble.  She'd been here - First Presbyterian Hospital - two years ago when her daughter Elizabeth was kidnapped, but this time was different.  She raised her right arm slightly, the pain of the sutures closing the long horizontal jagged cut on her wrist limiting her movement.  Mattea glanced at her left wrist; not quite as many sutures.  Her body was shaking slightly; cold sweat trickling down her sides.  She was absolutely sure she didn't do it.  She stiffened, trying to stop the trembling.

     "I would never try to kill myself," Mattea told the doctor staring at her and she hoped that was true.  "My punishment is to live."  She glanced around the room.  Her head was fuzzy, her mouth felt like it was full of cotton.

     "Why do you think your punishment is to live?"  The doctor asked, looking up from the computer he was reading.

     Mattea closed her eyes briefly, and then looked at him.  He had to be in his mid-to-late sixties, with a body slim and rigid.  His short, military style haircut framed a smooth, unrevealing face.  He made her think of her father; definitely not conducive to sharing her intimate thoughts.  She felt her chest constricting between her breasts, radiating out towards her arms.  It was excrutiating.  Calm down, breathe.  She closed her eyes, breathing in and out slowly.  Don't panic.

     "Because it's my fault she's gone.  If I'd stayed home . . . I didn't have to work.  Every minute of every day I live with what my decisions have cost me.  It would be so easy to close my eyes, let go and the pain would be over.  But, I can't.  My daughter has to live every moment of every day with my decisions."  She swallowed.  "I will never give up; I will find her." 

     To his credit, he didn't try to placate her with empty platitudes.

     "She was three when she was abducted?"

     "Yes."

     "And it's been two years since it happened?"

     "Yes, do you have a point you're making?"

     "Just that despair can set in after awhile."

     "I think it would be abnormal if I, or anyone, didn't experience despair, don't you?"

     "I think we all need help at some point in our lives."

     "True, I don't disagree with that.  I forgot to ask, what kind of doctor are you?"  Please don't say psychiatrist.

     "My specialty is psychopharmacology," he told her, his smile gone, his manner professional.

     "So, the translation would be a psychiatrist specializing in drugs that affect what . . . the mind?"

     "Yes, exactly."

     "So, someone drugged me and slit my wrists," Mattea murmured to herself.  "What drugs could create memory loss?"

     "There are several, but why would someone want to drug you?"

     "I don't know."  She watched his face as he adjusted his glasses.

     He thinks I'm delusional.

     "You don't still think I did this to myself, do you?"

     "Did you?"

     "No, I didn't.  I thought you understood what I just told you."

     The silence was growing.  Was this one of those standoffs where whomever speaks first loses?