Michael Prescott - Blind Pursuit

“Safe,” Erin echoed softly.

“And free. Free of Lincoln. Free of the past.”

But she knew he had never emancipated himself from his father or his childhood. And at some level, she was certain, he knew it, too.

“Gund had an Oregon driver’s license,” he went on quietly. “No photo on it, fortunately; that particular innovation postdates the sixties. There was only a typed inventory of physical characteristics. The one serious discrepancy between his appearance and mine was hair color, as I mentioned. When I got a new license eventually, I passed that off as a clerical error.”

“Where did you go?”

“New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada… all over. I hitchhiked, did odd jobs, got hassled by local cops. The transient’s life. Not as glamorous as it looks in the movies. Eventually I got sick of all that. I settled in Wisconsin, found myself a janitor’s job at a university. Worked there for twenty years. You’ve read the clippings. You know what I did on the side.”

“What made you relocate to Arizona?”

“You and Annie. I was looking for you.”

Stalking us, she corrected silently. “After all that time? But… you never even knew us.”

“Maybe I wanted to.”

“Why?”

No answer.

Let it go, she told herself. She knew his reason. She had no need to hear him say it.

Except she wasn’t sure. The pieces didn’t quite fit.

And she had to know.

“What is it you feel for us, Oliver?” she asked, leaning forward.

“Feel? Nothing.”

“That’s not true.”

“You ask me questions, and you won’t accept my answers.”

“Because the answers are incomplete. You went to a lot of trouble to bring me here.”

“For help. For therapy.”

“There are other therapists. Why me? Why a member of the family?” No response. “You took a risk working for Annie. There was at least a slight chance she would identify you. People don’t do things-difficult things, dangerous things-without a motive. What’s yours? What do we mean to you?”

“Nothing,” he said again. “You mean nothing.”

She could see the denial in his face, in the twisted pose of his body.

“You want to believe that,” she breathed, “but I don’t think you do.”

“I don’t give a damn what you believe.”

She would not be deterred by his hostility. She was on the trail of something important, something hidden from her and from Oliver himself; regardless of the consequences, she had to uncover it, had to bring it into the light.

“Annie and I were born in 1966,” she said slowly, “when you were still living at home. Did you ever see us as babies? Did our parents bring us to the ranch?”

“No, never.”

That surprised her. “Maureen never visited Lydia?”

“Not after you were born.”

“How about before then?”

A shrug. “Once.”

“Was she pregnant?”

“No. She wasn’t even married yet.” He shifted in his seat, and his blue eyes flashed. “None of this is relevant to anything.”

It was, though. She knew it was, though she couldn’t see how or why.

“You remember her visit,” she said. “She must have made some sort of impression on you.”

“Not really.”

“Did you talk with her? Spend time with her?”

“Of course not. I was just a kid.”

“She was an attractive woman. Maybe you had a crush on her.”

“There was nothing… nothing like that.”

He seemed less sure of himself. Erin felt confident she was circling closer to the truth.

“Maureen looked like me in some ways,” she said tentatively. “Do I remind you of her?”

“No.”

“Does Annie?”

“No, goddammit.”

He was lying. She was certain of it.

“You did feel something for her,” Erin whispered, “didn’t you, Oliver?”

He shook his head without answering.

“And what you felt for Maureen-you feel it for us, too. For Annie and me.”

“No.”

“You look at us, and you think of her.”

“No.”

“You see Maureen in us. Don’t you?”

“No.”

“Don’t you, Oliver?”

“I… no, I… it’s not…” He averted his face from her. Tremors shook his body. “It isn’t… isn’t… oh, Jesus. Oh, my God.”

A change came over him then. His eyes widened in surprise, his gaze focusing inward, and Erin knew he was doing something rare and astonishing; he was looking inside himself, seeing the truth that had been long concealed from his conscious awareness.

And suddenly she was afraid. She had pushed him recklessly, almost forgetting the risk, carried away by the sheer exhilaration of an intellectual challenge.

Now she wondered how his new perspective on himself-whatever it might be-would upset his precarious equilibrium.

“My God,” he said again, numbly. “My God.”

“Oliver?”

“I never knew. I never even knew.”

“Oliver, talk to me.”

“All these years”-he spoke in a robot’s monotone-“and I never knew.”

His gaze shifted its focus. Suddenly he was looking at her. Seeing her with new eyes.

“You’ve been right all along, Doc.” He nodded slowly, mechanically. “And I’ve been deceiving myself. Afraid to face the truth. I’ve been blind. For years… for twenty years… so goddamned blind.”

“Oliver, I want to know how you’re feeling right now. I want to know-”

“Feeling?” A catch in his voice. “How I’m feeling?”

He stood, and once again she was aware of how big he was and how very dangerous. She drew back in her chair, scared now, heart pounding.

“I’ll show you how I feel,” he breathed, the words gathering force as he squeezed them through gritted teeth. “I’ll show you, you goddamned whore. I’ll show you! ”

He seized her by the shoulders, wrenched her upright, the pinch of his fingers painful and startling.

Her involuntary cry was stifled by his mouth on hers. A hot, searing pressure, mashing her lips, stifling breath, smothering her.

She stood rigid in his arms, every muscle locked against the instinctive impulse to twist free.

He broke away. Gasping, she stared at him, at the confusion of emotions shredding the smooth mask of his face-desire and revulsion, hatred and need.

“That’s how I feel,” he croaked. “How I feel. How I feel.”

For some unmeasurable stretch of time they watched each other, their gazes locked.

Then a ripple of muscle spasms danced lightly over his shoulders. His body jerked toward the door.

Slam, and she was alone.

She heard the rattle of the key, the softer jangle of the chain lock, the hasty retreat of his footsteps up the stairs.

Trembling, she waited, afraid of his return, until she heard the muffled growl of the van’s engine. She didn’t relax until the motor noise had faded into silence.

Then slowly she sank back into the chair, wiping her mouth with her hand, trying to erase the lingering residue of his kiss. Head lowered, she fought off vertiginous waves of nausea.

Going to rape her. Christ, she’d been sure he was going to rape her.

Unquestionably he was capable of it. With his psychosis, his violent tendencies, his background of parental abuse…

Parental abuse.

She blinked, then blinked again, and there it was, the puzzle’s final piece.

“Of course,” she murmured.

Oddly, she felt no surprise. She had known already. Known without knowing. Without wanting to know.

Her analysis of his psychology had approached the truth. But at its core it had been wrong. Utterly, devastatingly wrong.

She saw that now. And something else.

The next time he visited her, she would die.

His feelings for her, liberated now after years of ruthless repression, were too intense. They cut fatally close to the heart of his insanity. They would drive him inexorably to kill.