The Girls He Adored (39 page)

She jumped the last few feet to the ground and raced the length
of the barn to the de Ville. No keys, but the cell phone was still plugged into the cigarette lighter, the charging indicator a glowing red dot in the dim light of the barn. Irene held her breath, took the phone out of the cradle, and read the green display in the handset window. NO SERVICE.

Then she remembered Maxwell telling her yesterday morning that he'd had to climb up to the hayloft to get a signal. She scrambled back up the ladder and tried the phone again. NO SERVICE. She paced the length of the loft, even leaned way out the window and held the phone over her head. NO SERVICE NO SERVICE NO SERVICE.

But Maxwell had promised her he'd called about Bernadette. She thought back to her last glimpse through the rearview mirror of the black-haired girl lying on her side, her eyes closed, unmoving, and understood, with a sick heavy feeling, that Maxwell had lied, that he had either killed Bernadette or left her there to die of exposure. Then she recalled Maxwell's cryptic words when he'd emerged from old Bill's trailer in Big Sur:
I happen to know the old man just gave up smoking.

I bet he did, thought Irene. And Barbara? Had Maxwell lied about Barbara? Had he somehow finished her off as well? With a moan, Irene dropped to her knees and began vomiting up what little remained in her stomach of the fine country breakfast Miss Miller had cooked for her five hours earlier.

F
EELING UNCOMFORTABLE ABOUT
leaving Irene and Miss Miller alone at the ranch, even locked in their rooms, Maxwell hurried through his errands in town. It was Useless who refilled Miss Miller's prescriptions and purchased a bottle of Lady Clairol Strawberry Blonds Forever at the Old Umpqua Pharmacy, spent two hundred dollars of Donna Hughes's remaining mad money at CostCo to replenish food stocks depleted by his long absence, and stopped into the Old Umpqua Feed Barn at the outskirts of town. But it was Christopher who left the feed store with chicken pellets, supplements, dog treats, and four fifty-pound bags of dog chow— the familiar surroundings, the sweet smell of hay and alfalfa, the dusty, particulate light streaming in from the high windows, had triggered an alter switch.

With the Grand Cherokee loaded to the gunwales, the drive back to Scorned Ridge via the hairpin twists and cutback turns of Charbonneau Road took nearly an hour, but Christopher enjoyed it immensely. After his long session this morning, and a short rest in the darkness, he was feeling astonishingly well—vital, recharged. It was true what Ish's books in the loft said about the cathartic effect of talking out your innermost sorrows.

It had been the first time he'd ever discussed Mary with anyone but the unsympathetic Miss Miller, and although according to the books it was far too early to expect a complete healing, nonetheless he was starting to feel as if the worst was behind him. After all, what did the books know about the resources and capabilities of a state-of-the-art multiple?

But even a fully conscious, next-generation multiple couldn't
have done it on his own. Christopher understood that he had Irene to thank for his newfound peace—he realized suddenly that he was in the process of falling head over heels in love with his shrink.

And although he knew what the books would say— transference—he had to remind himself once again that the singles who wrote those books didn't understand what it was like to be a multiple. Falling in love was Christopher's function. It strengthened the system, it vitalized the body.

It also pissed off Max no end—but that was Max's problem. He should have seen this coming—and the fact that he had not indicated to Christopher that Max's control might be weakening, that his long tyrannical reign over the system might at last be coming to an end.

Christopher drove the Cherokee into the cool green darkness of the sally port and closed the gate behind him. The dogs came out to greet him; he roughhoused with them for a few minutes and gave each of them a rawhide chew, then unloaded the dog chow before unlocking the inner gate and driving the Cherokee on through.

After unloading the groceries at the house and stripping off the scraggly gray wig he always wore into town, Christopher drove on to the barn to park the Cherokee, then hurried back up to the house. On his way out of the barn, he noticed a sour smell he hadn't picked up before—probably a dead rodent—but was in too much of a hurry to see his new beloved to look for its origin just yet.

Now that he knew he loved her, he couldn't wait to see Irene. He took the stairs two at a time, pretending not to hear Miss Miller calling to him from her room, and knocked at Irene's door. No answer. He knocked louder, then turned his key in the lock and silently opened the door.

She wasn't there. A quick moment of panic, a glance at the narrow window—then he heard the shower running. He tiptoed into the bathroom and saw her slender body silhouetted through the opaque shower curtain. His erection pressed against his trousers— it took an effort of pure willpower to back out of the room again. After all, he had guaranteed her privacy. And forty-eight hours in the darkness was far too long a time for Christopher to be separated from his beloved.

* * *

As Irene, exhausted emotionally from her discovery in the loft and physically from the desperate climb back up to the bedroom, turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, she heard Maxwell calling to her from the hallway.

“Be right there,” she yelled back as she wrapped one towel around her, and a second around her hair. On her way across the bedroom she glanced around to be sure that everything was in order—window closed, sheets and blankets back on the bed— before opening the door.

“I brought you a present,” said Maxwell, stepping past her into the room. He handed her the Strawberry Blonds Forever. “Until your natural color grows out.”

Irene's mind spun trying to work through the permutations of meaning in the gesture—was he readying her for a sacrifice? A love affair? But all other thoughts were driven from her head by Christopher's next statement:

“I see you've been a naughty girl.”

