A rational woman would not go to the office of a crazy man who owned a gun, she thought as she put on her coat. A rational woman would at least take someone with her, or possibly even ask the police to accompany her. A rational woman would care what happened to herself. Sarah no longer fit that description.
Palmiento’s house was set a distance from its neighbors in a wooded section of McLean. The house was dark, except for the windows of a small room attached to the garage. His office, she supposed.
Wrapping her light jacket around her body, she walked up the drive and knocked on the office door. In a moment, Dr. Palmiento let her in.
“Let me take your jacket,” he said. He looked different somehow. The craziness in his eyes had spilled over into the rest of his face. The kind, fatherly visage was entirely gone, and she shuddered at the sight of him.
“I’ll keep it on.” She did not plan to be there long.
They were in a waiting room, tastefully decorated with expensive furnishings.
“Come into my office,” he said.
She followed him into the adjacent room, startled to find Gilbert sitting in a leather wing chair next to a massive desk. He stood when she entered, looking equally surprised at seeing her there.
“What is she doing here?” His voice was accusatory, and Sarah wondered what she’d stumbled into.
“I invited Mrs. Tolley here to determine the exact depth of your betrayal,” Palmiento said to Gilbert. He sat down behind the desk. “Have a seat, Mrs. Tolley.”
“I don’t need to sit,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you said you had news about Joe. If you do, I’d like to hear it. If you don’t, I’m leaving.”
“Go, Sarah.” Gilbert moved toward her. “He doesn’t have anything to tell you about Joe.” He turned to Palmiento, his face blotched with red. “There’s no reason to bring her into this,” he said. “It’s between you and me.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes at Palmiento. “Do you have something to tell me about Joe?” she asked.
“Nothing.” Palmiento actually smiled.
“God, I loathe you.” She turned on her heel to leave.
“And what about Janie?” Dr. P.’s voice was calm, and Sarah stopped walking, her heart tight in her chest. Drawing in a deep breath for courage, she marched boldly over to his chair and leaned close to him.
“What about her?” she asked. Please God, don’t tell me they found her.
“I am aware that you spirited her away. What I’m not sure about is if Gilbert suggested you do so. Did he?”
Uncertain what was truly going on in this room, Sarah didn’t know how to answer. “I’d…I’d heard about Colleen Price’s little boy,” she stammered, “and I—”
“Leave her out of this, Peter,” Gilbert said. His hands gripped the back of the chair he’d been sitting in. His knuckles were white. “Yes, I told her she should take measures to keep her daughter safe. And I’m glad she did. You—both of us—have put Sarah through more hell than anyone deserves.”
“You son of a bitch.” Palmiento slowly stood up from his seat behind the desk, and Sarah, still close enough to touch him, took a step away. “I trusted you,” he said to Gilbert. “I let you in on—”
“And that’s sacred,” Gilbert hurried to say. “The research is sacred. But you’ve gone to extremes to protect it, Peter.” He moved slowly toward the older man. “Peter, you need help,” he said quietly. “I know—”
“Don’t come any closer.” Palmiento was reaching into one of his desk drawers, and Sarah gasped when she saw him tighten his fingers around the handle of a gun. She should run. Escape. But her feet were frozen to the floor.
“You betrayed me,” Palmiento said. He lifted the gun and aimed it at Gilbert, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Instinctively, Sarah hit his arm in an attempt to make the shot go wild. The blast was so loud it hurt her ears, and the bullet caught Gilbert in the shoulder. He howled in pain as Sarah pushed past him. She ran through the waiting room, out the door and down the driveway to her car. As she pulled out of the driveway, there was one single prayer on her lips: Dear God, don’t let what I just did put Janie in danger again.
