"Please come in and sit down, Eliot, and let's get to work." She amazed herself with the calmness in her voice, a calmness she was far from feeling. "We have a lot to talk about."
Turning away from him, she strode into her office and sat behind her desk, the normalcy of the action restoring some of her confidence.
Reluctantly, it seemed, he followed. This time he went straight to the window and opened the drapes, then took a tentative seat on the edge of the recliner. If he was trying to set up a defense of insanity to escape prosecution for Kay Palmer's murder, he was certainly playing his role convincingly.
On the positive side, if he was using her—needed her testimony—he wouldn't hurt her.
Somehow the thought wasn't as comforting as it should be. She didn't want to believe he was using her.
She didn't want to believe he had severe mental problems, either. But it was becoming more and more obvious that one or the other must be true.
She took out her recorder and turned it on.
"Eliot," she began, watching him closely for his reaction, "before we go into your dream, I'd like to discuss your visit to my house last night."
His pupils constricted, and he paled visibly. Pretty tough reactions to fake. "What are you talking about?"
"Last night you came to my house and stood in the street watching me."
"That's impossible," he said, but he didn't sound like he believed his own assertion. "I don't even know where you live."
That was true, she realized. And her home phone was unlisted. Had she made a mistake after all?
"So you're saying you weren't there, you didn't stand across the street and look into my bedroom window?"
He leaned his forehead against his hand and groaned, then lifted his gaze to hers again. She flinched from the agony in that gaze. "In my dream," he said softly, "I was at your house. I crossed the street, opened a window, went upstairs and strangled you in your bed."
His quiet words settled around her, pushing her down into a quicksand of fear. She hadn't been mistaken. He'd been there. Did that also mean his other dream had been real, that he'd killed Kay Palmer?
"What did my house look like in your dream?" she asked, making a conscious effort to sound detached and professional rather than frightened and uncertain.
He took a deep breath, and she realized he was working every bit as hard if not harder than she to stay in control. "Two story. I couldn't tell exactly what color in the dark, but it was a light shade. Maybe white. Older, turn of the century style. Lots of trees and bushes. A small front porch. In the bedroom I saw an iron bedframe and a white comforter."
A chill encompassed her entire body.
"How close am I?" he demanded.
She swallowed, hoping her voice would come out normal. "One hundred percent. You've accurately described the details of my house and only the details you could have seen from the street. Even the comforter on my bed which you saw as white actually has blue flowers, too small to be seen from a distance."
For a moment his eyes squeezed closed and his mouth compressed as if he would shut out her words. But he opened his eyes and looked at her again, his chin lifting slightly, determinedly. "What did I do?"
"Nothing. You stared up at me, then left." At least, she thought he left. "I'd like to hypnotize you and let you tell me about your dream."
"Hypnotize me?" He scowled, folding his arms across his chest.
She had expected resistance. If he was lying, of course he'd oppose hypnosis. But even if he was telling the truth, someone with as much self-control as he would be reluctant to relinquish that control.
She smiled and leaned back, holding a pencil at both ends in a determinedly casual gesture. "Again, television and the movies have led you astray. I can't hypnotize you and take over your mind, make you bark like a dog or go out and..." She stopped herself in midsentence. She'd been about to say go out and commit murder.
"Do things you wouldn't ordinarily do," she finished. "You'll be in charge of your soul at all times." She changed her smile to a grin in an effort to make her last statement sound flippant, less grim than the situation warranted.
"Fine," he said determinedly. "Then let's do it. Whatever it takes to get to the bottom of things." His hand darted inside his jacket as though for a pack of cigarettes, and Leanne froze with the memory of his cigarette the night before.
But when he withdrew his hand, it was empty.
"Please feel free to smoke," she said tensely, unsure what the action might bring with it—perhaps a change in personality? "I need you to relax."
He shook his head, reached inside his jacket again and withdrew a pack of peppermint gum, proffering it to her. "I gave up smoking several months ago. This is my substitute addiction. Would you like a stick?"
She blinked twice rapidly, assessing this new information. Another point for the possibility of a multiple personality disorder. The different personas frequently exhibited different habits.
"No, thank you," she finally answered.
He returned the gum to his pocket without taking a stick for himself. "I haven't done that—reach for a cigarette—for some time now. Stress. Brings back old habits."
He sounded sincere, as though he really didn't remember smoking a cigarette just last night. "Yes," she agreed. "Stress can do that." She shuffled papers on her desk, giving herself a minute to regain her composure. "If you're ready to proceed with the hypnosis, you may loosen your tie or take off your jacket, whatever you need to get comfortable. The control that reclines the chair is located on the right side."
He leaned back stiffly but made no move to do anything further. She hadn't really expected him to. This wasn't going to be easy.
And maybe not safe.
