HER PERFECT SECRET a totally gripping psychological thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  Paul has arranged the chairs in a circle. There’s just enough room on the wide dock that runs along the shore. Once we’re all seated, he says, “Okay,” and he stretches forward with his drink. “To Joni and Michael.” He looks between them, then catches my eye. “May they have lasting happiness.”

  “Cheers.” My toast sounds too quick and eager, but we all touch glasses. Everyone then sits back and sips.

  For a moment, nobody speaks.

  Michael gazes out at the water. “This is a beautiful lake. Nice and dark blue, almost black. Do you know how deep it gets?”

  “A hundred and fifty feet.” Paul points to a spot in the distance. “Right in there? That’s seventy feet. It’s a good-sized lake. Over two thousand acres. Three islands out in the middle. See that?”

  Michael shields his eyes with his hand. “I thought that was the other shoreline.”

  “No, that’s Buck Island.”

  “Wow. Beautiful.”

  I sneak looks at Joni as they talk. She follows their conversation, seemingly oblivious of me. But I know that’s not true. She’s afraid. Joni has always been a tough kid, a real firebrand when she was a girl. As a teenager . . . well, we went through it all. And she emerged intact. Strong, even. But there’s one area where she’s fragile, and that’s my approval. I never intended it to be that way, but it’s her Achilles’ heel.

  I need to proceed with a soft touch. “So. Any other surprises? How many weeks pregnant are you?”

  “Mom.” Joni balks, but there’s a smile beneath.

  “I’m just kidding.”

  Joni and Michael look at each other for a long moment. Then Joni pulls a deep breath. “We just know that it’s right.”

  “There you go. That’s good.”

  She pushes on, ignoring me. “I know it seems crazy. It’s like a movie. Like those corny movies. But it happens in real life. We’re vibrating on the same frequency.” She takes a quick sip of her drink — a little liquid courage maybe. “He knows me. And I told him . . . I told him everything.”

  Everything?

  I watch Michael. It’s so hard not to stare at him. The nose, the flat eyebrows. The way his dark hair falls in front of his eyes when he leans forward. Joni is about to say more, but I interrupt. I can’t help it.

  “What about you, Michael?”

  His eyes flick to mine. “What about me what, ma’am?”

  “Call me Emily.”

  Joni answers for him. “I know all about Michael, too.”

  Michael leans on his hand and stares at my daughter with adoration. Then he sits back, looking thoughtful. “My childhood wasn’t the easiest, but whose is? When I met Joni, and we got to know each other, and she told me about her . . . rebellious streak . . .” He smiles, and so does she. Then he continues, “I was open with her, that there was a lot of loss and grief in my past. Some pretty bad stuff.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” I glance at Paul, but his eyes are on Michael, rapt with attention.

  I want Paul to ask Michael what happened, but he doesn’t.

  And neither do I.

  For one thing, I probably already know.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Fifteen years ago, in Bronxville, New York, in the middle of the night, a man named David Bishop was beaten to death with a hammer. In his own kitchen.

  Police, arriving on scene, found a back door broken into, the alarm tripped. They also found David’s wife, distraught — hysterical — her hands covered in her husband’s blood.

  “We heard a noise,” she told police. “David came downstairs. About — I don’t know, a minute — went by. Then I heard voices. I heard David shouting . . . and then . . . then he was . . .” She couldn’t finish.

  Police also found David’s son, eight-year-old Thomas Bishop, in the house. When they spoke to young Tom, he explained that he’d awakened to noises. Angry voices, he said, “bad fighting,” and then screams.

  “Who was screaming?”

  “My mom was.”

  He’d come upon her in the kitchen holding his father in her lap, covered in blood. And she’d shouted at Thomas to dial 911, and he did.

  The investigation began. Thomas Bishop’s emergency call was listened to repeatedly. The back door was studied, the exterior searched for evidence of the attacker, the home dusted for prints. The Bishops had a security alarm system, but no cameras. The house was big, almost mansion-like, surrounded by ample lawn and privacy hedging. Residents of the affluent neighborhood saw nothing unusual, heard nothing unusual until the arrival of the ambulance and police.

