At the next break, I left, never to return.
He heard Annabel even before he opened the door. That was unfortunate. He had not expected her to regain consciousness so quickly.
“Who is it?” she shouted as he came through the door. She twisted her head around; it was all she could move. “Who’s there?”
“Just me again, my lovely. Back from the trenches.”
She was lying flat on the table, as pure and unsullied as the day she was born. Her wide limpid eyes stared up at him. No restraints were necessary. She would not be able to move her limbs for some time.
“Why am I here?” she asked. “Where are my clothes?”
“You’re in my laboratory,” he said, maintaining calm, genteel composure. “And it was necessary to remove your garments.”
“I don’t-don’t know what you-what you-” She was trying to fight the drug, to gather her strength. It was hopeless, but he couldn’t help but admire her for trying. “I don’t know what kind of sick bastard you are-”
“I assure you my parents were married at the time of my birth, dear.”
“My boyfriend knows where I went! And when I don’t return, Warren will do whatever it takes to find me.”
A feisty one, this offering. A pleasant contrast to her predecessor. Exhilarating. “Dear me. Do you suppose he might call the law enforcement authorities? My heart’s atwitter.”
“Worse than that, you asshole. He’ll call my mom.”
“Do tell.”
“That’s right. She may be shit as a mother, but she’s got power and money and she won’t let you get away with this.”
“You should not speak ill of your parents, Annabel. It’s most unbecoming.”
“They’ll show you unbecoming, you sicko.”
“Annabel, I don’t care for your tone.”
“You won’t care for anything when my mother gets her hands on you. Now let me out of here!”
He looked down at her with genuine sadness. “That, I am afraid, I cannot do. My plans for you are not complete. But when they are, you will be released.”
“And I’ll be free to go?”
He hesitated only a moment. “You’ll be free.”
“What are these plans?”
“You’ll see.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Nothing improper, I assure you.”
“Then why did you take my clothes off?”
“Did you think I had no legitimate purpose? That I did all this for my personal delectation?” He touched her sternum experimentally with his finger, then drew a long, slow line down her breast bone. He used his most mellifluous voice, hoping to calm her. “You can’t appreciate what I’m doing, but it is for your own benefit, to help you fulfill your destiny, to complete your spiritual efflorescence. It was necessary.”
“Necessary for what? For you to get your rocks off?”
He twitched. “You know, my dear, my plan does not require me to advance to the next step until tomorrow. But under the circumstances, I think mayhap it’s best that we proceed immediately.”
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
He set down the brown bag he had brought in with him. “Allow me to prepare my tools. Then all will be made clear.”
“What’s that? What is it?” Panic set in. Her voice quavered. She was no longer shouting, no longer demanding. She was scared.
He opened the bag wide and held it before her so she could see the scalpel, clamp, wedge, prong, and drill. “These are my dentistry tools.”
“W-W-What are you going to do with those?”
“I’m afraid you are due for an oral examination, darling.”
Her eyes grew wide and watery. “Are you-are you going to hurt me very much?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I am. I can’t deaden this pain-not without making you unconscious. And you need to be awake as long as possible. So you can appreciate what is happening to you.”
Her face caved, as the horror of her situation became clear. “P-P-Please don’t do this. I’m going to be married. I’m going to have a baby.”
“I don’t think so.” He leaned forward, the metal clamp and wedge reflecting light into her eyes. “Open wide.”
5
The lawyer sat on the other side of his desk, wearing a three-piece suit with a watch chain dangling from his vest pocket. His expression was so earnest it made me want to barf.
“You must understand, Susan. There are many competing factors involved here.”
“What’s so complicated? I’m her only living relative.”
“Granted. But there are complications.”
“I’ve been raising Rachel for three years without any problems.”
His head swayed. “Well…”
“Certainly nothing major. And then I get sick for a week and they steal her away and stick her in a foster home.”
He took a deep breath, then slowly released it. “I don’t want to make you angry, Susan. But if we’re going to get anywhere, we have to be realistic. You did not get sick. You were committed to a detox clinic. Because you are an alcoholic.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“That’s the position of the state, at any rate. And NDHS is not going to allow an alcoholic to retain sole custody or guardianship of a minor without a fight.”
“NDHS needs to mind its own business.”
“This is its business.”
Jerk. Of course, like any good cop, I’d been trained to despise lawyers, so having to go to one for help was excruciating. I’d used this guy, Quentin Delacourt, a few times after David died, for wills and estates stuff that I never really understood. But he didn’t know me. And I didn’t much care for having him make these blanket proclamations about who and what I was.
“I’m not going to sit here defending myself to my own attorney,” I said. “Will you take the case or not?”
“That depends on what you mean.”
“I mean getting my niece back.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” He leaned back in his burgundy leather chair, adopting what he undoubtedly thought was a deep, contemplative pose. “There’s no rush. Maybe you should give yourself some time.”
“I gave myself a week. Look what happened.”
