The Boarding House (29 page)

She wrapped up the last half of the chocolate bar.

“May I take this with me?”

Aaron felt her pulling away. There was so much more he wanted to ask her, but he didn’t want to pressure her to stay.

“Sure,” Aaron said. “When you come back, I’ll be sure to have another one for you.”

All of a sudden Ellie looked up at Aaron. A big smile broke across her face and then she crossed her legs and laughed. Just like that, Ellie was gone.

“I told you Hershey bars would work.”

Aaron smiled. “And I thank you, Cin.”

“Anything for our girl,” she said. “Why don’t you give Charlie a call. Tell him we’re ready to go back to our room, okay?”

He made the call then leaned back to talk to Cinnamon while they waited.

“So what’s been going on with you?”

“Not much. Watching TV, hanging out with Ellie and the loonies in the common room.”

Aaron frowned. “I hope you don’t call them that to their faces.”

“I don’t, but between us, they are nuts. This afternoon there was even this great big guy who interrupted me right in the middle of my favorite soap and made me miss the best part.”

“What did he want?”

She laughed. “Like everyone else, he wanted to talk to Ellie.”

Aaron frowned. “Ellie? Not you or Wyatt or Sophie?”

“No. He specifically said he needed to talk to Ellie.”

“What was his name?”

“He didn’t say. But he was for sure the tallest guy I’ve ever seen, with this really long white hair and beard and dressed all in white. Kind of freaky if you ask me.”

Aaron abruptly leaned forward.

“He talked to you? As in opened his mouth and spoke?”

Cin made a face at him and then laughed. “How else can you talk without opening your mouth?”

“What exactly did he say?”

“I don’t know ‘exactly’. I don’t have a photographic memory, you know.”

“Take a guess.”

Cin looked up at the ceiling, gathering her thoughts then started counting them off on her fingers.

“He just kept saying, ‘tell Ellie to come see me,’ that he needed to talk to her, and to tell her that he had been listening.”

“Shit.”

Cinnamon laughed. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Aaron actually blushed. “I’m so sorry. That slipped out.”

There was a knock on the door.

“That will be Charlie. When you see Ellie again, tell her how much I enjoyed our talk.”

“Okay. See you later,” Cin said.

The minute the door closed behind her, Aaron grabbed the phone and dialed an extension.

“Moira. I need to talk to you.”

Charlie’s warning had proved to be right. When Moira caught up with Ellie, she got someone named Cinnamon, who had no idea who Luther Dunn was, or why he would want to talk to Ellie Wayne.

At that point, she headed for Luther’s room, trying not to break into an out-and-out lope. As always, she found him sitting by the window with his eyes closed and his face to the sun.

“Luther. It’s me, Dr. Ferris.”

Luther didn’t react.

“I heard you made a friend today. What was her name?”

Luther was mute and motionless.

Moira felt like she was talking to a wall. If she hadn’t seen his eyelids fluttering, she might have thought he was dead.

“Maybe another time,” she said. “I’m glad you’ve found a friend though. That’s a positive move. So, we’ll talk again at your next session.”

She started to leave, then leaned over and moved her hand in front of his face just to make sure he was breathing.

Luther opened his eyes.

Startled, Moira straightened abruptly and walked out. “That was embarrassing.”

So Luther was back on shutdown mode. She just had to find another place to start. She headed for her office to find out all she could about Ellie Wayne, but after an hour of reading through both Luther and Ellie’s files, she couldn’t find one connection that made sense. Not only were they not from the same part of the country, and of different sexes, there was also a forty-year difference in their ages.

She was still struggling to make sense of it all when her phone rang. “Dr. Ferris.”

“Moira, it’s me, Aaron. I need to talk to you.”

She knew from reading Ellie’s file that Aaron was her doctor. “And I you. My office or yours?”

“I’ll come to yours. Be there in five.”

He made it in four.

Moira had the door ajar for his arrival. “That was quick.”

Aaron got straight to the point. “Have you heard?”

“You mean about Luther Dunn wanting to talk to your patient, Ellie Wayne? Yes. I venture to say most of the hospital knows it by now.”

