F Wilson - Sibs

Rob didn't care how highly Doc Winters thought of Dr. Gates. Rob's antipathy after their brief meeting yesterday had been consolidated by today's lengthier encounter. The guy thought he had all the answers, like he talked to God every night.

But there was more to it than that. Rob didn't trust him. He had no rational basis for the feeling but some primitive instinct deep inside warned him not to turn his back on Dr. Lawrence Gates, ne Lazlo Gati. Over the years, Rob had learned to trust his instincts.

At least now he could explain that accent.

He was glad he was here. He wouldn't want Kara to be alone with him, especially under hypnotism.

"I hope I have made my position clear," he was saying.

"Perfectly," Kara replied. "You've explained the risks backwards and forwards. I'm going into this with my eyes open. Detective Harris is a witness: I won't hold you responsible for anything that goes wrong."

Dr. Gates looked at him with his cold, watery eyes.

"Are you a witness to that, Detective Harris?"

"Yes," he said. "But a reluctant one."

"Ah!" Gates said, turning back to Kara. "Your friend shares my reservations."

"Because I am her friend," Rob said.

He hated this whole idea. It sounded risky to him. Why couldn't Kara leave well enough alone?"

"I appreciate that," Kara said, glancing at him, "but neither of you have to live with the possibility of a 'Janine' hiding inside you. I do. And this is how I choose to deal with it. Enough said."

Gates shrugged. "Very well. Detective Harris, if you'll excuse us, I'll begin the—"

"I'm staying," Rob said. "I'm her witness."

Gates' eyes swept back and forth between the two of them.

"I see. There appears to be a lack of trust here."

You might say that, Rob thought, but said nothing. He was going to sit right here and watch. No way was Gates going to make "an unprecedented discovery" by fabricating a second personality or by planting any post-hypnotic suggestions. Rob was going to make sure it stayed clean and simple.

"Don't be offended, doctor," Kara said. "Would you allow yourself to be hypnotized by a person you had never met before yesterday and never heard of until the day before?"

Rob thought that sounded pretty damn logical, but Gates' expression was grim as he thought about it. Then he smiled. The effect was startling—it was the first time he had done it all afternoon.

"Touche, Miss Wade. Your policeman friend can stay."

▼

The actual hypnotism procedure was nowhere near as dramatic as Rob had expected. No watch swinging back and forth on a chain, no spinning spiral to gaze into. As Kara sat there not four feet from Rob, Gates dimmed the lights and pulled out a metronome. He started it ticking, then told Kara to close her eyes and listen to the tick. He spoke to her in a soothing voice, telling her to relax different parts of he body, and that was it.

"Kara Wade," he said, "I want you to think back, back to your childhood. Do you remember when you were six years old?"

"Yes," Kara said in a dreamy voice. Her eyes were closed and she appeared totally relaxed.

"Do you remember being alone with your father at any time?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember him undressing you and touching you in places he didn't usually touch you?"

"No," she said, as if the question were the most natural thing in the world.

Rob was convinced then that Kara was in a trance. He knew how she felt about her family. If she were awake she'd be on her feet and raging after a question like that.

"Is anyone else listening?" Gates said. "Is there anyone named Janine listening? If she is, I'd like to speak to her."

Janine. Rob had heard Kara mention someone named Janine. He held his breath, half expecting to hear a voice like the one that had come out of that little girl in The Exorcist. But Kara kept quiet, thank God.

Gates sat there twirling a key ring. Twirl-twirl-stop. Twirl-twirl-stop. It was getting on Rob's nerves.

"Janine!" Gates said in a sharp tone. "Are you there? Speak to me if you can hear me! Don't play games! Speak to me now!"

Still no answer. Rob exhaled.

Gates scribbled on a memo pad and handed Rob the sheet.

I'm going to my files for more past history. Watch her.

Rob nodded and Gates slipped out through the flush door behind his desk. He watched Kara as she sat with her eyes closed, looking like she was asleep but sitting upright. If he didn't know better he'd have said she was stoned out of her gourd. He let his eyes roam about the room, taking in the antique furniture and the hundreds of books lining the walls.

Something drew his attention back to Kara.

Her eyes were open.

They blinked once, twice, then her head turned toward him, slowly, smoothly, like a gun turret rotating atop a tank. Her eyes fixed on him, vacantly at first, then they seemed to focus.

Then she smiled.

Rob nearly jumped out of his seat. He had never seen a smile like that before, at least not on Kara. It was little more than a pulling back of the lips. There was no warmth, no humor in it. In fact there was nothing in the eyes to confirm that it really was a smile at all. Maybe it was just a baring of the teeth. Whatever it was, it drove a spike of icy fear through Rob's gut.

Whatever it was, it wasn't Kara's smile.

And then, still smiling fixedly, her head rotated back the other way. When it reached its previous position, the rictus faded and Kara's eyes closed again. She made no further movement.

Gates returned a few minutes later with a folder in his hands. He took one look at Rob and stopped in his tracks.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?"

Kara answered first. "No."

Rob started at the sound of her voice and tried to gather his thoughts. His reflex was to tell Gates nothing. He went with it.

"No," he said, half choking as he waved a dismissing hand. "Everything's fine."

Rob had no intention of giving Gates any ammunition. If there was something there, let Gates find it and confirm it on his own.

But as the time dragged on, Gates' best efforts turned up nothing. He asked Kara all sorts of bizarre questions about intimacies with her father—some of them pretty foul-sounding—which she denied one after the other.

After a full hour of this garbage, Rob had had enough.

"I think it's time to call it quits, don't you?" he said.

Gates looked at him, leaned back in his chair, and nodded. He looked disappointed.

"I believe you're right." He turned to Kara. "Kara Wade, when I count to three and clap, you will awaken feeling alert, relaxed, and refreshed, with no memory of the past hour."

He counted, clapped, and Kara opened her eyes.

"Well?" she said, looking back and forth between the two of them. "Did anything happen?"

Gates shook his head. "Nothing."

She turned to Rob, smiling hesitantly, hopefully. "Really?"

Rob rose slowly to his feet, as much to stretch his cramped muscles as to give himself a second or two to listen to his racing mind. What to say? Tell her how she'd looked at him with that vulpine grin, an expression that was as much at home on her face as swastikas on a synagogue? Tell her and snuff out the relief glowing so brightly in her eyes now as she looked up at him, make her spend the rest of her life under a cloud of doubt? Or let it ride and see what happened?

Rob smiled back at her. "Really."

She leaped from the chair and embraced him, laughing.

"Oh, God! Thank God!"

And then she was crying, gripping his lapels and sobbing against his shirt. He slipped his arms around her and gently held her for a little while.

Too soon she straightened up and back away.

"I'm sorry," she said, taking a deep breath and wiping her eyes. "It's just that I've been so worried! So frightened!"