Side Effects: An FBI Psychological Thriller (21 page)

“Just a member of group who claimed to be coping with baggage quite similar to yours. Domineering and abusive father. Saw his son as weak, a disappointment.” Dr. Cole looked away in recall, his eyes fixed on nothing as he dictated from memory. “I recall him saying something about his mother; how her only purpose seemed to be picking up the pieces she did nothing to prevent from breaking. His resentment for her felt touchable.” Dr. Cole placed his gaze back on Joe. “Does that ring any identifiable bells with you, Charlie?”

His eagerness now hammered in his chest. He bit down on the inside of his cheek again in a fight to contain it. “Maybe a few,” he managed to say.

“Still,” Dr. Cole said, “you come when you’re ready; I don’t want to rush you into anything, Charlie. I’m sure there will be someone at group you can relate to when you feel the time is right.”

“What about the guy you just mentioned?”

Dr. Cole began to fiddle with a clipboard, his gaze leaving Joe as he pulled a few papers from his desk and clipped them to the board. “Once again; people come and go in group. I can’t promise he’ll be there when you decide to show—” He handed the clipboard over. “But I’m sure someone will eventually.” Dr. Cole smiled another reassuring smile.

The smile was anything but reassuring.

“I’m going to pay cash,” Joe said flatly, handing the clipboard back to Dr. Cole as if it were an unwanted gift.

“I’d still like to have some background information on you, Charlie—if you don’t mind.”

“But we know I was only here to find out about group. I don’t plan on coming back for private sessions.”

“Okay then, Charlie.” Dr. Cole set the clipboard aside. “I certainly won’t make you do anything you don’t want to.”

Joe Pierce raised his hand.

“My name is Tom,” Joe said.

A unanimous greeting from the group.

“Hi, Tom,” Dr. Cole said. “Would you like to tell us why you’re here?”

Joe scanned the circle of faces, wondering if the one Dr. Cole had mentioned this morning was in attendance.

“Sure,” he said. “I guess I’m looking for support, is all.”

“Support for what, Tom?”

“Childhood issues. They’ve been…hitting me hard lately.”

“Would you care to elaborate?”

Joe faked a hard swallow, cleared his throat as if it was all so difficult. “Yeah, um…you know…good old daddy issues, I guess.” He faked a nervous chuckle now. The group chuckled with him. Good.

“What about your father?” Dr. Cole asked.

“Let’s just say I was a grave disappointment to him.”

A man spoke up. “Why do you say that?”

All eyes immediately clicked on the man—the first member of the evening to engage another was always treated as a spectacle.

Joe turned his attention to the man. He appeared middle-aged and fit. Dark, thinning hair. His face was somber as he waited for Joe’s reply.

“I had a lot of anxiety as a child,” Joe said. “I guess you could say this lessened his opinion of me.”

“Not tough enough?” the man asked.

Joe’s chin retracted as though the man had taken a swipe at him. Without conscious thought he replied: “Yes.”

The man nodded and grunted. “I hear ya, brother,” was all he said.

Joe, still a little stunned by the man’s curt yet insightful inquiry, could only nod in thanks for the support.

“Would you like to elaborate a little more, Tom?” Dr. Cole asked. Then to the man who’d spoken up: “Or you perhaps?”

The man shrugged.
Sure, why not?
his shrug said. He stood. “My name’s Bob.”

Unanimous hellos.

“Like Tom over there, I was a disappointment to my father.”

Joe remained standing as he listened. Was this him?

“Why do you think you were a disappointment to your father?” Dr. Cole asked.

“I don’t have to think; I know. He had no problem telling or showing me.” Bob gave a humorless chuckle. The group recognized it and did not return an accommodating chuckle as they had for Joe. “My dad was a football star in college until he tore his ACL. Hopes and dreams gone. I guess the next best thing after that was a kid he could live vicariously through. Except I was frail as a kid. Not one for sports.” Bob shrugged again, perhaps hoping the group could fill in the blanks from there.

Joe needed more. “What did he do?”

Bob frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know…what were some of the things he did to show you his disappointment?”

“He beat the shit out of me.”

“Language, please,” Dr. Cole said.

Bob held up an apologetic hand. Then he brought his attention back to Joe. “He liked to drink. One night he came home with all this little league equipment. He insisted I put it on and then moved all of the furniture in the living room. He made my mother hike me the ball and then he would tackle me. He knocked me cold on the first hit. I was probably ninety pounds at the time.”

There were a few sympathetic murmurs from the group. Bob went on.

“My mother wanted to take me to the hospital but he refused. When she insisted, he granted her wish—except she ended up going alone, if you know what I mean.”

More sympathetic murmurs.

“Did your mother ever tell anyone?” Joe asked.

Bob barked out a laugh. “Hell no.”

There was an awkward pause.

“What is it you’re hoping to get from group, Bob?” Dr. Cole asked.

Bob shrugged once again. “I’m not really sure. I thought I’d moved past it all, you know? I have my own family now, a good life. I’m not frail anymore—” He held up his arm, pretending to flex his bicep. The group knew to chuckle this time. “But every time I look in the mirror…”

“You see the frail boy staring back,” Dr. Cole said.

Bob touched the tip of his nose. “The nightmares are the worst. It’s funny how the realest dreams are the ones you don’t want.”

This time the group murmured in understanding.

“Thanks for sharing, Bob.” Then to Joe: “You too, Tom.”

“I’m guessing it’s not the gourmet stuff,” Joe said, gesturing to the powdered creamer Bob was now shaking into his cup.

Bob glanced over at Joe as he stirred his coffee with a plastic spoon. “It’s not even hot,” Bob said.

Joe smiled. “That took a lot of guts what you said back there.”

