He had no idea how accurate his statement was. "Tell me about your dream." It was her professional voice again, the one she felt comfortable with, the one she used to put distance between herself and her patients.
"The first dream I had about you, only the outside of your house, your bed, and you were clear. After Edward went inside, everything got foggy. In this one, after he got inside I could see the entry hall, but everything else was still a blur. It was like a dream about a dream."
"So what you're saying," she said, relieved by the opportunity to be analytical, "is that you only dream clearly about what you know. The rest is more like a fantasy, weaving together the known and the unknown. You can't fantasize clearly about what you haven't seen yet."
"But I've seen your living room and the staircase, and they were still a blur in my dream. And your comforter was still solid white. You told me it had blue flowers. That separates me from Edward, doesn't it?"
She didn't want to answer him, to dash his nebulous optimism, but she had to. "The dream is Edward's fantasy. What he'd like to do, not what he has done. He hasn't seen anything but the outside of my house, the bedroom through my window, and now the entry way. Edward doesn't share all of your memories, just as you don't share all of his. Remember that he was unclear about what had happened the night Bruce Hedlund came to my office?"
Eliot was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, the life had drained from his voice. "I see. Edward's fantasies are what he wants to do, what he wants to torture me with watching him do. He talked to me this time and as much as admitted that. But one of his fantasies came true. He killed Kay Palmer, and he wants me to go to prison for her murder." He swallowed audibly. "I killed Kay Palmer. I deserve to go to prison."
A part of her wanted to agree with him, wanted him to be some place there was no chance he could harm himself or anyone else—including her. But that was her untrained gut reaction. There was still so much that remained unknown. It was too early to draw definitive conclusions.
And there was a part of her, an emotional part, that cringed at the thought of Eliot in prison.
"You dreamed about killing her. As yet, we have no proof that you...that Edward actually did it. But even if he did, you weren't legally responsible."
He snorted. "Not legally responsible? I killed a woman, but I'm not legally responsible because I'm insane? Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
She ignored Eliot's question since she couldn't answer it. Knowing her father hadn't been responsible for his actions because he was mentally ill didn't make her or her mother feel better. Eventually, her mother had gone on with her life, remarried and now seemed happy. But Leanne knew the pain was still there just as it was still with her.
"There are some things that don't fit," she said.
"Name one."
"You don't have elements of missing time. That's a big one. For another, we haven't been able to contact Edward. We can't make a positive diagnosis until we reach him."
"Edward stood on your doorstep," he said, his tone harsh. "You spoke to him face to face. In my dream, he announced his intention of killing you. What more will it take? Do you want to wait until he actually comes up your stairs and strangles you the way he did Kay?"
He was right, and she was right, and she was completely confused where he was concerned. Damn it! She was reacting on an emotional level. Somehow Eliot had slipped past her defenses and touched something deep inside. She cared about all her patients, but not like this, not on this level.
She was drawn to him, attracted to him, and against her will, she'd become personally wrapped up in his problem. It was as if she could come to terms with her father's descent into madness if she were able to help Eliot escape his.
Thank goodness Thurman had taken over when he did. She shouldn't be talking to Eliot at all. She should conclude this conversation as quickly as possible.
"Stop saying that as though it were a fact," she ordered in response to his comment about murdering Kay. "I'll tell you what more it will take to accept that conclusion. When Thurman is able to reach Edward through you, when he has your body in his living room and is talking to you one minute and Edward the next. That's when I'll be convinced. That hasn't happened, and until it does, everything we say is pure speculation. All you have to go on is a fuzzy dream that could have been enhanced through the medium of a television newscast overheard by your subconscious while you were asleep. You don't even know for sure that Kay Palmer is Kay Becker. You do not have sufficient evidence to convict yourself of murder."
Eliot heaved a deep sigh, but he didn't argue. "Keep your doors and windows locked," he said resignedly.
"I will." She tried to put a smile in her voice, to help him relax. "I'll be fine. I've got a noisy watchdog."
"That's something else," he said. "Greta wasn't in the dream."
"Edward definitely saw Greta. She wanted to tear him to bits. Maybe this isn't so much a fantasy of what Edward wants to do, but your fear of what he might do. It's so similar to your dreams of Kay Palmer, maybe they're both an expression of your fear rather than Edward's desire." As she spoke the words, she felt her own hope rise irrationally.
"I have to give you credit," he said. "You never stop trying."
"You shouldn't either. You're a strong person. I can't imagine that you ever would give up or that you'd ever fail to accomplish whatever you set out to do." She probably shouldn't have said that. It was too personal, but she'd needed to reassure him as well as herself of the validity of her thoughts.
"I hate to disappoint you," he said, "but I was a very mediocre baseball player."
She permitted herself a soft chuckle. "I find it hard to believe you'd tolerate mediocrity in any area." Eliot had been very tense when he'd called her. Now he was starting to relax, had even made a joke. She was helping him.
