Chapter 58 Vivian
Vivian
Present Day
Vivian opens her eyes.
She’s in an empty room.
No—it’s not empty. As an awareness stirs within her, the room slowly becomes filled, almost like someone’s popping items into a dollhouse: drapes, an IV pole stand, a lighthouse oil painting, a Victorian parlor chair, a commode, faux-candle wall sconces, a mahogany end table.
It’s a room she’s staying in, apparently, though she has no recollection how she got here.
The room is of questionable taste, a mixture of antique meets hospital.
Like Weird Barbie tried her hand at interior design.
Wait. She goes back to the Victorian parlor chair.
She knows that chair. It takes her several tries to focus on it, as too much concentration causes the vise around her head to painfully tighten.
The chair’s petit point embroidered floral backside, the hand-carved headpiece, the brass-nail head trim—it’s an item she sourced for Michael.
For the Knox. She’s at the Knox.
The crushing realization builds in her like a pot of boiling water, until she opens her mouth to release a hot scream.
She gasps for air. Then a second scream rises from her depths, and she similarly lets it loose.
Suddenly a foreign finger urgently jams a couple of pills into her open mouth. Vivian begins coughing as the medication dissolves into her saliva. She immediately recognizes the bitter taste: Xanax.