The Perfect Candidate: A Lance Priest / Preacher Thriller (No. 1) (16 page)

Chapter 21

“I’m not a good person.” The short statement broke five minutes of silence. Lance had been sitting with eyes closed thinking and drifting and listening to Ike and Tina Turner sing about a river. One of his mother’s favorites.

Braden had seen this before during their sessions over the past year and a half and let Lance take as long as he needed. Braden had no idea that during this silence a disembodied Lance hovered overhead reading his notes, looking at the photos of his wife and children on his desk and working the New York Times crossword puzzle folded on the table. Three across was tricky, but Lance finally got it – seven-letter word for wholeness --
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“Why do you say that?” Braden was willing to play along, although he didn’t believe for a moment Lance thought of himself as patently bad.

“Because it’s true. I don’t have a problem with it like others do.” Lance opened his eyes. He was calm, collected and in his element sitting in an armchair next to Braden who was seated in his own armchair. They were like co-conspirators. The office was all about comfort with warm colors, subdued lighting and the window cracked to let in a pleasant breeze. Lance leaned toward the psychologist with a new look on his face.

“How do you do that?” Braden abruptly changed subjects and shook his head. He couldn’t help himself. The psychologist was willing to go down the “I’m not good” track, but Lance’s chameleon-like behavior was on full display today.

“Do what?” Preacher was all innocence. Happy the subject had changed so abruptly, his face altered again, right shoulder sagged, right foot bounced.

“Right there, you just did it again. I’m sitting here watching you and you are the third different person sitting across from me in the last minute. Your face, your eyes, your body language, they all just changed again.” Braden had his hand up to his chin with his elbow on the armrest. “You’re obviously our Preacher, but your physical manifestation completely changed right there. Very European.”

“How so?” Lance was nonchalant in his response, even putting his hand to his chin and elbow on the armrest mimicking the psychologist. His voice a playback recording of Braden’s.

“Jesus, there you go again. You just switched to me didn’t you?” Braden shook his head.

Lance’s next move was lightning fast. He reached out and plucked Braden’s glasses and put them on and grabbed the psychologist’s notebook and pen. When he settled back into the chair, his slouch, crossed leg, raised eyebrow and tilted head were an exact duplicate of Braden. It was unsettling for the shrink.

Lance smiled gently at his patient. “Tell me about your childhood. Your parents divorced when you were three. How did you feel? What was your reaction? Did you act out in any particular manner? Wet the bed? Suck your thumb?” The words, accent, inflection and slight rise of the voice in the last question were Braden. It was eerie, freaky.

The psychologist sat back, the real one, not Lance. “Man.”

Lance laughed. “You asked how I do it. I can honestly say I have no idea how, only that I can. It’s as natural as breathing. I know that response is unsatisfying to your practiced curiosity, but it’s that simple. You, everyone really, are a culmination of a series of actions and decisions that brought you to where you are right now. You are a map of your life. I can look at you and read it, see your story. Just as you like to play your little ‘book by the cover’ game with people. I guess I can just see a little deeper below the surface, below the cover.” He said all this as Braden, still in character. It was too easy. Lance sat back in the chair and handed the glasses, notebook and pen back. He was Lance again.

“But why? Where did it come from? When did it start for you?” Braden was leaning forward on his elbow. His fascination was palpable. This was case study material.

“Isn’t that your job to tell me?” With that, Lance was done with the subject. Braden had learned in the two years he’d been involved with Lance Porter Priest that Preacher could literally turn himself on and off. And a switch had just been flipped.

Braden returned to his notes and scanned the page. “Oh, I had one more question here from last time, probably from the first time we were together really.”

“Shoot.”

“How long can you go without lying?”

Lance laughed at that but didn’t answer.

“No really. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without lying?” Braden was casual in his delivery, but he was digging for foundational stuff here. He got more than he expected.

“Seventeen days, four hours and 33 minutes.” Lance was matter-of-fact.

Braden jotted it down but couldn’t keep from smiling.

“Really.” Lance followed up. “You think I’m joking?”

“I know you’re messing with me. But that’s just part of the game with you.”

Lance turned all serious for the moment. “I would think that as a professional, you would do better at analyzing your subject. You asked a question and I gave a truthful answer. Those are admittedly hard to come by with me, so you’d better be cognizant of this.”

“You’re serious.” Braden tilted his head.

Lance continued, “Heart attack. And I know that is longer than most people can go. Think about it, how long have you ever gone without lying? One day, two? Be honest. What did you tell your son when he stunk it up at the plate last week, fanning at everything thrown at him? What did you say to your wife after she tried to cook tandoori chicken last month? Or when Seibel asked you about me doing this session with a different shrink this time? I think it goes without saying that you told little white lies in response to each of those.”

Braden steered clear of bringing himself into it. Lance had successfully done that in the previous sessions. “Seventeen days? I don’t think you’ve ever gone 17 hours or even 17 minutes without at least a little white lie. You’re like that joke about politicians.”

