by Bunn, Davis
Detective Mehan retrieved the plastic case from her front hall. He opened it on her kitchen table. “I don’t have much call for this. Hope I still remember the instructions.”
She watched him extend a pair of antennae and fiddle with controls, then begin drifting through one room after another. Four times he stopped and searched and came up with listening devices the size of metal spiders. One from her kitchen lamp. Another from her bedroom phone. He used a pocket camera to photograph each before removing them.
It was after ten before the detective and his team finally departed. A police car sat in her driveway, and would remain on duty all night. Elena’s first call was to Miriam. She started weeping once more as she passed on the news.
“My dear, don’t trouble yourself. You have other books, remember?”
“But this is the book.”
“No, my dear, sweet Elena. I’m sorry, but you are wrong. It is only a book.”
Elena wiped her face. The constable had dusted for fingerprints everywhere the detective found a device. From her place at the kitchen table, she could see a half dozen places on the walls and on her Tiffany lamp that were smudged with gray dust. “I thought you’d be furious.”
Miriam sounded genuinely surprised. “Whatever for?”
“You’ve kept that book safe all your life. I’ve had it for less than a week.” Her voice cracked. “And I lost it.”
“I’m sorry, dear one, but you are wrong. You had the book for less than a week and you used it. Now listen carefully. The book is not important. What you do with it, how it helps you be used by God, this is vital. Was anything else stolen?”
“Not that I’ve found.”
“There. You see? Someone considers this mission of yours so important that they would break into your house and steal a book. What have they accomplished?”
“They scared me.”
Miriam sniffed. “That will pass. It must. You have important work to accomplish, and you can’t let fear stand in your way. Now go to bed and sleep. Will you do that for me?”
Elena hung up the phone, then was filled with a sudden desire to call her oldest friend again and tell her to take back the books that had not been stolen. She did not want to be used. She did not want a bigger life or a deeper meaning or a chance for greater service. She wanted her comfortable existence, her safe little world. She wanted a home where she felt secure, where there was no need to have police cars parked in her driveway. Twice she reached for the phone, then stopped. Even if she dialed Miriam’s number, Elena knew she could not shape the words.
Elena carried her valise into the bedroom and left it unopened beside her closet. She left lights on all through the house. She walked to the front window and stood looking at the police car in the driveway. Her house was bordered on three sides by a yew hedge that blocked it from most of her neighbors and the street. Before, she had treasured her privacy. Now she was glad for the police presence and wondered what she would do when they left.
Elena showered, put on her nightgown, and sat on the side of the bed. She stared at the phone for a long time before finally searching through her shoulder bag and taking the card Antonio had given her before kissing her cheek and sending her into the Rome airport. Just holding the card and looking at the handwritten number he had inscribed on the back drew him closer and gave her the courage to phone.
When he answered with a sleepy hello, she said, “I woke you. I knew I would. I’m sorry.”
“No, no, Elena, this is wonderful. You’re home?”
She listened to the comforting sound of his soft breath. “Yes. Your accent is stronger when you’re sleepy.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. It’s nice.”
He asked, “How was your trip?”
“The flight was fine. But my home was broken into.”
“Elena, no. Was anything taken?”
“Yes.” She felt her smile fracture. “Maybe I should call tomorrow.”
He was fully awake now. “No. Wait. Let me turn on the light. All right.”
“It’s late. You’re a very busy man. You have—”
“I am your friend. Is that not so, Elena?”
For some reason the question caused the tears to come again. “Yes.”
“Bene. This is what friends do. They are here for one another in the middle of the night. When the light is gone and the need is greatest. They are here. Now tell me what has happened.”
The comfort she felt in hearing Antonio’s voice lasted until she climbed into bed. Then the fear returned. Faint tremors raced through her. Perhaps she was only releasing the latent fear now, or perhaps she had simply been able to ignore it until now. She climbed out of bed and opened her bedroom drapes. She sat on the edge and stared at the police car, willing herself to accept that she was safe. Then from the kitchen came the sound of the refrigerator cutting on. The soft hum had never sounded dangerous before. A floor creaked. The rain lashed her window. Elena lay in the dark and wished she could even name what she wanted.
21
WEDNESDAY
It was still raining when Elena rose from her bed. The clock had read one in the morning the last time she had sat up and checked to make sure the police car was still parked in her driveway. She had eventually fallen into a sleep so deep that when the alarm went off, Elena had felt like she rose from a dark well. She drank three cups of coffee, two more than normal, and still felt disoriented as she drove into the city center. It seemed as though she had been gone for years, rather than just a night and two days.
Elena arrived at the office a little before eight. She was pleased to discover the office door was still locked. She wanted a few moments alone, just to make the space her own again.
But inside, her sense of disorientation remained. Elena felt as though she had entered another of those perception puzzles. One moment she stared around the reception area, a welcoming place full of comforting hues. But when she blinked her eyes, she saw something else. A place subtly designed to weld her inside a prison of her own making, while keeping the illusion of freedom alive.
