Тесс Герритсен - I Know a Secret

“Holly Devine in imminent danger?” Bonnie snorted. “That gal could slither out of anything.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Why don’t we ask a man?” Bonnie turned to Frost. “What do you think about Holly, Detective? Let’s hear the first words that pop into your head.”

He hesitated. “She’s intelligent. Attractive—”

“Aha! Attractive. For men, it always comes down to that.”

“Resourceful,” he added quickly.

“You forgot seductive. Manipulative. Opportunistic.”

“What are you getting at, Bonnie?” asked Jane.

The woman turned to Jane. “Holly Devine is a textbook sociopath. Not that I’m being judgmental or anything. Sociopathy must be within the range of normal human behavior, since there seem to be so many people like Holly in this world.” She gave Jane a dismissive look that said: You’ve got some catching up to do . If there was anyone as dogged as a homicide cop, it was an investigative journalist, and Jane felt a grudging sense of respect for the woman. Bonnie wore her crow’s-feet like battle scars, with pride and an attitude. “Don’t tell me you didn’t realize that yourself about Holly? Come on, you’ve talked to the girl.”

“I found her... different,” said Jane.

Bonnie gave a bark of a laugh. “That’s a charitable way of putting it.”

“Why do you think she’s a sociopath? The only time you actually spoke to her was that night in the pub.”

“Have you interviewed her colleagues at Booksmart Media? Asked them what they think of her? Most of the men in her office are just hot to get into her pants, but the women are wary. The women don’t trust her.”

“Maybe they’re jealous,” said Frost.

“No, they really don’t trust her. Cassandra Coyle certainly didn’t.”

Jane frowned. “What did she say about Holly?”

“Cassandra’s the one who brought her up. She bluntly told me not to trust Holly Devine. At Apple Tree, the other kids thought Holly was a strange girl and they avoided her. They sensed there was something not right about her. The only kid who played with her at all was Billy Sullivan.”

“Why did Holly spook the other kids?”

“That’s what I wondered. I wanted to see for myself why they thought the girl was strange, but no one knew how to find her. It took me months to track her down to Booksmart Media. I wanted to interview her for the chapter I’m writing about Apple Tree. She was the first child to accuse the Staneks, and I wondered if she told the truth.”

“There was physical evidence,” said Frost. “She had bruises. Scrapes.”

“She could have gotten those anywhere.”

“Why would she lie about being molested?”

Bonnie shrugged. “Maybe she did it to get attention. Maybe her crazy mother planted the idea in her head. Whatever the reason, Holly chose precisely the right moment to come forward. Lizzie DiPalma had disappeared and all the parents in the neighborhood were scared and searching for answers. Holly gave them one: The evil Staneks did it. Then Billy Sullivan claimed he’d been molested too, and the Staneks were doomed, just like that. ” Bonnie snapped her fingers. “Frantic parents questioned their own kids, planting ideas in their heads. No wonder the other children began to repeat the stories. If you’re asked about an incident again and again, you start to believe it happened. You actually start to remember it. The youngest kids were only five, six years old, and every time they were interviewed, their stories grew more bizarre. Flying tigers! Dead babies! The Staneks soaring through the air on broomsticks.” She shook her head. “The jury sent that poor family to prison based on tales told by brainwashed children. Cassandra Coyle was already doubting her own memories of abuse. She said she’d contact the other children, see if they’d be willing to talk to me, but the only name she’d reveal to me was Holly Devine. Who’s now the sole remaining source for my book.”

“What’s the point of this book you’re writing? To exonerate Martin Stanek?”

“The more I learned about the case, the more angry I became. So, yes, proving his innocence was important. It’s still important.” Bonnie blinked and turned away. “Even if he’s dead.”

Jane saw a brief glimmer of tears in the woman’s eyes. Quietly, she asked, “Were you in love with him?”

The question made Bonnie’s chin snap up. She looked at Jane with an expression of surprise. “What?”

“It’s obvious that you’re emotionally involved.”

“Because it matters to me. This story should matter to everyone.”

“Why to you, in particular?”

Bonnie took a breath and sat up straighter. “To answer your question, no. I was not in love with Martin, but I did feel sorry for him. What was done to him, to his family, makes me so fucking—” She stopped, suddenly too agitated to speak, her hands balled into white, bony fists.

“Why does it make you so angry?” asked Jane.

Bonnie’s fists balled tighter, but she didn’t reply.

“There’s got to be a reason why this matters so much to you. A reason you haven’t told us.”

For a long time Bonnie did not answer. When she finally spoke, it was barely a whisper. “Yes, it does matter. Because it happened to me too.”

Jane and Frost exchanged startled looks. Frost asked gently, “What happened to you, Ms. Sandridge?”

“I had — I have — a daughter,” said Bonnie. “She’s almost twenty-six. Her birthday’s in three weeks, and more than anything I want to be there to celebrate with her. But I’m not allowed to see Amy, or call her, or even write to her.” She squared her shoulders, as if preparing for battle, and looked at Jane and Frost. “When Amy was a freshman in college, she started having panic attacks. She’d wake up at night in her dorm room, convinced that someone was in her room, about to kill her. The attacks were so terrifying, she had to sleep with the light on. The student health service referred her to a therapist, a woman who claimed to be an expert in age regression. The therapist used hypnosis to explore Amy’s childhood memories, trying to find the reason behind these panic attacks.

“For eight months, Amy returned again and again to that... doctor.” Bonnie spat out the title like an epithet and ran a hand over her lips, as if to wipe away the taste of the word. “As the sessions continued, Amy started to remember things. Things that she’d supposedly suppressed. She remembered lying in bed as a child. Remembered the door opening and someone creeping through the darkness. Someone who pulled up her nightgown and...” Bonnie paused. Took another breath and plunged on. “These weren’t vague memories. They were extremely detailed, right down to the objects that her molester used. A wooden spoon. The handle of a hairbrush. The therapist concluded that Amy’s panic attacks resulted from years of abuse she’d suffered as a child. Now that Amy remembered it, it was time for her to confront her attacker.” Bonnie looked up, lashes sparkling with tears. “Me.”

Jane frowned. “Did you really—”

“Of course I didn’t! None of it was true, not one goddamn detail! I was a single mom, and there was no one else living in our house, so of course the guilty party had to be me . I was the monster who sneaked into her room at night and molested her. The monster who turned her into such an emotional wreck. The more sessions Amy had with that therapist, the more anxious she became. I didn’t realize what was going on until one night when it all came to a head.

“I got a call from the therapist to come in for a meeting. I went to her office thinking I’d hear an update on Amy’s progress. Instead, I found myself in a room with my daughter. As the therapist sat listening, encouraging her, Amy proceeded to tell me all the horrible things I’d done to her when she was a child. She’d suddenly remembered the rapes, the abuse, the times I’d shared her with mysterious other people. I told her she’d imagined it all, that I’d never done any of those things, but she was convinced it happened. She remembered it. And then she...” Bonnie wiped away tears. “She told me she would never see or speak to me again, not for as long as she lived. When I tried to reason with her, tried to convince her that these memories were false, the therapist told me I was lucky to get off so easy. They could have called the police and had me arrested. She said Amy was being generous by letting it stay in the past. I was sobbing, pleading with my daughter to listen to me, but she just stood up and walked out of the room. And that was the last time I saw her.” Bonnie ran her hand across her eyes, leaving wet smears on her face. “That’s why the Apple Tree case matters to me.”