by Lisa Alber
“He could decide to have you match him someday,” Zoe said. “He could meet a new Annie—God bless her—and leave me alone.”
“Loneliness is a powerful emotion,” Liam said.
Merrit let her head rest against the wall.
“Loneliness.” Zoe didn’t sound sure about this word. “No, abandonment. I used to have a lovely relationship with him.”
Voices rose from inside the office behind Merrit.
“When did the loveliness end?” Liam said.
“Maybe it floundered the year before my mom died, when I was twelve.”
The voices in the office approached the door. Merrit eased her way toward the toilets while still eavesdropping. She missed something Zoe said, but then her voice rose. “Liam, you did it again. I’m after trying to make a point, and you steer me in a different direction.”
The office door cracked open. Merrit ran into the ladies’ and then reopened the door as if exiting. Louise, the event manager, appeared with one of her colleagues.
“’Allo then, did you find your marquee?” she said.
Merrit let the bathroom door slam shut behind her. “The Cool Chill Marquee looks good.”
“The Chill Zone, dear,” Louise said. “Come along then, let’s sort this out.”
Liam released Zoe’s hand when Merrit stepped around the partition.
forty-seven
Cedric Gibson abducted Annie Belden. Danny decided now would be a good time for pints all around. He signaled O’Neil to fetch them and then addressed Dr. Browne. “How did Gibson manage that?”
“Oh, easy enough, I’d say,” she said. “He rented a car and followed her home when she got off her shift. Got right cozy living with her for a week.”
O’Neil returned with their pints. Browne nodded her thanks and drank. Danny waited for the psychotherapist to continue. She remained quiet through several mouthfuls of beer, then said, “This may not make sense to you, but Annie would have healed faster if he’d molested her or beat her. Instead, he was a gentleman.”
“Except for holding her captive,” O’Neil said.
“Yes, yes.” She waved that away. “They ate together and slept together in the same bed. He drugged her at night so that he could sleep, too. He went into the bathroom with her but turned his back to give her a semblance of privacy. He never saw her naked. He never touched her except when he secured her to a chair or bed. She said he conversed and invited her to converse with him. They listened to music, watched television, read. He wrote horrid short stories and read them aloud to her. Can you imagine discussing, I don’t know, plot and character, all the while knowing that the writer was revealing his true disgusting self to you? It’s enough to give me the sick if I weren’t a professional.” She blew out a long, slow breath. “Do you remember the movie—or maybe the book. Or maybe it was both? Anyhow, do you remember The Stepford Wives?”
Danny nodded.
“The wives were all the more terrifying because of their perfection. Annie described Cedric as the Stepford Kidnapper. By then, of course, she knew he was sane and far from rehabilitated, which made it worse. She couldn’t forgive herself for being taken in by him, and she convinced herself that his future crimes would be her fault.”
“The worst kind of torture,” Danny said.
“Indeed. Then one day, he left. Just like that—pfft, gone. He loosened the ties while she slept and left a note. He’d enjoyed their ‘retreat’ together and thanked her for being the one person in the world who understood him. He looked forward to going on retreat with her every year and promised—promised, I ask you—to look her up a year from that date. He signed the note, With love, your admirer.”
“That’s diabolical,” O’Neil said. “Did she report him?”
“She couldn’t do. She wouldn’t have, you see, because her professional conduct was already suspect on account of being so involved in Cedric’s release. She was to be up before the Fitness to Practise Committee. She didn’t want to give them more ammunition. Not that it mattered in the end. She was found not fit to practice anyway. She lost her license.” Browne fingered her beer stein, rotating the glass this way and that. “She was planning to retrain as some brand of holistic healer.”
At the word healer, Danny’s thoughts jumped from Nathan’s daughter to Ellen. He jerked off his coat and beckoned the barman to lay him down another pint. O’Neil raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
“Why didn’t she report him after she lost her license?” Danny said, trying to regain his rhythm in the conversation.
“She had her own thoughts about how to heal herself. I didn’t agree, but I couldn’t stop her. She was waiting for the year anniversary, you see, waiting for him to find her again.”
