Chapter 14
14
L unch was long since over, and Sully had confessed about the yearbook. To his relief, Dan seemed to take it in stride and was now going through it, rapidly taking down names and making notes beside each one while Ginny answered the occasional question.
“This is good. Really good,” Dan said, and then gave Sully a casual glance. “Glad you decided to share.”
Sully sighed. He’d expected that and more.
Ginny frowned at Dan and decided to change the subject.
“Will it be difficult to find these teachers? I know Mr. Fontaine retired after the fire. I’ve heard Mother tell the story many times.”
“They can be found,” Sully said. “It’s hard to hide from Uncle Sam.”
“But what if you find him and he doesn’t remember? By now he should be in his eighties, maybe older. That was more than twenty years ago, and he seemed really old to me then.”
“I don’t know,” Dan said. “We’ll just have to take it one step at a time.” Then he added, “But you’ve helped a lot. This gives us a new angle at which to proceed. We’d tried earlier to find a listing of the teachers, but everything was destroyed in that fire.”
“You can thank Georgia for this, not us,” Sully said. “She’s the one who put all this together.” He looked away suddenly, his voice softening. “It’s just a damned shame it didn’t help save her life.”
Ginny laid her head on Sully’s shoulder and slipped her hand in his.
“If you’d asked her, Sully, she would have said her life was already saved.”
The simple truth of Ginny’s words was a balm to his soul. He slipped his arm around Ginny and gave her a quick hug.
Dan stood abruptly.
“I need to check in. Be back in a few.”
He strode out of the room, leaving Sullivan and Ginny alone.
“He’s going to spend the night,” Sully said.
Ginny shrugged. “There are two spare bedrooms.”
Sully brushed his mouth across her lips. “You don’t care if he knows that we’re together?”
“No.” Then her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Is fraternization between agent and witness frowned upon? You won’t get in trouble or anything like that, will you?”
Sully shrugged. “No, and besides that, it’s not my case, it’s Dan’s. I’m here because I asked to be, not because I was assigned. Therefore, my business is my business. I was mostly thinking of you.”
“I’m twenty-eight, almost twenty-nine. I am a thoroughly modern woman in every sense of the word. I do not need or want anybody’s permission to have sex, or for that matter…to fall in love.”
Sully was speechless. It was the first time she’d said the L word, and he didn’t have time to respond. Dan was already back.
“I almost forgot this,” Dan said, and tossed it in Sully’s lap.
“Is this the tape?”
Dan nodded.
Ginny grabbed Sully’s arm. “I want to hear it.” When he hesitated, she added, “Please. You’re both here. I can’t possibly do anything to myself. Besides, Dan says the lab got absolutely nothing useful from it, remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” Sully muttered, fingering the small plastic case. “But for the record, I’m not happy about this.”
“Unhappiness noted,” Ginny said. “Did you bring the player?”
Dan handed it to Sully, as well. Sully loaded the cassette, then hesitated, his finger above Play.
“I want to hear this first,” he said.
“Fine with me,” Ginny said. “I’ll just be sitting here, waiting for you two to finish running my life.”
Ignoring her sarcasm, Sully moved into the hallway, unaware that the domed ceiling was a natural conductor of sound. He glanced at Ginny again, decided she was a safe enough distance away, and then pressed the button.
The first thing he heard was the thunder, distant, but distinct. Then the chimes began, deep tone upon deep tone, then clearer and higher, as if moving up a scale. The series repeated itself three times before the tape went blank.
“Doesn’t make much sense, does it?” Sully said. “Just some thunder and a funky doorbell that nobody answers.”
“I know, that’s what’s so damned frustrating,” Dan said. “So let her hear it, okay? Maybe it’ll mean something. Maybe it won’t. I don’t see how it could hurt.”
“Yes, all right, but I—” Sully glanced across the room and forgot when he’d been saying. There was something about the way Ginny was sitting that didn’t seem right.
“Ginny?”
Her eyes were closed, her chin was resting on her chest, and there was a kind of tension in her posture, as if she was waiting.
“Oh hell,” Sully muttered, thrusting the tape recorder at Dan and bolting across the room. He went down on his knees and looked into Ginny’s face. “Dan! Get over here. Now !”