She went upstairs to her office and forced herself to launch into paperwork. At a quarter to nine, Elena was startled by a knock on her door, and was even more surprised when Jeremy Yates entered her office. “How was your trip?”
“Fine, thank you, Jeremy. Again, I’m sorry to have disturbed your Sunday.”
He harrumphed something she was not intended to hear and slid her doors shut. Jeremy wore his standard dark suit with broad chalk stripes. His height and girth seemed to shrink the dimensions of her office. “I received a phone call this morning. From a Detective Mehan.”
Elena didn’t know what to say.
Jeremy reached toward the patient’s chair in front of her desk, then thought better of it. “The detective felt I should know about your break-in, since it may be tied to the listening devices found in our offices.”
She had a sudden terrible fear that he was about to fire her. She mouthed a reply she did not bother to hear.
“Is there a connection between these events?”
She started to deny it. Which left her ashamed. “I think so. Probably.”
“Really, Elena. This simply won’t do. Our goal here is to offer troubled individuals a haven.” Jeremy loomed over her desk. “A place where they can come and safely divulge their innermost secrets. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, Jeremy. Of course.”
“I do so hope there will be no further need for such discussions.”
As he turned and left her office, Elena’s entire being shrieked with a single shrill thought. She had nowhere else to go.
The morning went slowly. Elena tried hard to pay attention. But her first two patients had been with her for months, and there was a guarded repetition to the sessions. They came for comfort, but not if it meant letting down their internal barriers.
After her second appointment, Fiona buzzed through to say that a Detective Mehan had called. Whe
n Elena called him back, the detective reported that the police had completed their investigation. His superiors felt that as there had been no threat of bodily harm, there was no way they could continue to maintain a police presence. Elena thanked him, buzzed for her next patient, and pretended not to feel hollowed by the prospect of returning to her empty home.
The third appointment followed the pattern of the first two. Toward the end of that hour, Elena broke in: “Are you certain you want to keep seeing me?”
Her patient was a very attractive young woman with a streak of electric blue in her long, brown hair. She had been describing a recent argument with her boyfriend and looked startled by the interruption. “Of course.”
“I am only asking because we don’t seem to be making progress.”
“I thought I was doing what you wanted. Telling you about my problems.”
“What I want, Melanie, is for you to arrive at a point where you can handle life on your own. How long have you been coming in?”
“A while.”
Elena looked at her schedule. “Eight months, to be precise. And during that time, you have been through a series of how many boyfriends? I believe it is seven. And each follows a clear pattern. You begin by describing the current flame as the love you have spent your entire life looking for. Then I don’t hear anything for a few weeks. And then one day you arrive, disillusioned and bitter. Even the arguments are the same. He has done something that leaves you certain he cannot be trusted.”
The woman tied her hands in a knot. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“What I want is for you to heal. And I’m suggesting that perhaps your young man is not the problem at all.”
Her eyes welled up. “But he hurt me.”
“Yes. I understand that. And I am here to tell you that it happens. If you open yourself up to love, you must accept that from time to time there will be misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Life is not perfect. Neither is the young man.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Because what I hear you saying suggests that there is something at work here. Not in him. In you. An internal issue that is revealed when the man you are currently with does something that hurts. It also uncovers whatever it is you have tried to seal away inside. Your responses suggest that you have an unresolved—”
The young woman jerked to her feet and punched her shoulder bag into place. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.”
“Naturally not. Perhaps you might want to consider talking to another—”
The woman flounced across the room, rammed the sliding door open, spun about, and said, “I thought you were my friend.”
“You were absolutely correct to speak as you did,” Miriam said.
Elena was seated at her office desk with both the outer and inner doors closed. She could hear the other therapists gathered in the off-duty room. It held a pair of low refrigerators, a hot plate, a microwave, and two coffeemakers. The room was directly above Elena’s office. She rarely used it for more than a cup of coffee. But today the murmur of voices and scrape of chairs left her feeling excluded.
Miriam went on, “You are their therapist. Not a crutch. And this means sometimes you must deliver the verbal shock to get them to hear what is going on inside themselves. Perhaps you should refer her to another therapist within your practice.”
“I’ll see her once more,” Elena decided. “If it’s back to business as usual, I will make that suggestion.”
“As you wish.”
“I had no idea where my words came from. I’m normally the soul of patience.” Elena toyed with a bowl of yogurt and fruit she had no interest in finishing. “But now I’m wondering if my staying power with such patients is fueled by my own inability to heal.”
“On the contrary,” Miriam replied. “I would suggest that you are healing rather well.”
Elena continued to play with her spoon. Above her she heard a sonorous drone followed by a burst of laughter. Jeremy plying the others with one of his after-dinner jokes.
Miriam said, “You and your late husband were especially close. Soul mates is a term that is absurdly overused, but in your case I find no other words apply. Yet here you are, four years on, doing quite well for yourself.”
