by Tara Moss
The traffic was light and before long Makedde was approaching Dr Morgan’s house. She checked the address again as she pulled up. The place was quaint, with a border of green shrubs and a set of steps leading up to a welcoming front porch that was lit for visitors. A wreath of dried flowers was on the front door. The house was dark, save for some warm light glowing from within the living room.
Mak parked Zhora easily on the quiet street, pulling into a space right in front of Ann’s house, a concept that was quite unlike trying to park near her own place in “cool Kitsilano” as Ann had called it. She cut the engine and sat for a moment in the darkness.
She wants to speak with me about something. That’s almost exactly what Andy said.
Mak got out of the car, carrying only her purse, and made her way up to the porch. She rang the doorbell. Within seconds she heard approaching footsteps, and Ann was at the door. She quickly ushered her inside.
“I’m so glad you could come,” Ann said. The sight of pinched concern on the doctor’s face was unsettling. “Please, make yourself at home.”
Ann asked her to sit down then disappeared to the kitchen, presumably to fetch some refreshments. Makedde took a seat on the couch, on the edge nearest to the side table. She noted that Ann was reading People of Heaven. Her bookmark—some kind of pressed flower laminated on a piece of pretty mauve paper—was placed right near the back.
“What can I get you to drink? Soda? Wine?” Ann called from the kitchen.
“Just water, thanks,” Makedde called back.
Ann walked back into the lounge a couple of minutes later with two tall glasses of mineral water. The glasses were frosty and the ice cubes clinked and fizzled as they moved. She placed Makedde’s drink on a coaster on the side table and sat down in the adjacent easychair.
“So, how are you?”
“Fine. Thanks again for agreeing to see me. I think it really helped to get some of that stuff off my chest.”
“It’s my pleasure, it really is. Thanks for coming over.” Her face turned serious. “Makedde, I am aware that this is an unconventional situation, but I wanted to ask you about something, and I felt it couldn’t wait.”
The unmistakable taste of dread settled on Makedde’s tongue. She crossed her arms and felt a lump form in her throat.
“In our last session you mentioned that the man you’ve been going out with is named Roy Blake,” Ann said.
Makedde’s stomach tightened. “Yes.”
Ann nodded. “Can you describe him for me? Physically?”
Makedde shifted on the couch. She didn’t like where this was headed at all.
“Okay. He is, um…very tall. Six foot four or something like that.” She reminded herself to breathe. For some reason it wasn’t coming naturally. “He’s a fairly good-looking guy. You know the actor, Vince Vaughn? Sort of like that.” She stared off into space as she spoke, picturing him. Reluctantly. “He has slightly curly brown hair and his eyes are brown,” Makedde went on. “Clean-shaven. Maybe a few years older than I am—somewhere in his late twenties to early thirties I’d say. He works as a security guard at the university…”
Ann nodded to herself again and Makedde stopped her rambling description.
“Yes,” Ann said softly, in a tone of both recognition and regret. “The name rang a bell with me when you mentioned him. You see, I worked with a patient by the name of Blake a few years back. I checked my files today to be absolutely sure that I had the name right.” She paused. “Has Roy said anything to you about his brother?”
Then the phone rang, breaking the tension of the conversation.
Ann got up immediately.
“Please excuse me. I’m waiting for an important call.”
She still looked pretty nervous. Mak found it odd to see her that way.
Ann went to the phone in her bedroom and closed the door behind her. She prayed that it was Roy.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hello, could I speak to Dr Morgan, please?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Roy Blake—”
Thank God.
“Roy. Hello. Thanks for calling me back…”
CHAPTER 41
Roy sat in the trophy den, listening to Dr Morgan on the cabin’s old rotary-dial telephone.
“I haven’t heard your name for a while. The message said it was urgent.”
“Well, I have been going through some old files and checking up on past patients, and I just wanted to know how Daniel is doing.”
Roy looked at his watch. Odd that she should make such calls after-hours. “He’s fine,” Roy said bluntly, a little annoyed to be bothered this way. He’d had a rough day, and this wasn’t helping.
“Where is he, exactly?”
Roy frowned. “Well, like I told you when I last saw you, Daniel has been staying out here in Squamish at the cabin. It all worked out even better than I had hoped, really. He’s doing very well and he seems to really love it.”
Roy looked around him at the animals Daniel had caught and stuffed. He’d become a pretty good hunter, and by far excelled Roy’s own abilities now that he had the time to get out regularly.
“He’s been very productive. Taken up taxidermy. I’m at the cabin right now, in fact. Daniel loves it here, I assure you. He’s in the other room, doing just fine.”
“He’s not listening in, is he?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Roy felt increasingly uncomfortable. Just then, he heard a noise and Daniel walked in. He smiled at his brother and sat on the couch across from him.
“So, like I said, we have no need for your help at all. Thanks for calling anyway.”
Roy didn’t want his brother knowing that he was talking to a shrink about him. That’d only upset him. In fact, any memory of Ann Morgan would upset him. He had wanted to stay in therapy at first, until Roy told him what the doctors had planned for him. Drugs and institutions, Roy was sure. He couldn’t let that happen to his own brother.
