“I’m with you.”
Ethan read quickly. “Looks like Robyn Duncan was a patient at Candle Lake for three years.”
“Zoe spent a season in hell there. Three years would probably feel like an eternity.”
“I’m a little short on sympathy at the moment,” Ethan said. “I think Duncan is stalking my wife.”
“Got to admit that her presence here in Whispering Springs and her job as the manager of the apartment house where you and Zoe just happen to be living is hard to write off as a coincidence.”
Ethan studied the information on the screen. “When was Duncan discharged from Candle Lake?”
“Looks like she wasn’t.” Singleton scrolled through a couple of pages of data and paused. “Not officially, at any rate. According to this record, she walked out under her own steam last month.”
“Well, hell.”
Singleton squinted at the screen. “Right after you and Zoe went back to Candle Lake and tore the place apart. Things were probably in chaos for a while. My guess is Robyn Duncan just up and left while everyone was running around trying to figure out what was happening.”
“Does Duncan have any family?”
“Let’s see.” Singleton pulled up the admitting sheet. “Nope. Not anymore. But it looks like she inherited a lot of money, and a trustee was appointed to administer the estate. A guy named Ferris. He signed the commitment papers.”
“And then paid Candle Lake Manor to keep Robyn out of sight and out of mind while he went through the assets of the estate, probably.”
“That’s how the system worked there at Candle Lake.”
Ethan scanned the admitting notes and stopped abruptly when he read some very familiar phrases.
. . . Patient suffers from severe auditory hallucinations. . . . Claims to hear voices in walls. . . .
“Oh, shit,” he said softly.
Singleton cocked a brow. “Same diagnosis as the one they wrote up when they admitted Zoe, I take it?”
“Almost identical.”
42
You never noticed me at Candle Lake, did you?” Robyn said. “Nobody ever noticed me there. Not after the first few months. I stopped trying to tell them that I wasn’t crazy. I just shut up and pretended I was invisible. And after a while everyone ignored me. Everyone except for Dr. McAlister, that is.”
“That was the trick to surviving at Candle Lake, wasn’t it?” Zoe said gently. “Keeping your mouth shut and not making any trouble.”
“Three times a week they let me out of H Ward so I could go to the library on the second floor. I passed you in the hall a few times. I could see that the orderlies were taking you to Dr. McAlister’s office. That’s when I knew that you were probably different the same way I’m different.”
“Did McAlister try her tricks on you, too?” Zoe levered herself slowly to a sitting position on the floor. The movement was difficult because so much of her energy and concentration was focused on keeping the clinging spiderwebs at bay. They drifted at the edges of her senses, threatening to envelope her once more.
“Don’t move.” Robyn’s voice rose in panic. The pistol in her hand shook violently.
Zoe held her breath. “It’s okay, Robyn. I’m not moving. See?”
After a moment, Robyn regained some semblance of control. “Stay right where you are.”
“Tell me about your experience with McAlister.”
“I thought she liked me,” Robyn whispered. “She was the only one who believed me when I told her that I could sometimes feel things in the walls.”
“She convinced you that she wanted to help you, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
Zoe sighed. “How long did it take you to realize that she just wanted to use you for her crime-scene consulting work?”
“I didn’t mind helping her. I wanted to assist her. Things went okay for a while. I liked the work. It was good to know that I was helping the police catch criminals who deserved to be punished.”
“Even though McAlister took all the credit and didn’t do anything to get you out of H Ward?”
“She promised me that when I was ready, she would get me released from Candle Lake.”
“But you were never quite ready, right?” Zoe asked. “Good old McAlister. She never had any intention of getting either of us out of Candle Lake. She wanted to keep us right where we were so that she could continue to run her experiments and tests on us.”
Robyn blinked several times. The hand holding the gun trembled so violently Zoe feared she would pull the trigger by accident.
“The problem was that I started having my little brainstorms,” Robyn said.
“Brainstorms? Do you mean the spiderweb stuff?”
“What are you talking about?” Robyn demanded. “There are no spiderwebs.”
“There’s something here in this room. It feels like a sticky kind of energy. I found it in Arcadia’s office and in the library at the show house, too.”
“You’re lying. I can’t sense anything.”
“Probably because whatever it is came from your own mind,” Zoe said. “Haven’t you noticed that, while we can sense emotions left behind by other people, we don’t pick up the traces of the energy that we ourselves leave in a room?”
Robyn sighed. “I always wondered why that was. Sometimes when I was alone in my room at Candle Lake I would be so frightened, so angry. But afterward I never sensed any of those things in the walls.”
“It’s the same for me. I guess it must be some sort of natural defense mechanism.” Zoe paused. “Tell me about your brainstorms.”
“I can feel them when one is coming on, but then everything gets distorted and I blank out for a couple of minutes.”
“Like a seizure?”
“Yes, I guess so. When I come out of one of the storms, I feel okay again but I can’t remember what happened during the dark time. When I first started having the brainstorms I thought it was a sign that my psychic sense was growing stronger. Maybe because I was working with McAlister. She often gave me drugs before she ran her tests. I told myself I was responding to them.”
