The lock clicked open.
He stepped inside, shut and locked the door behind him. He checked the office.
She wasn’t here.
Okay, then, he thought. She’s not here. He comes in with a large briefcase, he leaves without it, which means he left it here. And what’s inside tells me who he is.
He searched the closet; it stood empty, except for a hooded sweatshirt, a raincoat, an umbrella, a sealed cardboard moving box marked MISC, and a box of spare office supplies. He peered under her desk. Empty. There weren’t that many places to stash a large briefcase. He went through the office methodically, telling himself he should leave, he wasn’t a private investigator, he wasn’t the Barradas’ spy anymore.
‘I don’t think she’d appreciate you being here,’ Andy said.
Miles paid him no attention. No sign of the briefcase. Now it was more interesting; now it was an item Sorenson didn’t want found. But he’d run out of hiding places.
The phone rang. He let it ring. Five rings and then Allison’s voice-greeting on the machine, simply asking the caller to leave a message. A woman’s quiet voice came on: ‘Hi, Allison, it’s Celeste Brent, um, the medicine you gave me last week seems to have vanished, the white pills, and I guess I need to get a replacement.’ Pause, but he could still hear the woman breathing into the line. ‘And I’m not really comfortable keeping secrets for you. It’s nothing personal, I think we’re just crossing a line that we shouldn’t. So, please, don’t put me in that position again. If I’m being a bitch, I’m really sorry, call me and we’ll talk.’ The woman hung up.
Celeste Brent. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it. The fact that the name was familiar bothered him; he’d have to be sure and find out who she was.
Then he heard a voice in the hallway, heard the key slide back into the lock.
He stepped into the closet, eased the door closed so he could see a sliver of the office, and heard the door open, then shut.
The thought of Allison catching him here made his chest nearly burst with shame. But Sorenson hurried past the two chairs where Allison always sat with Miles, into her office. He couldn’t see Sorenson but he heard the creak of a chair, he heard fingers tapping on a computer keyboard for several minutes. Miles stayed still, careful to breathe silently through his nose, a panic surging up and down his spine. Jesus, what if Sorenson stayed here until Miles was supposed to meet Allison? The thought made his legs ache, his mouth wither dry.
The typing stopped. He heard Sorenson say, apparently into a phone, ‘The action’s loaded. Dodd doesn’t know.’ A laugh, a pause. ‘Tonight. Yes. Her house. No problem.’ Then silence.
Miles strained to hear. What did that mean? Who was Dodd? The silence was awful. He imagined Sorenson walking straight to the closet.
Then he saw a flash of Sorenson’s blazer, crossing the narrow viewpoint, then the rattle of a file cabinet opening, a few seconds’ pause, then the file cabinet closed with a slam. He heard the click of a lock engaging in the cabinet.
Then feet crossing the floor, the office door opening, shutting, locking again.
Miles remained perfectly still. Frozen. He counted to three hundred. Then he counted it again. Slowly he unfolded himself from the closet, hands shaking. He inspected the file cabinet. He could pick the lock – but, no, he couldn’t peruse her patient files. Too much of a betrayal. He unlocked the door. He relocked the office door and left, pocketing the lockpick.
He glanced up and down the street. No sign of Sorenson. Nothing made sense, Sorenson mucking about on her computer, going through her files, hiding a briefcase in her office. He hurried back down Palace, toward the Plaza. He dug his cell phone out of his pocket and tried Allison’s number again.
‘Allison?’ he said when she answered.
‘Yes. Michael?’
‘Please tell me what’s going on. What trouble are you in?’
She didn’t answer right away and he heard the rumble of an engine; it sounded as though she was in a car. ‘Can you come at seven?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can explain then. Before Sorenson comes at eight.’
He risked a shot across her bow. ‘Is Sorenson really a doctor?’
An awkward laugh. ‘Very good. No, he’s not.’
‘Why did you lie to me?’
‘Because I didn’t want him to know… that you could help me.’
‘Who is he? Is he threatening you?’
‘I’ll tell you all tonight. I can’t talk now.’
‘He’s planning something tonight at your home.’
A pause. ‘How do you know?’ A tinge of shock in her tone.
He decided to wait. See her face to face. ‘I just know. I’m – I was an investigator, I find out things.’
‘Is that how you’ve spent today – investigating?’ She sounded surprised.
‘Yes. I used to be good at it.’
‘I don’t doubt it at all. I know I can trust you. Come at seven and I can explain it all.’
‘All right. Allison – who’s Dodd?’
But she had hung up.
He tried her phone again. No answer.
As he walked, the wind began to gust and the air carried the raw scent of storm. He ran up the stairs to his apartment. The rooms were too warm; he opened a window a couple of inches, let in the chilly air. WITSEC had offered to rent a house for him but a house meant too much space and quiet, too much room for Andy to roam free.
Exhausted from his close call, he collapsed onto the bed.
He read Allison’s note again. He shook one of the pills from the bottle into his palm; a tiny white slug of a capsule. He’d decided against taking one after the flashback in Joy’s office, not wanting to talk with DeShawn while medicated. The pill was light as a feather. He fingered the capsule; the casing dented under his fingernail. Pushed harder. The dent went deep.
He pulled apart the two halves of the capsule – empty.
She’d given him a vial of fake pills. Odd on top of odd.
He lay down on the bed, contemplating the ceiling. The burden of responsibility – of helping her, of making a decision to do rather than just to be – pressed on him. The lack of sleep from the night before, restless and frantic as he considered writing the confession, made his eyes hurt. What if he couldn’t help her, if he was unequal to the task? He touched the confession in his pocket and closed his eyes to try to think.
SEVEN
‘Does it work?’ Groote asked. He nearly held his breath and thought: This is it, Amanda, here’s the miracle that saves you and makes you all right again. He had flown out from Orange County to Albuquerque, then sped the hour north to Santa Fe. His exhaustion from the long night of waiting to kill the accountant evaporated. ‘Does it really work?’
And in the hospital conference room, Doctor Leland Hurley smiled at him and his hopes and his question. Hurley started talking again about lessening the vivid emotional toll of the most horrifying of memories, rattling off a glossary of brain chemicals: epinephrine, propanolol, super beta-blockers, adrenergic receptors. Hurley spoke of giving patients back their normal lives and all Groote could think was, Does it work, does it work, does it work?
Doctor Hurley gestured at the elevator. ‘Let’s go to the top floor.’
The top floor meant Frost. The medicine.
Most of the patients were in their rooms after an early dinner, small but comfortable cubbyholes. At the end of the floor’s main hallway stood an expansive group room where they could talk and gather.
‘Here’s a treat you won’t see every day,’ Hurley said, leading Groote through a door that read VIRTUAL REALITY TREATMENT. QUIET, PLEASE.
The room was dark, separated in half by a glass screen, a jumble of computers loading the walls. A young man, on the other side of the glass, dangled by four elastic cables from the ceiling. A strange helmet covered his eyes and ears; he wore a tight white bodysuit, webbed with wire and tiny gadgets that Groote guessed were recording heartbeat, breathing, and other functions. The patient hung, almost motionless, jerking now and then as he reacted to the scenes playing out of the goggles. On a screen, what appeared to be a computer-animated movie showed a darkened alleyway, wet with rain, three men walking close. One held a chain, the other a blade.