With Every Breath (7 page)

and jumped in and raced off. He left Josh in his own car."

"So he’s being sought."

Maddie made a bitter sound. "Even the FBI’s after him now. Finally." Too late, she thought. The damage to Josh was already done. "They ended up finding the police car several days later in a convenience-store parking lot up in Volusia County, near Daytona Beach. No sign of Rick, though. They think he might have gone to Nassau anyway, but I’m not sure why. That’s certainly not what a sane man would do after leaving those tickets behind."

"If a sane man would kill a cop at all," Leslie pointed out. "And you don’t think he’ll look for you here?" Maddie gave a tight smile. "It’s highly unlikely. I never mentioned Candle Island to him." A shadow passed over her eyes. "When Josh stopped talking. Aunt Susan said that he reminded her of me back then, when she drove up here to pick me up after my parents disappeared, and it gave me the idea."

Disappeared? A red flag popped up in Leslie Mendehlson’s head and waved urgently. That was certainly a curious way of putting it.

"It’s perfect, really," Maddie went on, "with only the ferry for access, and nearly a continent away from Florida and the Bahamas."

"If your ex-husband shows up, I doubt if Joe Gallen will agree with you," Dr. Mendehlson answered wryly. "Joe likes to keep things quiet here. I doubt if he’d be overjoyed to greet a cop-killer on his turf."

Maddie felt an odd jolt. "Joe Gallen?"

"Our esteemed chief of police. I’d thought you'd met him. Maybe our rumor mill is slipping its cogs."

"No, I did. I just.. She hesitated. "He’s married to Gina?" She was moderately surprised at the way everything

slid and settled down inside her, as though she was disappointed.

Leslie Mendehlson’s expression flattened. "Not anymore." She stood up, glancing at her watch. "I’d really like to see Josh if you’ll agree to it."

Maddie nodded. "I was hoping you would. You know, he seems to like Angus. I thought maybe that would help, in conjunction with therapy, of course."

Dr. Mendehlson smiled. "Old Angus. He certainly isn’t inclined to put any pressure on anyone, is he?" "That’s what I thought."

She flipped over a page of her calendar. "How about tomorrow afternoon? Three-thirty?"

Maddie scowled. "I thought I’d give him some time to get settled in here first."

Dr. Mendehlson nodded thoughtfully. "There’s a valid point. Next Thursday then, when I come back to the island, same time? In the meantime, be careful not to coddle him too much. I know the temptation is strong, but it’s not in his best interest, Maddie. Don’t make too many allowances for his silence. Do things as you’ve always done them. You don’t want to enable him, to make it easy for him to remain mute."

Maddie grimaced. "Like not giving him lemon cheesecake for breakfast when I’ve always insisted upon oatmeal?"

Leslie Mendehlson nodded. "That’s exactly the sort of thing I mean. In his mind, it’s like you’re rewarding him. His father did a terrible thing, and Josh’s silence is his way of dealing with it. He’s retreating to the safety inside himself, a safety he can trust, maybe the only thing he can really trust at this point in time."

"He can trust me."

Leslie Mendehlson looked at her levelly. "No. Not really. You’ve got to remember that he loved and

trusted your ex-husband, too, and look where that got him. He’s probably even afraid that you’re going to turn into a monster at any given time as well."

"But we’ve always been close!" Maddie protested. "Much closer than he and Rick were."

"All the more reason why the possibility of your changing terrifies him."

"I see," Maddie said quietly. She did, but she didn’t like it.

"In any event, if Josh feels too
safe and comfortable inside himself, he’ll never come out. If you start giving him lemon cheesecake, you’re effectively making his hiding place a good place."

Maddie nodded reluctantly. It made sense.

"Keep to your old routine as much as possible, given this change of scenery," Leslie Mendehlson went on. "If you’ve always worked in the mornings, then keep working in the mornings. Don’t alter your schedule to stick close to him. Except..." The psychologist trailed off, thinking. "I’m considering you and that first camera. Does Josh like animals?"

Maddie thought about it. "As much as any child does, I guess. He’s never really had a pet. Aunt Susan gave us a kitten once, but Rick said it was dirty. It disappeared. To tell you the truth, I guess even then I suspected that I didn’t want to know where it might have gone."

And there, Leslie Mendehlson reflected, was just another way of hiding. She was encouraged that given Maddie Brogan’s tendency toward such behavior, she was still forthright and determined enough to seek help for her son.

This was one tough lady, she thought, a true survivor. And there was the double-edged sword. A survivor would do anything to keep on going without pain . . . even hide, albeit in a more subtle way than Josh had chosen.

