Confession

by Carey Baldwin

  She waved him off. “You don’t need to impress me with big words. I know you’re smart, even without the vocabulary lesson. I wish you didn’t feel you had to work so hard to get ­people to like you.”

  “Certain ­people do like me,” he said. “I used to have friends . . . but they’ve all gone away now.”

  She was two steps behind him, still trying to recall what hebetudinous meant. Stupid? Foolish? Oh, dear. The light finally dawned. She was the hebetudinous one for not putting out a stronger don’t-­try-­this-­at-­home disclaimer. “Scourge, please tell me you didn’t—­”

  “Yes. I did.” He clapped his hands together in a theatrical gesture. “I flooded myself.”

  “And are you feeling any better?” The answer was obviously not, but she thought she’d let him tell it his way.

  For the first time since he’d entered the room, his eyes sought hers. “I’m sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

  She got up and went around the desk, rested her hip against it. “It’s okay. I’m not mad at you.”

  “You’re really not mad?” The quiver in his voice made her heart constrict.

  “Not even a little. You were desperate to get relief, and so you tried something you thought might help you get well. You made a mistake, yes. But you survived, and now you’ve learned something.”

  “I barely slept last night, and when I did, I had terrible dreams.” He covered a yawn and rearranged his legs on the ottoman, crossing and uncrossing them at the ankles. “Maybe I shouldn’t have used real blood.”

  “You—­you used real blood.” Alarm bells blared in her head. Her hand went to her throat.

  A satisfied smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Ha! You should see your face.” His smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. “It wasn’t human blood.”

  She shuddered.

  “It was pig’s blood. I got a friend, a butcher, and he’s got buddies at the slaughterhouse. That’s how he got the blood. I asked him to surprise me, so he rigged a bucket of blood to dump on my head when I pulled the shower curtain open. Now I’m thinking that if only I’d used movie blood instead, if I hadn’t made my friend get the pig blood, nothing bad would’ve happened.”

  All she could think of was that scene from Carrie. Luckily, Scourge didn’t have telekinetic powers . . . as far as she knew. “What bad thing? What happened when the bucket fell?”

  “I went berserk. Completely and totally berserk, and then I blacked out. When I woke up I didn’t remember what I’d done—­still don’t—­but I had a quite a situation on my hands.”

  “I can imagine.”

  He smiled an oddly superior smile. “I’m sure you can’t.”

  Seconds ticked by. She didn’t want to press too hard, but knowing how he’d handled the trauma would help her gauge his progress. “I assume the situation you’re referring to was a very messy bathroom.”

  “Oh, it was a mess all right.”

  “Were you able to clean up the blood?”

  His eyes flashed. “I’m not dirty.”

  “Of course not. But given your hemophobia, I’m wondering how you managed to handle all the blood.”

  “It wasn’t easy, but I took care of most everything. I cleaned the floor, the sink, the mirror . . . I did leave the shower, though. I wanted to clean it, but it was too hard, I was afraid I might black out again, so I just pulled the curtain closed instead. Anyway, I don’t have to look at the blood anymore.”

  This was a disaster, and the least she could do was help him take care of the bathroom. “I can help you find someone to go out and clean it up for you. Then you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

  “No!” The urgency in his tone surprised her. “I always clean up my own messes. I’m not lazy. I’m not dirty. You want to help me? Then cure me. Once I’m cured, I won’t need you anymore, and I can get rid of . . . my problem.”

  “I don’t think it’s wise to allow that blood to stay in the tub. It might stain the porcelain. Who knows what kind of bacteria will form, and imagine if someone stumbled on a tub full of blood. They’d think there’d been a murder or something.”

  Again, an inexplicable a smile lifted his lips, then disappeared so quickly she thought it might have been nothing more than a nervous tic. “Then you better cure me fast because I won’t have someone poking around my bathroom, cleaning up my messes.”

  “Your call.” She waited, but apparently he didn’t wish to discuss this further.

  He closed his eyes, and his jittery legs stilled. His head lolled back in the chair. “I had a dream last night.”