  Laura Bishop was likewise unable to provide help. She hadn’t seen the attacker. The voice she’d heard, she said, was muffled, through the walls. Male, perhaps in his thirties or forties, but impossible to say for sure.

  The detective from the Bronxville Police Department soon kicked it up the chain to the New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Six months later, the BCI investigation was going cold. Pressure was on the two people heading it up, Investigators Rebecca Mooney and Stephen Starzyk. They had gotten some conflicting statements from young Tom Bishop, and his family was worried that the repeated questioning by law enforcement was only adding to his trauma.

  The investigators went to the DA, who went to a judge for a court-ordered evaluation.

  That’s when I was contacted. Normally something like that might go to a forensic child psychologist, but I’d consulted with law enforcement before as a clinician. My name apparently topped a list somewhere at BCI headquarters. I don’t really remember getting the call, but I remember the first time Rebecca Mooney and I met, since, after chatting for about a minute, she looked at me with steely blue eyes and said, “I think the boy is not telling us something.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “I’ve gone over his statements, watched the videos a dozen times. What I can’t tell — is he traumatized, and that’s what’s coming across? Or is he scared of something? Something he saw?”

  I was reluctant. Extremely. Every police officer and investigator I’ve met in my career has been an above-board public servant. They’re just people, and some are nicer than others — that’s the way people are — but they can get desperate when the pressure is on and police captains and district attorneys are breathing down their necks. They have something called a solve-rate, too, which is how many cases they’ve brought to a satisfying conclusion, with someone guilty behind bars.

  The last thing I wanted was to help pressure some little boy into saying he saw something.

  Like what? If he’d seen the assailant, why hide it?

  After some back and forth, I finally agreed to three sessions minimum, five at the most. We would just talk, maybe do some play therapy. I made it clear with Mooney that my interest was in the boy’s well-being, that I would be his advocate, not the state’s. That after my sessions, and possible contact with collaterals — Tom’s teacher, primary caregiver, and any previous therapists — I’d turn in my report.

  “That’s absolutely fine,” Mooney said. “That’s the way it should be. But we might need to talk to the boy independently at certain points between your sessions. If any new evidence comes to light.”

  I didn’t like it, but those were the conditions. And a week later, I met with Tom Bishop for the first time.

  * * *

  “My parents died in a car accident,” Michael Rand says.

  I snap back into the present moment.

  Michael falls silent as I try to absorb what he’s just said. A car accident?

  Michael says, “My father, he, ah . . . My father was an alcoholic. He was drunk. That’s why I . . .” Michael looks at me and lifts his virgin mimosa. That’s why I don’t drink.

  A car accident, I think, not a murder after all. “I’m sorry,” I say, “I didn’t know . . .”

  He frowns and shakes his head. “No, please, not at all. You were just being hospitable. It’s an occasion to celebrate.”

  I check my husband’s exp
ression. He’s looking thoughtful. I love Paul, but his mind works quite differently than mine — perhaps that’s part of why our marriage has worked for thirty years despite the rough patches. After Michael’s disclosing of this traumatic past to us, Paul’s question is: “So, Michael, what do you do for a living?”

  Michael seems happy to change the subject. “Well, I’m still in school now. Got a late start. But I do carpentry for work. Anything to do with building.”

  Paul has lit up like a Christmas tree. He edges forward in his seat. “I’m an architect, you know. And I’m building my own boat.”

  Michael laughs. “Yeah. Joni said.”

  “I did talk about you guys,” Joni says. And, unexpectedly, she reaches for me and takes my hand. “I talked you up.”

  Michael is smiling benignly at me. He knows I’m a psychologist. God, it’s so hard to know whether he’s hiding something or I’m just wrong. A car accident? And his physical likeness is just that — a likeness?