“Why? She didn’t strike me as the passive sort.”
“You’re right, she’s not. I urged her to be proactive, but he’d paralyzed her to the core. He’d eroded her sense of self. She had this idea that she had to face him again, one-on-one. She thought of his arrival as inevitable, but she was terrified all the same. I tried to talk her out of the fantasy of a miraculous redemption, especially because she’d met a man. I hoped this was a sign that she was on the mend.”
“Yes, we’re aware of him.”
A spark of clinical interest sharpened Browne’s gaze. “What’s he about then? I’m curious.”
Danny thought for a moment. “Damaged.”
“Tortured would be the word,” O’Neil said.
“She wanted to help him,” Browne said, “but once again she forgot boundaries.”
“Did Annie sleep with Cedric?” O’Neil asked.
“No, it wasn’t that kind of relationship.”
Danny’s second pint arrived. He swallowed a mouthful. “Did he find her again a year later?”
“Oh, yes. Annie thought she’d made it through, that he might have let his obsession go, but then she received a letter two days after the anniversary date.”
“Mind games again,” O’Neil said.
“There was a point to Cedric’s mind games: that she was his even when he wasn’t there. He wrote that he was in the area and looking forward to their retreat this year. This idea that she had to confront him …” She shook her head. “It’s one thing to imagine vanquishing a demon, another to actually face the demon again. You look for him. He’s sure to still be nearby.”
“What did she do with the letter he sent her?” O’Neil said.
“Burned to ashes.”
Danny set his beer aside. “Would Cedric be the type to leave a symbolic bouquet of flowers, in this case meaning ‘unrequited love’?”
“I’ll tell you what type he is.” Browne rose. “He’s the type to graduate from stalking and kidnapping to killing. Now, if you’ll excuse me. This conversation was more difficult than I thought it would be.”
“I guess that was a yes,” O’Neil said after she left.
forty-eight
Merrit squinted through successive rain curtains the sky saw fit to unfurl on them. She turned on her headlights, catching sight of flattened daffodils by the side of the road into Lisfenora. Liam dozed in the seat beside her. In the back, Zoe contemplated the drenched countryside. In repose, the loud attractiveness she emitted in all directions went dormant. She appeared girlish, a solemn girl with solemn thoughts.
“Thanks for helping us choose a marquee for the party,” Merrit said. “Where did you want to be dropped off ?”
Zoe perked up with an instant smile. “The Roadside Tavern. I’m meeting Brian for a quick pint. He’ll drop me off at home. You’re welcome to join us if you want.” Merrit pulled up outside a pub with a wagon wheel hanging on the front door. “Oh! There he is now.” Zoe rolled down her window. “Brian!”
A drenched fellow in a thick down jacket trotted over. “How’s the craic?”
Yet another suitor. Zoe needed matchmaking services like a leopard needed spots. The man ducked to nod at Merrit with a quick, penetrating squint. His smile revealed pointy c
anine teeth to go with boyish dimples. He opened Zoe’s door for her and led the way into the pub at a sprint, Zoe laughing behind him.
Merrit continued to the plaza and found a parking spot near Alan’s pub.
“I’m not in the mood,” Liam said. “I could use a nap.”
“We’re not going in. I’m holding you hostage until you tell me the truth.”
Liam coughed into a handkerchief. “What is it then?”
“What are you after with Zoe?”
“I’m experimenting, no more than that.” He picked up an AdSense booklet tucked into the cup holder and flipped through it.
“Don’t play the silence game with me, mister.” She grabbed the booklet from him. “Spill it.”
“Talk about the bloom going off the rose, disrespecting an elder like that. A question for you: how have I been for the last few days?”
Merrit hesitated. “Pretty good. And?”
“Improved, more energy, you’d say?”
“Stable.” Realization dawned on her. “No, you’re not.”
“I am, and I swear I’m feeling better,” he said. “Zoe might be a keeper of the cure, indeed.”
Merrit digested Liam’s statement, trying to look at it from all sides. Placebo effect. Delusion. Hope. Desperation. Whimsy.
