Don't Look In (Gus Young Thrillers Book 1)

by Tom Saric

  What stung most was that she blamed me for the breakdown of my marriage. I'd strayed on one occasion with Karen's nanny. Her mother told Karen all about it, and made a production of firing the nanny Karen had grown to love. I couldn't bring myself to tell Karen that Meg was already deep into her affair at the time of my indiscretions. After that I played longer rounds of Blackjack and poker. The stakes got higher and higher until I'd squandered her college fund. I tried to explain, but she never bothered to listen to my side of the story. I wasn't sure she would understand, anyway.

  I had a lot to cover in this meeting with Karen, but mostly I just wanted to hold my baby again.

  I walked around the cabin to the patio door and stepped inside, surprised by what I saw. Renee was at the stove, turning meat over in a sizzling pan. Karen was next to her chopping lettuce and cucumber. Both talked, their backs to me, while swaying to Waylon's gritty baritone. Even Anna didn't notice me. She was lying at the edge of the kitchen, watching them.

  Renee was the first to turn.

  "Gus!" She ran over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I'd been wanting to kiss her, and she’d managed to do it in such a nonchalant manner that it seemed like we were already living together.

  "We were hoping to have dinner all ready by the time you got here. You must be tired. Let me get you a drink."

  As Renee returned to the kitchen, Karen slowly approached me. She'd changed. Her blonde hair was chopped into a bob and dyed light purple. In big block letters across the front of her T-shirt was the phrase “I run on feminism.” I'd picked her name, after psychoanalyst Karen Horney, who famously challenged Freud's idea that women's psychology revolved around their yearning to have a pecker. Horney retaliated by saying that women were relegated to being baby breeders by a patriarchal culture of men who overcompensated for their feelings of inferiority because they could never bear children. She called it womb envy. Take that, Sigmund.

  I smiled, relieved Karen was at least standing in front of me, but she didn't smile back. She fiddled with the bottom hem of her shirt, as I remember her doing when she was uncertain. I thought about stretching my arms out for a hug, but I felt like it would be too much of a risk.

  "I missed you," I said. Her eyes twitched at that, and she looked around the dining room like she didn't hear me. My hope of a quick “let bygones be bygones” dissipated.

  "Neat place you've got here. Rustic."

  Karen had become a city girl. The idea of chopping down trees, baiting hooks, and wearing clothes that smelled like campfire disgusted her. Her mother had trained her to love nature and protect the environment the way only a city dweller who lived in a thirty-story monstrosity could. I wondered if Karen even remembered gutting walleye with me when she was ten.

  "Minus the burned-out wing."

  She at least laughed at that. "Like I said, rustic."

  There was a pregnant pause, and I realized I was staring at her. Karen was beautiful, and she stood with such confidence, shoulders back and squarely facing me. There wasn't an ounce of that tentativeness I remembered.

  "Long drive down?"

  "It was good. I needed a drive."

  "Are you on business?"

  She snorted a laugh. "Not a lot of work out here, Dad."

  I couldn't tell if that was meant as a dig at me. Her dream was to make a difference on a global scale. The clear path to doing that was through an Ivy League school, but I'd torched that possibility. But she paved her own way, from a tier-two university and then working her way up to an NGO.

  "What brought you out here?" Part of me was getting suspicious as to why she would announce that she was coming after all these years.

  She looked at me blankly, as though I should know. "Well, I thought that-"

  "Drinks!" Renee popped up next to Karen with a bourbon and Coke for me, and wine for Karen. She winked at Karen as she handed her the glass. "Gus, you have the most beautiful daughter. She reminds me of mine."

  Renee toasted and the three of us clinked glasses. I muttered some cliché about reunions and Renee invited us to sit down as though it were her place. She brought over three plates, placing a plate of braised venison with roasted potatoes and salad in front of me.

  "Wait, let me take a picture of you two," Renee said.

  I looked at Karen, who seemed to shift nervously at the idea. "How about we do a selfie of the three of us?" I offered, as though that would somehow make it less awkward.

