Unspeakable (23 page)

He slipped the folded printouts in his pocket and thought about what Mrs. Pollack-Martin had said. He needed to talk with someone older. He needed a friend right now.

Even though he'd never called it, Collin had Ian Haggerty's number programmed in his cell phone. He brought it up, and hit the
SEND
button. While it rang, Collin squirmed in the driver's seat. On the fourth ringtone, it went to a voice mail greeting:
“Hey, it's Ian. Sorry I missed you. You know the drill. Leave a message. Thanks.”

Collin waited for the beep, but then he balked and hung up.

He felt stupid calling someone he hadn't spoken to in almost three months. Ian hadn't even been a real friend. He'd been assigned to guard the house and protect him. That had been the extent of it.

No one was protecting him anymore.

 

 

Four cars behind him and one lane over, the man in the black Saturn watched Collin Cox in the front seat of his Taurus.

He'd been following Collin ever since he and the old man had returned home from their visit to City Hall. The kid hadn't stayed long at either the Eastlake address or the place by the Ballard Bridge. So it was likely neither one of the hypnotherapists had worked out for him. Collin probably wouldn't be going back to either one.

That was lucky for them.

For a while, shortly after the Eastlake excursion, he'd had a feeling the kid had caught on he was being followed. But the man in the black Saturn had hung back for a while and tailed him all the way to Ballard. The only problem he'd encountered had been later, at the ferry terminal lot with those goddamn scent dogs. They were supposed to sniff out bombs. But these two German shepherds seemed to detect something in his trunk.

The man thought he'd cleaned it out. But that Fernando kid's corpse had been in there for at least two hours. There was blood and shit and soiled clothes. Maybe he hadn't washed out the trunk thoroughly enough, because those damn dogs had sure picked up on something.

The security guys had asked him to pop the trunk for them. He'd stayed in the car and held his breath while they'd poked around back there. He'd been parked far enough away from Collin's car that he'd figured the kid wouldn't notice. But other people had been staring, and he'd started getting tense—until one of the security guys had shut the trunk and waved at him. “Thanks!” he'd called.

Now he listened to the announcement over the ferry's loudspeaker, telling people to return to their vehicles and get ready to disembark. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was almost four o'clock. The next ferry back to Seattle would be at 4:45. He hoped the kid would go straight home to Grandma and Grandpa.

Then he could make the return ferry. He still had a hell of lot of driving ahead of him tonight—all the way to Leavenworth and back.

As Leonard Bernstein's soundtrack swelled to a stirring crescendo, a priestly Karl Malden and a winsome Eva Marie Saint smiled at each other. They watched a beaten, battered, but determined Marlon Brando staggering toward the waterfront warehouse.

It was Best Picture Night at Riverview Manor Retirement Center, and residents had gathered in the lounge to watch
On the Waterfront
on the big-screen TV. Only a few of them had fallen asleep during the movie, which was something of a record at Riverview Manor. Irene Pollack-Martin was very much awake and joined in on the applause as the movie ended.

The film took her mind off her troubles for a while. Mostly, she was concerned for that young man from Poulsbo whose two friends had been killed. She'd gone onto her computer and found the news stories—first, about the fire that had taken four lives; and second, about a boy who had been abducted and brutally murdered. It seemed like too much of a coincidence. Just hours after she'd told Collin about the hotel fire that had destroyed her family, someone close to him had died in another blaze. He'd seemed like such a good-hearted young man. At the same time, he'd looked too much like the cruel-eyed teenager she'd seen running away from the Hotel Aurora Vista the night of the fire. It had been hard to get past how he'd looked. But as someone whose body was half-scarred, she'd long ago learned how to do that. Irene liked him. She hoped he found someone to help him deal with his loss.

She'd tried to go back to her crossword puzzle, but hadn't been able to concentrate. She'd thought about Collin's warning. It seemed a bit crazy, but she'd made sure to lock her door when she'd gone down to the lounge to watch the movie tonight.

