After a moment she saw them crossing the lawn, taking a shortcut between two dark buildings. Their voices carried through the quiet night.
“I apologize for the lateness of the hour,” Dr. Augustin said. “I hope you were not sleeping.”
“No. Working on this case. I think I found another connection earlier, and I was trying to puzzle it out before I saw Tess tomorrow.”
Dr. Augustin chuckled. “Wanted to impress the girl, did you?”
“I…I did something stupid. She’s upset with me, and she has good reason to be, so I’m trying to make it up to her. Which is why I’m glad you have more for me. I really want to have something to show her tomorrow.”
Tess broke into a jog as the two disappeared into the dark gap between buildings. Their voices drifted back to her.
“I think it is about more than apologizing,” Dr. Augustin said. “You are, how do they say it? Sweet on the girl?”
An embarrassed laugh from Jackson. “I don’t think they’ve said it like that in about twenty years. Mostly this is about apologizing for a mistake. A big one.”
“Apologizing to a pretty girl is never a bad thing.”
“About the case. You mentioned off-campus experiments predating Cameron’s work.”
Tess reached the gap between buildings. She could see them ahead. She hesitated, not wanting to eavesdrop but not wanting to announce herself either, in case Dr. Augustin wouldn’t speak as freely in front of a stranger.
“That’s exactly what I’m looking for,” Jackson said. “Earlier experiments that weren’t linked to McGill. Specifically, ones near a town called Sainte-Suzanne.”
“Yes,” Dr. Augustin said. “I know all about Sainte-Suzanne.”
He reached up and clapped Jackson on his bare arm. Jackson let out a yelp and spun.
“What?” Jackson stumbled backward, staring down at Dr. Augustin’s outstretched hand. “Wh-what did you…?” The words came slower now, slurred. Then Jackson collapsed. And the two figures disappeared.
Twenty-Nine
THE FIGURES WERE gone. Which meant they hadn’t been there at all. Well, yes, they had been, but not now. Sometime in the past half hour, Dr. Augustin had drugged Jackson and taken him…where?
Tess raced to the spot she had seen them and searched for a sign. Even with dew on it, she couldn’t see drag marks on the grass no matter which angle she looked at it from.
Where had Dr. Augustin taken Jackson? And why?
The second part didn’t matter yet. She needed the answer to the first. But there was no possible way—
Maybe there was.
Tess closed her eyes and focused. She imagined the figures. She ran through the scene in her mind, concentrating as hard as she could, and when she opened her eyes…
She stood alone in the gap between the buildings.
Tess backed up to where she’d been when she saw them and tried again, but it didn’t work that way either. She couldn’t conjure the past from thin air.
Yet she had in a way, hadn’t she? The visions in the basement, then at Ravenscrag and now here, tonight? They weren’t random glimpses into another time. They were providing answers she’d consciously been seeking. But now, when she needed an answer more than ever, it wouldn’t come, and the more she tried, the harder her heart pounded, her blood racing, a voice inside her screaming that she had to find Jackson, find him now, before Dr. Augustin hurt him.
Think. That’s what she had to do. Stop panicking. Stop relying on visions. Just think.
She looked around. Where could Dr. Augustin take Jackson? She peered in the direction of the psychology department and then at the distant tower of Ravenscrag. While Jackson wasn’t big for his age, he wasn’t small either. Dr. Augustin was an old, overweight man. He couldn’t drag Jackson far. And if he’d wanted to take him to the psychology or psychiatry department, he could have gotten him into either building voluntarily and incapacitated him there.
Wherever Dr. Augustin had taken Jackson, it was someplace nearby that Jackson would have balked at entering in the middle of the night. Tess looked at the buildings on either side of her. One seemed to be in active use, with a couple of lights on in the upper floors. The squat building to her left had few windows, all of them dark. There was a walkway to a door bearing a sign that declared the building private and warned against trespassing. Tess turned the handle. It opened. She went inside.
