Full Disclosure

by Dee Henderson

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got a secret like this out there, so we could kind of even things up.”

  He couldn’t help his chuckle. “Nothing even close, I’m afraid. Mine’s a reasonably boring kind of life.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. I haven’t. And most of them are things like this, events that just happened.”

  “You’ve already given me part of those secrets. You’ve told me they are out there.”

  She blinked as she realized he was right.

  He asked the question he had to ask. “Can I talk to Vicky? About what those first weeks were like when you came back from the cabin? Or do you want to tell me about those weeks yourself?”

  “Vicky is probably the better one to tell you. I found the heaviest painkillers I could tolerate and did my best to get through the first ten weeks by not thinking or feeling anything. I remember reading when I was awake, and being awake at very odd times, and sweating with a cold chill for no reason. The nightmares didn’t start until a year later.

  “I was glad to have the cast off, and I was glad to get back to work. I think it took that first year for the numbness to wear off. The rest of this unfolded slowly. I started helping Reece on the investigation of the diary two years later as a way to sort out what in the nightmare was based in fact. It has always felt like a distant event to me. That still hasn’t changed. I wrote the diary, I can look at the pages and remember writing them, but it feels like I’m detached from it. My mind really has put most of this event in the past.

  “The nightmare is different. It’s driven by the regret, and that still lingers. I can see myself writing the diary, I can see those last three victims, each in turn standing beside me as I write. I can see their blood dripping on the pages. I can’t change what I’m writing, and I desperately want to change what I’m writing.”

  “It looks like you feel the gunshot.”

  “At the end I know I am fighting for my life. I can feel my racing heartbeat and the physical struggle I am losing, the desperate fear. And then the shot goes off and the shock wave goes through my mind like it is being shaken apart, and I stop thinking the pain is so intense. Then I’m awake, gasping for air. It literally takes a moment to realize I’m alive and that I was dreaming. That disorientation, that moment of pure panic, is worse than anything I have ever been able to describe.”

  “Have you let anyone try to help you?”

  “There’s a team of doctors who have worked together to help. There are some very good psychiatrists among my friends. They don’t know the nightmare’s source, but they know enough to realize some of what my mind is working through. This nightmare isn’t lending itself to being tamed. At best it fades at times in frequency but not in intensity. The dream itself, the shot in particular, is a living memory. It gets touched off by a smell, a sound, a thought. It replays in vivid detail.

  “Normally the doctors would reshape a repeating nightmare, would help identify different details to remember, add new elements, construct a new ending, so that eventually what was a nightmare would be changed to a less stressful dream. But that doesn’t seem to work for this one.

  “One of the doctors watching it play out said it’s like my mind dies. I can’t get a different outcome because my mind realizes the shock wave of the gunshot is death moving through my brain, and my memory freezes. My thoughts can’t get past that point because there’s nothing more there. My mind believes it is dead. I wake up gasping, startled to be alive, because my mind skips out of that memory and back to the present.”

  “Do you ever experience it when you’re awake?”

  “It’s only a dream. And maybe because it never changes, it is something I’ve learned to live with. I assume I will have it. I’ve learned how to shake off the aftereffects. It’s an injury, just as if I had been shot and lost a kidney, or been shot and lost an arm. It’s an injury that simply is there. It’s a scar of what happened.”

  “Vicky knows about the nightmare.”

  “There’s not a friend of mine who doesn’t know about the nightmare, though only Vicky knows the images. Jack is probably the best at it, and the one I link up to by video the most often when the nightmare jolts me awake and I need to fill some time. He teaches me stupid card tricks.”

  The soft tone and her smile tipped him off. “Jack—the fireman. His wife is Cassie?” he guessed, remembering the book.

  “That’s Jack. He’s at the fire station in the middle of the night, waiting on call-outs. He taught Cassie the card tricks to help her with her hand coordination. Now he tries to teach me. He’s good for a laugh.”

