Billy's Bones (22 page)

“I don’t know yet what was going on in his head,” Tom replied. He didn’t like where his own thoughts were going, and he didn’t like the fact that Chief Burbank’s thoughts seemed to be going in the same direction. “He was delusional. Something was upsetting him earlier—I think it had something to do with the storm. Then the dog ran off, and I guess Kevin stumbled across the well when he was searching for Shadow.”

“And he thought there was a body in it?”

Tom shrugged. “I don’t know.”

But he was more disturbed than he was letting on. He couldn’t escape the possibility that the storm—and the sight of the well—had triggered a flashback, another repressed memory. And the implications were chilling.

Twenty

B
Y
THE
time Tom made it to Androscoggin Valley Hospital, Kevin had been taken to a room and sedated. Tom was known to the staff there, and they were relieved to see him when he walked in, if for no other reason than he could provide some kind of explanation about Kevin’s condition. Normally, there would have been an interview with the doctor on call—in this case, Mark Belanger—but Kevin had been too hysterical for Mark to get anything coherent out of him. The EMTs had passed along the information that Tom was on his way, so the doctor had waited to talk to Tom about it.

“Is he your patient?” Mark asked him.

Tom shook his head. “No.” He glanced at the nurses chatting nearby at the reception desk and asked, “Do you mind if we go somewhere private?” He wasn’t really “out” to the hospital staff.

Mark led him into his office and closed the door behind them.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Tom said, taking a seat on Mark’s small sofa.

Mark smiled as he leaned back to sit on the edge of his desk. He was older than Tom, though not by much, and had a 1950s-TV-father aura about him that just lacked a cardigan and a pipe. Now he turned his full fatherly demeanor on Tom. “So the EMTs mentioned. I admit I was surprised. I had no idea you were gay.”

At least he doesn’t seem freaked out by it
, Tom thought. “No, not many people in this area do. And I’d just as soon it didn’t get around.”

“I understand,” Mark said, “but didn’t I send him to you for counseling?” Tom sensed thinly veiled disapproval behind the question, and he couldn’t blame Mark for that. Tom wouldn’t think much of a therapist who dated someone he was treating either.

“I saw him once when you sent him to me three years ago,” he explained. “That was the last I saw of him professionally. We just happened to bump into each other this spring when I needed some work done at my house.”

Mark nodded thoughtfully, though he didn’t look convinced. “Well, I won’t gossip about it.” He thought for a minute. “You’re not married?”

Tom shook his head. “No, of course not. We’ve only been dating a few weeks.”

“And he’s not your client. So you really don’t have any legal right to commit him.”

Tom sighed and buried his head in his hands for a moment before lifting it again and replying, “I think I’m in love with this guy, Mark. I don’t want him committed. I just want him to get through this intact. I called the ambulance because he was out of control and hurting himself. If he’s stable in the morning, then I want
him
to make the decision about whether he stays here or not.”

“Is he being treated by anyone else?”

“He saw Sue Cross for a short time, but he hasn’t seen her for a while.”

Mark raised his eyebrows, as if he couldn’t believe someone with Kevin’s history wouldn’t be in therapy. Tom had to admit he would think the same thing in his position.

“We’ll see what he’s like in the morning,” Mark said, “but I have to say, I’m extremely reluctant to release him immediately. He’s had a pretty severe psychotic break. He had to be treated for self-inflicted injuries when he came in; it looks like he may have broken one of his fingers.”

Mark
could
keep Kevin there for up to a couple of weeks, Tom knew. He really hoped that wouldn’t be the case. Kevin would probably be furious with Tom for sending him there in the first place. If he was stuck there for a couple weeks, their relationship might not recover. Tom had promised not to force therapy on him, hadn’t he?

What was I supposed to do?
Tom wondered.
Just stand there and let him smash his hands to bloody pulps?

“I know you’ll do what’s best for him,” he told Mark.