  He’d brought up dreams earlier, when he’d first come in, then again later. This made the third time. This dream was important.

  “Shall I tell you about it?”

  “If you’d like,” she said, keeping her voice neutral, not wanting to show him her curiosity.

  “I dreamt I was back at school. Remember I told you I lived at St. Catherine’s School for Boys until ten years ago.”

  She occupied her hands with a pencil though she had no plans to spook him by taking notes. “I remember. You didn’t like it there. One of the nuns in particular.”

  “Sister Bernadette. She was in my dream.” His back slid down into the chair, pushing his feet near the end of the ottoman. Apparently, he really needed that couch.

  Faith recalled Sister Bernadette clearly. According to Scourge, she’d beaten him with a flashlight on more than one occasion after he’d wet the bed. She wasn’t certain she believed the whole story, but she was certain he did, and that was all that mattered.

  “It was Sister who gave me my name, you know—­Scourge.”

  She hadn’t known, and the fact that he’d finally revealed the source of his awful nickname signaled increased trust, maybe even an impending breakthrough. “Tell me more.”

  “I dreamt I was deep in the woods, miles from the boys’ dormitory. It’s like I’m right there again, now. My thighs are burning because I walked all the way with Sister Bernadette on my back. Then I laid her out on the soggy ground beneath a hulking ponderosa pine.”

  Such detail. Could this be it? Maybe this dream would bring his fears to the surface and allow him to conquer them once and for all. “Mmm hmm.”

  “A bright rim of moonlight encircles her face. Black robes flow around her, engulf her small body and blend with the night. Her face, floating on top of all that darkness, reminds me of a ghost head in a haunted house.”

  His voice rose, and his words rushed faster and faster. “I draw back, and I pull out my pocketknife and press the silver blade against her throat. I am not a shadow. I twist the knife so that the tip bites into the sweet hollow of her throat. I’m not afraid of going to hell.”

  His eyes squeezed tight, and his back arched.

  “It’s okay, Scourge, it’s only a dream. I’m right here.”

  Writhing in the chair, he covered his ears with his hands. “I don’t want to remember the rest. I don’t want her to say those words.” He made a choking noise. “But I need to remember. I can’t go on like this. I can’t let Sister Bernadette win. She’s trying to keep me from doing my work. But I won’t let her stop me now. Not when I’ve come so far. Not when I’m so close to the grand finale.”

  His agitation increased with each passing second. Faith watched his body, alert for any sign he might injure himself but allowing him his space. At last, his mouth opened and a hoarse cry came out. “Yes. I remember it all, now. Sister Bernadette gurgles, and her eyes roll back in her head. She screams at me while she’s dying. Over and over she screams those words: The blood of the lamb will wash away your sins. And then blood flows from her neck onto my hands. I run and run and run until I find a stream.”

  She pressed her eyelids with her fingertips, trying to gather her thoughts. “Say again, please.”

  “The blood of the lamb
. I have to get it off my hands.” He rubbed his hands together frantically, pantomiming his story.

  “Slow down a minute.” She reached out, touched his hands, and felt his arms relax slightly, then tense again. “You said that in your dream, you killed Sister Bernadette.”

  “Yes.”

  “Her blood is on your hands, and that frightens you.”

  “Yes. I have to get it off. I have to get the blood off or else . . .”

  “Or else what?” At last, she was about to learn the answer to the mystery. What was it about blood that made Scourge’s heart race and his head spin to the point he could no longer function?

  His eyes rolled back in his head, and his whole body jerked. “I don’t want the blood of the lamb on me. I don’t want to be cleansed of my sins. I have to get the blood of the lamb off my hands before it washes me clean. I want to go hell. I need to go to hell.” His arms and legs flailed. “Now Wilhelmina’s blood is on me. Like the holy lamb’s blood, like Bernadette’s. Get it off me!”