  Or, a third option: maybe that little boy who was so good at compartmentalizing, maybe he’s become a man who’s even better at it. Better to the point that he’s invented this other past for himself: one in which his parents died in an auto wreck. One in which, even, he doesn’t drink.

  Convenient, since drinking tends to lower inhibitions. Maybe it was an unconscious strategy, but it’s a smart element. No drinking equals minimizing risk of accidental disclosure of truth.

  You’re losing your mind. For God’s sake. He’s not Tom Bishop.

  Maybe.

  For now, anyway, I’ll take Michael Rand at face value. My daughter is still smiling at me — I think she’s just relieved I haven’t shown any outward disapproval so far — and Michael and Paul are caught up in a discussion of the building trades.

  I focus on my daughter. After all, I haven’t seen her for six months. Not since Christmas. I tell her I like her hair — she’s added some blonde highlights. “I like yours too,” she says. “That’s a good length on you.” After a few seconds, we’re lost in chitchat and Michael and Paul have wandered over to the boathouse. They’re going to take out the rowboat, have a look around the lake.

  Joni and I watch them embark, and wave as they putter away with the trolling motor. Michael waves back. He is handsome even from a distance. Paul’s back is to the shore as he steers the boat away from us.

  Joni and I head up to the house. It’s going on noon and everybody’s going to be hungry. We talk a little about Sean, Joni’s older brother. “He should be here tomorrow,” I say. “But you know how Sean is.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Yeah.”

  Inside, she notes the bags on the floor. “I’ll take these up to the room.” But she stops and cocks an eyebrow at me. “Are you going to be okay with us sleeping in the same room even if we’re not officially hitched yet?”

  Her voice is playful, but I can sense the tension underneath.

  Before I can offer a reply, Joni bends down to Michael’s unzipped bag. “Oh,” she says, affection in her voice. After a moment of fishing around in a side pocket, she pulls out a leather-bound notebook and holds it up for me. “He keeps a diary, Mom. Isn’t that cute?”

  Then she tucks it back into the bag and zips it up.

  “Cute,” I say.

  Carrying his bag and her suitcase toward the stairs, Joni says, “What could be wrong with a guy who keeps a diary?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tom was quiet at first. He ignored the toys in my office and studied his shoes. Nikes, I remember. Blue with gold emblems. His dark fall of hair covered his eyes. Occasionally he brushed it aside, then kept staring at his feet. Or turned to look out the window at the buildings across the street.

  I remember our third session together. We’d talked about everything but the crime so far. Tom liked Wolverine the best, out of the X-Men. Pokémon Dash was his favorite video game.

  I wasn’t too familiar with Pokémon — my son, Sean, who was just two years older than Tom at the time, never showed much interest in video games. But the thought of the characters, perhaps, reminded me of our two cats. Tom’s family had also kept cats.

  “Tom? Where are your cats now?”

  He gazed down at the floor. “With my Aunt Alice.”

  “Are they calicos?”

  He shrugged.

  I said, “We have two calicos. They have pretty patterns. Though our boy cat, he’s just two colors, black and white. So you know what we named him? Cow.”

  Tom looked up. When he smiled, I felt an expanding in my chest, a tingling at the back of my neck. It wasn’t always this way, but occasionally, when you broke through for a moment, when you saw a person’s light shine back at you, it could be incredible.

  His smile faltered. “What’s the other cat’s name?”

  “Rosie. She’s the girl cat.”

  “Is she red, like a rose?”

  “No, not really. She’s three colors.”

  “Oh.” His eyes drifted down again.

  “Tom?”

  “Mm?”

  “I know you miss your father.”

  It was the first I’d mentioned it.

  “Yeah,” Tom said.

  “My father passed away, too. It was a long time ago, but I still miss him. I felt all kinds of feelings when he died. I felt sad, but I felt angry, too. And you know what? That’s normal. It’s normal to feel all kinds of things . . .”

  I waited. Then slowly, carefully, I asked a few questions, and Tom recalled things from the night in question. But, unable to conclude with what had happened to his father, Tom looked down.

