I heard heels running down the hall, then Mom’s voice, but I checked out.
One, two, three…
When I opened my eyes, Mom and Aunt Val were at the window with their backs to me, talking low.
“Mark was driving me to get my lab tests and we saw the crowd. She was just lying there….” My aunt shook her head. “I had to fight to get close to her. The press was there in minutes, must have followed the ambulance. Just look at them all out there now.”
Mom said, “What did you tell them?”
“The press? I didn’t tell them anything, I was more concerned about Annie, but Mark may have answered a few questions.”
“Mark?” Mom sighed. “Val, you have to be careful what you say to those people. You never know how—”
I cleared my throat and they turned to look at me. I started crying.
Mom rushed over and put her arms around me. I sobbed into her shoulder.
“I was so scared, Mom, so scared.”
By the time the doctor came back I’d calmed down. It helped to find out I didn’t have any broken bones but did have assorted bruises, cuts, and scrapes, not to mention a killer headache. I’d gone into shock from a combination of pain and terror. No shit.
Their main concern was possible head injury from the blow to my temple, so they wanted to keep me overnight. The Crisis Response Team also wanted to assess me again in the morning. Through the night a nurse came in every couple of hours to wake me in case of concussion, but I was usually up anyway, tensing every time footsteps came down the hall, jerking at every loud noise. Sometimes I just stared at Mom’s tiny sleeping form on the cot beside me and counted her breaths.
My last stint in the hospital taught me being difficult just earned you a longer stay, so I played along when the Crisis Response Team came in to assess my emotional stability the next morning. They mostly wanted to know what kind of support system I had waiting for me when I got out. I told them I was seeing a shrink regularly and they gave me some crisis hotline phone numbers and a list of support groups.
They decided I was stable enough to talk to the cops, so I filled them in as best as I could—no, I didn’t see his face, no, I didn’t get a license plate, no, I don’t know why the fuck some asshole tried to grab me.
I’d thought they would set up some around-the-clock stake-outs, but the most they could promise was some drive-bys and a special alarm installed to ring direct to the station. They reminded me to take my cell phone everywhere, avoid parked vans—no shit!—and to be “aware of your surroundings” but try and keep living my life while they conducted their investigation. What life? This shit is my life.
The doctors said I was okay to go but should have someone keep an eye on me for the next twenty-four hours. Mom insisted I come home with her and I was still so freaked out, not to mention stiff and sore, I jumped at the idea. Mom spent the day watching TV on the couch with me, bringing me ice for my bruises and countless cups of tea. I didn’t mind her fussing.
Later Uncle Mark brought Emma over and Mom even let her inside the house, telling her to “guard Annie.” And guard she did. Even though Uncle Mark had kept her for the last day, she was skittish with him, barked at every noise, and talked trash to Mom whenever she came in the room. Wayne just stayed clear to give her time to settle down.
That night Mom slept in my bed with me just like when I was a kid, but she was the only one getting any rest. Hours later, when I still couldn’t sleep, I crept to the hall closet with my cell in hand and Emma following close behind. Gary, the one cop I really wanted to talk to, was the only one who didn’t show up the morning the guy grabbed me, or the next day. I’d asked for him in the hospital, but they said he was out of town again. Back in the closet, I tried to call him but his cell phone went straight to voice mail.
My body aching, I curled up in the closet, but this time I still didn’t feel safe and all I could think was, Am I ever going to feel safe again? Eventually I fell asleep, the image of the white van chasing me into my nightmares.
When I first got home I often went into the cop shop in Clayton Falls to look through mug shots, but after months of examining photos of bad guys and never finding The Freak, I just got too discouraged. The cops’ photo of The Freak has been all over the TV and papers, even on an RCMP Web site for unidentified bodies, but to me it just looks like a picture of a dead guy. Shit, even if it did look like him, The Freak was just too damn good at being invisible.
They know the cabin and surrounding property were bought and paid for in cash a couple of months before I was taken, but there’s no evidence the guy who bought it exists—no credit card info, driver’s license, or anything. The Freak must have had fake ID. He even set up a bank account under the fake name so property taxes could be paid, but nobody at the bank remembers him either.
The original owner never met the buyer because it was a private sale handled through lawyers in Clayton Falls. Only one signature was needed and the lawyer must have had his head stuck up his ass because he can’t describe the buyer at all. His excuse is that he registered sixty titles that month, and I wondered if he even asked for ID.
Gary called me a couple of days after the guy grabbed me on the street—I was still at Mom’s—to tell me the alarm was now installed and he was sorry he hadn’t called sooner. He’d been working on a case in a fishing camp up north and only had radio access. We went over everything together, then he asked me about the damn photo again and when I told him it still hadn’t come to me, he just grunted and moved on. He said that because The Freak had stalked me they originally thought he might be local, but now he figured the guy could have been staying in a hotel and driving to Clayton Falls.
“I’ve spent every weekend for the last month showing a photo of the body to every hotel or motel in a one-hour radius,” Gary said. Clayton Falls is in the central part of the island, so that’s a lot of area he’s been covering.