Sully grabbed her by both arms. When had this happened? Even more—what in hell had they just done?
“Ginny!” He shook her just a little, and she slumped forward on his chest.
Dan grabbed his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“You tell me!” Sully shouted, and yanked her to her feet. “Ginny! Ginny! Wake up! For the love of God, wake up!”
Ginny’s head rolled on her neck like a limp rag doll. Sully shook her again, then put a hand on either side of her face and began to yell.
“Ginny! Ginny! Wake up!”
To his everlasting relief, her eyelids fluttered, but when they finally opened, his relief was short-lived. Her expression was empty.
“Sweet Jesus,” he whispered. He’d never been so scared in his life. And then his survival instincts took over, and his fear slid into second gear. “Virginia! Look at me, damn it! Open your eyes! It’s over. Whatever happened to you is over! Do you hear me?”
She blinked once, then twice, and Sully knew the moment reality surfaced because he saw it in her eyes.
“Sully?”
“Ah, God,” he muttered, and wrapped her tight within his arms. His hands were shaking, his heart was thundering in his chest. They’d fooled around with something they didn’t understand and almost lost her without knowing why. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I swear to God, honey, we didn’t know.”
“Know what?” Ginny asked. “When are you going to let me hear the tape?”
Dan whistled between his teeth and then slowly shook his head.
“I think you just did.”
Ginny was starting to get scared. “What happened? What did I do?”
“The acoustics,” Sully said, suddenly eyeing the high domed ceiling. “Son of a bitch, I didn’t think about the acoustics. She must have heard everything we did.”
“Yeah, but what did we hear?” Dan asked.
“What did I do?” Ginny asked, her voice rising higher with every word. “Will somebody just answer me that one question before I scream?”
“You went out like a light,” Sully said. “It meant nothing to us. Just a recording of some distant thunder and then someone ringing a doorbell over and over.”
Something hovered at the back of Ginny’s mind, but it was too indistinct to identify.
“Thunder always makes me—”
“Sleepy,” Sully finished. “That’s right. You’ve said that before.” He looked at Dan. “Thunderstorms almost put her in a—”
“Trance,” Ginny said, for the first time wondering if that lifelong trait of lethargy might not be natural after all.
“Do it again,” Ginny said.
“Hell no,” Sully said.
“You brought me out of it before. You can do it again. Besides, what if that was a fluke? Did you see what happened? Were you watching me?”
Neither man could answer.
“That’s what I thought. Neither one of you can be sure that it was the tape. Play it again. Right now. Right here in front of me so there’s no mistake.”
“Then get the others in here, too,” Sully said. “I want all the witnesses we can get. Someone might notice something that we don’t.”
“Good idea,” Dan said, and headed for the door.
Sully wanted to argue, but this was a side of Ginny he hadn’t seen before. She was in charge, and she was focused on doing this her way.
He frowned and then smoothed a wayward hair off her face.
“Just so you know…”
“I know. Opposition duly noted.”
He frowned, but before he could comment further, Dan was back with the men. Obviously he had explained the situation to them before they’d come in, because none of the trio seemed surprised by the request.
“All right,” Sully said. “I want you to pay close attention to Ginny’s behavior. Something in this tape put her out like a light. When this is over, I want some opinions. Short of flying her to one of our specialists, which I have yet to rule out—”
Ginny put her hand on his arm. “Sully…play the tape.”
He wanted to yank it out of the recorder and set the thing on fire, but that wouldn’t solve a thing. Somewhere the perpetrator was waiting for them to lower their guard, and when they did, Ginny would become another of his victims.
He looked at her once—at the determination in her eyes—and then nodded. When she sat back in the chair, he pressed the play button and then turned up the volume.
Thunder sounded, then rippled through her skin, like echoes off distant mountains. Her eyes widened; her mouth went slack.
Sully held his breath as on the tape the sound of chimes superimposed itself above the storm—resonating deeply and then moving up the scale in clear and precise tones.
Her eyes went flat. Her head rolled on her neck, and then her chin dropped toward her chest.
Sully grunted as if he’d just been punched in the gut.
Even though the chimes repeated twice more, Ginny had no other reaction. It was as if she was waiting. But for what?