Leslie thought about the rumors she’d picked up on, and wondered just how much Maddie Brogan did remember.

"Then why not another kitten?" she suggested. "Assuming you’ve no real objection to having a pet in the house, that might be a tremendous help in reaching Josh. You’d be amazed at the effect taking care of an animal can have."

"I’d try anything," Maddie said fervently.

Dr. Mendehlson’s smile softened. "I believe your old friend Dolores Carlson has a litter. You could try giving her a call." She watched Maddie’s face closely. "Otherwise, there’s an SPCA over in Jonesport."

"I’ll try Dolores first." My old friend?
Well, Maddie thought, the way things were panning out, she’d recognize her, too, once she saw her.

She went back to the waiting room and collected Josh. Dr. Mendehlson hugged her again briefly. "I’ll see you next week."

As they were getting back in the car, Maddie glanced over her shoulder at the diner. The Pathfinder was there.

She drove off without looking at it a second time. She had to go back to that pay phone. She had to figure out how to get in touch with Dolores Carlson.

Chapter 5

Joe Gallen took a bite of rare hamburger, perfect with just the right amount of cheese, mayonnaise, and relish. Then, abruptly, he stopped chewing as Maddie Brogan and her son came out of Leslie Mendehlson’s place across the alley.

She wore the same jeans and blue wool jacket that she’d worn earlier. The sun caught her hair and turned it to spun gold. He glanced down at his watch. She’d been in there the better part of an hour.

"There she is," Hector said excitedly from the other side of the table. "Didn’t I tell you? She grew up real fine. What do you think she was doing with Leslie? Think she’s trying to remember?"

"How the hell should I know?" Joe snapped. He did it around his food, realized what he was doing, and forced himself to swallow. He pushed his plate across the table. "Here, finish this."

Hector’s face split into a wide grin. His wife kept him on a tight budget. He had bought a cup of coffee, but he was drinking it with a sandwich he’d brown-bagged

from home. The sandwich looked like last night’s meat loaf.

Joe stood up and dropped a ten-dollar bill onto the table, and Hector grinned even wider. Joe knew he wouldn’t see the change.

He went outside and crossed the alley. Leslie, opened the door before he could knock.

"What took you so long?"

Joe gave her a withering look as he stepped inside. "Is she trying to remember?"

"Joe, come on. I can’t tell you a thing. You know that." She closed the door.

He began pacing the waiting room. "What the hell was she doing here if she’s not trying to remember?" Then he winced a little as he figured it out. "It’s her kid, right?" Somehow the rumor had gotten started that the boy wasn’t right. And Joe didn’t remember him saying too much in the real-estate office.

Leslie didn’t answer.

"Did she say why she came back here?" Joe went on.

"That’s privileged, too." Leslie hesitated. "I can tell you that when and if you do find out, you’re going to be one unhappy lawman."

"Damn it, Leslie—"

"Coffee, Joe? How’s the knee doing?"

"Hurts like hell. It’s probably going to rain soon." He followed her to the coffeepot on the other side of the waiting room.

"Your name came up," she volunteered, pouring for both of them.

Joe Gallen felt something entirely unwelcome move in the pit of his stomach. It was a shifting, sliding kind of feeling, like rock moving aside to expose something softer and more vulnerable underneath. "In what respect?" he demanded.

"Actually, I can’t tell you that, either."

"You enjoy the hell out of this, don’t you?" But he was less angry than disgruntled. Of all the islanders, he liked Leslie more than most. She had her own axes to grind and her own dunghills to protect, as everyone did, but she was honest about it, and her axes were all harmless.

Leslie sobered. "What I think is that you’re awfully worked up about a case that occurred when you were what—twelve years old?"

"Beacher and Annabel Brogan are still conspicuously absent from the island," he snapped.

"So they are. But it occurs to me that no one particularly cared before yesterday." Leslie moved to look through the glass into her office. "Maddie Brogan is strong—in fact, I admire her," she said after a moment. "But she’s got problems, and I don’t think she even knows the half of them yet. My gut instinct is that there’s a brick wall in her head. What troubles me even more is that I think she’s only now beginning to realize that it’s there, and that maybe it’s not entirely normal." She remembered Maddie’s reaction when she’d mentioned Dolores Carlson. She had deliberately put the spin on it that Dolores had been a friend . . . someone, perhaps, that Maddie had gone to school with. And Maddie had then referred to her as Dolores. Not Mrs. C, not Doe or Aunt Doe, as everyone on the island called the woman—just Dolores.

