Stealing Faces (28 page)

47

Kaylie heard him coming—the rapid clack of his hard-soled shoes on the corridor’s tile floor.

A moan escaped her. She knelt on the bed, hugging her knees, waiting.

There was a soft
 
thunk
 
as a pneumatic bolt released, and then the steel door opened, and Cray was there.

“Hello, Kaylie.”

That smile. How she hated that smile.

“It’s so good to see you again,” he went on, stepping inside, carefully leaving the door ajar. “I really do look forward to our daily talks.” He came closer, studying her, then put on a sympathetic face. “I’m quite concerned about you.”

This was too much to bear.

“Just shut up,” she snapped, despising the childish petulance in her voice.

Cray made a
 
tsk-tsk
 
noise. “That isn’t very nice.”

Grinning, he sat in the chair, a yard away from her. She drew back slightly on the bed, wanting more distance between them.

“I hear you’re not eating,” Cray said. “You should. No matter what our emotional travails, we should always maintain our bodies at optimal efficiency. Our bodies are the only part of us that matters, in the end. Mind, ego, personality, all these pretty layers of decorative embroidery that we knit around the primal essence of our being—all of it is an illusion, nothing more. A kind of mask.”

“The mask of self,” Kaylie murmured, watching him with narrowed eyes.

Cray registered surprise with a subtle lift of one eyebrow. “You’ve read my book? How delightful.”

“Didn’t read it. I wouldn’t—I would never ...”

She had to take a breath. It was hard to speak in complete sentences. Her thinking was all cloudy. Her head ached.

“I’m disappointed to hear it. I’d hoped to include you among my readers.” Cray leaned back in the plastic chair, and his smile widened. “Now, of course, there’ll be no chance of that. No chance and no hope, Kaylie—no hope for you at all.”

Such familiar words, an echo of her memories from twelve years ago.

Back then he had been a younger man than the John Cray who sat in the room with her now, a John Cray with a goatee and bright mischievous eyes. He had come in for therapy three times a week, and in each session he had told her there was no cure for her illness, no hope of improvement, and no chance that he would ever let her go.

And though she had been shell-shocked by trauma, though she had been numb inside and confused—even so, she had sensed the
 
undistilled
 
evil in him, and the hatred, raw and pungent. Only later had she thought to ask herself why he hated her, and why he was so desperate to keep her at Hawk Ridge, away from the outside world.

“You’ve been our guest for one week,” Cray was saying quietly, hands folded in his lap. “Doesn’t it feel longer? How desperately you must yearn for your freedom. For escape, Kaylie. Escape—a sweet dream, isn’t it? Or perhaps not a dream after all.”

This surprised her. It was not what she’d expected him to say.

“Why not?” she whispered. “Why not ... a dream?”

“Because there may be a way out.”

She tried to draw a breath, but her throat was tight, and she managed only a cough.

Cray rose abruptly from the chair. Smiling, he approached her. He reached out with one hand, and though she tried to retreat, he was too fast for her. With his long fingers he cupped her chin and tilted her head to face him.

“That’s what you want, I’m sure. A way out. To flee all this, to be liberated. What’s the alternative? Only to linger in this sunless, airless room for months and years and decades. And you know what will happen in that case, don’t you?”

He bent lower, his eyes locked on hers.

“You’ll go insane.”

A shudder ran through her, a spasm of the fear that seemed to come out of nowhere at times and harass her. Involuntarily she shook her head.

Cray smiled. “No? You don’t think so? But it’s true, Kaylie. It will happen. It’s happening already. Isn’t it?”

He released her chin and stepped back, but even now she could not look away from him, because he had named it just then—named her real terror.

Not death. Death was nothing.

Insanity.

“You know I’m right,” Cray said. “You’ve been hearing voices, haven’t you? Perhaps seeing things that can’t be real? You try to think, but your thoughts are all tangled. After so many years of telling yourself you’re not crazy, it turns out that you are.”

I’m not!
 
she wanted to scream, but she heard Anson’s low growl:
 
Who are you kidding, girl?

Anson, who’d deserted her. Anson, who was in her head, calling her names like
 
bitch
 
and
 
whore.