“Why don’t you just fax the hotels? And how come you’re doing it? Don’t you have constables you can send?”
“First off, if I fax it, odds are it’ll just end up in the trash. Over the winter a lot of the staff gets laid off, but now that the tourist season is picking up, they’re coming back, and I want to talk to them in person. Second, I don’t send anyone else because most of them are working on active cases. I’m doing a lot of this on my own time, Annie.”
Impressed and feeling sheepish that I was sitting in front of the TV every night while he was out there pounding the pavement, I wondered if that’s why he wasn’t married.
“Guess your girlfriend must really hate me,” I said. He was quiet for a few beats, and as I felt my cheeks grow warm I was glad he couldn’t see my face.
“I know you got frustrated with the process before, but now with this second abduction attempt, I think you should come down to the station and look through some more photos.”
Still feeling like an idiot for my unanswered girlfriend question, I said, “So you think whoever grabbed me is connected to The Freak?”
“I think it’s important we consider all possibilities.”
“Meaning?”
“A couple of things about this case don’t fit the typical profile, like your photo, for one—we still need to consider how he got it and why he needed it when he had so many he’d taken himself. If you can identify a suspect for us, the rest will hopefully fall into place.”
I told him I’d do it the next day.
This one morning Gary came to visit me the first time I was in the hospital still stands out in my mind, Doc. He’d been out “in the field,” whatever that means, and he was wearing jeans and a black Windbreaker with the RCMP logo on it. He even had a baseball cap on. I asked him if all his suits were at the dry cleaner’s, but the truth is, I thought he looked tough. As much as I tease him about his fancy clothes, that guy has a serious don’t-fuck-with-me vibe.
I stayed over again at Mom’s last night, but after listening to her and Wayne fight all night—she’s
been drinking like a fish since my latest stay in the hospital—I had another nightmare about the white van, only this time the nightmare ended on a good note: a man was shielding me in his arms. When I woke up I realized the arms were Gary’s. I felt guilty as hell. I mean, here’s poor Luke who’s tried so hard and been so patient, and I’m having dreams about the cop who put him through hell.
Sometimes I wish Gary could go everywhere with me, like a bodyguard. Then I mentally kick my ass, because I know that no one can make me feel safe all the time. It’s funny, because I always thought I felt safe with Luke, but it was a different kind of safe—a calm, simple safe. Nothing about Gary feels simple.
After I got back to my house this morning, I did a perimeter patrol with Emma, jumping at every shadow, then checked the alarm a gazillion times. To distract myself I had another look at that brochure for the art school I told you about. It’s in the Rocky Mountains and so beautiful—like how I always imagined Harvard would look. I even downloaded some forms from their Web site. God knows why. Only damn thing I have left that I give a shit about is my house, and I may be crazy freaked out, but I’d have to be certifiable to sell it so I could pursue some adolescent dream. What if I tried, and I never got anywhere as an artist? Then what?
On that note, we better call this session quits, Doc. I still have to go down to the station on my way home to look through more photos. Least it’s a good excuse to call Gary tonight.
SESSION TWENTY-THREE
Sorry about calling you on such short notice for this session, Doc, but so much shit happened in the last couple of days, I couldn’t wait for our regular appointment to roll around.
After I left here last time I drove straight to the cop shop in Clayton Falls and spent an hour looking through photos. I was just about to quit because my back was killing me, and all the freaks were beginning to look the same, only one guy looked familiar but I remembered seeing his picture in the paper recently. Then I thought of Gary out there showing the sketch around and made myself keep going. I almost flipped past a picture of a guy with a shaved head and a full beard, but something about his guileless blue eyes, a contradiction to the rest of his face, made me look closer.
It was him.
My body broke out in a cold sweat and my vision blurred. To stop myself from passing out, I tore my gaze away and laid my forehead down on the table. Focusing in on my frantic heartbeat, I took a few deep breaths and chanted in step with the thuds, He’s dead…He’s dead…He’s dead. When my vision cleared up and my heartbeat had slowed, I faced his image.
I motioned for one of the cops to come over, and when I told him what I’d found, he called Gary on his cell. None of the photos had names, and the cops wouldn’t answer any of my questions, so I insisted on speaking to Gary.
“I don’t understand why nobody will tell me who he is—he has a record. I’ve spent hours looking through these fucking photos, the least you can do is give me his name.”
“It’s great you’ve identified a picture, Annie, but first we have to verify the information. I don’t want you getting all worked up over this and finding out it’s the wrong guy—”
“It’s him. I spent a whole year with him.”
“I don’t doubt you for a second, and I’ll call you as soon as I have the full story on him. Meanwhile, just go home and try to get some rest, all right? And I need you to make me a list of anyone you think might want to harm you.”
“There isn’t anyone, I already did one for my shrink, listed every damn person I know. The Freak must have had a friend who—”
“And that’s what I’m working on finding out. Now go home, send me the list you made, and we’ll talk soon.”