  Wilhelmina? Oh yes, the woman at the lab. Realization jolted through her. Wilhelmina must’ve called up his memories of Bernadette, the nun who’d terrorized him at school. In his mind, her blood had become Bernadette’s blood. Faith squeezed his shoulder. “It’s only a dream. You’re okay. All you have to do is wake up.”

  His eyes flew open, and he bolted upright in the chair. She placed her fingers on his wrist, monitoring his pulse. “Breathe, Scourge. You can do this. Use the deep breathing to help you through this.”

  He nodded. His chest heaved, then filled with breath, released the breath, then filled again. His pulse normalized.

  “It’s only a dream. I’m here for you, Scourge. Sister Bernadette will never hurt you again.” She retrieved a bottle of water from her small fridge, unscrewed the lid, and handed it to him. “Now you say it.”

  “I’m safe now. Sister Bernadette can never hurt me again.” His hand twitched, and the water fell to the ground, spilling on the carpet. “She can’t hurt me. Is it really true?”

  “It’s really true.” Faith heard the catch in her voice as she answered.

  Scourge climbed out of the chair. “I’m feeling better now. I think I’ll clean up my mess.”

  “Don’t bother.” She waved her hand at the water beading on the stain-­resistant carpet. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “No.” His strange laugh echoed around the room. “I mean the blood in the tub. I think I can clean the blood up now. It’s like you said, Sister Bernadette is dead. She can’t hurt me ever again.” He looked at her with widening eyes. “Is it possible I’m cured?”

  “Freud theorized that phobias result from past traumas. I suspect your dream symbolizes your rage toward Sister Bernadette because of the horrible way she treated you in school.”

  He moved closer, listening intently.

  “Once you uncover those feelings, bring them to the surface and face them, the fear dissipates, and the phobia goes away. I must say I don’t subscribe to Freudian theory in its entirety, but in this instance, it’s ringing true.”

  “You think I’m cured.”

  “I think we’ve uncovered the root of your hemophobia. Your fear of blood is tied to your religious upbringing, to your beliefs about heaven and hell, and even more importantly to this woman who tortured you as a boy.”

  “Tortured seems a harsh word.” He ducked his head so she couldn’t see his eyes again.

  Classic ambivalence. He hated the Sister, but he depended on her, too, because he’d had no one else to care for him. Time to let her go. “She beat you with a flashlight and shamed you in front of all the other boys.”

  “She made me feel small.” He laughed until his shoulders shook.

  Faith felt a sense of relief. He was releasing tension through laughter, a safe enough means of coping with the harsh truths of his life.

  “I mean even smaller than I am in real life.” As his laughter subsided, he gave one last snort. “Sister and her talk of the blood of the lamb unmanned me so to speak. Who’s afraid of a bloody lamb, for Chrissake?”

  He seemed to have recovered his composure enough to wind things up for the day—­and they’d gone overtime. Faith’s muscles ached from the tight control she’d maintained for the past hour, so she could only imagine how Scourge felt. She looked at her watch. “Time’s about up.”

  “Yes.” He looked directly at her, and his eyes sparked. “Time’s up.”

  “I’ll see you next week then, or we can schedule something sooner if you feel like you need to talk more about what happened here today.”

  “No.” His expression was almost giddy. “You’ve been a big help, but I can take it from here.”

  His phobia had been the tip of a much larger problem. He still needed therapy. “We’ve had a breakthrough regarding your fear of blood, yes. But there’s still a lot of work to do to on other issues.”

  “Other issues? Oh, you think I want to become a stable, well-­adjusted individual. But you see, Dr. Clancy, that isn’t what I want at all. I just want to be me. I have no desire for personal growth. I only needed to get rid of that awful hemophobia so I could get back to my old life. I have a lot of work left to do, and now, thanks to you, I can finish what I started.” He stroked the leather back of the chair, then turned and walked out her door.

  TWENTY-­THREE

  Thursday, August 15, 8:00 A.M.

