by Dinah McCall
Ginny covered her face with her hands.
Sully was at her side within seconds.
“It’s all right, baby. I was right here all the time. Nothing happened to you.”
Angrily, she pushed him away. “Nothing? You call losing touch with reality nothing?”
Franklin got to his feet. “I am going to call Dan.”
“Use the phone in the kitchen if you want,” Sully said.
Franklin patted his pocket. “I have mine. I will be back.”
He walked out of the house, leaving Ginny and Sully alone.
“Why did this happen?” Ginny muttered. “What happened? You didn’t play the tape, so what was it that—”
“You don’t remember?”
“No,” she said, and jumped to her feet, unable to sit still any longer. “We were watching the news, for God’s sake, and then…” She frowned and then stared at the floor, mentally replaying the sequence of events. “And then…they had a piece about…” She looked up. “About the Nobel-Prize-winning doctor, right?”
He nodded.
“What else do you remember?”
She started to pace, mentally ticking off the images still lingering in her head.
“There was a film clip…and we were talking about…about…” She frowned. “I don’t remember anything more until Franklin spoke to me. What did I do? What did I hear?”
“A man’s voice. You kept telling me you knew him, but you weren’t looking at him, honey. You were listening to the sound of his voice.”
“Then what?”
“You called him teacher.”
Her legs buckled. Sully caught her before she fell. Her head lolled against his arm as he carried her to the bed. When he set her down on the spread, she covered her face and began to cry. Not loudly, just soft, helpless sobs that nearly broke his heart.
“Honey? Talk to me. Come on now. You’re tougher than this. I saw what you can do. Don’t give up on me now.”
“I am coming apart, aren’t I, Sully? First the tape, now something as simple as the sound of a voice. What next? How will I ever cope again? I wouldn’t dare drive a car for fear of blanking out at some inconsequential sound. I can’t do my job if I’m afraid to answer a phone. I don’t know what to think, and half the time I don’t even want to remember. We were babies, Sully. Six years old. What did he do to us? My God…what did he do?”
Sully lay down beside her and pulled her close against his strength.
“I don’t know, but we’ll find out. And you will be all right. And it will be over. And I will be with you every step of the way.”
She turned her face against his chest and finally let herself grieve—not just for herself, but for Georgia, and Emily, Jo-Jo and Lynn, for a woman named Frances and a young teacher named Allison. She cried because she was the only one left who could.
A short while later the phone rang. Sully slipped his arm from beneath Ginny’s neck and then answered.
“Sullivan,” he said, speaking quietly.
“I got Chee’s message. We need to talk.”
“Hang on a minute,” Sully said. “Ginny’s asleep. I’m going into another room.”
With a last glance to make sure she was still resting, Sully headed for the living room.
“Okay, start talking,” Sully said.
“First things first. How is she?”
“She’s coming undone,” Sully said, and then shoved a hand through his hair in frustration. “It’s killing me just sitting here, not being able to do anything. I want to find the bastard who’s doing this and break his sick neck.”
“What do you think about her reaction to the piece on Karnoff?” Dan asked.
“Hell if I know, but you should have seen her. And when Franklin came in and woke her up, just before she came out of it, she called him teacher.” His voice rose angrily as he slammed the flat of his hand against the wall. “Teacher! All this time we were looking for a regular teacher. What if we were wrong? What if that was just a name he told them to call him to make it okay for him to do what he was doing?”
“What do you think he was doing?” Dan said.
“I don’t know,” Sully snapped. “But it’s eating Ginny alive. Get some sound bites of Karnoff from some of the television stations and bring them with you. We’ve got to make sure this isn’t a fluke. But I swear to God, if she reacts this way again, I want a background check done on the son of a bitch. I want to know where he was in 1979. I want to know what he was doing and who he was doing it to, right down to how many times he made love to his wife.”
“Is that all?” Dan drawled.
“Sorry. It’s your case, but she’s my—”
He stopped. What was she, exactly, besides the woman he loved?
“You didn’t finish what you were saying,” Dan said. “Don’t know how, or don’t want to?”
“Let’s just say that I’m not looking forward to a future without her in it.”
“Enough said. I’ll be there in a few hours. I’ve got to set the wheels in motion on Karnoff and get some film on him, too.”
Dan disconnected, and Sully tossed the phone on the sofa and walked outside. As late as it was, it should have been dark, but with the full moon reflecting off the light desert sand, the air seemed caught between daylight and dusk. In the distance, he could just make out one of the Chee brothers sitting on an outcropping of rock. A tiny lizard scooted across the gravel in front of him and disappeared between a pair of round squatty cactus, a huge contrast to the stately Saguaro scattered about the area. Compared to the lush green mountains and deep running creeks where he’d grown up, it was like looking at the surface of the moon.
He thought better when he walked, so he stuffed his hands in his pockets and began a trek toward the back of the property.
