Jeff Abbott - Fear

‘I don’t want another doctor,’ Miles said. A hot anger surged in his chest. This wasn’t how a doctor as caring as Allison behaved, springing another doctor on him. It was wrong. It wasn’t her.

‘I know. But Doctor Sorenson is running a new program I believe could help you. Could give you your old life back.’

The confession. It would stop this shift, keep this other doctor out of the picture. So get up out of the chair and give her the confession and stop being petrified of what she will think of you.

Andy, standing behind Sorenson, said, ‘It’s not about what she thinks of you. It’s about knowing exactly what happened when I died. That’s what you don’t want to remember. How you killed me.’

‘My old life…’ Miles shook his head at Allison, then at Sorenson. ‘I don’t want my case discussed with anyone else.’

‘You don’t need to worry about confidentiality, Michael,’ Sorenson said. ‘Your secrets are safe with me. I only want to help you.’

Miles knew he could get up and leave. He didn’t want to hand the confession to Allison, not with Sorenson here. Potentially reading what he wrote. No. Not now.

Sorenson seemed to study the indecision on Miles’s face, and said, ‘I want to help. Your memories – whatever they are – must be very terrible to you.’

‘Less terrible than dying.’ He couldn’t say, Andy died and I loved him like a brother. Best friend since I was three years old. He died and I killed him, God help me, God forgive me. I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t want to kill him. I was trying to save him.

Sorenson leaned forward and Miles saw muscles bunch in the man’s big shoulders. His expression was flat and cold. ‘There’s a theory about traumatic memories. Our most terrible memories take the deepest root. Because they’re not like regular memories. After a trauma, we constantly dredge up the results of our worst, life-altering experiences. We examine them, we dissect them. What could I have done differently, what choice could I have made to avoid the tragedy? Leave for school two minutes earlier and my car doesn’t crash into a truck and kill my child. Keep a more careful eye open and my friend doesn’t get gunned down in a battle.’

Miles waited.

‘The traumatic memory is walled off from “regular” memories, as it were, and fails to integrate with other memories. It’s never processed as a nonthreatening memory would be – filed and put away, to borrow an office metaphor. So the terrible memory becomes more deeply rooted and so does the trauma associated with it – the nightmares, the crippling fear, the paranoia that fate will strike a deadly blow again. Even when you don’t remember specific details, the memory is there, an engine for the trauma. It’s a vicious circle.’

Miles tucked his hands in between the armrests and the cushion of his chair in case the trembles returned.

‘If you could forget the worst moment of your life – would you?’ Sorenson asked.

‘No one can forget.’

‘But if you could, would you? Forget all the trauma associated with killing this Andy person.’

‘Yes,’ Miles said. ‘Yeah, I would.’

‘Won’t happen,’ Andy said, now sitting on the chair’s arm, leaning close to inspect Sorenson. ‘We’re freaking inseparable.’

‘Well, I can’t wipe your brain clean, but I could lessen the trauma of the memory.’ Now Sorenson smiled. ‘Think of it as a shot of mental Botox, as it were, to smooth out the wrinkles in your memory that cause the pain.’

Picturing Andy dying, with no guilt, no pain, no fear, no horror. No guilt. Miles looked at Allison. ‘This is for real?’

‘I want to enter you in a special program for trauma victims. Allison thinks it might be helpful to you.’

Allison studied her hands in her lap.

‘Is this program what you think I need?’ Miles asked.

Allison, wordlessly, nodded. She glanced at Sorenson and Miles saw this was why she’d been tense when he arrived, this other doctor hidden in her office. Waiting for him.

It all seemed – wrong.

‘Will you let me help you, Michael? Allison is recommending two other patients of hers for the program. We’re meeting here tonight at eight to discuss it. I hope you’ll join us. Your case fascinates me.’

‘Thanks for the offer. I’ll give it serious consideration.’ Miles stood. Session over, even though twenty minutes remained on the clock.

‘You made real progress today,’ Allison said. ‘I appreciate your listening to and talking with Doctor Sorenson. Thank you for – understanding.’

‘I’ll make my decision and let you know.’

‘Decision made, you asshole,’ Andy said to Sorenson. ‘He’s not coming anywhere near you.’

Sorenson shook Miles’s hand with an iron grip. ‘I hope we can, together, make your pain go away.’

‘Speaking of which,’ Allison said, ‘here, Michael.’ She pressed a white plastic vial of pills into his hand.

‘What’s this?’

‘A very mild sedative to help you if you have another flashback.’

‘Not necessary.’ He disliked pills and hated taking the antidepressants she prescribed for him. Swallowing each pill reminded him of his failure to be strong.

‘Dosage directions inside,’ Allison said. ‘Call me if you have questions. I really hope we’ll see you here tonight at eight.’

Miles slipped the pills into his jacket. He heard his confession crinkle against the vial. He left, closing the office door behind him. Sweat coated his palms, ran in a trickle down his ribs.

Andy lounged by the entrance. ‘I knew you couldn’t go through with it. Just tear up the confession and let’s go home.’

Miles said, ‘I’m going to work and forget about you.’ He stumbled outside. The bracing air slapped against his face.

‘Sorenson,’ Andy said, ‘calling your case interesting, it made my skin crawl. I’m a lot more than a case.’

‘You’re right,’ Miles said. ‘I don’t like him either.’ He spoke low, into his cupped hand, as if he were warming his skin with his breath.

‘Good, then, you don’t need his dumb-ass program.’ Andy slung an arm around his shoulder. ‘My favorite part of the confession was when you said you were trying to save me. That’s rich. You don’t save me, you don’t get to save yourself, that’s only fair, Miles.’

Miles stopped. Closed his eyes, hunched his shoulders against the cold, counted to one hundred, listening to the distant hum of cars driving on Paseo de Peralta. He opened his eyes and Andy was gone.

Would you forget the worst moment of your life?

I can’t go on this way, he thought. I can’t. He’d join the stupid program, let Sorenson take apart his brain if it would banish Andy. If Allison believed going under Sorenson’s wing would cure him, fine.

He touched the confession in his pocket, realizing he’d been rubbing at it like a praying man fingering a rosary. Tonight at eight. Tonight he’d give it to Allison as a show of faith, listen with an open, if broken, mind to Sorenson’s proposal to fix his head.

‘But I might kill you before tonight,’ Andy said, back again, leaning in close. ‘Make you step out in front of a speeding car. Put a gun in your mouth. Walk you up to the top of a tall building and right off the edge-’

Miles ran.

Dennis Groote was late to visit his daughter because he had to kill the last of the Duartes.

He’d tracked the man – an accountant who’d managed to duck under the police radar after the Duarte gang collapsed – to a meeting Monday night in San Diego at a luxury hotel near the beach. Groote had spent Monday night camped in an unoccupied room next to the target. He had slipped inside it at nine that evening using an illegal scramble card. If any late-arriving guests showed up to claim the room, he would simply send them back down to the front desk, claiming a mistake had been made, and leave. The kill would wait for another day. Patience meant success; patience meant life.