HER PERFECT SECRET a totally gripping psychological thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  But I know my thoughts are busy. And right now they won’t let go of the encounter with Starzyk, or the fact that Laura Bishop is getting out on parole, and what any of that might mean. Nor can I let go of what Frank said when we reminisced about the Bishop murder case: They seemed to have it in for the wife.

  If Frank just texted me, he’s up. I’m loath to push too hard when he’s already doing this for free, but I just need a couple of minutes.

  I call Frank, and he answers on the second ring.

  ”Hey there. Looks like we might be all good?”

  “I hope so. I hope so, yeah.”

  Frank is intuitive. “Uh-oh. What’s up?”

  I tell him about the encounter with Detective Starzyk and the news about Laura Bishop getting out on parole. “Jeez,” Frank says. “Yeah, that is crazy timing. She’s out, and this kid who looks like her son shows up right around the same time?”

  “I know.”

  “Hey,” Frank says, “You’re the head doctor, but let me ask you — is it possible you just read about Bishop getting out? Like you saw it online or at a newsstand, barely registered it, and now you’re . . . I don’t know the technical term.”

  “Projecting?” I laugh, but it sounds a bit desperate. “It’s a good theory, but I don’t think so. I’m not seeing things.”

  “No, I don’t mean that—”

  “I know. But there’s still the phone call.”

  “Sorry, yeah, I did check that. I should’ve included it in the email — the number came back as a prepaid. I can’t track it or anything like that, I can only get the carrier and the type. It’s a Verizon phone, pay-as-you go. The type used for spam.”

  I sigh. “All right. I guess that’s that. I just . . . Can I ask you one thing?”

  “Sure.”

  “Would it be hard to . . . fake what you showed me? To have a profile of yourself that’s made up, got you living in Arizona and all of that?”

  “I mean, I’ve just been on this for a couple of hours. And that was what was there.” He pauses. “But it’s pretty hard to forge Department of Public Safety records. You’d have to hack into the system. Or maybe know someone inside. It is possible, though.”

  I nod my head. I become aware I’m biting my fingernails and stop. “All right, well, it sounds like I’m just . . . that this just is some kind of weird coincidence.”

  When he doesn’t answer, I check the phone connection. “Frank?”

  “Yeah, sorry . . .”

  “What is it?”

  “While we’re talking, I’m sitting here on my computer. Just for shits and giggles, I checked out where Laura Bishop has been in prison for the past fifteen years.”

  “And?”

  “They bopped her around a bit at the beginning, but she did her last stretch of eleven at the same place. SCI Cold Brook. It’s, ah, right up by you.”

  I know exactly where it is. It’s a minimum-security women’s prison that’s fifteen minutes from the lake house.

  “Jesus, Frank.”

  “Yeah, that’s . . .”

  He doesn’t know what to say, and neither do I. I’m already moving, closing the laptop, shutting off the light, heading downstairs to gather my things.

  “Frank,” I say as I quickly descend the stairs, “I gotta go.”

  “Yeah. I guess — wow. Maybe there’s something to this.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Hey — be careful. I’m here if you need me.”

  “Thank you, Frank.”

  I hang up as I come into the kitchen. My empty glass of wine sits on the kitchen island. I fill it again as I tell my phone to call the lake house.

  “Calling lake house,” the phone says, and the line starts to ring.

  I listen until the machine picks up. The outgoing message was recorded years ago, and Joni’s voice has a high, pre-teen pitch. “You’ve reached the Lindman residence . . . um, please leave a message.” Instead of leaving one, I try Paul’s cell phone next. He won’t have reception at the house, but it seems like they might be out.

  His phone goes to voicemail. So does Joni’s.

  * * *

  I’m back on the interstate minutes later, headed north, going as fast as I dare.

  A cast of characters caper through my mind as I make the drive back to Lake Placid: Little Tom Bishop, his mother, his dead father. I have the autopsy report, complete with graphic photos of his obliterated head. Like something from some scary gore-fest magazine kids at grade school used to bring around.

