Jonathan Kellerman - The Murder Book

She caught hold of her hair with one hand and tugged hard. Then both hands slapped flat on the desk and she was staring at me- daring me to look away.

"He kept stroking," she said. "It was annoying- ticklish- and I twisted my head away. And then he chuckled and I looked up and I saw that it hadn't been his finger on my cheek. It was his thing- oh, listen to me, like a child- it was his penis , and he was rubbing it against my cheek, pushing . I was so freaked out that my mouth dropped open and that was the worst thing to do because he chuckled again and in it went and all of a sudden he was holding the back of my head with his other hand, the hand with the cigar, and the smoke wrapped around me, and he forced himself deeper into my mouth and I couldn't breathe, I was gagging. But my eyes were open, for some reason I kept them open, and I could see his white shirt and his tie- a striped tie, blue and black- and the bottom of his face, all that pink flab, quivering, his double chin and he was rocking on his heels again, but in a different way and the cigar smoke was burning my eyes and I started to cry."

She turned icy and still. Didn't move for a long time. "He didn't come. Thank God for that. I managed to wrench free, first, made it to the door, ran out, never looked back. Drove home like a zombie, called in sick. Which wasn't much of a stretch because I felt sick as a dog. For the next few days, I took to bed. Threw up when my mother wasn't listening, lay there feeling degraded and scared and worst of all stupid- replaying it over and over, blaming myself. For the tan and the dress and not being on guard- I know it's never the victim's fault, God knows how many times I've told that to patients . But…"

"You were seventeen," I said.

"I'm not sure I'd have handled it better- or felt differently- had I been twenty-seven. Not at the level of consciousness twenty years ago." She slumped, loosened her hair again, fooled with it, flicked something away from the corner of one eye.

"The worst part was how alone I felt. Abandoned, with no one in my corner. I couldn't tell my parents, because I was too humiliated. I told Larry Daschoff a sanitized version, because even though Larry had been my mentor for the summer and he'd been kind and helpful, he was a man . And I couldn't get rid of the feeling that I was to blame. So I just kept calling in sick to Achievement House, told my mother I had some kind of flu, stayed holed up in my room. Obsessing about what had happened, dreaming about it- in the dreams it was worse. In the dreams I didn't get away and Larner came in my mouth and then he hit me and raped me and forced me to smoke the cigar. Finally, I realized I was falling apart- was wasting . I needed to do something. So I found out the name of the school's chairman of the board- some downtown lawyer- Preston something- and after agonizing about it for a whole week, I called his office, got through after several attempts, and told him what had happened. Only I didn't really tell him. I soft-pedaled it. Reduced it to grabbing- the same story I told Larry."

Larry had told me, Mashing and groping .

"How'd Preston react?" I said.

"He listened. Didn't say anything at all, at first. Didn't ask any questions, which really upset me. I got the impression he thought I was crazy. Finally, he said he'd get back to me. Two days later a letter of dismissal arrived in the mail. I was being let go for poor work habits and excessive absenteeism. I never showed the letter to my parents, just told them I'd quit because the job wasn't challenging. They didn't care. My mother wanted me to swim at the club and play tennis and meet guys. What she wasn't happy about was that I just wanted to hang around the house and not be social . So she arranged a family cruise to Alaska. Big luxury liner cruising past the glaciers- baby otters nursing amid the ice floes. All that blue ice wasn't as cold as my heart was that summer."

She stood, returned to the easy chair, tried to look comfortable but couldn't pull it off.

"I've never told anyone what really happened. Not until now. But this was the wrong time and place, wasn't it? Using a stranger. I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for, Allison."

"All these years," she said. "And it still eats at me- not going after that piece of dirt. Who knows how many others he's done that to. What I could've prevented."

"It would've been his word against yours, and he was in power," I said. "It wasn't your fault, then, and it's not your fault, now."

"Do you know how many women I've treated- how many patients I've helped deal with exactly this kind of thing? Not because I pursue those kinds of cases. Not because I'm using my patients to work through my own garbage. Because it's so damned common . I've helped my patients, but then when it comes to my own garbage, I repress. It's crazy, don't you think?"

"No," I said. "It's human. I've preached the virtues of talking it out, but when it comes to my own stuff, I usually go it alone."

"Do you?"

I nodded.

"And you're going through something now, aren't you?"

I stared at her.

"Your eyes are sad," she said.

"I'm going through a bit of something," I said.

"Well, then," she said, "I guess we're kindred spirits. And I guess we'll leave it at that."

She walked me to the waiting room door. "Like I told you the first time, you're just too good a listener, sir."

"Occupational hazard."

"Was it helpful? Telling you that Larner was angry about Willie Burns?"

"Yes," I said. "Thanks very much. I know it was an ordeal."

She smiled. "Not an ordeal, an experience. What you're going through- it has nothing to do with Caroline Cossack or Willie Burns, does it?"

I shook my head.

"Sorry," she said. "No more prying." She reached for the doorknob and her shoulder brushed my arm. The contact sent something electrical down my arm. Suddenly I was rock-hard, fighting to keep my breathing even. To keep my hands off her.

She stared at me. No tension around the huge, blue eyes, just softness, sadness, maybe desire.

"It wasn't an ordeal," she said. "You said the right thing. Here's another confession: I was looking forward to seeing you again."

"Me too," I said.

I smiled and shrugged, and she did the same. Gracious mimickry.

"You too, but, " she said. "That bit of something, right?"

I nodded.

"Well, maybe in another galaxy, Alex. You're very sweet. Good luck."

"Good luck to you, too."

She held the door open. Kept it open as I walked down the hall.

Milo woke up early the next morning, with the faces of the men at the Sangre de Leon meeting leering in his head. Thinking: Too many ways to take it, not enough of me to go around .

He stumbled to the shower, shaved, picked clothes randomly, got the coffee machine going, looked at the clock. Seven-thirteen. An emergency call had yanked Rick out of bed three hours ago. Milo had watched in the darkness as Rick slipped into the scrubs he kept neatly folded on a bedroom chair, picked up his Porsche keys from the nightstand, and padded out the door.

Rick stopped, returned to the bed, kissed Milo lightly on the forehead. Milo pretended to be sleeping, because he didn't feel like talking, not even "Good-bye."

The two of them had talked plenty all night, sitting up late at the kitchen table. Mostly Milo had blabbed and Rick had listened, maintaining a superficial calm, but Milo knew he was shaken by the Paris Bartlett encounter and the HIV rumor. All these years, and Milo's work had never intruded on their personal life.

Milo reassured him, and Rick nodded, complained of crushing fatigue and fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.