  Karen came over and stood a couple of inches from me. Renee put her arms around me and leaned her head on my shoulder. I held up my phone and snapped the picture. I looked at the photo and thought about asking Renee to take one of me and Karen, but Karen had already taken her seat and I didn't want to push things.

  "How did you get in? I'm pretty sure I locked the place," I said.

  "Are you sure?" Renee said, reminding me of my faulty memory.

  "Renee figured it out," Karen said.

  "Paving stone," Renee said, covering her mouth with her hand as she was mid-bite.

  I was struck by how comfortable Renee was making herself. I wanted to be alone with Karen, but Renee clearly wasn't going anywhere.

  "It's so nice of you to have invited me to meet your daughter," Renee said. "She is an absolutely amazing soul. You must be so proud."

  "Very proud."

  Karen looked down and took a bite of cherry tomato. No meat on her plate. She'd been a vegetarian since she was fifteen in protest of animal rights violations.

  "You don't eat meat?" Renee said.

  "Vegetarian."

  "You might want to think about it, Gus. Given..." She winked at Karen.

  "Given what?"

  "Oh, nothing," Renee said, and ran her hand down my neck. "Girl stuff."

  "Dad, I'm happy you found someone. I am."

  Renee grabbed my hand and squeezed. We had hit it off, but I wasn't even sure Renee and I were an item. But she and Karen seemed to get along and I needed dinner to go well, so I decided to let it go.

  "I'm glad I came," Karen said. "To be honest, I just needed to hear that from you. And when I got that in the mail…" She shrugged.

  I felt heaviness in my chest as she mentioned the monthly envelope. I always wondered if they reached her. But I wanted Karen to come because of me, not my money.

  "I've been sending you envelopes every month."

  "Those don't matter to me. It's not what I'm talking about."

  "They don't matter?"

  "No."

  I bit down on my lower lip, telling myself to let it slide. "It seemed to matter when you decided to stop speaking to me."

  "Money?" Her demeanor changed. "Money."

  Renee began shaking and wheezing and pointing at her throat. She made a little squealing sound. She was choking, so I got up and tapped her on her back, initially softly, then harder until she began coughing. I rubbed her back as she slowly raised her head and looked at Karen and then me.

  "I'm so sorry, this is just embarrassing." Renee covered her face.

  "Not at all, can I get you some water?"

  "I'm okay." She wiped her eyes. "I should let you two talk."

  Both Karen and I insisted she stay. I suspected that Karen also sensed the two of us were careening toward an argument and needed Renee as a buffer.

  "Let me just go for a walk for a couple of minutes to come back to myself."

  I sat back down with Karen in uncomfortable silence. I wanted a relationship with her so badly but not if it was based on money.

  Renee suddenly returned and sheepishly put up her hand.

  "Um, Gus?"

  "Yes. Everything okay?"

  "There's a man outside. Says he's your patient and that he needs an appointment... now."

  Doug arriving at my home was a major boundary violation. Sessions happened in the therapy room, nowhere else. Maintaining that boundary was an absolute. Patients needed to learn to tolerate their feelings between sessions. I'd crossed the line with Ned, and I wasn't about to do the
same with Doug.

  I stepped outside and walked down the steps. It was dark except for a rectangle of light shining from the kitchen window. Doug paced in a row of my Honey Crisp apple trees, kicking at the ground with every other step. The shaky cigarette he held to his mouth glowed as he took a drag.

  "I know I'm not supposed to be here," Doug said, looking at the cigarette between his fingers. "But I didn't know where else to go."

  I wasn't sure if his arrival was an attention-seeking ploy to work out some unconscious abandonment issue, but he was distressed. And he looked scared.

  "I wouldn't have come, but you canceled today." He took a long drag and sniffled at the same time. "This just couldn't wait."

  "What's going on, Doug?"

  Doug put his hand over his face and began crying.

  "I don't know if I can."

  "You've come this far."