“I forgot how sweet some of those romantic scenes were between him and the girl,” her neighbor Roseann pointed out as they rode back up in the elevator together. A tiny, feisty woman of eighty, Roseann lived down the hall from her.

Irene and Roseann mentioned getting together for breakfast, and then went their separate ways after the elevator let them out on the fourth floor.

Stopping in front of her door, Irene took out her keys. Suddenly, she felt something push against her leg, and she recoiled. Her cat, Smike, let out a startled screech and raised his back. A hand over her heart, she stared down at the silver tabby. “What in the world are you doing out here?” she whispered. She never let him out of the apartment.

Irene bent down and scooped him up in her arms. Then she managed to get her key in the lock. She gave it a turn and realized it was unlocked. Was she getting senile? She was almost positive she'd locked it. Opening the door wider, she hesitated at the threshold. She couldn't help remembering Collin's warning that someone might want to kill her.

Nothing looked disturbed in the apartment. The kitchen light and one lamp in the living room were on—just as she'd left them two hours ago.

Smike jumped out of her arms and raced toward the kitchen, where his food dish was. He usually got some kitty treats at this time of night.

Irene closed the door behind her and locked it. Everything looked fine. She told herself she was being silly.

But all at once, Smike let out another screech and darted back to the living room. From where she stood, frozen, Irene saw only part of the kitchen. She noticed a shadow rippling across the cabinets.

Her cat scurried behind the sofa.

Irene froze. Her first inclination was to get out of there—just as soon as she could move. But Smike was like her family. She inched toward the sofa. “Smike?” she called to him nervously. “Come here, sweetie. . . .”

She eyed the kitchen. The shadow moved again—over the wall. From where she stood, Irene saw the refrigerator—and the blurry reflection on the stainless-steel door. A dark figure backed away. Now she knew for sure—someone was in there, waiting for her.

“Smike?” she said, her voice quivering.

The cat finally came to her and Irene snatched him up.

Swiveling around, she hurried for her door. She didn't dare look back, but she was convinced the intruder was coming up right behind her. With a shaky hand, she unlocked the door, swung it open, and raced down the hallway to Roseann's apartment. Smike squirmed in her arms, but she held on to him. She pounded on the door and repeatedly rang the bell. Her friend was hard of hearing.

Irene glanced back toward her own unit. She'd left her door open. But from this vantage point, it looked as if the door was opening even wider.

She rang her neighbor's bell again and again. At last, Roseann opened the door. “Good God, Irene, what's—”

She rushed inside, almost knocking down her friend. Then she turned around and shut the door. Smike flew out of her arms as she twisted the lock and the dead bolt. Irene couldn't get her breath. She thought her heart was going to explode in her chest. “Call the front desk,” she gasped. “There's someone in my apartment. . . .”

At least twice a week, one of the residents needlessly called 911 or the fire department. Irene didn't want to be one of those panicky, senile people. That was why she had Roseann call the front desk instead of the police. She'd never really seen the man who had broken into her apartment, so she couldn't describe him. But she knew someone had been in there.

Roseann remembered to hide Smike in her closet while one of the staff people came up to investigate. “Responding to a potential intruder in apartment 405,” was how the husky young Latino security guard referred to it while talking to someone on his cell phone. Irene and Roseann followed him down the hallway to Irene's unit. A few neighbors stood in their doorways to see what the fuss was about.

Irene had a feeling they wouldn't find anyone in there, and she was right.

The guard was more concerned about the water dish and cat toys. Irene lied and told him they were for a cousin who visited last week and had brought along her cat. He didn't seem to take her very seriously about the break-in.

She could have told him that a young man from Poulsbo had warned her something like this might happen. In fact, if Collin hadn't called to warn her, she very well could have walked into the kitchen and gotten her throat slit—like Collin's poor friend.

But Irene didn't say anything, because it sounded crazy. The security guard was already treating her like just another one of those panicky, senile people.

