Inside Voices Read online

  “Dr. Davis is a gifted writer. She uses literary techniques to hold the reader in the story and basically takes you inside the mind of twins as they deal with tragedy and life unfolds. The creativity of the story line coupled with the content makes the book easy to read and hard to put down. I found myself visualizing the moments as the author laid out the opening action and developed the plot in a clever and masterful way. The book is outstanding. It is well written, holds the readers attention, and will have you experiencing most every emotion under the sun.

  Thumbs up from me. Five stars and then some.”

  Dr. Bo Brock, author of Crowded in the Middle of Nowhere: Tales of Humor and Healing from Rural America

  “Relevant issues of the day are skillfully woven together in this murder mystery. It will captivate you from the beginning, through many twists and turns, to its gripping end. An excellent choice for any high school library.”

  Claudia Park, Librarian

  Inside Voices

  Sarah Davis

  Copyright © 2020 by Sarah Davis

  Artwork: Adobe Stock © grandfailure

  Design: soqoqo

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat/darkstroke except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are used fictitiously.

  First Dark Edition, darkstroke. 2020

  Discover us online:

  www.darkstroke.com

  Find us on instagram:

  www.instagram.com/darkstrokebooks

  Include #darkstroke in a photo of yourself

  holding this book on Instagram and

  something nice will happen.

  I dedicate this novel to superman,

  tiger bait,

  little mouse,

  chewie monkey,

  and the overly jealous hound.

  Acknowledgements

  I am tremendously blessed to have so many people who patiently gave me their time and expertise.

  Firstly, a huge shout out to Laurence and Stephanie at darkstroke for their faith and encouragement. Their extremely warm welcome and support, as well as the wonderful team, is beyond imagination.

  To the early (alpha) readers: Dr. Oleg, Dr. Elizabeth, Nicole, Michele, Dr. Carolyn, Morgan, and Sharon. You are the brave souls who looked over my early work…the whole entire story. Yes, it could be a trilogy. But it won’t (probably).

  Thank you to the brilliant and kind developmental editor, Maria, who offered insight when the story was in its infancy! And to Tessa, who reminded me to cross my Is and Ts and dot my Ts and Is.

  To Shelby for giving me critical insight for which I will be ever grateful; Dr. Vern, Russ, Lanell, Vivian, Kaylee as well as the local book club members…Cathy, Joanne, Michelle, Lori, Mary, Marydean, Jo, Georgianna, Deedra, Lisa, Sonali…your encouragement means the world; to Harvey, who graciously and unblushingly provided criticism for my blurb; and to Sylvie for your suggestions, encouragement, and smiles - RIP my friend.

  Hugs to my sweet grandma Eunice.

  To my mom…for reading and rereading and rereading (etc). I’m glad you continue to put up with me as an adult.

  To my understanding family for your constant loving support and their constant loving interruption. I love you guys. Meow!

  To all the grey ghosts who I hold close to my heart…there are no greater companions then the noble humans masquerading in Weimaraner bodies.

  Last but never least, to you the reader who will give my story a chance…I do hope you enjoy it. And if you do, please consider to take a moment to review the book on Amazon. Every review for authors helps increase the chances of reaching more readers.

  About the Author

  SARAH DAVIS is a veterinarian who one day decided to write down an idea for a story. A book dragon to the core, she enjoys stories that transport her to imaginary realms and honestly has read more books than she will ever admit. She and her wonderful husband share their remote prairie home with three extraordinary children and a Weimaraner who has a licker problem. INSIDE VOICES is her first novel.

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/sarahdavisdvm

  Twitter: www.twitter.com/SarahDavisAuth1

  Instagram: www.instagram.com/sarahdavisauthor

  Inside Voices

  BEFORE

  Our Father

  The buzzing beneath eighteen-year-old Penny Osborn’s skin started while she spoke to the officer. It worsened during the car ride from her high school in Pasadena to her mother’s veterinary clinic north in Eaton Canyon. As she rested her palms in her lap, atop the wrinkled and blood-crusted jeans, she wondered why her hands were still while everything beneath her skin vibrated.

  A whine from the back of the Jeep pulled her from the depths of her daze; the school’s security dog, Zeus. They were taking him to her mother’s clinic for a complete exam, possibly surgery to remove the bullet. Or bullets. Penny had forgotten he was in the vehicle. She had forgotten getting into the Jeep.

  Her gaze returned to her hands, the hands with the intense buzzing beneath her skin. The hands she earlier tried to clean with hand sanitizer. Many rust-colored crusts still flecked the backs and stained her fingernails. Penny considered the mess she would leave behind.

  “Don’t worry about the seat, sweetheart. It will clean easy enough,” her mother had said when Penny climbed into the passenger seat.

  She scrunched her eyebrows together and tried to recall leaving the school grounds. Her mother, Dr. Eelyn Osborn, and Penny, loaded Zeus in the back. No, that wasn’t right. Billy, the school Security Officer, helped her mother with the dog. Left unattended, Penny sought to focus on something, anything, instead of the pandemonium surrounding her. Her attention drifted to the clear, sharp outline of the mountains. The overnight rainfall had washed away the smog allowing an uncommon view of the mountain tops so sharp against the blue, clear sky - a jagged tear in the ether.