Sarah spent the entire evening sitting in the cramped living room of her apartment, staring at the phone and trembling. She was thinking about calling the police, telling them what had happened. But then she would have to explain about Janie’s disappearance. Surely she’d have to say where she’d taken her. And what if Palmiento somehow had the cops in his back pocket, where he seemed to have the board of psychiatry and the FBI and everyone else in authority? She stared at the phone until two in the morning, when her trembling had finally subsided enough for her to go to bed.
Her dreams that night, and for many nights to come, were full of Dr. Palmiento or Gilbert, but she never heard from either of them again. Nor did she hear from Ann. But there was never a day that her thoughts didn’t light on her daughter, and she knew she had done the right thing in protecting Janie from the madmen of Saint Margaret’s.
“We need to leave,” Laura said abruptly. They were sitting in Sarah’s living room, the walk having been completed before the end of Sarah’s tale, and Laura was anxious to get out of there. Dizziness washed over her, and the room was a blur when she stood up. “Dylan, can we go please?”
Dylan looked surprised by the urgency in her voice. He turned to Sarah. “Is there anything we can do for you before we leave?” he asked.
He was a kind man, but just then Laura wished he were less so. She was relieved when Sarah shook her head and stood up to walk them to the door.
Once outside the retirement home, Dylan put his arm around her. “I know,” he said. “It’s got to be really upsetting to hear her talk about Janie without realizing that Janie’s right in front of her.”
“That’s not it,” Laura said, the vertigo still teasing her. “I can’t even explain what it is.”
He looked concerned. “Do you want me to drive?” he asked.
She nodded. She didn’t trust herself behind the wheel.
They were on the main road before she felt able to voice her fear. “I know this sounds crazy,” she said, “but I have a terrible feeling that Ray was Gilbert.”
“What?” Dylan laughed. “That’s beyond crazy, girl. Why would you think that?”
“Ray had a scar from a gunshot wound on his shoulder,” she said. She could picture the scar perfectly, the round and ragged protrusion of skin. “He’d always told me he’d been shot in Korea.”
“More than one person has been shot in the shoulder,” Dylan said.
“Ray’s first name was Gilbert. He never used it. At least, I didn’t think he did. And it’s an unusual name, you have to admit.”
“Not that unusual.”
“There’s something else, though,” she said. “Ray always used the expression that someone—me, most of the time—was throwing themselves off the deep end, headfirst. He’d say that whenever I was getting involved in a new project.”
“So?” There was a crease between Dylan’s eyebrows.
“One time Sarah said that Gilbert used that same expression.”
“It’s a very common expression, Laura.” He sounded overly patient, as if he were explaining something to a child.
“Most people say ‘jump’ off the deep end. Not throw themselves. And not add that bit about headfirst. It reminded me of Ray when she said it, but I didn’t think much about it until now.”
“Do you honestly think Sarah is repeating what Gilbert said verbatim?”
“I don’t know.” She was frustrated by his attempts to minimize her fear. “All I know is, I’m feeling very uncomfortable about this whole thing.”
Dylan reached over to take her hand. “I know this has been hard on you, Laura, but I really think you’re looking for trouble where there isn’t any. Ray was far too young to have been Gilbert, wasn’t he?”
“He was already twenty-one when I was born,” she
said. “And Gilbert was very young when he worked at Saint Margaret’s. Young enough to have acne, Sarah once said. And Ray had acne when he was in his teens.”
“So did lots of teenagers,” Dylan said. “So did I, for that matter.”
She glanced at his smooth cheek. “Liar,” she said.
He shrugged. “One or two zits, anyhow.” He smiled at her. “I just don’t like to see you getting so worked up over this,” he said.
“Sarah said he was a psychology student, though,” Laura pondered out loud. “That doesn’t fit, I have to admit. Ray’s degrees were in sociology.”
“Something else that doesn’t fit is the book he wrote,” Dylan said. “Does Gilbert sound like the kind of guy who would have that much concern for the homeless and mentally ill?”
“Well, you’re right about that,” she admitted. “I can’t see Ray, of all people, performing torturous experiments on psychiatric patients. But still…” Her voice trailed off. She could not shake her uneasiness.
