Chapter 25
Ever since I got that script from Dr. Kowalski, I’ve been eating Xanax like they’re bonbons. But this afternoon, I abstained. I wouldn’t even take an aspirin right now, or a sip of that chamomile tea Roy insists on drinking every night.
It is imperative that I stay awake and alert.
Later, once I am satisfied that Roy is asleep, I get out of bed as quietly as I can, shrug on my robe, and tiptoe down the stairs.
Error code.
No. It can’t be. I must have made a mistake. I try again.
5..8..6..4..1..3.
Error code.
I can’t believe it. After all this, I got it wrong? Really? I close my eyes and picture the scene. I can see the digits in my small compact mirror. 586413. That’s what it was. I’m sure of it.
No. Wait. Was it a 1? Or a 7?
I don’t know how many more attempts I have before this safe locks itself on me, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it’s probably three.
Which means this is my last chance.
I close my eyes, send Deb a silent prayer, then punch the code in again. 5…8…6…4…7…3.
Click.
I’m in.
The safe is filled with manila folders, maybe twelve of them, all neatly stacked on top of each other. I open the first one.
Patient name—Alex Dwyer. Inside are pages of scribbled notes torn from a yellow pad.
There’s also a small USB thumb drive. I look up and listen, make sure that all is quiet out there.
Nothing. I sit down at Roy’s desk and plug the drive into Roy’s computer.
I turn it on, and I’m about to open the drive when Roy’s calendar pops up.
It is filled with squares of different colors showing scheduled appointments.
I’ve never had the opportunity to go through Roy’s calendar before. I scroll back to the day Deb died. At 1:00 p.m., the first entry that afternoon, there’s a twenty-five-minute appointment with Mr. Penzick. At 1:30 p.m., there’s an entry for a Ms. Greenwood, fifty-five minutes long.
Then there’s another entry at 2:30 p.m. for a Mr. and Mrs. Henry, forty-five minutes, followed by a fifteen-minute break, then, at 3:30 p.m., an appointment with Mr. Travis.
I’m disappointed; I won’t lie. But what did I expect? The police already said he had an alibi for the time when Deb died between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m.
I close the calendar app and open the contents of the drive. There’s a video thumbnail. I click on it.
“How are you today, Alex?”
The video is taken from inside Roy’s office. He’s sitting with a notepad balanced on one knee. You only see his legs and hands, but it’s clearly him.
Across from him, someone is lying on a couch, but this person is positioned in such a way that you can’t see their face, only their legs, on one side.
“Okay, I guess.”
It’s a male voice. He shifts slightly.
Roy scribbles something. “And how was your week?”
I close the video and pull out the USB drive.
I have no interest in Alex Dwyer or any of Roy’s patients.
I put the folder down on the desk and move on to the next folder.
Different name, also with a USB drive. I check it because you can’t be too thorough, but it’s the same: a recorded session with a client.
I place the folder under the first one so that when I put them back, they’ll be in the same order.
Then I open the next folder, and the next one, on and on until I’ve reached the bottom of the safe.
The letter isn’t there.
I press the heel of my hands against my eyes.
If you held up a mirror to yourself, you know what the mirror would tell you?
I’m never going to find anything because I’m too stupid, and Roy’s not, and he knows how to hide things, and I’ve been looking for so long, I am a rat trapped in a maze desperately looking for the way out, except there’s no way out. Just a whole lot of dead ends.
I take a breath, pick up the folders to put them back in the safe, and that’s when I notice another USB thumb drive at the bottom.
It must have fallen out of one of the folders.
Unfortunately, this is just the detail that Roy would notice.
I can just picture him, finger waving in my face. Did you go into my safe? Did you?
I plug it in, hoping to get a first name at least so I can return it to its rightful folder, and click on the video thumbnail.
“Just put the camera away.”
I jerk back like I’ve been burnt.
It’s Deborah.
“Look at me,” Roy says.
She was facing away from the camera. She turns slowly and looks at him from under hooded eyes. “What the hell are you doing to me?”
I feel a wave of vertigo as I freeze the frame and stare at her face. She’s not wearing any makeup and her hair is messy, like she hasn’t brushed it in days. She still looks beautiful, but her eyes are rimmed red and there are purple, papery half-moons under them.
