James Patterson - Thriller - Stories to Keep You Up All Night

"Some of them must say no."

"Not very many. Maybe two."

I wanted to ask her out of how many. But I didn't want to stop her.

"One man stroked my skin. His fingertips were as soft as a woman's. He had blue eyes. I remember his eyes. Because of those damn fingers that ran up and down my arm making me shiver. Usually, I don't feel anything. That's what I meant. Before. I don't feel anything when they touch me. Or when I pull the trigger."

"You use a gun?"

I hadn't meant to ask that bluntly-as if I doubted her. It was unprofessional. I'd wanted to ask her how she killed them, not blurt out the worse-case scenario I could imagine.

She looked at me as if I were the one who was crazy and needed help. "A gun?"

"When you kill them?"

"Dr. Snow, I set them up. I pump them up. I am a hired assassin. I expose them and ruin them. My whole apartment is a camera. I destroy them by taking pictures of them and then turning them over to cops or detectives or the tabloids. Character assassin." She smiled.

And for a few seconds there was no question in my mind that a man would go with her and not think twice.

"Do you think I should try to find him? Find Frank Millay, finally?"

It was the end of the session, but I didn't stand as I often did to signify that Lucy's time was up. She had arrived at a crucial point in her therapy and I didn't want to cut her short.

"I think you want to find him. And that's what's important."

Typically, I preferred to ask, not to answer, questions. In fact, I'd told Lucy, the same way I told all my patients at some point, that only by answering one's own questions could one come to terms with personal truths. But she had finally expressed a need, a desire. And that was a breakthrough for her. From everything she'd described, she hadn't given in to any real emotion since that last time she was with him. She called him the portal. After he was gone, her emotional life effectively stopped.

"There's one thing, Lucy. We need to make sure that if you do go find him it's to understand. Not to act out."

She smiled, slyly, seductively, slipping into the pose she used when she needed to hide from me. From anyone, I guessed. I'd witnessed her do this in almost every session. We'd get close to something critical and she would shut down.

Was Lucy ready to go find Millay?

Was it within the realm of my responsibility to hold her back?

"I'm sure that I'm going to understand. Not to act out. Aren't you sure, Dr. Snow?"

"While we've considered that something may have happened with Frank Millay that both closed you up emotionally and caused him to disappear, I wish you would give it some more time here. But I understand your frustration. How long are you going to give yourself to find him?"

"I don't know. Maybe a couple of weeks?"

"Would you think about coming in for another session? Or two? So we can make sure that if you find out what happened, you will be prepared."

Lucy grasped the implication immediately. She sat with her back pressed into her chair, all defensiveness now, her legs tightly crossed and turned sideways. "I've already done regressive-analysis hypnosis with my last therapist," she said. "We didn't uncover anything like that."

"Like what, Lucy?"

"Like rape."

"But that doesn't mean you haven't buried the bare facts."

"The bare facts." Moisture was evident in Lucy's eyes and her voice came hot with anger, although she, too, modulated her volume. "Frank Millay did not rape me."

"All right."

"Please don't 'all right' me, Doctor. I would remember that. I promise you."

I nodded, drew in a breath. I couldn't hold her here. "You're searching for something that you've lost, and whatever that is has had a profound effect on your ability to feel things. If you can find that something in the real world, rather than in my office, or with some other psychoanalyst, yes, Lucy, yes, it might start the healing."

"Law offices of Bascom, Owen, Millay." "Oh. Could I speak to Frank Millay, please?" "Certainly," the cultured female voice said. "Can I tell him who's calling?"

"An old friend. I'm not sure if he'd remember me. My name is Lucy Delrey." "Just a moment."

On the one hand, it had been too easy; and on the other hand, impossible. Before Dr. Snow's suggestion that she try to physically locate Frank Millay, Lucy had looked in a haphazard fashion through gallery openings in the newspapers, or stopped in at galleries when the art struck her in some way that seemed vaguely familiar. She never consciously considered the fact that the street artist had given up on his first love and entered another field. Similarly, she had never before considered Googling the name Frank Millay.

Where the name came up in two seconds.

An attorney in San Francisco.

It couldn't possibly be the same man. But she had to call and find out. She had to be sure. "This is Frank Millay."

For an instant, she found herself tongue-tied. But then, afraid that he'd hang up if she didn't speak, she found her voice. "Is this the Frank Millay who used to be an artist in New York?"

Now the pause came from the other end. "Who used to paint anyway. Yes." Another hesitation. "I'm sorry. My secretary gave me your name, but."

"Lucy," she said. "Lucy Delrey. I was a little girl."

"Oh my God," he said under his breath. "Little Lucy, of course. How little were you then?"

"Seven. I'm thirty now."

"Thirty? God. Thirty is impossible."

"Not if you're about fifty. That would be about right." She couldn't hold back a small, nervous laugh. It was his voice. She'd have recognized it anywhere. Although it had an unaccustomed seriousness to it, an adultness that she thought befit his new profession. "You're a lawyer now?"

"Only for the past twenty years," he said. "Wow, Lucy." Words seemed to fail him. "You looked me up?"

"Googled you actually, yes."

"But.what are you doing? Where are you?"

"I'm home, still in New York. I'm a." But her business didn't lend itself to easy explanation. "I'm a photographer," she said.

"So somebody's still doing art," he said. Then, in an awkward tone, filling in the space, "That's good to hear."

"Yeah, well." A silence settled for a minute, until Lucy surprised herself. "Listen, Mr. Millay," she began.

"Frank, please."

"Okay, Frank. It just happens that I'm coming out to San Francisco next week on some business. Would it be too weird if I came to see you? If we had lunch or something?" Sensing his reluctance over the line, she pressed on. "I wouldn't blame you if you said no, but in spite of this call, I promise I'm not a flake or a stalker or anything. I just still remember what an incredible impact your paintings had on me. Still do, as I remember them. It.it would mean a lot. I just feel like I need to see you."

Silence for a long beat. "I'm married now," he said. "I've got three children. I don't know if my wife…" He let the sentence hang.

"Please," she said. "She doesn't have to know. It's so important. We need to talk, that's all."

"You know I don't paint anymore, Lucy. I haven't touched a brush in twenty years."

"No, it's more than that. It's you, who you were." Then, unsure of exactly what she meant, she added, "It's not just that, either."

"No," he said. "No, I suppose not." Finally, when he did speak, his voice was nearly unrecognizable, constricted with that adult quality. "I'll find some time," he said. "What day next week?"

She didn't sleep well over the next five days.

Frank Millay's colors, particularly that muddy blue, seeped into her dreams and woke her over and over again. It was a cold blue under a cold sky and she woke up, paradoxically, dripping with sweat. And sexually aroused.

All the dreams had the same setting. Millay's whole room was a womb enclosed in that dark, muddy blue-the river as he'd painted it endlessly flowing along the windowless walls over the bed.