The Well - Book One of the Arizona Thriller Trilogy

by Sharon Sterling

  She rose from the chair, went to the sofa, lay down on her side with her forehead against the back cushion and her back toward the office. I’m good at projection, too.

  ***

  The session was going well.

  “I had that dream again last night,” the client said.

  “Which one is that?”

  “The ones I have all the time. The details are a little different, but it’s always someone chasing me or beating me up or trying to kill me. I’m afraid and trying to get away. I try to scream but I open my mouth and nothing comes out. I try and try to scream but nothing comes out.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know what it means! That’s why I’m telling you.”

  The therapist was silent. Then, “I’ll tell you what. Let’s try a little lucid dreaming. You understand about lucid dreaming? It’s a way to bring consciousness into your dreams, to interact with them in a meaningful way. It can be difficult, but with a little practice, most people can do it. It will help you understand what your dreams are trying to tell you. They’re always telling you something, something you need to know about yourself. So tonight, when you go to bed, ask yourself that question: 'why can't I scream in my dreams?' Then, if you have the dream again, bring that question into it. Ask yourself that question while you’re still dreaming.”

  “That sounds weird. Can a person actually do that?”

  “It works for lots of people. If you do it you’ll feel sure of the answer you get.”

  “Putting it back on me, huh? Making me answer my own questions.”

  The therapist just smiled.

  Chapter 5

  He came around with a shudder that started in his chest, roiled like a snake under his blanched skin and ended with a jerk of his foot. His eyes opened. Unfocused, they were nothing but empty reflectors of the flickering glow from the TV. He blinked, turned his head from side to side, trying to see, trying to orient himself. Even when his vision returned, he couldn’t see her because she had opened the door against the stench of him and moved behind him, out of his line of sight.

  He must have sensed the thin, cold caress of the night’s breath on his torso and genitals because he raised his head, looked down the length of his naked body at his bound hands, then the doughy mound surrounded by its dark thatch, to the rope around his ankles. He gasped. His dazed brain had finally registered his condition. She heard the sharp intake of breath and laughed. Like a shadow materializing from the wall, she walked around to stand between him and the TV.

  Even in silhouette, her image penetrated his fog. Now he knew the danger. With a muffled shout, he tried to stand. He struggled against the rope that hobbled his feet, then torqued his body to the right and pushed himself up with his bound hands. He wobbled but remained on his feet, then turned toward the end table and took a shuffling step.

  “Too late,” she said, bringing up the Ruger in her left hand, pointing it at his head. He stopped, turned back toward her. “It’s uglier than mine,” she said, pulling her own gun from her pocket with her right hand, “but mine can blow your brains out too.” She pointed both guns at him, arms straight, hands steady. “Now you’re going to do everything I tell you to do because if you don’t, one of these guns will be the last thing you see. Do you have a preference?”

  Abruptly her voice changed. She no longer mocked him, she demanded. “Get going. We’re taking a ride in your precious Z.” She put his gun in a pocket, grabbed his keys from the coffee table and motioned toward the door with her right hand.

  He remained frozen in fear but responded with a few whining sounds, which might or might not have been attempts to speak through the gag. As if instinctively, he raised his bound hands to his mouth, trying to tear away the tape.

  “If you pull it off you won’t live to regret it,” she said. “One word out of your foul mouth will be your last! Do you understand?”

  He searched her shadowed face with desperate eyes, then apparently sensing not an iota of compromise or compassion, he began to shuffle toward the open door, every movement an agony of reluctance.

  ***

  Allie waited until the next morning to call the Sheriff’s office to ask about Crystal, grateful that Mike was working the day shift.

  He said, “Good news and bad news, Ma’am. She was mighty near as closed mouthed as a preacher on Saturday. She wouldn’t tell us her uncle’s name either, but her husband was more obliging. Uncle by marriage is Frank Upshall. The aunt, her mother’s sister, has been dead twenty years. After his wife died, Frank stayed here in the Valley. He’s a real estate agent, sold a lot of properties around Camp Verde. Moved away about eight years back, returned this October.”

  “Did you talk to him? Did you tell him?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. We paid him a visit. He didn’t seem surprised when we told him about the threat. He appeared very nice, very polite. Too polite, too nice. He’s hiding something.”

  He paused. When Allie didn’t respond, he said, “Uh, Ma’am--Miss Allie--why was she threatening to kill him?”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  “No, she just kept saying he’s a vampire and he deserved it.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Mike. It’s a private thing, is the only thing I can tell you.”

  “I get it. Need to know, confidentiality. I guess I can do without knowing as things stand now.”

  “What happened with Crystal? Did you have to Title Thirty-Six her?”

  “You can’t Title someone who’s going in of their own free will.”

  “Yes. I'm glad you didn't have to force her into it.”

  “And she doesn’t have a gun. Not that we could find, anyway. Her husband said he never saw one or heard of her buying one. Like I said, husband’s a good old boy. He let us look around for an imaginary gun. All the time, she’s following us around, apologizing and crying a river. The two little kids are following her around, crying.”

  Allie managed a muttered “Damn!”