Lance knew the joke and gave him the punch line, “You can tell they’re lying because their lips are moving.”

Braden laughed. “Right.”

“You know, that’s only a little insulting.”

“How so?” Braden’s eyebrows furrowed.

“For you to consign me to the category of those who betray others’ trust through lies. That is somewhat hurtful.” Lance nodded.

Braden’s eyebrows furrowed deeper. A “V” appeared on his forehead and his procerus worked overtime. “Isn’t every lie a betrayal of trust? Doesn’t every lie hurt someone just a little?”

“Ah hah.” Lance got a little excited. “I love the opportunity to educate the educated. And I’ll do that with a single question. Can you show me, in one concrete example, where my proclivity for prevarication hurt someone?”

This was the most lively Braden had seen Lance. “Easy. You told your mother you were joining the Army to find yourself. A boldface lie.”

“And she was happy and protected in that knowledge.” Lance responded.

“She would be hurt to know the truth.”

Lanced raised a finger. “Now, there are your semantics at work. You perceive my telling her a nuanced version of reality, a partial truth if you will, as a potentially hurtful thing. When truly her reality is protected. She is at peace with my decision regardless of my true purpose.”

“Now that’s semantics. You’re slicing and dicing it there.” Braden chuckled.

“And the beauty of my nuanced, shaded and finely crafted fabrications is their ability to change, to grow and evolve to become reality.” Lance raised his hands for effect to complete the lesson. “I don’t lie, I tell future truths.”

“Damn.” Braden could only look down to his notes. He would give up his license and his years in the business to spend more time with this chameleon, this shape-shifter who had created his own reality. This was not schizophrenia or psychopathy. This was sheer control, power. There was no delusion here.

Braden was sitting just feet away from easily the most diabolical mind he’d ever encountered, and he’d seen his share of really messed up humans. But the undeniable truth behind the wall of lies was just that, undeniable. It was real. And Stuart Braden was proud to be part of it.

The kid was certainly messed up big time. But he was also brilliant. Scary brilliant. Braden could never tell a soul or share this experience with his peers. He could only delve into the particulars with Seibel. And Papa wasn’t buying any of it. Braden was pleased as punch to be the one probing this kid’s psyche. He was also thrilled this kid was on his side. Better to have a natural born killer on your team than against you.

Looking up from his notes, Braden had just one more thing. “I want to get back to your statement that you are not a good person, but I have this one lingering question. What makes you happy Lance?”

Most people, upon being asked this question, quite naturally take a deep breath, run through a barrage of joyful memories in their life and then recite a litany of topics tied to happiness. Lance didn’t need to take a breath or make a mental list. His reply was immediate, concrete and one word. “Nothing.”

This was the fourth time Braden had sat down with Preacher. As usual, he was left with more questions than answers. The psychologist reached over to the table beside him and grabbed the thick file folder. Lance was comfortable watching him.

After leafing through several dozen sheets, Braden stopped at the page he’d been looking for. “I know we’re basically done with our pleasant chat here. You’ve got your little wall up and we both know Seibel doesn’t give a shit about these evaluations anyway. But the law’s the law and your field deployment comes with a few strings attached. And I’m one of them.”

“And?” Lance asked.

“And, how the hell does someone score a 71 on an IQ test one day and an exact 100 point increase to 171 the next day?” Braden looked through the papers.

“I don’t know. How could that happen?”

“Obviously it can’t with a normal subject.”

“Exactly 100 points?” Lance smiled.

“Yep. Impossible, statistically speaking. Someone would have to be really smart to do something like that.”

“Smarter than 171?” Lance arched his eyebrow. “Isn’t that like the genius range, anything above 165?”

“Of course you would know that. And of course, you would know that 71 is basically on the line between borderline and actual mental disability.”

“Huh,” Lance’s laugh was genuine, believable. “What’s yours?”

“130 something.” Braden smiled.

“Damn, pretty smart buddy. That’s in the gifted range right?” The look on Lance’s face was 100 percent impressed.

“I know I’m not going to get a straight answer out of you. But I just want to know why? Why do you choose to be this way?” Braden looked a little frustrated.

It was Lance’s turn to sit back now. He made a little production out of stretching his back and raising his arms above his head. They were sore from his morning workout. “You make it sound like there is a choice. Like there is freewill at work.”

“Don’t play with me.” Braden was a little irked by the perceived condescension in Lance’s response. “Of course there is a choice. Every moment of every day comes with a choice, a set of decisions.”

“I think that is a rather naïve response from a shrink of your caliber Stuart. You know much better than I that there are any number of disorders that limit one’s ability to act in accordance with freewill.”

“I wasn’t speaking of everyone. I’m talking to you, about you. There are those who lack the mental faculties to be able to make choices. You know what I’m talking about. You become a real prick when you get like this.”

“That’s it right there. I’m glad you got here yourself.” Lance pointed a finger.

“What, where?” Braden’s irk was now perturbed.