The Edge of Normal

by Carla Norton

  She makes a face. “The curse of being self-absorbed.”

  He sits quietly, watching her.

  “Okay. I know. I can’t assume that every article on these subjects has bearing on my individual situation,” she says, parroting his jargon. “But I just want to stop feeling like I have this ugly part of myself that no one can possibly understand. I want to have a normal life and be a normal adult.” She glances at him and then looks away. “I know you don’t like that word, but you know what I mean.”

  “Reeve, you are normal. But you’ve survived a uniquely traumatic situation. That’s no small thing, and it’s understandable if you’re still having trouble adjusting, or if you’re uncomfortable with men, or—”

  “I’m comfortable with you.”

  “So give yourself some credit. And relax. Because you’re still young, and you can’t let your desire for self-protection preclude you from having any new relationships for the rest of your life.”

  “Why not?”

  An elastic silence stretches between them. She knows this was a flip question, and that he is waiting for her to come up with her own answer. But she holds her breath, settles back on the sofa, and stubbornly says nothing.

  He taps his chin with his thumb, studying her. “Okay, here’s your homework,” he says, as he often does when their session concludes. “Think about your own personal definition of a comfortable relationship: friend or romance, asexual or bisexual or whatever. Nothing is off-limits. And if you don’t want to share the exact details with me, that’s fine. Consider it private, and consider that you are in absolute control. But give yourself permission to at least think about making a true, intimate connection with someone, even if you’re only fantasizing about it at this point. How’s that?”

  “An intimate connection?”

  “Correct.”

  “Just try to imagine it, is all?”

  He cocks an eyebrow.

  “Okay, I guess that’s nonthreatening enough.” She looks down and sees that she has crossed her arms and legs. “I only look defensive. I’m actually a little chilled.”

  Smiling, he nods once in punctuation. “Good. I’ll see you next week. And I hope you have a very nice Thanksgiving.”

  “You, too.”

  They’re on their feet and moving toward the door when Dr. Lerner says, “Oh, have you given any more thought to getting a cat or a dog?”

  “I know you think it would be therapeutic, but I don’t need a cat or a dog. I have Persephone.”

  His lips compress wryly. “And how is the lovely Persephone?”

  “She’s therapeutic.”

  He chuckles and opens the door.

  The moment they step into the hall, the receptionist hurries toward them, clasping her hands in front of her as if in prayer. “Excuse me, doctor,” she says, “but you have an unscheduled visitor.”

  As the three come into the waiting room, a man wearing a crimped expression and a dark suit rises. “Dr. Lerner? I’m sorry to intrude on your schedule.”

  “You’re here about Jefferson County?” Dr. Lerner steps forward to shake the man’s hand.

  “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this.”

  Dr. Lerner’s voice drops to a low, serious tone while Reeve dawdles near the receptionist’s desk, straining to hear. She retrieves the key to the restroom from its place in a floral dish, stalling, but can’t make out more of the men’s conversation. At the door, she turns to glimpse them disappearing into Dr. Lerner’s office.

  Out in the hallway, she passes Dr. Lerner’s usual 10:30 appointment, a redheaded teen with fantastic freckles whose name, of course, she doesn’t know.

  When she returns from the restroom, the redhead is gone, and Reeve notices that the receptionist’s face is clouded with a strange expression. Her Cupid’s-bow mouth is a straight line. And as Reeve sets the key back in the dish, the receptionist looks up at her and says, “I’m terribly sorry, Miss LeClaire, but Dr. Lerner has to cancel all of next week’s appointments.”

  Reeve blinks at her, realizing that this is the first time the receptionist has ever spoken her name.

  FOUR

  Jefferson City

  By the time Duke turns toward home, he has already dealt with the first order of business. He has bought a new cell phone and transferred all the necessary phone numbers. He has dropped the new phone into the pocket of his leather jacket and placed the old phone in the colorful plastic bag with the new phone’s packaging and receipt.