  “You’re smiling just remembering.”

  “I’ve got good friends.”

  “Very good friends.”

  “I live with it, Paul. And I hope it’s going to ease off and go back to being an occasional thing. It’s rare to dream it twice or more a night, and that’s been going on this last week.” She slid her hands from his and offered an attempt at a smile. “You came to see Boone about family business, and Vicky and I were going shopping today. I’d like to keep those plans.”

  “Life goes on.”

  “Yes. It’s the only way to handle this.”

  “Then I hope you have a good day shopping. Do you like to shop?”

  “I like to get what I need and get out. Vicky is more flexible. She’ll shop, and I’ll be amused with her choices and her rejects, and then I’ll buy her food and listen to what else she wants to find.”

  “I imagine you’ll buy a book.”

  “And probably a present for Midnight.”

  “I plan to stay a day or two, then head back to Chicago. I could drive you home if you like.”

  “Thank you, but I’m going to keep my plans to meet up with Rachel for a few days. She’s like Vicky, good for me when it’s a bad week.” She got to her feet. “I may have Vicky drop me off at the airport, so if I don’t see you later today, I hope you have a good visit with Boone.”

  “I will. Fly safe, Ann.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m catching a lift with a friend rather than flying myself, and she’s got more hours as a pilot than I do.”

  He wanted to hug her, to tell her again it would be okay, but she took a step away that was a deliberate request for distance. She was holding her emotions together by a thread, however much she tried to present that she had patched them together. Paul gave her the distance because it was all he could do. “I’ll call you, Ann. And be down to see you.”

  She nodded and disappeared out the back door. Paul took a careful breath. It felt like a boulder had landed on his chest. He knew the details now, she had trusted him, and if she felt a bit of relief to have the conversation over, in contrast he now felt a bit sick. She’d been right to describe it as an injury and a scar.

  He ran his hand across his face and got up to get himself a drink. It explained why she could write the books she did. She had to put the emotions somewhere, and she had learned to cope by letting those emotions flow onto the page. She would cope, because she had no choice. He’d have to learn to do the same.

  The door opened, and Paul glanced over at Boone. Paul dug out a second soda. “Sorry for it, Boone.”

  His brother shrugged. “Vicky has a lifetime of secrets, and most of them I will never hear. It’s not a surprise to learn there was one shared with Ann. I’m sorry for what it is, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Those two ladies didn’t get to be the kind of friends they are by just sharing tea and shopping. The VP is probably an idiot to wait this long to tell it or, conversely, an idiot to feel like he needs to say anything at all.”

  Paul sat down again at the table. “It will be public soon enough, and we’ll have an answer to which it is. Reporters will quickly speculate it is Ann for the diary, but getting to Vicky will take some doing. She’s not one to leave a paper trail with her true name on it, even inside the U.S.”

  “The hospital records were long ago scrubbed for any sign she had been the one Ann left the hospital wi
th,” Boone confirmed. “They won’t get to Vicky directly, but people know they are friends. Vicky was in the States that fall on a rare leave. A few will speculate, but I doubt it goes further than that. The few who could put it together as more than speculation aren’t the kind to talk.”

  “You’ll handle it if they do.”

  Boone just glanced at him as if surprised he’d bothered to put it into words.

  Paul didn’t want to talk about the last forty minutes with Ann, and he didn’t particularly want to talk about work, or about the family business. There were four pieces of pie left. Paul chose another one. Boone got a plate and fork and joined him.

  “I like Ann.”

  Paul smiled. “What do you want to know, Boone?”

  “How long before you do something about it?”

  “She doesn’t shift easily from being friends to being something more.”

  Boone considered him, and then just nodded. “You’ll figure it out.”

  “No advice?”

  “Women are a mystery best handled with care.”

  “You’re right about that one. Anything you’ve noticed about Ann that might help me out?”

  “She plays Dad at chess online and beats him.”

  “Really?”

