Secrets Amoung The Shadows

by Sally Berneathy

  The weight lifted from his back, and Eliot rolled over, then climbed to his feet. The huge black Doberman now sitting inches away bared her teeth in a snarl at his sudden movement.

  "Easy, girl," the short, white-haired man standing beside Leanne quieted the dog.

  Leanne studied the man on her porch. He was Eliot now; she was positive of that. Almost positive. She'd been momentarily deceived once that evening.

  "Eliot, this is my friend, Thurman Powers...Dr. Thurman Powers, and his dog, Dixie. Thurman, this is the patient I was telling you about."

  Eliot flinched at her words, and she realized he must be feeling extremely vulnerable and exposed.

  "Why don't we all go inside," she invited, "have a glass of tea and get acquainted." Get everyone on the same footing instead of Eliot feeling like a victim.

  Both men nodded though she sensed reluctance on Eliot's part. Thurman, however, was like a race-horse at the gate. When she'd gone over to talk to him after Edward left, rather than being upset at her disturbing his retirement, he'd been intrigued by the complexity of Eliot's case, the many unanswered questions.

  She went in with the two men, and Dixie followed close behind.

  Greta met them at the door, scampering across the area rug, skidding when she hit the hardwood, tail wagging ecstatically in irregular patterns, greeting the four arrivals in turn, including her buddy, Dixie. She was fascinated with the newcomer, approaching him as if he was her new best friend...completely unlike her earlier behavior when he'd been at the door as Edward.

  With a smile, Eliot reached down to pet her. "I think she likes me." Leanne studied his face, his smile, Greta's reaction, and she knew for certain he was Eliot, not Edward.

  "Yes," she said slowly, watching Thurman for any clues to what he might be thinking, "she does. But she didn't like Edward. She growled at him both times he was here, tried to lunge out of my arms and attack him tonight. You were right. Edward was here tonight and he did frighten me."

  He straightened, despair in his dark gaze, and looked from her to Thurman.

  "You can trust Thurman. You need to trust him."

  He compressed his lips and shook his head. "Edward. That is his name, isn't it? In my dream you called him that, and he was startled. He wondered how you knew."

  "Yes, that's what happened." Leanne's lips felt stiff as she verified that Eliot had been the man at her door. "Sit down and I'll go get some iced tea." She indicated the overstuffed gray sofa with small, pale pink flowers that matched the larger flowers in the area rug. Not exactly a professional setting, but she wasn't accustomed to seeing patients in her home.

  Eliot moved toward the sofa, and she went into the kitchen, escaping for a moment until she could regain her composure. This was her first experience with MPD. It was eerie to be frightened by a man then attracted to him all in the same evening.

  Bringing Thurman in on the case had definitely been the right thing to do. Not only did she need his expertise, but with another doctor present, she'd have to remain strictly professional. If he and Eliot were compatible, she could, if necessary, request that Thurman take over the case.

  Yet, perversely, because she was personally involved, because she admired Eliot's gritted determination in defiance of the agony in his eyes, in spite of her fear of him and of becoming too involved with him, she wanted to be the one to help him.

  If he could be helped.

  She had to remember that. Eliot was mentally ill, and not all mentally ill persons could be helped.

  She filled the glasses and returned to the living room.

  Thurman sat on the sofa beside Eliot, and the two were engaged in quiet, intense conversation. Greta had curled into a small ball in Eliot's lap, and Dixie had her head on Thurman's feet with her rump against Eliot's ankle. Animals...and Thurman...were foolproof, she thought. They saw the inner person. Eliot had certainly won over the animals. He had a core of goodness—but he also had the potential for evil. She'd be very interested to get Thurman's opinion of him after he left.

  "Eliot's been telling me a little about his situation," Thurman said as she handed him a glass of tea. "Very interesting."

  Thurman always had been the master of understatement.

  Eliot accepted his drink, his fingers touching hers, sending darts of sensation through her body as he took the glass from her. She drew back immediately.

