The Haunted Heart: Winter (9 page)

“I…it was about Afghanistan. The war.” He
said it a little defensively. There was a tinge of pink along the
sharp ridge of his cheekbones. “It was called
Act of
War
.”

“You were in Afghanistan? In the army?”

He nodded. Then said reluctantly, “Yeah.
Well, I was with the Rangers. 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger
Regiment.”

“Rangers? You mean like black ops
stuff?”

Kirk’s eyes narrowed, his mouth thinned.
“You’re thinking Special Forces.”

“They aren’t the same thing?”

“No.” He added, “I don’t like talking about
myself either.”

“Got it.” I took another mouthful of wine.
“Anyway, lovely weather we’re having.” The wine was maybe not a
wise idea given that I was already feeling its effect. It had been
a long time since I’d let myself have a drink. Not because I’d ever
had a problem with alcohol, but because alcohol made it too easy to
forget — which made the remembering all the harder.

Kirk had been glowering at me, but at the
“lovely weather” comment his upper lip curled into an unwilling
smile.

We sipped our wine and then our meals were
delivered. The soup was so good I was almost sorry I hadn’t ordered
a full meal.

“Are you writing anything now?” I
inquired.

“Right now I’m just taking notes.”

“Ha.”

He neatly carved off a slice of steak. “How
long do you plan on staying at the house? Do you know? Or are you
here for good?”

“Ten months.”

“Ten months? You’re very exact. Not…almost a
year? Not nine months?”

“Ten.”

“Okay. Ten months.” Kirk glanced up from his
plate and smiled faintly. “It should be an interesting ten
months.”

“I’ll do my best.”

When we returned to the house on Pitch Pine
Lane, a single light burned in the upstairs window.

Kirk said, “Did you —?”

“I did, yeah.”

I felt his almost imperceptible relaxing,
and thought I knew the reason. “I keep waiting for the mirror to
turn up again.”

“I can’t imagine that.” But Kirk fell silent
too as we crossed the snowy yard and drew near to the darkened
porch.

The porch was empty, of course, and we said
our goodnights in the downstairs hall and went our separate
ways.

I felt pretty good, even a little smug,
about getting through my dinner out with Kirk. I had made it
through an entire social engagement no worse for wear, and if Kirk
was in contact with my parents, he’d be able to honestly report
that I was eating, drinking, and accepting invitations. That let us
both off the hook.

So it was disconcerting, in fact irritating
as hell, when the very next day my cell phone rang and it was Dr.
Thorpe suggesting an impromptu get-together.

“Mark and I are on our way to Montreal. We
were hoping you might be free for dinner.” Dr. Thorpe’s voice was
deep and melodious, and his soft Virginia accent sounded like the
Shenandoah Valley and home. But I did not want to see him. I did
not want to have dinner with him or his partner Mark — although I
appreciated Dr. Thorpe’s attempt to make it sound like a genuine
social occasion and not the mandatory request for my presence that
we both knew it was.

“Sure!” I said brightly. “It’ll be nice to
see someone from home.”

I could hear the smile in Dr. Thorpe’s voice
as we finalized the details. When I hung up I put my head in my
hands and howled. “
Goddamn
it. Why the shit can’t people
leave me
alone
? I don’t
want
dinner. I don’t want to
talk
to anyone. Why does everyone keep
interfering
?”

First Kirk. Now Dr. Thorpe. What next? My
parents? Dr. Kirsch? What the hell was the
matter
with
people?

I spent the rest of the day worrying about
the evening to come. What would Dr. Thorpe expect to see? What
would happen if he didn’t see what he expected to see? I nearly
started biting my nails again, but
that
would be a tell-tale
sign.

By late afternoon I had worked myself into
full blown anxiety. I showered, shaved, and headed out to Essex to
buy new jeans and a new sweater so that I could be sure I looked
presentable.

Kirk’s door was closed as I crossed the
front hall.

My car was in the larger shed on the
opposite side of the house from where Kirk stored his truck. I
wasn’t sure if it had formerly served as a gardening shed or a byre
for animals. As I unlocked the door and stepped into the darkness,
I smelled the faint odor of chemicals and what was hopefully dung
and not human excrement.

