TPG (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

He eased his way around the dark
shadows of Union Square Park, following the young woman, knowing she was a
match. She had short choppy hair and wore a tight yellow T-shirt with cargo
shorts that revealed slender legs. A large, trendy handbag was draped over her
shoulder.

She didn’t seem
like the type to be buying drugs in the park. Not that she didn’t seem like the
type to be using them. There were no
types
when it came to that. But there were definitely types when it came to
buying them, and definitely under certain conditions, like in city parks at one
in the morning. And she didn’t fit the bill.

He watched and
listened as she approached a muscular man with tattoos covering his entire
neck, a man he’d seen earlier and had pegged for a dealer. A fact he confirmed
as he watched the woman hand him cash.

“Kinda late to be
out here by yourself,” the tattooed man said as he pocketed the money.

“There are plenty
of people out.”

“Zombies maybe,
yeah,” the man said. “But they’re about it.”

She didn’t
respond.

The man flashed a
smile, showing off a metallic grill. “Maybe you want to do something else, get
a discount?”

“I don’t.”

The tattooed man’s
eyes lingered on her chest. “You sure? Be a good discount.”

She balled her
hands into fists. “Either give me my stuff,” she said, “or give me my money
back.”

His smile quickly
vanished. “What money?”

“The money I just
gave you.”

He shrugged his
shoulders. “Don’t know what you talking about.”

“Give it to me.”

The expression on
the tattooed man’s face changed in an instant, a menacing scowl replacing the
carefree indifference. “You better walk away now before you get hurt.”

But the young
woman didn’t move. “Give it to me.”

The tattooed man
reached out and grabbed her right bicep, his hand clamping down hard.

But the young
woman didn’t give in, didn’t back down. “Get off me,” she said as she tried to
wiggle free, “or I’ll scream rape.”

The man kept his
hand on her biceps while assessing his options, looking around at the
smattering of people meandering about the park, including the man, who
continued to watch from a distance. The park wasn’t crowded, but it was crowded
enough to avoid doing something stupid. It wasn’t worth it. So he let go and
reached into his pocket, then tossed her a small brown bag and walked away.

The man, who’d
watched the entire exchange, walked over to the young woman while she peered
inside the bag to make sure that whatever she’d just risked her life for was in
there.

“What is it?” the
man asked, stopping only a few feet away from her.

The young woman
looked up, appearing even younger than the man had initially thought. She
didn’t have the tired, strung out appearance he expected. Her skin was smooth
and without any blemishes, eyes soft and without any bags or broken blood
vessels.

“The bag,” he
asked, his curiosity piqued. “What’s in it?”

She didn’t answer,
probably assessing whether he was a cop or not.

He could feel her
energy as he stood in front of her, feel it waiting to replenish him. It was
difficult to not take her right then, to stop himself from just soaking it all
in. Someone looking at them standing there would see an addict all right, but
it wouldn’t be her.

“I’m not a cop,”
he said. “I just heard the conversation and I’m curious to know what’s in the
bag. That’s all.”

“Why?” she asked.
Her feistiness, while reckless given the time of night and surroundings,
impressing him for the same reasons.

“I don’t know,” he
said. “I just am.”

She looked at his
bloodshot eyes, eyes that looked exactly like what he had expected to see in
her
—
tired, yet
determined, glassy, but crazed. Eyes of an addict. Eyes she knew to avoid.

She turned away
without another word, finally trying to do the smart thing and leave.

But she wouldn’t
be leaving.

He couldn’t let
her. He needed what she had.

So he let himself
go, let his body draw down on the energy it so desperately craved.

The young woman’s
body stiffened, but he barely noticed. He was too consumed with the
overwhelming rush of energy. It was as if his body was given new life. He
soaked it in like a sponge, refusing to miss a single drop. Since her back was
toward him he couldn’t see the shock in her eyes, couldn’t see the expression
she must’ve had as her mind reached unimaginable heights before crashing from
the withdrawal that quickly followed. But he did hear the cry of pain right
before she dropped to the ground.

Right before she
died.

The swelling
energy brought a sharp, crisp focus to his sight, a jump to his step, a
profound sense of awareness. He knew he should leave, that he shouldn’t risk
any type of connection by staying there. But he was still curious.

He wanted to know
who she was, and what was in the brown bag.

He bent down and
went through her pocketbook, using the end of his shirt to cover his fingers to
avoid leaving prints as he pulled out her wallet. He looked at her license. She
lived in Manhattan on Sixteenth Street, just a few blocks away. Probably with
her family, as she was only seventeen years old. He poked around some more and
pulled out her school ID. Tisdale Preparatory School. One of the city’s most
prestigious. He put the cards and wallet back in the bag.