It was almost too improbable to contemplate, but stranger things had happened in this world. Could Emile Karnoff, the current darling of the medical world and the man most likely to be the news magazines’ man of the year, be involved in something this sinister? If they went exclusively by Ginny’s reactions, then his guilt seemed evident. But there were so many things to consider. Phone records to trace. Trips that might coincide with the deaths of Georgia or Edward Fontaine. That part of the case he would have to leave up to Dan. All he could do was make sure that Ginny stayed in one piece, both physically and mentally, until someone was charged with the crimes. After that…
He stopped, staring across the pool and into the desert beyond. What about after that? Would Ginny be so sick of it all that she would want to be rid of everything connected to this case, including him? Or would her feelings still hold true? He could only hope. All he knew was that when she’d collapsed in his arms earlier today, he’d never been so scared in his life. In those few seconds, he’d wanted to take her and run and never look back. If she would have him, he would spend the rest of his life with her and consider himself blessed. But until the mystery was solved and the guilty brought to justice, what he wanted would have to wait.
Emile was preparing a drink before dinner when someone knocked at his hotel door. He set the glass down and went to answer it, smoothing his hair as he went. The hotel manager and a police officer were standing outside his door.
“Dr. Karnoff? Emile Karnoff of Bainbridge, Connecticut?”
Puzzled by the officer’s presence, he smiled nervously at the manager and then nodded to the cop.
“Yes, I’m Emile Karnoff.”
“Dr. Karnoff, may we come inside for a moment?”
Emile’s heart gave a little skip and then settled back into rhythm. It couldn’t be bad news, but rather something to do with a needy patient.
“Certainly. I was about to have a drink before going down to dinner. Would you join me?”
“No, sir,” the officer said. “But thank you, just the same.”
The manager shook his head in denial, but stood back. It was obvious to Emile that he’d come only as an accompaniment to the policeman.
>
“Officer, how may I help you?”
“Sir, I’m sorry to have to inform you that your son, Phillip, is dead, and your wife, Lucy, is in a hospital under sedation.”
Emile blanched. For a moment he thought he’d misunderstood, but the sympathy on both men’s faces told him otherwise.
“Dead? Dear God, how? Was there an accident? Was Lucy injured as well?”
“All I know is that the Bainbridge police asked us to find you and give you this information. I can say that your son did not have an accident. We were told it was suicide. Your wife witnessed it, and that’s why she’s under doctor’s care at this time. However, we were not led to believe she was injured in any way.”
“No.” Emile staggered. “Not suicide. I can’t believe it. There was no warning, no—”
He suddenly flashed on Phillip in his room, ranting and laughing and flaunting his sarcasm and disregard for courtesy. Emile covered his face. He’d known then that something was horribly wrong, and he’d turned his back and walked away.
“If I had paid more attention. Oh God…helping everyone but my family. What kind of man have I become?”
“Dr. Karnoff, I think you’d better sit down,” the manager said, and helped him to a chair. “Sir, on behalf of everyone here at the hotel, please accept our sympathies. If there is anything I can do…anything at all, you have only to ask.”
Emile shook his head, like a dog coming out of the water, and started fumbling with his tie, then the creases in his pants, as if neatness was the most important thing in his life.
“Home. I’ll have to go home. I need to call the airport and cancel my appointments here. And Lucy…dear Lucy. That a mother should have to witness such a horrible thing…”
Tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Dr. Karnoff, if you have an itinerary, I will see to calling all your people here. And if you would allow me, I will make arrangements to get you on the first plane out of Santa Fe.”
Emile nodded. “Yes. Yes, I would appreciate it very much.” Remembering his manners, he stood abruptly and shook hands with the officer, as well as the manager of the hotel.
“Gentlemen…I must pack now.”
The officer departed, leaving the manager to wait for Emile to furnish the itinerary.
A short while later Emile found himself alone. Now there was no one between him and that which he knew to be the truth. He’d seen something dangerous in Phillip and let Lucy’s will prevail because he hadn’t wanted to be bothered. Now the death of his son and the sanity of his wife would be on his head.
He went to the closet to begin packing his clothes. Halfway through the process, he began to shake. Within minutes, he was in the bathroom, on his knees, vomiting until there was nothing left in his belly but guilt.
17
Dan Howard’s arrival at the safe house coincided with Emile Karnoff’s exit from Santa Fe. Only a half hour later either way and they would have crossed paths in the air without knowing it.
He knocked once and then entered. Although it was a hundred and two outside in the shade, Ginny was sitting in a chair, wrapped up in an afghan, still shivering from shock.
After she’d awakening this morning, she had been antsy, jumping at every movement and refusing to have the radio or the television on anywhere in the house. Every time Sully walked out of a room, she was tense until he came back. She was nothing more than a time bomb, waiting to detonate.
“Come in,” Sully said.
Dan strode into the living room. Franklin Chee was right behind him. Holloway and Webster Chee were somewhere on the perimeter, making sure no uninvited guests tried to crash the party.
Dan nodded to Sully, then gave Ginny a hard stare. Sully was right. She was coming undone. He could see it in her eyes, and in the tension around her mouth. There was a brittleness about her that hadn’t been there before.
“Hey, Julia Child, am I too late for supper?” he asked, trying to tease a smile out of her.
