As she walks along the rocky promontory toward the beach, she sees a small white dog pawing at a discarded hamburger wrapper in the sand, his hunger and desperation obvious even from a distance.
As soon as her feet reach the sand, she heads straight for him, grinning at Bexley’s retreat into the recesses of the baby carrier.
When the dog spots her, he cowers and begins to growl, frightened and threatened, but unwilling to surrender the meager scrap in the wrapper. She stops a few feet away from him. He looks at her with a mixture of puzzlement and fear, but does not flee.
She reaches into a side pocket of her jacket and pulls out a Ziploc bag filled with fresh ground beef. Some days she carries bird seed, some days tuna for stray cats. Today it’s meat. She opens the bag, upends it, and dumps the contents onto the hard sand.
The dog’s eyes widen, but he still doesn’t move.
Tory puts the empty bag back in her pocket and begins walking toward the parking lot, knowing the dog won’t go near the meat as long as she is standing near it. She glances back and sees him move slowly, tentatively, toward it. When he gets close enough, he sniffs it, then begins to devour it. The waves roll up onto the sand. The dog ignores them.
When she reaches her car, she looks back one last time. Multicolored sparks of sunlight reflected off the water dance in her eyes, and she smiles.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my literary agent and dear friend, John White, for his help and advice. John played an enormous part in getting this book into your hands.
I would also like to thank my editor, Ann Harris. Fortune smiled upon me when I was blessed with Ann as the conductor of this symphony. Her wisdom and guidance were invaluable. My appreciation also goes to all the fine folks at Bantam Dell, especially Irwyn Applebaum, Matthew Martin, Nita Taublib, Judy Young, and Meghan Keenan.
I thank Laura Ross at Black Dog & Leventhal and Salvatore V. Didato, Ph.D., for allowing me (Dr. Bexley, actually) to use several personality tests from Dr. Didato’s book The Big Book of Personality Tests (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2003). Thank you both for helping Dr. Bexley better understand Tory.
I also appreciate the support of family, friends, and colleagues who cheered me on: Carter Spignesi, Steve and Marge Rapuano, Frank Mandato, Mike Lewis, Dolores Fantarella, Dr. Michael Luchini, Dr. Edward Goglia and my friends at Ridgehill Animal Hospital, Alyse “Ally McSpero” Spero-Geremia, Mary Toler, Charlie Fried, Jim Cole, George Beahm, Stan Wiater, Tyson Blue, Dave Hinchberger, Jay Halpern, Andy Rausch, Ann LaFarge, Colin Andrews, Paul, Andy, Chris, Bill, and Mike at the East Haven P.O., Laura Ross, Marilyn Allen, my good friend Adrienne, and the inestimable Bill Savo.
And lastly, I thank my wife Pam, my mother Lee, and my sister Janet—extraordinary women all.
Stephen Spignesi
New Haven, Conn.
All Souls’ Day, 2004
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STEPHEN SPIGNESI is the author of more than three dozen nonfiction books. Dialogues is his first novel.
He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Pam, and their cat, Carter. He can be reached via his Web site www.stephenspignesi.com.
DIALOGUES
A Bantam Book / May 2005
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from “The Baby’s Room” reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, MA. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005 by Stephen Spignesi
Bantam Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Spignesi, Stephen J.
Dialogues : a novel of suspense / Stephen Spignesi.
p. cm.
1. Psychiatric hospital patients—Fiction. 2. Psychotherapist and patient—Fiction. 3. Mass murder investigation—Fiction. 4. Animal shelters—Fiction. 5. Young women—Fiction. 6. Connecticut—Fiction. 7. Psychological fiction. 8. Suspense fiction.
PS3619.P544 D54 2005
813/.6 22 2004062777
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-553-90150-4
v3.0
Dialogues Page 27