  With the phone hooked into the vehicle, I try the lake house again. For the third time.

  This time, Paul answers. “Hey,” he says, sounding sleepy. “How’s it going?”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Huh? Right here. Well — I was working on the boat.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  “What’s the matter?” It sounds like he’s fully awake now. I picture him sitting up in bed.

  “Laura Bishop just got out of prison,” I blurt.

  “She got out of prison? What do you mean? You mean parole?”

  “Guess how I found out?” I tell him about Starzyk and even get into what Bleeker told me about the police maybe targeting the wife for the wrong reasons. But Paul isn’t as caught up as I am — he’s more focused on me.

  “Are you driving?”

  “Yes. I’m coming home tonight. I’m already past Albany, so don’t try and talk me out of it.”

  “It’s after one o’clock, Em. You won’t — here — three in the — ning,” he says.

  “Paul, I’m losing you. Going through a bad spot. But everything is okay?”

  I can’t make out his reply. “I’ll call you back,” I say, and then add, loudly — “Just check on Joni, okay?”

  I think I hear him affirm that he will, but I can’t be sure. I curse the spotty cellular service and hang up. Well, this is what people want when they come up here, anyway. At least some people. Time away from the world. Time to unwind and unplug.

  I try to focus on driving. Out here, towns and villages are fewer and farther between, everything growing darker and colder. Before I know it, I’m off the interstate and heading deeper into the mountains.

  Joni and Michael have probably been out at some bar, I figure. While our lake house is in a relatively remote location, it’s not the Yukon Territory. Lake Placid is touristy and popular, especially in the summer. Paul, who’s not really into hiking or camping, likes it for the rustic aspects. Building a boat, chopping some firewood, and he thinks he’s Paul Bun—

  I slam on the brakes when the shape jumps out at me, but it’s too late. The deer is in mid-leap across the winding mountain road when I hit it with the Range Rover. The collision sends it flying up over the hood where it cracks the windshield. I’m flung forward, my arms up to shield my face as the airbag deploys.

  The airbag is so powerful, it drives my arms back towards my head, and my watch jams into my cheekbone and scrapes across my skin, drawing blood.

  The momentum sends the deer off to my left somewhere — but I can’t see anything anyway, not with the airbag filling my vision. All I know is that my foot is still on the brake and the tires are making screeching sounds, but I’m still going forward. Then it feels like the road drops away, and for a moment the Range Rover is airborne. It connects hard with a guard rail, sending me slapping back against the seat, my head whipping against the headrest.

  The vehicle thumps over an uneven shoulder as it scrapes along the guard rail and finally comes to a stop.

  Somehow, my turn indicator was activated in the commotion, because it’s going “tick — tick — tick,” while all else goes dead quiet.

  The whole thing took two, maybe three seconds, but it seemed to happen both in real time and slow-motion.

  I pass out.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DR EMILY LINDMAN

  CASE NOTES

  MAY 14

  Session 1r />
  Met with Thomas Bishop today for one hour, our first session. I am recording the session as per my usual, plus taking notes, and all will go into the submitted evaluation.

  Thomas is eight. He prefers to be called Tom. He is an only child, his parents well-off. He has no history of mental illness and no history of medical issues. From his medical report, Tom scored a ten out of ten on the APGAR scale when born. When he was five, he broke two bones in his left arm after falling from a treehouse on his property. And there’s a scar on his inner thigh from falling off a guard rail.

  His father has recently been killed in what was apparently an attempted burglary.

  Police believe Tom not only saw his father soon after his father succumbed to blunt force trauma to the head, but that he may have witnessed the actual assault. This is due to Tom’s own conflicting statements, from when police first spoke with him and his mother on the night of, to an interview the next day with an ad litem present but no mother, to a third interview several months later, again with the ad litem and without his mother. These discrepancies are in the police report and describe that Tom first indicated hearing a commotion and getting out of bed. Later, he states he awoke to the sound of his mother’s crying and found her in the kitchen with his father, recently deceased. Finally, Tom states again that he was awakened by what he called “bad fighting” and snuck out of his room.