  "Thank you," Eliot said, his eyes meeting hers, and for a split second she wondered if he were thanking her for the tea or the touch.

  This was ridiculous! She had to stop acting like a lovelorn teenager.

  She moved hurriedly across the room and took a seat in an arm chair.

  "Leanne," Eliot said, "a few minutes ago you said Greta didn't like Edward—didn't like me." The last words seemed to be dredged up from his depths, an admission he could barely stand to utter.

  "That's right. She wanted to attack him. I had to hold her when he was at the door." How odd it was to be talking about him as though he were a separate entity from the man on her sofa. Yet she couldn't bring herself to speak of him any other way. The two were very separate. A body was the only thing they shared.

  "But she likes me now. How can that be possible?" He was grasping at straws...all he had to grasp at this point...hoping against the evidence that he hadn't been the one who'd come to her door.

  "Animals are very sensitive to moods," she said. "I'm sorry, Eliot." And she was—so desperately sorry. "You were here. I could have been mistaken the first time, seeing someone across the street that I'd only seen once before. But not this time. I saw you from only a few feet away. I talked to you."

  He nodded, his long, square-tipped fingers continuing to gently caress the little dog, and she found herself doubting her own words. Part of her couldn't quite accept that Eliot and Edward occupied the same body, the same mind. But that was a subjective view, she reminded herself. She didn't want him to be a sick man, especially a sick man with an evil side that hated her.

  "Edward was angry when he came here," Eliot said. "He always seems to be angry."

  "Yes, he does," Leanne agreed. "What's he angry about?"

  "In my dream I got the impression that he's angry at everything. The world. Me and you. He resented that you rejected him and not me. He's tired of my having things he doesn't. He resents me. I know that doesn't make any sense. I...he, we have the same things. But that's what I got from him."

  It did make sense, of course. Split personalities saw themselves as individuals. If Edward had been suppressed for years, he might feel he'd missed out on a lot of things. But this wasn't the right time to tell that to Eliot.

  "I got the idea he didn't remember the scene in my office with Bruce Hedlund. He tried to make me believe he did, but he didn't." She glanced in Thurman's direction to see how he would interpret the information. If this personality was missing memories, could there be a third personality involved, one who held those missing memories?

  Thurman returned her gaze, giving a brief, barely discernible, nod.

  Eliot scowled. "No, he didn't remember. He was upset that he somehow missed it. He thought he needed to pay closer attention so I don't regain control."

  "He's worried you're going to regain control?"

  Eliot nodded. "That's what he was thinking in the dream."

  "Eliot," Thurman began, "do you ever dream about other people besides this Edward?" She'd been right. He, too, was wondering about a third personality.

  Eliot's hand stopped stroking Greta. His eyes widened in fear then narrowed in speculation. "You think I have more than one of these...these Mr. Hydes running around inside my head?"

  "I think it's much too early to make that kind of diagnosis. Have you had other dreams besides the ones about Edwards?"

  "I don't usually remember my dreams, but up until this thing started, they were pretty normal. You know...lying on the beach one minute, climbing a tall building or falling off a cliff the next. And I never before had this sense of watching somebo
dy else, feeling somebody else's emotions. I..." He paused, then took a deep breath. "That's not quite true," he said slowly, haltingly, as if dragging the words from some half-forgotten cavern. "When I was a boy I used to dream about Edward. It seemed to be part of the games we played. I kept pretending even in my sleep. He and I would go treasure hunting on lost islands and things like that in my dreams. Mom and Dad used to get upset with me. They thought I spent too much time with this imaginary friend and too little with real kids."

  "Did you?" Thurman asked.

  "Probably. He was the perfect friend. We liked all the same things, we never fought. He wasn't angry back then."

  "What did he look like? In your dreams, I mean."

  The muscles in Eliot's jaw tensed, and Leanne knew the answer before he spoke. "Like me," he said. "Even then he looked like me."

