Three Fates (22 page)

He couldn’t work up any anger. Not when she was shattered. He pushed her hair back from her damp cheeks. “No, I guess you don’t.”

“But she was never gonna give me the money. She played me. Mikey’s dead because I was too stupid to know it. I’ll never forgive myself, never, not for as long as I live. He was harmless. Gideon, he was harmless and sweet, and they hurt him. They hurt him.”

“I know it, darling.” He drew her head down on his shoulder, stroking her hair as she cried. He thought of the man who’d fixed French toast that morning, had given up his bed to a stranger because a friend had asked.

Anita Gaye would pay for it, he promised himself. It was no longer just about money, about principle, it was about justice.

So he stroked Cleo’s hair, drank the last swallow of the whiskey.

He could think of only one place to go.

 

 

 

 

D
R. Lowenstein had his own problems. They included an ex-wife who had successfully skinned him in the divorce, two children in college who were under the delusion he owned a grove of money trees and an administrative assistant who’d just demanded a raise.

Sheila had divorced him because he’d spent more time working on his practice than his marriage. Then she had sucked the financial benefits of that practice up like a Hoover.

The irony of it had been lost on her. Which, Lowenstein decided, only proved he was well rid of the humorless bitch.

But that was neither here nor there. As his son, who changed majors as often as he changed his socks, was given to say, it was only money.

Tia Marsh had money. A steady stream of interest and dividends and mutual funds. As well as, he supposed, a reasonably substantial trickle of royalties from her books.

And God knew the woman had problems.

He listened to her now as she sat tidily in the chair facing him and told a convoluted tale of sneaky Irishmen, Greek myths, historic disasters and thievery. When she ended with a police impersonator and tapped phones, he rubbed his steepled fingers on his thin blade of a mouth and cleared his throat.

“Well, Tia, you’ve certainly been busy. Tell me, what do you think fate represents in this context?”

“Represents?” Finding the courage to tell the tale, and telling it, had used up most of her steam. For a moment, Tia could only stare. “Dr. Lowenstein, it’s not a metaphor, it’s statues.”

“Determining your own fate has always been one of your core dilemmas,” he began.

“You think I’m making this up? You think this is all some complicated delusion?” The insult of it kicked her energy level back up again. Certainly she had delusions, or else why would she be here. But they were much more simplistic, much more ordinary.

And he, at two hundred fifty dollars for a fifty-minute hour, should know it.

“I’m not
that
crazy. There was a man in Helsinki.”

“An Irishman,” Lowenstein said patiently.

“Yes, yes, an Irishman, but he could have been a one-legged Scotsman, for all that matters.”

He smiled, gently. “Your month of travel was a big step for you, Tia. I believe it opened you up to yourself. To the imagination you often stifle. The challenge now will be to channel and refine that imagination. Perhaps, as a writer—”

“There was a man in Helsinki,” she said again, between her teeth. “He came to New York to see me, pretended a personal interest in me when, in fact, he was only interested in my connection to the Three Fates. Those Fates are real, they exist. I’ve documented it. My ancestor owned one and was traveling to England on the
Lusitania
to acquire the second. That’s fact, documented fact.”

“And this Irishman claims his ancestor, also aboard the ship, stole the statue.”

“Exactly.” She huffed out a breath. “And that Anita Gaye stole the statue from him—the Irishman. I can’t substantiate that. In fact, I had strong doubts about it until Jack Burdett came to see me.”

“The one who pretended to be a police detective.”

“Yes. See, it’s not that complicated if you just follow the steps in a linear fashion. My problem is I’m not sure what to do about it, what step to take next. If my phones are tapped, it seems to me I should report it. But then there’ll be all sorts of awkward questions, won’t there, and if the phones are, subsequently, untapped, Ms. Gaye will know that I know she had them tapped, then I lose the advantage of working behind the scenes, so to speak, to find the other two Fates.”

She took a long breath. “And I don’t actually talk on the phone that much anyway, so maybe I should leave it alone for now.”

“Tia, have you considered that your reluctance to report this stems from your subconscious knowledge that there is nothing wrong with your phones?”