Chapter 4
"All right," she began, "I want you to concentrate on the muscles in your feet. Right now they're tense, but you can consciously relax them as I tell you to. Begin now to relax the muscles in your feet. Feel them start to loosen. Now the muscles in your legs."
Working her way patiently and carefully, she led him through the process.
"Your vision is becoming unfocused. It's hard to keep your eyes open. You may close them at any time you wish."
His lids drooped slowly...a good sign. If he were doing it deliberately, the action would have been faster, more definite.
"The chair on which you're sitting is unusually soft, like a cloud. Feel that cloud wrap around you, warm and comforting. You're floating on that cloud. Relax and enjoy the sensation of floating." He wasn't stiff any longer. Obviously he desperately wanted this to work. If he'd chosen to resist her, she suspected he could have easily done so.
"Just relax and float as I count backward from twenty to one. By the time I reach one, you'll be in a state of total relaxation. You will still be able to hear my voice and to answer me, but other noises will fade into the background. They won't register or disturb you."
She began to count, and he responded well. "One," she concluded. "You are now in a hypnotic state and can respond easily to questions I will ask. Eliot, please raise your right index finger."
The slow, almost hesitant lifting of his finger told her he had at least achieved a light trance. It was all she'd hoped for this first time. His will to succeed seemed the only thing that sufficiently overcame his need to be in control.
"Did you come by my house last night?" she asked immediately.
"No," he answered, his voice slow and quiet.
"I'd like to speak to the one who came by my house last night."
Silence. She dropped the subject and changed direction.
"Did you dream about me last night?"
"Yes."
"You're dreaming that dream again. Describe to me what's going on and how it makes you feel."
He did. In an emotionless voice he described the actions of a man watching her, coming up to her room, putting his hands around her throat and squeezing the life from her. He reported the dream in the third person, always using t
he pronoun he, never I, as though repeating a gruesome tale he'd heard or read. "He climbed through a window." "He wrapped his hands around your throat." The Eliot persona had not been there.
"How did the man who choked me feel in your dream?"
"He felt excited and happy. When he takes someone else's life, he feels that life going inside him, making him more alive and more powerful." Eliot's detached recitation of those feelings made her cringe in spite of her training and experience. Even accustomed as she was to unexpected personality developments, she found it hard to reconcile such dissolute emotions with the man who'd come into her office.
"Who did you see choke me?" she asked, surprised to find her voice sounded hoarse.
Eliot hesitated, frowned. "I saw myself."
"What is your name?"
"Eliot Kane."
"What does the man who choked me look like?" Frequently a multiple personality saw himself as different in appearance.
"Tall," Eliot said. "Brown hair, gray suit. He looks like me."
Leanne bit her lip and forced herself to remain professional and detached. The situation did not look good for Eliot.
"I'd like to speak to the one who came to my house last night."
Again silence. But that did not rule out the possibility of another identity. The personalities frequently chose their own times to reveal themselves.
"Have you dreamed of murdering another woman besides me?" She wanted to hear his description of the woman he feared he'd murdered.
"Yes."
"You're dreaming again about the woman, the last dream you had about her, the one that resulted in her death. Describe to me what you see in your dream."
His forehead creased. The words came slowly, reluctantly, as though he had to drag them forth. "He's sitting with her at her dining room table. They're eating. She made crab legs for him. He loves crab legs. Tonight they taste especially good because he's anticipating what he's going to do. He's been planning it for weeks. Every time he crushes a shell, he savors the sensation and thinks of how her throat will feel when it crumples beneath his fingers."
An involuntary shudder ran down her spine at his words. "What does the woman look like?" she asked, reminding herself that she had to maintain her distance, couldn't let herself get wrapped up in her patient's illness.
"Red hair. Small. Nice body. She's wearing a tight, purple dress. She has long red nails."
"Tell me about when he chokes her."
Eliot shifted uncomfortably. A scowl crossed his features.
"Relax," she soothed. "It isn't happening now. You're only reporting it, like you're watching a movie."
Slowly the scowl eased. "They're sitting on the sofa now. It's a small sofa with big flowers. They're drinking wine. He reaches over and takes her glass from her. He sets both glasses on the coffee table then turns to her and smiles. He puts his hand on her throat and feels her pulse beating. He's very excited thinking about how he has the power to stop that beating. He kisses her, and he knows she thinks he's going to make love to her, but tonight he's going to satisfy his passion, not hers."
Leanne involuntarily raised a hand to her lips as if she could feel the treacherous kiss. With an effort she forced her hand back down to her desk and tried to listen objectively.
"He squeezes her throat tighter and pulls back so he can watch. Her eyes come open now, and he likes that. He likes to see her fear. She pushes against him, but it's no use. He's much stronger than she is. Two of the red tips break off her nails and then she stops pushing. He lets her fall onto the sofa. He can feel the energy from her, and he wants it all for himself. This is only the beginning. When he leaves her, he thinks how she has to stay behind and he's free."