After he'd left, and after Roseann had smuggled Smike back to her, Irene thanked her friend. Obviously, Roseann had her doubts about this intruder as well. “It was probably nothing,” she said at her door. “But better be safe than sorry, right?”

“Right,” Irene allowed. “See you at breakfast tomorrow.”

She felt a little foolish double locking the door and leaving a light on in the living room. But that was what Irene did before getting ready for bed. She wondered if the security man and Rosie had a point. Maybe she'd been a bit too jumpy after that call from Collin—and reading about those deaths. After all, she hadn't actually seen anyone—just shadows on the wall and a blurry reflection on the refrigerator.

She switched off the kitchen light and gave the room one last look. The light from outside came through the window and shone across her breakfast table, where she'd left her newspaper. She wandered to the table and glanced down at the
Wenatchee World
, folded over to her favorite page.

All at once, Irene knew she hadn't imagined the intruder.

He was real. And he was a very smart and patient man.

While waiting here in the dark for her to come home, he'd finished her crossword puzzle.

C
ollin stood in the atrium of the building, which had a fancy, high-priced antique store on the street level. On his way into the little lobby, Collin noticed some crappy-looking lamp in the front window selling for eight hundred and ninety-nine dollars. As if.

He was in a lousy mood. He'd shown up to his classes this morning. Luckily, his grandfather hadn't dated the note he'd given him to cover his absence “for the last few days.” His friendship with Fernando and Gail had slipped under the radar at school. No one had seemed to know he'd been particularly close to them. So no one had treated him any differently this morning. He'd remained the invisible man, sadly listening to classmates speculate on whether or not Fernando had been raped. He'd even heard some stoner asshole telling a horrible joke: “Hey, what's the difference between Gail Pelham and a marshmallow?”

Right then, Collin had decided to leave for Seattle a little early. He'd been wrong assuming he might start to feel normal again by going back to school.

It had just made him feel bad.

Since one o'clock, he'd been to three hypnotists and spent two hundred and twenty dollars—not counting gas and ferry tickets. None of the hypnotherapists had been able to put him into a trance. Hell, they hadn't even made him sleepy with all their incantations. And they kept acting like it was his fault. He wasn't trying hard enough. He was trying too hard. He wasn't relaxing. He wasn't focusing. He was resisting.

Yes, and he was pissed off and discouraged, too.

Collin stood near the foot of the lobby's stairway. On the wall was a glass-encased, black, grooved velvety sign with white plastic letters that fit in the grooves. Among two lawyers, an accountant, a chiropractor, two psychologists, and a massage therapist, he spotted her:

He couldn't help feeling this would be almost as bad a rip-off as that antique lamp in the window next door. But at least she had an office, which gave her a professional edge over most of the other hypnotists he'd seen in the last two days. Only one of the others—his first appointment today—had had an office, and that gray-haired guy had been a jerk. Cold, clinical, and impatient to the point of grouchiness, he'd been the one who had said Collin wasn't focusing.

As he walked up the two flights of stairs, Collin told himself to keep an open mind. He found the door marked 304, along with a computer-printed, laminated sign:

He stepped into the small waiting room and sat down on the yellow Ikea-looking sofa. There was another door across from the one he'd just come through. He gave her some points for the framed Edward Hopper sailboat print on the wall. At least she had nice taste in art. Some of her periodicals were a few months old. He spotted the
People
with Kate Middleton wearing that big blue hat on the cover. It was the issue that featured his mother's murder—three pages of T
HE
R
EAL
-L
IFE
N
IGHTMARE
FOR THE
N
IGHT
W
HISPERER
C
HILD
S
TAR,
with a few photos of him, old and current. There was also a candid shot of his mother and Chance at some party. He didn't even have to open the magazine, because he practically knew the article by heart. Under that headline, it said in big, bold print:

Collin wasn't sure why he felt compelled to do it, but he took the magazine and slipped it to the bottom of the pile on the end table.