I opened the door and slid behind the wheel.
The last time I’d driven anywhere was when I had arrived nearly two
weeks ago. The interior of the car smelled ever so faintly of
Alan’s aftershave, though that was probably my imagination. It had
been months since the last time Alan sat in my car. In fact, I
didn’t remember the last time, and for a few minutes I couldn’t
move, racking my brain, trying to remember. I didn’t want to forget
a single moment.

Had we gone grocery shopping? To his
parents’ house for dinner? A movie? Why couldn’t I remember?

This was how it started, bits of memories
chipped away by time and distance till there was nothing left.

I
had
to remember.

My hands grew damp on the steering wheel. I
closed my eyes tightly and tried to visualize…yes, there it was. I
had picked him up from work and we had gone out for Indian food.
I’d had Chicken Rasam and Alan had Chettinad Chicken. He always
loved the really hot and spicy dishes. And he’d talked about his
promotion to Station Manager. But of course the promotion had never
happened because two weeks later Alan was dead.

I let out a long shuddering sigh, wiped my
eyes. I turned the key in the ignition. It was okay. I still
remembered everything.

I
opted for skinny
jeans and a bulky navy blue pullover with a shawl collar. I
couldn’t hide how much weight I’d lost, so the best strategy seemed
to be to make it look like a fashion statement. Depressed people
didn’t worry about how they looked, therefore trendy jeans and an
expensive sweater argued that I was on an even keel. Even
stylin’.

From the shop in Essex I drove straight to
Restaurant L&E — Dr. Thorpe’s suggestion — and had a glass of
wine in the downstairs bar to fortify myself for the evening
ahead.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Dr. Thorpe. I
liked him a lot. I owed him a lot. If it hadn’t been for Dr.
Thorpe’s intervention, I’d still be sitting in Silver Springs
Psychiatric Hospital talking to Dr. Kirsch and getting
electroshocked when he didn’t like the answers.

Dr. Thorpe was the one who pointed out that
if I was determined to kill myself, no one could stop me. Dr.
Thorpe was also the one who had come up with The Agreement. And I
suppose that was the reason he felt like he needed to make sure I
was okay now.

Which I was.

I sipped my wine and stared out the etched
windows at the sleety rain and deepening twilight. Eventually I saw
Dr. Thorpe’s tall figure walk past. Another man, younger, slighter,
darker, was with him. The door to the bistro opened and I finished
off my wine.

When I glanced up again, Dr. Thorpe and Mark
were making their way over to me. I stood up, smiling.

“Flynn,” Dr. Thorpe said warmly. He put a
hand on my shoulder, a compromise gesture somewhere between a hug
and a handshake. “You remember Mark?”

I sort of remembered Mark. They hadn’t been
together that long. He was English. Probably in his thirties. He
had a thin, intelligent face with weirdly intense dark eyes and a
cynical curve to his mouth. His accent sounded like he should be
introducing
Masterpiece Theater
.

“Sure. Hi, Mark,” I said, offering my
hand.

“Hello, Flynn,” Mark said.
Beginning
tonight
on
Masterpiece Theater
.
It’s not
enough that Stephen and Mark must interrupt their much needed
holiday, first they must dine with Stephen’s barmy patient. I
bloody well hope these barbarians serve a decent spotted
dick!

“Did you have trouble finding the place?” I
inquired.

“No trouble,” Dr. Thorpe said, glancing
around the crowded room. “This is nice. You said you’d been here
before. How’s the food?”

Tick tock, back and forth, tick tock, back
and forth.

Eventually we were upstairs, seated in the
crowded, rustic style dining room with linen covered tables loaded
with white china and gleaming silver and starred candles. “I think
you should probably call me Stephen,” Dr. Thorpe was saying.

I smiled. “Okay, Stephen.”

Dr. Thorpe didn’t usher me into the world,
but he was the first doctor I really remembered. He saw me through
chicken pox and having my tonsils out and the time I broke my arm
wrestling with Kenny Pinney. I’d always thought he was handsome for
an old man, but I realized now he must have been a very young
doctor when my mother had first taken me to see him. Although his
hair was silver and had been for years, he looked like he was only
in his forties. I’d been to his fiftieth birthday party though, so
I knew he was older. He had very green eyes and a warm smile. A
kind smile.

