Daughter of Darkness (8 page)

    Barcroft knew he wasn't wanted. Quinlan didn't even turn around to see him.

    "I'll talk to you tomorrow," Barcroft said, and then went away again, leaving the two alone.

    Gretchen was scared. She was also pissed off, depressed, and very, very homy. Two years ago, when he'd requested that she be transferred here, he'd introduced her to real sex. He had no idea (at least to her mind) what he was doing because he'd created a sex machine. But for all her masturbation, all her compound sexual flings, only one person brought her true satisfaction, her lord and master-Quinlan.

    She said, "I know I shouldn't have done what I did, okay? If you want to yell at me and shit, then just get it over with, all right?"

    He didn't say anything. He still didn't turn around.

    She went on: "The only reason I did it was because I couldn't think of any other way to get back in your life. I mean, you've completely shut me out. And I mean completely."

    Quinlan eventually slept with most of his female patients in the compound. This usually took place after he had stabilized them with therapy and drugs and perhaps electro-convulsive treatments. He always told them the same thing, that having sex with them was part of the bonding process. After the intimacy of sex, he would say, they would feel free to say anything to him. And who was to argue with such a polished and handsome man, especially one who had helped them find at least a semblance of mental peace and order? Most of the women knew when their time with him was finished. This varied. Some of the sexual relationships lasted barely two weeks; some extended a full two months. Gretchen was the exception. She lasted almost three months and she was the only woman to ever live with him in his aerie apartment. Except Jenny Stafford.

    She could not make any sort of life for herself without him. She had tried. It didn't work. She spoke of nothing else to her shrink, her fixation on Quinlan. The shrink, a man named Greaves, said that what she needed was time. Six, seven more months and opening herself to others-and she would forget all about him.

    Quinlan obviously didn't share the same opinion as his associate. Following one of her death-threat phone calls, Quinlan had Gretchen placed in the violent program in Building Two, where she remained for ten months. By pretending to be a good girl, by pretending that she was no longer interested in Quinlan, she won her freedom again. She was permitted to roam around the compound as long as she checked in five times a day. This meant reporting to the general staff office at each check time.

    Gretchen managed to give the appearance of being a good and dutiful patient. But yesterday, she'd glimpsed Quinlan as he walked across the campus with a beautiful new patient. And Gretchen became enraged. The Tower had always intrigued her. Gaining entrance was no problem. She seduced a guard.

    Now, she'd been caught.

    "I know you're pissed off. And I don't blame you. I really don't."

    "You crossed the line this time, Gretchen." He looked at her with the white rage she could see him struggling to control. "And now there's no way back. For either of us."

    He came to her so quickly she didn't have time to move, even though she could see his right hand raising up and then chopping down to come crashing into the left side of her face.

    "No way back at all," he said.

    Then he went to the communicator built into the wall and instructed Barcroft to come get her and put her in the empty room down the hall. The soundproofed one.

    

    

    Coffey started writing fiction after he read his first Joseph Wambaugh novel. That happened to a lot of cops. Half the homicide dicks in the country had to have partially finished book manuscripts in their desks, thanks to Mr. Wambaugh and the dreams of wealth and fame he inspired.

    This morning, he was working on his second novel, about a cop who realizes his partner doubles as a mob hit man. But the longer he sat at his word processor, the more often he thought of the mystery woman. She was impossible to forget.

    

    

    For lunch, he had a tuna fish sandwich and some potato chips. He decided it was time to change his writing T-shirt. He had two writing T-shirts and this one needed a washing. He checked the newspaper and watched the midday report on WGN. The TV station had a brief story about an as yet unidentified man who had been found stabbed to death at the Econo-Nite Motel. The police investigation was just getting underway. No other details.

    He kept staring at the phone as if his gaze could make it ring. He wanted the woman to call and say that her memory came back and that she now knew she didn't have anything to do with the murder. And that, by the way, she wasn't married, engaged. or otherwise encumbered and would love to see him again, preferably in the next five minutes.

    The phone rang, but it wasn't the woman. It was his sister Jan in Omaha. She was having her first baby in three weeks. They still hadn't come up with a name for the baby-they knew it was going to be a girl-and Jan was wondering if he'd heard anything from the realtor. Their Chicago house was still unsold and the double mortgage payments were getting to be a hassle. And then she got around to the subject she couldn't wait to get to: had he met anybody yet? "Anybody" meant, of course, a woman who looked like possible marriage material. Then her doorbell rang; it turned out to be a friend of hers she hadn't seen for a while, so she said good-bye.

    He spent half an hour in the basement lifting weights, the same weights he'd had since he was fourteen years old. He'd been a skinny, gangly kid and the target of every bully in Chicago it seemed. Lifting weights hadn't actually made him any tougher, but had improved his self-confidence. All the time he worked out today, his mind went to the woman and where she was and what she was doing.

    Dusk came around 5:30. He hated dusk. It affected him the way rain affected others. An almost paralyzing melancholy overcame him at dusk. He felt totally alone, and anxious for no reason that he'd ever been able to figure out.

    He decided to start driving early, rather than sit around and stare at the phone. He took a shower and changed clothes, went out and got in his cab, and took off.

    He wasn't usually much of a talker, but the first couple of fares he had tonight, he talked their heads off. Real nervous, almost manic talk. He wasn't sure why. But he couldn't shut up.

    The night passed quickly. He had three different O'Hare fares, and one Schaumberg trip, which took a decent amount of time. He ran out of talk pretty early and went back to his familiar silences.

    Around ten, he stopped off at a Pizza Hut and had a small cheese pizza and a large Coke. Watching all the young couples made him feel lonely. He wished the woman would call.

    He kept wondering where she was and what she was doing.