“I think you’re catastrophizing,” Dylan said. “Don’t you think it would be a rather major coincidence that Gilbert wound up married to the daughter he forced Sarah Tolley to give away?”
Laura laughed. He was right. Her thinking was ludicrous.
Yet the disquieting feeling in her gut was still there hours later, after they’d eaten dinner and were playing fish with Emma.
When they’d finished playing, Laura gave Emma a bath and Dylan volunteered to read her a story in bed. Glad for the time to herself, Laura went into the guest room and began digging through the boxes in the closet until she found Ray’s old school records. Sitting on the floor of the closet, she studied the records closely. Once again, she was enveloped by the sick feeling that had nearly overcome her in Sarah’s apartment.
She met Dylan in the hallway as he was closing the door to Emma’s room.
“He was a psychology student,” she said, holding the records in front of him.
“Who was?” Dylan glanced down at the papers in her hand. “Ray?”
“He was a psych major in the late fifties at Catholic University. He eventually dropped out. I didn’t know anything about it. He went back to school four years later as a sociology major.”
“Laura.” Dylan tried to pull her into his arms. “I still think—”
She drew away from him. “I’m calling Stuart,” she said. “I have to know.”
She called from the phone in her bedroom while Dylan sat behind her on the bed, rubbing her back. Stuart was on the road, but she managed to reach him in a hotel room in Philadelphia.
“Is something wrong?” Stuart asked. She’d never before called him while he was traveling, and he sounded concerned. “Is Emma all right?”
“I need you to tell me something, Stu,” she said. “Did Ray ever work at Saint Margaret’s Psychiatric Hospital?”
Stuart was quiet long enough to let her know the answer.
“Oh, Stuart.” She pressed her hand to her forehead, and Dylan tightened his fingers on her shoulders. “I want you to tell me I’m wrong,” she said.
She heard him expel his breath. “I’ll come to Virginia tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll talk about it then, all right?”
“He went by Gilbert there.”
“Yes.”
“But how—”
“Tomorrow, Laura. I’ll be there before lunch.”
45
“WAIT FOR ME, EMMA.” DYLAN QUICKENED HIS PACE ON THE lakeside path. Emma had darted out ahead of him in her race to get to the playground, and he’d lost sight of her as she turned the bend in the trail.
He caught up to her as she was climbing onto a swing.
“Do you want me to push you, or shall I just swing next to you?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, but she pumped hard, rising high into the air, her dark hair flying out behind her. Taking a seat on the swing next to hers, he began pumping himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a swing. It was dizzying.
He’d come to the lake house half an hour ago, arriving the same time as Stuart, who looked as if he’d aged two years since Dylan last saw him. Pale and subdued, Stuart said he wanted to talk to Laura alone, and Dylan volunteered to take Emma to the playground. Better to spend time with his daughter than to hear whatever ol’ Stu had to say. If only Laura didn’t have to hear it, either. She’d been so upset the night before. He hadn’t been able to stay with her, since he’d had an early balloon flight this morning, and he’d hated leaving her alone in the shape she was in.
He was still swinging, light-headed from the motion, when Emma slid off her own swing and ran over to the merry-go-round. For a few minutes, he watched as she pushed the large wooden disk to start it whirling, then hopped on for the ride. He walked over and began pushing it for her, making it spin so quickly it blurred in front of his eyes. Emma loved it. Standing on the outer edge of the platform, she held on to the rail with one hand, her other arm outstretched as if she were flying. He could hear her making jet engine sounds deep in her throat.
Although Emma seemed happy to fly in a circle forever, Dylan’s arms grew tired after a while, and he sat on a nearby tree stump to watch her flight gradually come to an end.
“You like to fly, huh?” he said when the ride was over.
Emma nodded. She flopped down on the platform, looking a bit dizzy herself.
“You okay?” he asked.