She blanched, turned away, struggled for control of her voice. “What . . . what do you mean?”

He gestured toward the writing table by the window. “Your lunch—you haven't touched it.”

T
HE BIG BALD MAN IN
the natty, western-style sport coat with embroidered yokes fore and aft, stiff new boot-cut Wrangler jeans, and shiny, silver-toed Tony Lama boots tipped his new white Stetson to the stewardess as he stepped off the commuter jet in Eugene, Oregon.

Pender's new look was not intended as a disguise. He was counting on the probability that the FBI would not embarrass itself by issuing a BOLO for one of its own agents. But as Alvin Ralphs had pointed out, a man with a brand new El Patron had certain standards to live up to—why not let somebody else be the worstdressed agent in the FBI for a change?

On his way out of the store, Pender had revisited his transformed reflection in the window—he now stood nearly six-ten from the soles of his new boots to the tip of his high-crowned hat.

“I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy,” he'd said to himself sotto voce. The new height took a little getting used to, though— he knocked his hat off going through the terminal doors.

Pender had used his own credit card for the flight. Arriving in Eugene late Monday afternoon, after the weekend car rentals had been returned and washed, Pender had his pick of the fleet. Again using his own credit card, he selected a sporty-looking Dodge Intrepid with barely enough leg room for him and clearance for his new hat, purchased a set of maps, and set off for Umpqua County.

It was full dark by the time he reached the county seat. Founded during the gold rush of the 1850s, Umpqua City, a mining town until the gold was gone, a logging town until the forests were decimated, was now struggling to reestablish itself as a tourist destination.
Pender booked a room at the Old Umpqua Hotel, a threestory yellow brick establishment across the street from the Umpqua County Courthouse, and catty-corner from the Old Umpqua Pharmacy. After a long shower, he treated himself to a salmon dinner in the hotel's Umpqua Room—wood-paneled walls, white tablecloths, and waiters wearing sleeve garters.

When he got back to his room, Pender turned off his cell phone and sky pager before climbing into bed. For anyone else it might not have been that big a deal, but for Pender, it meant that for the first time in over a quarter of a century, he was beyond the reach of the bureau.

I
RENE DINED ALONE,
locked in her room again that night. Christopher would have preferred to eat with her, but he knew better than anyone how dangerous it could be to ignore Miss Miller for too long. This way when Miss M complained about being locked in her bedroom all afternoon, he could at least point out that Irene was still locked in hers.

There was, however, zero chance of Miss M receiving a visit from Peter that evening. Christopher had other plans for the body. After dinner he and Miss Miller did the washing up together, visited Freddie Mercury and his flock, and sat together on the front porch watching the sun set behind Horned Ridge, the two-pronged peak to the west.

But when that sun was gone, so was Christopher. Irene was sitting at the writing table composing a second haiku when she heard the knock. She glanced quickly over her poem—

Sunset on Scorned Ridge
Strawberry Blonds Forever
I don't want to die.

—then closed her notebook and slipped it under the top of the escritoire.

“Yes?”

“It's Christopher—may I come in?”

“Can it wait till morning?”

He hadn't expected that. “I just wanted to say good night.”

Irene decided she might as well test him now as later. “Good night, then.”

“I want to come in.”

“Christopher, we have a contract. You've agreed to respect my rights. As I'm sure you're aware, DID therapy can be as exhausting for the therapist as for the patient. I'd really appreciate a little space tonight—then I'll see you in the morning, fresh and rested and ready to go.”

On the other side of the door, Christopher was in a quandary. He felt a nearly overwhelming desire to let Max or one of the others have her—as long as it wasn't Lyssy, at least he'd be able to access the memory. Then he realized that the urging was probably
coming
from Max.

Irene put her ear to the door—she could hear him breathing. “Good night, Christopher,” she said, trying to put a kindly, caring inflection on it.

“Good night, Irene.” Then, in a whisper: “I'll see you in my dreams.”

Miss Miller is half asleep. Her bedroom door opens, then closes again softly. “Ulysses?” She stirs from her junkie nod as he climbs into bed beside her.

“Sshh.” Christopher, as opposed to Max or Peter, hasn't made love to Miss Miller since he was a boy, but Irene has left him no choice—for Christopher, the drying shed is no longer an attractive option.

Miss M is lying on her back. He can see too much of what's left of her unmasked profile; his erection is rapidly dwindling. Hastily he shuts his eyes, nudges her over onto her side, facing away from him, and works her nightgown up to her shoulder blades. Her back is unscarred—as he traces a line down her spine and fondles her cheeks, he can just about persuade himself that it is Irene's long, slender ass he's fondling. The erection stirs again. Rather than break the spell by attempting to enter her from behind, he flips it up, trapping it between his belly and her butt, and begins rubbing himself frantically against her.

“Oh, Ulysses,” she drawls coquettishly. She's mildly aroused, drugged out, and amused. “Just like the old days.” She means the frotteurism.

“Sshh.” He hushes her again—that voice will spoil everything— and shuts his eyes even tighter, as if that will shut out the voice. “Don't talk. Please don't talk.”

Now the room is silent except for the silky, rhythmic whisper of
the sheets. Five minutes, ten minutes—
wshhh, wshhh, wshhh, wshhh
. Then a moan, and it's over.