The Delilah Complex

Twenty-Nine

I waited until after we got home. And then I waited until after Dulcie had done her homework. I waited until after we sat and watched an episode of Seinfeld together, both of us laughing even though we knew all the jokes ahead of time. And finally I waited until after she got undressed and into bed and fell asleep.

Still I didn’t do anything. I put a pot of water on to boil. Waited for a cup of tea to brew. Waited for a teaspoon of honey to melt. And then there wasn’t any excuse I could give myself to wait anymore. Even though I didn’t have any solid information that I could give him. Even though I couldn’t break any confidence.

I could tell him that one thing I’d noticed in the photographs at the station house that hadn’t made sense at that time did make sense now, couldn’t I?

Didn’t I need to?

No one in the Scarlet Society group had told me anything about it. Shelby hadn’t mentioned it when we’d talked in private. It was something I had noticed on my own.

I picked up the phone.

And then hung up.

What if my talking to Jordain would make a difference to his investigation? What if the information I had dovetailed with facts he’d found out but hadn’t quite fit into place? I went over the argument again in my mind. Going to the police with information that had to do with any patients wasn’t something you just did. There was nothing more sacred in our business than the confidentiality between me and the people who came to me to help them.

I fell asleep after lying in bed for what seemed like hours, going over both sides of the argument, trying to tackle it with logic, without coming to a solution. The apartment was quiet except for the occasional sound of a car on the street five stories below. Where was he? The man who had killed Philip Maur and Timothy Wheaton. Was he on the videotape that Shelby had given me? Had any of the women I was working with in the group had sex with him? What was his connection to the Scarlet Society? And what was my responsibility?

I got up, throwing off the sheets, and walked barefoot through the dark hallway to Dulcie’s room. The door was open halfway and my eyes had adjusted to the gloom while I lay in my bed, restless and worried.

My daughter was lying on her back, one arm under the sheets, the other thrown across her chest. Her face was smooth and peaceful. I couldn’t see the shadows under her eyes that I’d noticed that night at dinner. All I wanted to do was keep her safe. Keep her happy.

Somewhere beyond these walls was a man who had already killed twice. I didn’t know why. And I didn’t know what I could do about it. But I knew that the men he had killed had children who would miss them, whose lives would never be the same again.

Lost girls. Lost boys.

Could I really keep what I knew from Noah Jordain?