Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) (16 page)

Sooner than they expected.

And before long, Vincent Van Gogh would be retired to the local history books, the newspaper archives, the memories of the family members who had been touched by his artistry. Blessed by his genius.

Then somewhere, in another town, another state—possibly even another country—Vincent would be reborn. Wiser for the mistakes he’d made. Stronger.

A greater talent than he had ever hoped to be.

Who knows what they’d call him then.

“
YOUR GIRLFRIEND SAYS
our gal here reminds her of someone. Any idea who that might be?”

Tolan ignored the question. Seemed lost in his own thoughts as he stood at the computer, keying through the notations on-screen.

Blackburn tried another one. “So when do I get the bad news, Doc? Are we wasting our time?”

Tolan looked up. “Hard to say. The tox screen came back negative for drugs or alcohol, so we can rule out any organic disorders.”

Blackburn again thought about those missing smack tracks and decided that, along with the lobotomy, he might order up some LASIK surgery.

“If she’s suffering from BRP,” Tolan continued, “the prognosis is good, but we may simply have to wait it out.”

“You can’t give her a shot or something?”

“Neuroleptics are a wonderful tool, but unlike most of my colleagues, I usually hold off awhile before I go there.”

“This isn’t your usual situation.”

“True,” Tolan said. “But I’m supposed to be hands off, remember? Let’s see how Clayton feels about it. He just called, by the way. He was sound asleep when I—”

“Spare me the play-by-play. What’s his ETA?”

“He said he needed about three gallons of coffee and a shower first.”

“Which means he’ll get here when he gets here, right?”

“Right,” Tolan said.

Blackburn sighed again. More waiting. This Simm guy decides to take a leisurely shower and in the meantime, only God knew what Vincent was up to.

“Hopefully, by the time he arrives,” Blackburn said, “I’ll have some fresh ammunition for you.”

“What kind of ammunition?”

He nodded to Psycho Bitch. “Her identity.”

He told Tolan about the magazine ad. De Mello had already contacted the design company who’d handled the layout. Turned out they’d used customized clip art for the bikini model and Photoshopped the bottle in her hand. The company who sold them the clip was busy trying to locate the photographer who had taken it. De Mello was pretty sure he’d have a name before lunch was over.

“Excellent,” Tolan said. “Might help us track down her medical hist—”

A sound from the intercom cut him off. A guttural moan that came from the room beyond the glass.

Psycho Bitch was stirring now. She began muttering something incomprehensible, then surprised them both by starting to hum.

“That’s something new,” Blackburn said.

“Cassie told me she was singing earlier. Some kind of nursery rhyme.”

They listened a moment, and Blackburn noticed that the doc was frowning now, as if trying to recognize the tune. He started to say something, but Tolan held up a hand, silencing him.

Then, in a timid, childlike voice, Psycho Bitch began to sing:

Mama got trouble

Mama got sin

Mama got bills to pay again.

Blackburn saw Tolan visibly stiffen, eyes widening almost imperceptibly.

Daddy got money

Daddy got cars

Mama gonna take him on a trip to Mars.

“Jesus Christ,” Tolan said.

“What?”

Psycho Bitch kept singing, repeating the words, and Tolan suddenly had that same stunned look on his face that he’d had earlier this morning, right after she attacked him.

“What, Doc? What’s going on?”

It seemed to take Tolan a full thirty seconds to respond, Psycho Bitch continuing to serenade them.

Mama got trouble

Mama got sin

Mama got bills to pay again.

“That song,” he said, his voice cracking.

“What about it?”

“My wife . . .” He turned, looking straight at Blackburn. “This is impossible. . . .”

“What, Doc? What?”

“That’s Abby’s song.”

27

S
HE USED TO
sing it to him in bed.

She’d trace her fingers along his abdomen, along his “happy trail,” as she called it. Walk them upward toward his stomach and on up to his chest, singing:

Mama got trouble

Mama got sin

Mama got bills to pay again.

Then she’d bring her hand back down, grabbing hold of him, gently tugging at him, letting him grow against her palm. When he was ready, she’d climb on top and guide him into her.

Daddy got money

Daddy got cars

Mama gonna take him on a trip to Mars.

He’d stare up into that beautiful face, all of her concentration centered on her task, her hips moving to find just the right spot, the one that made her eyes close and her jaw go slack, a small moan escaping between her lips.

Mama got trouble

Mama got sin

Mama got bills to pay again.

The first time she sang it to him, he’d asked her where it came from.

“Me,” she’d said with a small laugh. “My first stab at creativity. Write about what you know. Isn’t that what they tell you?”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that.

“It’s a hopscotch song. My friend Tandi and I used to play in the alley behind our apartment house, while our mothers were working.”

“Working?”

“My mother was a prostitute.”

She said it without hesitation, as if she’d said something as innocuous as
My mother was a grocery store clerk.
But there was a faraway look in her eyes. A kind of sadness there that Tolan found both heartbreaking and alluring.

He got up on his elbows then. “And you made up that song about her?”

Abby nodded.

“How old were you?”

“Nine or ten, I guess. But there weren’t any secrets in our house. The details may have been a little vague, but I knew exactly what my mother did for a living.”

Tolan didn’t know what to say.

“By the time I was sixteen,” she continued, “I figured I’d be following in her footsteps. Then one of her Johns left his camera behind and I latched on to it and never let go.”

Tolan kept looking at her, wondering how to ask his next question. Wondering if he
should
ask it.

Then her faraway look abruptly disappeared. “Would it bother you if I said yes?”

“To what?”

“To the question you’re afraid to ask. Would it bother you?”