  After hurrying outside, Faith saw that Luke had already arrived. They were headed to Amarillo today, in the hopes of locating and interviewing Jeremy Jacobs, a potential witness in the Saint case. When Luke shot her a cocky grin, she dropped her briefcase. The tripod that’d been tucked under her arm followed, and as she bent to gather the consent forms that had flown out of the case, her purse slipped off her shoulder, landing in her sprinkler-­dampened front lawn.

  Luke raised one amused eyebrow, crossed his arms, and leaned back against the hood of the coolest car Faith had ever seen, his pecs rippling beneath a white cotton T-­shirt that barely contained his biceps. His Wranglers were cowboy tight and buckled with an ornate silver medallion that read PRCA NATIONAL FINALS 2010 SADDLE BRONC RIDING.

  Not that she’d been staring.

  He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and crossed his tan ostrich skin boots at the ankles. “What?” He drawled the word into two syllables.

  Her mouth snapped shut. Like he didn’t know he could give a girl a heart attack showing up looking like he’d just climbed off a bucking bronco ready to claim the award for bluest-­eyed cowboy.

  “Nothing.” She chased down the rest of her forms, locked everything up neat and tidy in her leather briefcase, and stuck her hands on her hips. “Just didn’t know you were a rodeo champion is all.” She cleared her throat. “Or that you’d be picking me up in that old thing.”

  “Now I know you’re teasing, darlin’, because no woman in her right mind can resist a sweet little ride like this.” He winked. “My 1977 Delft blue Triumph Spitfire and I are at your ser­vice. I’m dressed in my everyday ranch gear because Amarillo’s cowboy country, and I figure I’ll get more cooperation from the witness like this than I would suited up.”

  That’s how he dressed every day on the ranch. She swallowed hard and tried not to imagine what his butt looked like mounting a quarter horse. “Makes sense. I-­I just assumed we’d be taking the limo.”

  “Nice stammer.” He grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm. “Sorry to disappoint you, but you made it clear this trip would be strictly business, and I’m afraid I just can’t trust myself with you in a limo.” He swept his arm across the tiny two-­seater convertible. “This’ll be safer . . . for you.”

  Truthfully, she’d been expecting a campaign to mix pleasure with business, but now she saw he wasn’t going to put up any argument. She heaved a sigh, and her chest deflated.

  “If you’ve changed your
mind, I can always call my driver. We can take the limo and fool around on the way.” His it’d-­be-­my-­pleasure-­ma’am grin set her heart palpitating.

  For heaven’s sake.

  “No thank you.” She stuck her chin up. “I’m just wondering how we’re going to fit the two of us and my camera equipment in that car.”

  He popped the tiny trunk and scratched his head. “Don’t you have a smaller tripod?”

  Half an hour later, they were on their way with a smaller tripod, the bare minimum of camera equipment, and one consolidated overnight bag. Top down, headed for Amarillo, with Hank Williams on the stereo. The buzz of the engine and the flapping of the wind made chatter difficult, so she just gathered her hair into a ponytail, leaned back, and soaked up the day.

  They might not spend the night in Amarillo—­that depended on the witness. But they’d agreed to stay over if necessary. Luke kept his hand on hers whenever he wasn’t shifting. The wind and sun felt so good, so pleasantly invigorating, and the hand-­holding seemed so innocent, she magnanimously decided not to protest. An hour later, they were still holding hands when it started to drizzle.

  Luke pulled over at the first gas station to put up the top and take a comfort break. When he climbed back in the car and gunned the engine, she could tell his mood had shifted. They headed back to the highway, but this time he kept both hands on the wheel. With the top up and the noise down, there was plenty of room for conversation, but none seemed forthcoming.

  She let it go about ten minutes, then asked, “Is something wrong?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “You picked up on that, huh?”

  “I am a psychiatrist.” She kept her tone playful.

  “So I hear.”

  More silence. She pulled the band out of her hair and let it fall freely to her shoulders. If he thought she was going to pick up a crowbar and pry whatever the hell was on his mind out of him, he was mistaken. No room in this car for a crowbar. Looking out her window, she hummed tunelessly.

  “What the hell?” he said at last. “Are you tone-­deaf?”