  Now he is headed south. He turns off the old highway and drives parallel to the railroad tracks for a ways, then turns east toward the river, then right on Riverside Drive. For the first few miles, tidy houses are crowded behind manicured lawns, but the subdivision gradually exhausts itself, and then the road narrows. The few remaining houses squat on untamed lots of thick brush, old oaks, and tall pines. Street signs are pocked with bullet holes. Fences are thirsty for paint. Neighbors are scarce and make a habit of minding their own business.

  Duke turns his Chevy Tahoe off the road and presses the remote control clipped to the visor. The heavy wooden gate rolls open and his SUV bumps along the uneven driveway. At the far side of the twelve-acre lot sprawls the ranch-style house that he inherited from his parents. It’s riverfront property, so one problem is that there is no basement, but Duke prides himself on being resourceful.

  He parks in the carport next to his van and climbs out, carrying the plastic shopping bag with him. He never leaves trash in his vehicle.

  He climbs the steps at the side of the house, unlocks the deadbolt, and enters through the mudroom. The house is just as cold as outdoors so he does not remove his leather jacket as he heads straight through to the control room in back, where he unlocks a second deadbolt. He enters a wide room that has both a workout area with dust-free exercise apparatus and an office area with top-notch computers and displays, all humming like NASA.

  He crosses the room to a metal file cabinet, unlocks it, and quickly finds the file he wants in the second drawer. He locks the cabinet back up, pockets his keys, and opens the file. Barely glancing at the pages, he plucks out a ziplock bag holding a silver flash drive, and slips it into the colorful shopping bag with his old cell phone. He then walks out of the room and down the hall, his boots striking heavily on the hardwood floors.

  The living room has a brick fireplace with a wide hearth, where he sets the file and the plastic bag. Duke has been building fires since he was a boy. He opens the screen, selects kindling and firewood from the stack next to the firebox, and expertly arranges the paper, the kindling, and the logs. He strikes a match and watches while the fire flickers and grows. He waits until it is burning in earnest before adding the cell phone’s receipt and paperwork to the flame.

  After closing the screen, he carries the plastic shopping bag back through the house, through the kitchen, through the mudroom, and out the side door.

  Clouds darken the sky as he walks back to his Chevy Tahoe and sets the plastic bag on the concrete behind the front wheel. Then he climbs inside, starts up the engine, and backs over it. The splintering cell phone doesn’t even register under the treads.

  Back inside the house, he checks that the SIM card is demolished before emptying the contents of the bag into the kitchen trash, where the synthetic debris disappears into a mix of cold coffee grounds and greasy chicken bones. Satisfied, Duke turns his attention to the next problem: Randy Vanderholt.

  Vander-dolt had lied the whole time he was moving Tilly from one house to the other. He pretended he was being hypervigilant, claiming that he was scrubbing and cleaning, and that, as a final precaution, he was tearing out the funky basement paneling and replacing it with fresh drywall. He explained that he was painting everything, all of the interior walls, so that the freshly painted basement wouldn’t stand out.

  Instead, Vander-dolt took shortcuts. His cleaning had been minimal. And rather than gutting the basement, he’d decided to simply wall up the entrance.

  Some
thing only a moron would do.

  This is the risk of working with someone like Vanderholt. Stupid people are generally easy to control, but they create problems when they try to be clever. Sure, Vanderholt had successfully moved Tilly from one basement to the other, but he was inexcusably sloppy. He left evidence behind. And worse, he blatantly and repeatedly lied to the one person he should never, ever offend.

  Fool.

  Duke’s stomach growls, making a sound that approximates his mood. He stomps over to the fridge and rummages around until he has the makings of a sandwich. He slathers a mound of ham with horseradish and crushed garlic, adds slices of pepperjack cheese, then squashes it all between two slabs of bread. He eats over the sink while mulling his options.

  The problem is that Vander-dolt is now behind bars, putting him in a position to cause even more damage. Because any cop with an ounce of brains will see that Randy Vanderholt has the IQ of a toaster. And then it’s a short leap to figuring out that the moron had some help.