She looked so beautiful. So . . . fragile. His gut tightened at the thought of another man touching that flawless skin, kissing those full lips.

“It wouldn’t thrill me,” he said.

Then her eyes clouded and he immediately regretted the words. Although she was still a mystery to him, he felt privileged to be spending time with her. To have her in his bed. And it honestly didn’t matter to him what she might have done in the past. He loved her, unconditionally. Had loved her, he realized, since the moment he walked into her studio, looking only to get a photograph taken for his new book jacket.

“No,” he said quickly. “It wouldn’t bother me at all. Nothing about you could ever bother me.”

If only that had turned out to be true.

“Abby’s song?” Blackburn said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

But Tolan barely heard him. The floor was tilting beneath him and he had to grab on to the computer console to steady himself. This wasn’t happening.

Mama got trouble

Mama got sin

Mama got bills to pay again.

He was hearing things. Had to be. There was no possible way this woman could know that song.

“Doc, what the fuck is going on?”

Tolan glanced through the glass at her, then quickly moved to the seclusion-room door.

“Wait a minute,” Blackburn said.

Tolan ignored him. Punching in the security code, he threw open the door and stepped inside. Her voice was clearer now, no longer distorted by the intercom, and the sound of it knocked his equilibrium even further off-balance.

Daddy got money

Daddy got cars

Mama gonna take him on a trip to Mars.

That was Abby’s voice, all right. No mistake about it.

The room swayed. How was this possible? How?

Tolan staggered over to the bed, wanting to get a look at her again, to see that face, even though he was sure he was hallucinating.

He felt a hand grabbing his shoulder—Blackburn—but he shrugged it off and kept going, moving to the side of the bed.

Jane was hugging herself tightly, rocking gently as she continued to sing.

Mama got trouble

Mom got sin

He grabbed her now, the words dying on her lips as he forced her to turn in his direction. And as her wild hair fell away from her face, he saw those hazel eyes again, Abby’s eyes, staring up at him as they had before. But this time looking directly at him. Full of pain.

But it wasn’t just Abby’s
eyes
he saw. Those were her cheekbones, too, and maybe even her nose. It was a face that seemed to be at war with itself, as if she were some kind of shapeshifter in the middle of a transformation. The skin undulated, her bone structure subtly changing right there before him.

Oh, my fucking God . . .

Then she said, in a small, plaintive voice, “Why, Michael . . . Why . . . ?”

And the sound of it, the sound of his name, brought tears to his eyes. Filled him with an incongruous mix of joy and bewilderment and horror—

—a horror that deepened when his gaze dropped to the left side of her face.

And what he saw there—or
didn’t
see—sent him spiraling out of control, certain now that he had indeed lost his mind. He was as much a candidate for admission to this hospital as anyone the police had ever brought through those front doors.

The woman who had Abby’s eyes, Abby’s nose, Abby’s cheekbones, and what would surely soon be Abby’s chin . . .

. . . was missing her left ear.

28

I
T WASN’T JUST
the room that was swaying now, but the whole goddamn world. Tolan stumbled away from Jane or Abby or whoever the hell she was, and turned, only to find Blackburn staring at him with a quizzical look on his face, saying something to him.

But all Tolan saw was a moving mouth. Heard nothing but the beating of his own heart, an accelerating
tha-thump
reverberating inside his head.

He had to get out of here. Had to get away from this woman and this cop and this room and this hospital. Had to find some place to be alone for a while, to clear his mind.

He launched himself past Blackburn and through the open door into a corridor filled with staff and patients—a security guard crossing toward him; an orderly escorting an elderly man toward the shower room; a nurse pushing a medicine cart; Bobby Fremont, framed in his windowed doorway, shouting angrily at Tolan as he flew past.

Tolan ignored them all, continuing down the hallway and around the corner until he reached a private access door. Fumbling his key card from his pocket, he quickly beeped himself out.

Then he was outside, sucking in fresh air, taking in gulps of it as if he’d been holding his breath underwater for the last several minutes. But he couldn’t seem to get enough, couldn’t fill his lungs, and he didn’t slow down, kept moving around the side of the building to the main walkway and on toward the staff parking lot.

The thumping in his head had started to subside now, only to be replaced by the sound of the rustling pepper trees, which seemed to be watching him, whispering their disapproval.

Then he was in the lot, found his car, unlocked the door, threw it open. But he didn’t get inside, just stood there a moment, using the doorframe for support, still trying to breathe.

He was, he knew, smack in the middle of a full-born panic attack. He had to relax, talk himself down, to release the toxins that had invaded his mind. But he still couldn’t breathe.

Easy now
, a voice said, and he realized it was Abby talking to him.
You’re fine, Michael, you’re gonna be fine
.
Try to slow your breathing, take long deep breaths
.

Tolan tried, but he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t seem to get enough air.

Talk
, Abby said.
Say something
.
If you can talk, you can breathe
.

It was a common technique for dealing with patients suffering a panic attack. Get them talking. But Tolan had never thought it would be used on him.

He said the first thing that came to mind:

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two.”

He didn’t know why that phrase had suddenly popped into his head, but there it was.

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two.”

He thought about the significance of the words. Had he been living a lie this past year? Was that why he seemed to have lost his balance? Why he was suddenly plagued by these hallucinations?

“A lie stands on one leg, the truth on two.”

The irony, of course, was that Abby had given him the book that contained those words.
Poor Richard’s Almanac.
 

Poor Richard, indeed. Poor Abby.

Poor Michael.

Putting his hands on his stomach, he said the words again, feeling the rhythm of his breathing, each new breath now slower than the last, his panic finally, thankfully, subsiding.