F Paul Wilson - Secret History 02 (36 page)

           
She knew with a pang that there was
no hope of his ever leaving there willingly.

           
"Okay," he said, turning
away from the phone. "Professor Jensen will see us now. He's a handwriting
expert the Department uses from time to time. A Philosophy prof at NYU. Pretty
weird duck, but handwriting's his hobby, and he's damned good at it."

           
New York University's Washington
Square campus wasn't far from Dr. Gates' office. Rob drove her past the huge
stone arch that marked the square. The lower seven or eight feet of its two
supports were darkened with overlapping scrawls of graffiti. It made her think
of a giant with dirty feet. Parking was no problem with Rob's Vehicle
Identification card. He led her into a modern looking glass and brick building
filled with students hanging around between classes. Black seemed to be the
'in' color—clothing, eye make-up, fingernail polish, even hair when it wasn't
green or orange. Most of the kids seemed to have invested a lot of time and
effort into distorting whatever natural attractiveness they might have
possessed.

           
Professor Jensen's office was on the
fifth floor. Younger than Kara had expected, he was maybe forty, very thin,
balding in front with long dark hair trailing over the collar of his shirt.

           
"Ah, yes," he said when
Rob walked through the door. "Detective Harris. I remember you now. What
have you got for me?"

           
Kara noticed how he was rubbing his
hands together in anticipation. He was really into this handwriting thing.

           
"Nothing too detailed. Just
want to know if the author of this is male or female."

           
"Ah! A debatable determination.
Some authorities say you can't tell."

           
"No?"

           
"But I can. Not a hundred
percent, of course, but I've got an excellent record. Let's have a look, shall
we?"

           
Rob handed him the xeroxes.
Professor Jensen took them to his cluttered desk.

           
"You don't have the
originals?"

           
"Back at the precinct house. If
you need them, I'll get them."

           
"These should suffice for the
moment."

           
He pulled a magnifying glass from
the top drawer, then bent over the sheets.

           
"The writer is male, I'd say.
Little doubt about it."

           
Rob nudged Kara with his elbow and
gave her a self-satisfied I-told-you-so look.

           
Professor Jensen was staring at the
xerox of the envelope.

           
"Deucedly strange way of
sending a letter, wouldn't you say?"

           
Kara was trying to remember when she
had last heard someone say 'deucedly' when Rob reached over and picked out the
xerox of the check.

           
"Any chance they were written
by the same guy?"

           
Jensen brought the magnifying glass
into play again. Bewildered, Kara turned to Rob. He held a finger to his lips.
Trust me
.

           
"Hard to say," Jensen
said. "If I had a longer sample of the second hand…"

           
Suddenly Kara remembered something
and fumbled in her shoulder bag, praying she hadn't lost it. Here it was.

           
"Will this do? It's a
prescription."

           
Jensen took it and laid it out on
the desk in line with the check, the note, and the envelope face. He leaned
back, then hovered close, finally he crossed his arms in front of his chest and
simply stared.

           
"Odd," he said, and stared
some more. "My immediate impulse is to say that these are two different
people. The downstrokes and loops are similar but not completely. And yet…
there's a common factor here, a unifying influence. I can't tell you in
concrete terms, but after you've analyzed enough handwriting, you get a
subliminal feel for the
gestalt
of a
sample. These two
feel
similar to me,
and yet they're not."

           
Rob said, "Could the man who
wrote the check and the prescription have been trying to disguise his
handwriting when he wrote the note and addressed the envelope?"

           
"Possibly. But I get a feeling
that it might have been the other way around."

           
"What do you mean?"

           
"Perhaps the author of the note
was trying to imitate the handwriting of the man who wrote the check."

           
Kara slumped in the passenger seat
of Rob's car as it idled at the curb. Professor's Jenkins' analysis had shaken
her to the core.

           
"Do you think Dr. Gates could
have sent me that message? Why would he do such a thing?"

           
"I don't know. Mind if I
smoke?"

           
"Yes. And if he didn't, why
would he lie about whoever did? Why would he say it was a female when it was a
male."

           
"That might have been just to
protect his patient. We both know what a fanatic he is about confidentiality."

           
"Do you think Dr. Gates is as
tightly wrapped as he should be?"

           
Rob looked at her and shrugged.

           
"I don't like the guy, but
that's a gut thing. The people I talk to who should know give him high marks,
especially when it comes to multiple personalities."

           
"What if he's a multiple
personality himself? What if his other self wrote me that note to warn me away
from him?"

           
Rob's eyes widened and his voice
became hushed.

           
"What if it was his Evil
Twin?"

           
"Not funny, Rob. I'm
serious."

           
"Sorry. It seems jut a little
too far out."

           
But an idea that was even farther
out kept nagging at Kara's mind. It was so ridiculous and outrageous that she
didn't want to mention it, but it was there and it was going to keep on
nibbling away at her until she brought it out.

           
"Try this for far out: What if
Dr. Gates
can
take over your body
while you sleep?"

           
"And use it for his 'personal
pleasures'?" Rob said with a slow smile. "Kara…"

           
"I know how it must sound to
you, but it's different on my end. You're not living under the threat of
someone named Janine taking over your body and doing what she wants with it.
When you've lost the absolute control you always assumed you had, crazy things
start to sound plausible."

           
"I need a cigarette," Rob
said.

           
He got out of the car and walked
around the front to Kara's side where he squatted against the pole of the No
Parking sign. As he lit up, he motioned Kara to roll her window down.

           
"Those things will kill
you," she said.

           
"You make me nervous when you
talk like that."

           
"Just consider it. What if that
note I got isn't completely out of left field? What if Dr. Gates entered my
mind when he hypnotized me and he's been taking over whenever he wished? What
if he was doing the same thing to Kelly? What if that warning is from one of
his past victims?" She forced a laugh that came out sounding strangled.
"What if I'm completely bonkers for even mentioning this?"

           
Rob was staring at her.

           
"Please don't laugh like that
again," he said. "It's scary."

           
"My
life
has become scary, Rob. Does all that I said sound as crazy and
impossible to you as it should to me? Tell me it's absolutely impossible."

           
"It's absolutely
impossible."

           
"Good. Then I'll sleep easier
tonight." She coughed. "Can I roll the window up now? You're getting
smoke in the car."

           
Rob took a final drag and flipped
the cigarette away.

           
"Where do you want to go?"
he said as he got behind the wheel.

           
"Ellen's, if you don't
mind."

           
"What about tonight? You
staying alone at Kelly's again?"

           
"Definitely."

           
Kara loathed the idea of spending
another night alone in that apartment, but until she was sure…

           
"I'd offer to keep you
company," Rob said, "but tonight's my turn to do a shift on a
stakeout we're running on a murder suspect's apartment. But I'll come over
first thing in the morning and see how you are."

           
Kara watched his eyes as he spoke.
Something wrong there. Was he avoiding her for some reason? Or was she getting
as paranoid as the person who'd written her that note?

           
Suddenly she felt very alone.

           
Ed had been calling Kara's apartment—actually,
it was Kelly's apartment—every fifteen minutes since 6:30. It wasn't all that
much trouble. He had no plans for the night and his phone had a last number
auto redial function, so all he had to do was press one of the extra buttons
and the phone did the rest.

           
Ostensibly, his purpose would be to
go over some of the legal documents he'd left with her this afternoon, but really
all he wanted was to hear the sound of her voice, to make sure she was all
right.

           
Why
is this so important to me?