“She tried those meds on me, too. I hated the feeling they gave me.”
“So did I. But I told myself that if they worked it would be worth it. Then, I had two brainstorms in two different sessions and McAlister freaked.”
“What happened?”
Robyn’s mouth trembled. “The first one wasn’t too bad. At least, I didn’t think so. It only lasted a few seconds. But I guess I knocked something off Dr. McAlister’s desk and fainted. The next one was a little stronger. She told me later that while I was in the dark period, I smashed a lamp. She had to summon the orderlies. I guess I scared her.”
“Good for you. She deserved it.”
“She decided that I was going crazy. I saw the notes that she made in my file. She concluded that I wasn’t strong enough mentally to handle my psychic sense and that it was driving me mad.”
“Why did you come here to Whispering Springs?” Zoe asked.
“I followed you here. Don’t you see? When you escaped from Candle Lake I realized that, unlike me, you were strong. I wanted to be in control like you. At night after you left I used to lie awake wondering where you were and what you were doing. When I heard the orderlies say that you were dead I didn’t believe them. I told myself that you had tricked them all and I was glad, glad.”
“You are strong, Robyn. You had to be in order to survive Candle Lake.”
“I survived, but I couldn’t stop the brainstorms. They got worse. But then you and Ethan Truax came to Candle Lake a few weeks ago, and afterward everything changed.”
“Is that when you escaped?”
“I just walked out one day,” Robyn said simply. “No one tried to stop me.”
“And you came looking for me?”
“I thought that if I watched you and studied you, I might be able to figure out how you control your psychic sense so that it doesn’t destroy you.”
/>
“Why didn’t you just tell me who you were and why you wanted to meet me?” Zoe asked.
“Because of the storms,” Robyn said sadly. “I didn’t want you to know that I was going crazy. I thought that if you found out, you might worry that I would contaminate you or something.”
“Why did you go to the show house and to Arcadia’s office?”
“One was a place where I knew you had spent some time with your closest friend. I’ve never had a friend like that. I wanted to know how it felt to have that kind of connection to someone else. I went to the show house because I wanted to feel the influence of your creativity.”
“There was no TV repairman, was there?” Zoe said. “That’s why you couldn’t give us a good description of him. He never existed. You just wanted to get your hands on a key to my apartment so you could go inside and soak up some of my vibes.”
“I wanted to know how it felt to live a normal life with a man.” Robyn’s voice broke on a sob. “I’ve never dared tell any man the truth about myself. I wanted to experience how it felt to be in love.”
Zoe looked at the dresser. “Why did you take the photo and the mug?”
“I thought that if I had some things that belonged to you, I might be able to use them to help me concentrate and focus. I didn’t take anything valuable. It wasn’t stealing. Not really. I just sort of borrowed them. I didn’t think you would miss them very much.”
“You broke that pen in Arcadia’s office. And the vase in my library.”
“Those were accidents.” The gun trembled again. “I had one of my . . . my seizures in both of those places. The pen and the vase got broken during the storms.”
Zoe could see that Robyn was getting more agitated by the second. The gun could go off at any time.
“It’s all right,” she said soothingly. “I understand.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Robyn seemed to grow strangely calm. “Because you’re strong. You have no clue what the brainstorms are like.”
“Yes, I do. I can feel the aftereffects right here in this room. I sensed you once or twice back at Candle Lake Manor, too.”
“I came here because I wanted to watch you, to learn from you. But I see now that it’s no good. I’ll never be strong like you.”
“Killing me won’t put a stop to the brainstorms.”
Robyn seemed puzzled by that observation. “Of course it won’t.”
“Robyn, put the gun down. I want to talk to you.”
“It’s too late to talk. There’s nothing you can say that will help. You shouldn’t have come here today. I was getting ready to do it when I heard you come through the back window. If you hadn’t interrupted me, it would have been over by now.”
Comprehension descended on Zoe. “Robyn, listen to me.”
A shadow shifted in the doorway behind Robyn. Ethan glided silently through the opening, his gun in his hand.
She tried to signal him with a tiny movement of her head. To her relief he appeared to get the message. He stopped a short distance behind Robyn.
“Goodbye, Zoe,” Robyn said. “I had hoped that we could be friends someday but I know now that’s not possible. Why would a strong person like you want to be friends with a weak one like me?”
Robyn turned the gun toward herself and opened her mouth.
“No,” Zoe said, desperate now. “Please don’t.”
“It’s better this way. As long as there was hope that I could learn to control the brainstorms, it was okay. But they’re getting worse, Zoe. And I can’t bear the thought of going crazy.”
“I understand. But I’m asking you not to do it for my sake.” Zoe got slowly to her feet, fighting the tendrils of dark energy. “Please don’t.”
“I told you, I’m not going to hurt you. I never wanted to do that.”
“You’ll hurt me if you kill yourself. You can’t imagine what a relief it is to know that you exist, Robyn. I just wish we had met back at Candle Lake. I’ll bet it was McAlister who made certain that we never did. She wouldn’t have wanted us to get to know each other because it was easier for her to manipulate us if we each thought that we were alone in the world.”
