A Bookmarked Death (20 page)
Read A Bookmarked Death Online
Authors: Judi Culbertson
I
T
’
S
TIME
,
AS
they say, to round up the usual suspects:
Chelsey Emmelhainz, my amazing editor, who can coax cardboard into living, breathing characters.
Agnes Birnbaum, my tireless agent who, if life were a boxing match, would be always in my corner offering support, wise counsel, and Band-Aids.
Andrea Hackett, my publicist, who works tirelessly finding ways to tell the world about my books.
Eleanor Mikucki, my copy editor, whose eagle eye saved me from much embarrassment.
My trusted first readers who work hard to make my books what they should be: Tom Randall, accomplished husband; Robin Culbertson, insightful daughter-in-law; and Adele Glimm, dear friend and writer herself.
Some new faces: Ellen Stein and Tom McVetty, retired Nassau County detectives, who kept the police activities on track; Toby Speed, expert pilot, friend, and author of
Death Over Easy
, who vetted the helicopter information; Andy Rich, financial planner and mystery aficionado and fount of great ideas. Linda Levering, Pam Crum, and Eleanor Hyde for their ceaseless support, and Liz Randall and her Retired Teachers’ Book Club. Also the Setauket Meadows Book Club, who served Yellow Tail Chardonnay at their reception because it was what Delhi liked to drink. And my New York City Writers Group, always.
Finally, the stellar family of writers and agents I am fortunate enough to spring from: Tom Randall and Andy Culbertson; John Chaffee and Heide Lange; Jessie Chaffee, Brendan Kiely, and Joshua Chaffee; David Chaffee and Deborah Hess.
Andrew, Emily, Charlotte, and Regan, you have a tradition to step into.
Not ready to stop sleuthing with Delhi Laine?
Read on for an excerpt from Judi Culbertson’s
Now available from Witness Impulse
An Excerpt from
A Photographic Death
Nineteen years ago, Delhi Laine’s two-year old daughter disappeared. After a frantic but inconclusive search, authorities determined that she must have drowned, her body washed away from the picturesque English park in which she was playing.
Delhi’s heart has never healed, yet her family has since soldiered on. But when a mysterious letter arrives containing the ominous words, YOUR DAUGHTER DID NOT DROWN, their lives are once again thrown into turmoil. With her family torn between fighting for the past and protecting the future, Delhi is caught in the middle. For a mother, the choice to find her daughter seems easy. But for a family left fractured by the mistakes of the past, the consequence, and the truth, may be infinitely more costly.
“A
RE
YOU
COMFORTABLE
, Jane?”
Karl Lundy looks at my daughter with the smile of a chef about to garnish his favorite piglet. It makes me want to grab her wrist and head for the door.
Yet Jane looks comfortable enough, her hair golden against the navy worsted fabric of the chair, her mouth slightly open in anticipation. Dr. Lundy seems excited too. His gray eyes keep blinking behind gold-rimmed glasses. His hand plays with a paperweight on his desk, a rose trapped under glass.
When I approached him last week and told him what we wanted, he explained that he rarely did one-offs, that he hypnotized people over the course of months for therapeutic reasons. But he didn’t refuse. Jane must be an interesting change from people trying to stop smoking or lose forty pounds.
“You need to understand that hypnosis is serious business, Ms. Laine.”
“Call me Delhi. And I’m happy to hear you say that.”
Yet I’m still uneasy, shunted off to one side on a straight chair like a husband in a dress shop. Is it too late to say we have another appointment and walk out? What if Jane is about to be traumatized for life? Whatever we learn is going be a shock, I know that. We will find out either that my youngest daughter, Caitlin, may still be alive, or that Jane stood on the riverbank and watched her drown nineteen years ago.
The lady or the tiger. Dear God, don’t let it be the tiger crouching behind the unopened door.
Restless, I search the room for clues as to what’s going to happen, but it is a typical doctor’s office that gives nothing away. The vanilla scent is meant to be calming, as are the paintings on the walls—country scenes of red barns and golden haystacks, mountains reflected in turquoise lakes. I wonder if someone Dr. Lundy knows painted them. The bookcases hold the kind of academic volumes that I, as a book dealer, have little interest in. I would not rescue
them
in case of fire.
“Jane, I’m going to put you in the light trance I told you about, and we’ll gradually regress you to the age of four. You’ll be back in the park in England on the last day you visited there.” He looks to me for confirmation and I nod. “Is there anything else you’d like to work on in your life?”
She laughs. “You mean like getting up early and going to the gym every day? Or not spending so much time in clubs?”
“Any area of your life you’d like to improve.”
“You can tell me not to buy any more expensive purses and shoes. Seriously,” she adds, seeing his expression.
