Color Blind (17 page)

Jenna’s stomach flopped like a fish in a shallow bucket. She didn’t really need to see when it was mailed. The planning that had to have gone into the whole thing, the attention to detail. The targeting. She’d known from the moment he’d called her in that he’d researched her, known about her. Yet somehow she’d thought he was some sort of twisted fan. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had them before.

This was different, though. This whole thing had been orchestrated not just with her as a piece of Isaac Keaton’s weird puzzle. She was woven much deeper in his plan than she’d realized.

“Two days ago. Jenna, are you sure you want to do this? You know what these guys are like. He’s messing with you. He
wants
this. I can send someone else over there to question Claudia,” Hank said, his voice a plea.

“You think someone else can figure her out?”

“The chances of you getting anything from her but gibberish and nonsense are slimmer than—”

“Look, Ellis, I know you think Claudia is more cuckoo than a Swiss clock, which is exactly why
I
have to be the one to talk to her. I know what to look for. I did before, and I will again.”

Vern sat in a kitchen chair, biting his lip. Jenna knew he’d always believed her about Claudia. Always had. Still, he’d given up trying to convince other people long ago. Too bad. Right now it would be nice to have the backup.

“You don’t hear voices if you’re sane, Jenna,” Hank pressed.

Memories flashed in, the ones she beat away at night when she tried to sleep:
August 15,
she wrote.
Mama got home from the airport about four. She cooked macaroni and cheese for Charley. I ate SpaghettiOs. We ate about 5:15. He started feeling sick sometime before bath at 7. Ran to the bathroom three or four times. Diarrhea, I think. First time he’s had it in a week.

More flashbacks jutted in. Her mother’s steps padding the carpet outside, her frantic movements to shove the journal into the backside of her bear, where she kept it. Pushing the bear into the back of the pile of stuffed animals in the net suction-cupped into the corner of her room. Claudia walking in, eyes trailing from where Jenna sat on the floor with her homework and lingering on the net above, which was still wobbling from the movement from the moment before
.

Now Jenna leveled her gaze at Hank. He had no idea what Claudia was capable of, and that meant he had no idea what Isaac was, either.

“You don’t know to
lie
about hearing voices unless you’re really good at what you do, Hank. I’m going. Are you?”

T
he cold metal doors slid back, and Jenna followed the orderly into Hall D of the Sumpter. Hall D held the dangerously criminally insane.

Jenna’s spine tingled as the doors slammed behind her, locking her in on the same side as the vile woman who shared her blood.

As she followed Gema, the orderly, her mind wandered back over what had led to this day. In a perfect world, Claudia would be in a maximum-security prison on death row, even if Charley would disagree. However, Claudia had put on the razzle-dazzle at the competency hearing, and she was sentenced to six months in Sumpter, where the judge ordered state mental health professionals to “restore her” to competency to stand trial.

Seventeen years later, thanks to Claudia’s brilliant plan and her sleazebag lawyer, she was still here at the Sumpter, unmedicated and living the luxe life, while her lawyer continued to file petitions to keep her here. His argument was simple and probably true: the state could not medicate her to stand trial without endangering both her health and her case.

“You know the rules, right?” Gema said as they came closer to the glassed-in “fishbowl” in which Claudia lived.

Of course she did. Jenna walked this hall every now and then for different reasons, most of the time her own consults or patients.

“Don’t pass her anything that hasn’t been approved, especially no writing utensils or sharp edges,” Jenna recited. “No cross-visiting with other inmates, no contraband or electronic devices that aren’t approved. Stay back from the glass. Objectionable behavior will end my visiting privileges. Anything I’m forgetting?”

“Gold star,” Gema replied. “Luck to ya.”

When Jenna’s eyes found Claudia Ramey, bugs crawled on her arms. The woman had become thinner, waxier than the last time. The years hadn’t been good to her. Frown lines sprawled in unsteady paths from her eyes and lips, and her previously bleached-blond hair had faded into a ratty brown color turning gray at the roots.

Claudia paid no attention whatsoever to Jenna, and instead, tapped on the glass at Gema. “Biscuit time?”

Jenna repressed the shudder at the guttural, scratchy voice that had at one time called after her as it chased her down a blood-spattered hallway.

“Not ’til morning, Claudia. It’s late for that right now. Brought you a visitor.”

Claudia’s yellow fingernail tapped again in front of Gema as though she hadn’t even heard the orderly.
Oscar-worthy, Mama. Really.

“Biscuit time? Jelly?” Claudia asked, a concerned expression blanketing her face.

“A few hours,” Gema repeated. “Be back to check on you kids shortly.”

Claudia’s eyes followed Gema as she left the hall, her finger still tip-tapping at the glass until Jenna heard the doors of the hallway close and latch shut.

The woman’s face turned toward Jenna, the mask dissolving like sugar in water. “Well, well, well.”

This time, Jenna couldn’t hide her surprise. Her eyes widened, and she took a step back. Un-fucking-believable.

Claudia inclined her head toward the corner surveillance camera. “Surprised I’d speak to you with that there, right?”

Jenna didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Her blood was too busy thundering in her ears. Someone had to be watching this. Finally!

“They don’t like to pay for nonstop surveillance, I guess. Blinking light, on. Solid light, off,” Claudia explained through a smirk.

Leave it to Claudia to figure out from a fishbowl how to transform herself based on whether or not she was being recorded. Leave it to her to somehow team up with a monster from behind bars.

“Brilliant,” Jenna spat.

“
Tsk, tsk
, Jenna. You should know sarcasm doesn’t inspire confidence in patients.”

“You’re not my patient.”

Claudia half laughed. “Thank God. You’d have me on a lifetime supply of Thorazine by now.”

“No, I’d have you declared legally competent to fry by now.”

