Forgive Me, Alex (18 page)

"'Come to the edge,' he said. They said, 'We are afraid.' 'Come to the edge,' he said. They came... he pushed them... and they flew." – Guillaume Apollinaire

~~~~~

Memorial Day meant no school, a damned good thing. No way could I face classes today, let alone the other students. Dad went into the office despite the holiday. No surprise.

Frank would understand my plight, and he might be able to help me figure things out and decide what to do next. Gramps was my rock.

What would I do tomorrow? Or the next day? Or the day after that? Hell, I didn't know. Only one thing drove me—I must find Diana... somehow.

"We need to backtrack a little," Frank said, "to see if we can find something useful, something suspicious. You may have ignored it at the time because there was no reason to do otherwise."

"Shouldn't we go to the police?"

"What do you have to offer them?"

I thought about that for a minute. I didn't have a damned thing.

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes sir."

"I have some skills you're not aware of, and which I can't explain yet. We'll get to it when the time is right. In the meantime, stick with me on this. Okay?"

I nodded as he paused to refuel on doughnuts and coffee. He'd gone to Dunkin' Donuts early this morning—liked theirs better than the stuff he brewed at home—to pick up four doughnuts and a box of coffee. Should have us walking on the ceiling soon.

Lord knew I guzzled it now like a man on a mission. "Where do we start?"

"First, I think we should agree that it's no coincidence that someone abducted Diana a week after someone abducted and killed Alex. The sheriff's deputy was right, you know. You
are
the common link."

"He was suspicious of me."

"You
would
be the likely suspect for anyone who didn't know better. Don't worry about that. They'll get past it at some point." His eyes squinted in thought as he took another sip of coffee. "In the meantime, someone out there is snatching up people closest to you. Alex's murder and Diana's abduction must be the work of the same person, assuming it's one man. This guy must know you in some way, maybe a friend."

"Friend! Are you kidding? Besides, no one I know is capable of such a thing."

"Well, this person
has
to know you in some way. It's too coincidental otherwise. Perhaps someone has fixated on you for some reason."

I could only stare at him with my mouth hanging open like an idiot. He wanted ideas from me, but my brain could conjure nothing more than panic and terror. I felt helpless and inadequate, at the mercy of something—some
one
—beyond my wildest imagination.

"This is too bizarre," I said at last, "like something out of a Sherlock Holmes story. It's not as though I have
enemies
or anything."

"Oh? The person doing this is not exactly your biggest fan."

"No kidding, but why? I haven't done anything to anyone." That almost stuck in my throat. "Well, I was in a couple fights at school my sophomore year, but they were little things. Those guys wouldn't do something like this."

"Nothing else?"

I'd almost forgotten about the big one.

"Of course, there was that drunk who killed my mom, but he was a single guy with no kids, no siblings—just a dog. His father was deceased, and his mother had mush for a brain. She passed away in a nursing home shortly after the incident. I talked about that in therapy with the shrink, who said those facts made it easier for me to cope with what I'd done. The killer didn't leave anybody behind—nobody who'd suffer because of my actions, or who might want to exact revenge."

"All right, let's forget about that angle for now, but I want you to think about it during the rest of the day. Keep it in the back of your mind, floating around in your subconscious, and maybe something will pop up."

"Okay. Now what do we do?"

He leaned in closer and placed his arms on the table. "Attempt to determine which
stranger
might be doing this."

"Uh... Frank... how do we do that? We don't even know where to begin. That's kind of the definition of stranger."

"You'd be surprised. You see, the subconscious mind is an extraordinary machine, storing information of which we're not even aware. With proper training and techniques, it's possible to draw that information into the conscious mind."

"Training? Techniques? Come on, Frank, Diana's missing and she needs help
now
. There's no time for
training
."

"It takes less time than you imagine. There are reasonably quick methods that offer a high degree of certainty. We'll get to that. For now, let's make some assumptions to get us started."

"How do you know about such things?"

"As I said earlier, you need to trust me on this."

I sighed and waited as he sipped his coffee and gathered his thoughts.

"First, when did it start? He took Alex only a week ago, and already he's taken Diana. That's quick work, especially given the fact that the police are right in the middle of an investigation. I'd bet this guy got the idea only recently, so let's retrace your last few weeks and see what we find."

I walked to the counter to refill my coffee cup, then did the same for Frank. I kept hoping the coffee would fire-up my mind, to help me follow what he was doing. He wanted to know how my routine had changed in the past several weeks, and rattled off several questions in succession. Had there been any special events? Did I have any new hangouts? Had I met new people? Still clueless, I nodded and waited for him to guide me through the process.

"Think about that for a minute while I make a quick phone call."

He didn't use the phone in the kitchen or the one in the living room. He stepped into his bedroom and shut the door, which made me a little nervous. Why didn't he want to talk in front of me?

***

On Tuesday, I was supposed to be at school but... fat chance! My every thought roared for Diana, a million-ton freight train flying downhill, a sharp turn in the tracks just ahead.

Graduation would arrive in less than two weeks, but I'd be all right.

Dad had left the house earlier than usual, before I typically headed out to school, so he didn't know I'd ditched.

Not that he'd have cared.

Shit! Go easy on him, Tony.

Frank understood, pretending to be my grandfather when he'd called into school and told them I'd be absent today.

