The Perfect Witness (8 page)

An explosion of release!

She arched as sensation after sensation moved through her.

Relief.

Freedom.

She was panting. “I thought it wasn’t working. I didn’t know … you were doing it.”

“Until it happened. That’s the ideal procedure.” He grimaced. “But removing memory trauma isn’t always that simple. That particular memory was a long time ago, before your father brought you in to do his dirty work. Were you aware of any memories while I was doing it?”

“No. Just the release.”

“Good. But it won’t always be that way. If it gets nasty, it will be like being pulled through a chain saw.” He paused. “I’ll try to wait until we get toward the end before I put you through that.”

“Because you’re afraid I won’t let you do it any longer.”

He nodded. “And because I need to get as far as I can so that you’ll recognize the pain is worth it.”

“Easy to say when I’m the one with the pain,” she said dryly. “Maybe it won’t happen. The only thing I was aware of this time was sadness, a little anger, then the release.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s happening in my head. But you could be wrong.”

“Not likely,” he said. “Because I do know what’s going on in that mind of yours.” He leaned back in the chair. “Are you ready to try again?”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes again, and added flippantly, “Go ahead. Vacuum me out.”

“I’m not taking anything away. Every memory is still there. I’m just taking out the poison and making you acknowledge them.”

“Go ahead.” She felt the tension coming again. “What are you waiting for? How many times do we have to go through this again tonight?”

“Only a few more. It won’t be bad. And you’re beginning to like it.”

He was right. The release had felt cleansing and deeply satisfying. “But you just said it won’t last.”

“For tonight it will. Believe me. Nothing bad will happen tonight.”

She wanted to believe him, she realized. Close. She was feeling strangely joined, close to him. That could be dangerous when she couldn’t remember feeling close to anyone before. “Prove it.”

He chuckled. “I will. Now relax and let me work…”

*   *   *

“HIS NAME IS WILLIAM MONTGOMERY,”
Navarro said to Camano. “He paid by credit card, and I’m faxing you the slip and the copy of his driver’s license.”

“Has he turned in the car yet?” Camano asked as he went into his office to wait for the fax.

“Not yet.”

“Then he still has her with him, and they’re on the road.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Camano pulled off the fax. “Brown hair. Blue eyes. He looks like the guy next door. Did you question the clerk? Is this what he really looked like?”

“He said it was probably close.”

And no one really glanced at ID if it was in the least close, Camano thought in disgust. The man would have had to have two heads for him to catch that clerk’s attention. “I’ll send the photos to our man at the precinct and see if they can pull anything up on the database on him.”

“The name won’t help?”

Stupid. “Would you use your own name?”

“I guess not.”

“Stay close to that clerk. He’s your best friend. Line his pockets. I want to know the exact moment when he hears that car has been turned in.” He hung up the phone.

Four Weeks Later

“You again?” Allie opened her eyes to see Mandak’s shadowy form sitting in his usual chair beside her bed. “You missed last night. I was beginning to feel neglected.”

“I thought I’d give you a rest from me. Do you want me to turn on the lamp?”

“Not particularly. I know what you look like.” That was an understatement. In the past weeks, she’d practically memorized his features. He’d become the center of her life here at the lodge. In the morning, she got up, exercised on her own for an hour, then met him for breakfast. After breakfast, he disappeared and let her go back to the gym. But a few hours later, he appeared again, and the karate lessons started. Then lunch and gun practice in the woods back of the lodge. More karate, and two days ago, he’d given her a knife and begun tutoring her in its use. Dinner. Then he disappeared again, and she didn’t see him again until he appeared in her bedroom sometime in the night. She had only been half joking when she had said she felt neglected when he’d missed coming to her room last night. They had become so attuned to each other, it had seemed wrong for her not to see him then. “You’re right, I see enough of you. I just wondered.”

“Why didn’t you mention it this morning?”

“I felt kind of … odd. You know, the day seems broken into compartments. This one is sort of all by itself and doesn’t have anything to do with all the other things that we do together.”