  Leanne exchanged a quick glance with Thurman, a knowing glance. They would discuss this revelation later, this further confirmation of multiple personality, dissociated at an early age. "These thoughts you have that seem to belong to somebody else, do you think they're Edwards's thoughts?"

  Eliot released a long breath. "I don't know. Probably. The anger in the thoughts is the same as the anger I feel coming from him in the dreams."

  "When you come in tomorrow, Eliot, we'll do hypnotic regression to the automobile accident that killed your parents and see what develops from that," she said. "Would you mind if Thurman joins us then?"

  He grimaced then changed it to a semblance of a wry grin. "Sure, why not. The more the merrier. Isn't that the battle cry of multiple personality patients?"

  It was a terrible joke, but they all laughed anyway, breaking the awful tension.

  Eliot stood, setting his empty glass on the coffee table and Greta on the floor. "So I guess I'll see you both tomorrow."

  Leanne rose with him. Thurman lifted a quizzical eyebrow, but she shook her head. She could certainly see Eliot out without a guard.

  When they stepped outside the porch light was still on, the low-watt bulb glaring in contrast to the surrounding darkness. That was the only reason, she told herself, that she continued to walk with him down the sidewalk and out to his car—to escape the glare.

  "I'm sorry," he said, and for a moment she had no idea what he was talking about. Then he gave a short bark of a laugh, lowered his head and ran a hand through his hair. "I feel like I'm apologizing for something somebody else did."

  "You mean Edward." She knew she had to encourage him to accept Edward as a part of his own personality, but she was having a tough time accepting it herself. "You don't have to apologize," was all she could bring herself to say.

  "Damn it, Leanne, why didn't you use the gun I gave you to threaten Edward?"

  She didn't want to admit she hadn't brought it home, hadn't been able to touch the thing after he left. She'd carried it between one finger and her thumb, minimizing the contact as much as possible, and dumped it in a desk drawer. "It wasn't handy. I thought it was you at the door until too late. Anyway, I don't know if I could have." But hadn't she wished for the gun when he'd been at the door, when she'd been in direct confrontation with his anger?

  "Don't open the door to me again unless you're sure. Though I'll admit I feel a lot better about everything knowing you have Thurman and Dixie looking out for you."

  "I can take care of myself. And Thurman keeps a close eye on me. He's a good friend. A good doctor, too," she added, steering the subject away from her safety and the gun.

  "I'm impressed with him," Eliot said. He hesitated, then added, "But not as impressed as I am with you." His voice bordered on being soft, and she had to stop herself from assigning a double meaning to his words, from believing that he meant not only professionally but personally.

  "Thurman has had a lot more experience than I have." She wrapped her arms about herself as though that barrier could shield her from the inappropriate, potentially disastrous, feelings she kept having about Eliot, as though she could stop herself from thinking—hoping—that at any moment he was going to replace her self-embrace with his arms.

  "Are you cold?" he asked, his gaze dropping to her folded arms. She could feel the spreading heat as it swept over the thin cotton fabric of her shirt, pulled taut over her breasts by her gesture. Against her will, she could feel her nipples tightening, hardening, wanting his touch.

  "No," she said, the word intended not only for him but also for her own runaway thoughts.

  His eyes narrowed, glowing darkly. "I guess I'd better be going." For a moment he didn't move, then abruptly his hands jerked upward, stopping in mid-air.

  She froze in place, desire and fear struggling inside her. Was he going to wrap his fingers around her throat and strangle her before Dixie could reach him? Or was he going to put his arms around her, lower his face to hers and kiss her just as if they were two normal people at the end of an evening together? She wasn't sure which possibility she feared most.

  But he halted abruptly with his hands only waist high, and dropped them to his sides, clenching them into fists. "Goodnight, Leanne," he said tightly. "I'll see you tomorrow."

  "Goodnight, Eliot."

  He walked around his car and got in. She stood on the sidewalk, let out a long breath and waved as he drove away.

  So apparently normal.

