Mind Games

by M. J. Labeff

  Her breathing grew labored. He didn’t like what she had told him. He didn’t want to hear any more. Hurt shone in her eyes, but he couldn’t offer her comfort. She stared at him teary-eyed. He couldn’t find the right words. What did she expect him to say? He waited for her to continue.

  “I wanted him dead.”

  She clasped her hands around her face and buried herself against the side of his body. He forced her up, gently shaking her shoulders. Her body tensed. Shock spread across her face. She pushed his hands off her and then crossed her arms in front of her chest to keep him at bay.

  “No, you didn’t. You didn’t cause Dana’s death or my sister’s. You didn’t do any of this. I don’t believe you.”

  “You need to believe me because I’m telling you the truth. It’s a possibility we have to consider.”

  “No. Your dad is behind all of this, and I’m going to prove it. He fucked with your head, and if you think for one minute I’m going to sit here and listen to you blame yourself, you’re wrong. What happened to you is like when you have a bad dream and then you wake up and realize you didn’t do anything wrong. It was just a dream. We’ll prove the state of deep meditation allowed you to have the visions, and that your repressed anger over the hell Dana put you through made you think you had caused his death. It’s like when you get so upset with someone and think, I could kill him. You don’t really mean it. We’ll prove your dad is the cause of all of this.”

  “But…but what if it is my fault? You’re protecting me. Why are you trying so hard to convict my father?”

  He cupped her face and stared into her eyes.

  “Because you can’t do this alone, and I love you.”

  Damn. How could he have blurted that out to her for the first time in this dire situation? You don’t tell the woman you love that you love her when her world is collapsing around her, and you’re going to put her father behind bars.

  She blinked her eyes and shook her head. “You love me?”

  He caressed her cheek with his thumb. “Yeah, it’s not how I planned to tell you, but I’ve known for some time.”

  “Me too. I mean, I love you.”

  “Then let me help you, baby. We have to prove to a jury that your repressed memories really happened and that this isn’t a daughter seeking revenge against her father for crimes she committed. Violet’s testimony could help. She can explain how when you meditated your repressed memories started to emerge, and that’s when the visions started. Sparrow, I know this is hard for you to accept, but your dad used techniques to condition you to forget things. What’s happening to your mind now is not your fault. Your memory is starting to come back. You’re accessing it through the meditation.”

  She unfolded her arms and hugged him. “When I was at Dana’s funeral I kept thinking that I should go to the authorities and tell them my brain had been hijacked and that I didn’t mean to kill him. That something happened in my head, and I was able to see Dana the night he killed himself, but I couldn’t stop him.”

  He leaned back and placed his hands on the tops of her shoulders. Shock stung his face and bewilderment filled his eyes. “You’re telling me that you knew about this then and didn’t tell me?”

  “Derrick, please, you’ve got to understand. I was afraid to tell you more about the vision I had of Dana. Last night, after finding out I have some connection to your sister, I felt like I’d heaped so much damage on you already. Can you imagine how crazy I would have sounded? And then, after you found me disoriented on the beach, I was afraid you’d take me to the hospital for a psych eval. I thought after we met with Violet that things would make more sense. That you would understand.”

  Derrick released her and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m trying. Why were you so apprehensive about going to the hospital?”

  “My father took me to Our Lady of Sorrow with him to visit patients in the psych ward. I’ll never forget the sounds I heard or the things I saw. It was beyond disturbing.”

  “Why did he bring you there?”

  She settled back and crossed one leg over the other, resting her arms against her thighs. She let out a deep breath, and he could tell from the light illuminating her eyes she had remembered something. “He told me that this is where the bad kids go that didn’t listen to him. He would say, ‘You don’t want to end up here, do you?’ He scared me to death.”

  Derrick reached out and held her hand. “Baby, he was manipulating you.”

  “Maybe, but isn’t all of this my word against his?”

  “Not if we can find enough evidence. I’m convinced Dana knew something about your father. I know this isn’t easy for you, but we’ve got to read these flagged magazine articles and his journal. And then we’ve got to call Tony and get the authorities involved.”

  She uncrossed her legs and stretched her arms above her head. She inhaled, expanding her chest. Her head craned back toward the ceiling then forward, sagging toward her chest. She dropped her hands back down at her sides in defeat. She looked up at him. Truth slowly seeped in, and in those brief moments her distraught eyes shot an arrow of pain, stabbing his heart. He hated that he had dealt her that hurtful hand. She held all the cards. He had pushed her for her help and ultimately for her testimony in court against her father.

  “Come here,” he said, and pulled her close to him. He pressed her head against his chest and buried his nose into her hair. “We’ll get through this.”

  She straightened and rubbed her hand over his unshaven face.

  “Either way, we have to get to the truth. We owe it to Dana and your sister, and God only knows if there are others. There’s just one thing that bothers me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How did your sister’s charm end up in this box?”

  The pad of her thumb ran along his cheek. Her sincerity told him she was ready to put the remaining pieces of her past together. She rested her face against his chest and tucked her head underneath his chin again.