Picking up another issue of
People,
he nervously thumbed through it. He heard a click, and looked up just as the door opened.

The pretty, auburn-haired woman wore black slacks and a dark blue blouse. Standing in the second doorway, she looked perplexed to see him. Still, she kept a polite, pleasant smile fixed on her face. Collin figured she had been expecting someone older. There was something about her that he immediately liked. She seemed normal, nice. He remembered Claudette's advice, and figured this thirty-something Olivia person had the smarts and inner strength to take on Wade Grinnell if she had to.

She was also the last hypnotist on his list. It had to work with her.

Clutching the doorknob, she stared at him. “Russ?”

 

 

Olivia glanced out her office window. The light rain showers had turned into a torrent. She noticed the downpour against the streetlights, practically coming down sideways. But she couldn't see Collin Cox anymore. Nor was there any sign of the man who had been skulking behind him.

Everything about this situation looked bad.

She'd started her hypnotherapy business so that she wouldn't have to deal with patients whose problems were in any way life-threatening. Some genuinely troubled people had come to her, and she'd wanted to help them. But after Layne, she just couldn't risk it again. So if a potential client had a severe addiction or mental condition, she always gave them her list of qualified therapists and psychologists—and refused to take money for the introductory session.

She'd read about Collin Cox and his horrible stage mother, who had been murdered along with her boyfriend. Obviously, his problems were even worse now. If ever there was the perfect candidate for her referral sheet, Collin Cox was it. She was enough of a film fan that it was tempting to help this vulnerable onetime child star. But she couldn't risk getting involved.

The lights in her office flickered.

“Shit,” Olivia muttered. She'd had more than her share of excitement for one evening. She didn't need the power going out right now, not when she was the only one in the building. She opened the bottom left drawer of her desk and grabbed a flashlight. She set it on top of the desk, so it was nearby—just in case.

She collected her coat and purse, but then she heard a click from the cordless phone on her desk. The light on the recharger cradle started blinking. She had another call. Olivia saw the caller ID:
STAMPLER, C
—again.

“Oh, for God's sakes . . .” She swiped up the cordless and clicked it on. “You're going to have to stop calling me,” she announced.

“I know I'm pushing my luck, and I'm sorry,” he said. It sounded like he was talking to her from inside a drum with all the tapping in the background. Olivia realized it was the rain. He was probably sitting in his car. “Did you get my last message?” he asked. “Do you know who I really am? If you don't believe me, I'm in an issue of
People
in your waiting room—”

“Yes, Collin,” she said. “I got your message. And yes, once you told me who you were, I recognized you. But it doesn't change anything. I can't help you.”

“But you already have,” he said. “I've learned a lot after watching that one session with you. This Wade guy, I'd never heard of him until last Saturday night, when my friends recorded me while I was hypnotized. Wade Grinnell is a real person who's been dead for fifty years. You can look him up on Google. He did some awful things—”

“This isn't some character you're playing in a movie?” she asked skeptically.

“No, I'm not doing any acting right now,” he replied. “I'm living with my grandparents in Poulsbo and going to school. That ‘chubby girl' and ‘the Mexican guy' he mentioned, they were my friends. They were the ones who hypnotized me, and now they're both dead.” He let out a half-laugh, half-cry. “I guess that's hardly an incentive for you to see me again. But you should know why I can't go back to her to hypnotize me anymore. None of the other hypnotists I've seen could get me into a trance. You're the only one. I need you to talk to this person inside me. I need to find out why this is happening—and if he had anything to do with my mother's murder.”

“Collin, I can't—”

“Please. You can charge me double your usual fee. If you could just see me a couple of times, and put me under. I'll write out the questions you can ask. I—I saw how he was with you. That was somebody else. That wasn't me—”

“I understand that, but—”

“If you need to restrain me for the next session, that's fine. Tie me to a chair if you have to. I'll go along with whatever you say. You call the shots. I don't want to hurt anyone. . . .”

