He hated to leave her that night to go back to the hotel, but he could see that she was tired. He had been with her all afternoon, and he was exhausted too. He had tried to jog her memory further with stories of her early Hollywood days, but nothing more had come back. Just bits and pieces of her childhood in Mississippi. But nothing past eighteen, when she left the farm. It was a start.

Talking to people at length was still wearing for her, and trying to push her memory exhausted her. She was ready to go to sleep, as Mike got ready to leave. He stood next to her bed for a long moment before he left, and smoothed the long blond hair with his hand. “I love you, baby.” He had always called her that, ever since she was a kid. “Now you get better and come home as soon as you can. I'll be waiting for you in L.A.” He had to fight back tears again as he gave her a hug, and then left the room. He had a driver downstairs, waiting to take him to the hotel.

Stevie stayed until Carole fell asleep, and then she left too. Mike called her in her room when she got back, and he was upset. “Jesus,” he said. “She doesn't remember a damn thing.”

“The llama, her hometown, her grandmother, her mom's photo, and her father's barn were the first glimmer of hope we've had. I think you did her a lot of good.” Stevie was grateful and sincere.

“I hope we get past that soon.” Mike wanted her to be her old self, and back in her career. He didn't want it to end like this, with Carole brain-damaged and impaired.

“I hope so too,” Stevie agreed, and he told her he had given a brief interview outside the hospital. An American journalist had recognized him and asked how Carole was doing, and if he had come to see her. He said that he had, and she was doing fine. He had told the reporter that her memory was coming back, in fact she remembered almost everything. He didn't want the word staying out there that she had lost her mind. He thought it was important for her career to paint a rosy picture of her progress. Stevie wasn't sure he was right, but it couldn't do any harm. Carole wasn't talking to reporters herself, so there was no way for them to know the truth, and her doctors weren't allowed to talk to them. Mike really cared about Carole, but he always had her career in mind.

A brief report of his conversation with them turned up on the AP wires the next day, and ran in papers around the world. Movie star Carole Barber was recovering in Paris, her memory had returned, in a quote from Mike Appelsohn, producer and agent. He said she was coming back to L.A. soon, to resume her career. The article didn't mention that she hadn't done a movie in three years. It just said that her memory had returned, which was all that mattered to him. As he always had, Mike Appelsohn was looking out for her, and had her best interests in mind.





Chapter 11




For the next several days after Mike's visit, Carole was feeling awful. She had caught a terrible cold. She was still prey to ordinary human miseries, just like everyone else, in addition to the neurological damage she was trying to overcome, and learning to walk with ease again. Her doctor had two physical therapists working with her and a speech therapist who came every day. The walking was going better, but the cold had her feeling miserable. And Stevie caught the cold too. Not wanting to get Carole even sicker, she stayed in bed at the Ritz. The hotel doctor came to check her, and gave her antibiotics in case she got worse. She had a nasty sinus infection and a vicious cough. She called Carole who sounded nearly as bad.

There was a new nurse on duty who left Carole alone during lunch. Carole was lonely without Stevie to talk to, and for the first time since she'd been there she turned on the TV, and watched the news on CNN. It was something to do. She couldn't concentrate well enough yet to read a book. Reading was still hard for her. And writing was worse. Her handwriting had suffered too. Stevie had long since realized that she wouldn't be writing her book anytime soon, although she hadn't said as much to Carole. There was no way she could write it now anyway. She no longer remembered the plot, and her computer was at the hotel. She had more basic problems to deal with. But for now Carole was enjoying watching TV, as she lay alone in her room. The new nurse hadn't been much company anyway, and was pretty dour.

With the sound from the TV, Carole didn't hear the door of the room open, and was startled to see someone standing near the foot of her bed. When she turned her head, he was there, watching her. He was a young boy, in jeans, and looked about sixteen years old. He was dark skinned, and had big almond-shaped eyes. He looked malnourished and scared, as his eyes met her. She had no idea what he was doing in her room, and his eyes never left hers. She assumed the security guard outside her door had let him in. He was probably a delivery boy come to deliver flowers, but she saw no evidence of a bouquet. She tried to speak to him in halting French, but he didn't understand. She tried English then. She wasn't sure what nationality he was.

“Can I help you? Are you looking for someone?” Maybe he was lost, or a fan. They had had a few of those, looking for her, although the guard was supposed to keep them out.

“You are a movie star?” he asked, in an unfamiliar accent. He looked Spanish or Portuguese. And she couldn't remember Spanish at all. He could have been Italian too, or Sicilian. He was dark.

“Yes, I am.” She smiled at him. He seemed very young. He had a loose jacket on over a dark blue sweater. The jacket looked like it belonged to someone else, twice his size, and he was wearing running shoes with holes, like the ones Anthony wore. Her son said they were his lucky shoes, and he had brought them to Paris. This boy looked like he owned nothing better. “What are you doing here?” she asked him kindly, wondering if he wanted an autograph. She had signed a few since she'd been there, although badly. Her current signature bore no resemblance to her normal one. The bomb had done that too. Writing by hand was still hard for her.

“I am looking for you,” he said simply, as their eyes met. She knew she had never seen him before, and yet there was something about his eyes that she remembered. She could see a car in her mind's eye, and his face in the window, staring at her. And then she knew. She had seen him in the tunnel, in the car next to hers, before the bombs went off. He had jumped out and run away, and then everything exploded into fire and seconds later went black for her.