“No, it’s at another end of the scale from karate. By the way, you’re doing very well at that particular discipline.”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “Don’t try to flatter me. You kept your promise. You mop the floor with me every day.”

“Not quite. You get better every session.”

Silence.

Sometimes the silences between them were comfortable, she thought, like the silence between two old friends. It had sometimes surprised her when their relationship usually had a distinct edge. This was not one of those silences. “I don’t know if I believe that’s the reason why you didn’t come last night. What do you do when you’re not with me?”

“Work.”

“What kind of work?”

He didn’t answer.

“I didn’t want to know anyway,” she said quickly. “I was just making conversation.”

“That’s good. You’ll know when it’s time.”

“That sounds like a bunch of philosophic crap.”

“I’ve never been exposed to philosophic crap. Would you care to describe it?”

“No.”

“Then suppose we get to our work.”

“Why not?” She was silent. “Last night, I thought that maybe we were through with all this. We’ve been doing pretty well.”

“Yes.”

“But I was wrong? That wasn’t true?”

“No. It was true.”

“So what’s the real reason you didn’t show up?”

He didn’t answer.

“Did you decide it wasn’t doing any good? That you’ll never be able to clear enough debris away to teach me to block?”

“It’s doing good.”

“Dammit,
talk
to me.”

“You’re doing too well. You’ve jumped over all kinds of obstacles and left only the final barriers.”

“That’s what you wanted. That’s what I need, right?”

“Right,” he said roughly. “But I warned you, it’s going to be hell. It’s going to blow you apart.”

“No, it won’t. Is that why you didn’t come last night? You thought I needed the time to get ready for it?”

“No, I needed the time for
me
to get ready for it.”

She inhaled sharply. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I thought that I was prepared, but I backed away.”

“But you came back tonight.”

“Yes.” His tone bitter. “I’ll always come back. That’s why you have to be wary of me.” His next words were crisp. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” She paused. “But all this nonsense is scaring me.”

“We’ll get through it together.” He reached out, and his hand covered her own on the bed. “You’ve just got to remember that I’m here for you. I’ll not let you be pulled back.”

“It can’t be that bad. I got through the rest just fine.”

“And you’ll get through this, too. Go blank. Relax.”

“I am relaxing. But it’s hard for me to—”

She screamed!

Brains blowing apart.

Jokman falling to the ground.

Her father slapping her.

Blood.

Blood.

Blood.

Guilt.

Shouldn’t have told him.

Shouldn’t have told him.

Her fault …

“It’s not your fault,” Mandak said. “Stop thinking that.” He was beside her on the bed, holding her, pressing her face into his shoulder. “Let it go. Remember. Accept what happened and let it go.”

Let it go?

It was killing her, tearing her apart. All of Jokman’s memories, all of her own memories of that hideous night. She clutched blindly at Mandak, taking his warmth to ward off the ice. “Make it go away. Make it go.”

“Too late. I can’t do it. We have to ride it out.”

“Damn you. Damn you.” She desperately clutched him closer. “It … hurts.”

“Then let it go.”

“I can’t. It’s strangling me, smothering me.”

He held her tighter. “You’ll do it. We’ll get through it together.”

“No, I’m alone. No one can help me.”

“That’s a lie. I’m helping you right now. You’re not alone.”

Was it true? She had always been alone, but somehow she could feel Mandak near her …

“I’m here,” he said.

In the darkness, in the blood, in the agony.

“There’s nothing you can do, nothing that you can feel that will make me go away,” Mandak said.

The memories were rushing back to her, attacking.

Jokman’s skull was blowing apart.

“Scream. Cry,” Mandak said between his teeth. “Let it go.”

She was sobbing, clutching him. Because he was the only anchor in this sea of despair.

And, for once, she was not alone.

*   *   *

IT WAS NEARLY DAWN WHEN
Mandak raised himself on one elbow to look down at her. “How do you feel? I think we’re through the worst of it.”