***
After she hung up the phone, Leanne continued to sit upright in bed, wide awake, thinking, trying to make sense of the senseless—of what was going on with Eliot, of her own attraction to someone who was almost certainly a danger to her safety—physical as well as emotional. No matter that he was now Thurman's patient. This went beyond a question of ethics. If she let herself care about Eliot, he would break her heart with his mental illness. She would have to face the same terrible loss that she'd faced with the deaths of her parents.
Edward was a threat to her life, but Eliot was a threat to her soul.
Greta stretched up on the side of the bed, sticking her pointed nose under Leanne's hand, looking for affection. "Am I ignoring you? I'm sorry!" Leanne reached down and boosted her up. Greta stretched out beside her, and Leanne stroked the dog's sleek, shiny fur. She snuggled closer, and Leanne didn't make her go to her own bed. Suddenly she didn't want to be alone...and not because she was frightened.
She sank into sleep and dreamed about Eliot, about his lips on hers, his big, capable hands on her body, caressing her, stroking her, holding her against his broad chest, her fingers twining in a mat of hair always hidden by his white cotton shirts but which she knew must be there...about making love with him and feeling a release of all the pent-up emotions he'd engendered in her.
But then at the end when he pulled away and smiled at her, he wasn't Eliot any more. The smile belonged to Edward.
His hands closed about her throat...and she awoke, gasping for breath, her heart pounding. Beside her, Greta whimpered as though she shared her owner's fear.
***
The next day Leanne felt a sense of relief as she watched her eleven o'clock appointment leave. All morning she had trouble keeping her mind on her work, on what her patients were telling her. After her disturbing dream, Eliot seemed to be filling all the spaces of her mind.
Thank goodness it was Friday and the day was half over. She could use the respite of lunchtime.
As the outer door closed behind her patient, Becky rose from her desk. "I'm going to lunch now, okay?"
"Sure. I think I'll do the same."
Becky
tossed the strap of her purse over her shoulder, then paused, indicating the message slips. "You might want to look through these. There's one from the bank. They called to let us know Eliot Kane's check bounced."
"What?" Leanne strode to the desk and picked up the stack of pink slips, thumbing quickly to the one from her bank. "There must be some mistake. Maybe he accidentally wrote on a closed account."
"Nope. Insufficient funds. I asked." Becky walked around her desk toward the door. "You do somebody a favor, and look what you get."
No, Leanne thought, she couldn't have been this wrong. That would be a betrayal of her trust, and he'd never do that. The bank must have made a mistake.
She started back into her office, then stopped in the doorway as the import of her reaction hit her. In a very dark way, it was almost comic. She might be forced to admit that Eliot had a personality fragmentation, but she couldn't believe he would write a bad check.
She sank into her chair, forcing herself to take a hard look at her own assessment.
Eliot might have a personality lurking deep inside who wanted to murder her, and she could accept that, but she couldn't believe he'd betray her by writing a bad check.
If there was something wrong with this situation, it was her own logic. She wanted so badly to trust Eliot, she had completely lost her objectivity. She was heading into precarious territory. The intelligent thing to do would be to avoid contact with him as much as possible. She should hand this check back to Becky and let her take care of it. That was the way she normally handled administrative problems.
But she didn't do that.
She found Eliot's business card and called him, relieved when the receptionist put her through. If he'd been at lunch, she'd have had time to reflect on her judgment, perhaps to do the sensible thing and not call him.
"Eliot, this is Leanne. What's going on?" She didn't give him time for idle conversation, for friendly exchanges. "The bank returned the check you wrote me on Monday."
"What? Why would they return it?" He sounded genuinely shocked.
"Insufficient funds."
"That's impossible. There's some mistake. I have several thousand dollars in that account. Let me call my bank and get back to you. I'll find out what happened."
"Of course. That's fine." There was an explanation. She'd been right to trust him.
"Leanne, I'm really sorry about this. The bank must have made a mistake. I've never written a bad check in my life."
After she hung up, Leanne sat for a moment, amazed at the strength of her relief, at how badly she wanted to believe in Eliot. She was right about one thing. Her judgment where he was concerned was totally askew and not to be trusted.
Elbows on her desk, she rested her head in her hands as if the burden in her mind was simply too much to hold erect. If Eliot was sane, that could mean he'd lied all along, that he killed Kay Palmer and needed a psychiatrist's opinion to bolster a defense of insanity. Eliot was an intelligent man. He could have read a few books and come up with the symptoms of Multiple Personality Disorder.
Had he done that, however, he would have found that one of the most common symptoms of the disorder was missing time. Yet he firmly denied that element.
And if he wasn't lying, if he truly was the strong, caring person she perceived him to be, that took them back to square one.
He seemed so sane, such a good person. He wanted to protect her even if it meant protecting her from himself. She remembered the evening he'd thrust the gun into her hand, how determined he'd been that she should be safe, even if it meant she'd have to kill him.
She slid open her desk drawer and looked at the gun where she'd hidden it away. She should have given it back to Eliot, but she hadn't thought about it when he'd been in her office the last time.
Maybe she ought to take it home with her after all. What would she have done last night if Edward had somehow broken into her house as he had in Eliot's dream?