    

    

    At the moment, a beautiful young woman named Jenny Stafford was sitting in her father's den with a slender, elegant psychiatrist named Priscilla Bowman. A fire glowed in the fireplace. They sat in facing leather chairs in front of the fireplace. Both of them sipped brandy from large snifters.

    They had been at this for three hours now. Priscilla ran a little cassette recorder, set on a table next to Jenny.

    Jenny was staring at her hands in her lap. She looked tired and sad.

    Priscilla, a wan woman whose radiant blonde hair was pulled back into a fashionable but somehow prim chignon, leaned forward in her blue Armani suit and said, "I know it's frightening, Jenny. But we'll put it together. It just may take a little time is all. I'm going to start you on some new antidepressants tonight as well as a new kind of sleeping pill. The big thing you need now is rest-physically
and
mentally."

    Then, "I've seen this happen a lot, Jenny. I really have. This kind of blackout, I mean."

    Jenny looked up. "But for eight days?"

    Priscilla said, "For much longer, actually. I once had a patient who lost an entire year of his life."

    "Did he ever remember?"

    "No. Not really. The most we were ever able to get him to remember were vague images."

    "I don't even have those. At least not very many."

    "You will," Priscilla said.

    Jenny looked at her, smiled sadly. "Well, if anybody can help me, you can." She'd been seeing Priscilla for two years. At first, Molly and Tom had feared that their daughter was going through not only trauma but bulimia. She would vomit up most of the food she ate, then would go on wild binges. Then she would become so depressed that she would stay in bed for days. They certainly didn't want to send her back to Quinlan and his hospital, which she'd hated so much. Enter Priscilla, who had her office in the Loop near Tom. Jenny began seeing her twice a week. Improvement wasn't immediate-Priscilla had been careful not to promise any miracles-but gradually vestiges of the old Jenny slowly began to reappear. The biggest problem was that Priscilla couldn't find an anti-depressant that really worked for Jenny for any length of time. Recently, the bulimia-like symptoms had returned, too. Jenny lost twelve pounds off her already thin frame. And, depressed, she took to her room again. Eileen fixed a variety of sumptuous meals but none of them interested Jenny. She lost three more pounds. And then, eight days ago, she'd disappeared.

    "I'm scared," Jenny said softly.

    "Of not remembering?"

    "That I did something terrible. You know, that I can't remember doing."

    "That wouldn't be in character, Jenny. You doing something terrible. In the three years I've known you, I can't recall a single terrible thing you've ever done."

    "I've been a lot of trouble for my parents."

    "That's true. But I don't see that as 'terrible,' and I'm sure they don't, either. You've had a difficult time the last three or four years of your life. Most people wouldn't have handled it nearly as well as you have."

    Jenny stared at her hands again. "I just feel this-dread. There's something right on the edge of my memory. I can't quite bring it back. But it's there and it won't go away."

    "You're exhausted," Priscilla said. "I think that's your biggest problem right now. You need a lot of good old-fashioned REM sleep, and you need a regular diet of some very healthy food."

    "You really think that'll do it?"

    Priscilla smiled. "It sure won't hurt."

    "I just want to get rid of this feeling-this dread."

    "You will. A few days from now, you'll be feeling much better."

    "Will I ever get the eight days back?"

    "Maybe not all of them," Priscilla said, "but most of them."

    "I didn't drink or take drugs. I don't know why I'd black out that way."

    Priscilla said, "You were tired of who you were, tired of what you saw as all the hassles in your life. So you took a little vacation. You blacked out."

    "That can happen?"

    "Oh, yes. In fact, there's a theory that a lot of amnesia isn't caused by trauma at ail but is largely self-willed. In other words, people feel they need an escape, and so they simply forget who they are and what they've been going through."

    "Do you believe that?"

    Priscilla smiled. "Well, psychiatry loves to toy with new theories and a lot of them-like some of Freud's pet theories-ultimately prove to be nothing but hot air. But this theory-Let's say that for right now, I'm intrigued by it. It would explain a lot about amnesia that we've never been able to explain before. Some psychiatrists are even starting to treat partial amnesia with psychoactive drugs, as if it's a mental illness rather than some kind of temporary fugue state or brain malfunction." She laughed. "Just what you needed, right? A documentary on amnesia."

    "No, no," Jenny said quickly. "It's interesting. It really is."

    "Well, in the next few days," Priscilla said, "why don't we start seeing each other twice a week in my office?"

    "I'd appreciate that."

    "And in the meantime, you relax and take your medication and give Eileen the opportunity to fatten you up. She's slicing me a big piece of her lemon meringue pie to take home."

    "She's a great cook," Jenny said. "In fact. I may try some of that pie myself."

    The two women ended up embracing. Then Jenny walked her to the door. "See you in a few days."

    Priscilla nodded good night and left the den. She was supposed to stop in the living room and visit with Tom and Molly Stafford before she went home. She was tired and hoped she could keep the visit brief.

    

    

    Tom and Molly Stafford sat on a long, gold-brocaded couch in the living room. Both looked anxious and drawn. "Well, how do you think she's doing?" Stafford asked as Eileen led Priscilla around a grand piano and then to a divan. He was so anxious he hadn't even waited until she was seated.

    Priscilla said, "I could give you a lot of theories and conjecture. But I'll put it in English for you."

    For all her poise and style, the psychiatrist looked nervous. Who enjoyed giving people bad news? She sat on the edge of her chair. "I've explained the 'fugue state' before. How trauma can erase memory." She hesitated. "I believe something may have happened to her during the eight days she was gone."

    "Happened?" Molly Stafford asked. "I'm not sure what you mean."

    "Unfortunately," the psychiatrist said, "neither am I."

    "Well, maybe this will convince her to finally set a date with David." Stafford said, obviously trying to put some positive spin on the situation.