“Why don’t you go home and get some sleep? He’s safe now. We have spot-checks on the patients throughout the night, and most likely he’ll sleep until morning with the sedatives we’ve given him. I’ll have someone give you a call when Kevin is awake.”

S
HADOW
was a wreck when Tom got back to the house. The poor pup kept scurrying from room to room, searching for Kevin and whimpering. Tom finally got him to lie down on the bed beside him in the spot Kevin normally occupied. Then he stroked the dog’s fur until Shadow fell asleep. Unfortunately, sleep didn’t come as easily for Tom, and he lay there most of the night with the lights off, his hand resting lightly on Shadow’s head to comfort himself as much as the dog. He finally drifted off as the sky began to lighten, only to be awakened by his cell phone vibrating on the nightstand a short time later.

When he answered, Mark Belanger said, “Kevin’s awake and calm.”

“Thank God.”

“But he’s not being very cooperative, Tom. He won’t talk to me, and I can’t release him if I can’t do an evaluation.”

Shit.

“He says he’ll only talk to you,” Mark added.

“I’ll be right there.”

A
FTER
he’d showered and taken care of Shadow, Tom drove to the hospital. He was dreading the meeting with Kevin, expecting him to be angry—furious!—at Tom for sending him there. Tom didn’t think he’d had much of a choice, but Kevin probably wouldn’t see it that way. Would this be the last straw? Were they about to break up for good? Tom’s stomach was in knots over it.

But Kevin didn’t look angry when Tom entered the hospital room. He looked frail and miserable, sitting up shirtless in the bed and picking unenthusiastically at a breakfast tray of oatmeal, toast, and juice with two bandaged hands. He glanced up as Tom came in and said in a quiet voice, “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Of course I would.”

Kevin looked away and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t sign on for this kind of shit.”

He thought I was going to tell him it was over
, Tom realized. He’d been so worried about Kevin dumping
him
over putting him in the hospital that it hadn’t occurred to him Kevin might be worried about Tom wanting to call it quits.

“What I ‘signed on for’,” Tom said softly, “was you. I’m still not sure what happened last night, and it concerns me for a lot of reasons. But if you think it means I’m going to turn tail and run, then… no.”

Kevin’s shoulders seemed to relax a bit at that, as if he’d been tensed up, waiting for Tom to berate him or worse.

“Are you mad at me for calling the ambulance?” Tom couldn’t help asking. If Kevin needed forgiveness, so did he.

“You did what you had to do.” Kevin held up his bandaged hands and looked at them in disgust. “I suppose I owe it to you that I didn’t cripple myself for life. Jesus Christ….”

“Dr. Belanger said you might have a broken finger.”

“Yep. And both hands look like I tried to stick them in a blender.”

Tom winced at the image that conjured up. He came closer to sit in the chair beside the bed and noticed for the first time that Kevin’s hospital gown was draped over the back of it. Recalling that Kevin never wore underwear, he asked, “Are you wearing anything at all under those blankets?”

“It’s fucking ten thousand degrees in here, and I can’t open a goddamned window.” This was true to some extent, if not exactly literally. The temperature in the ward was far too warm, and Tom was finding it uncomfortable himself. “I’m keeping it under the covers,” Kevin added irritably. “I’m not flashing anyone.”

He glanced over at the second bed in the room when he said that. It was occupied by a young man who looked to be in his twenties, but the guy was asleep at the moment. Either that or he was faking it.

Tom lowered his voice when he said, “Dr. Belanger said you refused to talk to him.”

Kevin sighed and shook his head. “If he gets one look at what’s going on inside my head, he’ll lock me up for good.”

“He doesn’t have that kind of power,” Tom assured him. “But he does have the power to keep you here for a few days if he considers you to be a danger to yourself, just like he did three years ago.”

Kevin snorted and held his hands up again. “What do you think, counselor? Am I a danger to myself?”