Sound echoed so much in the building that she had to remove her shoes and walk in stockinged feet. In the silence, she picked up a low murmur, which she followed toward a closed door. Dr. Augustin was talking to Jackson in an odd, almost soothing way, telling him to listen to his voice, just his voice, to relax and listen. When Jackson responded, his voice was equally strange—monotone and devoid of emotion.
Tess remembered the articles she’d seen in the professor’s office. Hypnosis. Dr. Augustin had hypnotized Jackson.
Though the door was closed, their voices became clear as soon as she drew up alongside it. The only problem? They were speaking in French. She closed her eyes and focused, and while she couldn’t translate every word, she could make out the gist of their conversation.
“I want to talk to you about the house near Sainte-Suzanne,” Dr. Augustin said. “Tell me about the house.”
“It’s very big. Stone. Probably Gothic Revival.”
“Let me be more specific. Tell me what you found there.”
“Tess. I found Tess there.”
That didn’t seem to be the answer Dr. Augustin wanted, but he had Jackson explain how and why Tess had been there. Then he asked how and why Jackson himself had been there. Jackson told him about the mysterious man. Dr. Augustin grilled him, but Jackson couldn’t tell him much, and in the end Dr. Augustin dropped it and asked what else they’d found at the house.
Jackson talked about the locked cell-like bedrooms and the boxes with the scratches. Then he told him about the journal.
“Have you read it?” Dr. Augustin asked.
“Yes. I made notes.”
“You still have it? The journal and the notes?”
“Tess does.”
“Then you will get it and all the notes and bring them to my office tomorrow. You will tell her that I have offered to help. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you read in the journal and where it led you.”
Jackson explained everything. When he finished, Dr. Augustin said, “Your parents always said you were a brilliant boy. I can see why. You take after your mother’s side. Your father? How do they say it in English? Not the brightest bulb. Now, when you awake, you will remember nothing of this conversation. You will—”
“You are Dr. K. From the journal. The man in charge. It’s not a surname. The K is for Kenneth.”
Silence. Then a flurry of French as Dr. Augustin tested whether Jackson was still hypnotized.
“You are too smart, too curious, boy. It will get you in trouble someday. Fortunately for you, I am not in the habit of hurting children.”
“You are Dr. K.,” Jackson said. “Tell me you are—”
“If you do not calm down, you will awaken, and I will be forced to take action I do not wish—”
“You are—”
“All right. You will not remember what I said anyway. If it keeps you calm, yes, they were my experiments. There was value in Dr. Hebb’s work, but he would not continue it.”
“Then the experiment was not connected to the university and was done without Hebb’s knowledge. It was military.”
“One takes research money where one can find it, and my focus was always on the patients.”
“Who got worse. Like my mother.”
“Your mother—” Dr. Augustin clipped his words short. “I have answered your question, Jackson. I want to know—”
“And Tess’s mother? Or was it her father?”
“She has no father. Her mother was unwed. Now—”
“Tess’s mother came to you because
of her power. Retrocognition.”
“She was pregnant, and she feared passing it along. I was not convinced she had any power, so I persuaded her of the truth—that she was mentally ill—and that the best thing she could do for her unborn child was to be cured before the babe was born.”
“You enrolled a pregnant woman in your experiments?”
Jackson lost his monotone, his voice rising in incredulity before he controlled it.
He’s not really hypnotized, Tess thought. He’s faking it.
She held her breath, but Dr. Augustin didn’t seem to notice Jackson’s mistake; he was too focused on calming Jackson down so he could finish his own queries.