  “I’m scared,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He wouldn’t say. I watched as a single tear slipped down his cheek. And then I got up from my chair and crossed the room to him. I put one hand on his shoulder, another on his head. “I’m sorry you feel scared.”

  A subtle sensation, like a tremor, vibrated beneath my feet. I heard a muffled door close. A second later, someone was knocking to enter the room. My assistant, Mena, who never interrupted me during a session unless it was an emergency, stood in the doorway, wringing her hands. Over her shoulder were Mooney and Starzyk, the two state investigators.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mena whispered.

  I made a decision and turned to Tom. “Tom? Let’s take a really quick break, okay? You need to go to the bathroom?”

  He shook his head.

  “Want a snack or anything?”

  He nodded.

  I smiled and told him Mena would get him something. “I’m just going to be in the next room, right outside this door, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I stepped out of my office, wanting to give the investigators a few choice words. You don’t just interrupt a session like that. This had better be good.

  After Mena went into my office and shut the door, Mooney locked her gaze on me. “We need this to move along a little bit.”

  “Move it along?”

  “Listen, I’m sorry, I know. Things are developing.”

  “What does that mean?” I was used to working with law enforcement, and understood the need for discretion. But this was making me nervous.

  “It means this is delicate right now,” Mooney said. “I’ve spoken to someone close to the family. Things are . . . There are just some things that have come to our attention.”

  Starzyk stood back by the door to the hallway, checking out the room the way cops do. He wore a gray suit and aviator sunglasses.

  It was vague. Vaguer than vague. I shook my head. “All I can tell you is that I have a severely traumatized little boy in there who saw his father dead on the floor of his kitchen. And I need him to talk about that on his own. I can’t force him.”

  “You said three sessions.”

  “I said three minimum, but maybe five.” I kept my voice low, but forceful. “I think he needs to tell me something. I think it’s bottled up in him. This boy has an unsettling knack for compartmentalizing. He’s highly intellig
ent, but he has PTSD. He’s walled off the memory of that night — seeing his mother and father in the kitchen, his mother cradling her dead husband’s head in her hands — he only remembers what won’t hurt him.”

  I was breathing hard by the time I finished.

  Mooney, who was half a foot shorter, looked up at me with intensity. “That may not be all he saw.”

  “What?”

  I glanced at Starzyk, no longer checking out the room but watching me from behind his reflective lenses.

  “The boy’s mother has made plans to leave the state,” he said. “They’re moving. She’s getting on a plane in less than a week, with plans to take him with her.”

  Mooney stepped closer. “Dr. Lindman, we know it’s not your job to work this case for us. You need to submit your evaluation. We just need you to do it as soon as you can. We’re out of time.”

  It seemed that what they were talking about was more than getting the description of a murdering intruder. My throat felt dry.

  “I’ll do the best I can. When he’s ready, he’ll tell me what he saw. But only when he’s ready.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  I wait for Paul and Michael to return from the lake. They’re gone about an hour. After they dock and walk up the hill toward the house, they’re shoulder to shoulder, like a couple of old buddies. You could say Paul has a way with people, and he does. It’s what makes him a good friend of many, but it would make him a lousy therapist. To do therapy, you have to keep a certain distance. You have to have boundaries. Without boundaries, not only do you lose objectivity, but you can lose compassion.

  I’ve seen young therapists fall into that trap. They think getting close is the way into the healing. But it can lead to complication, even harm.

  “Hi there, wife,” Paul says as he reaches me. They’re both wet around the cuffs of their pants.

  “You guys have fun?”

  “Michael really likes it out there,” Paul says with pride.

  “I grew up near the ocean, which is great, but there’s something about these glacial lakes,” Michael says. “Cold and dark and deep.”

  They’re both smiling. There’s no hint that any tough words were shared; it’s all good vibes and bonding. But each time I look at Michael, his gaze seems to shift just before I see something he doesn’t want me to see. “Well,” he says, “I guess I’ll go find Joni. She inside?”