“Give yourself a month. Just to relax. No stress, no work. And no alcohol, of course. Give your body a chance to recover. I don’t think you’ve taken any time to get your head together since-”
“I’m not wealthy, Mr. Delacourt. I don’t have the luxury of indulging myself in some spiritual walkabout. I want my niece back-now. I want you to file a motion or whatever it takes to get her yanked out of that hideous foster home.”
He opened a file on his desk and thumbed through it. “From what I can see, the Shepherds’ home is far from hideous. Apparently they have taken in many minors from-um-difficult situations.”
“Rachel was perfectly happy with me. And she hates it where she is.”
“That’s to be expected, at least at first.”
“So will you bring the motion or not? I want a hearing.”
He gave me the contemplative look again, this time even steepling his fingers for added effect. “If you’re sure that’s what you want, then I’m honor-bound to get it for you. But I can’t say that I’m optimistic about your chances. NDHS wouldn’t have intervened unless they thought they had due cause. They’ve really papered this file.”
He was starting to piss me off, big time. “How much mileage can they get out of one stupid mistake?”
“It goes way beyond that.” He continued thumbing through the file, not making eye contact with me. “You’re currently unemployed.”
“I’m going to fix that.”
“I won’t lie to you, Susan. As long as you’re unemployed, there’s no way you’re going to get custody.”
“I told you, I’m going to fix that.”
“Rachel’s grades have been falling for the past year.”
“
It’s hard losing a father figure. For the second time. Hasn’t been a real picnic for me, either.”
“Her school counselor says she’s been depressed.”
“I think that’s somewhat understandable, given the circumstances.”
“NDHS says you often leave her alone at night, while you’re ostensibly working.”
“Ostensibly? What is that supposed to mean?”
He closed the file. “One has to wonder, given the frequency…”
I stood up. “What are you implying?”
“Have you been drinking around Rachel?”
“I never drink at home.”
“I ask again, have you been drinking around Rachel?”
“Absolutely not. Look, I screwed up once. I wasn’t drinking that often.”
“If you make that claim at the hearing, NDHS will bring out your blood work and prove you a liar.”
“What the hell do they know about it?” I screamed. And immediately felt embarrassed. I was proving myself just as unstable as NDHS said I was. Playing into their hands. “Let those sons of bitches lose a husband! Let’s see how well they handle it.”
“We all know you’ve had some difficult trials. But the focus at the hearing will be on what’s best for Rachel.”
“I’m best for Rachel. She needs me!”
“Or is it more that you need her?”
I felt as if the top of my head was going to blow off. Literally. I gripped the edge of the man’s desk, consumed with fury. “Are you going to get me the damn hearing or not?”
“I’ll get the hearing,” he said quietly. “But I can guarantee the attorney for NDHS will be much rougher on you than I have been. And if you behave in court the way you’re behaving now, you haven’t got a snowball’s chance.”
It took him more than three hours to remove all of Annabel’s teeth. He used no anesthetic and nothing to stanch the bleeding. She bled profusely, down her chin, onto her bare neck and shoulders, mixing with saliva and coagulating to create a nasty bubbling paste. He had no means of measuring the quantity of blood lost, but it seemed enormous, an endless flow from those torn and ravaged gums. He had no idea if, as in the story, she would bleed to death, but it certainly seemed possible. And if she did not do so as a natural consequence, he knew how to see that she did.
After the first tooth was removed, she began to scream. He turned the Mozart up high. Fortunately, Camille’s boyfriend was not nearby; it would have been an inopportune time for a visit. After the third tooth, the screaming ceased, as did the threats about her mother’s revenge, the name-calling, the inappropriate remarks about his parentage. By the tenth tooth, she was entirely broken, shattered, incoherent. She began to hallucinate. She lost all sense of who and where she was. She called him Warren, made sexual advances. She alternated between pleading for mercy and babbling about her schoolwork. He was moved by her pain, truly. It took great force of will to remind himself that there was a higher purpose behind all this. The path to godhood was strewn with sacrifice.
“Am I dead?” she asked at one point just before unconsciousness descended, her pulpy gums mashing together. “I feel dead.”
“The sleep will come, my sweet Berenice.”
“Thasss good,” she said, and her last thought was expressed as a single word. “Why?”
“ ‘And still the phantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy,’ ” he murmured, and with gentle fingers closed her eyelids for the last time. “Make a place for me in the firmament, my darling. Tell my love I will soon be reunited with her. That we will all be together once again.”
He walked upstairs and gazed out his window at the striking sunset. It was a glorious evening, bright and clear, a vivid orange and blue curtain draped across the skyline. He could almost feel the warmth of the light emanating from the Luxor pyramid, a forty-billion-candlepower beacon said to be the most powerful spotlight in the world. It shone for ten miles into space, carving a swath through the heavens. Was it the light that illumined sweet Virginia ’s face? Was it a trail of bread crumbs Annabel might follow? There was no basis for these beliefs in the prophecies. But it seemed so in his dreams, and the prophet did teach that dreams were a portal into the land of the ideal. If he could dream there, he could be there. And so he would. And so would they all.