If she wrapped it in paper towels and dropped it into her purse, if she didn't have to touch it, maybe she would be able to get it home.
But would she be able to use it if the need arose?
She closed the drawer with a shiver.
Seeing the weapon took her back in time, back to the image of the gun that had fallen from her father's lifeless fingers.
Chapter 12
It was two o'clock when Becky handed Leanne a message from Eliot, and just after four, after her last patient left, when she had a chance to return his call.
She could hear the tension in his voice when he answered even though the only word he uttered was "Hello."
"It's Leanne," she said. "What did you find out?"
"This is bad." She could almost see him running a hand through his hair, his brow furrowed in frustration. "I called my bank, and they said I had no money in that account, that I'd withdrawn over nine thousand dollars by computer transfer earlier in the week. I told them that was impossible. They double checked and said there was no mistake. I transferred it to an account in the name of Edward Dalman." He hesitated, then plunged determinedly on. "Dalman was my birth name. Since Edward never accepted Mom and Dad as his parents, I suppose that would be his name."
Leanne took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to assure that her own voice would sound calm when she spoke. "And you have no memory of doing this?"
"None."
"What about the code to your account? Does anyone but you have it?"
"No. It's on a card in my wallet. I checked. The card's still there. But that's not the worst part. I have two more accounts at that bank, savings accounts. Over the last month, I've transferred almost thirty-five thousand dollars, all to Edward's account."
She gasped. "Thirty-five thousand dollars in one month? What happened to it? Is it still in Edward's account? Did you spend it?"
"I don't know." He sounded frustrated. "The bank officer asked me if there was a problem, if the funds had been moved fraudulently. I had to tell him no. I couldn't tell him the truth. So there's no way I can find out about Edward's account. My name isn't on it." His dry, humorless laugh seemed to come from deep within a parched throat. "He has access to my money, but I don't have access to his."
"Eliot, my last patient just left. Why don't you come on over here?" she urged impulsively even as she recognized she was acting—or reacting—irrationally and unprofessionally.
"No," he replied curtly. "I can't do that. You're not my doctor any longer. I've got an appointment with Thurman on Monday. It can wait until then. I'll send you a check on another account, if that's okay. Or I can get a cashier's check."
"A cashier's check? No, your personal check will be fine."
A moment of silence followed. "Thanks," he said, "for trusting me. That means a lot."
"I'm going over to White Rock Lake, to the spillway," she heard herself say as though some invisible ventriloquist had taken over her vocal chords. "It's a public place, there's always a crowd hanging around. If you want to come by, I'll be there."
She hung up the phone without giving him a chance to answer.
His gratitude, his admission of need, was totally out of character for him. The man was suffering, and she didn't want him to suffer alone. He needed her. That's why she'd offered to meet him. She was a compassionate person. That was the reason she'd become a doctor.
But it wasn't all the truth. She needed to see him. Because he was a mystery, a puzzle, because he needed her services as an analyst, because she needed to be needed.
Because she wanted to see him. It was that simple and that complex.
At least it was a public place. She wouldn't be putting herself in danger from Edward.
Only from Eliot.
***
Eliot told himself he wasn't going to meet Leanne. He had no business seeing her, involving her further in his confused, possibly dangerous life. But now, more than ever, he wanted to see her, to feel the peaceful, caring aura that surrounded her and glowed from her sapphire eyes, to wrap tha
t aura around the two of them and hide from all the craziness.
As if that entire notion wasn't craziness in itself.
What the hell was the matter with him that he could even remotely consider Leanne in those terms? He could be a murderer, was almost certainly psychotic, and all he could think about was the chance to see her, to be with her...to touch her...even an accidental brush as when he'd taken the glass of tea from her at her house.
After half an hour's battle with himself, he gave up and made the ten mile drive from his downtown office to White Rock Lake, cursing his weak resolve all the way. If he really cared about her welfare, about her as a person, he'd avoid her like the plague.
But he didn't. He couldn't.
She was already there when he arrived. He spotted her immediately though several other people were in the vicinity, lounging, jogging, riding bicycles. She leaned over the rail, her back to him, watching the water as it trickled over the concrete tiers of the spillway.
In her perpetual business suit—this one a hounds tooth jacket and black skirt—her slim body looked relaxed with one ankle crossed behind the other, one hip jutting slightly sideways. The evening sun nestled in her dark hair, and he knew it would be warm to the touch...soft and warm with electric sparks that tingled his skin.
He pulled into the parking area, stopped and got out.
As he started toward her, she turned the other way, looking out to the street in the direction from which he'd come. A slight smile settled around her lips as her gaze traveled along the street, past the entrance. She blinked then, and the corners of her mouth turned down. He took another step, and her gaze suddenly focused on him.
"Oh!" she gasped, breaking into a wide smile. "I was watching a dark blue car go down the street. I thought it was you, and you'd gone past without stopping!"
He couldn't suppress a feeling of elation. Just seeing her had that effect on him. Knowing she'd been smiling as she watched a car she thought was his, then had frowned when the car went on past gave him an almost giddy high.
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