The Book of Names (5 page)

Dillon nodded. “And where did you go?”

“I'm not sure.” David raked a hand through his hair, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “I only remember a tunnel, a bright light. The same thing everybody who experiences this remembers. Nothing more. I've read every book Elisabeth Kübler-Ross has written on the subject. And as far as I can tell, there was nothing unique about what happened to me.”

Dillon spoke quietly. “It's less than what most people who've gone to the light have reported experiencing, David. There is definitely more to your experience. There has to be. You're blocking it.” Dillon's voice was matter-of-fact.

“I'm betting that whatever you experienced in that tunnel has some bearing on these names. You've been writing them in your journal obsessively year after year for nearly a quarter of a century. Something like that doesn't just happen randomly. Not to someone who's as sane, functional, and practical as you are.”

“But I'm
not
functioning so well, that's just it. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Lately, the names are with me more and more. How do I stop it?”

“You've got to get to the source.” Dillon's eyebrows knitted in concern. “If you're that blocked, you need to see a hypnotherapist.”

Alarm surged through David. He couldn't have been more startled if his best friend had just suggested electroshock therapy.

“Take it easy. This isn't hocus-pocus,” Dillon assured him. “Alex Dorset works with crime victims and the D.C. police. He's a highly regarded hypnotherapist—and a friend.”

He flipped through his Rolodex. “Here you go.” Grabbing a pen, he scribbled on a sheet of lined paper. “I can't put you in better hands.”

David stared at the paper the priest held out, but he didn't take it. “I'm not comfortable with touchy-feely stuff, Dillon—”

“Are you comfortable with the names taking over your life? I thought you were looking for answers.”

David didn't reply. He rubbed his temples. He'd written
a new name in his journal last night. He'd been trying not to think about it.

Dillon pressed the paper into his hand. “This is as good a place as any to start. Call Alex.”

David folded the paper and shoved it into his wallet. “I'll let you know what happens.”

“By the way,” Dillon said, as David started toward the door. “You never mentioned what happened to your friends.”

“Abby was okay.” David's mouth twisted. “She only had a broken arm. But Crispin . . .”

His voice trailed off. Dillon waited, saying nothing.

“Crispin ended up in a coma. They said he'd probably never wake up. My father checked on him for a year or so, after they flew him back to Switzerland, but he hadn't improved.” David shook his head. “Actually, I still have something that belonged to him. Though I never figured out why he'd have a rock with Hebrew lettering on it.”

“What do you mean?” Dillon tilted his head.

David shrugged. “He had this blue stone—very smooth. An agate about the size of a grape. When he was daring Abby and me to go up on the roof, he waved it in the air and bragged that it had magical powers and would keep us from falling. Some magic, huh?” he said grimly.

“And you still have it?”

“I went back to where we fell after the snow melted, just poking around, and I spotted it in the grass. I'd forgotten all about it. I picked it up and kept it—a little reminder about the price of impulsivity.”

Dillon was regarding him with interest. “Do you know what's written on the stone?”

David snorted. “Probably the words of the sages. Something like, ‘Gravity sucks.'”

The priest's eyes grew thoughtful as David closed the
door behind him. He went to the bookshelf and reached for the volume on Jewish magic. Pursing his lips, he checked the index and flipped to the page.

Half an hour later, he snapped the book closed and reached for the phone.

 

On Friday morning David pulled onto D Street and headed toward Pennsylvania Avenue. He circled around the Capitol until he picked up Pennsylvania again, deliberately driving in silence through the brilliant August day—no radio, no CD. He wanted to clear his head before the session.

When he found a parking spot, he turned off the ignition and eyed the tall brick office building with a combination of anticipation and dread. The place didn't look the least bit threatening, so why did he have a knot in his chest?

Come on, man, you've scaled mountains, for God's sake. You can handle an hour of hypnosis. What are you afraid of?

And then it dawned on him. He was afraid this wasn't going to work, that hypnosis wasn't going to reveal a thing. That the names were never going to go away and would always remain a mystery.

