Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) (8 page)

Tolan shook his head. “Nothing, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I had a long night, remember? Do me a favor and cancel my morning session.”

“Michael, what—”

“Just cancel it, okay?”

He immediately realized he’d been too abrupt, so he softened and said, “I’m sorry. Everything’s fine, but I’m wrapped up with this new patient and I need some time to think.”

Lisa eyed him skeptically, but finally nodded. She had always had the good sense to know when to back off. She squeezed his hand. “Consider it canceled.”

“Thanks.”

Then he left her there and headed straight to his office. 

S
ELF-ANALYSIS
can sometimes be a dangerous thing, but Tolan knew he needed to sit himself down for a careful review.

He was obviously losing touch with reality. That much was certain.

The face he’d seen, the voice he’d heard, was clearly Abby’s, yet the patient in that room just as clearly wasn’t. Once he’d gotten to his feet and taken another look at her, he saw a petite, not unattractive young woman who bore only the slightest resemblance to his dead wife.

So why, then, had it seemed so real?

Was it this day? Could the anniversary of Abby’s death be having that much of an effect on him?

You
.
You hurt me
.

It was true. He
had
hurt Abby. Many times in the last months of their marriage. But the biggest hurt of all had come in the form of a betrayal. A betrayal she had never even known about.

On the night she died, Tolan was not alone.

When the police called to tell him the tragic news, that she’d been found in her studio, murdered, her body brutally shredded, the shower had been going full blast in the bathroom behind him.

And waiting inside was a woman he’d met only hours before.

He could always make the claim that nothing had happened yet, that no bodily parts had been compromised, no fluids exchanged, but the betrayal of trust had already been committed. And in those last few hours, he had become the kind of man he had always despised.

A cheat. A philanderer. A liar.

You
.
You hurt me
.

He had come to Los Angeles for a business meeting. His book,
What Color Is Your Anger?
, had been a surprise
New York Times
bestseller. Several national television appearances had put him on the network radar. Book signings that usually attracted a crowd of one or two people, suddenly had lines around the block. And celebrities he had known only from their television and movie work were calling to meet him.

It was a pretty heady experience, and he hadn’t handled it well. Like so many others assaulted by sudden fame, he had begun to believe the hype and had started to lose touch with what was important to him.

He was, after all, a rising star—George Clooney meets Dr. Phil. At least that’s how one talk show host had described him. His network Q-rating among women ages twenty-two to fifty was through the roof and rising. He was the man of the moment. The media’s new darling.

In retrospect, it was all pretty ridiculous. His star had been a lot brighter and hotter than it had any right to be and had threatened to burn a hole right through his four-year marriage. He had become difficult to live with and he and Abby had begun fighting on a regular basis.

Vicious fights sometimes. And none more vicious than the one they’d had the night she died.

H
E HAD ACCUSED
her of cheating on him. An accusation she vehemently denied. But the color of his anger was black, as black as an empty soul, and he couldn’t be reasoned with.

He had been planning to drive the three hours to Los Angeles the next morning, but left that night instead and drove straight to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, nearly causing an accident on his way there.

His meeting was scheduled for eleven A.M., an exploratory meet-and-greet at Paramount Pictures’ syndication wing, which had been making noise about featuring him in a new daily talk show.

After checking into the hotel, he’d gone straight to the bar, looking to quell his anger with as many drinks as he could manage.

And he managed quite a few.

He was a couple hours into it when a soft voice at his shoulder said, “Aren’t you that doctor? The one who wrote the book?”

He turned to find a stunning young woman of about twenty-six standing next to him. She looked vaguely familiar and he was sure he had seen her on television or in the movies. What the tabloids would call a starlet.

“It’s Tolan, right? Michael Tolan?”

By then his anger had dissolved into a drunken, formless melancholy. “Right now I’m not sure
who
I am.”

The young woman smiled and shook his hand, telling him her name. The warmth of her skin sent a small tremor through him.