Bob gave his patented shrug. “Thanks.” He sipped his coffee. “So it sounds like we share the same delightful storybook.”

“Indeed.” Joe extended his hand. Bob looked at it as though considering whether to shake it or not.

He eventually took it. “Bob,” he said, “though I don’t need to tell you that’s not my real name.”

Joe smiled again. “Call me Not Tom.”

Now Bob smiled. “This your first time in group, Not Tom?”

“No. I used to come a little while back but then stopped.”

Bob sipped his coffee. “Why?”

“I thought I was doing pretty good. But then…”

“Fell off the wagon, so to speak?” Bob said.

“You could say that.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Not at all. I’d found a new outlet; something to replace group. It was working great—still does—but like you said; I kinda fell off the wagon. So I decided to come back here for a quick pick me up, you know?”

Bob sipped more coffee. “What was your outlet?”

“It’s a bit complicated. If you feel like grabbing a drink sometime, I could explain it to you.”

Bob looked only mildly interested. “Yeah, maybe.” He then gestured to Joe’s cheek. “Did your setback have anything to do with that?”

Joe laughed. “No, no—I just adopted a cat. We’re still getting to know each other.”

Bob nodded, finished his coffee in a gulp and then tossed the Styrofoam cup in the trash. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Not Tom; I was hoping I could find an ally here tonight.”

Ally
, Joe thought.
Perfect.
“I couldn’t agree more. What made you decide to seek help later than sooner?”

“My father died. You’d think it would have been one of the happiest days of my life, but all it ended up doing was bringing back all the old trauma. I don’t know why. The nightmares started soon after. My wife made me promise to seek help, so here I am.”

“Any kids?” Joe asked.

“A son,” Bob said.

And a wife and kid, no less. Bob looked like a fit guy who could handle himself. Joe doubted he could take him by force. But having a wife and kid in the picture? With the right planning, he could take Bob without even breaking a sweat.

“He’s another reason I’m here,” Bob continued. “The day he was born I swore I would be the antithesis of my father. And I have been…”

Joe sensed he wanted to say more. He prodded gently.

“But?”

“Lately I’ve been losing my cool. Giving him shit for the tiniest of things. He came home with a poor grade on his math test and I crumpled it up and tossed it in his face.” Bob paused, his face going from disgust to shame and back to disgust. “Jesus, at that moment I
was
my father.”

Joe risked putting a hand on Bob’s shoulder. “Hey, that’s why you’re here, right?”

Bob only nodded, clearly still reliving his atrocious behavior.

“You’ll get past it, man,” Joe said. “I did.”

“Maybe I’ll find an outlet like yours.”

“My offer stands if you ever want to talk about it outside of group.”

“Thanks, man. I just might take you up on it.”

Dr. Cole called everyone back to group. Bob took a seat next to Joe. Joe nearly grinned.

“What’s up?” I answered.

“Call me Bob,” he said.

The plan now was simple: wait for our guy to make a move. Morris said our guy had already invited him out for a drink to discuss what he’d termed an “outlet” for all his emotional distress. Pretty gutsy, if you ask me. Not the inviting him out part—we were hoping for something like that—but to declare he had some type of method for dealing with his crazy. I guess it was a testament to how good Morris had been in raising no red flags. Or perhaps our guy was slowly starting to crack. He’d taken Dr. Cole’s bait, after all. All cautious logic would have suggested he’d wait like he’d initially told Dr. Cole he’d intended to do, but apparently the urge had been too strong, Dr. Cole’s on-the-spot clinic on reverse psychology too effective. How he kept his composure and delivered such an effective spiel after the very real possibility that he was seated across from the serial killer we’d been tracking was the epitome of cool.

And now our guy had taken Morris’ bait—with what seemed to be a gaping maw. Credit to both Dr. Cole and Morris, but my hopes were with my other consideration: our guy was beginning to crack. The cautious behavior that had made him so difficult to track from the start was now beginning to lose the race to compulsion, as it so often does. In the end, the sick bastards always become slaves to compulsion.

The trick was to be there when caution was no longer in the race.

After the first coffee break, Bob finally showed. He looked tired and dejected. Joe all but ran to him at the refreshment table. It was just like it’d been two nights earlier: Bob fixing himself a Styrofoam cup of coffee, Joe sidling up to him, not exactly sure of what he’d say.

“Hey, Bob; didn’t think you’d show tonight.”

Bob glanced over his shoulder at Joe and then went back to preparing his coffee. Something was definitely wrong.

“Hey, man,” Bob replied. And that was it.

Joe’s concern became a twinge of frustration. Had Bob changed his mind about him? In the two days that passed had he decided that Joe was not worth talking to after all? Had he blown it like he did with the guys from work, goddammit?

“Where you been?” Joe asked. It came out sounding accusatory and Joe silently scolded himself for it.

“Without sleep,” Bob said after sipping his coffee. “I’ve been without sleep.”

“Everything okay?”

“No.” He sipped more coffee. There were bags under his eyes.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“The nightmares are worse than ever,” Bob said. “This is supposed to be helping, right?” He waved a hand over the room. Some members had remained seated in the circle of chairs; most were outside getting some air. “I feel like all it’s doing is making it worse. Bringing out all those skeletons…it’s like putting flesh on them, you know?”

Joe’s frustration vanished. He’d done nothing wrong. The man was simply struggling with his past, more so now. Perfect.

“It gets worse before it gets better,” Joe said. “Trust me.” He thought about placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder as he’d done the last time, but thought better of it. It felt like too much right now.

“I’m not sure I can take much more,” Bob said. “I mean, I want to get better, but…”

“But?”

“Last night was a disaster.”