Leslie Mendehlson would have bet her license that Maddie Brogan did not remember who Dolores Carlson was at all.

She shook herself, realizing that Joe was watching her closely.

"That makes no goddamn sense," he pointed out irritably.

"Actually, it does. Refusing to speak is largely a childhood

defense, a means of retreating. Amnesia—to use a layman’s term in this case—is an adult form of the same thing. I just think that Maddie Brogan is starting to realize that maybe she should remember a little more than she does. And that’s all I’m going to say on the matter, so take that cute backside of yours out of here and let me get to work. I have an appointment in three minutes."

Joe stared at her a moment longer. He wasn’t going to get any more out of her, and he respected her too much to badger her . . . especially since he really couldn’t have said with any certainty just what it was he was looking for there.

He crumpled the Styrofoam coffee cup in his hand, hurling it toward the wastebasket, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket as he went outside. He wondered how in the name of God his name had come to be involved in any discussion between Leslie Mendehlson and Maddie Brogan. He felt that shifting sensation in his gut again.

He wondered what was wrong with Maddie’s son.

He wondered what she had seen twenty-five years ago to develop such a hellacious barrier that she’d blocked the barrier.

And then he found himself thinking of the photograph on his wall again. He turned north, deciding suddenly to stop by the library. He thought that if he was going to have any insight whatsoever into the potential fireworks of that woman’s mind, then he ought to start by developing a better understanding of the woman herself.

Maddie looked up Dolores Carlson’s address in the telephone directory at the post office pay phone, then called her to see if she and Josh could stop by. The woman’s voice did not go far toward filling in the blanks. It was small and

highly pitched, almost piping, and Maddie didn’t even begin to recognize anything about it.

There were two kittens left in the litter, Dolores said, and she urged Maddie to come by right away. Candle Island was thankfully easy to negotiate. The four main routes ran north-south, and the east-west side streets were numbered. Dolores Carlson’s house was at number 314 on Twenty-ninth Street.

Maddie parked in front of Dolores’s big white Dutch Colonial, and she and Josh went up the walkway. She rapped on the door and felt her head swim again at her first sight of the woman who answered.

Her old friend?

Dolores Carlson was old enough to be her grandmother. She was big enough to be two grandmothers. She had three chins and sausage arms, and she wore a dark blue polka-dot muumuu that reached almost to her toes.

Maddie pulled her mouth shut.

Leslie had been playing with her, she realized. But why? She didn’t know this woman, felt absolutely no kinship, no distant, shifting memory in her heart, nothing.

Suddenly she was angry.

"Did I know you?" she demanded. "Before?"

Dolores met her eyes unabashedly. "Yes," she said simply.

Maddie raked her hands through her hair, caught herself, and clasped them together in front of her. "How, exactly?"

"You stayed with me that summer after your parents ..." The woman hesitated. Maddie thought she could understand that.

"Took wing?" she supplied bitterly, and she thought Dolores Carlson looked surprised.

"If you like." The woman stepped back from the door. "Come in. Please."

Maddie moved cautiously into the house, Josh sticking to her like a second skin. It was big, airy, and pleasant. There was a sunroom off to her left, a dining room to the right, and stairs at the back. Maddie moved toward them and looked up at the second floor.

Oh, God, I don’t remember.
She didn’t remember the house at all.

This couldn’t be normal, she thought frantically. No matter how sudden or traumatic her departure had been, no matter how long she had stayed away or how young she’d been when she left, if she had lived there, then it ought to seem familiar in some respect.

Then again, Dolores had said that she’d stayed there
after
her parents had taken off. She grasped at that and glanced at Josh. She had been only three years older than her six-year-old son. She must have been devastated, confused, broken.

"Would you like to see your old room?" Dolores asked quietly.

"Yes. Please. I need to see it."

She followed the big woman up the staircase, Josh trailing her closely. It was eight steps up, then an abrupt U-turn at the landing. Six more steps and they were on the second floor. There was a small sitting area there, with a settee against the railing. Two cats dozed upon it. There were two bedrooms to the left, one to the right. Maddie eyed them warily.

"Hector Marks brought you to me . . . that day," Dolores explained.

"I haven’t met him," Maddie said absently. Her eyes kept skimming, searching, pleading for something to ring a bell. There was nothing. It felt as though she was being told about something that had happened to someone else.

Dolores chuckled. "Hector isn’t the sort to come right up and say hello. But if you ever feel like somebody’s