Fear was something David had lived with intimately those first few years after the fall. Initially it had paralyzed
him, making him terrified of escalators, open staircases, amusement park rides—any kind of height.

His parents had dragged him to one therapist after another, but in the end, it was David himself who found a way to conquer his fears. At sixteen, he got tired of always being afraid, disgusted with himself and with the panic kicking through his gut.

 

The previous year there had been a series of death threats against a number of senators, including his father. Robert Shepherd immediately hired a security detail for himself and his family. Karl Hutchinson, the bodyguard assigned to protect David, was a former Navy Seal, smart, agile, and unshakable. The two quickly struck up a friendship, and instead of resenting the man shadowing him, David found himself looking forward to his time with Hutch.

Hutch taught him how to lift weights and box, and as David's adolescent body took on a muscled definition, an inner confidence took shape as well. When the threats against the group of senators ceased, Hutch and the other guards were reassigned, but he and David continued to keep in touch. And when David finally decided to conquer his fear of heights, it was Hutch he asked to help him.

His parents agreed to send him to Hutch's family cabin in Arizona for two weeks. And there, David had faced his terror.

He'd asked Hutch to take him into the mountains. At first they'd merely hiked up rocky trails thick with brush and tumbleweed. Then David had decided to push his own limits and insisted Hutch drive him to Prescott to tackle the six-thousand-foot craggy face of Granite Mountain.

Hutch, to his credit, hadn't laughed at him. And though David only managed to climb a thousand feet on his first try, it was enough. He was hooked.

By the end of the most grueling, exhilarating two weeks of David's life, he returned to Connecticut wind-burned and covered with scratches and scrapes, but determined to keep climbing until he could conquer Granite Mountain. And that was the beginning.

He'd mastered his fear of heights, and now he knew he had to master his fear of the names.

He was just stepping out of his car when his cell phone rang. “Over the Rainbow,” pealed out—Stacy's special ring. The two of them had watched
The Wizard of Oz
so many times together, he could still recite all the dialogue.

“Hey there, Munchkin.” He smiled, glancing at his watch. It was just before eleven in Santa Monica. “Aren't you supposed to be in school?”

“Lunch break,” his stepdaughter answered, and David felt a pang. Her voice was no longer the little-girl voice he remembered. At thirteen, she sounded like a typical teenager.

“I need to tell you something but I don't want to talk when Mom's around.”

“Sounds serious.” He turned his back on the building and leaned against the car. “What's wrong?”

“Everything.”

He heard Stacy take a deep, trembling breath. He couldn't imagine what was coming next.

“Mom got married again this weekend. I have a new stepdad.” She spit the last word out as if it was a piece of sour candy. “He's nothing like you.”

“Hey, Munchkin, who is?” He kept his voice light, but he was shocked. He and Meredith had talked only a few weeks ago and she hadn't even mentioned dating anyone.

“Don't you like him? Maybe you just need to give him a chance.”

“Len's fine, I guess. He did get Mom to quit smoking again. But he tries too hard. I barely know him, but Mom already let him adopt me, and it's so wrong. They didn't even tell me ahead of time—I didn't know until the wedding.”

Adopt?
David was flabbergasted.

Stacy's voice thickened with tears. “If any one of Mom's husbands had to adopt me, I'd want it to be you.” Her voice grew smaller. “And if it can't be you, I just want to keep my birth father's name and stay who I am.”

David cursed Meredith for her impulsiveness. She never stopped to think how her actions impacted anyone else, most of all her daughter. He had to bite back his anger.

“Oh, Stace, this is tough. I wish I could change it.”

“Oh, it gets worse. She and Len said they're taking me on a ‘family' honeymoon. How gross is that? Len even bought me one of those world global cell phones like yours so I could call you from Italy.”

David checked his watch. 2:02
P.M
. His appointment had started without him.

“I feel for you, honey, but I know your mom only wants what's best for you. How about I call and talk to her later? Maybe I can convince her to let you come visit me instead of going on the honeymoon.”

