The Night Bird

20

Frankie was right about her patients. They’d seen the news, and they were scared. When she got to her office, she found messages from six patients who’d canceled all their future appointments. Ten others wanted to know whether it was safe to see her. She spent two hours on the phone, reaching out to all of them, but it was hard to offer answers when she didn’t know what was going on.

Finally, she put down the phone and wandered into her treatment room, which was her oasis. One wall was devoted to books. On quiet weekend days, she would come here to read. She activated the surround-sound speakers and played the noise of a rain storm, with the plink, plink of showers and a distant turbulence of thunder. She turned on a video of Fern Canyon. It was at the end of a trail in Prairie Creek State Park that she and Jason had hiked on their honeymoon, where the narrow riverbed was lined by vertical stone walls dense with green ferns. Life had felt good then.

She stretched out in the chaise that her patients used. She tried to read more of The Magus by Fowles. The novel was about a young, self-centered teacher in Greece facing erotic manipulation by two sisters and a mysterious magician. She’d read it before. Some days she felt as if she were the magus herself. The manipulator, using dreams and drugs. But she was the one being manipulated now, and the plot felt too close to the reality of her world.

She put the book down. When she glanced at the doorway, she saw Jason watching her. She hadn’t heard him enter the office. His thumb and forefinger stroked his chin, which was unshaved. He wasn’t smiling. Fern Canyon played on the screen, and the rain fell, which it had done on that long hike together. There had been a real chemistry between them on that trip. It felt like a long time ago.

“You heard what’s going on?” Frankie said.

“Yes.”

“I canceled my appointments this week, at least until the police catch this guy. I’m calling everyone else to warn them to be careful.”

“I suppose that’s a good idea,” Jason said.

He sat down next to the chaise in the chair she usually used as a therapist. It was strange having him there, as if he were the doctor and she were the patient. Somehow, it took away her power, and she didn’t like it. She got up. She switched off the music and video. The treatment room, with its sound-baffled walls, was as silent as a crypt.

“Do you think the person who’s doing this is one of your patients?” Jason asked.

“I don’t know. The fact that he seems to be manipulating their behavior with some kind of hypnotic programming makes me think he must have seen my techniques up close, but he could have simply read up on me in the psychology journals, too. A lot of people think I’m evil. They’d love to hurt me.”

“Don’t exaggerate, Frankie.”

“I’m not. I don’t show you the mail I get.”

She’d testified in many lawsuits about the unreliability of recovered memories, even among people who believed they were victims of abuse. She’d also testified in criminal court about the problems of eyewitness identification, and thanks to her, accused murderers had been acquitted. She’d made a lot of money as an expert witness, and she’d made a lot of enemies, too. Nothing she said in court was false, but that didn’t matter to people who felt robbed of justice.

“If it’s a patient, you know who’s got my vote,” Jason said.

She did. “Darren Newman?”

“That’s right.”

Frankie walked to her bookshelves and ran a hand along the spines of the hardcovers. She looked back at the empty chaise. It was easy to picture Darren Newman there, talking about his Midwest childhood. Almost dying in a collapsed snow fort. Being lured into bed by his math teacher. He was singularly handsome and charming, a man who was nearly impossible to resist. She’d never met a better liar.

“Why would Darren do that?” she asked, her voice soft. “He already got what he wanted. He fooled me. He’s free because of me. And Merrilyn Somers is dead.”

“Why does a sociopath do anything? Look at this guy’s behavior. The taunting. The secret identity. The game playing. The risk taking. That’s exactly who Darren is.”

He was right, but she knew there was an extra reason why Jason believed in Darren Newman’s guilt. He blamed him for the state of their marriage, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. The revelations about Darren Newman — and the murder of Merrilyn Somers — had shaken Frankie to her core. She’d grown distracted. Out of touch. Withdrawn. She’d become emotionally unreachable, and the emptiness had made its way into their bedroom. They’d gone months without making love.

Jason hadn’t made things better. Another man might have tried to crack her shell and draw her back to him. Jason didn’t. He buried himself in his lab and waited for her to fix herself. They’d never really been the same since then. There was still a canyon between them.