“You’re losing your mind,” Cray said, and Anson echoed him:
 
Losing your mind, that’s for sure.

“Not true,” she muttered, and finally she found the strength to break eye contact with Cray. “Not, not, not.”

Cray paced before the bed, remorseless as a shark. “Of course it’s true. You’re sliding into the precipice, and who’ll save you?”

She squirmed farther back on the bed, until she was pinned against the wall, Cray before her, roving, roving.

“Will I?” Cray asked. “Will anyone? No one can save you, Kaylie.”

At the foot of the bed, he stopped abruptly, his voice dropping to a hush.

“Unless you save yourself.”

She listened, rapt.

It was so tempting to think that somehow she could save herself ... that she was not powerless ... that there was something, anything, she could do.

Cray folded his arms. “You’re interested, I see. Good. Then let’s talk about your escape.”

She won’t escape,
 
Anson said cruelly.
 
She’s right where she belongs.

A ne
w voice seconded the thought.
 
That’s for damn sure.

Justin’s voice.

Oh, God, was he here too? Was he inside her?

He couldn’t be. He was dead. She’d killed him. She’d shot him, watched him die....

“You’re a clever girl, Kaylie. You’re good at getting out of a jam.”

Which one was that? Anson? Justin?

No, it was Cray. Live and in three dimensions, not a disembodied voice. She focused on him, because he was real.

“Now you’re in the worst jam of your life,” he said, “and you’ll need all your cleverness to see your way clear. Last time, as we both know, you escaped via an air duct. An air duct similar to that one. See it?”

Her gaze followed his pointing finger to a rectangular aperture in the ceiling.

“But that option’s foreclosed in this instance,” Cray added sadly. “I’ve told the staff to check the vent cover daily for any sign of tampering. Last time, as you recall, you spent many nights loosening the screws by hand. Such a slow, tedious undertaking. What patience and determination you showed. Admirable, really. But not to be repeated, Kaylie. We’re more vigilant now. At the first indication that you’ve been at work on the vent, you’ll be in a straitjacket—or strapped to the bed. Do you understand me?”

Kaylie nodded. She knew it was true. She’d seen the orderlies check the vent cover with a flashlight every morning since she’d been
 
unstrapped
 
from the bed.

“So you can’t get out that way. As for the door, it’s always locked, of course. And there’s no window. No exit, then. Or so it appears. Still, there is one thing a clever girl could do to free herself from this predicament. Surely I don’t need to spell it out for you.”

Did he expect her to solve this riddle unaided? She tried to reason her way to an answer, if there was one. Vent, door, window ... another way ...

“Oh, but I forgot.” Cray grinned at her with cruel solicitude. “Your brain’s sick, isn’t it? Then I guess I’ll have to do your thinking for you. Well, consider.”

He leaned forward, propping himself on the bed with an outstretched arm.

“We’ve had no escapes from the institute since you were our guest. But we have had one almost equally unfortunate incident.”

Kaylie waited.

“The patient in question was a young man who found a most creative way to release himself from his torment. It involved a
 
bedsheet
, like this one here.” Cray snagged a fold of the rubber sheet between two fingers. “And that vent I mentioned. The vent cover, with its metal grillwork, is quite securely fastened to the ceiling, and just high enough above the floor that if a person were to stand on the commode and loop one end of the sheet through the grille bars, then take the other end, take it and tie it in a slipknot around her neck ... her slender, fragile neck ...”

Kaylie understood.

This was the gift Cray offered her. It wasn’t enough that he had put her in this room, ravaged her life, made her a pariah and a fugitive. No, he wanted to finish the task of demolition he had begun—to finish it not by his own hand, but by hers.

Anger cleared her mind for the moment, and she saw why Cray had allowed the nurses to
 
unstrap
 
her from the bed, the wheelchair. He needed her ambulatory, at liberty within the cell, so that no artificial restraint would prevent her from taking her own life.

“You fucker,” Kaylie snarled, fury cresting in her like a hot, boiling wave.

“No need for indelicacy.” Cray smiled. “I’m merely passing along a harmless anecdote—”

With a rush of hatred she sprang at him.