  What I see is a boy in a great deal of grief, who has not yet processed a major trauma in his life. My job here, ultimately, is to determine his state and whether the trauma has overwhelmed him to the point he’s either unwilling or unable to consistently recall the events of that night. But I also very much aim to provide Tom with some basic tools to help him begin a healing process.

  This first session was a chance for us to get to know each other a bit. I’ve not given Tom any assignments. He is clearly troubled, but he’s not showing any outward signs of phobias, any loss of social function. He’s able to answer and ask questions. He makes eye contact, though his gaze skips around. He’s nervous, as if he knows that being here could lead to something uncomfortable.

  * * *

  A concerned motorist is knocking on the glass. “Ma’am? Ma’am, can you hear me?”

  I try to speak, but it’s as if my lips are numb. I blink at him and nod. The air bag remains inflated in front of me, restricting my movements. Something drips from above my left eye.

  The motorist speaks again. “I’m going to open the door, okay?”

  My head is throbbing with pulses of dark energy. My neck is stiff, and just the act of nodding has sent bolts of pain down my spine and up to the base of my skull, scorching around my ears. The motorist grabs the door handle and lifts. The door doesn’t budge. He’s in his twenties, with a beard.

  Where am I?

  I hit something . . .

  “It’s stuck,” he says. Then he tries again. No good. He looks through the glass at me, desperation filling his eyes in the refracted light of vehicle headlamps. “I can’t get a signal,” he says, showing me his phone. He starts to say something else but is distracted, looking off. I think I hear an engine, see more headlights.

  “Hang on,” he says.

  Moments later, the sound of shrieking metal brings me back from a kind of shocked stupor. The motorist, along with someone else, is prying open the door with a crowbar. After a minute of work, it finally gives. The door pops open and the fresh night air rushes in.

  The motorist reaches for me. The man beside him is older, with white hair and glasses. “Wait a minute,” the older man says. “We shouldn’t move her.” He focuses on me and raises his voice. I can smell mint gum on his breath. And something else, too. A coppery smell, but not on him. On me. Blood.

  “Ma’am? Can you move your head?”

  I gingerly twist my neck back and forth. The pain is strong, but it feels like strained ligaments, not vertebral. “I think so,” I say. My voice surprises me. It sounds like someone else’s. Like me, twenty years ago.

  Fifteen, maybe.

  “Okay,” the older man says. “But do you feel like your head and neck . . . ? We don’t want to move you if there’s any issue . . .”

  I start to wriggle out of the car.

  The older man steps back. So does the young motorist. I can’t spend another minute in this car. The airbag has deflated, at last, and I’m able to swing my legs over and step down, toes to the ground. The two men hover close, arms out, not sure if they should touch me or help me. Finally the younger man gets a hand under my elbow to help steady me.

  “You took quite a hit,” he says. “I think hitting the guard rail like you did put pressure on the doors, cinching them shut.”

  I’m listening to him, but I’m also staring across the road. The deer is there, on the far shoulder, lying on its side. Its head is thrown back, as if in ecstasy. A small pink tongue pokes from the black seams of its mouth. One eye, glassy and black, stares back across the asphalt at me.

  “My wife went on ahead,” the older man says. “She was going to drive until she got a signal, then call police.”

  I get my bearings. The spot is probably just a mile or two off of I-87. It’s the windy mountain pass that precedes Lake Placid. Beyond the guard rail, the land plummets into a steep ravine, punctuated with pointy pine trees. The headlights of the Range Rover, still on, stab out into the air over the massive drop.

  “Pretty close to the edge,” the young man says.

  My mind was spinning at first, but now it’s settling, thoughts forming clear and simple: The cops are coming. It will be state police. An accident report. An insurance claim. And judging by the look of me in the reflection of the side-view mirror, likely a trip to the hospital.

