“Helping her explore her emotions.”
“All negative?”
“I assume so.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, you assume?”
“Krista gave me post-hypnotic suggestion to forget—”
I didn’t need to say more. His knowing nod told me he understood. He, too, was a trained hypnotist.
“She got rid of my headaches,” I said. “Maybe . . . I just didn’t care what she was doing as long as it worked.”
“Don’t bullshit me.” Richard’s voice hardened. “We can’t get through this, figure out what’s going on, if you don’t tell me the truth.”
I let out a shaky breath, staring down at the cold, half-eaten sausage on my plate. “Okay, I did care . . . but I couldn’t get out of it. She wouldn’t let me. Every time I” A tightness crept through my chest, making it hard to breathe. “If I even try to think about it—I get . . . all . . . weird.” My throat felt like a collapsed straw. In a second, I’d be hyperventilating.
Brenda came up behind me, started rubbing my back. My breathing eased, but I willed her to stop. Her being near me would only piss Richard off, and I couldn’t afford to have him angry at me. I didn’t
want
him to be angry with me. But for once he didn’t seem to notice.
“You won’t want to hear what I have to tell you,” he said.
Every muscle in my body tensed. He was right, I didn’t want to hear.
“Three years ago Krista left her job at Georgetown University Medical Center after pleading no contest to sexual misconduct with one of her patients.”
“Georgetown? But you said she was from Indiana.”
“She last practiced in Indiana. She’s originally from Virginia.”
Georgetown . . . Indiana . . . Virginia . . . ?
“What’s all this got to do with Grace and me?”
“Grace Vanderstein killed herself yesterday afternoon—just about one o’clock. Like you, she emptied her medicine cabinet. Unlike you, she also swallowed a caustic drain cleaner she found under the bathroom sink.”
Brenda stopped rubbing my back.
A cold fist clamped around my soul. The dream . . . the empty wheelchair. Although unconsciously I must’ve known Grace was dead—she wasn’t whispering in my head any more—the news still shook me.
The way she’d done it.
The way I’d tried to do it . . . .
“I went to talk to Krista this morning and found her shredding files,” Richard said. “I was already suspicious of her . . . . You wouldn’t believe how many favors I’ve called in during the last twenty-four hours . . . .” He let the sentence trail off.
The milk on the stove started to froth angrily. Brenda turned off the gas and made the cocoa.
I thought about all he’d said. “You’re not making sense.”
“I agree,” Brenda echoed. She brought over three fresh mugs, doling out one to each of us.
“I read the morgue record, then spoke with the manager at Grace’s residence. I’ve got a half-baked theory I want to try out on you,” Richard said. “Are you game?”
No, I was scared. Whatever he had to say would change everything—would make it all too real.
I wasn’t sure I could face it.
Still, I nodded.
Richard sipped his cocoa, whipped cream lacing the ends of his mustache. Brenda handed him a napkin.
“How much of what you’ve been feeling for the past few weeks has been your own?”
I must’ve given him a blank stare.
“Feelings,” he tried again. “Like anxiety, depression, unhappiness?”
“All of it.”
“Are you sure?”
I didn’t know how to answer.
“Could you and Grace have been emotionally linked?”
I thought back to my second session at Krista’s office. How Grace’s sobs had torn me apart and how I’d gone to her, comforted her when Krista wouldn’t. Grace looked at me with such piteous gratitude and said, “We’re connected, now.”
She’d intuitively known.
I hadn’t.
I nodded.
“Krista used that, although I’m not sure how,” Richard said. “And I’m pretty sure the whole thing blew up before she got what she wanted out of both of you.”
“What
did
she want?”
“The only thing I can think of is money.”
“But I don’t have any.”
“Maybe Grace did,” Richard said.
I considered that. “Krista did mention Grace was about to gain control of her trust fund.”
“Bingo,” Brenda said.
Richard swirled the cocoa in his cup. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. It gets a lot more complicated, and I don’t know if I’m up to explaining everything right now. I sure as hell don’t have a clue what to do about it.”
Brenda sat back in her chair and sighed. “My Gramma Bessie would’ve said we should sleep on it. God knows I’m tired. The two of you look half dead.”
But I didn’t want to sleep.
“Brenda’s right,” Richard said, and drained his cup. “Though I suspect you won’t be able to rest.” He reached for his briefcase, flipped the catches and withdrew a fat file folder from under an unlabeled jewel case. “My friend Michael sent this to me. You can read it while I catch some zees, then we’ll talk.”
“Do you trust me out of your sight for a few hours?”
“Now that Grace is dead, yes.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Then I won’t disappoint you.”
Richard pushed back his chair and stood, towering over me once again—ever my big brother. He took two steps, rested a hand on my shoulder and bent down to kiss the top of my head. “You have never disappointed me,” he whispered, ruffled my hair, then shuffled out of the kitchen.
Tears threatened. I swallowed and braved a look at Brenda.
“He’s gonna make one hell of a daddy,” she said and winked.
The afternoon
was waning when Richard found Jeff and Brenda in his study. Jeff was—at the computer while Brenda was stretched out with her feet up on the couch, working on her needlepoint. Ah, the epitome of domestic harmony. And for the first time in a long time, it didn’t bother him.
“You’re alive!” Brenda said, looking up from her work, her voice tinged with pleasure.
“Just barely,” Richard said, although a four-hour nap and a shower and change had literally made a new man of him. He crossed his arms and leaned on the back of one of the leather wing chairs before his desk. “What did I miss?”
