Chapter Thirty-One. Riley, Present Day
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
RILEY, PRESENT DAY
Sandra Lennox was right—Dr. Trimble’s grandson is named Sam—and his phone number is listed. After I call him and explain I’m hoping to learn more about the Trimble Institute, he tells me my timing is uncanny.
“I run a group called the Seekers Collective,” he says. “We meet every two weeks, and our next gathering is this afternoon. Our mission is to discuss topics like the ones that so obsessed my grandfather. So if you’d like to catch me after the meeting today, I’ll be near campus.”
He names a local community center and tells me to come to room 102 at 4 PM.
I arrive a couple of minutes early. Inside the main entrance of the building, several orange couches with hard plastic cushions are grouped together.
A woman with a pierced lip is typing on a computer behind the reception desk.
In the adjacent gym someone is shooting hoops, the thuds of the ball amplified in the cavernous space.
“Which way is room 102?” I ask the woman, and she points down a hallway.
I recognize Sam’s voice just before I reach the doorway.
“Of course we’re all part of the same energy. We’re just manifesting physical forms until we return to our source,” he is saying. He looks up and spots me hovering there, then gives me a wave.
The high-ceilinged room is utilitarian and holds the lingering smell of coffee and paint from activities that must have taken place earlier today.
Seven people—ranging from a woman in her twenties in an outfit that looks eclectically assembled from a vintage store to a gaunt, grizzled man in a T-shirt that says All who wander are not lost—are seated on folding chairs in the middle of the room.
“You must be Riley. Come on in, we’re just wrapping up. I’m Sam Trimble.” He rises from his seat and extends his hand. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, with a head full of salt-and-pepper hair.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I reply.
He turns to the group. “See you all in two weeks.”
Rustling sounds fill the room as the others gather their things and trickle out.
Two women who look strikingly similar—they’re both tall and thin, with straw-straight blond hair to their shoulders—continue talking.
They’re discussing a center in Charlottesville that investigates cases of children who seem to have inexplicable knowledge of past lives.
“Our souls are on journeys,” says the louder of the two.
“We’re not hapless beings, stumbling through our existences.
With each reincarnation, we’re connecting the dots between different parts of our selves.
The lessons learned in each of our lives, the failures and successes … it’s all part of becoming enlightened.”
“The point you’re missing is the great unknowing,” the second woman responds. “We could just be the first step in a much more advanced evolution.”
“Why don’t we head to the lobby?” Sam suggests. “Debate gets spirited in our group at times. Especially with those two. They’re sisters, in case you didn’t notice the resemblance.”
When we reach the cluster of orange couches, Sam sits down, puts his hands on his knees, and leans forward. “So, Riley, what can I tell you?”
“Sandra Lennox suggested I get in touch. She said if anyone knew about the people involved with the Trimble Institute, it would be you.”
Sam chuckles. “I guess my last name is a clue.”
“I’d love to hear more about your grandfather’s work. I’m trying to locate some of the women who volunteered for him in the sixties.”
“Well, Riley, Grandpa was an intense guy,” Sam says. “He and Grandma came to live with my family shortly after I was born. He’d stopped working and started drinking, but he was still focused on proving psi exists. He even tried some of his experiments on me, but I didn’t have the secret sauce.”
“Psi?” I question.
“The Greek letter psi is the first in the word psyche, which means mind or soul. I actually tried to write a book about the institute a few years ago. Grandpa had some seriously cool stories. But it was hard to verify everything. I got an agent who was into the idea, but the book never came together. Between you and me, Riley, I wondered if the drinking made my grandfather exaggerate. I’m still thinking about turning it into a screenplay, though. ”
On the surface, Sam’s an amiable guy, but a couple of things make me uneasy: He seems needy, always bringing the conversation back to himself.
And I’m picking up the faint scent of booze on his breath.
I’m also not a fan of the way he keeps saying my name; it sounds unnatural.
Like it’s a social tip he read about to appear engaged.
Still, if Sam Trimble knows that much about his grandfather’s work, he’ll probably be able to give me more than leads to Betty’s missing friends. He may know some of Betty’s story, too.