He and I talked for two hours yesterday, examining every possibility. On several occasions he'd nodded and said, "Uh-huh, that could be important," and expanded the notes he jotted down. I hadn't understood any of it, but accepted that he'd clue me in when ready. He'd wanted me to relax last night and let my subconscious mind sort things out.

Sure. Relax. What a sick joke.

I tried last night to speak with Mrs. Gregario, but Mr. G. answered every time I'd called. He'd refused to speak with me no matter how much I pleaded. In the three calls I made, it never took him more than ten seconds to hang up on me. On the third, he'd made clear that he didn't want to hear from me again.

Don't call again? Are you kidding? How am I supposed to know what's happening with Diana?

He'd decided that this was
my
fault.

And here we sat, back at Frank's kitchen table, reviewing yesterday's notes and once again drinking coffee, though lousy decaf for some reason. He said I had to lay off the caffeine. Was he nuts?

Well, he was the boss.

The doorbell rang, and he insisted I remain seated as he answered it. A muffled conversation murmured from near the front door.

A moment later, he returned to the kitchen escorting another man. "Tony, I'd like you to meet Dr. Art Reynolds, a former colleague of mine."

He was old, not quite Frank's age, mostly bald and with pop-bottle glasses, behind which football-like eyes blinked. Unlike Frank, he walked stooped over, defeated by a lifetime of gravity and whatever other forces he'd endured. He carried a small black bag, like something a doctor carried during a house call in one of those movies from the '40's. Frank had called him doctor. And a former colleague? What did that mean? Frank, a doctor? No.

Perhaps Frank was sick and.... New panic bubbled to the surface—just what I needed.

"I asked Art to help us with our dilemma," Frank said. He turned to Art. "Did you get what you needed?"

"Yes, I still have one connection back at..." He paused and looked at me. "Anyway, I can't say he was happy about giving it to me, but I got enough to do the job."

Frank nodded.

I was utterly lost. "I don't understand. How can a doctor help?"

"Actually," Art said, "I'm a psychiatrist."

I shot bullets and flames from eyes, right at Frank. "A
psychiatrist
?"

He raised his hands in defense. "Now hold on, Tony, it's not what you're thinking. Art isn't here to psychoanalyze you. He has a certain
specialty
that will be helpful to us—to dig deep inside your subconscious mind to find answers."

Still lost, I waited for more.

"I'll let Art explain it."

Art asked without preamble, "Are you familiar with hypnosis, Tony?"

"Hypnosis? As in, 'keep your eye on the gold watch and count backwards from a hundred,' hypnosis?"

He laughed. "It's more complicated, but yes, something like that."

"You plan to hypnotize me? Seriously?
Why
?"

Frank responded. "After our conversation yesterday, Art and I had a nice long conversation. We reviewed my notes and he agreed that some interesting kernels jumped out. We'd like to explore those a little further, but you're murky on the details. Your memory isn't quite giving us what we need."

Right, so I wasn't just confused, I was also stupid.

"You see, Tony, you told me about a man who watched Diana at the park that day... um... what did you call it?"

"You mean Senior Ditch Day?"

"Yes, that's right. You didn't know him, and hadn't seen him either before or since, but something about him disturbed you. You brushed aside that thought. You also mentioned a man who glared at you at the bowling alley the night you were there with Diana and your other friends. Once again, something about the man made you uneasy. You thought he was familiar."

He paused, and I tried to think back to those guys. I remembered, but I couldn't see any details.

Frank shook his head. "The truth is that those could have been perfectly innocent occurrences, with neither of those men having anything to do with Alex or Diana. The problem is, and Art agrees with me here, we found no other occurrences in your last few weeks that were, shall we say, out of the ordinary. Art will check on that too, however, while you're under."

"Under?"

"Hypnosis," Art said.

"I see." I did, sort of, though it sounded like a hell of a long shot. It couldn't hurt anything. Besides, what else could I have done at this point?
Damn it, I hate feeling this helpless!
"Okay, what now?"

Frank nodded to Art, who opened his doctor's bag and pulled out two vials of clear liquid and two hypodermic needles.

"You intend to give me a shot?"

"Two shots."

"Why?"

"To relax you and open your mind to the experience, to the possibilities. It will help us—help
you
—find truths you didn't even know existed."

"Those must be some crazy drugs." I tried to laugh, but it seemed a tree trunk had lodged in my throat. "Nothing I can get hooked on, I presume?" I
hated
drugs.

"That's right. These will be small doses, nothing to worry about." Art offered a friendly, reassuring smile. "The first is secobarbitol. Most people think of it as a sedative, but it's also what we call a
hypnotic
, as is the second, sodium amobarbitol, which you may have seen referred to as
truth serum
in the movies."

"Are you serious? Sounds like one of those Robert Ludlum spy novels. Why is all that necessary? Can't you just swing a watch in front of me and count back from a hundred, or something like that?"

Art turned to Frank, who answered. "First of all, don't believe everything you see in the movies. Second, as I said earlier, we have some experience with this. You're a strong-willed young man—one might say stubborn. These will help. Please, you need to trust me."

"Fine!"

Art smiled again—started to wear on me—stuck a needle into one of the vials, drew some liquid, and stood over the sink to squirt a small amount from it. He repeated the procedure with the other needle and vial, and gave me the shots.

It took time for them to take effect; couldn't guess how long.

My head grew heavy, and darkness closed in like Godzilla's shadow.
Hah! Godzilla... shadow... some shadow... only the shadow knows.