He now knew what was
in the brown bag without even having to look, but he looked anyway. And it was
just what he thought it’d be. Little round blue pills, each marked with an A
and a D.

Adderall.

The girl wasn’t
looking to get high, she just wanted an edge in school. She wanted good grades.
That was all.

He put the pills
back in the bag and stood up, looked around. No one was paying any mind.

He glanced at her
still, lifeless body one more time then turned and left. Keeping his head low
and hiding his face with the cap’s brim, he crossed over to University Place
and walked a few blocks over to where his car was parked, looking around for
any noticeable signs of someone watching him. There were a few people mingling
around, wrapped up in their own thoughts and conversation, but no one paying
attention to him. He ducked into the car, started the engine and drove away,
dialing a number from his steering wheel.

Corin.

He heard the man’s
voice answer through the car’s speakers. “You did it again, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Shit,” Corin said,
his voice suddenly more alert. “You can’t keep doing this. You’re going to
bottom out. They’re too close together.”

“I’m fine,” he
lied. “I just wanted you to know so you can handle them if they call.”

“
If?
Oh, they’ll call all right. You know
they’re going to call. And they’re going to want you to stop.”

“I know. So just
put them off again.”

“It won’t be that
easy this time,” Corin said. There was a pause before the next sentence eased
through the speakers and echoed throughout the car. “There are rumblings now
that they may have found someone else. So they won’t be as timid in their
request this time.”

“There are always
those rumblings, and they’re probably just that. Rumblings. Rumors. But even if
they’re true, they can never have enough. They know that.”

“I’m not so sure.
They’re uncomfortable with the attention you’re drawing.”

“Attention? What
attention? No one knows.”

“How about the two
with the broken necks?” Corin said.

“Isolated
incident. No one’s connected them to the others.”

“I’m not so sure
about that.”

“Why?”

“Just a sense I
got when I last spoke with them.”

“Then it’s
something they’ll have to deal with. I’m not stopping.”

“You really want
me to send that message?” Corin asked.

The man turned
onto Third Avenue and succinctly said that, yes, he did, and then hung up. But
the conversation had rattled him.

Would they try to
stop him?

Would they be
willing to lose him?

No, he calmed
himself. There was no way. They still needed him. They had to leave him alone.
His talents were too unique, regardless of whom else they had.

He was sure they
would realize that.

Just like they had
before.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

It was twenty minutes after ten
when the mediation started, which was twenty minutes later than it was supposed
to have started. But Kyle didn’t mind. He wasn’t looking forward to the
process, not in the least bit. His focus was also still on the night before, on
the fact that they’d followed and confronted the hottest pitcher in the Major
Leagues and accused him of killing people with his mind just so he could get an
edge in his starts. Kyle still couldn’t believe he’d been a part of it, but was
thankful no one was hurt, and grateful Hillier hadn’t decided to press charges.

Of course, Liam
still thought Hillier was behind the killings. Even after watching Hillier do
nothing but listen to his iPod the entire trip back to Manhattan, and even
after Liam and Eddie continued the stakeout at Hillier’s apartment while Kyle
went home, Liam still thought Hillier was behind the strokes. The text he sent
Kyle earlier in the morning updating him was clear on that. But Kyle didn’t
think so anymore, nor did he have any more confidence in Liam’s “siphoning
energy” theory.

As he sat in the
mediator’s conference room on the twenty-eighth floor of the New York Times’
building staring out at the sweeping views of the Hudson, his mind quickly
turned away from his thoughts about Liam and Hillier as the Trotters’ attorney,
Braden Ricker, stood up for his opening presentation and started to crucify
Kyle as if he were Charles Manson.

Not that Kyle
hadn’t expected it. It was going just as his attorney, Paula Leighton, had said
it would go. Ricker was coming after him hard and laying it all on the line,
trying to convince everyone in the room that Kyle was responsible for the death
of Henry Trotter, trying to convince them a jury was going to look at Kyle as
someone whose mind and focus were anywhere but where they were professionally
obligated to be when treating Henry Trotter during their first and only
session.

Yes, Kyle thought
to himself as Ricker delved deeper into his opening presentation, the man was
definitely not holding anything back.

“Did Mr. Vine
want
Henry Trotter to die?” Ricker
bellowed while standing at the head of a long, oval glass table, his thinning
hair short and tight. “Did he
want
to
see him shot by the very woman whom he’d been cheating with?” Ricker let the
questions linger before shaking his head and lowering his voice. “Well,
consciously I think we can say probably not. But subconsciously?” Ricker
shrugged. “Who knows? Mr. Vine here will be the first to say that the
subconscious mind operates on a level over which we have no control. It
contains thoughts and desires most of us would never even dream of acting
upon.”