“I just love your book,” she said. “It’s my new bible.”

He’d had no real response to that. Was sure that whatever he’d said, it was only semicoherent.

Then she asked if she could buy him dinner.

T
HERE WERE A
dozen different rationalizations for his behavior. He could blame it on the trouble in his marriage, or his sudden fame, could point to some typical psychological quirk that drove him, could even cite his newfound belief that his wife was no angel herself—but what was the point? None of it excused him.

Just three days after he and Abby had spent that wonderful afternoon exploring the old hospital grounds, he had discovered what he was capable of.

And he didn’t like it.

He and the young woman dined in the hotel restaurant, Tolan refusing to let her pay for it. They had a nightcap at the bar, then finally parted ways just past midnight, Tolan claiming he had to get some sleep. Truth was, he didn’t want to be around her anymore. The temptation was too strong. And he was feeling weak right now. Very weak.

But when he got back to his room, he couldn’t sleep. Not a wink.

Instead, he sustained his alcohol buzz by attacking the minibar, knowing full well that he’d pay for this tomorrow, would likely show up at Paramount hungover and smelling of booze.

But he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything at that moment. He just sat there, watching lame comedians make lamer jokes on late-night television, feeling more and more sorry for himself with each new bottle he consumed.

Despite her denials, he was almost certain that Abby had cheated on him. With whom, he wasn’t sure, but he had found the proof in her purse. Proof that was pretty hard to deny.

So Tolan sat there, drinking his umpteenth bottle from the minibar, the numbers on the clock above the TV swimming before him: 2:48 A.M.

Then there was a knock at the door.

It took him a moment to navigate his way over. He opened it to find his new number-one fan standing there in a hotel bathrobe. A very short hotel bathrobe.

And the legs below it were smooth and tan and finely muscled.

“My shower’s broken,” she said. “Mind if I use yours?”

S
ITTING IN HIS
office now, Tolan remembered the white noise of that shower, remembered standing near the bed, listening to his cell phone ring not ten minutes after the woman had come to his door. He had finally picked it up, guilt washing over him in sustained, repeated waves, and he had felt like a child caught masturbating in the tub.

Not one of his finer moments.

The caller, a homicide detective named Rossbach, had broken the bad news.

Now, plagued by his memories and the growing sense that he might be losing it, Tolan took a key from his pants pocket, reached down to the bottom desk drawer, and unlocked it. Sliding it open, he pulled out a manila envelope, unfastened it, and poured its contents out onto the desktop.

Abby had been the photographer in the family, had made a living at it, but he had taken a few snapshots of his own, most of them lying in front of him now, waiting to be mounted in a photo album he knew he’d never buy.

After Lisa got into the habit of sleeping over at his house several nights a week, he had brought the photos here to the office. Didn’t see any point in contributing to the pain he knew she carried, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. She had been patient with him, suffering in silence as he grieved, but he could see it behind her eyes sometimes, that fear that she was playing second fiddle to a phantom. A memory. The wondering if it would ever change.

He obviously couldn’t yet make that promise. But he didn’t need to rub her nose in it, either.

Carefully spreading the snapshots out, he stared down at the face of his dead wife and felt his chest tighten.

This was the real Abby, not a hallucination.

And she had been so beautiful.

So fucking beautiful.

The coffee-and-cream skin. The dark, curly hair. The spark in those hazel eyes. That sardonic, half-smile she’d use on Tolan whenever he pointed a camera in her direction. The soft, compact body that she gave to him so completely, so willingly, so free of inhibition.

Had she given it to someone else? It was a question that would never be answered.

She’d had a faint Southern lilt to her voice and a goofy humor that had always made him laugh and amplified her beauty tenfold.

Why had he allowed himself to get so angry with her that night? Why hadn’t he believed her?

And why couldn’t he let her go?

