Jeffery Deaver - Speaking In Tongues

“Look, Counselor, get me at least one of the above and we’ll talk… So, what’re you thinking, somebody snatched her? The Amtrak schedule is bogus?”

“I don’t know. It’s just fishy.”

“It’s not a case, Tate. That’s the watchword for today. Look, I gotta go.

“One last question, Konnie. Does she have cancer? Hanson’s mother?”

The detective hesitated. “No. At least it’s not what they’re treating her for.”

“So somebody talked her into believing she’s dying. Talked her into trying to kill herself.”

“Yeah. And that somebody was her son. He could have a hundred motives. Gotta go, Counselor.”

Click.

He relayed to Bett the rest of his conversation with Konnie.

“Megan was seeing a therapist who tried to kill his mother? God.”

“I don’t know, Bett,” he said. “You saw his face. Did he look guilty?”

“He looked caught,” she said.

Tate glanced at his watch. It was two-thirty. “Let’s get back to Fairfax and find that teacher. Eckhard.”

Crazy Megan finally gets a chance to talk.

Listen up, girl. Listen here, kiddo. Biz-nitch, you listening? Good. You need me. This is serious… You’re not sneaking cigarettes in the Fair Oaks mall parking lot. You’re not flirting with a George Mason junior to get him to buy you a pint of Comfort or Turkey. You’re not sitting in Amy’s room, snarfing wine, hating it and saying it’s great, while you’re like, “Sure, I come every time Josh and Ifuck…

Leave me alone, Megan thought.

But G.M. won’t have any of her attitude. She snaps, You hate the world. Okay. What you want- A family is what I want, Megan responded. That’s all I wanted.

Oh. Well, that’s precious, her crazy side offers, nice and sarcastic. Who the fuck doesn’t? You want Mommy and Daddy to wave their magic wand and get you out of here? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well, ain’t going to happen, girl. So get off your fat ass and get out.

I can’t move, Megan thought. I’m scared, I’m tired.

Up, girl. Up. Look, he- And who is he?

Crazy Megan is in good form today. What difference does it make? He’s the bogeyman, he’s Jason, he’s Leather face, he’s Freddy Krueger, he’s your father- All right, stop it. You’re like so… tedious.

But C.M.’s wound up now. He’s everything bad, he’s your mother giving Brad a blow job, he’s the barn at your father’s farm, he’s an inconvenient child, he’s a whispering bear- “Stop it, stop it, stop it!” Megan screamed out loud. But nothing stops Crazy Megan when she gets going. It doesn’t matter who he is. Don’t you get it? He thinks you’re locked up tight in your little padded cell. But you’re not. You’re out. And you may not have much time. So get your shit together and get the hell out of here.

I don’t have any clothes, Megan pointed out.

That’s the girl 1 love. Oooo. The sarcasm is thick as Noxema. Sit back and find excuses, Let’s see: You’re pissed ‘cause Mom’s off to Baltimore to fuck Mr. Rogers and do you say anything about it? No. It rags you that Dad fits you in around his dates with girls who’ve got inflatable boobs but do you bitch about it? Do you call him on it? No. You go off and get drunk. You have another cigarette. What other distractions can we come up with? Nail polish, CDs, Victoria ’s Secret Taco Bell the mall the multiplex a boy’s fat dick gossip…

I hate you, Megan thought. I really, really hate you. Go away, go back where you came from.

lam where I came from, Crazy Megan responds. You may have some time to fuck around like this, whining, and you may not. Now, you’re buck naked and you don’t like it. Well, if that’s an issue, go find some clothes. And, no, there’s no Contempo Casual around here. Of course, I personally would say, Fuck the clothes, find a door and run like hell. But that’s up to you.

Megan rolled to her feet.

She stepped into the corridor.

Cold, painful. Her feet stung from kicking the wall. She started walking. Looking around, she saw it was a rambling place, one story; and built of concrete blocks. All the windows had thick bars on them. With the padded cell, she figured it was a mental hospital but she couldn’t imagine treating patients here. It was totally depressing. No one could have gotten better here.

She found a door leading outside and pushed it. It was locked tight. The same with two others. She looked outside for a car, didn’t see one in the lot. At least she was alone. Dr. Peters must have left.

Keep going, Crazy Megan insists.

But- Keep. Going.

She did.

The place was huge, wing after wing, dozens of corridors, gloomy wards, private rooms, two-bed rooms. But all the doors leading outside were sealed tight and all the windows were barred. Every damn one of them. Two large interior doorways had been bricked off sloppily with cinder blocks and Sakrete-maybe because they led to less restricted wings. Dozens of the large concrete blocks that hadn’t been needed lay scattered on the floor. She picked up one and slammed it into a barred window. It didn’t even bend the metal rods.

For several hours she made a circuit of the hospital, moving quietly. She was careful; in the dim light she could make out footprints, hundreds of them. She couldn’t tell if they’d been left by Dr. Peters alone or by him and someone else but she was all too aware that she might not be alone.

By the time she’d made it back to her cell she hadn’t found a single door or window that looked promising. Shit. No way out.

Okay, Crazy Megan offers, chipper as ever. At least find something you can use to nail his ass with.

What do you mean?

A weapon, bitch. What do you think?

Megan remembered seeing a kitchen and returned there.

She started going through drawers and cupboards. But there wasn’t anything she could use. There were no metal knives or forks, not even dinner knives, only hundreds of packages of plastic utensils. No glasses or ceramic cups. Everything was paper or Styrofoam.

She pulled open a door. It was a pantry full of food. She started to close the door but stopped, looked inside again.

There was enough food for a family to live on for a year. Cheerios, condensed milk, Diet Pepsi, Doritos, Lay’s potato chips, tuna, Hostess cupcakes, Cup-A-Soup, Chef Boyardee…

What’s funny here?

Jesus. Crazy Megan catches on first.

Megan’s hand rose to her mouth as she too understood and she started to cry.

Jesus, Crazy Megan repeats.

These were exactly the same brands that Megan liked. This was what her mother’s cupboards were stocked with. Here too were her shampoo, conditioner and soap.

Even the type of tampon that Megan used.

He’d been in her house, he knew what she liked.

He’d bought this all for her!

Don’t lose it, babes, don’t…

But Megan ignored her crazy side and gave in to the crying.

Thinking: If a family of four could live on this for a year, just think how long it would last her by herself.

Twenty minutes later Megan rose from the floor, wiped her face and continued her search. It didn’t take her long to find the source of the footprints.

In a far wing of the hospital were two rooms that had been “homi-fied,” as Bett would say when she’d dress up a cold-looking house to make it warmer and more comfortable. One room was an office, filled with thousands of books and files and papers. An armchair and lamp and desk. The other room was a bedroom. It smelled stale, turned her stomach. She looked inside. The bed was unmade and the sheets were stained. Off-white splotches.