Eliot stopped talking then, the story at an end, and Leanne realized she was clutching her own throat protectively.
The murder, related in a detached monotone, had the same strong effect as his description of his dream of her. She supplied the emotion that was missing from his voice.
She lowered her hands to her desk, spreading her fingers and taking in the familiar, cool solidity of the polished wood.
Across from her Eliot Kane sat, square jaw eased, long fingers draped over the ends of the chair arms, thigh muscles delineated by the soft material of his slacks. He looked astonishingly inflexible in spite of his relaxed state. He also looked astonishingly normal for someone who had just related such a bizarre tale.
Though, she reminded herself, one of her case studies in school had been of a woman with the face of an angel who'd calmly hacked up her husband and children when they tracked mud across her newly-mopped kitchen floor.
"What is the name of this woman you—he—just murdered?" she asked, striving to maintain a clinical tone.
"Kay Palmer."
"Where did you meet her?"
"I've never met her."
"If you've never met her, how did you know her name?" He could have garnered that information from the news, but she waited to hear how he would answer.
"I don't know her. He does."
"Who is he?"
"The one who killed her."
"What is his name?"
He hesitated, his brow furrowed as he apparently searched for the answer. She held her breath, waiting. Would Mr. Hyde emerge? "I don't know," he finally said.
"Why did you kill this woman?"
"I didn't kill her."
"Why did the man in your dream kill her?"
"He wanted to."
"Was the person who came to my house the same man who killed Kay Palmer?"
"Yes."
"Was the man who choked me in your dream the same man who killed Kay Palmer?"
"Yes."
"You said that killing her made him feel free. What did you mean by that?"
"I don't know."
"Was she threatening him in some way?"
"I don't know."
"Was she blackmailing him?"
"I don't know."
"But killing her made him feel free?"
"Yes."
She continued to ask questions but received only the same indefinite, circuitous answers.
"I'm going to count to three," she finally told him, "and you'll be wide awake. You'll remember everything we talked about. One...coming to the surface, waking up. Two...almost there, almost fully awake. Three."
He opened his eyes, sat erect in the chair, compressed his lips and squared his jaw, actions that belied the torment in his gaze.
She should be frightened of this man. He could be a murderer, could be lying to her, could be planning her murder. Yet in spite of that, his sturdy determination against overwhelming odds touched something deep inside her, made her heart ache for him, made her want desperately to help him.
He shook his head slowly and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't understand what's going on. I've always been in complete control of my life. I've always known exactly who I am, where I'm going, what I'm going to do, what I did yesterday and the day before that and the year before that. How could something like this happen?"
"We don't really know what's happening at this point," she temporized.
"I couldn't have murdered that woman." He straightened his shoulders and met her gaze dead on. "If there's a part of me that's capable of murder, that actually did what I saw in my dream, I want rid of it. That's why I'm here. Tell me what I need to do next."
She liked that, liked his obstinacy, his positive attitude.
"There are a lot of things we can do next," she answered. "If—and I emphasize the word if because we have a lot further to go before we make a definite diagnosis of multiple personality disorder. If we want to investigate that possibility, the first thing we do is search for the source. When a personality splits off, the split usually occurs in childhood as a result of abuse or some traumatic incident. The person can't stand the pain, so he or she dissociates into another self."
He waved a hand impatiently. "I understand the basic premise. The only traumatic incident
I can think of was the automobile accident that killed both my parents and injured me when I was three. But that was over thirty years ago, and these problems only began recently."
"The personalities can remain dormant for years, until they're needed again. That could also be the source of your claustrophobia. Were you trapped inside the car for a long time?"
"I was too young to remember, but according to Mom—my adopted mother—I was in the car several hours before somebody driving by saw us and stopped to help. Yeah," he admitted, "I guess that could be the source of my claustrophobia."
As well as the source of a personality fragmentation. But she didn't express her thought aloud. They had a lot more work to do before she could make even that tentative diagnosis.
"Has anything upsetting happened to you recently, anything that might dredge up the feelings of being trapped inside that car with your parents dying?"
He shook his head, one side of his mouth quirking up in an expression that was more a grimace than a smile. "My life was completely normal and uneventful until all this started."
Though she suspected he could—and would—have blocked any such recent trauma from his conscious memory, Leanne didn't press him. "Okay, so what do you remember about your parents' accident?"
"Nothing," he admitted reluctantly, confirming her suspicions of his ability to block distressing events. "In fact, I have only hazy memories of my mother and father, and some of those probably came from pictures and stories. Mom and Dad, friends of my real parents, adopted me. I had a perfectly normal, happy childhood, I might add."
Secrets Amoung The Shadows Page 3