She smiled at him. She had the cutest smile in the world.
“Can I tell you something about when I was a pilot?” he asked.
Emma didn’t respond, but she was watching him.
“One time I was supposed to fly a plane across the country,” he said. “But I got sick and couldn’t fly. The pilot who took my place had too much to drink. He was drunk. Do you know what that means?” It was not the exact truth. Alcohol was not all that had been found in the pilot’s body, but it would have to do.
Emma didn’t nod, but he was certain she understood.
“Anyhow, that pilot flew the plane I was supposed to fly, and it crashed. A lot of people were killed.”
There was a frown on Emma’s face.
“That’s right,” Dylan said. “It was terrible. And you know what? For a long time I thought it was my fault. If I hadn’t gotten sick, or if I’d flown the plane even though I was sick, it never would have crashed and all those people would have been okay. But after a while I realized that the crash wasn’t my fault at all. It was the other pilot’s fault. I had nothing to do with it. Just like you had nothing to do with your father’s death.”
Emma had been watching him intently, but now she lowered her gaze quickly to the floor of the merry-go-round.
“Your father had grown-up problems that caused him to take his life.” Dylan wondered what Heather would have to say about his direct approach. “It had nothing to do with you or with Mom. Nothing to do with how much you talked or anything else.”
Emma stood up and hopped off the merry-go-round. She ran over to the cluster of huge, colorful plastic tubes and plowed headfirst into one of them. Dylan sighed at his failure, looking up at the canopy of trees above him. Many of the leaves had already changed to gold and orange. When had that happened?
He glanced toward the plastic tubes. Emma was deep inside them, nowhere to be seen. She’d found the one place on the playground where she could be alone and not have to listen to anything else he might say.
46
“HE’D ALWAYS SUFFERED FROM BOUTS OF DEPRESSION,” Stuart said, circling the spoon in his glass of lemonade. “But I guess you knew that.”
“Of course.” In spite of the fact that Laura was angry at Stuart for withholding the truth from her, she was worried about him. In the sunlight coming through the porch screens, Stuart’s eyes were rimmed by dark circles, as if he hadn’t slept for a week.
“Even when we were kids, he’d talk about wanting to die,” Stuart said. “But then he’d pull out of it for a while. As he got older, he became fascinat
ed with the process going on inside his head and decided he wanted to be a psychologist.”
“I never knew that.”
“No. He never spoke of it, and you’ll understand why in a minute.” Pulling the spoon from his lemonade, he studied his reflection in its concave surface. “He got a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Catholic, and then entered the doctoral program.” He lowered the spoon back into his drink. “At the same time, he was very patriotic.”
“Ray?” Laura found that hard to believe.
“You have to understand the times, Laura. It was a terribly frightening period. We thought we were under threat, literally waiting for the bomb to drop. The government was convinced that mind control was possible and that our enemies knew how to achieve it. Ray saw a way to help. He’d learned somehow about Peter Palmiento’s experimentation, and he’d heard about a type of research taking place in Montreal called psychic driving—”
“The helmets and the tapes,” Laura said.
“Exactly,” Stuart said. “Ray discussed his plan to use psychic driving in the development of mind control to Palmiento, who was fascinated with the idea and curious to find out what the results would be. So, he hired Ray to develop the Psychic Driving Program at the hospital.”
“I can’t believe Ray would subject people to that sort of thing. It sounds so cruel.”
“It does now, at the turn of the century, but forty or fifty years ago it sounded like a way to alter people’s thoughts and behavior, something they were desperate to learn how to do.”
“But he was experimenting on human beings,” Laura protested.
“Ray came to regret that, Laura, trust me. But it’s hard to describe how thrilled he was at being a part of Palmiento’s work at the time. He’d found a way to help his country. He couldn’t tell anyone, though, except me, and he swore me to secrecy. I don’t think he told another soul.”
He looked at his sister-in-law and must have seen the revulsion in her face.