The next day I paced around my house waiting for Gary to call, which he didn’t, nor did he answer his cell. I killed a couple of hours cleaning, then, curious about the guy whose picture at the cop shop had looked familiar, I went through all my recycled newspapers, page by page. In the very last one I spotted a headline about the “recently released felon wanted in connection with a convenience store robbery” and took a closer look at the article. As soon as I read the name I knew who he was. Mom’s stepbrother. The date told me he’d been released a few weeks ago and I wondered if Mom knew, or if I should tell her. All afternoon I weighed the pros and cons of being the one to fill her in. By five I was like a squirrel on speed, so when my mom called and invited me over for pasta, I said yes.
Dinner wasn’t so bad, but when we finished eating and I was still debating whether to tell her the news about her stepbrother, Mom started talking about a little girl who just went missing in Calgary. I told her I didn’t want to hear it. She sailed on without skipping a beat about how the mother was pleading on TV for the daughter’s return, but Mom didn’t think she was handling the press right.
“She’s rude to them—if she wants help getting her daughter back she better lose the attitude.”
“Reporters can be pretty rough, Mom, you know that.”
“The press is the least of her problems right now—the police are questioning the father, apparently he had a girlfriend on the side. A pregnant girlfriend.”
“Mom, can we please drop it?”
She opened her mouth but before she could get going again, I blurted out, “I saw Dwight’s photo in the paper.”
She closed her mouth with a snap and stared at me.
“Your stepbrother? He’s been released, Mom, but he’s wanted for questioning in a robbery of a—”
“Did you want anything more to eat?” We held eyes for a moment.
“Sorry if I upset you, I just thought—”
“There’s more sauce?” Her face revealed no emotion, but her hand twisting the napkin told me to back off.
“No, I’m done. My stomach’s all messed up because I finally identified a photo at the cop shop today. Gary wouldn’t give me his name yet, but he’s looking into the guy’s history—he said he’d have more information for me soon.”
Mom paused for a second, nodded, then said, “Good. Maybe now you can put this behind you, Annie Bear.” She patted my hand. Wayne got up and headed outside for a smoke.
After he left I said, “Well, not quite yet. Gary thinks the guy could’ve had a partner, that’s who may have tried to grab me the other day.”
Mom frowned. “Why on earth would Gary try to scare you like that?”
“He’s not trying to scare me, it’s because of this one photo The Freak had of me. I just figured he’d taken it from my office or something, but Gary’s questioning why he’d want that one, you know? He even got me to fax him this list….” Shit. In my zeal to defend Gary I’d not only told Mom about the photo, I was about to spill my very own personal shit list.
“What list?”
“Just this dumb thing my shrink suggested I do—it’s nothing.”
“If it’s nothing, why did Gary want it? What was on the list?” Damn. She wasn’t going to let it go.
“Just a few people from my past who might have a grudge or whatever.”
“Like who?”
I sure as hell didn’t want to tell her I put everyone close to me on it, so I said, “Just some exes and a couple of old clients. Oh, and the ‘mystery’ Realtor I was competing against.”
“You mean Christina.”
“No, the Realtor I was competing against in the beginning.”
Her eyes narrowed. “She didn’t tell you?”
“Who didn’t tell me what?”
“I don’t want to stir up trouble.”
“Come on, Mom—what is it?”
“I suppose you should know.” She took a deep breath. “You remember my friend Carol? Well, her daughter Andrea works in your office and she’s friends with Christina’s assistant….”
“So?”
“So Christina was your competition for that project all along. She was the other Realtor.”
“No way. Christina would’ve told me. The developer just picked her because I was gone.”
 
; She shrugged. “I thought the same as you, but then Andrea said Christina’s assistant was working weekends to get the proposal done. She said she even saw some marketing Christina designed for the developer.”
I shook my head. “Christina would never screw me over like that. Friends are way more important than money to her.”
“Speaking of money, I heard her husband is having some financial problems. That house he bought her wasn’t cheap, but she sure doesn’t seem to be putting the brakes on her spending. He must be a very understanding man—Luke and her were awfully cozy while you were missing.”
“They were trying to find me, of course they spent time together. And Drew didn’t buy the house for her, they bought it together. So she likes a nice life, what’s wrong with that? Christina works hard for her money—”
“Why are you getting so defensive?”
“You just implied Christina and Luke were fooling around!”
“I never said any such thing—I was just telling you what I heard. She was at the restaurant night after night, a lot of times right until closing. Which reminds me, did you know things weren’t going so good for the restaurant before you went missing? Wayne was talking to the bartender down at the pub just the other day, he knows Luke’s head chef and he was saying there was even talk about the place maybe having to close, but then after you were missing he got all that news coverage and things picked right up. I guess something positive came out of all this.”
The chicken Alfredo I’d enjoyed now sat like a lump in the pit of my stomach.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
For a minute I thought I might be sick, but I ran some cold water on my hands, splashed my face with it, and leaned my forehead on the vanity mirror until the feeling passed. My hair was hot and sweaty on the back of my neck, so I rummaged around in the drawer and used a pink hair elastic to pull it back. When I got out of the bathroom Mom was pouring another drink.