Her hands came up fast, fingers hooking into claws, taking him by surprise, and she caught him in the cheek and raked four deep grooves in his skin.

Cray shouted, a hoarse, inarticulate sound.

He had shouted in the desert when she sprayed him with ice to save her life. She’d hurt him then, wanted to inflict a new and worse hurt now.

She swiped at him again, but missed, and then he swung her around, pitching her sideways off the bed onto the hard shock of the floor.

She struggled to rise, couldn’t, because already he was on top of her, straddling her hips as she lay prostrate.

Over her groan of panic she heard commotion in the hall, the nurse shouting, “Dr. Cray, are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” Cray snapped. “No problem, Dana.” He struggled to catch his breath, then added in a softer voice, “No problem at all.”

He released Kaylie and stood. She rolled onto her side, staring up at him. He was huge. He was everything evil in the world.

“Very well then, Kaylie.” He had recovered his composure. She saw him grope in his pocket for a handkerchief, then wipe the threads of blood from his cheek. “You haven’t lost the will to fight, I see. Or the will to live. You’re strong. Stronger than I’d expected. But your strength won’t help you. You’ll die tonight.”

“I won’t,” she whispered. “I’m not going to do it.”

“Oh, I believe you, Kaylie. But that merely means I’ll have to do it for you.”

She pushed herself half-upright and studied him, taking his measure.

“You can’t,” she said finally, working hard to string words together, enough words to make her point. “There are ... people around. They’ll see.”

“They’ll see nothing. Leave the details to me. I’ve got it all worked out. In all honesty, I was hoping you’d oblige me by proving more compliant. But I was prepared for your intransigence. I’m always prepared, Kaylie, for any eventuality. Surely you’ve discovered that by now.”

She was tired, suddenly. She couldn’t fight him, couldn’t bear to listen to him anymore.

“Go away,” she murmured.

“Yes. I think I will. Enough therapy for one day. But I’ll be back.”

Cray moved toward the door, walking slowly, gracefully, in his liquid, leonine way. He was a stalking animal; why could no one see it except her? Why was the whole world blind?

At the door he stopped, favoring her with his insolent gaze. “You won’t have to wait long, Kaylie. When night falls, I’ll make my move. Some things are best done in the dark.”

She found her voice. “It’s not going to work. You can’t get away with it.”

“You know I can. And I will.”

He left her, shutting the door. She heard the
 
thunk
 
of the pneumatic bolt, a sound as final as the dropping of a casket lid. He hadn’t lied. She knew that.

Tonight, sometime after the dinner hour, when the patients were safe in their cells and the room lights had been dimmed, he would be back, and he would take her life.

48

"You’ll say I’m crazy.”

Paul Brookings smiled. “What else is new?” The smile faded as he saw the look on Shepherd’s face. “Sit down,
Roy
. Talk to me.”

Shepherd didn’t sit. He was restless, and he needed movement, action. He paced Brookings’ office, while outside, the late afternoon traffic crawled past on
Stone Avenue
.
Five o’clock
, the start of rush hour.

“It has to do with Kaylie McMillan,” he said.

He expected the same reaction he’d gotten from Alvarez. Gentle ribbing, and a reminder that he had higher priorities. It was his certainty that he would make a fool of himself that had kept him out of the lieutenant’s office for hours, fighting the urge to discuss the problem, until finally he’d had no choice.

But Brookings didn’t challenge him. He said only, “What about her?”

“It’s not my case, right?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, I’ve never been much for rhetoric, so why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind, and why I ought to doubt your sanity.”

The lieutenant said it lightly, with just the right blend of humor and understanding, and Shepherd knew he had underestimated the man.

He shouldn’t have. He should have remembered how Paul Brookings had been there for him during the hellish days when Ginnie was hospitalized, and the still worse months after her death.

At the hospital Brookings had visited Shepherd and Ginnie every day. Twice he had stayed up nearly all night with Shepherd, the two of them sitting together in an alcove near a noisy freight elevator. Shepherd talking aimlessly, the lieutenant doing the work of listening.