That, he knew, was what the encounter with Jane Doe had been about. He had allowed his guilt over Abby to get so bad that now—on this anniversary of her death—he was seeing her in the face of his own patient. Instead of getting better, as Lisa had promised, he was worse. Much worse.

In the back of his mind he could hear Abby’s voice:

Sleep, Michael.

Sleep will make it all go away.

Staring at the photos a moment longer, he sighed, then gathered them up and put them back in the envelope, returning it to the drawer.

Leaning back, he closed his eyes. Twenty minutes was all he needed. Twenty blissful minutes.

J
UST AS TOLAN
was starting to drift off, the memory of Abby’s smile imprinted on his brain, his cell phone rang.

Shit.

Groaning, he groped for it, put it to his ear. “Yes?”

There was a pause, then:

“Dr. Tolan?”

He opened his eyes, something small and nasty fluttering in his stomach. “Who is this?”

A soft laugh. “You’ve forgotten me so soon?”

The caller from this morning. The whisperer.

Tolan sat up, keeping his tone low and even. “Look, I know you’re trying to frighten me, but I’ve heard it all before. So why don’t we move beyond the theatrics and talk about—”

“Oh, please, Doctor. Fear is such a mundane emotion, don’t you think? I really have no desire to scare you or anyone else.”

“Then what do you want?”

“It isn’t a matter of what I want, but what I intend to do. And I believe I’ve already told you that. But before you get into a game of twenty questions, let me ask
you
one: Do you have a computer nearby?”

The question threw Tolan. “What?”

“You do know what a computer is, don’t you? A pornographer like yourself should be well-versed in the ways of the Internet.”

Tolan wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but he’d had enough. He wasn’t in the mood to play understanding shrink right now.

“Do yourself a favor and get some help,” he said.

Then he hung up.

13

T
OLAN SAT THERE
, feeling anger rise.

Even if the caller hadn’t been trying to frighten him—which was bullshit, of course—he felt frightened nonetheless, and he wasn’t sure why. This kind of thing was nothing new.

But despite the low whisper, there was something about the man’s voice that rattled him. Something invasive. Primal.

Had he heard it before?

He thought about Bobby Fremont again and wondered if he had somehow smuggled a phone into the hospital. Reaching for the land line, he started dialing the security desk—

—then his cell phone rang again.

Hanging up, he grabbed it and checked caller ID. Nothing.

Feeling a renewed flutter, he paused a moment, then clicked it on.

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that much. What do you want?”

“To apologize, Doctor. Calling you a pornographer was out of line, no matter how accurate the term might be.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of an apology.”

“The best I can do, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Tolan said, softening his voice now, controlling his anger. He could see there was no way out of this. “Why don’t you come in here to the hospital and we’ll talk.”

Another laugh. “I’m not a big fan of psychotherapy.”

“Few people are. But something’s obviously bothering you and acting out is never the solution.”

“Thanks for the two-bit analysis, Doctor, but let’s try to keep this as uncomplicated as possible. Just answer my question.”

Tolan was at a loss. Wasn’t sure what the caller was referring to. Then it hit him. “About the computer?”

“You
are
listening after all.”

Tolan sighed. “Then, yes, I do have one. A laptop, sitting right here in front of me.”

“Are you connected to the Internet?”

“Yes.” Where was this going?

“Open your favorite search engine and do a search on the name Han van Meegeren.”

Tolan frowned. “Who?”

“Han van Meegeren,” the caller said, then spelled it out for him. “Go ahead, I’ll wait.”

He thought about hanging up again, but curiosity had gotten ahold of him, and he hesitated only a moment before flipping open his laptop. Hitting a button to take it out of hibernation, he waited for his wireless card to find the connection, then called up his Google screen, typed in the name, and jabbed the return button.

The screen blossomed with the familiar blue typeface listing dozens of websites.

Scanning the site summaries, he saw that the main theme of each centered around the subject of art forgery. Apparently van Meegeren was an infamous practitioner of the craft.