Truth?
“You’re feeling better than what?” she said. “Your doctor said right from the start that you’d have good days and bad.” She couldn’t keep the tension out of her voice. “I understand the temptation to believe in something, anything, but the cure?”
He smiled with a knowing look, one that hinted at the undercurrents of life that she was too American—or too ignorant—to understand. “Oh, ye of little faith, and here I’m telling you that I do feel better. I’m sure of it.”
“Is that why you were holding her hand today?” Merrit said.
“Holding my hand, nothing wrong with that. Solace for the codger.”
“What about the seventh son of the seventh son? Aren’t they the ones who hold the cure? For that alone, I’d be skeptical of Zoe.”
“True, but she’s not full Irish, is she? Like you’re not full Irish, and I’ve no doubts that you have the charm for matchmaking like I do. Why can’t she be charmed for healing?”
The problem was that Merrit wasn’t Irish enough to believe in such things. Every week she heard new tales that sane people accepted as part of their everyday reality. A standing stone in a sheep field that granted a wish if you climbed to the top of it. The faery tree that brought bad luck to the construction company owner who cut it down to make room for a road. The stories never ended.
Merrit said coincidence. Everyone else said, “Ay, maybe, but then maybe not.”
She powered on her hybrid and turned on the lights. “Fine. You have every right to hold hands with Zoe. I have nothing to say about it unless she’s hurting you, but I don’t approve. Her behavior is odd—cruel, even. Maybe self-serving.” Liam snorted. “She isn’t charging you for the service, is she? True healers aren’t supposed to profit from it, right?”
“So it’s said,” he said.
Merrit glanced at him as she eased onto the noncoastal road for the drive home. The rain-muted glow from Alan’s pub caught Liam’s speculative half smile, there and gone in a swipe of the windshield wipers.
forty-nine
Nathan jerked his hand out from under a scalding blast of water and turned off the taps. The last he remembered he was lying in bed. Zoe had left to meet up with Liam and Merrit. He’d felt a yawning hole of drowsiness pull him toward sleep in the middle of the afternoon.
Now, flash forward to the kitchen. The bitter smell of burnt coffee tickled his nose. He leaned to the side to switch off the coffeemaker. A dribble of red appeared on the countertop. The moment he noticed the blood, pain registered and a sick feeling began its usual roil in his belly. His middle finger throbbed where a cut bisected the pad of the finger.
He grabbed a paper towel to stanch the blood and jerked open the knife drawer. He picked up each knife in turn. The carving knife. The bread knife. The chef’s knife. The paring knife. The all-purpose knife. Five. All accounted for, and none of them appeared dirty or damp as if recently rinsed off. Not that that meant anything.
“Zoe?” he called.
He should have been relieved she wasn’t here to witness his latest episode, but he wasn’t. Her absence unnerved him as much as her presence would have. He knew knife cuts, how well he did, and he’d cut his finger. Somehow.
The ticking grandfather clock, one of the few antiques he’d kept from his home in England, answered back with a dong for the half hour. But half what?
“I’m grand,” he said. “Just grand.”
He entered his studio to check the ceramic knives. He pulled open a drawer on the worktable, but they were in the same state of benign disuse as the kitchen knives.
Maybe he didn’t want to remember. Maybe these forgetful states of his were protective. He should ask Annie.
The mobile sat where he last remembered seeing it, on the hall stand. He’d started using a password recently, and after thinking about it for a second, he tapped the password and pressed Annie’s number. The connection rang three times and stopped. “Annie?” he said.
The silence on the other end of the connection whistled and crackled. Wind, that was wind. And then the sound went dead.
Dead.
His fingers went numb. The mobile landed on the floor. That wasn’t Annie. Of course it wasn’t. Someone else had her mobile, the someone who had texted him and Merrit. Who must have left the withered bouquet that meant unrequited love. This had to be.
He squeezed his cut finger until the pain drowned out his thoughts.