And she looks older. A lot older.
I zoom in on the swellings, the slight drooping on the left side of her mouth, the strange wrinkle at her right cheekbone, the way the skin is pulled down in places.
I touch my own face, feel the bump under my eye, the strange wrinkle on my top lip.
I start the video again.
“I’m trying to help you,” Roy says off-camera.
She turns her face away. “Then let me out of here.”
I pause the video again. This time, I focus on the room. Where are they? Not here, that’s for sure. The room is dim and Deb is sitting on a single bed. Behind her, the wall is whitewashed, and you can see the slant of a low ceiling and an exposed beam.
So not his office downtown, either.
Roy must have set up his laptop on a table behind him, because you can see the back of him sitting on a wooden chair, his legs crossed, taking notes.
And all I can think is, We never saw her again. She was locking herself inside. For a week.
Where the hell was she?
I start the video again. “Where do you want to go, Deborah?”
She turns back to him, fuming. “Out of here! I want to get out!”
Roy makes a note. “To be with Steve?” His tone is almost normal, like this is a perfectly normal question.
“Oh God. Not that again, please!” Deborah cries. “He’s our gardener! he’s twenty years old! I am just being friendly!”
The gardener? We don’t have a gardener named Steve. There is a Russian woman named Irina who used to be a professional wrestler and is built like one, who comes once a week to mow the lawn and trim the edges. But no one called Steve.
“I fired him,” Roy says matter-of-factly.
Well, there you go.
“Oh God,” Deb says.
“Does that upset you?”
“Yes! No! I don’t know!”
“Did you fuck him?” Roy asks, still matter-of-factly.
“You’re sick,” Deb says. “I can’t anymore. I just can’t.”
“Did you fuck him?”
“Let me go,” she says softly.
Roy closes his notebook on his lap. “You think I want you to stay? Look at you. You’re getting ugly. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately, Deborah?”
“Why are you doing this to me?” she cries.
He opens his notebook again. “Have you heard of factitious disorder, Deborah? You are inducing, fabricating this illness to bring attention to yourself. You create the symptoms because you hate yourself. You are hurting your appearance to match your distorted self-image.”
“Let me out!”
“I can’t do that until you recognize your disease. I’m trying to help you.”
She glares at him. I recognize the fire inside. The fierce determination. “You’re afraid,” she says.
He laughs, but it’s off. “What could I possibly be afraid of?”
“That I’ll tell what a monster you are, that I’ll shatter your precious image…”
He taps the notebook against his thigh. “I’m trying to help you. I can’t let you leave until we have reached the point where you can begin treatment. And that point is where you recognize what you’re doing. There’s no other way. You’ll kill yourself out there on your own.”
“No. That’s not it,” she says softly. “You’re not afraid for me.
You’re afraid for you. You’ve started something, you’ve done something to me, and you don’t know how to stop it.
” She narrows her eyes. “I’m going to get out of here, and I’m going to go to the police, and I’m going to tell them what you did to me.
And no one will look at you the same way again. ”
Roy gets up abruptly, and the video goes black.
I press my fists into my eyes. I feel sick.
All this time I wanted to find the proof that he killed my sister, and now that I have, I am devastated.
I feel like my heart has been ripped out of me.
I wipe my face with my sleeve, and that’s when I hear something outside. A footstep. The creak of a door.
I slam the laptop shut and pull the thumb drive out, except I pull it too fast and it flies out of my hand. I bolt to the safe and slam its door shut. It doesn’t lock. It just bounces open.
I hear it again, the creak of a door.
Please, God. I can’t think of the code right now so I punch in random digits and press the Enter key. The safe makes a whirling sound, like a cog turning.
Locked.
I hold my breath and listen. Nothing.
I tiptoe to the door and open it by a hair. Silence. Once I’m sure it’s safe, I slip out of the room and lock the door after me, my heart pounding. It’s fine. Everything will be fine. As long as the door is locked, I’m in the clear.
I’m about to go back upstairs when again, I notice the shift in the air.
I tiptoe to the back of the house. The back door is closed.
I pad into the kitchen and turn on the light. Everything looks normal. I’m about to flick it off again when I notice the cupboard door ajar.
The one with Deb’s shelf.
I open it. Everything seems the same, except for the jar of cookies.
It’s empty.