“No.” But his calm, patient question planted the seed of doubt in her mind. “This isn’t paranoia.”

“Tia, do you remember calling me from your hotel in London at the beginning of your tour and telling me you were afraid the man staying down the hall was stalking you because twice he rode in the elevator with you?”

“Yes.” Mortified, she dropped her gaze to her hands. “But that was different. That
was
paranoia.”

Except for all she knew, for all anyone knew, she thought, she’d been right and had had a lucky escape from a crazed British stalker.

“You’ve made great strides,” he continued. “Important ones. You faced down your travel phobia. You confronted your fear of dealing with the public. You spent four consecutive weeks exploring yourself and your own capabilities, and expanded your safety zone. You should be proud of yourself.”

To show he was proud of her, he leaned over, patted her arm lightly. “Change, Tia, change creates new challenges. You have a tendency, as we’ve discussed before, to manufacture scenarios within your mind—exotic, complicated scenarios wherein you’re surrounded or beset by some sort of danger or threat. A fatal illness, an international plot. And so beset, you retreat, constrict that safety zone to your apartment. I’m not surprised that finding yourself in familiar surroundings again, dealing with the natural physical and mental fatigue of a long, demanding trip, you’d need to revert to pattern.”

“I’m not doing that,” she said under her breath. “I can’t even see the pattern anymore.”

“We’ll work on that during our next session.” He leaned over to pat her arm again. “It might be best if we go back to our twice-weekly sessions for the time being. Don’t think of that as a step back, but as a new beginning. Angela will schedule you.”

She looked at him, the kindly face, the trim beard, the dash of gray at the temples. It was like, she realized, being indulged and dismissed by an affectionate parent.

If there was a pattern in her life, she thought as she got to her feet, this was it.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“I want you to continue your relaxation and imagery exercises.”

“Of course.” She picked up her purse, walked to the door. And there, turned. “Everything I just told you is a hallucination?”

“No, Tia, of course not. I believe it’s all very real to you, and a combination of actual events and your very creative imagination. We’ll explore it. In the meantime, I’d like you to consider why you find living inside your head more comfortable than living outside it. We’ll talk about it during our next session.”

“It’s not comfortable inside my head,” she said quietly. She stepped into his outer office. And kept on going.

He hadn’t believed a word she’d said. And worse, she discovered as she rode the elevator down to the lobby, he’d stirred up doubts so she wasn’t sure she believed herself.

It had happened. She was
not
crazy, damn it. She wasn’t some sort of loony who wore aluminum foil on her head to keep out the alien voices, for God’s sake. She was a mythologist, a successful author, a functioning adult. And, she added as temper began to rise, she was sane. Felt saner, steadier, stronger than she’d ever felt in her life.

She wasn’t hiding in her apartment. She was working there. She had a goal, a fascinating one. She would prove she wasn’t delusional. She’d prove she could stand on her own two feet, that she was a healthy—well, moderately healthy—woman with a good brain and a strong will.

As she strode out on the street, she whipped out her cell phone, punched in a number. “Carrie? It’s Tia. Get me an emergency appointment at your salon. When? Now. Right now. It’s coming off.”

 

 

“ARE YOU SURE about this?” Carrie was still winded from her six-block dash from her Wall Street offices to Bella Donna.

“Yes. No.”

Tia clutched Carrie’s hand as they sat in two of the streamlined leather chairs in the salon’s waiting area. There was loud techno-rock blaring, and one of the stylists, a rail-thin woman dressed all in black, had her hair arranged in a terrifying magenta cloud.

Already she could feel her air passages shutting down as they were assaulted with the beauty shop scents of peroxide and polish remover and overheated perfume.

The sound of hair dryers blowing was like plane engines. She was going to get a migraine, hives, respiratory arrest. What was she doing here?

“I’d better go. I’d better go right now.” She fumbled in her bag for her inhaler.

“I’m going to stay with you, Tia. I’m going to see you through this every step of the way.” Carrie had canceled two meetings to see to it. “Julian’s a genius. I swear it.” She squeezed Tia’s free hand as Tia sucked on the inhaler. “You’re going to feel like a new woman. What?” she asked when Tia mumbled.

