HER PERFECT SECRET a totally gripping psychological thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  This taciturnity, and the fact that he’s given conflicting statements to police, is normal for someone who’s endured a trauma. Tom is more than a witness; he’s a victim. The murderer took his father’s life and also robbed Tom of his childhood. His innocence. I remain, so far, unconvinced there is anything clinically wrong with Thomas Bishop other than the mist, as I call it, formed to protect him from further trauma, from further pain.

  I need to help him clear that mist. To find the hidden details of October 27. But the process can’t start without him. Without his will. He needs to begin to open up to his grief, and then I can further our trust.

  * * *

  Michael sees me coming and smiles. When I’m close enough, he must read my features, because the smile drops. He holds up a finger and says into the phone, “Hey, thanks for talking and for everything. I gotta go. I’ll be back in touch soon. All right.”

  It all seems louder than necessary and a bit staged for my benefit, but whatever. I reach Michael and stop. “I think I know you,” I say. “I think you were my patient fifteen years ago.”

  It’s more confessional than accusatory. I watch his reaction carefully, though the dark is making it harder to discern.

  I wait.

  Michael seems taken aback. “I don’t know what to say . . . You think I was your patient?”

  “Yes. An eight-year-old boy I treated named Tom Bishop.”

  “Like, your therapy patient?”

  “Yes.”

  Now I really study him, hunting for any betrayal. Michael blinks at me a few times. He frowns. “Who’s Tom Bishop?”

  I give the house a glance, sensing we’re being watched. Indeed, a silhouette stands behind the screen door. Joni. I take Michael by the arm — gently, so as not to alarm him — and move him farther down the driveway. Passing the garage, we trigger a motion sensor and a light snaps on. The sharp scents of wood varnish and turpentine waft out of the open bay. I push us farther, beyond the reach of the light, back into darkness.

  “I don’t want to upset you,” I say. Some of my steam has blown off, but I’m still determined. I decide to back it up a step and take a new approach. “I’m in a dilemma, and I need your help.”

  “Um, okay. Absolutely. What can I do?”

  “You know I’m a therapist.”

  “Of course. Yes.”

  I swallow, tasting remnants of dinner — we had salmon, rice, asparagus — and the white wine. Am I a little drunk? I cut myself off at two glasses. “One of the things I’ve done as a therapist, though not anymore, was to work with police. You, Michael, look exactly like the older version of a boy I was asked to evaluate during the course of a death investigation. A murder.”

  I stop walking to gauge his reaction. It’s the same, open and inquisitive, devoid of any fear or anger. “That boy was named Tom Bishop,” I repeat his name. “He was a key witness in the case.” I pause after each sentence, still scanning for signs of recognition, deceit. Anything. “The victim was his father. The suspect, eventually convicted, was his mother. None of this rings any bells?”

  A mosquito whines near my ear. I wave it away, keeping a close watch on Michael. He looks back at me with that guileless expression, but then something passes over his features. A moment later, he lowers his head.

  “Michael? What is it?”

  He gradually raises his eyes to me. His face is lit from the side by the garage light back twenty yards. “I lied,” he says.

  My body temperature drops. Another mosquito sinks its needle into the skin of my bare arm, but I barely notice. “Okay,” I say. “Tell me.”

  “My parents didn’t die when I was a junior in high school.”

  “Okay . . .” There’s a resignation in my voice. Relief.

  “I was much younger when things happened.”

  “That’s right,” I say.

  He takes a deep breath. This is going to change everything. But if he tells Joni about it, then it’s no longer my burden. Michael can be the one to broach the subject to the family and set the tone for how little or how much he wants everyone to know. I’ll suggest full disclosure to Joni, his future wife, but other than that, it’s whatever he wants.

  With emotion in his voice, Michael says, “The whole thing is fucked up. Sorry for the language.”

  “I hear it all the time.” Just as I take his hand in mine, the area light blinks off, plunging us into full darkness. The bugs are starting to frenzy. Maybe we can conclude this back inside the house . . .