Aaron dropped onto the sofa, chose a piece of hard candy from the candy dish and popped it into his mouth. “
Eww
, butterscotch.”

Moira rolled her eyes. “You’re worse than my patients. Choose another. They always do.”

Aaron tossed the candy and dug through the dish again. “What do you make of it? Have you talked to him?”

Moira shrugged. “I don’t know what to think, and yes I spoke to him, but got nowhere. He was in his usual spot, sitting in front of the window with his eyes closed and the sun on his face. I spoke to Ellie but got one of her alters instead.”

Aaron nodded. “Was it Cinnamon?”

Moira nodded.

“I thought so. She already told me about Luther talking to her. She’s the one who’s Ellie’s age. Pretty outrageous but I like her. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. I’m not sure Ellie will show up though. It’s impossible to predict what she might do.”

“So what exactly did this Cinnamon tell you?”

“That Luther wants to talk to Ellie. How the hell he knew there was more than one personality to choose from is a mystery, and why he chose Ellie is an even bigger one. But there is an interesting aspect to this that you don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“I think at one point in her life, Ellie Wayne was very religious. She may still consider herself religious, but in her words, ‘right now she’s mad at God’.”

“I might be mad at God, too, if I’d had to endure what that child has gone through.”

“I know, and you haven’t seen the videos.”

“Oh my God, there are videos?”

“About sixteen years’ worth.”

“Wait. That would have made her—”

“Two years old when he started to film them together.”

Moira shuddered. “Jesus. No wonder she came undone.”

“Anyway
 . . .
here’s the point I was trying to make. Ellie said she used to go to church every Sunday with her father and pray to God for help, but it never came. She said God never listened to her.”

Moira frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“Cinnamon also told me that when Luther was talking to her, the last thing he said was to tell Ellie he was listening.”

It took a few moments for Moira to grasp what he was saying, and then she gasped.

“No way!”

“Way. So explain to me, how your patient, who has refused to talk for the past five years, and who believes that he is God, suddenly goes looking for Ellie Wayne to make sure she knew he was listening?”

Ellie sat in the middle of her bed
with the last half of the candy bar unwrapped in her lap. She put a small square on her tongue and then closed her eyes so she could garner every aspect of the chocolate experience without being distracted.

The baby was still wailing, but Ellie had been thinking about it for weeks and was beginning to wonder if it might not have something to do with the fact that the baby kept crying because no one answered—no one came to pick it up.

She knew what that was like. She’d talked to God for years without being heard. Maybe that baby just wanted to be heard as well. She was toying with the theory that if the baby knew it had been heard, maybe then it would stop. But that would mean talking to God again to intercede on the baby’s behalf. Obviously the baby couldn’t hear Ellie. But if it was a ghost, then God certainly could. Spirits and ghosts and angels were part of God’s realm, not hers.

She broke off another piece of chocolate and was about to put it in her mouth when Sophie popped in.

“Oh. Chocolate.”

Ellie knew Sophie liked her sweets. “Dr. Tyler gave it to me during session. Would you like a piece?”

“Yes, please.” She ate it quickly, savoring the taste and licking her fingers as she scooted down onto the bed beside Ellie. “He gives out candy? I had no idea. He’s never offered me any.”

“I’ll share.”

Sophie leaned in to get closer. “What? What did you say?”

Ellie raised her voice. “I said, ‘I’ll share.’”

Sophie patted her on the arm. “Yes, you are a dear.”

“No, I said ‘I’ll share,’ not ‘I’m a dear.’”

“Ah
 . . .
I knew that didn’t make much sense. You realize I’m getting very hard of hearing.”

Ellie nodded. “It’s okay, Sophie. We’ll all talk louder.”

Sophie took Ellie’s hand, something she always did when she wanted to make a point. “You know one of these days my hearing will be completely gone. When that happens, you won’t be able to talk to me anymore.”

Ellie felt all the blood drain from her face, and for a few seconds she had to grab hold of the bed to stop it from spinning. “What do you mean?”