  And I’ve been drinking all night. Two gins at the office, and a couple of healthy glasses of wine at home. It’s been hours, most of it likely metabolized, but still . . .

  “Ma’am?”

  I get back into the driver’s seat. The keys are still in the ignition. A safety feature has rotated the key chuck back into the pre-ignition position, so I twist the keys to test the battery, the starter — whatever gets this thing going. The engine, surprisingly, fires up.

  The two men take another couple of steps back. They’re almost in the road, and so they walk around in front of the Range Rover, watching helplessly as I put the vehicle in reverse and hit the gas. With a couple of bumps and a jarring jump back onto the asphalt, I’m on the road again. The Rover sounds okay — the only problem is my door is still open.

  Leaning over, I catch the handle and give it a hard pull. With a loud wrenching of metal, the door closes. The door-open indicator light stays on, however. It’s good enough.

  The men exchange glances. The older one is talking, jaw wagging, but I can’t hear. Finally, he faces me and waves his arms in the air. He’s shouting, “Ma’am! Ma’am!”

  I put the Rover in park. The power window works, but only partway. Pressing the button lowers it by about half. The white-haired man is there, talking at me through the gap. “Ma’am. I don’t think you should.”

  “Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”

  “Ma’am — I think you’re in shock. It might be best to just . . . get out of the vehicle. Let the police handle it.”

  I stare past the white-haired man at the deer on the far side of the road. I feel like we’re in it together, the deer and me. That these people are interlopers.

  “Ma’am? Really . . .”

  And yet a part of me knows he’s right.

  In the end, it doesn’t matter, since I can see the blue and red lights starting to pulse in the dark forest as a state trooper car comes up the mountain road and around the bend.

  CHAPTER TWENTY | Saturday

  I’m brought to the hospital in Lake Placid. The facility is small but functional. Paul has been notified and is waiting when we get there. Once I’m out of the ambulance and in a bed in the small ER, Paul fawns over me, touching me, wincing as he takes stock of my injurie
s as if he can feel my pain.

  Within half an hour, I’m released. I have a cut over my left eye — from my watch — and some bruising of my forearms. It had seemed worse at the time, but I’m told I’m lucky. Very lucky. Paul brings me home in the pickup truck — the Rover is being towed. We’ll have to get a rental while we work out the insurance claim and repairs.

  Dawn turns the sky red and gold. Paul glances at me as we drive along. “The trooper I spoke to said you kept asking about the deer. He said they have hunters, or butchers, one of those. People who will take it and make use of it.”

  I can still see the eye looking at me over the sloping, dark road. Deer are actually quite common in Westchester, something of a nuisance. We see them in our backyard all the time. But northern deer, Adirondack deer — they’re different. Elusive. Less domesticated, and more wild and mysterious.

  My head feels off. I have that same sort of preternatural calm as before, but something is wrong. Subsurface. It’s not the booze either — despite my worries, the police never checked my blood alcohol level and I’ve certainly burned it all off by now anyway. Maybe I’m still in shock. Certainly I’m overtired.

  I do a mental check of what I can recall from the past twenty-four hours. Has it been just that? Not even. It’s only five in the morning now, but Joni didn’t show up with Michael until eleven yesterday. She announced their engagement thirty minutes later. I was more dumbstruck by his resemblance to a long-ago patient than the marriage proposal. Soon after their arrival, I was told that Maggie Lewis died. I returned home, a four-hour drive, to speak to local police and look through my files — not for her, but for Tom Bishop. I found the address for the uncle who took him in and raised him. Arnold Bleeker was hospitable at first, but then chased me out of the house. His daughter and her husband showed up and flipped me off. I went to the Bishop home only to discover Detective Starzyk haunting the place, telling me that Laura Bishop was out. Finally, Frank Mills pulled information that showed Tom Bishop lives on the other side of the country, but the jail where Laura Bishop did time is around the corner from my vacation home in the mountains.