Her mother leaned against the wall closest to her, her face close to the glass. The side of her mouth turned up like a scythe. “Charming. You didn’t stop by to catch up then?”

“What do you know about Isaac Keaton?”

The slits of Claudia’s eyes contracted. “Isaac . . . Keaton, did you say?”

Oh, she knew all right.

“Don’t play with me, Claudia. If you know something, tell me,” Jenna breathed.

“And here I thought you called me Mumsy!” Claudia said, throwing her head back with a wicked laugh. “Must be causing
some
problem, you come here to ask me.”

“Who is he, Claudia?”

Claudia drummed her fingers from thumb to pinky on the glass one by one. “I don’t have a clue. Why do you ask?”

Snarky smile, sure. But Claudia’s eye position was level, no tension. Of course, a good sociopath could bald-faced lie without any tells, but even the best gave something away if you knew what to look for. Could it be she
didn’t
know?

“You may not know
him
, but he knows you,” Jenna said.

Claudia’s eyes flashed. “Is that so?”

“Definitely.”

Claudia twisted her head and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “He tell you that, huh?”

“You know better than to think I’d be here if he’d come out and told me.”

“Aha. So you
are
talking to him. Caught one, have you? Or just corresponding with one? He’s
one
, right? That’s why you’re here.”

Jenna collapsed back against the concrete wall and folded her arms. Then she unfolded them. Too guarded. “I guess it won’t hurt to tell you that much.”

“Big case?”

God. It was like a weird after-school moment, a parent asking her child how her day at school went. Only, they were in a psych ward, and her mother happened to be a murderer. Hell, all families had their little problems.

“Which one is it?” Claudia asked.

Jenna stared at her.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised. You’ve got serial written all over your face. Missing body you need him to fess up to? A live one hidden somewhere? Come on. You don’t know all his secrets, you’re looking too hard. You need help. You came to me for a reason,” Claudia said, almost panting. “Why don’t you show me his picture? If I’ve met him—”

“You’re about as likely to tell me as you are to inform the courts at the next hearing of your lucidity,” Jenna replied.

“Maybe. But you’re
here
. You think I’ll tell you
something.
I don’t know Isaac . . . Keaton, did you say? Nope. Nothing. But then . . .” Her voice trailed deliberately. She grinned.

“What?” Jenna said. Damn. She sounded like a petulant teenager.

“I guess I’m wondering why you
haven’t
released his picture. Surely if it was a matter of utmost urgency, you’d be willing even for
me
to take a look. But he’s under your hat. Why?”

“You said you don’t know him, so it shouldn’t make any difference,” Jenna said.

Claudia looked down, tapped each of her toes in turn. She leveled her eyes with Jenna’s and tilted her chin up. “And you believe me?”

“No,” Jenna said. “That’s the point. I don’t.”

“Your brother singing these days?” Claudia asked, tongue between her teeth like a snake.

Jenna bolted up from the wall. It was time to leave.

“Oh, come now, Jenna. Surely we’re
past
all that, right? You came in to seek my
counsel.
We’re practically pals!”

She couldn’t help it. It was what Claudia wanted, and yet it seethed to the top and boiled through before she had a chance to stop it. “How dare you . . .”

“What was it, Jenna? You never did say. How did you know when no one else saw?” Claudia asked, eyes scanning straight through her, x-raying.

Funny. Isaac Keaton asked the same thing in the letter he sent.

“Wouldn’t you love to know. You can figure out surveillance cameras and conning orderlies, but you have to live with that one mistake. One mistake, and believe me when I say this: you will never know it.”

Jenna turned and stormed away. Stupid, coming here. Claudia knew nothing about compassion and help. Dangling a need in front of Claudia and expecting her help was something akin to scraping your knee on the ocean floor and not only expecting the shark swimming nearby to resist the urge to attack, but to offer you a Band-Aid.

“Of course I know who he is,” Claudia said, monotone. “Not Keaton, mind. But I know you’ve caught a Gemini. Right?”

Jenna stopped cold. She turned around. “How do you figure?”

Claudia smirked again, then leaned straight into the glass with her forehead, no hands. “The walls have ears.”

Pros, cons. Cons, pros. “Okay. Yes. We have.”

“And he says he’s met me, so I’ll venture a guess he’s the smarter of the two. Why no picture released yet? Come, come and tell your mother, Jenna,” Claudia said. Forehead still against the glass, she winked. “After all, I’m on your side.”

If Claudia knew him and had any way to communicate with him, telling her was a horrible idea.
Not
telling her, on the other hand, might
spur
her to communicate with him. Delicate balance. Still, one thought echoed harder in her head than any.
She thinks like he does.

“The other is still at large. We need to find him and not spark him to go to ground if he thinks we’re on to him.”

Claudia pushed back from the glass with her palms, and for a minute, Jenna could see her oily fingerprints lingering there like they had on the knife that night so long ago. “You want my opinion?”

“Probably not. Shoot anyway,” Jenna answered.

“From what I hear about those two, the second one wouldn’t run if you ‘spooked’ him, so to speak,” she said matter-of-factly.

Claudia wasn’t a shrink. She had no basis on which to believe this, and probably knew little to nothing about the case. Still, Jenna couldn’t help but be intrigued.

“What makes you say that?”

“Why do you suppose he does anything he’s done, Jenna?”

“I don’t know, Hannibal. You tell me.”

Claudia crinkled her nose. “You flatter me. But surely you’ve been through a lot of, er,
schooling
to not know this one? Elementary.”

Jenna shrugged. “I don’t know. Rage. Revenge. Boredom.”

“Try all of them, only
simpler.
”

Jenna stared at the woman who’d killed husband after husband, and not for revenge or money. This woman had made her own child sick, and for one reason only. The chrome color of fame popped into her head.