She’d never told Jason about the pass that Darren made at her. Patients did that from time to time. Usually, the attachment was just a side effect of therapy, and she knew how to turn it aside. Darren was different. For the first and only time, she’d been tempted, regardless of the consequences. He was smooth. Alluring. The physical effect he’d had on her was unlike anything she’d felt with another man. Even Jason. She resisted Darren, but she found herself in the grip of sexual fantasies about him for months. When he stared at her, she thought he knew exactly how she felt.

Later, she’d realized that his skillful seduction was a ploy. If they’d had an affair, he could have used it against her. She was part of his plan. And she hated him for it.

“No,” she insisted. “I don’t think it’s Darren.”

Jason looked as if he wanted to argue with her, but they’d argued enough about Darren Newman in the past. The damage was done. “Then who?”

“There’s someone else,” Frankie said.

He came over and stood very close to her. “Who is it?”

“A patient. I can’t tell you who, and I can’t tell the police, either, not unless I know something for sure.”

“Why do you think it’s him?”

Frankie thought about Todd Ferris on the Bay Trail. “He approached me when I was running yesterday. It made me uncomfortable, like he was stalking me. He said he didn’t want to come to the office, because he didn’t want anything in writing. In other words, he didn’t want a trail of evidence — or at least that’s how I took it.”

Her husband’s dark eyes looked even darker. “What did he say?”

“He was having strange memories. He claimed to remember women being tortured. He said he came to me because he recognized one of the women from the news. It was Brynn Lansing.”

“This guy says he saw one of your patients being tortured?”

She nodded. “I didn’t believe it when he talked to me. It sounded too wild, like someone who was making up stories just to get attention. But now—”

“If it’s him, why would he come to you and admit it? Why would he play these games and then simply tell you what he’s doing?”

“I don’t know. He could be schizophrenic, but I didn’t get that sense from him in treatment.”

“Did he say that he was the one torturing these women?” Jason asked.

“No, he said he was a witness. He saw it.”

“You should talk to the police about this.”

“Don’t you think I want to? I can’t. Unless he says or does something that lets me break privilege, my hands are tied.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

Frankie crossed the treatment room to the door that led to her office. She went behind her desk and used her keys to unlock her filing cabinet. That was where she kept all her patient records. She hunted in the second drawer and found the slim folder for Todd Ferris.

“I need to reach out to him,” she said. “Meet him. Talk to him.”

“Alone? No way. Take me with you.”

“I already told you that I can’t break privilege. I can’t let you find out who he is.” Jason didn’t answer, and she added, “I’m sorry.”

“This is the way it always is between us,” he snapped.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s you on your own, Frankie. It’s never you and me.”

“That’s not true. It’s not my choice.”

“Of course it is. You don’t need me. You don’t need Pam. You don’t need anybody.”

“Jason—”

“Do what you want,” he snapped. “I’ll see you at home.”

He turned around and stalked out of the office. The first door slammed, and then she heard the outer door slam, too. She was alone again.

He’s wrong, she thought.

She didn’t need to keep the rest of the world off her island. Or maybe she was just kidding herself. She’d learned her lessons from her father growing up. Don’t ask for help. Don’t need anyone else, because they won’t be there for you.

Frankie opened Todd Ferris’s file and found the patient information sheet that every new patient completed. Hesitating, she keyed the number of his cell phone. She tried to think about what she would tell him. When she heard the phone ringing, she held her breath.

“Hello?”

It was a woman’s voice.

Frankie was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry, I was trying to reach Todd.”

“Who?”

“Todd Ferris.”

“You got the wrong number,” the woman replied.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Frankie rattled off the number she’d dialed, thinking she’d made a mistake, but the woman said, “That’s the number, but no Todd here. Good-bye.”

“Wait, sorry. Can you just tell me, did you recently acquire this phone number?”

“I’ve had it for six years. Now good-bye, okay?”

The woman on the other end of the line hung up. Frankie stared at the patient information form. It was handwritten, not typed. Each patient filled in the details personally.

Todd Ferris had given her a fake phone number.