  “My aunt and uncle . . .” he says. “They’re . . . they made some bad choices.”

  I wait.

  Michael says, “They spent the inheritance. They squandered it, really. And the whole thing had kind of a reverse effect. They didn’t have much. And when I came to live with them, they ended up buying this big expensive house — they said it was better for me, growing up. Better for us as a family. But they were overleveraged. They were up to their eyes in debt even though on paper — you know, when you fill out those financial aid forms — it looked like they had a lot of money. I didn’t get any grants, and they had barely anything they could give me. It was scholarship or nothing. So, that’s who I was just talking to. A friend at Colgate. I need to get back there. I need to finish.”

  My head is spinning. It’s not exactly the confession I’d been anticipating. I need to pick it apart. “You’re saying both your parents died?”

  “In a car wreck, yeah.”

  It’s time to stick or move, as my own late father would say. I can’t keep waffling. If I’m going to get past this, I have to go through it. I have to try.

  “Michael, your father was murdered.”

  He gives a polite shake of his head. “No. He wasn’t.”

  “Your mother went to prison for it.”

  More head-shaking. “Dr. Lindman . . . you have me confused with someone else.”

  “You remember everything? Their car accident? That whole period in your life . . . I don’t think you really even remember it, Michael.”

  He makes no reply at first. I can hear his phone vibrating in his pocket, see the light of its screen showing through the fabric. Then he admits it: “Honestly, it is a hard time to remember. But that doesn’t mean it’s not what happened. People have talked to me about it my whole life. My aunt and uncle. My cousin. Family friends. It’s my life. It’s what happened.”

  “What if — and listen, please, I’m not trying to upset you — like I said, I need your help. What if, as an alternative theory, what happened is what I remember? Because of how heinous things were, how painful, certain people took it upon themselves to construct a new reality for you? Something that was less painful, that explained the loss of your parents, but . . .”

  I stop myself. For one thing, Michael looks a shade whiter, his face floating before me like a ghost. I’m doing exactly what a therapist is trained to not do: dump massive, life-changing insight onto a patient. It could overload his system. To have your entire reality, your identity, exposed as a lie? Some people can’t handle that. Most people can’t handle that. Especially if it’s not done right.

  “All right, let’s take a breath. Let me just propose this to you — you have a past that’s a bit uncertain, even to you. Leaving aside what other people have told you, you just admitted your memory is hazy. I have a belief — one that only grows with each passing moment I’m with you, as much as I’ve tried to rationalize it or put it out of my mind — you’re the boy I knew. And let me try to prove it to you. The boy, Tom Bishop, had a scar on his upper thigh. When he was six, walking along a guard rail, balancing, he fell. The sharp edge of the angle iron caught the inside of his leg and tore it open. He had fifteen stitches.”

  “I’ve been in my bathing suit,” Michael says quickly. There’s an edge in his tone — his defenses are up. His phone chimes, as if with a text. It’s probably Joni.

  “I haven’t been with you, or near you, swimming,” I say. “And even standard swimming trunks could hide i
t. Unless you’ve been swimming in a Speedo—”

  Michael starts for the house, his feet crunching.

  “Michael . . .” I follow him.

  He turns abruptly and walks past me in the other direction. “I’ve got to get ready,” he mutters. “I’m not even ready.”

  I hurry to catch him. The farther we venture from the house, the deeper the inky blackness becomes. “Ready for what? Michael — it’s pitch black out here. You can’t even see . . .”

  He clicks on the light from his phone.

  “Michael, you don’t need to go anywhere. Just wait. Wait . . .”

  His legs are longer, his strides powerful; I’m jogging to keep up. “All I want is the truth. For both of us. I know this is a lot. But I’m not trying to hurt you.”

  It hits me that the text I saw, Did they buy it? could refer to anything. He’s mentioned his uncle buying the house on Long Island. Though that was a while ago, it could be related. And the number — central New York. Where Colgate is located. It could be a classmate talking about something school-related.

