The Delilah Complex

Fifty-Three

Had minutes passed? Or hours? My glance never left Paul Lessor’s face. I didn’t shift my head or avert my eyes from him, but in my peripheral vision I glimpsed shadows pass by in the hallway outside my door. I would know when Jordain came. If he came.

Now there was only silence out there and the distant ringing of a phone. Then more shadows.

And finally ten movements in one.

The door was thrown all the way open as a blur of figures rushed in, and before I could focus, the action stopped and everything stilled.

Jordain held Paul’s arms behind his back. Perez had a gun pulled on him. Three other uniformed cops took position around the room.

In normal time, the scene came back to life as Butler slapped a pair of stainless-steel bracelets on Paul’s wrists.

“Paul Lessor, you are under arrest,” Perez said, and proceeded to read him his rights.

Paul stared at me as he spit out one word over and over. “Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.”

Butler and a cop I didn’t recognize took him away.

Jordain walked over to me.

“Are you all right?”

I nodded, not yet trusting myself to speak. Once it was over, the terror had overwhelmed me. I had not allowed myself to think that the killer had been sitting in my office for the past thirty minutes, idly playing with a razor blade.

“We need to know what he told you,” Jordain said. “You think you can come down to the precinct?”

I tried to find the words. To calm myself. To let it sink in that there was no threat of danger anymore.

Jordain kneeled down next to me. He put his hands on my knees. The warmth of his flesh coming through my pants seared into my skin. It was the only thing I was aware of. The heat of his hands. I focused on my desk, on the silver-framed photograph of my daughter. Dulcie’s face swam in front of my eyes. What would have happened if Paul Lessor had hurt me? Worse. Killed me. Dulcie without me? She’d be all right. She had her father. But she’d be one of the lost girls. Motherless daughters who never quite understand why they never feel whole.

“Morgan?” Jordain’s voice pulled me back to the present.

“He is on Thorazine,” I blurted out.

“How do you know? He told you?” He was excited. “It’s important. It is one of the few pieces of information we had about the murdered men. At least one of them had been drugged with Thorazine.”

“He started to lactate. It’s one of the side effects of being on Thorazine for an extended period of time. He put his hand under his jacket and kept it there. When his jacket fell open and I saw the wet spot, I knew. I remembered. You’d said Thorazine was on that hair sample. And he kept talking about the men. The other men. That they deserved this. And that I would be in danger if I interfered.” I was talking too fast. It didn’t matter, Jordain was following. His eyes were keeping me centered. I felt safe.

Even there, in that chaotic moment, I hated that false sense of security. It reminded me of his power over me. How he could make me talk about things I didn’t tell other people. How he made it seem as if he could keep the harm away.

“He’s got a driver’s license, address. Lives in the city.” Perez had come back into my office and was filling Jordain in. “I’m sending Reston and Douglas over there now.”

“Morgan, can you come downtown with us?” Jordain asked.

“I made a tape,” I suddenly remembered.

“You did? Why?”

I couldn’t remember for a second. Then my head cleared. “We always tape consultations. The potential patients are informed. It’s not unusual.”

When I stood up my legs were wobbly. The betrayal surprised me. Jordain put his arm out and it amazed me how easy it was to lean on him. I got my equilibrium back, let go of him and, straightening, walked across the room steadily on my own steam. The tape recorder was small but in full view on the lower shelf of the coffee table by the couch.

I shut off the machine, popped the tape out and handed it to Jordain. “I need it back. You can make a copy, can’t you?”

“Yes.” He practically snatched it out of my hand. I stared at his fingers. I remembered them playing piano. And playing me a few nights ago. I couldn’t make the connection between that man and this detective.

“What is going on in here?” Her voice was strident and furious at the same time. Nina had never sounded so outraged. Perez and Jordain turned but she ignored them. Her anger was not directed at them. She glared at me. Whatever our attempt at reconciliation had accomplished the other night, it had been undone by having a contingent of policemen inside the Butterfield Institute taking a patient, even a potential patient, away in handcuffs.