  “She doesn’t realize it’s him. He’s playing under the old KM9 log-in. It probably wouldn’t matter to her if she did know who it is, but he’s enjoying the games too much to let me tell her. Did you realize she knows Luke and Caroline?”

  “No.”

  Boone walked into the next room and returned with a book. He set it on the table.

  Paul realized he’d just hit another air pocket of information about Ann he didn’t know. “There are two of Ann’s books I have yet to read. She wrote their story?”

  “She did. It’s a good read.”

  “Does it ever surprise you, Boone, the number of things you stumble into with Ann?”

  “I think she’s just made that way. What others would tell you in the first five minutes of conversation, to brag a bit, to present who they are, with Ann you find out by accident in a few years if you happen on to the information. It says more about who she is than the facts you learn. I like her for it.”

  “So do I, but it’s hard to know when you’ve found all those pieces.”

  “With Vicky I just assume most of them are going to stay out there unfound. She keeps getting more interesting the longer we’re married as they keep turning up.”

  “I don’t understand Ann not saying, I wrote Luke and Caroline’s story.”

  “She doesn’t talk about friends. First rule of Ann in her personal list of rules. Friends are private.”

  “It would be nice to know if that would change if we were more than friends.”

  Boone half smiled. “Only one way you’re going to find that out.”

  “I’m working on the problem. She likes what she has now and isn’t in a hurry to change. I can’t afford to get it wrong. I may only get one chance with her.”

  “You need to figure it out before the VP’s book is released. Ann’s world is going to get a lot more complex once it does. If you think she isn’t in a hurry to make a decision now, once that arrives, she won’t make a decision for a good year or more.”

  Paul nodded. “I can feel the clock running.”

  23

  Paul stood in the doorway of his office. Twenty-two days since he’d last been here, and his chair had acquired a stack of binders, with Post-it notes tacked onto Post-it notes. At least most of the mail was still on Rita’s desk. He piled the heap from his chair to his desk and sat down with a sigh. It was going to be a long day.

  “I brought you good coffee.” Rita stood in his doorway holding a mug. “Margaret was sympathetic and sent a carryout.”

  “Thanks, Rita.” Paul accepted the mug. “Did Zane take his fish home?”

  “He’s offering to let me adopt them. I think he just doesn’t want to figure out how to get the aquarium out of there. They’re kind of cute. I may let them stay. It’s good to be home, boss.”

  “I was getting used to not being able to be found.”

  She laughed and headed to the door.

  “Rita.”

  She turned.

  “Get out of here for a few hours this afternoon, come in late in the morning. Your priority is to watch the mail for the lady shooter’s next letter. The rest of the catch-up can wait. You and Sam have earned as much vacation time as you want. Go shopping, see a movie, whatever appeals. It’s going to get hectic in a few months when the book is released and when the arrests are made. Take some half days and enjoy the time off while you can.”

  “I’ll take you up on that, boss.”

  “Pass the news to Sam. I’ll be upstairs to make the rounds with the team in about half an hour, get up to speed on what’s on the board. We’ll have the briefings at noon for the next couple of weeks, as I want to live up in the conference room for a while to get back into the flow of things.”

  Rita grinned. “I like it, boss. It will put people back on their toes.” She left to find Sam.

  Paul looked at the monitor and wondered if Ann would answer a brief call. He wasn’t under any illusions about her next few weeks. She needed some rest that went deep enough to matter, and a lot of it. He wanted to see how she was doing.

  A tap on the door had him glancing back. He grinned. “Dave.”

  “I thought I’d come welcome the prodigal home. I heard you were south seeing Ann.”

  Paul leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his chest, but it was hard to keep the smile in check. “Where’d you hear that?”

  Dave dropped into a chair with a laugh. “As if you think our girls don’t talk. Kate’s pleased, as if it was entirely her idea. You two want to come over for dinner next time Ann’s in town for a few days?”

  “Need to check with her, but sure, we’d love to.”