  "I can't, no." He began to walk toward the road. "I'm sorry."

  He staggered as he made his way up the driveway. I realized he was drunk. I wanted to let him go, but the thought of Ned suspecting Doug made me reconsider.

  "Doug, wait." I caught up with him. "You came here to talk about something."

  Doug puffed out his cheeks and tapped his foot on the ground. I could smell whiskey on his breath.

  "Been drinking?"

  "A little."

  Therapy was next to useless when people were intoxicated. Genuine emotions couldn't be accessed. But secrets could still be spilled.

  "You come to my home, Doug, you've been drinking, you're a wreck. There's something you need to tell me. Something you need to get off your chest."

  "I can't."

  "You wouldn't have come here if you didn't trust me."

  Doug took deep breaths.

  "Whatever it is that made you come here, if you don't bring it up then it will haunt you until you address it."

  "You speaking from experience?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "You haunted by something?"

  I shook my head in confusion.

  "Doug, I'm here for you," I said. "Not for anyone else. And especially not to air my issues out."

  "You're good at keeping secrets."

  I wasn't sure if that was a question or a statement. But if Wes was right and had seen Doug at Ned's, then I needed to know.

  "I'm the best."

  "You don't tell?"

  "I don't."

  Doug took another long haul on his cigarette and suddenly looked calm.

  "Okay," Doug said. "I couldn't let it slide. I just couldn't."

  "Let what slide?"

  "What he done to that woman."

  "Which woman?"

  "Wanda."

  I took a step forward. "Are you saying you know who killed Wanda?"

  "He admitted it."

  "Who are you talking about? Ned?"

  Doug nodded and stared at me with intense eyes. "He admitted what he done. Just before." Doug wiped his nose. "You know what? I don't regret it."

  I was unsure of what to say. Doug had killed Ned. I felt a glimmer of vindication. But the idea that Ned killed Wanda didn't sit right with me.

  "You knew Wanda?"

  "I met her a few days ago at this bar. Gorgeous woman." I remembered Wanda telling me about a man she met while waiting for Joe Barrington. "She was tellin' me about some man stalking her. Driving by. Scaring her. Then she ends up dead. Police aren't finding anything, so I started looking around and I find the guy she was complaining about. I knew he was your patient, so I followed you. I went in there and found him. I saw he had the same gun they say killed Wanda. He admitted it. So."

  "You shot him?"

  "With the gun."

  It wasn't me, I thought. Doug was a disturbed man, and my initial impression that he was a psychopath might have been correct. But if Ned had killed Wanda, then maybe he was justified.

  "You couldn't let another one go," I said, back on autopilot, a therapist linking the present with the past. "The way you let Maddie go."

  Doug's face seemed to melt into sobs and he crouched down, propping himself up with his arm.

  "I never told you the truth," Doug said. "The truth about Maddie." I directed him to sit on a long birch log at the edge of my driveway.

  "Tell me the truth."

  "She was a good girl. Always listened. Would do anything I asked of her. Had a smile that-" He sighed. "She dreamed big. Bigger than I could imagine. Bigger than I could provide. I made mistakes."

  "We all make mistakes with our daughters."

  "She got older, you know, and then she started testing. Testing the limits. My ex, she couldn't handle it, but me, I tried to roll with it. But she kept pushing and I couldn't let her. So I was… I'd clamp down." His voice got huskier. "Maybe too hard.”

  "But it all changed when she met this boy." Doug's eyes shot back and forth. "He was bad news. He tells her to challenge us, to push back. And she falls deeper and deeper. More trouble. And I can't control her anymore. I tell her she has to respect the rules or she's out. Next day, she runs away."

  Doug looked out in the distance and lit another cigarette.

  "She didn't die of a drug overdose. That boy killed her." Doug stood up. "He took her from me and he killed her." He grabbed a boulder and heaved it onto the road. "My baby girl!" Doug stumbled into a ditch, crying.

  I stepped down into the ditch and helped him up. Doug collapsed in my arms, sobbing.

