Jeff Abbott - Fear

‘I’m not leaving my house. And I’m not having a media zoo here.’

‘Do me a favor. Open your door, stand in the doorway. You don’t have to step outside. Just try it.’

‘No.’

‘I could ask them to do a satellite link with your house when I’m on the show. That way we could both appear together. Celeste, we could get America’s moms talking about post-traumatic stress disorder, make it a real health-care issue, encourage people to think about it the way they do depression or cancer. Please.’

‘Victor, you go. You’re an actual hero.’

‘Oh, please.’

‘I’m just someone who had a really bad fifteen minutes.’ She leaned close to the plus-sized computer screen, read the words that a young girl half a country away had posted to Victor’s online discussion group this morning: Most days I’m so sad sadder than anybody should be and I just want to curl up amp; cry forever and the bite of the blade into my skin is the only way I can feel does anyone understand?

‘Celeste. Reconsider. Millions of people watched you on Castaway. They know you, they rooted for you,’ Victor said. ‘It’s Oprah, for God’s sakes. You cannot say no.’

‘No.’ Celeste reread the girl’s words on the computer screen and thought: I understand, sweetie, I truly do. She clicked to the next message in the forum. Jared T, having soul-emptying dreams about the Battle of Fallujah. She wished she could give Jared T a hug. She swiveled the chair away from the computer screen. ‘Did I tell you I got an offer for another reality show?’

‘Celeste, that’s wonderful.’

‘Brace yourself, and imagine the possibilities: Group Therapy.’

‘Please be kidding.’

‘I couldn’t make this up. They want me, and Denise Daniels, the child star from Too Cool Kimmy – she had a nervous breakdown last year – and that college basketball star who’s supposedly bipolar, and a couple of other celebrities who have had mental illnesses, all living together in a house with Doctor Frank, the talk-show host, and, yes, it gets better, once a week a player gets booted out of the house.’

‘ Castaway for crazy people,’ Victor said.

‘Oh, no one says that,’ Celeste said. ‘They just think it.’

‘But that’s what we’re fighting every day. This perception that people with traumas aren’t really sick, that they just need to buck up and get over it. They wouldn’t do a show like that for people who had cancer, would they?’

‘No.’

‘So stop acting like a person with PTSD and act like a famous person with PTSD. Let good come from your fame. Help me, Celeste.’

The sensor that alerted Celeste whenever anyone entered her front yard chimed and opened a video window on her computer’s monitor. It showed Allison Vance, hurrying up the stone walkway. Odd. She didn’t have an appointment scheduled with Allison.

‘Victor. I have to go. I can’t do the TV appearance with you, but I know you’ll do a wonderful job.’

‘Celeste-’

‘I’ll call you soon, Victor, take care,’ Celeste said, and hung up. TV again. Leave the house? Or have strangers gawking at her? Or wanting to hurt her again? No, never. The doorbell buzzed. She pulled hard at the rubber band looping her wrist and let it snap against the tender skin. Once, twice, the pain brief and sharp but settling her nerves.

She went to answer the door. She unlocked it, released the dead bolts, said, close to the wood, ‘It’s open,’ and took five steps back, just so Allison couldn’t pull her out of the house and into the open air. Not that she would, but Celeste didn’t take chances. Allison came inside, clutching a briefcase bag close to her hips.

‘Hi. Did I forget an appointment?’ Celeste asked.

‘Not at all, Celeste, but I have a favor to ask of you, if it’s not an intrusion. How are you today?’

‘Extraordinarily stupid. I just declined a chance to meet Oprah,’ she said with a tone of defiance.

‘I’m sure it would have been exciting. But also a tremendous spotlight to be under.’

‘You don’t think I’m making it up?’

‘You’re famous.’

Celeste shrugged. ‘Used to be.’

‘We could up your antidepressants. It might make leaving the house easier.’

‘Other than not wanting to leave the house, I feel okay. I don’t want more pills.’ Celeste toyed with the rubber band, popped it against her skin.

Allison pointed at Celeste’s wrist. ‘And how’s the rubber band working out?’

‘Saccharine when you want sugar.’

‘But you haven’t hurt yourself today.’

‘No. Not today.’

‘Great. And yesterday?’

‘Once. Just once.’ She fingered the thin slash on her arm.

‘Have you eaten today?’

‘I did. Bowl of cereal for breakfast, salad for lunch.’

‘Wonderful.’

As if eating two simple meals and not slicing your skin meant sanity. Celeste twisted the rubber band tight. A spark of pain, nothing more, just enough to remind her she was alive and Brian lay dead and buried, shut up in a coffin, unable to see the sun, breathe the air.

‘I’d like to borrow your computer,’ Allison said. ‘I know you have a really powerful setup, and I need a machine for quick number-crunching. It’ll only take a few minutes.’

Celeste almost said, No, no, and hell no, she didn’t care for the idea of anyone touching her computer – her precious and only link to the rest of the world. But this was Allison, the twice-a-week bright spot of hope. So she swallowed and said, ‘No problem.’

‘My system got nailed with a virus this morning. Down and dead.’

‘Bring it to me and I’ll see if I can fix it,’ said Celeste.

‘That’s kind of you. I just have research materials I need to compile for a report. I have the programs and the data I need on disk.’

‘My computer’s in the study. Would you like some coffee? Or a soda?’

‘No, thank you. I really don’t want to intrude.’

‘You’re not. It’s down the hall to your right. The system’s already on.’

Allison thanked her and headed down the hallway. After a few moments Celeste heard the click of the keyboard, the hum of the CD drive.

Suddenly she wanted the razor against her skin, to know its gentle bite. It hit her like a fire, smoldering, then bursting into fresh flame. Sure you do, she thought, just because Allison’s here and you’d get immediate attention. You want attention, call the television producers back and tell tbem you’ll do that new reality sideshow. Now, that’s attention. She stretched the rubber band and it snapped in half. She dug in her purse for another, past the vial of pills Allison had given her the previous week, past the little razor she kept hidden at the purse’s bottom. Her fingers closed around the razor case.

Just a nip of a cut. Just enough.

She closed her eyes and the world folded around her, and she was trapped in the sun-hot house, her and Brian’s dream home, bought with her Castaway prize money, and she was bound and crying and begging the Disturbed Fan not to hurt Brian, to leave him alone, to hurt her please God not him and the Disturbed Fan blew her a kiss and bent over Brian, the knife bright in his hand.

Celeste sank to the chair. The memory tore into her worse than the razor, and when the flashes came she couldn’t gouge her skin fast enough. But now she stopped herself, she caught her breath, the only pain the heat of grief at the back of her eyes.

‘Celeste?’ Allison’s hand came down on her shoulder.

‘Don’t touch me.’ Her voice didn’t sound like her own, but lower and beaten.

Allison withdrew her hand. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’ She stood up and the purse tumbled to the tile floor, spilling its contents in a clatter.