  But Eliot was not normal. Their relationship was not normal. He was a mentally ill person, and she was a doctor committed to helping him, though not to sacrificing her own soul in that effort, not to caring for him too much and allowing his illness to tear her heart into shreds.

  In spite of her confident assertion that she could take care of herself, a shiver ran down her spine. The really odd thing was, she wasn't sure if that shiver came from fear or anticipation. Either way, Eliot was a dangerous man, a very real threat to her.

  Chapter 9

  For the second day in a row, Eliot left work early. A successful career wouldn't matter if he went to prison for murder.

  Or if one day Edward took over his—their—body and he himself never came back.

  Both possibilities were equally terrifying.

  He'd gotten Wayne Palmer's home and work addresses by calling Patsy at Executive Styles. She was reluctant to tell him and warned him that Wayne was big and could be mean. But she finally relented when he reiterated how much he needed to find out what happened to Kay.

  Ironic, he thought, that Patsy was concerned about his safety when he might be a murderer.

  Palmer's Paint and Body Shop sat between an adult book store and a vacant lot in a seedy section of town. The sound of a grinder and the acrid smells of paint and other chemicals greeted him as he walked into the place.

  A man in torn blue jeans, sweat stained tee shirt and safety goggles looked up from sanding a large chalky-looking repair on the fender of an older model sedan. He glanced toward the other side of the room then went back to his work.

  Eliot followed the direction of his glance to see a large man in paint-stained coveralls set his sprayer on the floor and lift the visor of his helmet. The man's expression was grim, his bushy eyebrows looming over bloodshot brown eyes.

  "Whadda you want?" he demanded.

  "Are you Wayne?"

  "Yeah, I'm Wayne."

  "I wanted to talk to you about Kay...about your wife."

  Wayne slammed a huge fist onto the hood of the car he'd been working on, seemingly oblivious of the wet paint, of the fact that he's just put another dent into the metal. "Damn straight she was my wife. Guess you forgot that when you were boffing her."

  Eliot cringed. He had assumed that Wayne wouldn't know who he was, had hoped he'd be able to talk to him anonymously. "I'm sorry about Kay's death." More sorry than you can ever imagine. "Is there some place we could talk?"

  "Did you kill her?" Wayne demanded. "If I find out you killed her, I'm coming after you. She didn't stand a chance against the likes of you with that fancy car, taking her to those fancy places." Wayne yanked off his helmet and tossed it to t
he floor, taking a threatening step closer.

  This wasn't going at all the way Eliot had hoped. He moved a step closer to Wayne, refusing to let him control the situation.

  "Did I kill her? From what I hear, you're the prime suspect. What did you do when she asked you for a divorce?"

  Wayne's big face crumpled from within. For a second, Eliot thought the man was going to burst into tears, but then he lunged forward and grabbed Eliot's tie. "I don't reckon that's any of your damned business, fancy boy."

  Wayne was no taller than Eliot, though he probably outweighed him by fifty pounds...most of it fat, Eliot suspected. He had no intention of getting into a fight with the man, but he had no intention of being bullied either.

  He grabbed Wayne's wrist, holding it in place with one hand, then snapped his other hand up under his elbow, stopping just short of enough pressure to break the joint.

  Wayne grunted and jerked back, and Eliot released him. He rubbed his elbow and looked even more furious.

  "What did you tell her about a divorce?" Eliot demanded.

  "I didn't want her after she'd been fooling around with the likes of you. Does that answer your question? Now get outta here." He turned away, still holding his elbow, and picked up his helmet.

  "What was her maiden name?" Eliot called after him, but the big man didn't look back. "Was it Becker?"

  Wayne pulled on his helmet. The interview was over. If he could believe Wayne, he'd agreed to give Kay a divorce. Which meant she would have called her lover to celebrate.

  If he could believe Wayne.

  He didn't want to believe the man, but he couldn't forget the overpowering sadness that had flashed across Wayne's face when Eliot had asked about the divorce. Wayne had loved her, and now he mourned her.

  Which didn't mean he hadn't killed her in a fit of anger. He definitely had a temper.