The morning Ginnie died. Shepherd had called Brookings, waking him in the dawn twilight. Brookings had handled most of the details—paperwork, funeral arrangements—while Shepherd drifted in a mist of grief.

Later, there had been fishing trips, long walks, dinners at Brookings’ house where Paul’s wife,
 
Chloris
, served homemade,
 
multicourse
 
meals and soft music played.

Brookings had nursed Shepherd through the hardest part of his life. Of course he was the right person, the only person, for Shepherd to turn to now.

“Okay,” Shepherd said. “Here it is. I talked to Chuck
 
Wheelihan
 
over in
Graham
County
a few hours ago. He told me some things that got me thinking. I don’t know why, really. It’s nothing specific. But I can’t seem to let it go.”

“Not sure I follow you. The woman’s under arrest. As I understand it, no one’s ever disputed the fact that she killed her husband.”

“No.”

“And she accused her psychiatrist of being the White Mountains Killer. So she’s clearly delusional. Right?”

Shepherd hesitated, and Brookings pursed his lips.

“Oh,” the lieutenant said. “You think maybe she’s
 
not
 
delusional.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far.” Shepherd felt himself backing away from his suspicions, which seemed so obscure, so insubstantial, now that they were on the verge of being stated aloud. “I don’t know what to think,” he added lamely.

Brookings was quiet for a moment. He played with a stapler on his desk. On the street below, a car’s horn squalled briefly.

“This isn’t like you, Roy,” Brookings said finally. “When a case is cleared, you let it go. What’s different now?”

“It just feels incomplete. But hell, you’re right. I’m probably just getting carried away.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Forget it, okay? Forget I was even here.”

He took a step toward the door. Brookings stopped him with a command. “Hold on.”

Shepherd turned to look at him. The lieutenant clicked the stapler again, then raised his head to meet Shepherd’s gaze.

“It’s Ginnie,” Brookings said softly, “isn’t it?”

“What’s she got to do with this?”

“A lot, I think. Maybe everything. You can’t bring her back,
 
Roy
.”

Shepherd stiffened. “I’m fairly certain I already knew that.”

“Too late to save her. You wish you could. So you try to save the next one. You try to get all the crazies off the street.”

“I don’t really see where this is going.”

“Sure you do. It’s why you went after the McMillan woman so hard. Above and beyond the call of duty. You needed to put her away, because she was another Tim Fries. Another lighted fuse.”

“All right. So what?”

“Now you’re having second thoughts. But you don’t want to admit it. You don’t want to help her in any way. Helping her feels like a betrayal. Like you’re letting Ginnie die all over again.”

Shepherd didn’t answer.

“It’s not a betrayal,
 
Roy
.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it is.”

“No. Take a look at this woman, Kaylie McMillan. Who is she, really? She’s been on the run for years. Got no money, no home. Scared all the time. Looking for help. Maybe she’s a psycho. Probably she is. Or maybe not. Either way, there’s one thing about her we can say for sure.”

“What?”

“She’s exactly the kind of person your wife would have wanted to help.”

Shepherd nodded slowly. He thought of Ginnie in her study, working on her Internet project to aid the homeless. He thought of her in the health clinic, welcoming the people of the street.

“That’s true,” he said, his voice low.

“It’s only a betrayal if you don’t help her. So go. Do whatever you have to do.”

“I need to talk to Kaylie’s father-in-law. He seems to think she shouldn’t be locked up.”

“Sounds like a conversation worth having. Just don’t break any speed limits to get there.”

“I won’t.” Shepherd felt lighter suddenly. “Thanks, Paul. Thanks.”

“Just doing my job.”

“I don’t know if this kind of thing is part of the job description. Maybe you should’ve been a shrink.”

“And give up a civil service salary? I don’t think so. Now get going. Traffic’s already getting bad out there.”

Shepherd was at the door when Brookings added in a quieter voice, “And,
 
Roy?”

He turned.

The lieutenant studied him, calm wisdom on his face.

“Caring about this woman,” he said, “this Kaylie—that’s not a betrayal, either.”

There was nothing Shepherd could say to this. He left without a word.