Sully turned off the tape and then looked at the men. They were as stunned as he. He laid the recorder aside and had started to reach for Ginny when Franklin Chee suddenly grabbed his arm, holding him back.
Let me , he mouthed silently, and then squatted down in front of her, studying her face without touching her.
“Ginny…can you hear me?”
When she nodded, Sully felt as if he’d been sucker-punched.
“It’s time for you to wake up now. I’m going to count backward from ten, and when I say ‘ Now ’ you’re going to open your eyes and you will feel fine. Are you ready?”
She sighed, then nodded again.
“Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. You’re feeling lighter, more alert. You can hear the sound of my voice even better than before. Six. Five. Four. It’s almost morning, and you’re ready to get up. You will be happy and refreshed when you open your eyes, and you will not be afraid. Three. Two. One. Now!”
Ginny looked up, saw the Navajo agent on his knees and grinned.
“Is this a proposal?”
Franklin Chee smiled as he stood.
“I think Agent Dean would have my head for even thinking it,” he said, and then turned and faced the other men.
“How did you do that?” Sully asked.
“Sometime during her life she has been given a post-hypnotic suggestion that was never removed.”
“But I didn’t hear any words on the tape,” Dan said.
“It doesn’t have to be words. It can be anything, even a series of sounds. Whatever she’s been conditioned to respond to is the thing that will put her quickly under. After that, it’s simply a matter of waiting for instructions. It’s a fairly common method, like a parlor trick professional hypnotists might use at a party.”
“How did you know to do that?” Sully asked.
Franklin shrugged. “I read a book.”
“I’m thinking there’s more to you than meets the eye,” Dan said. “Maybe I need to read your file a little closer.”
“Guys…”
They stopped talking among themselves and looked at Ginny.
“Forgive me if I’m interrupting this discussion, but did I do it again?”
“Oh yeah,” Sully said.
“What did I do…exactly?” she asked.
Franklin answered in a way she would understand.
“You just closed your eyes as you’d been taught and waited for the voice.”
“What voice?”
“The voice of the man who did this to you.”
Ginny suddenly felt sick, wondering what else he might have done to seven little girls in a state of unconsciousness.
“Okay,” Dan said. “Thanks for your help, men.” He clapped Chee on the shoulder as he walked them to the door. “Especially you, Franklin. You’re a man of many talents.”
Franklin nodded, then cast a teasing eye at his brother and grinned.
“Webster does a pretty good imitation of John Wayne, if anybody’s interested.”
The solemn comment made everyone laugh, which was what Franklin Chee had intended. He looked back once at Ginny and then walked out the door with the others behind him.
Dan shoved his hands through his hair in quick frustration and then reached in his pocket for his phone.
“What are you going to do next?” Sully asked.
“Find Edward Fontaine and hope to hell he can remember who taught that gifted class.”
Orlando, Florida
Edward Fontaine picked his way down the steps of his little cottage, pausing long enough to scoot a beetle out of his path with his cane before continuing on. A young boy on a tricycle came wheeling around the corner with his mother not far behind, moving at a jog.
“Hello, Martin, how are you this fine morning?” Edward called.
The little boy beamed and yelled back, “I can ride this really fast. Watch me go.”
Edward watched, trying to remember if he’d ever been that young or that mobile.
“Good morning, Mr. Fontaine,” the young mother said, giving him a brief wave as she continued her daily run.
“Good morning to you, too, Patricia. Martin seems in fine form this morning.”
She nodded and disappeared beyond the clump of palm trees on the corner.
Edward lifted his head and exhaled deeply. Yes, it was a fine morning indeed. And for a man of his years, he was blessed to be here at all.
The smile was still on his face as he crossed the street, continuing on his daily walk to the beach. He loved the ocean and the solace of the warm, daily sun. The sun was good for his arthritis, as were these walks.
The pier that he favored was almost empty this morning. Just the way he liked it. He would walk all the way to the end, just as he did every day when it wasn’t raining, and then on his way back he would stop at the little coffee shop on the corner and have a coffee and a doughnut. His doctor told him not to indulge in too many sweets, but he chose not to listen. He was already eighty-three. He would rather have a doughnut for breakfast and be happy than live to be a miserable one hundred with all his teeth.
