My throat clutched. “You told me I needed to draw my picture better.”
“What?”
“When I was five. That picture I made for you. You didn’t say thank you or that you liked it. You just told me how to fix it. I couldn’t do anything right.”
Mom’s lips creaked open. She gazed at me, lines crisscrossing her forehead. “You did lots of things right.”
“You sure didn’t make me feel like it.”
Her focus danced around the table, as if a response might lie in the plates and silverware. “Is this what you were talking about yesterday? About making you feel worthless? I really . . . I don’t even remember that picture.”
Don’t remember? The memory had carved itself into me.
“I’m sorry, Lisa. I truly am.”
The apology floated by me, a milkweed on the wind. My gaze dropped to my lap. She didn’t even remember?
“I never meant to make you feel like you couldn’t do anything right.”
All these years I’d cowed beneath this memory and many others. While my mother had no clue? Did she think she’d raised me well? Didn’t she wonder why she had so much self-esteem while I had none?
And then I saw it. Just like that. I’d let these memories shape my life. And who had it hurt?
Me.
The thought sent me reeling.
“Lisa, do you hear?”
I looked at my mother as if for the first time. “Yeah. I hear.”
We fell silent again. I took a drink of my coffee, the heat and taste of it anchoring me.
Mom pressed her fingers into the table. “Whatever I’ve done, whatever I’ve said to you, now or years ago, was to help you. I just want to make you better.”
Make me better. Hadn’t she said those same words yesterday morning?
I set down my coffee cup. “Mom, you can’t make me better. You, or anyone else on this earth. I have to make myself better, with God’s help.”
Mom gazed at me, then nodded. “It’s so hard to watch your child suffer. You’d do anything to make it go away.”
That made no sense. “When you pointed out the flaws in that drawing, you made me suffer.”
My mother looked away. “That’s the irony, I suppose. In trying to prepare you for life so you’d hurt less . . . I hurt you.”
It was a major revelation for her, and it played across her face. I didn’t want to pursue it, afraid I’d just rub it in. She already looked pained enough.
The waitress appeared with our food. Somehow I forced it down. It tasted like glue. Mom and I talked little. My thoughts fixed on our conversation and what she might be thinking.
“I’m sorry,” she said eventually. “Really I am.”
“It’s okay, Mom.”
We could talk about it no more. The whole thing needed time to settle.
I found myself wondering about the break-in and Officer Bremer. Where was he right now? What was he doing?
And where were Mom and I supposed to sleep tonight? At the hotel I felt like a refugee. Discarded. Helpless. If I couldn’t leave town, on my own turf at least I could fight.
But fight how?
“I’m going to call the apartment manager to get my lock changed,” I told Mom as we headed back to the room. If the lock had been picked, it may make little difference. But it was something to do.
“Sounds good.”
We packed up and checked out of the hotel. The whole time I felt our conversation shimmer between us.
On the drive back to Redwood City my cell phone went off. It was Sherry again, telling me she’d been fingerprinted. “If I ever hold up a bank, they’ll know where to find me.”
I tried to laugh. “Thanks for putting yourself through that. We’re on our way home.”
“You sleeping there tonight?”
“I can’t stay away forever.”
“But won’t you be scared?”
Petrified was more like it. “I’ll work through it.”
Sherry made a sound in her throat. “That chip was no placebo.”
“Thanks. I needed to hear that.”
I hung up—and my phone rang again. Maria Delgado, a tech from Redwood City Police Department, was on the line, wanting to come over to dust for fingerprints. “Can you give us half an hour?” I asked. “We’re just now headed back.”
Delgado agreed.
We drove up to the apartment building, and fear immediately descended. It wrapped around my throat as we neared my door. Mom and I shot each other a look. I took a deep breath and unlocked the door. Eased it open.
The living room looked as it had when we left.
I stepped inside, and Mom followed. She rolled in the suitcase and bolted the door. Together we checked the bedrooms. Everything seemed fine.
I called the building manager and asked to have the lock changed. Today. “Just in case the guy somehow got hold of one of my keys and made a copy,” I explained. Herman Walters was a good man. Ryan and I had called him before when we’d had a problem with a leaky faucet, and he’d been very responsive. Herman promised to have a new lock for me by late afternoon.
Officer Maria Delgado showed up, a full-figured woman with dark hair and large eyes. “I hear you had a problem here yesterday.” She stepped inside, carrying a kit with her equipment. “Sorry to hear that. Let’s see what we can do to catch the bad guys.”
I hid my surprise. Either Bremer hadn’t told her his suspicions that I’d made all this up, or she was a very good actress.
Maybe they needed to go through this drill just to cover their bases. To prove there were no “foreign fingerprints.”
At the kitchen table Delgado rolled Mom’s and my fingers in black ink and then onto paper, creating crisp replicas of our prints. Delgado smiled. “If only the ones we get from suspects were that perfect.”
With efficiency she dusted the door handle and surrounding area, inside and out. She picked up some “pretty good prints.” But they could easily be ours. Next she moved to the counter, dusting in the area where the stolen documents had been. Mom hovered on the kitchen side, watching her every move.