I try to redirect him. “Sandra said there were four main volunteers in the 1960s. Young women who became friends.”
Sam’s body visibly tightens. “Yeah, before we get into that—why do you want to know about them?”
Betty’s warning floats back to me. Be careful.
My gut is urging me to provide a shield for not just Betty, but also myself. I’m going to keep my vow to start trusting it.
“I’m compiling my family’s history and Kathleen Moore is a distant relative. We’re not directly related; I think her mother married into my family.”
Sam nods. “Kathleen was a stunner. My grandpa kept some pictures, and she could’ve given Charlize Theron a run for her money.”
We’re interrupted by a loud voice: “Don’t you two look cozy!” I glance up to see the blond sisters approaching.
“Sam, you didn’t tell us you had a date!” one calls out playfully.
“Don’t mind us, we’re just passing through!” adds the other.
“It’s not a date,” I say quickly.
“Are you thinking about joining our group?” one asks.
“You should!” the other chimes in.
“Riley and I are discussing my grandfather’s work at Marquis,” Sam explains.
“It’s fascinating, isn’t it?”
“Are you a reporter, Riley?”
I shake my head but don’t elaborate.
“Well, we don’t want to interrupt.”
“We’re testing a new recipe tonight for stuffed cabbage. If it’s good, we’ll have you over for dinner soon, Sam. Toodles!” Both sisters wiggle their fingers as they continue to the exit.
“They’re characters. Exceptionally intelligent,” Sam tells me. “They both earned PhDs from Ivy Leagues, Heidi from Yale and Irma from Harvard. And they’re foodies—you wouldn’t believe how well they cook.”
They’re not the women I want to know about. “Do you know how I can reach Kathleen?” I redirect him. “Or anyone in her immediate family?”
“Oh, Kathleen died young. Way back in the sixties,” Sam tells me.
My stomach drops. I’m not looking forward to breaking the news to Betty that not only have two of her friends passed away, but they died a long time ago.
“It gets worse,” Sam continues. “She murdered her husband, then killed herself.”
I rear back. “That’s terrible!”
“Yeah, Kathleen was asleep on the couch one night and he came in from playing baseball and having a few drinks with the guys. He apparently woke her up, and I guess he still had the bat in his hand. Anyway, she got hold of it and swung it. It hit him in the head and that was it, lights out. The theory is she thought he was an intruder and she was trying to defend herself. But we’ll never know. ”
I can’t bring myself to ask why. But I don’t have to, because in the next breath, Sam tells me.
“When she saw what she’d done, she killed herself. The university kept it quiet. Back then, before the Internet, it was easier to bury those things.”
“Wait, this happened on campus?” My voice sounds shrill. “At Marquis, in the 1960s?”
He nods. “Sixty-four, to be exact. My grandfather left shortly after that. Or was asked to leave, if you want to get technical about it.”
A chill runs down my spine. That’s the same window of time Betty is frozen inside.
“If you’re a conspiracy theorist, which I’m not, you’d find plenty to chew on, Riley,” Sam says. “Because Helen Hopkins committed suicide the same day. Witnesses saw her jumping off a bridge.”
My chest tightens. I can’t speak.
Sam must take my shock for interest, because he leans even closer, dropping his voice to a near whisper, like he’s confiding a delicious secret.
“Here’s the craziest part: Kathleen kills her husband then offs herself one morning. Ivy gets committed to a psychiatric hospital for schizophrenia a few hours later. And then Helen”—he snaps his fingers—“commits suicide that same day.”
He shakes his head. “That was the part that got my agent all jazzed. What are the odds that these young women linked by friendship and psychic gifts would all be erased on the same day?”
“There was a fourth,” I manage to say.
“Betty Sadler. I’m glad you didn’t say you were related to her.
I tried to contact Betty when I was starting my book, but I could never find her, either.
She disappeared in that same twenty-four-hour period, too.
She didn’t even come back for her friends’ funerals, my grandpa said.
No one at the college ever heard from her again. But you know what?”
His eyes are dark and intense. I want to look away, but his gaze is locked on mine, ensnaring it.
“I sometimes wonder if Betty had a hand in it all. Think about it: Why run and hide if you’re not guilty of something?”