  “I think Dana and my sister knew each other because they were both patients of your dad’s. When we lived in Crystal Cove, my sister was a kid. Dana rarely dropped by my folks’ house. He was always anti-parents, so I’d meet him out most of the time. Dana probably wouldn’t have recognized her after she ran away. She had matured quite a bit by then.”

  She didn’t answer him. Derrick understood she needed time to absorb all of the information she had been bombarded with, and the recovered memories emerging from her session with Violet Crosby. He continued consoling her.

  They both needed this moment before they forged ahead. His mind had been on overdrive after they left her hypnotherapy session, and his rage against her father had prevented him from grieving the loss of his sister. She was gone. He wouldn’t be looking for her around every dreadful corner and dark corridor when he was out in the Mobile Health Clinic RV. The hole in his being expanded, and the only person who could have filled the void was Katie. A tear slid from his eye, landing on the top of Sparrow’s head. She ran an affectionate hand down the length of his back. Sympathy sprang from her soft touch.

  “I think we should review the magazine articles first and try to make sense of Dana’s comments.” She slipped off his lap and reached into the box, hefting up a stack of magazines that she dropped onto the coffee table. “I have to warn you.” She picked up Dana’s journal and continued, “The writings in his journal are disturbing.” She handed him the journal and then picked up the magazine on the top of the stack before she sat down on the floor, crossing her legs.

  “Have you read all of it?” he asked.

  “Only the first and last entries.” She leaned back against the palms of her hands with the magazine faceup on her legs. Derrick squinted down at the title.

  “And?”

  “And I think you need to read them in that order too.”

  “Why?”

  “Dana suggests that if we can locate brain scans taken of him, we’ll know who is responsible for his suicide.�
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  Derrick turned the first page of Dana’s journal and started to read. He glanced up to see Sparrow looking at him. She still hadn’t opened the magazine on the tops of her thighs. When he finished the last entry, he said, “What’s the name of the hospital your dad took you to?”

  “Our Lady of Sorrow.”

  “I’m a doctor. I can get us access to the unit, but I think we need to call Tony before we go over there.”

  “Okay, but I need to be the one making that call.”

  A determined look spread across her face.

  “Are you sure?”

  She looked from him to the magazine resting on her lap. “Yes.” She shoved the magazine onto the floor and went to the dining room table to retrieve her cell phone. Tony’s business card was still lying there where he had left it the other day. She punched in the number and waited for him to answer. Derrick came to her side. He put his hand against the small of her back, offering her emotional support. He couldn’t fathom how difficult this call was for her.

  “I think my father might be abusing his power as a behavioral therapist. The stuff your brother left for me, well, you need to see it. Please call me.”

  Her hand was shaking. Derrick took the phone from her and set it on the dining room table. He pulled her next to him.

  “I know that wasn’t easy.”

  She glanced up at him, but behind the determination in her eyes a single ray of hope seemed to shine through. He hated shattering her optimism. The awareness of her father’s guilt could no longer stay buried deep down inside of her. The ugly truth had slowly surfaced. She had admitted as much to Tony in her voice mail to him.

  She turned away from him and went back into the living room, where she settled herself cross-legged on the floor and reached for the magazine she had set aside. Derrick fanned out the magazines on the coffee table, noticing that Dana had taken the time to mar the title Psychology Today so that every masthead read Psycho Today. He picked up a magazine and opened to the flagged article. He started to read when Sparrow burst out, “I can’t read this.” He took the magazine from her shaking hand. His eyes scanned the page. It was the same article he’d read online.

  “To keep these kids emotionally regulated takes severe learning,” says Dr. Von Langley. “With my therapy, using the Theo Effect, they are taught control and their emotional reactions are validated. I help my patients to identify the thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions that make their lives challenging and teach them new ways of thinking and reacting.”

  Other experts in the field agree with Dr. Von Langley, who is an advocate of deep meditation and yoga. “These exercises focus the mind and center the body,” says Dr. Von Langley.

  Dana’s interpretation: Severe learning to him means exposing me to nightclub strippers, where he paid a handsome price for me to spend time in the champagne room, getting private lap dances while I sipped on hard liquor. I couldn’t “regulate” myself, and the whores doing the dancing allowed me to touch. Why wouldn’t they when he’d given me a wad of bills to stuff in their bloated g-strings? My thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions followed this logic: I thought what I was doing was wrong, but I believed the girls in the strip clubs wanted me to want them. I assumed it was right for me to touch them however, wherever, and whenever I wanted to. He did not try to focus my mind and center my body with yoga and meditation. He would subject me to electroshock therapy, telling me I had a normal brain and should have resisted the temptation. The shock therapy increased as he exposed me to more sexually charged situations, and at that point I couldn’t regulate myself. I needed sex to survive. He could have fried my brain with the shock treatment, and I wouldn’t have stopped.

  Derrick looked up from the magazine. He shook his head at her. “I’m sorry.”

  She wrung her hands. Her face contorted in a mass of shock and sickness. The truth about her twisted dad was printed in black and white.

  “Do psychiatrists still use electroshock therapy?” she asked.