At the same time she saw the vision in her head, she saw him take a knife out of his jacket. It had a long, ugly curved blade and a bone handle, and was an evil weapon. She stared at him, as he took a single step toward her, and she leaped out of bed on the other side.

“What are you doing?” She was terrified, as she stood in her hospital gown.

“You remember me, don't you? The newspaper said your memory came back.” He looked almost as terrified as she did, as he wiped the blade on his jeans.

“I don't remember you at all,” she said in a shaking voice, praying her legs would hold her up. She was within inches of an emergency button on the back wall that was for a code blue. If she could get to it, they might save her. If not, he was going to slit her throat. That she knew as an absolute certainty. The boy had murder in his eyes. “You're an actress and a sinful woman. You're a whore,” he shouted in the silent room, as Carole backed away from him and he lunged.

Without warning, he slid across the bed, swinging the knife at her, and in the same instant she hit the black button as hard as she could. She could hear an alarm go off in the hall, as the boy reached out and tried to grab her hair, calling her a whore again. She threw her lunch tray at him, which caught him off balance, and at the same instant four nurses and two doctors charged into the room, expecting to find a code blue, and saw the boy with the knife instead. He was swinging wildly at them, still trying to reach Carole, hoping to kill her before he could be stopped. But the two doctors grabbed his arms and pinned him down, as one of the nurses ran to get help. There was a security guard in the room within seconds, who literally tore the boy from their hands, threw the knife into a corner, pinned him down, and put handcuffs on him, as Carole slid slowly to the floor, shaking from head to foot.

She remembered all of it now, the taxi, the car next to it, the laughing men in the front seat, honking at the car up ahead, and the boy in the backseat staring at her, meeting her eyes and then running away, back out of the tunnel… the explosions… the fire… flying through the air … and then the endless blackness that had claimed her … it was all crystal clear. He had come back to kill her after he had seen Mike's quote in the paper that her memory had returned. He was going to slit her throat so she couldn't identify him. The only thing she didn't know was how he had gotten past the guard outside.

Her doctor was in the room within minutes, to examine her, and help her into bed. She was enormously relieved to find her unharmed, although traumatized, and shaking in terror. The boy with the knife had already been taken away by the police.

“Are you all right?” the doctor asked her, deeply concerned.

“I think so … I don't know…,” Carole said, still trembling. “I remembered … I remembered everything when I saw him … in the tunnel. He was in the car next to my cab. He ran away, but he saw me first.” Carole was shaking violently and her teeth were chattering, as the doctor asked a nurse for warm blankets from the heater, which arrived promptly.

“What else do you remember?” the doctor asked.

“I don't know.” Carole looked like she was in shock, as the doctor put a blanket over her, and pressed her for details.

“Do you remember your bedroom in Los Angeles? What color is it?”

“Yellow, I think.” She could almost see it in her mind, but not quite. There was still mist around it.

“Do you have a garden?”

“Yes.”

“What does it look like?”

“There's a fountain… and a pond … roses I planted … they're red.”

“Do you have a dog?”

“No. She died. A long time ago.”

“Do you remember what you did before the bombing?” The doctor was pushing her hard, taking full advantage of the doors that had opened in her mind, blown open by the boy who had come to kill her with the ugly knife.

“No,” she said in answer to the question, and then she remembered. “Yes… I went to see my old house… near the rue Jacob.” She remembered the address distinctly, walking there, and then taking a cab back to the hotel, and getting stuck in traffic in the tunnel.

“What does it look like?”

“I don't know, I can't remember,” Carole said in a small voice, as another voice in the room answered for her.

“It was a small house in a courtyard, with a garden, and beautiful windows. It had a mansard roof, and oeil de boeuf windows on the top floor.” It was Matthieu, standing near her bed, looking fierce. She looked up at him in tears, not wanting to see him, and yet relieved at the same time. She was confused, and he looked past her at the doctor on the other side of the bed.

“What happened here?” he asked in a booming voice. “Where was the guard?”

“There was a misunderstanding. He went out to lunch and so did the nurse. His relief never came.” The doctor looked distressed in the face of Matthieu's fury, which was justified.

“And he left her alone?” he snapped at her.

“I'm sorry, monsieur le Ministre, it won't happen again.” Her voice was ice-cold. As impressive as he was, Matthieu de Billancourt didn't frighten her. She was only worried about her patient, and the horror that could have happened to her at the young Arab's hands.

“That boy came to kill her. He was one of the terrorists who bombed the tunnel. He must have seen that stupid article in the paper yesterday about her memory coming back. I want two guards on her door now, day and night.” He had no authority in the hospital whatsoever, but even the doctor knew that what he was saying made sense. “And if you can't defend her properly, send her back to the hotel.”

“I'll take care of it,” the doctor reassured him, and almost before she could say the words, the head of the hospital walked in. Matthieu had summoned him immediately, as soon as he saw the boy being led out in handcuffs and the police told him what had happened. Matthieu had run up the stairs to Carole's room. He had been coming to visit her. And he had raised hell when he discovered what the boy had almost done. If she hadn't been able to reach the bell, she would have been dead.