  “Yeah, reminds me why I don’t cotton to the idea of getting married. Uh, sorry, Ma’am. Not your problem. Anyway, after we had a nice sit-down with both of them, she agreed to go into a psych hospital in the Phoenix area.”

  “I thought maybe that’s why you didn’t call me. Thanks for doing all that, Mike. Now she’s safe, everyone’s safe. She’s going to feel a lot better after she gets on some meds. Maybe I’ll go visit her tomorrow.”

  “Uh, I don’t know about that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s right pissed, uh, angry at you, Ma’am, says she’ll never speak to you again.”

  “I guess I can’t blame her. She feels like I betrayed her.”

  “Affirmative. She feels like might-near everyone betrayed her.”

  ***

  At noon, Allie went to get her lunch from the refrigerator in the break room, planning to eat it out on the patio. The temperature hovered near freezing today but whenever she was outdoors, no matter how cold the air, the blazing sun warmed her enough for comfort. When she opened the door to the break room, Ralph VanDeusen and Sherry were at the table talking, their faces solemn.

  Doctor V turned to her. “Allie, you’ve heard?”

  She opened the refrigerator door. “Heard what?”

  “About the Smith boy, Betty’s client?”

  “No. What?”

  “He killed himself last night. Hanged himself. They called me to come ID the body.”

  Allie closed the refrigerator door and clutched her lunch bag to her stomach, feeling as if someone had punched her.

  “Why did they call you?”

  “They found my card on his desk, near the body. Anyway, it’s common knowledge that I was treating him. His parents are out of town for a week, second honeymoon or something.” He paused, then shrugged and said, “I thought his prognosis had improved considerably after we changed his meds the last time.

  The conzalidraline seemed to be working. Who would h
ave thought he’d decomp?” He raised one eyebrow at her. “You saw him yesterday? It must have been quite a session.”

  Allie couldn’t speak. Doctor V continued. “The police notified the parents of course. I called Betty.” He interrupted his monologue when he sensed the level of Allie’s distress.

  He unfolded his long frame from the chair, and went to her. Without a word, he took the lunch bag out of her hands. He put it on the counter then pulled her into his arms, his beard against her forehead. Now she felt shock for a different reason. She pushed away from him.

  Sherry had been watching every move. “Come and sit down,” she said, moving a chair away from the table for Allie. “You look pale.”

  “I’m fine. I just need to process this. This is a shock.”

  When she turned to leave, Doctor V pulled a business card from his pocket. “Allie, I know you’re alone here in the Valley, single, no one close to talk to. I’m giving you my cell phone number. If you need me, call me.” He scrawled a number on the back of the card and handed it to her.

  Allie took it without a word and left the room to return to her office. After a few seconds, she realized Wanda was following her down the hall, approaching at a fast walk that exaggerated the swing of her wide hips. Allie stopped at her office door to let Wanda catch up with her.

  “Here,” Wanda said, thrusting something into Allie’s hand. “Yesterday on his way out, Tim Smith asked me for an envelope. Then he put something in it and asked me to give it to you. I just heard about him. I figured it might be important.”

  She followed Allie into the office, her eyes glued to the envelope. Allie put the business card and the envelope on her desk. She turned to glare at Wanda, who got the hint and flounced back to her desk, curiosity unassuaged.

  Allie tore open the envelope. Nothing. Then she saw the little pink shell he had taken from her collection. What...why? She couldn’t begin to think this through. She felt as if her brain had frozen. When the phone rang, she jumped and looked at it as if she had never seen such a device. Then a San Diego area code appeared on the caller ID. It registered. She picked up the receiver.

  “Betty...Betty I’m so sorry. I saw him yesterday. He was depressed, but he told me he wouldn’t hurt himself again. I believed him. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

  “I know you are sweetie. I am too. What a thing to hear on your first vacation in five years!”

  Neither spoke for a moment, then Allie murmured “I’m sorry,” again.

  Betty responded immediately. “Allie, don’t you for a minute blame yourself. I don’t want to hear any of that nonsense. You know that if they honest to God want to do it, there’s nothing we can do to stop them. I spent four years trying to help Tim find the will to live. No one

  would expect you to do it in one session.”

  “I know, but...”.

  “No buts. All we can do is try to help them discover their own courage and their own wisdom. It’s not our job to fix them, remember?”

  “I know the buzz words,” said Allie. “We’re supposed to 'empower' them instead, because fixing them implies there’s something inherently wrong with them. I’m sorry! If anyone ever needed to be fixed, he did.”

  “He was broken, alright, but remember, we weren’t the ones who tore him up. As much as we might like to fix a person we are not that all-powerful.”

  Allie sighed and looked up at the diplomas on her wall. “Yeah, I know You're absolutely right.”

  “I just called to let you know that I’m cutting my trip short by one day to get back in time for his funeral. Not that his parents will give a damn I’m there. I’ll be lucky if they don’t blame me and try to sue me. But I want to do it for him.”

  She paused. In a softer, more thoughtful voice she said, “One thing I’m glad of. Before I left for my vacation, during our last session, I hugged him. I had never done that before.”