The front door opened, letting in a squall of wind and rain along with Zoe. She busied herself pulling off her white coat. “I suppose I should buy a proper North Face. I hate to do it, running around in Gortex. Next you know you’ll see me in a fleece.”
Nathan loosened his grip on his finger. He inhaled to relax his facial muscles. “You must be missing England about now,” he said.
She hung her coat on the hall stand, another antique that Susannah had loved and that Nathan had refused to let go. He started toward the bathroom to plaster the cut in privacy, but she hooked his arm. “Oh,” she said, “I can fix that right up.”
He pulled away. “Not a bother. It’s nothing.”
“Dad.” She let go of his arm. Her sorrowful expression filled Nathan with anxiety. The edges of his vision softened. He backed up the stairs, hoping to reach the bathroom before he lost the plot completely.
“I can help,” Zoe tried again.
“I’m fine. Just don’t touch me.”
“I’ll make us tea. How about that?”
“Fine.”
He glanced into Zoe’s room as he passed it and noticed an open dresser drawer that shouldn’t have been open. Zoe never left drawers open. Ever.
He paused and, hearing the sound of the taps in the kitchen, tiptoed into her room to peer at folded stacks of underwear, bras, and rolled socks. His breath caught at the sight of a drop of blood soaked into pristine white cotton. Still damp. His blood. From his finger.
He grabbed the telltale socks, closed the drawer, and tiptoed toward the bathroom. He locked the door. Pain radiated from the base of his skull. Trying and failing to remember prowling through Zoe’s belongings. Shuddering at the possibility of something sharp hidden beneath her underthings. Not good, this paranoia. There was no knife. He’d remember a hidden knife.
He stepped into the bathtub and lowered himself to his haunches to wait out the episode, letting his finger bleed into the white sock.
fifty
Sunday, 28-Mar
To honor you, dear Annie, I thought I’d continue where you left off writing in this journal. My way of grieving, you might say.
I looked forward to our retreat. I truly did.
I must say, though, fascinating reading, this, your j
ournal. I enjoy the game you played with yourself as you attempted to stick to the facts. You failed most admirably. For all your insight, you didn’t comprehend what was right in front of your face.
I comprehend, so I shall keep a wee eye out for my next best opportunity for fun. I might have an idea and it begins with Nathan Tate. I had decidedly mixed feelings about him as I read your words, and then to hear his voice when he rang your mobile yesterday—surprise!
I’ve decided that I’d like to meet him. He’s not my usual type, but then I’m the curious sort, always expanding my horizons.
Do you remember when I said that I saw our sessions as a way to expand my horizons? Utter shite, but you lapped it up. You had approached me from around your desk with your direct gaze and firm handshake. No shying away for you. Back then you wore your hair around your shoulders and kept it dyed a pretty chestnut brown. Your roots showed, and it was those silver bits that hooked me.
You cared to be seen as younger, to connect with men as an attractive and viable woman. It’s the caring that brings people down. And this Nathan fella? He oozes care. One way or another, the wanker is in for a fall.
fifty-one
Danny shook hands with DS Sheehy, who was on loan from the neighboring Killaloe District, and his DO, Detective O’Donnell. “Glad to have you. You’re up to date?”
“Well enough, anyhow.” Sheehy glanced around the cramped Detective Unit office. “No incident room?”
Danny pointed to a table shoved into the corner of the room with a whiteboard hanging over it. “That’s it.”
Budget constraints. None of them had to say it.
A blank line bisected the whiteboard, with one side labeled Joseph Macy (EJ) and the other Annie Belden. A mass of paperwork littered the tabletop. Memoranda of interviews, reports, questions, potential leads—all of it in disarray.
“I suppose I’m your ‘incident room’ coordinator,” Sheehy said.
“That would be grand.” Danny gestured toward O’Neil and his other DO, Detective Pinkney, who sat at their desks. “We could use the help.”
As incident room coordinator, Sheehy would function as the office man, weeding through paperwork, assigning follow-up tasks, and ensuring that no leads fell through the cracks. They had him and O’Donnell in Lisfenora for a week. Danny planned to make full use of them to organize their arses.