Tom wanted to say “of course not.” He wanted Kevin to come home with him and for everything to go back to normal—normal for them, at any rate. But this wasn’t about what
he
wanted. “What do you think?”

“I think I’m lucky I can still use my fingers.”

Tom sighed and bit his lower lip. “Would you like to sign yourself in officially? It’s an option. They can keep you safe and treat you—”

“Fuck no!” Kevin spat out. He glanced over at his sleeping roommate and lowered his voice again. “I want to go home.”

“I want that too.” Tom risked reaching out and touching Kevin’s arm with his fingertips.

Kevin didn’t flinch or pull away. He looked down at the hand resting on his forearm for a long moment before asking, “What do I have to do?”

“You have to cooperate with Mark—Dr. Belanger. Let him do the assessment.”

“And then he’ll let me go?”

“I can’t make any guarantees. But if he doesn’t think you’re likely to hurt yourself, he may let you go, perhaps with a recommendation to seek further treatment.”

“The last time, he kept me here for a fucking week.”

“The circumstances were different then,” Tom said. Then he added, “Look, I can’t speak for him. He’s the doctor here, not me. But you’re not going to sort this out by refusing to talk to him. Just get it over with, and we’ll see what we can do to get you home.” And hopefully, he thought to himself, “home” meant the same thing to both of them now.

Kevin sighed and went back to poking at his cold oatmeal. “I don’t remember any of it.”

“What’s the last thing you
do
remember?”

“Standing at the edge of the woods, feeling… I don’t know. Fucked up. There was something about how dark it was and how much the wind was blowing that was freaking me out.” Kevin frowned as if trying to concentrate. “Then you were there, yelling at me about something. And Shadow ran off—”

He looked up at Tom’s face, alarm suddenly written on his features, and Tom reassured him, “Shadow’s fine. He found you at the well and stayed with you until I found both of you.”

Kevin sighed in relief. “Poor pup.”

“And that’s all you remember?” Tom couldn’t help prompting.

Kevin looked uncomfortable at the question, so his answer was somewhat less than convincing when he shrugged and said, “I guess.”

“You don’t remember screaming ‘He’s in the well’ over and over again?”

Kevin shook his head, but he’d gone suddenly pale, his eyes wide. When Tom continued to wait for a more detailed response, Kevin reluctantly added, “I don’t… I don’t remember that. But I had some kind of dream or hallucination or something when I was drugged last night. I kept seeing this… boy. He was naked, and he kept crying out and….”

Kevin’s voice cracked, and he stopped talking. His eyes were glistening again, and he was forced to clear his throat a couple of times before he could continue speaking. “Jesus…. He was begging for help…. He was begging for
me
to help him….”

He lifted a shaking hand to rub his eyes clear.

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he in the well?”

“What well?” Kevin snapped. “Jesus Christ! I’ve never seen a well anywhere. How could he be in a well when there’s no goddamn well?”

“You didn’t have one at your house?”

“No!” Kevin stopped himself and took a deep breath. Tom waited patiently until Kevin added in a calmer tone of voice, “He had black hair, kind of long. And huge, brown eyes. God, those eyes!” He rubbed his hand across his own eyes, as if to blot out what he was seeing in his mind. “Tom… we both know that I’m getting flashes of memory now, things I’ve blocked out because they were too awful to remember.”

“Yes.”

“So can you tell me this isn’t one of those?”

“No, I can’t. Not until we do some digging.”

“And then what? What if it turns out there’s some… dead kid….” Kevin broke off, as if too upset to continue.

Tom sighed and lightly stroked the hair on Kevin’s forearm. “If this turns out to be real, then we’ll go to the police.”

“To do what? Report me as a murderer?”

Tom felt a chill crawling up the back of his scalp. “In these dreams, did you see yourself killing him?”

“No. But I seemed to be just… standing there looking down at him. I wasn’t helping. What if I pushed him in there or something?”