  Allie hung up the phone, realizing she felt chilled. She crossed her arms across her breasts to rub her upper arms, but the goose bumps wouldn’t subside. When the thought hit her, another chill raced up her spine. My God, he didn’t tell me he wasn’t going to hurt himself. He said he wouldn’t set himself on fire again!

  Regret and guilt rose again in a mind-numbing miasma. She struggled with the implications of what she had just realized. Was he planning it, even while he sat in my office?

  Betty’s voice came back to echo, “We can’t stop them if they really want to do it.” It rang true, making her wonder if her feelings were self indulgent or even self important. Betty was right. Allie had spent less than one hour with the poor man. How much influence could she have had?

  Still, she couldn’t stop mentally reviewing and processing the session. A vivid picture arose. Tim’s face in despair, tears streaming down his cheeks, his voice filled with a deep yearning. “She hugged me.”

  The picture persisted while her mind swirled, until a thought pierced her. He did it because she hugged him! Betty had become his surrogate mother, perhaps the only woman in his life who had displayed affection and good will toward him. When she hugged him, that bit of affection was like the taste of honey on the tongue of a starving man. It overwhelmed him with the awareness of his deprivation, causing him more pain than he could bear. Dying was the one way he knew to escape.

  She waited for another explanation, an argument of fact, a rebuttal, but none came. Then it occurred to her that this idea might be an unconscious attempt to absolve herself of blame by projecting it onto Betty. Unaware that she did it, she shook her head. That was not the case.

  My God, the suicide was an unintended consequence of something she did with the purest of intentions. She doesn’t know it. I’m glad she doesn’t know. I certainly won't tell her. I can’t ever tell anyone.

  She called Wanda, asked to have her remaining appointments for the day cancelled. Then she went home.

  ***

  Back at the office the following morning, Allie looked up the contact information for the psychiatric hospital whose name Mike had given her. When she called and asked to speak with Crystal Naven, a woman’s brisk voice said, “I can neither confirm nor deny that such a person is here at this time. However, our general policy in cases like this is to take a message, and if that person is here and if that person wants to speak with you, they have the right to call you.”

  “I know that,” said Allie, with an edge to her voice.

  “I think she has my number but here it is again.” She gave the number. “Please ask her to call.”

  By the end of that day, Wednesday, still no response. On Thursday, she made the call again but Crystal didn’t return it. At the tail end of a busy week, on Friday close to five p.m. when she had completed the day’s counseling notes, the now familiar number appeared on the display as the telephone rang. She knew there was relief in her voice when she answered.

  Crystal spoke softly and sounded very calm when she said “Hello.”

  “How are you, Crystal?” In the silence that followed, Allie heard other voices and activity in the background. Crystal didn’t respond. “I’m glad you decided to call.”

  “They told me I can’t leave until I have a discharge plan, an after-care plan. I guess you’re it.”

  “You mean for out-patient counseling. Sure. We’ll just continue where we left off.” Allie knew Crystal’s explanation for making contact was an excuse. Since her hospitalization was voluntary, staff would recommend an after-care plan but the hospital couldn’t refuse to release her if she refused to complete one. Besides, Crystal could choose to see another therapist for outpatient counseling.

  Allie decided not to make an issue of it. Crystal needed to save face after her angry outbursts. Instead, she said, “I was planning to come see you there, but if you’re about to be released...”.

  “I’m leaving Sunday around six o’clock, but you could come earlier that day. The nurse said she wants your signature on the discharge plan.”

  Allie hesitated, thinking of
her hiking club, the all day outing scheduled for that Sunday. “Sunday,” she said. “Well, okay. I’ll see you then.”

  When she left the office half an hour later, she met Sherry in the hallway. “Did Ralph call you last night?” she asked Allie.

  “Uh, no. Why?”

  “He said he wondered how you were doing after that client committed suicide. He wanted to call you. He mentioned it at dinner, and again while we were getting ready for bed.”

  “I’m fine,” Allie said. “Betty is the one who could be devastated but she said she’s determined not to take it personally. I’m just following her good example.”

  ***

  The inpatient unit was a sixteen bed, free-standing facility, not affiliated with a medical hospital. Mental health professionals referred to it as 'The Puff', an acronym for Psychiatric Health Facility. Its official designation was Level One Facility, indicating it housed patients with a high level of psychiatric acuity and was licensed as such Allie had never been to this particular facility to visit a client.

  There were a dozen cars in the parking lot as she drove in, but she saw no one else as she approached the building, an unadorned grey concrete structure with no windows in front. The open porch displayed the same grey concrete. Its sole concession to comfort or décor was a concrete bench beside the doorway.

  Allie pulled the handle on one of the two large steel doors but it didn’t budge. She tried the other. Both locked. She looked around. Only then she recognized a camera and speaker security system on the otherwise unadorned concrete wall. She pushed the buzzer by the door.

  After a few seconds, a voice answered with a questioning “Yes?”

  “Hi. I’m Allie Davis. I’m here to see Crystal. Crystal Naven.” She felt the unseen eyes inspecting her through the camera.

  “Just a minute please.”

  A loud buzz in the lock signaled someone had approved her admission. The door was heavy; it opened with effort and swung closed behind her with an emphatic slam.