He had to get her off the phone now.
Roy noticed that Daniel was looking intensely at the newspaper in Roy’s hand—the one that had Ann’s number scrawled on it.
“I have to go now,” Roy said to Ann.
Daniel abruptly got up and walked out of the room. The moment he left, Roy resumed the conversation. “He’s fine, honestly. He is very happy. He is very productive out here, and he’s not causing anybody any trouble. I said he would be fine, and he is.”
“Are you sure?” Ann prodded.
Roy didn’t like the tone of her voice.
“Yes, I’m sure.” He was starting to lose his patience now.
Daniel came back with a couple of glasses of beer.
“Is there anyone there with him? Does he have any supervision?”
“Well, no. Not really,” he said vaguely.
He took the glass of beer from his brother and nodded a thank you to him. They clinked the glasses in the air, and Daniel went back to sit on the couch again. He picked up a magazine and started reading.
“So he is at the cabin without any supervision?”
Roy took a big sip of his beer. “There is no need,” he said, purposely vague. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but everything is under control. Thanks for calling.”
“Roy—” she began.
“Bye now.” He hung up on her and shook his head.
He didn’t like her meddling like that. No one had the right to meddle in their lives. She would have put Danny in a mental home if he hadn’t put a stop to it. There was no doubt about that. And there was no way he was going to let her back into their lives again, after all this time when everything was just fine.
“Sorry about that, Danny.” He took a long swig of his beer.
“That was Dr Morgan, wasn’t it?”
“Excuse me?” Roy said, surprised. He gulped hard to avoid spitting up a mouthful of ale.
“That’s who you were talking to, wasn’t it?”
; “No, just a vacuum-cleaner salesman,” he assured him. “They tricked me into calling them back. Made me think it was something important. They can be so pushy, can’t they?”
He really didn’t want Daniel to know that Ann was snooping around.
Danny seemed to relax and he took another sip of his beer. Roy finished his in long gulps.
When they had downed their drinks, Daniel spoke again. “You’re lying to me.”
What?
“That was her. I know it was her. Her name is on the paper in your hand.”
Damn, he saw it.
Roy was caught. He wasn’t sure what to say now. He hadn’t wanted to upset his brother. Their mom had always left that to him. He had to protect his brother because he was special. He was different.
“Ann thinks I did it.”
“What?”
Daniel pointed to the paper. “And so do you.”
The Nahatlatch Murders? Was he referring to the headline?
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it all, Roy. We won’t have any trouble.”
Roy wanted to ask him what he was talking about, he wanted to know if he was having another one of his episodes, but now words failed him. He didn’t feel so well. He felt dizzy…sick. The sensation came on sudden and strong.
“Whaaa…?”
The room was spinning, the animals swirling around him, those glass-eyed trophies circling him. He felt incredibly, impossibly drunk.
Within fifteen minutes, Roy Blake was out cold.
CHAPTER 42
“Hi, Andy, it’s Bob.”
“Hi. How’s it going?”
Andy was still dripping from a shower, and he towelled his chest with one hand as he held the receiver.
“We have some progress on the murders,” Dr Harris told him.
“Great.”
The Evan Rose lead was at a bit of a standstill since the result of his polygraph, so they’d started on some new leads. The ViCLAS specialist hadn’t found any strong links against other reports so they could do little more than hope the offender might do something wrong—reveal himself in some way.
“We ran a rego check on one of the vehicles spotted in the area, and we got a name. It piqued my interest because he works at UBC.”
“Really?”
“Security guard.”
“Oh, yeah.” A percentage of those working in security had in fact been rejected from the police force, and on this basis they tended to treat any suspects with this occupation with special attention. While a bad cop could sometimes slip through the screening process, there were bound to be a lot more cowboys who made it into security—guys who simply wanted a taste of power.
“Bob had him on his attendance list at the psychopathy conference.”
“Whoa. Now that is interesting.”
“I was wondering if by some chance you’d met him. The name is Blake. Roy Blake. Unfortunately the name doesn’t ring a bell with me.”
Andy thought about the name. He hadn’t met a lot of people at the conference. He had been too focused on Makedde.
“Me either. I met a few professors, that’s it.”
“Antisocial, were we?”
“Very funny.”
“Yeah, I guess you were a little distracted,” Bob said.
“Yeah, very funny, ha, ha. Anything else?”
“No. That’s it. Just wondering if the name rang a bell.”
“No bells, Bob. Sorry.”
CHAPTER 43
A black Ford pick-up truck sped along the Sea to Sky Highway, the tyres spitting filth onto pavements cleaned by recent rains. The man behind the wheel was hurried but sober, his driving almost reckless, his eyes glued to the road.
The Hunter had borrowed his brother’s truck. It was faster than the one Roy always left for him at the cabin.
He had to get into the city fast.
He had a mission.
CHAPTER 44
“I can see how it could be an awkward position,” Makedde said sympathetically. She sipped a cup of peppermint tea. “I really appreciate you telling me what you can.” She shook her head.