  Upon reaching the clinic, her mother parked in the unloading zone. Penny climbed out with care and walked to the back of the vehicle to help lift the German Shepherd. Several technicians swooped in like white geese coming in for a landing, their white frock coats billowing behind them in their haste. They had with them an electric wheeled cart: one able to lift and lower a hefty animal with ease leaving Penny jobless, standing at the curb, distracted by the buzzing beneath her skin.

  Her mother led her through the back door of the clinic where the antiseptic nasal blast both embraced and comforted her. The fragrance she had known since childhood. While in the employee locker room her mother spoke quietly. How are you doing? Fine. Do you need something to drink? No. Do you mind waiting while I check on Zeus? Sure. Please clean yourself up. Okay.

  The glimpse Penny caught of herself in the locker room mirror revealed the extent of her disheveled appearance. Her hair, mostly freed from its ponytail, fell around her face like limp noodles; the excess blood on her face, arms, and clothes suggested she played the target at the shooting range. But, no external injuries, so said the EMT who examined her. No external injuries. Of course not. She had not been in the field with her senior class but had witnessed it from the picture window in the science room just as in her nightmare the previous night.

  Not a nightmare. A vision.

  Drenched in sweat she had awoken at 11:07 p.m. and unable to sleep the rest of the night. Weary and on edge the following morning, she found it impossible to concentrate during class. Checking out of her second period self-study group under the pretense of searching for props for the upcoming drama club production, she sought to consider what the vision meant. Past visions Penny had experienced foretold future events. Ones that she
was thus far unable to prevent or alter.

  Willy, the white rat from the science room, appeared in the drama storage room in a space between two shelved boxes, startling her and distracting from her worries. He was a white apparition of whiskers and tail. He had been missing for weeks, and as the fire alarm signaled the routine fire drill, Penny returned the rat to his habitat in the science room. It was a drill, after all. Her life was not in danger for being late to joining her senior class that would gather on the athletic field. Perhaps, if she were caught, she might receive a warning or even detention. Perhaps. It was only a drill. She could be late.

  Because of a white rat, she watched the massacre unfold from behind bullet-proof glass in the science room. As she sprinted out of the school and across the road to the chaotic athletic field to help, the white van carrying the shooter sped away, disappearing.

  She moved through students on the field with the efficiency of one who spent years working as an aid at the emergency room with her father, or as an assistant at a veterinary emergency room with her mother. She instructed the injured to apply pressure to their wounds or asked uninjured students to apply pressure if they were able. She placed tourniquets. She closed eyelids on Mark, Sofia, Taylor, Lorenz and whispered apologies to their unhearing ears. Their dreams snuffed out beneath their lids as she watched.

  She was handing out blankets when emergency personnel pulled her from the field for questioning and examination, so she left the blankets for another to hand out. She was cleared with no injuries by a medic. The stressed policewoman thanked Penny for her quick action and then dismissed her, releasing her to her mother’s custody. Penny did not mention the scene she witnessed from the science room was the same she saw last night in a dream.

  Now, in the veterinary clinic employee locker room, clothing on, she stepped into the hot shower and regarded the blood spots expanding across her shirt like her internal injuries broke open with grief for the lost. The scarlet-tinged water pooled and swirled on the white tile floor before disappearing down the drain. When the heat became too much, Penny peeled the clothing off. She scrubbed herself with a vigor out of place on the zombie-like girl. The blood slowly dissolved and washed away leaving behind tan skin. But the memories remained. So she continued to scrub until the tan skin became pink. Then standing naked in front of the sink mirror, she scrubbed at her face, salty tears adding their aid.

  Penny wiped up the pink water that pooled on the changing room floor with her towel and disposed of it in the laundry hamper. She disposed of her clothes in the trash and dressed in an overly large pair of crisp, green scrubs. Her long hair, the color of espresso, hung heavy upon her back, rivulets of water creating patterns on her scrub top. She stood for a few moments in the quiet locker room before the ever-increasing buzz of the overhead lights became more unbearable than the buzz beneath her skin.

  She didn’t want to help with the surgery, so she made her way to the waiting room. The buzzing beneath her skin distracted her. Would she have rather gone home instead? Of course. But Zeus required care, and her mother was one of the best veterinarians to care for him. The room around her hummed with motion from its occupants, and soft overhead music played in the background.

  With a vacant stare, Penny faced the muted television which hung on the eggshell-colored wall opposite her. The few people and their pets, many whom Penny knew from years of working at the clinic, refrained from speaking with her, offering instead sympathetic smiles that Penny didn’t notice.

  “Penny, can I get you anything?” came a soft voice, temporarily breaking through Penny’s oblivion. She blinked slowly, the young woman’s face coming into focus.

  “Blair.” Penny’s voice sounded rough in her ears. Clearing her throat, she began to answer until the “Breaking News” flashing across the bottom of the screen drew Penny’s attention from Blair’s earnest face. The surrounding music ceased, and the television volume rose, amplifying the voice of the Pasadena Chief of Police speaking at a news conference.