“And she was cured,” Dr. Augustin concluded. “She left and she had her baby, Thérèse, and whatever happened after that, I do not know. Now—”
“She wasn’t fine. She’d suffered serious—”
“Short-term memory loss. Short-term. That is the fault of those who helped me carry the treatment out. They lost faith. They saw the temporary cognitive effects—and they began to undermine me. When you have a course of treatment, you cannot fail to follow it because you feel bad for the patients—”
“It’s about the patients,” Jackson said. “It is all about the patients, and if you make them worse…” He trailed off, as if realizing his act was slipping. Then he returned to the monotone voice. “I wish to know more about my birth mother.”
“I’m sure you do, but I’m not going to tell you.” There was a new note in Dr. Augustin’s voice now, a slippery, sibilant note, like a hiss.
He’s figured it out.
Tess gripped the doorknob and turned it as slowly as she could. She eased the door open a crack as Dr. Augustin continued.
“Tell me, Jackson,” Dr. Augustin said. “Have you kissed Thérèse yet?”
“Wh-what?”
“That’s not the correct answer, my boy. You are under hypnosis. You must answer all my questions readily and truthfully.”
“Tess and I are only friends.”
“But you’ve thought of kissing her, haven’t you?”
“I—no.”
“You can’t lie if you’re under hypnosis.”
“I—”
A laugh cut Jackson short.
“That was almost ridiculously easy,” Dr. Augustin said. “You are such a smart boy, Jackson. So very clever. Unless the answer is not found in books.”
A chair squealed. Tess eased open the door to see Jackson on his feet, backing away from Dr. Augustin, who held a syringe in his hand. The professor’s bulk hid Tess well enough that Jackson couldn’t see her.
“No,” Jackson said. “Listen. I—”
“You played me for a fool. That is what you did. Clever, clever Jackson. Not quite so clever, though, tricking a man while your hands are bound behind your back. Rendering you helpless but not silent. That is what the needle is for. Because now I need to figure out what to do with you.”
Jackson took another step back. “Hypnotize me. For real this time. Make me forget all this—”
“Too late.”
Dr. Augustin lunged toward Jackson. By the time he did, though, Tess had crept up behind him, and as he lunged, she kicked the back of his knee. The surprise attack made him twist to one side, and when he did, he went down. He kept hold of the syringe, his eyes narrowing as he looked up at her.
“That was a very foolish thing to do, Thérèse. You are a foolish girl, like your mother. Quite mad too. Like her. You do not have a special gift. What you inherited from her is madness.”
“No, I see—”
“I have studied parapsychology for almost forty years. There is no such thing as psychic ability. Like your mother, you suffer from mental illness, and you will end up like her, having a child out of wedlock and abandoning that child and stepping in front of a car.”
Tess stood shocked for a moment. She vaguely saw Dr. Augustin lifting the syringe, and as he did, she snapped out of it and staggered back a step. Jackson was faster. He stomped on the professor’s arm hard enough that the man gasped. The needle flew out of his grip, and Tess dove after it.
Tess grabbed the syringe and backed away as Jackson did the same, leaving Dr. Augustin on the floor, cradling his arm.
“My mother is dead?” Tess said.
“Are you surprised? The only sane thing she ever did was giving you up. You are going to end just like her, Thérèse. I can see it now. You are already mad, spouting stories about visions.”
“Then it’s madness that led me here. I saw you, with Jackson, outside this building. A vision of what you did. That’s how I found you.”
He gave an ugly laugh. “Then you are a liar as well. If you saw us, it is because you were following Jackson, and now you tell stories to impress him.”
“She doesn’t need to tell stories to impress me,” Jackson said.
He met Tess’s gaze, and her cheeks flamed red-hot. She looked away quickly.
“You don’t believe me because you don’t want to,” she said. “It proves you’re wrong. That people can have psychic powers. It also means you had the chance to prove that with my mother. That would have been a real breakthrough. Real results. Career-making results. So much better than taking money to help brainwash soldiers.”
“I never—” He stopped and went quiet, and when he spoke again, his voice was a low mutter. Tess stepped closer. He lifted his gaze.
“All right,” he said. “I will tell you about your mother, and you will let me go. She…”
He lowered his voice again. She moved another step, ignoring warning motions from Jackson.