  But there are so many other things. The uncanny resemblance. The timing of Laura Bishop’s release and her proximity to our home. The phrase uttered on my phone and etched in our boathouse . . .

  Suddenly, I twist my ankle on a rock in the road and stumble.

  He is suddenly right beside me, his hand at my back. “You okay?”

  “Just tripped.” By the time I reorient myself, he’s surging ahead once again. I call after him, “Listen, what if we tried something? I have a colleague who’s great with hypnotherapy. We could call her — she’d fit you right in. We could see . . .”

  I trail off, hearing an engine approach. It’s still a ways off, but it’s there, nearing. Then, through the dense trees: headlights.

  Our driveway is a quarter mile of gravel, which meets with a dirt road that runs along part of the lake. I’m several paces behind Michael, who’s nearing the driveway’s end and the road. It could be anyone out there.

  “Watch out,” I say; it’s the mother in me: “Watch out for that car, Michael.”

  Starzyk’s words fill my head: Don’t follow this person, especially if you think he’s meeting her. They could be dangerous.

  I slow while he keeps walking apace, his cell phone light swinging with the pendulum movements of his arms. The engine is louder, the headlights brighter, and soon the vehicle is right in front of Michael. It’s a dark color, an SUV — maybe an Escalade. It brakes to a stop, halting me in my tracks.

  I’m about to say something — honestly, I’m about to scream for help — when Michael opens the back door.

  He gets into the vehicle, shuts the door and never looks back.

  I stand there, dumbfounded. The vehicle just idles a moment. There’s just enough moonlight to reflect in its black surface.

  Then it pulls forward, the white reverse lights come on, and it backs into the driveway. I retreat a few steps, still in shock. The white lights wink off, red taillights flash, and the SUV spins a little gravel as it turns back onto the dirt road and drives off into the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  DR EMILY LINDMAN

  CASE NOTES

  MAY 20

  Session 3

  Met with Tom, one hour, third session. Today felt like we made headway, despite an interruption from police.

  Tom and I began by talking about school, where he is now, and I asked him how school in Long Island compared to school in Bronxville. He said about the same. But I could see it got him thinking about events from six months ago.

  I decided to touch on his grief. To share with him that I’d lost my father, too. And it worked. It got him talking. Particularly, it got him talking about the last day his father was alive, and his memory exploded with details.

  He remembered that, that day, his third-grade teacher had had a cold, and some of the kids noticed a booger lodged in the teacher’s nose. He remembered that he took the bus to his after-school baby-sitter. And from there, his mother picked him up. He recalled that, at home, his mother had gotten out the family boots and winter coats a couple of days prior, in anticipation of the first snowfall.

  And he was able to describe his home in detail. I feel like I’ve been there now: the many clocks in the kitchen and stairwell — including one pig clock with eyes that shifted side to side in time with the seconds. Tom knew the oven mitts hanging from the stove dials. The color of the tile floor was burnt orange, he says, and the kitchen smelled like garlic, because his mother was cooking pasta.

  But he says he can’t remember what happened after that.

  This can be trauma’s lasting impact. A darkening of major events, yet a keen memory for seemingly irrelevant details. It’s all another part of that misty protection.

  On the other hand, Tom may remember certain things and not return to them, or change them, to avoid pain.

  In the initial police report with Tom’s first interview, Tom says he was awakened later that night by his mother crying. But a second report says he awoke prior to this, hearing his parents arguing.

  Police asked Tom if his mother and father argued a lot. Tom either chose not to reply or didn’t know how to answer. I’ll assume the latter — children do pick up on their parents’ stress, but they don’t have anything with which to compare it.

  But the police think this inconsistency could point to Tom misleading them. So much so that they interrupted our session. They’re worried that Tom’s mother might be leaving the area, and they need to move to press charges. After three sessions with Tom, I think they could be right about the deception, though it’s not deliberate. I believe Tom has not been able to properly process that night. He’s living in a limbo, caught between what he can remember and what he can’t — or won’t.