I wandered the living room, scenes from Patti Stolsinger’s murder scrolling by. “Is Officer Bremer on duty?” I asked Delgado.
“He’ll come in at 5:00.”
Had he talked to Jerry Sterne and Clair Saxton? Had they filled his head with the insistence that my chip was a blank? That I was just out to get the company?
How much did Jerry and Clair really know about Hilderbrand?
Delgado finished her work and packed up her tools. She shook my hand, then Mom’s. “Someone will get back with you when we know more.”
They wouldn’t find anyone else’s prints. “Thank you for coming.”
One o’clock rolled around. Then 2:00. I tried to take a nap but couldn’t sleep. I resorted to cleaning my bathroom. Then the kitchen. Anything to keep busy while we waited for the next shoe to fall.
“Bremer’s going to arrest me, Mom.”
“No he won’t. I won’t let him.”
Uh-huh.
Time ticked, and my nerves scissored. When Bremer came on duty he would be after me. He’d call me down to the station. I’d have to explain the inexplicable.
No need to worry about sleeping in the apartment tonight. I’d be in jail.
Mom cleaned as well. And did some ironing. I wouldn’t let her even turn on her computer. Call it denial or what you will. I just couldn’t face any more.
Sometime after 3:00 Herman Walters showed up. Herman was in his late sixties, tall and white-haired. Mom answered the door. I stuck one of Ryan’s old baseball caps on my head before leaving the bedroom, in no mood to explain my bandage.
By the time I greeted Herman, Mom was already working her charm. “Thank you very much for coming so quickly to help my daughter.”
“No problem, ma’am, no problem at all.” He beamed at her.
Herman set about his work. When he finished he gave me two new keys. “There you go. I hope this keeps
you safe.”
“Thanks. Me too.”
Five o’clock arrived. I pictured Bremer coming on duty. Picking up the file with my name on it.
At 5:45, my cell phone rang. I was in the kitchen, heating some soup. My movements stopped.
Mom bit her lip. “Want me to get it?”
Wouldn’t matter who answered. I shook my head. With reluctant fingers I picked up the receiver. The ID told me what I already knew. “Hello?”
“Miss Newberry, it’s Officer Bremer.”
My heart stopped beating. “Hi.”
“I’d like you to come down to the station. I need more information about the alleged break-in at your house and the other details.”
Alleged. The word reverberated. “You want my mother to come, too?”
“That would be helpful. The station’s at 1301 Maple, on the east side of 101.”
“We’ll find it.” How calm I sounded, while my world fell away.
“Can you get here soon?”
“We’ll be right down.”
On the way out the door I gazed back at my apartment.
When would I see it again?
Chapter 24
IN THE CAR MOM AND I TALKED LITTLE. I GAVE HER THE police station’s address, and she keyed it into the rental car’s GPS. The directions took us across El Camino, then past Freeway 101. I spotted the station ahead. “There it—”
He drove through the darkness on the freeway, exit signs sliding by.
I stilled, my hand hanging in the air.
I saw Holly . . . Harbor . . . Ralston.
I braced myself. Please, no more. After so long? When would these pictures ever stop?
The scene faded.
My hand dropped to my lap.
“Lisa!” Mom’s voice was sharp. “Did you see something?”
Holly, Harbor . . . I knew those exits. “He went north on the freeway.”
Mom turned into the parking lot for the police station, a tan building with green trim. “Hilderbrand?”
I latched my mind back onto the scene. “I just saw a flash. He was driving up 101 after getting on at Woodside Road. I saw signs for exits just north of here. But . . .”
Mom pulled into a space and cut the engine. I couldn’t move. Something wasn’t right . . .
“But what?”
Anxiety spread through my chest. What was I not getting? It felt like something so obvious. “I don’t . . .” I squeezed my hands into fists, picturing the man in his kitchen. Looking at his backyard. Driving away from his house—
The sun had been setting.
I leaned back in my seat. That was it. The time on his watch had read only 5:48. But that didn’t fit with what I just saw.
“It shouldn’t be dark.” My gaze fixed on the dashboard. “He left his house, and the sun was setting. It was still light when he drove up Woodside Road. But then he gets on the freeway, and in two minutes it’s totally dark?”
This new memory couldn’t be right. It didn’t make sense at all.
“Is that what you just saw? It was night time?”
“Yes.”
Mom pulled the keys from the ignition. “What does this mean?”
“I don’t know.” Heat flushed my cheeks.
“Maybe what you just saw happened on a different day.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I guess.”
I gazed at the police station. Somewhere inside it Bremer waited. I couldn’t let this new thing throw me. I had to get hold of myself.
“Come on.” Mom touched my arm. “We’d better go inside. We can figure this out later.”
I threw her a look. There wouldn’t be a later. “Yeah.”
We got out of the car.
In the lobby I sidled up to a reception desk and told the woman Officer Bremer was expecting us. She motioned us to some chairs to wait. Mom sat. I wandered around, my mind churning.
All too soon Bremer strode in, extending his hand. “Ms. Newberry. Ms. Wegman. Thank you for coming.”
I shook his hand, not a bit fooled. This was no friendly visit.