  Blair stood next to Penny, her hand over her mouth. Two chairs over sat Mrs. Bailey with her miniature schnauzer, Betty, who hopped to the floor and trotted over to Penny. The salt-and-pepper dog with his massive beard sat down on Penny’s foot and leaned against her leg.

  “Please hold your questions until I finish. Understand I do not have all the answers currently. More information is coming in, and we will do our best to keep the public updated as best we can. There may be some questions I cannot answer due to the ongoing investigation into these events.” He paused in the heat of the afternoon sun to mop the sweat from his brow. His miserable look stemmed from more than the heat.

  “So, to start…at 9:25 a.m. today, two suspects arrived in a white utility van on Cooley Place during the performance of a fire drill at Pasadena High School. Using military grade, high-round automatic weapons, they fired into the five hundred to six hundred and fifty gathered students. One-hundred-fifty-three students and faculty were wounded; their conditions range from minor to critical. Ninety-seven students and faculty were fatally shot. The shooting event lasted approximately one minute, with the suspects firing continuously from the moving van. Before the van fled the scene, a third person exited the school and entered the vehicle. The suspect wore a bright orange vest. Witness reports indicate this third suspect was a Pasadena High School student.”

  Ahrin. It had been the new student and her recent lab partner for the past two weeks. A hot flush spread through her body. He ignored her attempts at discussion during lab and kept to himself, hardly ever speaking a word to Penny or anyone else.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, Penny found herself wishing her sister were here with her. No, she didn’t wish that. Of course not. If Lucy had been there, then she would also have been at school. She surely would have been out on the field. And perhaps Penny, too. A shudder wracked her body. The mental link she shared with her identical twin was inaccessible; their connection impossible at such a great distance. She needed to hear her sister’s thoughts.

  Swallowing back bitterness, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the relief that had come crashing through her veins when her mother finally picked her up from the school. The relief was swiftly overpowered by grief and guilt. Penny was alive when many of her classmates were not. Survivor? No. A powerless witness.

  A client, whom Penny didn’t know by name walked in. The man sat on Penny’s right; his golden retriever whined softly, and its head found a resting place on Penny’s other knee, opposite the schnauzer which had started pawing with gentleness at Penny’s calf. Both dogs recognized her discomfort. She sensed them distantly in her mind, though, as the thousand bees buzzing underneath her skin obstructed their connection to her thoughts.

  The broadcast continued as her gaze slid out of focus and a mental fog obscured the turn of her thoughts. She allowed herself to disappear inside the fog as the news played on.

  “Abandoning the van near the intersection of East Del Mar Boulevard and South Roosevelt Avenue, it is believed the suspects transferred weapons, including explosive vests, to a previously stolen vehicle and drove to South Arroyo Boulevard. At that location, they again switched vehicles, this time to a stolen Glendale Hospital ambulance. Video surveillance confirms these movements and that all three suspects made these vehicle changes.

  “The suspects then drove the short distance to Huntington Memorial Hospital, arriving on the scene at the same time other ambulances arrived from the scene of the shooting. The suspect in the orange vest was presented as a wounded student and taken into the hospital for emergency care. The two remaining suspects were detained due to improper emergency vehicle protocol.”

  The mention of the hospital where her father, Ben, worked in the ER drew Penny’s attention back into the now and unease rolled down her spine. Of course, her father would be back to work after his night shift, helping however he could. The message she received from him said as much. Also, he was thankful she was safe, and he loved her very much
, always in this lifetime and beyond. She crossed her arms and hunched her shoulders.

  “Unknown to the authorities and hospital staff, the suspect taken into the hospital wore a vest containing explosive devices. The vest detonated shortly after the suspect went inside the hospital’s ER killing the suspect, five hospital personnel, and two students who were treated for gunshot wounds. An additional twelve hospital employees were injured in the blast.” His voice broke with emotion.

  Penny swallowed back rising bile while darkness gathered around her and her breathing grew shallow. The schnauzer nosed her leg. The retriever barked; the sharp, earnest sound pulled Penny back from the tunnel she fell towards.

  “At the moment of detonation, the two suspects being detained began firing at hospital security officers and at anyone else in the area. Both suspects also wore explosive devices; however, only one suspect detonated his. The third and final suspect was shot and killed by officers. An additional four people were injured in these incidents.”

  The Police Chief continued as Penny stood, her thoughts in turmoil. Retrieving her phone, she messaged her father. Then she called, but it went immediately to voicemail. She tried the nurses’ station, but a busy line greeted her. Her heart beat thunderously in her ears. The nurses’ number responded. Always. She tried the number again. Busy, again.

  She heard Blair as if from far away calling her name, but she ignored it and walked behind the receptionist desk and through the closed door beyond to seek out her mother.

  The overhead speaker crackled as Penny walked down the hallway leading to the surgery suite where she knew her mother would be working on Zeus. A female voice announced an urgent phone call for Dr. Osborn.