A seagull swooped across the pier a few feet in front of him, and he frowned and waved his cane in the air.
“Get back, you winged beggar. I’m coming through.” Then he laughed aloud at his own foolishness.
He gave only the most casual of glances to a couple having their breakfast while tossing bits and pieces of it on the pier to watch the gulls come swooping in.
Tourists, he thought to himself. The rest of us know better.
The ocean breeze lifted the tufts of white hair still clinging to his scalp, ruffling the ends until they stood up from behind his ears like sheer, snowy feathers. Only a few more steps and he would be at the end of the pier. He could taste that doughnut now. Maybe he would have a plain cake one today. He always chose a raspberry filled, but maybe today he would be different.
He reached the end of the pier and punctuated the goal with a thump of his cane, then stood for a moment, staring out into the blue of the Atlantic. There was a sail on the horizon, and a clutch of seabirds overhead shrieked their disapproval of his presence.
“Excuse me. Are you Edward Fontaine?”
He turned. “Yes. I’m sorry…I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”
“Actually, you have. I’m sorry, but it’s all for the best.”
“Sorry? What have you to be—”
It didn’t take much more than a push. He went backward easily, so surprised he forgot to yell. And when the water closed over his face, his last thought was that after all his years on this earth, he should have learned how to swim.
Emile Karnoff paid the cabdriver and had picked up his suitcase and started toward the front door when it suddenly opened.
“Emile! You’re home! What a wonderful surprise!”
Emile put down his suitcase and enfolded his little wife in a warm embrace.
“It’s good to be back,” he said, and closed his eyes as he kissed the top of her head. Her dress was the color of lilacs, his favorite flower, and she smelled like lemon and thyme. He smiled. She’d been in her garden. It was times like this that made him wonder why he ever left home.
“Come inside,” Lucy said. “Have you eaten? Phillip will be so excited. Only last night we were lamenting how long you’d been gone.”
She chose to omit the fact that Phillip had been in one of his moods and angry about his father’s absence, rather than sad. But she wasn’t as worried as she might once have been. She’d been playing the tapes for him every night and was convinced that she had the situation well under control.
Emile opted not to comment on the fact that Phillip was here, rather than at a job. It wasn’t the time to confront Lucy, or his son. This was a time for homecoming, not retribution.
“I had some peanuts and a soft drink on the plane,” Emile said. “But I would love nothing better than a cup of your tea and some of your homemade nut bread. Please tell me you have some.”
The breeze ruffled Lucy’s silvery curls as she clapped her hands in delight.
“Of course I do,” she said. “And it’s your favorite. Cranberry nut.”
Emile picked up his suitcase and then slipped his other arm over her shoulder.
“You are my Wonder Woman. You know that, don’t you?”
Lucy beamed. She knew. And the fact that he acknowledged it was her special prize.
Phillip stood at the head of the staircase, listening to his parents chatter as they came inside the door. It was always the same with him, somewhere on the periphery of their universe, waiting to be noticed.
Hey, wimpy boy…aren’t you going to go down and hug your daddy’s neck ?
“Shut up,” Phillip whispered.
His expression darkened as laughter echoed in his head. As his parents moved from the hallway into the den, he doubled up his fists and spun away. Nothing ever changed. Why had he thought this time would be different?
If you want things different, you know what you can do .
“I don’t hear you,” Phillip said in a whiney, singsong voice, just like a little child would do.
Yes, you do, Baby boy. You hear, and one of these days you’re going to obey .
He slammed the door shut behind him as he strode over to his dresser. Leaning forward, he braced both hands on the dresser top and stared at himself in the large square mirror.
“Obey? Where the hell do you get obey?” Phillip sneered. “You think I don’t have enough people telling me what to do already? You think I’m so stupid that I’d give myself over to even one more will? If you do, then you’ve got another think coming. I’m getting tired of this. Do you hear me? I won’t put up with this crap anymore. You leave me the hell alone or I’ll end it all, right now.”
Shaking with anger, he stood before the mirror, waiting for another taunt—for that one more dig that would make the rest of the day another hell. Strangely, the voice was silent.