“Come on back.” He led us through a door, down a hallway and into a small, windowless room. Nothing in it but a table with three chairs. Mom chose one and sat straight-backed. Wary. I sat next to her, Bremer on my left. Near him lay a thin manila folder. I glanced up—and saw a camera mounted near the ceiling in a corner. Pointed at me.
“Sorry this isn’t exactly a room with ambiance.” Bremer clunked his chair closer to the table.
My gaze moved from the camera to the folder. What was in there?
Mom patted my hand—an action I knew she wanted Bremer to see. “Sorry if we’re a little quiet. We’re still nervous from yesterday. We stayed at a hotel last night, and today we had the apartment lock changed.”
Bremer nodded, his expression impassive. “Glad to hear about the new lock.”
He leaned back in his chair. “All right, last night after I saw you I was able to investigate your situation.” Bremer looked at me. “As you might guess it didn’t take long to run the address in Atherton that you gave me and come up with the owner’s name.”
My muscles wouldn’t move. Mom said nothing.
“The owner of that property is William Hilderbrand, CEO of Cognoscenti.”
I forced myself to look straight back at Bremer. “I know. We did an online search last night.”
“Were you surprised?” Bremer’s eyes were like lasers.
“More like stunned.”
“Because the man that you say killed someone runs the very company that performed your procedure? The procedure you claim is flawed.”
I could feel my chest rise and fall, but oxygen didn’t seem to reach my lungs.
Bremer’s gaze flicked from me to Mom and back. My mother stared at him levelly, daring him to continue.
The officer leaned an arm on the table. “I was able to contact Agnes Brighton last night. She did confirm that you hired her to do a composite drawing. She also confirmed finding the envelope outside your door.”
Well. That was something.
“Ms. Newberry, I’d like you to tell me again about these ‘memories’ or visions you’ve been having.”
My shoulders slumped. “All of it? Everything I told you yesterday?”
“Just start at the beginning. We’ll work from there.”
I glanced at the camera. Surely it was running. My story would all go on film. Every self-incriminating word.
Maybe I should walk out right now. Demand a lawyer.
But I’d already told Bremer everything. He had it all in his notes. Like it or not, I was in this thing up to my chin. Wouldn’t demanding an attorney make me look all the more guilty?
“I don’t have to talk to you.”
Bremer kept his poker face. “Is there some reason you don’t want to?”
Other than the fact that I didn’t trust him one bit?
“We spoke for quite awhile yesterday.”
I shrugged.
“She’s been through a lot,” Mom said. “She—”
“It’s okay, Mom.”
“But you—”
“It’s okay.” She couldn’t get me out of this. No “protecting me from suffering” now.
Bremer sat casually, as if we weren’t engaged in a war of wits. “It really would help to hear your report again.”
Scenarios spun through my mind. Walking out of there. Leaving town. Hiding from Hilderbrand and maybe even the police until . . . what? When would this all end?
Another strained minute passed. Something within me thrashed . . . then fell away.
I heaved a sigh—and started to talk.
First came the dream (or was I awake?) in the hospital. Then the other visions. The suitcase. The black SUV with its partial license plate. Hilderbrand’s drive from his neighborhood. I didn’t tell Bremer about the new memory I’d just seen—day suddenly becoming night. Or how the dragon ring was on Hilderbrand’s finger—then it wasn’t. Sometimes Bremer asked q
uestions. My voice sounded factual, emotionless. Why should he believe me? By the time I finished, it seemed so outrageous I hardly believed myself.
“And that’s everything.”
Silence clung to the walls of the room. Outside the door male voices grew near, then receded down the hall.
The officer shifted positions. “And you say you didn’t discover who this man was until last night. After I was at your apartment.”
“Yes. When we were at the hotel.”
He tapped the table. “Do you intend to sue Cognoscenti?”
“No.”
“What do you want from them?”
“The truth.”
“And what is that?”
“I don’t know, because I don’t understand everything that’s going on. Partly that there is something wrong with the chip they put in me. They need to own up to that before this product goes on the market.”
“But they say the chip they gave you was a placebo. In other words, completely blank.”
“They’re lying.”
“They also told me it’s a placebo.”
My eyebrows raised. “You talked to them already?”
“To Jerry Sterne. Today. He confirmed your participation in the trial, and the outcome. He also faxed me a copy of the document about your chip.”
Coldness sank through me. Mom made a disgusted noise.
Bremer watched me intently.
When I was in third grade a much larger girl coaxed me into getting on the playground seesaw. We pushed up and down for awhile, then she used her weight to sink to the ground. I hung in the air, helpless, as she laughed at me. Now I hung there again, Cognoscenti and the police on the other end.
They’d never believe me. I was caught. Meanwhile there was a killer out there.
“He also told me, Ms. Newberry, that at your last meeting you threatened to call the police.”
My heart skipped. “Maybe I did. I don’t remember.”
“And you said you’d sue Cognoscenti.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t mean that.”
“It appeared to him that you were very upset at the company because you’d received a placebo and were threatening to derail the trial.”
Mom smacked the table. “They’re the ones who were threatening. It was that very day someone made that phone call to me. You heard the tape.”
Double Blind Page 14