Jeff turned, rising from Richard’s chair, but he motioned him to stay put.
Jeff indicated the by now well-thumbed stack of pages. “I read every word of that report your friend sent.”
“I take it you found it interesting?”
“Oh yeah. I got curious and took it a step farther, or rather backward and pulled up a map online. Clintwood, Virginia, Krista’s home town, is at the end of the universe in the heart of Appalachia. I ran up your long distance bill calling around and found someone at the local high school who remembered their past valedictorian. The whole town pitched in to send Krista to medical school. She promised she’d come back and work as the local G.P. When she found out how lucrative it could be to shrink heads, she never went back.”
“That must have annoyed them,” Richard said.
“Just a tad. I could go on looking, but I figured I really didn’t want to know any more. How did she ever worm her way into your affections?”
Richard took the chair, stretching out his legs before him, crossing them at the ankles. “Cocktail party. She reminded me of someone I used to know. Someone I trusted. Somebody at UB—probably Wes Timberly—told her I had a brother who was psychic. She told Paula Devlin I knew a psychic who could help her find her boy. It was a set-up to test you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I only found out a week ago. Besides, you’re paranoid about people finding out what you can do. I didn’t want to freak you out. I talked to a few of the doctors in the Psych Department before I had you meet Paula. They said Krista was making substantial progress with some of her patients. She was Paula’s therapist, and Paula liked her. At the time it seemed a natural fit. Now I wish to God I’d never—”
“It’s not your fault, Rich. Okay, so you introduced us, but I didn’t have to call her. I wanted to get laid. I was gonna show Maggie. Well, I sure showed her, didn’t I?”
“Then you haven’t got a clue what Krista was doing?” Richard asked.
Jeff shook his head.
The silence hung heavy until Jeff broke it. “Maybe you should hypnotize me.”
“I considered that, but now I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“It’ll get us answers faster.”
“Jeff, you tried to
kill
yourself yesterday. You may feel better today, but it’s not uncommon for suicide survivors to experience a kind of euphoria—that they’re stronger than death, That they beat it. Until the next time they try.”
“There isn’t going to be a next time.”
“Without a trained professional guiding you, it could be detrimental for you to rehash the events that led up to your attempt. We need to find someone you can learn to trust, someone who—”
“I trust
you
.”
Richard shook his head. “We’ve been through this before. It’s not only unwise for me to treat you, it’s unethical. Besides, my psychology training was well over twenty years ago.”
“I trust
you
,” Jeff repeated. He let out a sigh, his features hardening. “You were right about Grace and me being in tune emotionally. For the last week or so I’ve been eavesdropping on her thoughts. Either that or she was eavesdropping on mine.
“She put herself through so much torment. Telling herself that she was shit. That I was shit. Day after day of the Chinese water torture finally got to me. When I spoke to her on the phone Friday she knew she was going to kill herself, and she knew she’d take me with her when she did it. It was her final revenge against men, I guess. I only know she hated herself and she hated me, because I knew exactly what she was going through. Her feelings were all she had, and thanks to Krista, I took even that from her.”
Richard felt his resolve crumbling. He glanced over at Brenda. “What do you think?”
She set her needlework aside. “I think it’s dangerous. But we both know Jeffy isn’t likely to open up to anyone else. And I don’t want whatever poison that woman planted inside his head to fester until we have a repeat of yesterday.”
“That isn’t going to happen,” Jeff said.
“Not if we can prevent it,” she agreed.
Both pairs of brown eyes turned to look at Richard. That kind of trust weighed heavy on his soul.
Last night Brenda had accused him of playing God with Jeff’s life. Krista accused him of having a savior complex. If he did what Jeff wanted, would he be playing both roles at once? What if hypnotizing Jeff just made everything worse? What if?
“Yesterday you asked me what you could do to help me,” Jeff said. “This is it, Bro.”
“Do you realize you’re risking your sanity?”
“Hey, life’s a crap shoot, Rich. And I’m willing to bet mine on you.”
Richard again looked at Brenda. Her eyes were bright. She nodded.
“Okay.”
Brenda closed
the heavy tapestry drapes, shutting out the early-evening sunlight. Richard turned on the desk lamp, the room’s only illumination. I sat back in Richard’s plush leather chair, folding my hands and pretending to be calm, wondering what I feared more—my knowing just what Krista had done to Grace and me, or Richard finding out just how weak-willed his brother truly was.
You have never disappointed me
, he’d told me only hours earlier.
Would he still feel that way after we finished?
“I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.
Richard perched on the edge of the desk, while Brenda took his former seat in front of the desk. “Are you okay with me being here?” she asked me.
“A man doesn’t have many secrets from a woman who’s helped him change out of puke-stained sweats.”
She gave me an encouraging smile.
I looked up at Richard.
“We’ve been here before. You know what happens,” Richard said. “Relax. Close your eyes and breathe deeply. In. Out. In. Out.”
His resonant voice dropped into a soothing, mesmerizing croon. We
had
been to that amorphous, quasi-conscious place before, on more than one occasion. Many times he’d helped me ease the pain of one of my skullpounders when medication wouldn’t.
I listened to his voice, concentrated on my breathing. Soon, that light-headed, weightless feeling flowed through me.
“You’re totally relaxed,” Richard instructed. “Nothing can hurt you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” My voice sounded breathy, slowed.
“Open your eyes.”
I did. Nothing but his face and the sound of his voice seemed to register.
“I want you to go back to Krista Marsh’s office,” Richard said. “Do you remember what it looked like?”