After dark, I told Lisa I was going to the grocery store for some Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch. Hated to lie, but it seemed simpler than having an argument about whether I should do what I already knew I was going to do. I had to see O’Bannon. And I’d decided to confront him in an environment in which he couldn’t so easily blow me off.
Short drive with the top lowered down the streets of neon did me a world of good. Saw the transparent dome of the Fremont Street Exposition, my new favorite tourist joint. Basically, they tarted up the old Strip so it could compete with the new, and did a darn good job of it, in my opinion. Hey, beats seeing David Cassidy lip-sync or the ten billionth magic show, right?
Once I arrived at his house, I pounded on his front door, literally pounded. Guess my rage was still boiling. When I thought about what he’d done to me, after all I’d done for him, the cases I’d solved, only to have him shaft me the first time I’m vulnerable-it just infuriated me. I pounded and pounded, and when he didn’t come to the door immediately, I started shouting.
Some kid opened the door.
Okay, kid might be pushing it, but he seemed like a kid to me. He was probably in his early-twenties. He had peach fuzz on his upper lip and cheeks, and long brown hair that wasn’t very well groomed. He was dressed in a green T-shirt and was tall and lanky. Actually, my first thought was of Shaggy from those Scooby-Doo cartoons.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
I blinked. “I… don’t think so.”
We stared at each other.
“Is this the O’Bannon residence?”
“Uh-huh.”
More staring.
Finally he spoke: “Did they give you ice cream?”
“Umm… excuse me?”
“I wondered if maybe they gave you ice cream. They gave me ice cream. I like ice cream, don’t you?”
“I never had much of a sweet tooth. Who is they?”
“The hospital.”
“The… hospital?”
“I had to be in the hospital once and I didn’t like it. But they gave me ice cream and I liked that.”
I checked my reflection in the glass in the door. Did I look sick? Was I still wearing the ID bracelet? I had on a short-sleeved blouse, but I had replaced the gauze bandage on my wrist with a plain wide Band-Aid. “How do you know I’ve been in the hospital?”
He gave me a sheepish look. “Did you have to wear one of those gowns with your butt hanging out?”
“Um, I don’t-”
“Do you mind if I say butt? I think butt is a funny word, but my dad says I shouldn’t say it.”
“How did you know-”
“This.” He grabbed my arm-a little too roughly, but of course he didn’t know I’d recently punctured myself. At least, I don’t think he knew. “See?” He turned my left arm around so the crook of the elbow faced up. There was a red pinprick where they had drawn blood and now that I noticed it, a couple of faint bruises above and below. “I bet you have small veins. I have small veins, and it took them three times to get the needle into me.”
“Could I possibly see your father?” I assumed O’Bannon was the previously mentioned dad and I was speaking to his twenty-something boomerang boy.
“Do you have a dog?” he asked.
“Not currently. Why?”
“I don’t like dogs. Do you like dogs?” With each new remark, I became increasingly aware of the oddness of his voice. He talked too loudly, for starters, given that we were only about a foot apart. And the inflections were all wrong. It was almost like one of those computer-generated voices that are assembled by syllables, so the intonation goes up and down with no relation to what is being said.
“Well… s
ome dogs. I used to have German shepherds-”
“If you have a dog, I can’t let you in the house.”
“That’s cool. No dog.”
“Did you know that dogs were first domesticated around fourteen thousand years ago near Israel?”
“No…”
“I think it was a mistake.”
I stared at him, but not as intently as he was staring at me. He never actually made eye contact. Every time my eyes came near his, he averted them. I tried to get a fix on who I was talking to, without success. There was something odd about his expression, a certain vacancy behind the eyes. Almost as if he wasn’t really there. Like his body was on the front patio with me but he wasn’t. Like he was gazing out through an invisible acrylic barrier-he could see through it, but he couldn’t make contact. It disturbed me.
One of my chief assets has always been my hyper-empathy. I’ve had it since I was a child. I don’t know why. And I can’t really explain what it is. But I’ve had this ability to tune into what other people are feeling. It isn’t a mind-reading trick. But it’s real. Of course, it’s always been a great asset to me in my work as a behaviorist. One of the reasons I’ve been able to create useful profiles is that I’ve had this talent for understanding what motivates people, what impels them to take action. But it wasn’t doing me any good with this guy. When I put out my feelers toward him, I got nothing.
“So… is your dad home?”
“He’s in his study.” No movement.
“Can I talk to him?”
And the kid disappeared. Didn’t say yes, no, or go to hell-just turned around and dived back into the house.
So what was I supposed to do? I decided that I’d been invited in, so I stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind me.
And nothing happened. After a minute or so of waiting, I escorted myself down the front hallway in the direction I’d seen the boy go.
I found O’Bannon’s study. It was a gorgeous room, with walls of dark wood paneling and hundreds if not thousands of books. Two of the walls were completely covered with bookshelves stuffed to capacity. Beautiful books, leather-bound editions with gilt-embossed lettering on the spines. Some of them were police-related-criminology texts and such. But most were fiction, literature I was supposed to read in college but never did: WutheringHeights , In Search of Lost Time, Ivanhoe, Bleak House, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
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