A slow smile split the scowl he was wearing. His eyes began to glitter, and a muscle in his jaw began to jerk. He straightened, his shoulders thrust back in a gesture of defiance, and for the first time in more years than he could remember, he felt like he was the one in charge.
As he went to greet his father, there was so much going on inside his brain, it never occurred to him that he’d stopped the voice by threatening to end his own existence.
Downstairs, Emile basked in the glory of Lucy’s love and care. Except for small, unimportant details that would certainly work themselves out, his life was just about perfect.
“Darling,” Emile said. “Sit with me. Tell me what you’ve been doing while I was away.”
Lucy slipped gracefully into a chair, crossing her legs at the ankles and folding her hands in her lap as she’d been taught as a child.
“My days are so unimportant compared to yours. Please, tell me about your trip. Was the consultation a success?”
Emile beamed. Another chance to speak of his work with the person who loved him most.
“Yes, that it was,” he said. “The woman was improving daily as I left. I gave one of the young doctors training in my techniques so that her healing would continue.” Then he changed the subject, but only a bit. “Oh, Lucy, sweetheart, you should see Ireland! It is the most wonderful place. Quaint villages, the green, rolling hills with hidden valleys down below. Sheep dotting the pastures in the distance like tiny white balls of fluff. And the air! Ah…it’s as the world must have been a hundred…no, two hundred years ago. Clean…pure. Oh! I must not forget the people. They are amazing—so kind—so friendly. Quite a lot of people walk about the countryside, many bicycle, not bothered by the danger of being mugged. You would absolutely love it there.”
Lucy nodded dutifully, although privately she would have disagreed. She didn’t want to walk or ride a bicycle anywhere. As for country living, she’d had her fill of that growing up on her father’s Kansas dairy farm. She’d dreamed of a more genteel life for so many years, and now that she had it, she wasn’t going to give it up for anyone or anything—not even Emile, bless his heart.
She sighed, then smiled and nodded as he continued to wax eloquent regarding Dublin itself. She wasn’t stupid, although she suspected from time to time that he wasn’t so sure. He was laying groundwork, dropping hints. But she wasn’t living in a foreign country, not even a charming one, and that was that. And when she saw Phillip coming into the room, she was glad that he’d come. A change of subject was certainly in order.
“Father! Welcome home!”
A momentary frown furrowed across Emile’s forehead. He did not like to be interrupted. Surely Phillip could see that he’d been talking.
“Phillip. You’re looking well.”
“That’s because I haven’t been sick,” he snapped, and gave his father a dutiful peck on the cheek.
The snappish tone in his son’s voice surprised him. The boy was usually quite meek.
Lucy twisted the fabric of her skirt and started to giggle nervously. Lord, please don’t let this be one of Phillip’s bad days .
“Phillip has a few surprises of his own to share,” she said, then lifted her face to the other man in her life, blessing him with a smile. “Tell him, dear. Tell your father what you’ve been doing.”
Phillip frowned. He would rather have kept this part of his life to himself…at least for a while. But, as always, Mother had interfered. He almost wished he hadn’t confided in her, but then dismissed the thought. If he didn’t have her as backup, he would have no one.
“Yes, Phillip. Do tell me what you’re doing with yourself now.”
It was the condescension in his father’s voice that tipped the scales.
“I decided to put my English degree to use. I’m writing a book.”
To say Emile was surprised would have been putting it mildly. But it was a pleasant surprise. And as he looked at his son, it occurred to him that that was a job for which Phillip might actually be suited.
“Why…that’s wonderful,” he said, and actually stood and shook his son’s hand. “And since I think I understand the creative genius enough to empathize, I won’t intrude upon your work by asking you what it’s about. I’m sure you’ll tell us in your own time.”
Phillip wanted to cry. All these years he’d struggled to please his father—to do something that would earn just this type of response—to see approval light his father’s eyes.
“Yes. You’re right. I’m in the very first stages of a rough draft, but it’s coming along.”
Emile smiled and then did something he hadn’t done in more than twenty-five years. He put his arms around his son and patted him on the back.
You’ve done it now. Now you’re going to have to actually write the book or you’ll be right back in the crapper with the old man .
But the smile on Phillip’s face had turned to laughter, and the sound was almost loud enough to smother the taunt inside his head.