Removing the inhaler, Tia tried again. “I said, I’m just getting used to the old one. This is a mistake. I only did it because I was so upset with Dr. Lowenstein. Look, I’ll pay for the appointment, but I—”

“Julian’s ready for you, Dr. Marsh.” Another wand-slim, black-clad female came out.

Didn’t anyone here weigh over a hundred pounds? Tia thought frantically. Wasn’t anyone over twenty-three?

“I’ll take her back, Miranda.” In the bright, cheerful voice mothers use when they drag their children to the dentist chair, Carrie hauled Tia to her feet. “You’re going to thank me for this. Trust me.”

Tia’s vision blurred as they walked past operators, customers, past gleaming black shampoo bowls and sparkling glass displays holding dozens and dozens of sleekly packaged products. Dimly she heard overlapping chatter and a cackle of laughter that sounded just a bit insane.

“Carrie.”

“Be brave. Be strong.” She steered Tia toward a large cubical done in dazzling black and silver. The man who stood by the big leather chair was short, sleek as a grey-hound, with white-blond hair cut like a skullcap.

For some reason, he made her think of a very hip Eros and that didn’t comfort her a bit.

“So,” he began in a voice that bit down on vowels with the teeth of a native New Yorker, “this is Tia, at last.” He took one look at her pale face and judged his quarry. “Louise! Some wine here. Sit.”

“I was just thinking that maybe—”

“Sit,” he interrupted Tia, then leaned over to kiss Carrie’s cheek. “Moral support?”

“You bet.”

“Carrie and I have been plotting endlessly on how to get you in my chair.” He got her there, finally, by simply nudging her backward. “And from the looks of this . . .” He fingered a lock of hair that had come loose from its knot. “It’s not a moment too soon.”

“I really don’t think I need—”

“Let me be the judge of what you need.” He took one of the wineglasses Louise brought in, handed it to her. “When you go to the doctor, do you tell him what you need?”

“Actually, ha, yeah, I do. But—”

“You have lovely eyes.”

She blinked them. “I do?”

“Excellent brow line. Very nice bones,” he added and began to touch her face with smooth, very cool fingertips. “Sexy mouth. The lipstick’s wrong, but we’ll fix that. Yes, it’s a fine face we’ve got here. Dull, outdated hair.” With a couple of tugs, he had the pins out and the heavy weight of it tumbling free.

“It doesn’t suit you at all. You’re hiding behind your hair, my Tia.” He swiveled the chair around so she was facing the mirror, and his head was close to hers. All but cheek to cheek. “And I’m going to expose you.”

“You are? But don’t you think . . . What if there’s nothing particularly interesting to expose?”

“I think you underestimate yourself,” he chided. “And expect everyone else to do the same.”

While she was blinking over that she found herself being shampooed by one of the slender shop girls in one of the glossy black sinks. By the time she thought to ask if they used hypo-allergenic products, it was too late.

Then she was back in the chair, facing away from the mirror with a glass of very nice white wine in her hand. He talked to her. Asked her what she did, who she dated, what she liked. Every time she gave a noncommittal answer or asked what he was doing with her hair, he asked another question.

When at one point she made the mistake of looking down and seeing the piles of shorn hair littering the floor, her breath began to hitch. Little white dots danced in front of her eyes, and from a distance she heard Carrie’s alarmed voice.

The next thing she knew Julian pushed her head between her knees, holding it there until the roar of her heartbeat slowed. “Steady, honey. Louise! I need a cold cloth here.”

“Tia, Tia, snap out of it.”

She opened her eyes to find Carrie crouched on the floor in front of her. “What? What?”

“It’s a haircut, okay? Not brain surgery.”

“A traumatic event’s a traumatic event.” Julian laid a cool, damp cloth on the back of Tia’s neck. “Now, I want you to sit up slowly. Deep breath now. That’s the way. Now another. There now, tell me about this Irish guy Carrie mentioned.”

“He’s a bastard,” Tia said weakly.

“We all are.” The scissors began to snip again, frighteningly close to her face. “Tell me all about it.”