“How do you expect? I feel like a wrung-out dishrag,” she said bitterly. That was the physical reaction to those hours of torment. The emotional response was much more complicated. Somewhere in the center of that upheaval, she had been able to release that hideous memory, but it was as if it had been torn from her. She was still shaking and bleeding from it. “The worst of it? Tell me it won’t come back.”

“I can’t tell you that. It probably will. They were your memories as well as Jokman’s.” His hand reached out and cupped her cheek. “But it will be sad, not unbearably painful. If you need me, I’ll come running.”

She should tell him she didn’t need him.

She couldn’t do that. She did need him. She wasn’t sure if she would have survived this horror of a night without him.

“That will be hard for you.” It was as if he’d read her thoughts. Perhaps he had, she didn’t know what to believe about what he’d told her about what he could do or not do. “But we got along pretty well tonight, didn’t we?”

“I guess we did.” She wished he’d lie back down and hold her again. She wanted that closeness, that bonding, that feeling that he was holding back the loneliness. She frowned. “But of all the memories, did you have to bring up that night with Jokman?”

“Yes.” His hand dropped away from her face, and he got to his feet. “Because it was the worst one. Once we got over that hurdle, it was all downhill.”

“You couldn’t have started me on something easier?”

“Yes, but it would have always been lurking in the distance threatening both of us.”

“Both of us?”

“Both,” he repeated. “You don’t go through a merging like this without bonding. In sessions like this, there’s a joining. Do you think I wasn’t feeling pain? The echoes are very strong, Allie.”

Bonding. Yes, she had felt that same bonding. She felt it now. She realized she had felt it before when he had been working with her mind. But not like this. Not this strong and powerful. “But it will go away now, right?”

“It will … lessen.”

“I want it to go
away.
”

He shrugged. “In situations like this, you take what you get.”

“I’ll work on it.”

He smiled. “I’m sure you will. But wait until we finish this initial phase. That bond will be a comfort to you.”

“But you said this would be as bad as it will get.” She moistened her lips. “I won’t need you. Isn’t that right?”

“You’ll have to decide. Yes, nothing will be this bad, but it will still cause you trauma. We have to go over all those cozy little sessions in your father’s study. Mega ugliness.” He paused. “And then there are a few readings of your mother’s memories. Not ugly, just painful for you.”

“My … mother?”

“You don’t want to remember anything she’s shown you about herself or how she feels about you. It’s necessary, Allie. That could be a few of the worst obstacles we’ll have to overcome. Major scarring.”

She shook her head.

“We have to do it.”

“Oh, very well,” she said impatiently. “But I don’t see why. As you said, they’re not ugly. Nothing about my mother is ugly.”

“Except her selfishness. That could be fatal for you.”

She knew that was true, but she didn’t want to admit it. “I said I’d do it. Go away, Mandak. I need to sleep.”

“Yes, you do.” He headed for the door. “Don’t be late for breakfast. Don’t think I’m going to let you ease off on training because of a rough night.”

“I know you wouldn’t.” Though she wasn’t sure. He’d been incredibly gentle, impossibly strong, while he’d been holding her tonight. He’d shown her an entirely new aspect of his character. “Just get out of here.”

“I’m going.” He looked over his shoulder, and his eyes were twinkling. “But you’ll find you’ll miss me. It’s part of that damn bonding.”

He was gone.

And she was already missing him, she realized. She felt an emptiness. Her body, where he’d been curved against her own, still felt his imprint. Her mind was searching, trying to find him.

It was all crazy.

She turned off the light and settled back down in bed. Go to sleep. She’d see him soon enough. Her days were filled with Mandak.

And so were her nights.

It wouldn’t hurt to put up with this bonding thing until she was done with the mental high jinks Mandak was putting her through. At the end of the path was the beacon of freedom from the prison of memories. She could take it until she’d reached that goal. She could do anything to avoid those constant attacks.

She huddled beneath the covers and closed her eyes.

She just hoped that Mandak was feeling as empty and lonely as she was feeling at this moment. That was only fair, wasn’t it? He was the one who had started all of this …