“Dr. Briggs. Us. The Monkey House.”
“Us?”
“You, me, and Roland. You talked us into it, said it was a chance to make some extra cash. Plus we thought it was real anti-establishment stuff, brain research without a net.”
Wendy felt jittery, because she caught a vivid image of a smirking Dr. Briggs. Sebastian. He’d been a doctor here, hadn’t he?
Something else. She could see his face, smiling, leaning forward with his lips puckered. And from his voice came the words, “Wendy, my sweet little Igor.”
“No,” Wendy said, willing the image from her head.
“Yeah,” Anita said. “I don’t know where the others came in. David and Susan. They probably just wanted money, too. And Alexis, but she was tied in with Briggs.”
Wendy had kept in touch with Alexis over the years, though the casual meetings for coffee had become less frequent and more awkward, as if the only things they had to talk about were things they couldn’t talk about.
“Alexis,” Wendy said. “Is she still on staff?”
“She has a lab here in the basement, but her office is in the nursing school. I see her in the hall once in a while when I come for therapy.”
“Does she…say anything?”
Anita shook her head. “Not about Susan Sharpe. She’s got professional standing to worry about now.”
Wendy wanted to change the subject fast. “What’s the longest you’ve gone without the pills?”
Anita looked at the clock on the wall, which was pushing six o’clock. “Five hours is about as long as I can stand. Then it all starts crashing in and I remember what happened out there at the factory.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Anita sat on the sofa, unconsciously perching in a pose that might have passed for seductive. Wendy had drawn Anita many times, and even the most innocuous figure studies had turned out erotically charged. Wendy wasn’t sure whether it was something in Anita’s nature, the connection of the friendship, or some secret carnal impulse in Wendy that was always trying to escape.
She suspected her impulse might have broken loose a few times, and that frightened her more than Anita’s recollections.
“We did these drug trials,” Anita said, with the patience of an adult lecturing a child. “The drugs were supposed to help people dealing with trauma, so we pretended to attack one another to stimulate violence and trigger our fear responses so Briggs could monitor the results.”
Wendy had a vague memory of a high ceiling, dark clutter all around, stalking through corridors to find someone.
And not just the image but the feeling returned, the hunger of the predator, the rage that Susan was after Dr. Briggs, but Susan could never have him because Briggs belonged to Wendy.
The nerve of that fucking bitch.
“You haven’t told this to anyone?” Wendy asked. Now it was her turn to look out the window. A long way down.
“No.”
“I wouldn’t. It sounds totally crazy, and they’ll lock you away in a nice rubber room on the seventh floor.”
“I’m not telling anybody anything. They might take away my Halcyon.”
“Why do you call it Halcyon, anyway? There’s nothing on the label.”
Anita smiled. “You’re playing me, aren’t you?”
“Huh?”
“Pretending like you don’t remember. Halcyon was the drug Briggs was testing.”
Because the room was for voluntary outpatients, the window wasn’t barred like those on the top floor. She could open it and lure Anita over. Then no more talk of Susan and Briggs.
“I’m tired of remembering,” Anita said. “I’m taking my next dose. Give me my bottle back.”
Wendy realized she was still gripping the orange bottle. She crossed the room and gave it to her, then watched as Anita poured the remaining seven pills into her palm.
“That’s barely enough to get you to morning,” Wendy said. “Do you want some of mine?”
“Bad things might happen when we take each other’s pills.”
“Bad things happen anyway.”
Anita took a bottle of water from her purse and washed down a pill. “In a couple of minutes, it’ll dumb me down pretty good. But I want you to remember something very important for me.”
“Sure, Anita.”
Anita gripped her hands and gave her an imploring look. Then she pulled Wendy close, their breasts pressing together.
“I want you to need me,” Anita said.
“Nita? What are you doing?”
Anita moaned and she clutched the back of Wendy’s neck, whispering harshly in her ear: “This is what happens if I don’t take my pills.”
Wendy wrestled to break free, but Anita’s strength was almost demonic. She fell back onto the sofa and yanked Wendy on top of her. She brought her face to Wendy’s. “Love me, Wendy,” Anita said, and it was desperation, not lust, in her tone. “I need to matter.”
They’d never kissed, despite the occasional teasing. Wendy wasn’t horrified by her friend’s bisexual leanings, her pornographic past, or even her depraved and sudden assault, as if a sexual switch had been flipped and she’d lost all her control.
No, what really scared Wendy was the image of Briggs and his slightly parted lips that had superimposed over Anita’s face.
Do you want to play “doctor,” Doctor?
Their lips touched and the contact shocked Wendy to her senses. It was Briggs she’d been surrendering to, not Anita. She broke free and headed for the door, wiping her mouth. “Good luck with your appointment.”
Just before she closed the door, Anita called her name. Not angry, just frustrated.
“Yeah?” Wendy asked.
“Take your pills. Don’t become like me.”
By the time she got to her car, Wendy was starting to remember things. Chase Hanson. Dr. Briggs. Susan.
Those things never happened if you keep forgetting them.
She took a pill by the light of the dashboard before driving home. She would take as many as she needed to keep the past away.
And to keep her from her true self.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The black limousine turned off the street in front of the hotel and glided through the narrow underground tunnel to the service entrance Mark waited in front of.
Mark Morgan peered at the tinted, bulletproof glass, wondering what they thought as they sized him up. As the limousine came to a stop, Mark caught his own reflection in the window, a pale smudge painted by the unhealthy yellow of the security lights.
The car stopped, its engine so quiet that Mark thought the ignition was off, though the exhaust quickly made him lightheaded. The driver’s door opened and a man in a dark suit emerged, nodding and bending to take Mark’s suitcase. His face was cold, lean, and wolfish.
“I can do that,” Mark said.
The glass on the rear window slid down. “Now, Mark, let Winston feel useful. He hates to be stereotyped.”
“Good morning, Senator.”
“I hope we’re not running too far behind.”
“No, my plane doesn’t leave for another hour.”
“Fine. Get in.”
The door opened as the driver carried Mark’s bag to the trunk and loaded it. Mark settled into the spacious rear compartment. Senator Daniel Burchfield, the Republican from North Carolina, moved into the middle of the brown leather seat.
“You know Wallace Forsyth, don’t you?” the senator said.
“Yes,” Mark said, reaching across the senator’s abdomen to shake Forsyth’s hand. “It’s been a while.”
“That wife of yours is some kind of hell-raiser, Morgan,” Forsyth said. “And I mean that with all due respect.”
“She keeps my hands full,” Mark said.
Forsyth’s skin was cadaverous and cool, as if he’d been dipped in a thin layer of wax, and his cologne was overpowering. “Well, you need to rein her in a little,” Forsyth drawled in his rough, Kentucky-inflected voice. “She’s got the bioethics council chasing its tail. You ever seen what happens when a dog chases its tail?”
“Afraid not, sir.”
“Well, it either catches it, or it drops over dead. I don’t know which one will come first with this bunch. The president put too many liberals on the council, for one thing.”