“She looks so—innocent,” he said. “Are you sure that’s her?”
“Absolutely,” said Betsy.
When she spotted them, Daisy’s lips stretched in a smile.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “I know—I know I shouldn’t be here.”
Betsy pulled her close in an embrace. She rocked her patient in her arms, refusing to let go. “Thank God. You’re safe!”
John took Daisy’s rolling bag. Then he reached for her backpack.
“Wait, I’ve brought the papers I found. Let me get them out.”
“They can wait—”
“No, John,” said Betsy, touching him lightly on the shoulder. “I want to see them.”
Daisy knelt on the rough carpet and slid a red plastic folder from the zip pocket.
“I tried to protect it,” she said. “It looks really old.”
Betsy took the folder. The warped edges of the pages were brown as toast. “I remember my mother taking me to university libraries to see primary sources. Vellum like this was used several hundred years ago.”
“And this,” said Daisy, handing her the envelope. “It’s addressed to you. I didn’t open it, honest.”
“Thank you,” said Betsy. She studied it for a moment, then closed her eyes. “It’s my father’s handwriting,” she whispered.
Daisy thought about another letter she had seen once…lying on Morgan’s pillow…the cramped scrawl of her father’s handwriting.
John watched Daisy’s face turn rigid.
“Excuse me,” Daisy’s voice was suddenly harsh. “I’ve got to go to the ladies’ room.”
She hurried away.
“What’s with her?” said John.
“Maybe she’s airsick,” said Betsy. “It was a little plane. She probably got bounced around.”
John shrugged, unconvinced. He watched Betsy’s eyes drift, gazing up to the right, trying to recall something.
“What did I say before she bolted off for the restroom?” she asked.
“You were talking about the letter.”
“What did I say, exactly?”
“You said, ‘It’s my father’s handwriting.’ ”
Betsy bit her lip. “Stay here.”
She put the red plastic folder and envelope into John’s hands. She ran for the bathroom.
As she pushed open the swinging door, Betsy heard a retching sound and the terrifying rasp of a gag. Two Slovak women were knocking hard on the aluminum door of the stall.
“Prosim,” said Betsy, pushing past them. She pounded on the door.
“Daisy, let me in.”
“Go…away. It’s something…I ate.”
“No it isn’t,” said Betsy. “It’s something you are remembering.”
A strangled sound filled the restroom. Betsy dropped to her hands and knees and crawled under the stall door.
Daisy could not protest. Her face was blotched both red and white. Her hand was stretched over her throat, her eyes wide in terror. She was on her knees on the tile floor. Betsy knelt next to her, supporting her torso.
“A thread of air, just a thread. Slipping into your lungs. Follow it.”
“I…can’t—”
“Follow it. Only a thread. It could slide down anything. It has. It enters your lungs. Let it out. In…let it out.”
Daisy nodded.
“See it, Daisy. Visualize it. Slipping in, coming out. A blue thread, a soft blue. Follow it in, follow it out.”
Daisy closed her eyes, listening to the voice of her therapist.
Between gasps, she offered two words, her eyes pressed tight.
“My father.”
John rapped on the restroom door.
He stuck his head in.
“Betsy? Is she all right?”
“We’re getting there. I’ll be out in a few minutes. Just hold on.”
Ten minutes later, Betsy came out of the restroom. She stopped at the water fountain.
“What’s happened to her?” asked John, watching Betsy wipe the cold water off her chin.
“Repressed memories. Something bad about her father.”
“Jesus,” said John.
When Daisy came out twenty minutes later, her eyes were outlined in black kohl, her face plastered white in heavy makeup.
A little boy drinking at the water fountain stared up at her. He ran, grasping for his mother’s hand. The woman took him in her arms, comforting him.
“Daisy has on her war paint,” whispered John. “Watch out.”
Her dark stained lips pressed together, a hard slash across her face.
“I’m ready now,” she said. “Let’s go find that asshole.”
Daisy gave John and Betsy the tracking information from Morgan, leaning over the front seat, following Betsy’s highlighter on the map of Slovakia.