When she was close enough, Dr. Augustin launched himself at her, grabbing for her wrist, but she was ready and jabbed the needle into his arm. His eyes went wide.
“You…” His mouth worked. “You cannot…”
“Yes, I can,” she said, leaning over him as he slumped to the floor. “I can also make sure everyone knows what you did to our mothers.”
His eyelids fluttered. Then his head dropped to the floor, and he went still.
Thirty
TESS AND JACKSON stood behind the building, catching their breath after racing out.
“What do we do now?” Tess panted. “We can’t call the police on him, can we?”
“No, we can’t prove anything. We need to take what we know to my parents. They’ll figure out what to do next. At the very least, he’ll be censured. Probably lose his tenure. Which is a huge deal. The end of his career. I’m not sure if that’s justice.”
“The truth will be justice.”
“About your mother…I’m sorry.”
She nodded, her gaze dropping. “It…it hasn’t quite hit yet. I feel…It’s like you. I never knew her, so it’s hard to…”
He reached to squeeze her hand and she nodded her thanks, then said, “Right now I’m just happy for answers.”
“I know.”
They were quiet for a moment. Then she looked up at him. He was standing in front of her, the two of them tucked into the shadows.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Tess said. “When he summoned you out of your dorm. You were planning to trick him. You just didn’t count on the sedative.”
Jackson ducked his head, hair falling forward. “I, uh, wish I could say yes. That might impress you, but it really wouldn’t be getting this whole honesty thing off to a good start, and I think you’d prefer honesty.”
“I would.”
“I had no idea until I woke up in that room with my hands tied and Dr. Augustin trying to hypnotize me. I’ve seen him do it before, so I could fake being under. Maybe I should have thought it was odd that he wanted to meet me so late, but he’s always been like that. Impulsive and driven. Which I guess explains a lot.”
They watched the distant flicker of car headlights before he continued. “He must have befriended my parents to keep an eye on me. Or on them. See if they took an interest in my mother’s death. Anyway, I didn’t see it coming. All that mattered was
that he was offering information we needed, and I wanted…” He cleared his throat. “I wanted to get that for you, to show you how sorry I was. But it would have been more impressive if I had figured it out in advance.”
“I’m still plenty impressed. You got what we needed, and you’re fine.”
“Thanks to you,” he said, meeting her gaze. “You were amazing.”
She blushed, but before she could look away, his arms went around her, his mouth going nearly to hers and then pausing, as if expecting her to pull away. When she didn’t, he kissed her, a slow kiss that was everything she’d ever imagined a first kiss would be: careful and sweet and a little bit awkward and nothing like in books, but real—very real and very perfect.
When he pulled away, he looked down at her, face just above hers, worry touching his eyes. “Was that all right?”
“I think so. But I might need another to be sure.”
He chuckled and kissed her again, more confident now. Then he said, “I am sorry, Tess. I know I handled the Sainte-Suzanne business badly, and then I handled the apology badly, but I’m really, really—”
“I know. Just don’t do it again.” She looked up at him. “You don’t need to tell me everything, but if something affects me…”
“I only have one secret, Tess, and that was it. Everything else—”
A noise cut him short. Someone clearing his throat. Jackson wheeled, his back to her, shielding her as a figure stepped from the darkness.
It was an old man with wild white hair. Tess’s breath caught when she saw him, and she told herself she had to be mistaken. Then he spoke, and she knew she wasn’t.
“Sorry for the intrusion,” he said. “But I believe you wanted to speak to me, Jackson?”
It was the man who’d helped Tess buy her scarf that first day in Montreal. As he addressed Jackson by name, her stomach went cold.
Was Jackson still lying? She couldn’t believe it, maybe out of näiveté and maybe because he’d just kissed her. But when he turned to the old man, he stared at him in honest confusion.
The Unquiet past Page 17