  "I couldn't let it happen again. I couldn't."

  If Ned had killed Wanda, Doug would see her as his daughter. And unbelievable rage would have come out.

  "I won't do it again. It just hurts so bad."

  "It's over, Doug. It's okay."

  He breathed heavily, trying to gather himself. "I just needed to get it out."

  "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

  "Have you ever kept a secret like this?"

  I had. I wanted to tell Doug that my silence could end up implicating me in the murders. But my oath had to stand. Doug wasn't going to kill anyone else, and I could rehabilitate him. I had to trust that the investigation would eventually clear me of any wrongdoing.

  "Your secret is safe."

  "Thank you. I'll go now."

  "Do you need a ride, Doug?"

  "I need to walk this off. Jimmy Beam got the better of me tonight." Doug turned around. "You know, I just wish I could have killed that guy who killed Maddie. I wish I strangled that Robert."

  I stood in the dark, mentally running through my altercation with Ned. The evidence was all there—his obsession with Wanda, the pictures, the necklace. I just didn't want to believe it.

  Doug had disappeared into the darkness. Something about his words struck me. Robert. A wave of realization washed over me. Maddie. Overbearing parents. A runaway. A creek. I'd heard this story before.

  Robert had been my patient.

  "I called you because there are some things I need to tell you before I go," Robert said.

  Doug found a chair by the window, dragged it beside the bed, and sat down. The gun dug into the small of his back. He didn't say anything. He had to let the man speak. He needed to know.

  "You think I know something. You wonder where she is?" Robert coughed dryly. "What matters is that she's away from you."

  "Where is she?"

  "First tell me why?"

  "Why what?"

  "The beatings. Chaining her up. Keeping her prisoner, drugging her?"

  Robert had taken Maddie away and now had the audacity to question his authority. He ignored the gifts, the hugs, everything that he did for her. It was as though all of that didn't count.

  If she hadn't met this boy, she wouldn't have defied. He had set simple rules, straightforward to understand, and if she didn't obey then there were consequences. By disobeying, she chose those punishments.

  "You don't understand."

  "I do. Because I read about psychopaths. You wanted to control her, she was yours, your possession, your little robot."<
br />
  "She was free."

  "And the second she didn't act like a machine, you beat the shit out of her. You took everything from her," Robert said. "Hollowed her from the inside out."

  Doug shook his head. He'd loved her, cared for her since she was an infant. He was shaping her, sculpting her into what he knew was a good person. Some might not agree with the method, but she knew the rules and respected them until she met Robert.

  "Don't try to disagree. You wanted to keep her as a child so that she was defenseless and totally dependent on you. Even if she wanted to leave, even if she wanted to run, she feared you."

  Doug felt a shaking in his chest. The boy looked frail, yet had the energy to judge him, as though he knew him.

  "She hated you."

  Doug reached behind his back and felt the butt of the gun.

  "Are you sure you want to do that before I tell you where your daughter is?"

  20

  I stood at the patio door, listening to the pattering of waves against the rocks as I stared through the glass. Renee was at the sink washing dishes. Karen stood beside her with a tea towel, drying plates and examining each before putting it in the cupboard. They were chatting and then looked at each other and laughed, their heads cocked back in almost perfect synchronization. It was a scene of two women in my life becoming closer, connecting. Me on the outside looking in. I'd been there before.

  I opened the door and stepped inside. Renee looked at me and turned off the tap with her elbow.

  "Boy, talk about taking your work home with you." She laughed. "He seemed distraught."

  "He was," I said. "But everything's okay."

  Renee's hair fell over her face as she dried her hands with a towel. She swept it back and retied it in a ponytail as Karen put away the last few plates.

  "We left your plate out."

  "Thanks, but I'm not hungry right now."

  I felt nauseous. Doug had said the name Robert, that much was certain. And I believed that the Robert he was referring to was a former patient. If so, Doug wandering into my practice and paying for ten sessions up front was beyond coincidence. I wondered if my mind was making connections that didn't exist.