Actually, Kyle
thought, he’d probably say the unconscious mind acted that way,
not
the subconscious mind
.

“But none of that
really matters,” Ricker proclaimed. “All that matters is the plain fact that
Mr. Vine had a professional responsibility. He had a professional obligation to
Henry Trotter and his family to realize that such an outcome was possible. That
it was
foreseeable
this tragedy would
happen if his mind and thoughts were anywhere other than where they should’ve
been.” Ricker glanced at Kyle, just long enough to make Kyle shuffle a bit in
his chair, but not long enough to make it too awkward for everyone else. The
man was definitely a pro.

“A therapist,
especially a well-schooled and specially licensed one like Mr. Vine, wields an
enormous degree of power, and signs up to be the sole caretaker of unquestioned
trust. And it’s a responsibility that isn’t to be taken lightly. Mr. Vine knows
that. And he knows he never should’ve treated Henry when his own life was in
such shambles. When his own psyche had just been shattered. It’s like asking a
surgeon to operate without the use of his hands. His tools of the trade were
down.” Ricker shook his head. “No,” he said, “they weren’t just down. They’d
been turned inside out. They’d become weapons. In Kyle Vine’s mind, Henry
Trotter and his philandering ways had become the enemy.” Ricker returned his
focus to Kyle. “And if Mr. Vine had allowed himself to realize that, he
would’ve done the right thing and never treated Henry
—
just like he said in his letter to the Board
—
and these deaths would’ve
never happened.”

Ricker turned his
attention back to the rest of the room. “But he didn’t. And because of that
fatal lapse in professional judgment, Mr. Vine caused the deaths of two
innocent lives.” He held up one finger and wagged it in the air. “Dana
Basking—a mentally ill woman who desperately needed professional help
rather than be used as a psychological pawn in Mr. Vine’s bitter battle with
his own failing marriage.” He held up a second finger. “And Henry
Trotter—a forty-four-year-old man who was battling his inner demons while
trying to keep his family together.”

Ricker turned and
nodded to the assistant he’d brought with him and the lights dimmed and a
projector hummed to life. All eyes turned to the screen against the wall.

It was the moment
Kyle had been dreading, the moment Paula had prepared him for: the PowerPoint
presentation. The photos of Henry’s children. Paula had told him to distance
himself when he saw the photos, to not think of Bree.

The first photo
that flashed was of all three of Henry’s children at Disney, the smiling faces
of his twin four-year-old boys and eight-year-old daughter hugging Mickey. The
rest were more of the same, snapshots of vacations on the beach, playing ball
in the park, opening presents Christmas morning, intimate times at home
lounging around.

And despite
Paula’s warnings, Kyle couldn’t help but tear up when he saw Henry’s kids,
knowing their dad would never be there again.

And he wasn’t
alone. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

It was just what
Ricker wanted, to show them how a jury would react to Henry’s death and how
those emotions would get the best of them regardless of what legal grounds they
may be bound by. And he was smart enough to stay away from including photos of
Henry’s wife, knowing it would tug them in the opposite direction, reminding
them of what a cheating son of a bitch Henry was.

When the last
photo appeared, one of Henry and his kids smiling wide in football jerseys at a
Jets game, Ricker let the image linger, remaining silent for a good minute
while the room absorbed the moment.

He gave a
comforting nod over to Henry’s parents—his wife wasn’t there—then
narrowed his eyes as he turned to Kyle’s group, which consisted of Kyle, Paula,
and the representative of Kyle’s insurance carrier, a forty-five-year-old
executive with no children of his own, someone purposefully sent to try and
convey a defiant posture.

Ricker returned
his focus to the mediator, Morris Seybert. A short man with neatly parted thick
gray hair, Seybert was a Yale educated, former practicing attorney who was now
a full-time mediator.

“
That
is what a jury is going to hear,”
Ricker said, “and what a jury will see.” He swallowed back his emotions.
“Normally, this is the time I tell you what our demand will be. But I honestly
don’t even know if it can be done. How do you put a value on a father’s life?”
He turned and looked back at the photo of Henry with his three children, their
wide smiles still hovering over the assembled group. He looked down, again
swallowing back either real or fabricated tears, then lifted his head and
knotted his brow. “Mr. Vine has a two million dollar policy. If he’d had a
policy
ten
times
that amount, I would say the same thing. It’s not nearly
enough to replace what was lost. No amount is.” He stole one more glance at the
photo and sat back down, not saying another word.

Paula was next,
having the unenviable task of counting down all of the defenses they had: the
strength of their pending motion to dismiss the case on lack of legal grounds,
the lack of any criminal charges filed against Kyle—let alone a
conviction
—
the
respected psychologists who were scheduled to testify in Kyle’s favor, the
depth of the girlfriend’s pre-existing psychological condition even Henry
hadn’t been aware of, the lack of a proximate cause, and the lack of
foreseeability.

