I wondered how many years it had taken for Henry to earn the privilege to wear that bracelet again.
He sat before me, his blue eyes cataloging my clothes, my hands, my face.
“I did my part. I stayed away,” he said. His voice was a dusky baritone, low and smooth. “But I knew you’d find me eventually. So curious, just like your mother.”
I was trembling now. Yes, there was anger here inside me, and heartache, twenty years’ worth. And swirling confusion and fright. And a hunger, in my marrow. A need to know.
“Why did you kill her?” I whispered.
Henry’s eyes stared into mine.
“I loved your mother,” he said. “I did everything I could to save her. Your home, the family, had been under attack for weeks. Will, proud and stubborn and skeptical Will, wouldn’t listen. And when it finally came for one of you—likely you or Luke, we’ll never know—it was… intent. It had been paid, paid in blood, and was there to collect.”
I blinked. “Who?”
“The Dark Man.”
A tear slid down my cheek. This was my 4 A.M. nightmare, yes, I was still locked in the dream, locked in the lockbox, I could feel my head nodding now, stupefied, drunk and stoned all at once, nightmare, yes, Could you be mine?, yes, no. No.
“No.”
“It was there,” Henry said. “You saw it.”
I shook my head again, more resolute. “No. I saw you. I saw you kill her. Killer.”
“There were villains that day, son. I wasn’t one of them. I’m sorry you lost her. I’m sorry you came away marked, different. I saved your brother, if that means anything to you.”
“No, it was you,” I heard myself say. Christ, was this really happening? “It could only be you. It must have been. I read the report.”
“Gods as my witness, it wasn’t,” he said. “Claire was my best friend.”
I leaned forward, wiping away my tears with a hand jittering so hard, it was nearly worthless. I wanted to pound through this barrier, pound at him.
“Then who? Who did it? And don’t you talk to me about the Dark Man, don’t you dare say that to me again, fucking lie, you don’t know, you can’t possibly know what kind of misery…”
He looked at me, his eyes sympathetic.
“Of course I do,” he said. “Of course I do.”
“All right. Why?” I asked. “If you’re innocent, why are you here?”
“The same reason you are,” Henry said. “Dark art. I read the Times story about you and Martin Grace. I saw those words—’the Dark Man’—and I knew. I knew you were coming.”
My mind frantically scrambled back to yesterday, to my office. Dad screamed at me about the Drake case. He tapped and tore at his copy of the Times. Taylor Family Loyalty… let it go.
“Lie. No reference to the Dark Man,” I said. I looked up at him.
“I’m talking about today’s story,” Henry said. “There’s a leak at The Brink. Somebody’s feeding the press. They want to sink you.”
“Three minutes,” the guard said.
“Listen to me, Zach,” Henry said. “The Dark Man is a mercenary. It’s a thing summoned from the black to exact vengeance. Terrible vengeance, not justice. Do you understand the difference?”
It’s always personal, I heard my father say.
“It isn’t real,” I said.
“That’s what the atheists say, but God’s still up there.”
He leaned toward the glass, meeting me halfway.
“If Martin Grace is haunted by the Dark Man, then he did something unspeakable, unfathomable. Someone paid the black with blood. Someone wants your blind man to suffer. Just like they wanted us to suffer, all those years ago.”
“It’s a psychological breakdown,” I insisted. “A super-fueled guilt complex, paranoid delusions, conversion disorder—”
Henry smiled. God, I remember that smile now.
“You’ll find the path,” he said. “Or the path will find you. Either way, know this: I’m proud of you. I read in the Post about your other patient, the quilter. You listened to her, you worked through her madness to right a wrong. You believe your patients, Zach. You understand that there is truth—sometimes only a speck, but always enough—in what they say. That is wisdom beyond your years.”
He reached out and pressed his palm against the glass.
“So very proud of you,” he said.
My trembling hand met his. I smiled back.
“‘Dore you,” Henry said.
“What… ?” I squinted at my uncle, not believing.
“Time’s up, Taylor,” the guard said. He took a step toward Henry.
“What did you say?”
“I said, I adore you,” he replied. “I love you, son.”
He stood, nodded goodbye and followed the guard to the metal door. I was out of my chair, walking down my side of the room, keeping pace, wishing for more time. The men paused as the guard tugged at his keys.
“Gram… Gram’s dead,” I called.
“I know,” he said. The guard was unlocking the door now, twisting its handle.
“Why did she cover it up? Why didn’t she ever mention you to us?”
Henry gave me a bittersweet smile. “Because I asked her not to.”
The alarm bell rang. The door boomed closed.
He was gone.
16
The Saturn’s tires slopped through the long, muddy driveway that led to Daniel Drake’s house. I downshifted, letting first gear do its methodical thing. It was a little after 10 A.M. I wasn’t in a hurry; Daniel was unemployed and would probably be home. Of course, that wasn’t guaranteed, but I couldn’t check because his phone was disconnected.
I was happy to be away from Claytonville and my uncle. Our reunion had played over again and again in my mind on the way here. And the further I drove from civilization, the louder that one-man band became.
The Dark Man is a mercenary, Henry had said. Someone paid the black with blood. Someone wants your blind man to suffer.
I couldn’t believe it, not all of it. The demon plaguing my patient was a self-made myth, pure fiction. Wasn’t it?
I loved your mother. That wasn’t your mother. You saw it.
Yes, I had seen a dark man that day. But being four years old, I’d probably seen pink pterodactyls flying in the kitchen a week before. My past self wasn’t what I’d call a credible witness. I’d been in shock. The Administration for Children’s Services report from that day had said so.
And yet, beneath this supernatural babble, I trusted Henry. He’d been a surrogate father to Lucas and I back then, according to my freshly excavated memories. And even when trapped in a place far more hopeless and wretched than The Brink, he’d followed my life the best he could, through pinprick-sized broadcasts in newspaper stories. He’d cared enough to watch me grow, from afar.
Another side of me spoke up now, its Spock voice cool and logicaclass="underline" You can love a person and still do terrible things to him. A crime of passion. A murder of a mother.
“She bailed him out of jail, again and again,” I whispered, slowing the car as it neared Daniel Drake’s home. “She was his best friend. Explain that.”
Madness defies the microscope, Zach-Spock said. The evidence is there. He loved her, he killed her. Some things are inexplicable.