  Dave’s smile faded. “Kate deserted me for breakfast with Ann and Rachel, so I know some of what is going on. Ann might not talk about the past, but you don’t have to be that wise to see nightmares crawling out her skin. She hasn’t looked this bad in years. You’re going to fix that, I assume.”

  “Not that easy to fix, I’m afraid.” Paul didn’t try either to avoid the question or expand on it. Dave might not know, but he knew. It didn’t take information about the cabin to put together the truth that Ann carried her own version of a very bad day as a cop. “Stuff got stirred up. She just needs some time.”

  “Did you do the stirring?”

  “The VP did.”

  Dave scowled. “I never did like the guy.”

  Paul laughed. “I wish I had your quick assessments on people, Dave. I haven’t figured him out yet. To begin with, it’s kind of intimidating to have Ann pull up to the VP’s estate and tell security, ‘I have a guest with me tonight.’ She’s comfortable there in a way that’s hard to get used to.”

  “She’s just Ann. She’s comfortable about everywhere. She’s going to borrow the plane and run a bunch of cops over to South Carolina this afternoon. Part of the search-and-rescue crew has a chance to train with the National Guard. So if you’re at loose ends tonight, a bunch of us are getting together for a basketball game. You’re welcome to join us.”

  Paul wasn’t sure if it was a peace offering or a way to make sure he ended up with a few bruises. “Which gym?”

  “Ellis Street. We’ll be starting about seven p.m. Bring Sam along.”

  “I’ll be there, and I’ll ask him. Thanks.” Paul tugged out two sodas and handed Dave one so his friend would stay put a few more minutes. “You want to know the reason Ann’s not married?” he asked abruptly, going back to their long-ago conversation. He’d been mulling over that problem on the drive back to Chicago.

  “You think you know?”

  “Dave, she’s scared to fail. That’s why she isn’t married. Read her books again. She’s the author offstage, but she’s the author. It’s there between
the lines—what she puts in, what she leaves out, where she pauses, and where she pivots. Ann is in the books she writes. To Ann, a failed marriage is a failed life. It won’t matter that the rest of life was good. She’s scared to fail, so she won’t try.”

  “Being scared to fail is like shadowboxing with a shadow. If you’re right, what can you do with that?”

  “Make it so she can’t fail. That’s what it is going to take to close the sale.”

  “How do you plan—?” Dave’s phone interrupted. He glanced at it and winced. “Sorry, buddy. That’s L.A., and they’re not happy since I arrested one of their witnesses last night. If I avoid this call, they are going to fly out and complain in person.”

  Paul laughed. “Been there with them myself. Go, make peace with the enemy in our West Coast office.”

  Dave left with his question unfinished.

  Paul wasn’t sure how he would have answered. He was going to have to figure it out. He knew where Ann’s resistance was at, he had discovered why she was cautious, but he didn’t have an answer yet to solving it. And he was very aware time was going to push his hand. The release of the VP’s autobiography was a ticking clock for both of them.

  She might think she was ready for the firestorm of press that would come, but there was no way to fully comprehend what that would be like in advance. He’d been in enough high-profile cases where the press pushed in to know something of what was coming. He wanted her to be able to make a decision in the calm before that arrived, to decide while she wasn’t dealing with those crosscurrents. But he also knew he might be better off to wait, to be her friend through the worst of it, give her more time. He didn’t know if another year would help or hurt the relationship. Reece’s warning not to let her stall was sitting there as advice from someone who knew Ann well, and it was factoring into this equation.

  The only thing he was certain about right now was they needed a quiet couple of weeks. He knew how much the nightmare was eroding her quality of life, and she needed time to get that back under control. It would be good for them both to have life return to normal for a few weeks, for her to have time at home, to take the occasional MHI call, for them to spend evenings together on video. She needed to read a few books, sleep in regularly, take walks with Black, and get back a sense of order. The wise thing to do right now was to help that happen however he could.