He had tried to be kind when he had to tell
me about Alan. I could remember every line in his face. He had
looked terrible. His eyes had been black and his face white. He had
been Alan’s doctor forever too. Alan even had a little crush on
him. I wondered if Dr. Thorpe ever knew that?

“I am not losing both of those boys,” Dr.
Thorpe had said to my mother the night I came home from Silver
Springs. “We’re not going to lose Flynn.”

I’d sat in the shadows of the hall staircase
and listened to Dr. Thorpe and my parents talking quietly in the
front room, making their plans, plotting my future.

“I’ll have the Steak Frites,” I told the
waiter.

“That’s bistro menu only,” he apologized. “I
can recommend the Steak Au Poivre.”

“That sounds great.”

Mark ordered another bottle of Côtes du
Rhône, the waiter faded into the mass of tables and candlelight,
and Dr. Thorpe said, “I don’t think we’ve let you get a word in
edgewise, Flynn. How’s the cataloging coming along?”

“It’s a bigger job than I expected. And a
lot dustier.” We all laughed.

“Your uncle used to own a museum? What kind
of things did he collect?” Mark asked.

“It was called the Museum of the Arcane. He
collected all kinds of freaky things. I found a box of shrunken
heads the other day. I think they were for real. And there’s a
mummified cat and an antique ghost detector.”

“What every home needs.” Something about
Mark’s accent made everything sound sarcastic. Of course, he
probably
was
being sarcastic that time.

“But there’s also a lot of ordinary stuff.
Limoges china and art deco silver, alabaster lamps and a cuckoo
clock. Lots of clocks. That probably means something, but I don’t
know what.”

“What happened to the museum?”

“I guess my uncle closed it when he got too
old to run it. I’m not sure really. He wasn’t in contact much with
the rest of the family, and he died while I was in Silver Springs.”
I glanced at Dr. Thorpe. He was watching me with a grave attention
that made me unhappily aware that we were not three friends
casually getting together for dinner, however hard he and Mark were
trying to make it seem that way.

“Anyway, the work is fascinating. There’s a
fortune in furnishings alone in that old house.” My thoughts shied
away from the memory of the mirror.

“You’re not nervous there on your own?”

I don’t think I’d have caught it, except
Mark gave Dr. Thorpe a lazy sort of look. Dr. Thorpe appeared
instantly self-conscious. So I knew the look had been a warning and
they had already checked out the house on Pitch Pine Lane.

I smiled cheerfully. “I’m not on my
own.”

“That’s right,” Dr. Thorpe said. “Your
mother mentioned there’s a tenant staying there as well?”

I nodded, reaching for my wine glass. I
resisted the temptation to drain the entire thing in a gulp.

They waited politely for me to fill in the
blanks. I couldn’t really think of anything to say. I wanted to ask
if they believed in ghosts, but I knew what they would make of
that. I’d probably be back in the booby hatch before the pots de
crème were served.

“He plays the guitar very badly. I can hear
him at night sometimes.”

Dr. Thorpe chuckled.

This encouraged me to say, “He’s a
playwright. He was in Afghanistan. In the war.”

“Was he?” Mark asked, suddenly on alert.

“Mark spent time in Kandahar.” Dr. Thorpe
looked at Mark, and Mark looked at Dr. Thorpe. No need for words,
no need for anything but each other. I knew that look. I knew that
understanding. That’s how it had been between Alan and me.

Our dinners arrived and the spell was
broken. I left the conversation to Dr. Thorpe and Mark and made
myself cram in every bite of food I could, faking a hunger I hadn’t
felt in months. I don’t know what they talked about, I didn’t care.
I smiled and nodded and answered when I had to and tried not to
look at the hour hands on their watches, which didn’t seem to be
moving anyway.

Just after dessert was served, Dr. Thorpe’s
cell phone rang. He checked it and rose. “I’m sorry. I have to take
this.” He smiled apologetically at me and eyed Mark. It was a
different sort of look from the earlier one.

I watched him thread his way through the
tables and then I glanced at Mark. His thin mouth curved in a
funny, wry smile.

He said in that lazy, elegant accent,
“Stephen’s afraid I’m about to tell you what I am going to tell
you.”

I asked uneasily, “What are you going to
tell me?”