  Clearly, the first order of business is to get to the dolt before some smart cop convinces him to start talking. That won’t be easy, but Duke knows plenty of easily manipulated people in and around the jail. Guards. Inmates. He can pull some strings.

  He recalls a recent conversation with an impressionable cousin—a longtime guard at the jail—and his mouth twitches a smile. Pedophiles are known to suffer all kinds of trouble behind bars. No one will be surprised if Randy Vanderholt bleeds.

  The girl, however, poses a more difficult problem.

  FIVE

  The closer Dr. Ezra Lerner gets to Jefferson City, the worse the weather gets. Winds slap his Cessna Skyhawk about like a toy. He grinds his teeth and tightens his grip on the controls, keeping a sharp eye on his instruments.

  He knew it was going to be like this, but he prefers to fly his own plane whenever he can, especially when called to places like Jefferson, places that have few commercial flights, places where the only other option would be hours of driving up a long stretch of freeway. Still, he could use a break. He glances at his untouched thermos, craving a quick dose of caffeine, but the plane lurches, buffeted by northeast winds, and he decides not to risk it.

  Nearly there. He has flown to Jefferson before, and the landing pattern is clear in his mind. He radios the tower and watches his altitude.

  The wind slackens as the plane descends into a layer of heavy, wet clouds. He’s flying blind. The Cessna handles well, but he’s relieved when he finally slips beneath the cloud cover at thirty-two hundred feet. Now he has a clear view. The river winds through the valley like a fat green snake. The airstrip appears below, rimmed by a horseshoe of snowy mountains that disappear into the clouds.

  Dr. Lerner angles his Cessna toward the landing strip. With a practiced hand, he makes his turns, gliding lower, lower, making minor corrections as gusts strike the plane, lining up with the runway, settling into final approach.

  This transition from air to land, from bird to vehicle, always gives him a visceral thrill. He adjusts the flaps, cuts speed, and straightens up, ready for the wheels to set down with a satisfying thump. A strong gust lifts and tilts the plane. He corrects, regains the center line, and abruptly drops down. The right wheel grips the runway, the left snaps down, and then gravity pulls tight and the Cessna shudders down the runway, shedding speed.

  The plane eases almost to a stop at the end, and then Dr. Lerner turns and wheels slowly toward a cluster of buildings. He maneuvers down a lane and tucks the Cessna into a slot designated for visitor aircraft, where he shuts down the engine.

  After making the appropriate notes in his flight log, he opens the cockpit and climbs out. He walks around, double-checking everything and securing the tail before grabbing his bag and heading across the tarmac toward a weathered building with a wall of windows.

  A stocky, severe-looking woman in a raincoat and shiny boots comes out into the cold to greet him. She introduces herself as Jefferson County Deputy District Attorney Jackie Burke. Dr. Lerner shakes her hand, and they tip their heads together, conferring briefly before coming inside.

  Only two men are waiting in the lounge, but Dr. Lerner would have spotted Gordon Cavanaugh in a room full of white, middle-aged fathers. He sits hunched over his coffee, wearing an expression that Dr. Lerner has seen many times: a mixture of shock, relief, and exhaustion.

  Burke introduces Tilly Cavanaugh’s father, who looks up at Dr. Lerner but says nothing. The man sitting next to him, a uniformed, athletic-looking young man, stands.

  “This is Deputy Hudson,” Burke says. “He’s working closely with the district attorney’s office on this case. I’ll make sure he has the relevant files ready when you come by my office later. In the meantime, he’ll be helping with logistics.”

  “Consider me your liaison with the DA’s office,” the young deputy says, gripping the doctor’s hand in a friendly shake. “I’ll be your driver and personal guide. Just call me for anything you might need while you’re here.”

  Dr. Lerner thanks him, turns to Mr. Cavanaugh, and says, “If you two don’t mind, I’d like to speak with Mr. Cavanaugh privately for a few minutes.”

  The pair nod and head toward the hallway leading toward the front entry while Dr. Lerner steps over to a coffee pot on a corner table. By the time he pours himself a cup and turns around, he and Mr. Cavanaugh have the lounge to themselves.