  And I’m close to setting him free.

  * * *

  The sound of the engine is still fading as I pick up on footsteps hurrying toward me from the house.

  A light is bouncing along with the approaching footfalls. It can only be one person.

  “Mom?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Where’s Michael? What happened?”

  “He left.”

  “He left?”

  I catch glimpses of my daughter’s face in the light from her phone. Before I can say anything else, she’s trotting toward the road.

  “Jo,” I call after her. “Jo, honey . . .”

  “Don’t, Mom.”

  And things were just starting to mend between us . . .

  When she doesn’t speak again, I can see her touching her screen. She puts the phone to her ear. A moment later: “Michael? Babe? Is everything . . .” She listens. “No, I understand. Believe me, I understand.” Another pause. “No, I don’t need anything else. I’m ready whenever.”

  At this point, Paul is walking toward us from the house, another vague shape in the darkness. Paul’s light is an actual flashlight. “Everybody okay?”

  “We’re fine, honey,” I say, just loud enough.

  Joni is still on the phone. “Can you tell me what happened? What did she do to you?”

  “Jo, come on . . .” I start for her, reaching out, and she moves away.

  “What did she say?” Joni listens, then, “All right, baby. That’s fine. I’ll be waiting.”

  She ends the call. Even in the semidarkness, I can see her angry face. Paul has reached us and stands beside me. “What’s going on?”

  “Mom just freaked Michael the fuck out,” Joni says.

  “Jo, listen, there are some things we need to talk about.”

  “No,” she says, emphatically. She crunches up the driveway toward me. “We’re done talking. I’ve had about enough of—”

  My voice goes up an octave. “Hey! Listen up. You know my life, Joni. You know that in my job, certain things require discretion.”

  She stops. “What are you talking about?”

  “Who did he just get in that car with?”

 
“What the fuck is going on with you?”

  Paul: “Joni, don’t speak like that to your mother.”

  “Is that her?” I ask. “I mean what are you guys doing? I feel like I’m in the goddamn Twilight Zone, here, Joni. Time to level with me.”

  “Level with you? Why don’t you just tell me what you said to him?”

  I glance at Paul, then refocus on Joni. “Maybe in a minute.”

  “Because you look like you want to accuse him of something,” Joni says. “You’ve looked like that since the moment he got here.”

  Her tone is cutting, and puts me over the edge. “Oh, have I? Have your father and I seemed a little off? Could that be because we’ve hardly seen or heard from you since Easter — you pulled another one of your disappearing acts, just like you used to. And when you finally grace us with your presence — surprise! You show up with your eleventh boyfriend and — oh — this one, guess what? You’re engaged. Wow! But don’t worry about it. ‘Don’t worry about it, Mom and Dad — I’m fine. Just fine. That time you found me on the street with a needle in my arm? I’m just perfect now.’”

  Joni is staring at me. Even in scant light, I can see her face has crumbled. Paul moves closer and touches my arm, but I shrug him off.

  “Was that her?” I ask suddenly. “Did he arrange to meet her?”

  Joni doesn’t say anything for a long time. So long that I take Paul’s flashlight and shine it in her face. She squints in its brightness but stares back at me. I know I’ve hurt her; it crushes me.

  Her pain turns to defiance, just as regular as the moon and the sun. The defiance forms a wry smile, a pity in her eyes. “Wow, Mom. Your work really has gotten to you. You think everyone is hiding something. Maybe you’re projecting? I mean — ‘her’? Who are you even talking about? And maybe there’s a reason, Mom. That I did what I did back then. You ever think that?” She turns to Paul. “Either of you?”

  “Hey,” Paul says, taking back the flashlight, but keeping it on her. “Let’s just tone it down.”

  But Joni is livid now. “And you’re out here interrogating him. After everything he’s already been through!”