They were strong
arguments, convincing arguments.

If anyone was
listening.

If the image of
Henry’s children bawling at the news their father had been killed wasn’t
dominating everyone’s mind.

But it was, and
most were still staring at the blank screen, as if the image of the three kids
was still there and not just burned forever into their retinas.

Kyle thought of
Bree, remembering her at the same age as Henry’s boys, recalling their own
first real vacation. It was out in Montauk. They had rented a house for August,
wanting to enjoy the beaches of Long Island’s famed south shore. He remembered
the little fluke they caught off the party boat, and how upset Bree was when
she watched the fish struggle and flop around on the deck. “Why’s he doing
that?” she cried as the fish continued to flail and fight for its life. “I
think he’s hurt. Make him better.
Make
him better, daddy. Make him better!
” Kyle saw the horror in her innocent
eyes and frantically unhooked the fish and tossed it overboard. Bree continued
to cry as she watched the little fluke quickly descend into the ocean and swim
away. “Why did you hurt him?” she asked, her head still over the side looking
down into the water. “Why did you take him away from his home?” Kyle didn’t
know what to say, and promised her they could just “pretend” fish for the rest
of the trip.

But she was too
inquisitive to let it go and wouldn’t stop asking. He tried to explain that the
fish were just excited when they came on the boat, that it was how they got
when they saw so many people. But she didn’t buy it. She knew. And it killed
him that he’d poisoned her innocent mind. So he let her do whatever she wanted
for the rest of the vacation. Spoiled her rotten. And she knew that too. She
knew he felt bad, and told him so a few days later. “It’s okay,” she said. Kyle
didn’t make the connection at first and asked her what was okay. “The fish is
home with his family now,” she said. “So it’s okay. He’s all better.” He smiled
when she said that, so proud of the compassionate little girl his toddler was
becoming.

But whether the
others were thinking about their own children or not, Ricker had accomplished
his goal—he diverted their attention away from the legal issues and had
them focusing upon their humanity, their compassion, and what a jury would do
if Paula’s legal defenses failed.

To Kyle, the
tactic seemed pretty damn effective.

After some remarks
from the mediator, the two camps broke into separate conference rooms. Seybert
met with Ricker’s contingency first, while Kyle and his group waited to hear
their real opening monetary settlement demand, something Paula said happened at
all mediations. The opening presentation was the big dog and pony show, but it
was really just the appetizer. The real meat of the process was what happened
afterward, when the mediator went back and forth trying to convince the
plaintiff to come down from their number and the defendant to come up. That’s
where cases settled, and the good mediators pulled out every trick in the book
to get the not so easy task accomplished. But Kyle was hopeful that wouldn’t be
too difficult in their case. He was more than ready to move on.

After more than an
hour of waiting, Seybert knocked on the door and stepped into their conference
room. The insurance representative, Dan O’Brien, spoke first. “So what’s their
demand?”

Seybert softened
his gaze, readying for the outrage that always came from defendants after he
exchanged the first numbers. “They want the full policy limits of two million
dollars,” he said, then turned to Kyle, “
and
an additional million from you, personally.”

Paula jumped up
from her chair and started to pack her things. “Well you can tell Ricker to go
to hell and thanks for wasting our time, because we’re leaving.”

“It’s just a
starting number,” Seybert said, motioning for her to sit back down. “You know
they’ll come down.”

Kyle looked up,
feeling a little woozy from the statement. “A million dollars personally?” he
said. “I don’t have a million dollars. I don’t have
half
a million. Not even close. I was a practicing psychologist and
now teach at a city college, how much do they think I make? I can’t afford
that.”

“Your ex-wife is
wealthy,” Seybert said. “In common property alone, Ricker says you should have
received enough from the divorce to cover the excess.”

Kyle was about to
explain that he refused to take in the divorce what he felt he hadn’t earned
himself, but Paula spoke first.

“It doesn’t matter
what he did or didn’t get,” Paula said, still standing up. “This case will
never see a jury. It will never see a trial. Either Judge Feingold or the
Appellate Division will dismiss it and they won’t see a dime. Ricker knows
that.”

“He’s confident
that won’t be the case,” Seybert said. “He thinks even if the law is slightly
in your favor, the emotional impact of what happened will cause a judge to give
him a slight edge in letting the case proceed on the merits. Especially given
the letter Kyle wrote to the Board.”

“He’s delusional,”
Paula seethed.

Seybert looked at
the insurance carrier’s representative. “Any thoughts on your end?”

“The truth?”
O’Brien asked.

“If you’re willing
to share it,” Seybert said. “I think it can only help and I don’t share
anything with the other side that you don’t want me to.”