41 #5
“No,” Jennifer said, putting her arms around Nola. “This is my therapist, the woman who was more my mother than my mother. She’s the brilliant lady who trains us in the art of Beauty and the Beast. She sees the beauty in us and helps us tame the beasts.”
The trainer, the bad therapist, Sam thought. Now she knew why the description had sounded so familiar; she remembered that day in the cabana, on the beach in front of the Ocean House, when Nola had said she was a behaviorist, a psychologist who worked with criminals and their victims.
“I thought you were trying to help us,” Sam said to Nola. “Tracking down 1740, finding out who killed Belinda.”
“I’m sorry, Sam,” Nola said. “Truly. We wish you had stayed away.”
“And besides, we already know who killed Belinda,” Suzanne said.
“Her daughter did it,” Jennifer said.
“You?” Sam asked, looking at Suzanne.
“No,” Jennifer said, beaming as if she had just pulled off the best joke. “Me. I’m Belinda’s daughter.” She walked across the room to Leo. “And this is my dad.”
Tuesday, July 6; 7:30 p.m.
Conor, Tom, and Mike walked up the path from the dock.
Conor’s gaze swept back and forth. Everything and nothing seemed to matter; Kate was here.
Miranda had said it, and Conor felt it. When they got to the smaller of the two buildings, Mike stopped and looked at the cluster of cars parked out back.
“That’s strange,” Mike said. “That black Mercedes belongs to Edward and Nola.”
“You sure it’s theirs?” Conor asked.
“Yes, I see their yacht club sticker on the windshield.”
“What’s it doing here?” Tom asked.
“Nola is on an advisory board, to advocate for better mental health treatment for law enforcement officers. It came out of her work at the prison. Maybe they’re meeting here tonight,” Mike said.
“So far that’s two of your friends who are connected with Maynard-King,” Tom said. “Leo and Nola.”
“Well, if you put it that way, Anne and I have a connection too. We all met at a conference on criminal justice in Aspen a few years ago, not long after I retired. Nola was leading a panel on the psychology of defendants who employ the insanity defense, and she asked Leo and me to join her. Anne and Edward were just along to keep us company.”
“Nola’s an expert in insanity defense?” Conor asked.
“She’s a prison psychologist, as well as a very good profiler.”
“And Leo?”
“He has used that defense very effectively for several clients—lack of culpability due to mental illness. I’ve presided over trials where it was argued. There were several staffers and board members, people from Maynard-King, in the audience. We had dinner with one of them.”
“Who’s that?” Conor asked.
“Her name is Darla Vandeveer,” Mike said.
“What did she have to add to the panel?” Conor asked, remembering how he’d tried to find her his last time here. “I thought she was on the business side of this place.”
“According to Nola, she has a master’s in psychology.
She admires Nola’s work with victims of crimes, and she was there to observe.
She talked about how many of the patients here have suffered trauma from one kind of assault or another and how she wanted to transition from business to clinical work. ”
“The trauma comes from being here,” Conor said.
He walked into the parking area to have a closer look at the black Mercedes when he spotted a Range Rover hidden on the other side of a maintenance shed. His heart rate sped up at the sight of it.
“That’s the Range Rover we saw on the video,” Conor said. “The one Maeve got into. She’s going to tell us where Kate is.”
He ran to the driver’s side and looked through the window. The vehicle was clean except for a paper on the floor in the back seat. Conor cupped his hands around his eyes and pressed close to the glass to get a better look.
It was a receipt on Fernando Harris’s letterhead:
Restoration of Foggy Night by James Suydam
For Ms. Kate Woodward / Woodward-Lathrop Gallery
“Kate was in this Range Rover,” Conor said, his heart starting to pound. “She left the receipt so I’d know. She’s here.”
He picked up a big rock and tested its weight. It would do. He walked over to his brother and uncle; Tom had just finished talking to Joe on his mobile and was looking at Conor to tell him what the next step in the plan was.
“You stay here,” Conor said to them. “And see who comes out. I’ll run inside and get Kate.”
“You don’t know she’s in there,” Tom said.
“Yeah, I do know,” Conor said, holding the rock high above his head, then smashing it down on the windshield of the Range Rover.
An earsplitting alarm began to screech. Tom and Mike ducked behind the shed, and Conor ran straight for the building.
He figured that whoever would come out to investigate would exit by the back door, so he skirted around to the front.
He flew up the front steps and tried the door. It was locked. He jumped over the railing onto the ground and pulled himself up to look through the window. He was looking into a room full of people who were streaming to the other side of the building to see what had caused the alarm to go off.
Conor saw Kate, and he thought his heart would pound out of his chest. He had to hold himself back, just long enough to assess the situation, to not put her in greater danger.
She was sitting on a couch, very close to a young woman Conor had never seen before.
The young woman had bruises on her face and abrasions on her wrists.
He had the immediate thought that she was one of the women held captive on Psyche.
They were whispering. Conor could see that they were handcuffed together.
It drove him crazy, knowing that someone had touched Kate, put cuffs on her wrists, restrained her so she couldn’t leave.
Kate nodded, and then the two of them stood up with Sam; Maeve ran over with a key and undid the cuffs, and Sam grabbed Kate’s hand and began pulling her toward the door. Then everything happened very fast.
Tuesday, July 6; 7:30 p.m.
A car alarm sounded from outside the building, and nearly everyone in the classroom ran to see what it was. Kate knew there was no point struggling against the bonds, so instead she leaned into Caroline.
“This is it,” Kate said. “We’re going to go for it, Caroline. We have to run hard and fast. We’ll knock down anyone who gets in our way.” They started to stand up, and Sam rushed over to them. She grabbed the handcuffs and rattled them, as if she could unlock them by force.
“Oh, Sam, why did you come?” Kate asked. “Now they’re going to get you too!”
“No,” Sam said. “We’re in this together.”
“Come on, let’s go,” Kate said. She started toward the front door with Caroline.
Sam darted ahead. Maeve stood in their way, and at first, Kate thought she was going to stop them.
But instead, she unlocked the handcuffs.
Kate didn’t know what had changed Maeve’s attitude, but she had kept her promise to help.
“Hurry,” Maeve said. “They’ll be back in a minute. Lincoln’s going to get the car, and he’ll drive around front to pick us up. We’ve got to get out of here right away.”
Kate stopped short, thinking how crazy it would be to get into a car with Maeve and Lincoln after what they had done—to put Sam and Caroline in danger by taking them with her. But what was the alternative?
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jennifer asked, returning to the classroom, standing directly in front of Kate, looking straight into her eyes.
“We’re leaving,” Kate said calmly.
“I don’t think so,” Jennifer said, moving even closer.
Kate had liked this young woman when she had met her at the cemetery.
She had sensed a vulnerability had had bordered on emotional frailty, but just then she was speaking with force and authority.
Kate knew that the power and coercion of 1740 had to be overwhelming, but she had to believe that a patient’s innate goodness could override the evil.