The pain meds I’d received in the infirmary weren’t helping. The pencil holes in my arm and chest had required stitches, as had one of the gashes on my face from Daniel’s attack. I’d come back from Hell, and would have the scars to prove it.
I bit my tongue, opened my eyes wide, tapped my fingers, one after another, against my thumb. Anything to stay awake.
Dr. Peterson closed the door behind me and stepped to his desk. He sat and stared at me with his owlish eyes. His round face glowed pale from the nearby gooseneck lamp. The towers of desk paperwork were a city skyline, it seemed, and Peterson was the moon, judging me from on high, from orbit, ready to mete out my punishment.
He placed the thick folder I’d given him on the desk. Inside was the “Martin Grace” file: the original admittance report, my official conclusions from our therapy sessions, my statement of his competence to stand trial, photocopies of my patient’s confessions to the twelve murders—and finally, the transfer documents that released him from Brinkvale care. Noon was three hours gone, and so was Richard Drake.
And now, it was my turn.
“There are things to discuss, Zachary,” Peterson said, “the most important being: Are you all right?”
I frowned and sighed. I wanted to say no, no, I wasn’t all right; that Peterson’s assignment and my crusade—he’s blind, but help him see—had wreaked a special breed of havoc on my mind and body; that during this adventure, I’d destroyed parts of myself, my job, my family, my relationships; that I’d sacrificed damned-near every shred of myself for a stranger who didn’t want my help; that darkness can be a living thing, a midnight-ocean shark attack, not a great white, but a Great Black; and oh the things I’ve seen/not seen in the past week, Dr. Peterson, it’s just like Henry said: there’s a very large world beside—and beneath and above—this one, and it scraped against me. It changed me.
And for what? I wondered here, as the old man scrutinized me. In so many ways, I hadn’t saved Richard Drake at all. He’d be convicted, slam-dunk, just like Uncle Henry’s case, twenty years ago.
But I think… I think I might have saved his soul.
And wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t that—as I’d said to Drake the day I’d met him—“the goddamned point?”
“I’m all right,” I replied, and smiled softly. “I think everything’s going to be all right.”
Peterson’s mouth was a narrow line. He shook his head slowly.
“I disagree, Zachary. I chose you for the Grace case because of your brilliance with patients: your unconventional ability to connect with them. Defying convention is one matter. Being reckless is another.”
As his eyes continued to probe mine, his hand slid from the desk surface, out of view. He tugged open a drawer and then placed four videocassettes atop Grace’s folder. A three-digit number was written on their labels. Upon each was also scrawled a date from the past week. I noticed that Thursday’s date was not represented here.
It was footage from Room 507’s security camera.
Whatever glint of hope I’d had of keeping my job died right there. This was no longer about my job at The Brink. This was, quite suddenly, about my career as an art therapist.
My stomach churned, turned sour and acidic. He’d seen it all. I’d damned it all.
“Yesterday’s incident with Emilio Wallace forced me to take a closer look at how you interacted with the patient,” Peterson said. His voice was grave. “Martin Grace was a determined man. You were equally determined. There are a great many inexplicable moments on these tapes, Zachary. Your relentless questioning, for instance. Actually, I’m well within my right to call it ‘interrogation.’ During Wednesday’s session alone, your patient said…”
He glanced at a nearby sheet of paper. His voice dispassionately recited the notes as if they were from a play. I remained silent, sickened.
“…‘No. God damn you, stop. Stop. Leave me alone. Don’t. No. Oh no, Almighty God, no.’”
Peterson’s gray eyes flicked back to mine.
“And yet you persisted, Zachary.”
I wanted to throw up. I wanted to give him a reason, to tell him why. I knew I couldn’t.
“There are more than a dozen moments like this,” Peterson continues, “and as the week progressed, you appeared to descend further and further into what I’ll charitably call ‘inexcusably cavalier’ engagements with the patient. This… is very troubling.”
His mouth now sank into a frown. He tapped the cassettes with a wrinkled hand. Cufflinks glinted at his wrists.
“Equally inexplicable and troubling is what’s not on these tapes. Hours of footage is missing, or garbled. Any record of Martin Grace during the nighttime hours is gone, as if they were never recorded. His drawing of the wall murals, for instance. Also missing are moments of your sessions together. It appears that the electrical malfunctions on Level 5 affected more than the room’s lighting.”
I gaped at him, not understanding—and yet understanding perfectly. Perhaps it was the ancient Brinkvale wiring system that caused these blackouts. Perhaps it was something else.
“This footage,” Peterson said, “is an incomplete record of your interaction with the patient.”
He slid the tapes aside with his hand, making room for another piece of notepaper, which he now placed in the center of the desk. It was covered in his elegant handwriting.
“I have also received information that may interest you,” he said. “Despite the District Attorney’s office’s—and police department’s—attempts to quash this rumor, it appears that an individual illegally entered Martin Grace’s apartment on Tuesday. This individual was arrested. He was released without criminal charges.”
The vinyl around me groaned as I shifted in my seat. All of Richard Drake’s personal effects—including the items from the The Brink, the lockbox and his son’s home—were inside the manila envelope, locked in my office desk. I’d left them there after I’d filed my report today, not wanting to touch them, not ever again. If Peterson ordered a search of my office…
This couldn’t get any worse, simply couldn’t.
“I also received a phone call this morning from the Haverstraw Sheriff’s Department,” Peterson reported. “Apparently, a Brinkvale employee assaulted a resident of that county. This resident could not recall the name of his assailant, who allegedly visited the day before to question him about his father, a Brinkvale patient. According to the officer, this employee broke into the man’s home last night—and quite literally buried a hatchet into the man’s leg.”
Peterson did not smile at his joke. His eyes slowly, deliberately, cataloged my appearance. He knew, knew everything. Bile rushed to my mouth. I pined for a wastebasket. I was going to puke.
“The deputy asked me if Brinkvale was housing a patient by the name of ‘Drake,’” Peterson said. “He also asked me if I knew why the alleged assailant might anonymously report the man’s wound from a pay phone at Claytonville Prison.”
I stared at my boss. The silence was a roar, if that were possible.
Peterson finally spoke.
“I told the deputy we were not treating a man named ‘Drake,’” he said.
The old man pushed the paper across the desk, to where the videocassettes rested. He removed his glasses and began to polish them with his tie. His eyes were tiny things now, pebble-sized.
“There is a difference between ‘want’ and ‘need,’ Zachary,” he said, his thumb working the fabric. “Is there something you want to tell me? Something I want to hear?”
I had to clear my throat to speak.