The lights flickered again. She heard a click on the line.

“Are you still there?” he asked, sounding panicked.

“Yes, I'm here,” she said. “But I need to go. The lights keep blinking. I'm worried the building might lose power. We could get cut off at any minute. Listen, Collin, I'd like to help you, but you're underage. I can't do anything without permission from your legal guardian. That's the first hurdle. Second, if this is a true case of multiple personality, I don't have the expertise to help you. On that list I gave you, there are several highly qualified therapists. I think you're much better off going with one of them.”

“Just see me one more time,” he said. “Then you can pick the therapist I should see—and I'll go see them. Okay? Please?”

He wasn't giving up.

Olivia sighed. “Let me think about it.” It seemed like the only way she could get him to leave her alone for now. “Give me the weekend, and I'll get back to you. In the meantime, I want you to make an appointment with Marlys, on the top of that referral list. She's good, and very compassionate. But she'll insist on clearing all sessions with your grandparents. The same goes for me, Collin. I can't see you again without your guardian's permission.”

“But you don't understand—”

“That's non-negotiable,” she said, cutting him off. “And no more calls. I'll get in touch with you on Monday. Okay? Is it a deal?”

“Okay, thanks.”

When she hung up the phone, Olivia glanced at the caller ID again. She scribbled on her notepad:

If she couldn't make Collin back off, she'd get in touch with his grandparents herself. In the meantime, she scribbled:
Call Marlys
on the same piece of paper. If Collin did indeed contact the therapist at the top of that list, Olivia needed to warn her exactly what she was in for.

Before slipping the piece of paper in her purse, Olivia wrote one more thing on it:

 

 

The lights suddenly went out, and a panic swept through her. Outside, the rain subsided—and the streetlights were on. The lights remained on in the storefronts across the street, too. It was just her building.

Olivia thought about that man who was following Collin. She wondered where he'd disappeared to.

There was enough light from outside for her to see her way around the office. She picked up her coat and purse again, then grabbed the flashlight.

With a flicker, the power came back on. She wasn't sure how long it would last this time. All she wanted to do was get out of there while the lights were still on.

The phone rang, startling her. The brief blackout must have tripped the silent ring setting. Without thinking, she picked up the cordless and clicked it on. “Collin, I told you, you can't keep calling me. . . .”

There was silence on the other end. Olivia glanced at the caller ID:
Unknown.

“Hello?” she said.

She heard nothing, and then there was a click on the line.

Frowning, she hung up the phone. Stashing the flashlight in her purse, she headed toward her office door. She was about to switch off the lights when the phone rang again. “Oh, give me a break already,” she muttered, returning to her desk. She clicked on the cordless. “Hello?” she said impatiently.

“Olivia?”

It had been weeks since they'd spoken. Most of their correspondence had been through their attorneys. “Clay?” she murmured.

“Hi, your dad gave me your office number,” he said soberly. “I didn't want to leave this on your voice mail. It's—well, it's pretty horrible news.”

“What's going on?” she asked warily.

“It's Susan and Jerry,” he said, his voice a bit shaky. “Their house caught on fire in the middle of the night. The police still aren't sure exactly how it happened. Anyway, Olivia, they're—they're all gone, Sue, Jerry, Gail, and Chris. . . .”

With the phone to her ear, Olivia moved to the other side of the desk and sank down in her chair. It was like someone had just punched her in the stomach. She liked Clay's sister—and her family. She thought of the email from Gail last week:
My mom would kill me for telling you this,
she'd written.
But I've heard her say the same thing. I think Uncle Clay is a huge dope.

“When did it happen?” Olivia heard herself ask.

“Early Tuesday morning, while they were all asleep,” he said. “Someone broke into the house on Monday afternoon. The police think there might be a connection, but they're not sure yet.”

Olivia said nothing. She felt the tears starting.

“I keep thinking that in the last conversation I had with my sister, she told me how disappointed she was in me—for what I did to you.”