“Fat chance. She and Len are really into this family thing. But you're my family, David. I don't know why you and Mom got divorced anyway.”

David grimaced. It was probably mostly his fault that things hadn't worked out with Meredith. She said he hadn't let her in, that she was tired of his moods, his introspection, even the headaches he'd never seen a doctor about. Though she'd never verbalized it, he knew
she craved the easy affection he'd so effortlessly shared with her daughter. With Meredith—gorgeous, flighty Meredith—the connection, the communication, had been mainly sexual. Outside of the bedroom, he hadn't been able to give her what she wanted: attention, adoration, heart-to-heart talks about their innermost private feelings. The marriage had been a mistake, his mistake. And Stacy was the one suffering most for it. “Sometimes grownups don't have all the answers, Stace. But I can tell you this. Your mom and I might be divorced, but you and I aren't. You got that?”

“Then will you talk to my mom, and tell her I don't want to be Stacy Lachman?”

Stacy Lachman.
David froze. For a moment he couldn't breathe, much less speak.

Stacy Lachman.

“David? You still there?”

“Yeah . . .” It was no more than a croak. He cleared his throat. “I'm here, sweetie. I'll give it my best shot, ok? Stace, I gotta go. Now do me a favor—go eat some lunch.”

David shoved the phone in his pocket and hurried across the street. Cold dread filled every part of him. Stacy Lachman was a name he knew all too well. It was a name he'd been compelled to write in his journal over and over again.

His heart was pumping as he ran for the elevator. Stacy was the only good thing to have come out of his seven years with Meredith. Incredibly, the two of them had bonded the very first night they met, when Meredith had dragged him to Stacy's nursery school play. The three-year-old pixie had barely reached his knees. He'd laughed when Meredith told him that for weeks her daughter had been standing in front of the hall mirror, hour after hour, reciting her two simple lines.

David was all set to clap loudly for her, but then, just before her big moment, Stacy's little friend Emily had forgotten her lines, burst into wails and fled the stage.

Stacy had hesitated only a moment before dashing after her. At intermission, he and Meredith had found her backstage holding Emily's hand, both girls singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” along with Emily's mother.

“Stacy, you messed up the play!” Meredith had chided an hour later at Ben & Jerry's. “Why didn't you wait and say your lines?”

“Emily was crying,” she said between licks of her ice cream cone.

“But her mommy was there.”

“I was closer,” Stacy had insisted in a small firm voice.

Meredith had looked exasperated, but David had understood. There'd been something so pure in that three-year-old's eyes as she spoke those words. Something he couldn't quite name. He'd knelt down and gravely shaken her hand. “Emily's lucky to have a friend like you, Stacy. Maybe you and I can be friends, too.”

 

Alex Dorset's receptionist knocked lightly on the hypnotherapist's door and pushed it open. David brushed quickly past her into a sunlit, paneled office.

Alex Dorset sat scribbling at his desk. He was an overweight balding black man with a walrus mustache and large sunken brown eyes. His office was cluttered and smelled of lemon polish. David counted four candy dishes overflowing with Good & Plenty and Reese's Pieces, all set within arm's reach of every chair in the room.

“Please.” With a pudgy hand Dorset motioned David to a padded black recliner facing his desk. “Have a seat, Professor Shepherd, and try to relax. You look a bit rattled.”

“I want you to hypnotize me.” David placed his palms on Dorset's desk. His jaw was rigid. “Right now.”

“I need some background first. What you told me on the phone was very sketchy. Why don't you start by telling me about those headaches you mentioned?”

“I don't give a damn about the headaches right now.” He slammed his hand on the desk in frustration as tension throbbed in his neck. “I need to find out about the names.”

Dorset's brows lifted. “You need to calm down before I can hypnotize you. Please, sit down and tell me about this obsession.”

David forced himself to sit and to bite out a Cliffs Notes version of what he'd told Dillon.
What did Stacy have to do with this? Why was her new name in his journal?
He had to find out.