“I can’t help you, Zoe. I’m going crazy.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
“Dr. McAlister said—”
“McAlister was a manipulative liar and a quack who was only out to use you. Did she run any real medical tests on you?”
“She tried lots of drugs.”
“If they were the same drugs she used on me, they weren’t meant to help you. Please don’t kill yourself. Because if you do, I’m going to have to wonder if that’s what’s waiting for me. Maybe someday I’ll want to stick a gun in my mouth, too.”
“No,” Robyn said tightly. “You’d never do that. You’re too strong.”
“Nobody is perfectly strong. Look, I’ll make a deal with you. Give the doctors a chance to see if they can figure out what’s causing your brainstorms.”
“When I tell them I sense things in the walls, they’ll say I’m crazy. They’ll send me back to Candle Lake.”
“I won’t let anyone send you back to Candle Lake. I promise you that. As for the doctors, we won’t tell them you’re psychic. We’ll just say you’re having blackouts. Maybe whatever is going on has nothing at all to do with your sixth sense. You owe it to yourself to find out for sure before you take this final step. You owe it to me, your friend.”
Unwilling hope flared in Robyn’s eyes. “You’ll come with me to talk to the doctors?”
“Yes. I give you my word.”
Robyn stood there, frozen.
Ethan reached out and deftly removed the gun from her fingers. She did not even seem to notice. She put her hands over her face and started to weep.
Zoe pulled her close and hugged her until the last of the tears had fallen.
When Robyn finally raised her head there was resignation and a deep sadness in her eyes.
“When they find out that I might be crazy and that I came from Candle Lake Manor, Mr. and Mrs. Shipley will fire me,” she whispered. “I’m going to miss this job so much. I feel that I was born to manage Casa de Oro.”
43
Robyn is scheduled to undergo surgery?” Arcadia lowered the tiny espresso cup. “When?”
“Day after tomorrow,” Zoe said. “Ethan and I plan to drive into Phoenix so that I can be with her when she wakes up.”
It was just after ten. Fountain Square was thronged with enthusiastic shoppers. The morning was sunny and warm.
“I’ll bet she’s scared to death.” Arcadia shuddered. “I certainly would be at the thought of brain surgery.”
“She is frightened, but not nearly as scared as she was when she thought she was going insane. I was with her when they went over the results of the CAT scan and the MRI with her. She started to cry. You should have seen the doctor’s face when he realized that she was crying in relief, not because of the diagnosis.”
“Probably never had a patient shed tears of joy after being told she has a brain tumor,” Arcadia said.
“Probably not. Naturally, we didn’t try to explain. We just told him that we were both enormously relieved to know that he considered it operable.”
“You never mentioned the psychic thing?”
“No. As soon as he did the tests he said he was almost one hundred percent certain that the tumor was causing Robyn’s seizures. He said it had probably been there for a long time.”
“Benign?”
“He won’t commit until he gets the lab results back after surgery, but he told us that it had all the hallmarks of a type of slow-growing tumor that is, technically speaking, fairly simple to remove.”
“Personally, I find it mind-boggling to hear the words ‘simple’ and ‘brain surgery’ in the same sentence, but I suppose everything is relative.”
“Well, there are plenty of surgical risks, of course. But to tell you the truth, now that her worst fears have been put to re
st, Robyn’s biggest concern is losing her job.”
“Born to manage the Casa de Oro.” Arcadia shook her head in wonder. “Imagine that.”
“You want to know the really scary part? She’s actually pretty good at it. The place has never looked better, and every apartment is rented.” Zoe drank some tea. “Nevertheless, I’m glad that Ethan and I will be moving out soon.”
“Treacher finally promised to send the painters into Nightwinds?”
“They started at seven o’clock this morning. Ethan drove to the house to make sure the men showed up for work.”
“What about the color?”
“Ethan says he’s not feeling too particular about the exact shade anymore.” Zoe grinned. “He just wants the place finished so we can move back into our home.”
The hospital walls screamed. But that was par for the course with hospitals, Zoe reminded herself. She wouldn’t be there long. Visiting hours were kept to a minimum on this ward.
“You okay?” Ethan asked in a low voice.
They turned the corner into the hall where Robyn’s room was located.
“I can handle it,” Zoe said. “I just hope Robyn’s psychic abilities have returned to normal.”
Ethan shrugged. She was amused to see that he was dealing with Robyn’s claim to a sixth sense the same way he dealt with hers. He could accept that something out of the ordinary was going on with both of them, but he did not feel the need to delve into metaphysics to explain it.
Maybe he was right, she thought. Who could say for certain where the boundaries between intuition and true psychic sensitivity lay?
It occurred to her that she was getting rather laid back about the issue herself.
The wait for Robyn to come out of surgery the day before had seemed endless. She and Ethan had spent most of the time on the patio outside the surgical waiting room because she couldn’t take the bad vibes inside for extended periods.
The surgeon had appeared eventually to tell them that the operation had gone well.
But when they went to visit her a few hours later, it soon became apparent that Robyn wasn’t doing well at all.
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