“All right. Now sit back and get as comfortable as possible.”
Dr. Lundy has been standing behind his desk all this time. Now he moves to the chair on Jane’s left. They can glance at each other, but don’t have to. He is as bland and comforting as the vanilla cookie scent of his office, from his gray-and-sky-blue argyle sweater to his solid gold wedding ring. His soft Midwestern voice reminds me of Garrison Keillor telling a story.
In the pre-hypnosis interview, he gave me the facts meant to reassure me: That Jane would not be unconscious or asleep. She would be alert and attentive, able to bring material from the past into awareness. He promised he would not cross-examine her or make any suggestions he knew would be contrary to her wishes. If she became uncomfortable, she could raise her index finger and he would move away from what was upsetting her. He managed to make hypnosis sound as interesting as watching water boil.
It was what an apprehensive mother needed to hear.
“Do you want me to close my eyes?” Jane asks.
“If that makes you feel relaxed, certainly.”
“Okay.” She does, pressing deeper into the chair.
“You’re becoming very relaxed,” Dr. Lundy drones. “When you’re completely relaxed, your right arm will feel as light as air. The lightness will start in the fingers and spread up through your wrist toward your elbow. The arm will become so light that it will lift into the air on its own.”
Oh, sure
, I think. And for two or three minutes nothing happens. But then her arm eerily starts to rise, the gold bracelet sliding back against the cuff of her sweater. My stomach jumps. What have I gotten us into?
Her arm floats in space until Dr. Lundy says, “As you go deeper and deeper, your arm will gradually lower back to the chair rest. When that happens you will be fully in a trance state, ready to explore the things that have happened to you in the past.”
He continues to make the same suggestions, stating them in slightly different ways. My own lids start to droop and I have to fight not to sink into the past with Jane. Both she and my other daughter, Hannah, have the ability to close their eyes and be immediately asleep, napping until a change in the atmosphere startles them. I used to be the same way.
Then I am jerked awake, as surely as if Dr. Lundy had slapped me. Before my eyes, Jane is turning into a little girl. It’s in the way she twists in the chair, mouth slightly open in wonder. Her eyes are open now too, but they are not seeing the room we are in.
“Where are you now, Jane?” Dr. Lundy wants to know. “Are you in the park?”
“In the park,” she confirms. “We brought bread to feed the ducks. They ate all of it!”
“Who is in the park with you?”
“Mommy. And the twins. And the new baby. But we can’t see her yet.”
Dr. Lundy tenses. “Why not?”
“She’s still in Mommy’s tummy.” None of us knew then that the baby would turn out to be Jason.
Dr. Lundy smiles sheepishly, gets Jane to tell him where everyone is in the park, then summarizes for her: “So your sister Hannah is asleep and Mommy is taking photos of people in boats on the river, and you and Cate are playing. What happens next?”
“That lady comes.”
What lady?
I don’t just tense, I pull back in the chair, galvanized, electricity running haywire through my body. I actually lean toward Jane before I remember that I am forbidden to interfere.
“Jane, I want you to look at this lady and tell me about her. What kind of clothes does she have on?”
“Her nurse clothes. She always wears her nurse clothes.”
What could she be talking about? Jane sounds as if she is used to seeing this woman in the park—how could I not have seen her, not even once?
“Does she have on a white dress like a nurse?” He waits for her to nod. “What color are her shoes?”
“Her shoes, her shoes.” She actually seems to be looking down at someone’s feet. “Her shoes are brown like Daddy’s shoes. But she has on these funny stockings. With bumps.”
“Is she as old as Mommy?”
No answer.
As old as Grandma?
I want to demand.
What kind of funny stockings?
My hands are gripping the metal seat edge as if I am high on a ski lift with no restraints around me. He’s not asking her the right questions! I lift an urgent hand to catch his eye, but he is focused on Jane.
The smell of vanilla in the room is making me nauseous.
“Is the lady talking to you?”
“She says—she says, ‘Go pick that yellow flower for me and I’ll give you a toy from the carriage.’ ”
So the nightmare begins.
JUDI CULBERTSON draws on her experience as a used-and-rare-book dealer, social worker, and world traveler to create her bibliophile mysteries. No stranger to cemeteries, she also coauthored five illustrated guides with her husband, Tom Randall, starting with
Permanent Parisians
. She lives in Port Jefferson, New York, with her family.
Visit Judi online at www.judiculbertson.net.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from
A Photographic Death
copyright © 2014 by Judi Culbertson.
A BOOKMARKED DEATH
. Copyright © 2015 by Judi Culbertson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition MARCH 2015 ISBN: 9780062365149
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062365156
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