Michael Koryta - Last Words

“She went at my instruction. The only thing I would have had a negative response to was her not doing her job. That day, that was her job. I wish it hadn’t been.”

“She had a chance to tell me that. We argued about that. I was upset that she was giving the story any credibility, I said you wouldn’t support it and she’d hurt her standing with you if she filed the report. Why wouldn’t she have said it was your instruction?”

Jeff’s voice softened. “Sounds like you were a little caught up in trying to protect each other.”

“How so?”

“The original assignment was intended for your desk. She convinced me that was a bad fit for you, and she asked for it.”

“What?”

“She told me that you weren’t equipped to interview the woman. The one who said she was a psychic. The woman had identified a few things, and I thought it was worth the wild-goose chase. As I said, I’ll listen to anybody once. So I was going to send you, but then Lauren heard and said that you wouldn’t do the interview well. I’ve never told you that because... well, because it seemed like an unnecessary addition of pain. I thought telling you that she’d stepped in for you would only hurt worse. But now you’re asking. She told me you wouldn’t do the interview well because you wouldn’t think the woman had any credibility. That you’d scorn her, and if there was anything legitimate, you’d overlook it. She said that was a personal hang-up of yours and that she didn’t want me to put you in that position. It would be hard for you, she said. Unfair, that was the word. She said it would be unfair to you.”

Rain drummed off the hood of the car and ran down the windshield, putting a crystalline buffer between him and the clarity of the world beyond.

“She said it would be unfair for me.” His words tottered out as if they were just learning to walk.

“It doesn’t matter in any ways but good ones,” Jeff said. He sounded as if he regretted having told the story. “She wanted to take care of you. Always. You know that.”

“But I was the one who should have been on that road.”

“Don’t think about it like that. Think about it the way she’d want you to: she was looking after you, Markus.”

“‘Don’t embarrass me with this shit,’” Mark said. “I said that to a woman I was more proud of than anyone I’ve ever known. ‘Don’t embarrass me.’”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, Jeff. Let’s get back to the point of the call.”

What had the point been? Mark didn’t remember, didn’t care. He was glad when Jeff picked up the baton.

“Is anything about this confession, the hypnosis deal, going to help you? ” Jeff said. “Because that’s why you’re there, right?”

I can’t be the only one who knows. If he wants to bring me to the place where he killed her and tell me how he did it, I’m willing to take that walk. But I need help.

“Right,” he said. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Well? Can this shit help you, or is it a dead end? You don’t have time for dead ends. The board meets day after tomorrow, and this time you’ll need to be here for it with whatever you have to offer.”

Mark turned the recorder over in his hand. “I’m getting close,” he said, and the drumming became a rattle as the rain turned to ice.

In all the time that he’d been working with her, Ridley Barnes had gone to see Julianne Grossman for every session. When her car pulled into his yard, tires skidding in the mix of rain and snow, he felt a black chill spread through his chest. He had carried his secrets to her. If they returned to his doorstep in a rush, he knew it was trouble.

“What’s happened?” he said, opening the door as she jogged through the dampness and up the porch steps.

“He watched it.”

Ridley stood stock-still, oblivious to the cold rain. “Novak? You played him the video?”

“Yes.”

“He came to you?” Ridley said. “Today?”

“Yes.”

“Was he alone, or was he with Blankenship?”

“He was alone.”

Ridley let her in and closed the door and found himself feeling vulnerable and exposed as she looked around his house. That was laughable, considering he had let her probe the blackest places of his unconscious mind, but he felt it all the same.

“Do you think he will be a help?”

“I do. It’s early to tell, of course. That’s why I came here — I wanted to let you know immediately, and in person. I didn’t want there to be any surprises.”

“And how did our friend Novak, the chosen one, react to my confession?”

“He seemed to believe it.”

“Well, he should. That’s not what I’m asking. Does he understand the importance of the cave?”

“He wants the same thing you do, though he’s not fully aware of it yet. He wants to return to Trapdoor. I’m almost certain.”

Ridley went to the woodstove and busied himself with stoking the fire just because he needed something to do, a place to direct the energy that was pulsing within him.

“He’s not what I’d hoped,” he said with his back to her. “He’s too rigid. I don’t think he understands the first thing about that place.”

“Earlier you thought that the cave might have shown more of herself to Novak than to others.”

Ridley watched the flames grow and then he added fresh wood and cupped his hands and soaked in the warmth as the fire crackled.

“Why are you here?” he said finally, still without turning.

“I was afraid he might be headed this way. I wanted to prepare you.”

“I can handle him just fine. He’s no different than any other detective.”

“He most certainly is. You sent for him, Ridley. You asked him in.”

“And you supported it. Suggested it, even.”

“I did, and I do now, but with much more caution. Much more. Because I see real risk. For the both of you.”

“What would you like me to do about that?”

“Challenge yourself,” she said.

He looked over his shoulder. “I’m not hurting for challenges.”

She nodded. “So you can bear another one, can’t you?”

He didn’t answer.

“You’re going to need to trust him first,” she said. “You’re going to need to be vulnerable with him, Ridley, in ways that you don’t like to be.”

He returned his attention to the fire. A blackened piece of ash went up in an orange glow and licked toward the front of the stove as if it had eyes on escape. He grabbed a rag to keep from burning his hand and pushed the stove door closed, sealing in the flames, then adjusted the damper so that the fire could exhale.

“I can keep my control around him,” he said. “That won’t be a problem.”

But he was thinking of Novak inside of Julianne’s house, invading that safe haven, and his hands opened and closed on the rag. She had suggested getting involved with Novak, and it made sense to recruit someone from the outside. Now he had his doubts. Even while she was exhorting him to show control, she was removing some of it from him.

“I’m simply telling you that he’ll need to be shown trust,” Julianne said. “If you can’t do that, then it may be better to send him away. If you still can.”

If you still can. There was an accusatory flavor to the statement, an indictment, and he wanted to whirl around and shout that it had been her idea in the first place. The tension that had been growing in him in recent days was reaching a high-water mark.

“I won’t need him if I can just get access to that cave,” he said.

“I know you’d like that. I also know that you have some fear related to that place.”

“That’s the wrong word.”