Michael Koryta - Last Words

“No, I haven’t spoken with police.”

“So you’re full of shit,” Mark said. “If you’d heard it, and believed it, and cared as much as you claim, you’d have gone to them. Anything else is a lie.”

“You’re an experienced investigator. You should understand just how much value a confession given under hypnosis means. It’s all but useless in the courts now, which is a true shame. One of the most valuable tools for witnesses has been removed due to ignorance and a few dishonest practitioners.”

She wasn’t lying about this. At one time, police departments in Los Angeles and New York had maintained dedicated hypnosis units. There had been a brief flash point of excitement about the technique, but that had been all but obliterated in appellate courts. Arguments of implanted memory and coercion, along with scathing questions over the expertise of the hypnotists, had created an environment in which neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys saw much gain in introducing anything procured through hypnosis. It carried all the legal problems of the polygraph multiplied by the potential for human error and human fraud. The once-booming study of forensic hypnosis was not a popular approach anymore.

“I tend to agree with the courts,” Mark said. “You realize the recording you played for me does absolutely nothing but prove that point? If you could convince me you were Sarah’s mother, what’s to stop you from convincing Ridley to confess?”

“You’re part of the game now,” she said, “and I played a role in bringing you in. For that, I don’t apologize. I need the help. I apologize for the methods, because I realize they were hurtful. But I need the help.”

In the silence, all Mark could hear was the ticking of that unseen clock.

“Can you turn that thing down?”

“The clock?”

“Yeah.”

“It bothers you?” She smiled, and he felt a surge of annoyance, because she seemed to understand why it bothered him — a childish, irrational fear that she was somehow going to be able to claim his mind against his will, use the ticking of the clock to lull him into a trance.

“It bothers me because it’s all I can hear,” he said. “And you’re supposed to be talking.”

“I’ve done my talking, Mr. Novak. You can run screaming to the police or to the media all you’d like, but I promise you this: the moment you do, Ridley’s belief that he has me as an ally — and right now he believes that firmly — is gone. And the best chance at seeing him answer for his crimes goes with it.”

“So you’re going to extort me into helping you?” He gestured at the recorder that was still in her hand. “I’m supposed to trust someone who’d rather blackmail me than approach honestly?”

“I’ve already told you that this was about gaining Ridley’s trust, not yours. I understand why it would be counterproductive for our relationship.”

He almost laughed. “Yes, it could be viewed as counterproductive. I’m hanging on to my career by a thread, and you’re the reason!”

“The purpose our meeting served is already paying dividends. I filmed my early sessions with Ridley until he decided he didn’t like that. This morning, he returned one of those videos to me. Because of you. Because of what he feels your presence means to the cave.”

“Means to the cave?”

“You’ll understand that soon enough. Now I’ll make you an offer. You feel blackmailed, you feel taken advantage of, all of these negative things. You fear the recording in my hand, don’t you?”

Mark didn’t say anything. She already knew he did.

“I’ll turn it over to you,” she said. “You can destroy it or do whatever you’d like with it, provided you give me twenty minutes of your time. If after those twenty minutes your concern is still with the recording, you may take it and go. I hope that won’t be the case.”

“What are we going to achieve in twenty minutes?”

“You’re going to watch a video.”

She had no television in the living room, so he followed her down a narrow hallway and into a small bedroom that had been converted into an office of sorts. Bookshelves filled three walls — most of the titles had to do with hypnosis, mindfulness, or spiritualist topics — and the other wall was occupied by an ancient oak desk with a high-end Mac computer. The computer felt out of place in the room, the lone intruder. Julianne sat at the desk and fed a DVD into the disk drive. Then she turned to Mark.

“You’re the first person other than me to see this. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”

For a few seconds the screen was a bright, empty blue, and then it filled with an image of Ridley Barnes sitting alone in a straight-backed chair with a small pillow tucked behind his head. His eyes were closed. Mark recognized the room as Julianne’s living room. She advanced the frames until she reached a place that satisfied her and then she stood up, stepped back, folded her arms, and let the video play.

The first voice that came, off-camera and soft, was Julianne’s. Mark recognized the familiar, lulling cadence.

“Tell me more about Trapdoor. You’ve been there for a while, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Ridley said. “Longer than I planned. Longer than I was ready for.”

“Tell me what you see,” Julianne said.

“Nothing.”

“Why can’t you see anything?”

“Darkness.” Ridley’s voice suggested that speaking took effort and he wanted to do as little of it as possible.

“Is the darkness all around?”

“All around.” He nodded slightly. His back was rigid, but his neck muscles seemed so loose that they were barely capable of holding his head upright, requiring the support of the pillow.

“Why is it dark?”

“Lost my lights. Too long down here. Too long.”

“Why do you think it has been too long?”

“Tired. I’m tired. And...” His head rocked again, as if he were struggling to free his own thoughts, and then he said, “And it’s dark. It should never be dark.”

“Right. It shouldn’t be dark. So why is it?”

“Because my lights are gone.”

“Where did the lights go?”

“Burned out. I’ve been down too long.”

“Why did you stay so long?”

“Because I can hear her.”

Mark felt his breath catch. He’d been watching the video with skepticism, or trying to, but there was something in the surreal sound of Ridley’s answers that felt authentic.

“What do you hear?”

“Crying.” Ridley’s voice wavered and nearly broke. “She’s crying. And I know she’s right there, but I can’t find her.”

“You hear other things. There are other sounds. Tell me what they are.”

Ridley’s hands began to tremble and then the rest of his body joined in a single shudder.

“She’s asking me to stop.”

Mark felt a prickle along his spine.

“To stop what?” Julianne Grossman’s voice said.

Silence. Ridley’s eyelids fluttered but he didn’t speak.

“What is the thing that she wants you to stop?” Julianne asked.

“I don’t know.”

“She wants to be found, doesn’t she?”

These were the kinds of moments she’d mentioned to Mark, the moments that would render the video inadmissible in court. She was guiding him, coaxing him. An attorney couldn’t get away with those tactics on cross-examination even with a coherent witness, and when the witness was hypnotized, it stood absolutely no chance. The opposition would call it memory implanting, and that would be the end of it. That didn’t mean hypnosis wasn’t a valid technique, though, and it didn’t necessarily mean that she hadn’t gotten the truth from him.

“I think so,” Ridley said, his voice so soft that Mark leaned closer to the computer.