She pulled the afghan a little closer around her shoulders.
“Too late? We’re all too late,” she muttered, and looked past him out into the yard, as if she was expecting someone else.
Sully frowned and shook his head. Dan nodded. He got the message. Chitchat was definitely out.
“Did you get the tape?” Sully asked.
Dan handed it over. Sully slipped it in the VCR, but he didn’t turn it on.
“Ginny, remember what we talked about?”
“Yes.”
“Are you ready to watch? It’s a bunch of film clips of Karnoff, right, Dan?”
“About fifteen minutes worth,” he said. “I didn’t figure we’d need more, although I can get them if needed.”
“If it’s anything like before, you won’t need more than fifteen seconds,” Sully said.
Dan pivoted, his eyes narrowing sharply as he gave Ginny a hard look.
“That fast?” he muttered.
“Oh yeah,” Sully said.
Franklin Chee moved to within a foot or so of where Ginny was sitting and then squatted down on his heels and gave her a wink.
She looked at him and then blinked. Her reactions were so slow, it was almost as if she’d been drugged.
“What? Waiting to see if my head starts to spin?”
Franklin grinned. “Yes. But don’t throw up on me, okay? I have a weak stomach.”
The incongruity of a hard-nosed Fed who had an aversion to puking was too funny to ignore.
She grinned and then shook her head. “You’re good at making people feel better, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. They call me Doctor Killdeer out on the rez. Get it? Kildaire? Killdeer?”
The play on the name was even sillier, and this time she managed a laugh. Then she sighed and tossed back the afghan, as if readying to do battle.
“Sully?”
“Right here, honey.”
“Don’t lose me, okay?”
Sully’s gut knotted. “I won’t.”
She looked around the room at the men standing there and then nodded.
“Okay. I’m ready. Turn on the VCR.”
The first clip was from the news conference that had been held after Karnoff had been notified as recipient of the Nobel Prize. He stood to the right of the podium, a tall and distinguished gentleman in his late sixties. At his side were a small, elegantly dressed woman and a young, thirty-something man who appeared to be a somewhat faded version of the man himself. Not quite as tall. Not quite as assertive. And obviously not comfortable with being in the public eye.
Ginny stared at the trio, trying to put that face to a man from her past, but it wouldn’t come. He looked like any number of distinguished older men she’d seen in her life. She looked at Dan and Sully and shrugged, as if to say, “So?”
And then the sound bite came on.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is official. Dr. Emile Peter Karnoff has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine, for his strides in using hypnosis as a basis for physical healing. Dr. Karnoff, on behalf of the American public, may I be the first to congratulate you on your amazing accomplishments.”
Emile moved to the podium, smiled at his wife and son, and then nodded to the dozens of reporters on the scene below.
He cleared his throat.
She held her breath.
“Today is a great day for me and for my family…”
The air slid out of her lungs, as if she’d been dealt a blow in the middle.
“…who have sacrificed much that I might follow my visions. I have been given a great honor, but none so great as…”
Her eyelids were heavy…so heavy. His voice was pulling her under.
“…the knowledge that my discoveries will live on long after I’m gone.”
The timbre of his voice rose and fell with the rhythm of her heart. In learned abeyance, she let it wash over her, warm, compelling, yielding to the inevitability of sensory persuasion.
Sully hit Pause, his gut still in knots. The
more they played with her mind, the more dangerous he felt it became. He didn’t give a damn what Ginny or anyone else said, this was never happening again.
“You see,” he said. “She’s out.”
Dan waved a hand in front of her face. She didn’t flinch. Her eyelids were down; her body seemed to be hovering in a state of suspension; not asleep—just waiting for someone to come turn on the lights in her head.
Dan touched her arm. “Ginny?”
She took a slow breath.
Sully nodded at Franklin, who quickly moved in to help bring her back.
“Ginny, listen to the sound of my voice. You can hear me clearly from where you are. Isn’t that right?”
She nodded.
“I’m going to count backward from five. When I say ‘Now,’ you will wake and feel good and refreshed, and you will remember everything that we’ve said. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Her voice sounded hollow. Franklin took her by the hand.
“I’m with you. You feel my hand. You hear my voice. I’m going to start counting, and when I say ‘Now,’ you will wake. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Now!”
Ginny took a deep breath and looked up. She was smiling.
“It happened again, didn’t it? He has something to do with what’s happening, doesn’t he, Dan?”
It was difficult for Dan to deny the obvious, although he had to be cautious, considering the high visibility of the man who had suddenly become their prime suspect.
“It looks as if the possibility exists,” he said. “I’ll know more in a few hours.”
“What are we waiting for?” Ginny asked. “What do we need to link him to the other women’s deaths?”
Sully sat down on the arm of the chair in which she was sitting and put his hand on the back of her head.
“For starters, honey, we have to have some concrete evidence linking him to the case, like phone records that show he called the women who died, or proof that he was in those cities during the time of the incidents…things like that.”
“And what if you don’t find them? It’s quite obvious the man is brilliant. I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to leave evidence that would link him to a crime like this.”