Michael Koryta - Last Words

Ridley’s eyes opened on ten with an unseeing stare that focused quickly. His chest rose and fell in long, deep breaths. His hands were motionless against his legs; his body was still. For a moment, the screen held on his eyes, which were looking directly into the camera, and then the picture went black.

Mark let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. Julianne was still standing just as she had been, a few steps behind him, her eyes locked on the now blank computer screen, her arms folded.

“That was in December,” she said. “I’ve continued working with him, but we’ve never gotten back to that place. Never so far. He’s very guarded now. As I said, I have had to prove myself as an ally. I couldn’t go to the police. You might disagree, but I know what would have happened. They would have dismissed me, then they would have been too aggressive with him, and the bond of trust I was forming with Ridley would have shattered.”

“But there’s been no gain to it,” Mark said. He was still shaken by what he’d seen. He’d never watched anyone speaking under hypnosis before, let alone confessing to a murder. “Your trust hasn’t led to anything good.”

She turned from the screen to face him. “It’s led to you.”

He didn’t answer right away. The clock ticked somewhere down the hall, and the wind drove rain against the windows, and Julianne Grossman stared at him as if she were waiting for an answer to a question that hadn’t been voiced.

“What am I supposed to do?” Mark said finally. “What do you think I can do that the police can’t?”

“Engage him in the way he wants to be engaged,” she said. “That’s the secret. He chooses who gets to play the game, don’t you see that? He gave the police nothing. Ever. He gave me something, and once he realized that he had, he came back around. I had no idea how to handle it, nor did I have the skills. It’s why I convinced him that we needed help to get his truth. When we found you... well, it was easier then. Because of your wife, you fit the role quite nicely.”

Mark ran a hand over his face and it came back damp with sweat. He was dizzy and wanted to sit.

“Was Ridley playing with you, or was that legit?”

“Do you mean was he really in trance? Yes. I’m certain of that. I’ve been a practicing hypnotist for twenty-two years. I know when someone is faking, and I know when it is real. Ridley was in trance.”

“And you’ve put him back in trance.”

“Yes. But he no longer shows interest in recall or trapped memories. He speaks of the dark man, he speaks of the cave as if it is a person. He speaks of what the cave wants him to do.”

“What do you make of the dark man?”

“He’s a part of Ridley. A part he wants to deny.”

“But that portion in which he talks about Sarah being someone else’s responsibility suggests that she wasn’t alone, doesn’t it?”

“Not necessarily. I suppose he could be blaming Evan Borders for losing her, but I think he’s blaming himself throughout. You just watched a chess match, and Ridley Barnes lost. To his own subconscious. I don’t think it happens often, though. I think he usually wins.”

“Even if I agree with everything you said, I don’t see how I can help. This” — he pointed at the computer monitor — “is not what I do. A forensic psychiatrist might have a shot with him. I wouldn’t.”

“I disagree. He has a vision for your role. If you play it, I think we can have some success.”

“What’s his vision for me?”

“You’re supposed to get him access to the cave. He’s certain of this. The fact that you already went into the cave—”

“I was forced into the cave!”

“Fine. Either way, it has validated his vision of you. That the cave wants you. He’s convinced that you can get him access to the cave. That the reach and clout of your firm can do that.”

“My firm wants nothing to do with me.”

“Access is controlled by Danielle MacAlister. She’s more likely to listen to someone of your background than someone of mine. If you could gain her cooperation, Ridley would view it as progress.”

“I’m not going back in that cave.”

“Why not?”

“If you’d spent the quality time down there that I did, you wouldn’t need to ask. But there’s also simply no gain to it. Let’s imagine it’s possible for me to get access, which I doubt, but let’s imagine it. What good comes of having Ridley in the cave?”

“For hypnotherapy, none whatsoever. We would ordinarily never expose someone to fear-inducing imagery. In somnambulism — that’s deep trance — the imagery becomes very, very real. Ridley carries powerful beliefs about Trapdoor on both the conscious and subconscious levels. At the level reached in deep trance, he believes that Trapdoor is a source of special power. It’s not that strange when you consider the experience he had there, his closeness with death and violence and questions of his own survival. Over time, however, those experiences have become more deeply associated with Trapdoor in his mind. It has become a mythological sort of place to him, capable of bestowing gifts on people and... and requiring gifts from them.”

“Gifts,” Mark echoed. “Can you elaborate on that?”

She looked at him for a long time before she said, “Lives. Deep in his mind, Ridley believes that the cave can grant them. Or demand them.”

“Fantastic. If no good can come from it, why would you indulge him in the attempt?”

“Because he already knows what happened in that cave. And what other trance sessions have told me — when I’m able to achieve deep trance with Ridley, that is, he can be a challenge — is that he wants to show someone where it happened.” She swallowed, and for the first time she looked afraid. Outside, the wind picked up and grew louder, and the dog began to howl along with it, as if concerned over the changes that were on the way. “In particular, he wants to show me. ”

“You truly believe that he would take you to where she was killed? That he would tell you the truth?”

“I can’t say that for certain. But I know that I can’t walk away from what I’ve heard.” She moved to a closet set between the bookshelves and opened the door. On the back of it, carefully taped, were articles with enlarged photographs of Sarah Martin. Old newspaper items covering her disappearance and the discovery of her body.

“I knew her mother,” Julianne said.

“Hey, that’s funny, so did I! I wouldn’t mention that around town, though. Just a bit of friendly advice.”

When she turned back to him, her eyes were dark. “You think you were the only person who was hurt that night, and that’s far from the truth. I’ve told you why I did what I did.”

“Sure. To appease a sociopath.”

“In part,” she said. “But there are many more layers. You need to know all of them to make a judgment. That’s your problem. You’re too comfortable determining the shape of the world from the surface.”

“Of the many problems facing me today, that’s not a high priority.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” She looked at the articles again, all those bold headlines announcing no leads, no arrests, and finally a “Ten Years Later, Still No Answers” anniversary piece. Mark thought about Lauren’s case. Sixteen months in, no arrests. What would they write in ten years?

“Diane Martin came to me at the recommendation of a friend,” Julianne said. “It was the year her husband was killed in a car accident. She was struggling with insomnia. She visited four times, and on the last visit reported that she was finally sleeping well. She said that she was dreaming vividly and that most of her dreams involved her daughter, and that in them, her daughter was always happy.”