  “My wife is at home with Tilly,” Mr. Cavanaugh volunteers, staring down at the cup bracketed in his hands.

  “That’s good. It’s good for both of them, I think.” Dr. Lerner sips his coffee and waits.

  Cavanaugh gives the doctor a long, appraising look. His eyes are weary and blue-gray. “Jackie Burke is a good attorney, and she says that you’re the best there is at this sort of thing. That you’ve helped a lot of kidnapped kids. That you helped Beth Goodwin. And that other girl, too, Reggie LeClaire.”

  “That’s right, those and others.” Dr. Lerner holds Cavanaughs’ gaze and speaks slowly. “Survivors of prolonged captivity are rare, so there aren’t many in my profession who specialize in their treatment.”

  Cavanaugh snorts. “I found that out. Just so you know, my wife isn’t crazy about having a male shrink in our house, treating our daughter.”

  “That’s understandable. I’ll do my best to respect your concerns. We’ll take it slow and see how it goes.”

  A pause, an exhalation. “I guess that’s all we can do.”

  “You’ve been through a lot. And now that you have Tilly home again, there’s a lot of healing ahead of you. So we’ll proceed at a pace that will allow you all to feel comfortable.”

  “Well.” Cavanaugh glances away and then back again. “Okay.”

  “Good,” Dr. Lerner says with a nod of encouragement. “You’re acting very quickly to address Tilly’s emotional well-being. I commend you for that. Not all parents are so enlightened in these circumstances.”

  Cavanaugh’s eyes settle back on him. “So what happens now?”

  “I’d like to meet your family—your wife and your daughter and your son, too—and then we can talk again privately and decide on the next step. And I assure you that everything you say will be considered confidential unless you indicate otherwise. How’s that?”

  “Yeah, okay. That sounds about right.”

  “Good. So tell me, how’s Tilly doing?”

  “It’s hard to say. She’s quiet. A bit jumpy, a little clingy, I think. She seems healthy enough, but thin, you know.”

  “She has been treated by a medical doctor?”

  “At the hospital. The doctors there examined her, of course, and gave her some pills. But they’re not, like, specialists or anything.”

  “Did they give you a diagnosis?”

  “They said she’s malnourished, and she has some minor injuries. Burns,” Cavanaugh says, wincing. “They think she’s probably suffering from post-traumatic shock, you know. But Tilly doesn’t say much, and she doesn’t seem to want to leave the house.
” He frowns at Dr. Lerner, adding, “That’s to be expected, I guess.”

  “It is, sure. With your permission, I’ll contact the hospital and check her records. In the meantime, you’re just beginning the first phase of what may be a long healing process, for Tilly and for your whole family.”

  “Yeah, I get that.”

  “It’s best if you don’t press her for details. Let her volunteer things at her own pace, and don’t let the legal process dictate that. She’ll talk more as she feels more secure. For now, Tilly needs to be assured of your unconditional love and support.”

  “We went on that Web site—the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children?—and it had some good advice there.”

  “Excellent. Glad to hear it.”

  Dr. Lerner notes that Gordon Cavanaugh is sitting up taller, with his shoulders less hunched. As if by mutual agreement, they simultaneously raise their coffee cups and drink, a mirror image, men of equal stature facing each other across a table.

  “There’s something else, though,” Cavanaugh says, setting down his cup.

  “What’s that?”

  “I warned you that my wife has some issues.”

  “Yes?”

  “She thinks Tilly might have a problem with you.”

  Dr. Lerner nods thoughtfully. “Because I’m a man, and Tilly was victimized and abused by a man, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I understand. That’s a legitimate concern, and I’m glad that you’re empathizing with your daughter. But in my experience, it doesn’t take long to overcome that hurdle. And of course it’s important that you and your son will also be contributing to Tilly’s healing process, so that she can again feel safe, so that she can feel that there are men in her life whom she can genuinely trust.”

  “Yeah, but there’s more.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My wife…” Gordon Cavanaugh shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

  Dr. Lerner watches him, saying nothing.