“Five,” Elena corrected softly. “It’s been five years.”
“You have an international bestselling book to your credit. You have patients who adore you. And now you are off on some mysterious quest. Your life has become filled with powerful people and bodyguards and exciting destinations and detectives and break-ins and listening devices and spies and who knows, maybe even a touch of—”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Am I?” Miriam’s voice carried the lilt of suppressed humor. “Well, perhaps a little.”
The afternoon dragged on. Elena counseled two more patients, doing her job, doing it well. And inspecting herself at the same time. She felt as though a corner had been turned, and yet something was missing. Something she should be seeing. Between patients her mind rained a scattering of images upon her closed eyelids. The priest, Brian, the vicar’s new love interest, the missing book, Miriam, Antonio, the ambassador, Sandra Harwood. So much hitting her at once. Yet Elena could not shake the feeling that she lived inside a perceptual illusion of her own making.
Her next appointment was a new patient. Elena’s computer schedule showed the details in red, signifying that the patient had been referred by a local doctor. They took such referrals in rotation. Elena dry-scrubbed her face as she waited for the clock on the opposite wall to click the hour. She could not remember the last time she had felt so thoroughly drained. She swiveled her chair around and stared at the rain-streaked window. She struggled to draw up an image of a veranda at sunset, and a city of lights far below, and the faint hint of roses on a warm breeze, and a man with an impossibly gentle smile.
Behind her was a knock. Then the doors slid open. “Dr. Burroughs?”
The instant she turned her chair back around, any sensation of fatigue utterly vanished.
Her room was filled with the smell of smoke. Old and cold and vaguely sulfuric.
The patient who entered through the sliding doors was a lovely young woman with raven-dark hair and a bounce to her walk. Her overly short skirt flounced about her thighs. Her stockings held a faint shimmer, as though she took pleasure in having men stare at her legs. Her eyes were guileless and very wide, almost perfectly round, and the palest gray.
At the same time, Elena recognized a different reality. Elena felt threatened without clearly understanding the reason. All she knew for certain was, the closer the woman came to her desk, the greater was Elena’s sense of dread.
“Stay where you are!”
The sound of her voice, one notch below a scream, shocked them both. The young woman faltered, but just for a moment. “Why, Dr. Burroughs, is that any way to greet a new—”
Elena reached into the box on her desk and hit the red button. Pressing the button ignited a flashing red light in every office and downstairs in the reception area. Each office had one. In the nine years she had been here, the alarm had sounded only four times.
The young woman was almost at Elena’s desk when the stairs outside her office and the ceiling overhead thundered with what sounded like a herd of rampaging elephants.
“Elena!”
“Here!”
So many people were struggling to enter her door at the same time that they jammed up. Finally Jeremy used his quite substantial bulk to break free. He rushed over. “What is the matter?”
“This woman needs to be reassigned.”
“Most certainly.” Jeremy inserted his bulk between the woman and Elena. “This way, please.”
“But I want—”
“We will discuss what you want downstairs, madam.” Jeremy took hold of her arm.
The woman shocked them all in the way she broke his grip. She clipped the inside of Jeremy’s forearm, twisted her body in a bl
ur of motion, and was free. As shocking as the move was the ice that entered her voice. “Don’t touch me.”
Fiona had entered the office without Elena seeing. But Elena saw her now, as the unassuming receptionist raced over and blocked the woman from slipping around Elena’s desk. In a voice that matched the woman’s in icy fury, she said, “Get out. Now.”
The woman backed away, her posture that of a cat arched for combat. “What is wrong with you people?”
Elena said quietly, “Nothing at all.”
Jeremy asked, “Are you quite all right?”
“A bit shaken, but yes. Thank you so much for coming.”
“Did she attack you?”
Elena tested the words. “She made a threatening move.”
“Yes, I can well understand, given how she responded to my touch. Is she tied into yesterday’s break-in?”
“I … can’t say.”
Now that the woman was gone and the crisis over, Jeremy’s gaze had gone cold as his tone. “Should we call the police?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Are you certain?”
“Very.” She said to the others, “Thank you all for coming. So much.”
Jeremy waited for the room to clear, then said, “You and I must have a chat. But now is not the time. I have a patient in a rather serious state up in my office, and having observed my panic-stricken disappearance will not help things one whit.”
She swallowed. “I understand.”
He started to say something more, then nodded abruptly and left the room.
22
Elena went through the motions with her next appointment. Yet each time she slipped into her professional mode, listening and gauging and becoming deeply involved, the image of that woman jerked her back. The only way she could hide her turmoil was to remain completely immobile. When she rose to her feet at the session’s end, her entire body felt stiff and cramped. She had a half-hour break, then a makeup appointment from Monday. She was tired but was not looking forward to finishing up. The prospect of returning to her house and not finding the police car filled her with dread.