  “Yes, they do, it’s called electroconvulsive therapy. Sparrow, I know this is hard, but we’ve got to keep reading before we turn everything over to Tony and let the police conduct a formal investigation.”

  Derrick shifted uncomfortably, throwing the magazine down next to him on the couch. He closed his hands over his face, trying to wash his mind of Dana’s revealing commentary, and then went back to the article he’d been reading about Dr. Von Langley’s use of psycho-therapeutic drugs. His heart built up speed in his chest as he read Dana’s thoughtful insight into the doctor’s addiction treatment.

  You don’t expose drug addicts to drugs and expect them to refuse their vice. Do addicts go to rehab to be exposed to more drugs and booze? What kind of a person offers drugs to addicts, and then, once they’ve snorted, smoked, and shot up everything within reach, subjects them to punishment? Did he expect them to “Just Say No”? Of course he did, because a person with a normal brain should and could resist the temptation. He never took into consideration that addiction is a disease, not a brain abnormality. He thought he was clever in his methods, mixing drug addicts with sex addicts. Testing their boundaries to see how far they would go to get what they wanted and then punishing them. The drug addicts soon became sex addicts and the sex addicts became drug addicts. What choice did they have? One group was driven by drugs, and so they would sell themselves to the sex addicts holding the drugs; the other group, driven by sex, soon learned the power of drugs and the compounding effect induced when having sex. Ecstasy was the power source to hedonism and became the drug of choice. He made me the sexual deviant I’ve become.

  I was not a sex addict. I was an adrenaline junkie. Testosterone powered my system. I was young, out of control, stupid, but I never meant to hurt her. I got carried away. I’m sorry, Jessica.

  A ping-pong game of regret and guilt played in Derrick’s gut. He swallowed down the unease. He should have stopped Dana from leaving with her. Derrick took a deep breath and looked up from the magazine. Sparrow was staring blankly into space.

  “Did you remember something else?” he asked.

  She faced him with tears in her eyes. “Just because Dana’s attached notes near articles my father had been interviewed for doesn’t mean he’s guilty. He never once comes out and says Dr. Von Langley did this. Do you think he might be referring to someone else? Maybe he’s not trying to point the finger at my father but a colleague?”

  He expected her denial—after all, this was her father. But a fifth grader could have figured out that Dana’s commentary pointed directly at her father.

  “Put that magazine down and come sit next me. Let’s take a break. We’ll need to get going soon anyway.”

  She pushed herself up from the floor and slumped down next to him. Derrick wrapped his arm around her.

  “Just relax a minute. I’m going to skim through Dana’s journal and see if I can find something more concrete. But, Sparrow, I’ve got to warn you: when you saw Katie in your vision she told you to ‘stop him,’ and Dana’s final journal entry ends with the same plea. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

  “Then you may as well know the day of Dana’s funeral, when I was kneeling in front of his casket, his eyes sprang open and he viciously whispered, ‘Stop him.’ I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me, or that I was in some deep state of shock over his death, knowing what I knew about his suicide and feeling guilty for not telling Tony. But he said it: ‘Stop him.’ I’m sure of it.”

  He wrapped his other arm around her. Her rising hysteria bubbled. She shook against him.

  “I wish you felt like you could have come to me sooner, but I understand your fear of being sent for a psychological evaluation, considering Bring Your Daughter to Work Day was at a mental institution for the criminally insane.”

  The light extinguished from her eyes. She shifted against him and looked away. She sat staring at the back of the sofa, leaning against his arm. He reached for the journal on the coffee table, rested it on the
top of his leg, and flipped through the pages. A bold heading stopped him short and his blood ran cold.

  We buried the body…

  I’ve kept secrets all my life. The worst is this. His amateur brain surgeries didn’t cause severe damage until he started experimenting further, and that’s when the first one died. I don’t know who she was or where he’d found her. I just remember her begging me to get her out. It wasn’t until her blood leaked from her skull, and he summoned me to help stop the bleeding. He knew she wouldn’t make it. Her skin turned ghostly white, and her eyes rolled around in their sockets. She grabbed on to my arm and in a hushed whisper she spoke to me before she took her last breath. It wasn’t until years later, when I was haunted by her memory and the sound of her strained voice, that I realized she’d said, “I’m Kat.”

  Derrick’s heart stopped. He held on to Sparrow like a life preserver and the journal fell to the floor. His lungs seized. He couldn’t force air into the cavities. The torture Katie must have suffered had to have been unbearable. His mind raced. He was holding on to the woman whose father had murdered his sister. The ping-pong match going on in his stomach turned vicious. A new wave of emotions battled. His other muscles seemed paralytic. He couldn’t blink, move, or speak. Sparrow didn’t notice his state. His frozen arms remained latched around her, but didn’t cling to her for comfort.

  “My sister didn’t die that night on the beach.”

  She twisted and looked at him. “What?”

  “Read this.”

  He dropped his heavy arms from around her and strained to reach the floor for the journal. Hot tears stung his eyes. The ping-pong game raged. The urge to wail over her painful death twisted his insides out, and underneath all that sorrow boiled a seething hatred and calculating desire to punish Dr. Von Langley using his own torturous means.