Ann pursed her lips together and clasped her hands. “I’m sorry that I can’t be more forthcoming about Daniel’s condition. I have to consider the confidentiality of my patients, and if you know nothing about him, then that’s that.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to compromise yourself professionally,” Mak said.
“The brothers are an odd pair, though.” Ann said, shaking her head. “They are actually tw—”
Thump.
Makedde and Dr Morgan looked up in unison, snapped alert by the noise directly behind them.
“Did you hear that?”
Thump-thump.
There it was again.
The sound was coming from outside the door. There was no mistaking it; someone was moving on the front porch.
The doorbell rang and Ann got to her feet. “Oh,” she said with surprise and stood quiet for a moment.
Makedde slowly got up and watched the doctor move towards the front door. It seemed to take forever. It was only Ann answering her own doorbell, but Makedde’s stomach twisted into a tight knot at the sight of it.
Something is wrong.
“Are you expecting anyone?” she called out, but Ann was at the door now. Makedde wanted to yell something to her—wanted to tell her to watch out, to get away from the door but Ann was already looking through the peephole, and then she turned, puzzled, “I don’t see anyone…”
The next sound was the thunderous crash of breaking glass. The racket was not coming from the front door, however—it was coming from behind Makedde. She spun around and faced the kitchen doorway.
Someone was there. They had rung the door and snuck around the back.
Makedde’s hands were empty—no protection—no weapon. Get the gun, she thought. No, it’s in the car outside…Get the purse…Use the pepper spray…
Mak grabbed the small purse off the floor beside the couch and managed to unzip the main pouch with unsteady hands…she reached inside…
Where is it!?
Within seconds she found the pepper spray and whirled around to face the kitchen again, instinctively unlocking the spray cap as she moved. She extended the pressurised container in front of her with both arms, as if she were aiming the business end of a pistol at the kitchen doorway. She had imagined using the spray many times, particularly in the past year, never quite knowing under what conditions she would need it.
Oh God.
Roy appeared in the doorway.
Roy Blake!
Makedde inhaled sharply. Her heart dropped into the acid of her belly, and her throat seemed to freeze, filling her mouth with a sharp metallic bite.
There was a horrible sense of inevitability in what was happening, and she couldn’t place why. It was almost as if she had been expecting this.
Roy was wearing a ski mask, but Makedde was sure it was him. Those large, familiar brown eyes looked straight at her—straight into her. But Roy had no smile for her this time, no chocolates that would split on the ground, no roses, no romantic sentiments. He was not trying to impress her. He was not trying to convince her of anything. He clearly had other ideas.
Roy lunged for her hand as soon as he saw the spray she was holding, but she depressed the button first, releasing a strong pressurised stream of pepper solution directly into his face. She had been told it would accurately shoot up to fifteen feet, and Roy was well within that range. The problem of course, was the ski mask. With his face largely protected, she had to count on Roy inhaling at the right moment, or his eyes being open when the pepper spray hit.
Negative on both counts.
In an instant he was on her, twisting her arm behind her in a classic hold that she had even been taught herself. Despite Makedde’s best efforts, the manoeuvre caused her to drop the spray can in an unavoidable physical reflex. She heard it hit the ground and bounce with a tinny sound, and her heart sank.
Roy was behind her, one of her hands was free, the other pinned painfully between them and no longer holding her self-defence spray. He had locked one arm around her neck, his elbow below her chin. His grip was tight. The air smelled strongly of spray and Makedde’s eyes began to water. Her nose would soon start to run as well. She wondered how badly Roy had been hit with it, and if it would affect him at all.
She used her free arm as best she could, attempting to punch out behind her, clawing and scratching at him, but she knew her efforts could not amount to much in that position.
I need the use of my other arm to throw him, she thought. I need my other arm!
“Let me go…” she growled at him, and then her right shoulder cried out in pain as he yanked it further backwards. She screamed more loudly than she needed to, harbouring some thin hope of a concerned neighbour calling the police, and an even more remote hope that Roy might actually release his grip a touch if he knew it was causing her a lot of pain.
But he did not ease his hold by even a fraction.
Please don’t let him break my collarbone…or my rib…
It would be easy to snap her bones where they had been broken before. The injuries were little more than a year old. Makedde thought of Ann near the door—everything had all happened so fast, in seconds—and she wondered where the doctor was now.
Roy spun the two of them around to face the front of the room, and Makedde’s question was answered. Ann was coming at Roy with a sharp poker from her fireplace. How she had it in her hands so quickly Makedde didn’t know, but she was glad to see it. Makedde sensed that Roy was no longer as focused on her. He released his grip ever so slightly, and she stole the opportunity to free her right arm. She pushed her hips forward and squirmed down a bit and his arm tightened around her throat as soon as he realised what she was doing.
Makedde straightened her body and raised both arms back to grab her attacker. One hand firmly grabbed Roy’s hair through the knitted mask that covered his head. If her hand slipped and she only had his mask, her grip would be useless. Her opposite hand grabbed his shoulder at the same time, and just as she had practised so many times, she pulled down and forward in a strong arc with all of her might. With a cry that might almost have been a roar, Mak flipped Roy onto his back, and he fell to the ground by her feet, his considerable weight causing her to fall heavily to one knee.