Kara fought the horror crawling through her. Not to be in control… to be dominated by a stranger, even if it was of her own creation…
"What can I do?"
"It's what we can do: suppress her. Don't give her time in the driver seat. That's why I'm prescribing something that will keep both you and 'Janine' asleep all night."
He handed her the slip. It was for thirty Halcion tablets.
"You prescribed these for Kelly. They obviously didn't help her too much."
Dr. Gates' smile was small and bitter.
"Your sister wouldn't take them if she had to work the next day. She said they made her groggy in the morning. Which they might."
Groggy in the morning … a small price to pay for controlling Janine. Kara held up the prescription.
"Guaranteed to work?"
"Nothing is guaranteed in psychiatry. But they will give you an edge. Take one every night, Miss Wade."
Kara folded the slip and dropped it in her purse. She nodded toward the recliner.
"Shall we get started?"
▼
6:26 P.M.
"Hey lady!" Rob called from his car window as he saw Kara come out of the medical arts building. "Need a ride?"
She glanced at him with a get-lost look, then her face relaxed into a smile. A worn, tired smile, but a smile nonetheless. She came over to the car. "How long have you been waiting here?" It had been an hour. He hadn't been able to see Doc Winters today, so he'd set it up for tomorrow. He'd got here around five thirty and had begun to fear he'd missed her.
"Too long. Get in. I'll drive you where you're going."
She got in the other side, leaned back against the head rest, and closed her eyes. She looked beat. Rob reached over and squeezed her hand. She didn't pull away.
"Tough day?" he said.
She nodded. "You wouldn't believe."
"Want to tell me about it over a drink?"
She opened her eyes and looked at him.
"A drink would be nice."
He didn't want to take her to Leo's so he found a restaurant on Eighth and parked by the fire hydrant. The place had upscale decor with lots of neon in the window, the kind of place that could charge twenty-five bucks for portions that wouldn't feed a toddler. But it was nearly empty so they got a table near the rear. No menus, just drinks. Rob ordered a scotch, Kara had a chablis.
She was reticent, but slowly he drew the events of the weekend out of her. It was chilling. Those words carved over Jill's bed gave him the creeps.
He said, "I think you did the right thing, getting out of there. I only wish you had someone else as a doctor."
"You keep saying that. Do you know something about Dr. Gates that I don't?"
"Nothing bad. Everyone I talk to says he's tops. I just don't like him."
"Neither do I. He's got all the warmth of an earthworm. Not the sort you look forward to spending an hour a day, three days a week with."
"That often?"
"Monday-Wednesday-Friday. He's going to jump me into heavy therapy at first to see if we can get a quick response. As I said, he's not Dr. Warmth, but if he knows his stuff and can get me through this, then he's the one I should be with."
"I guess so. I just—"
"It's all my fault!" she blurted. Tears glistened in her eyes. "If only I'd listened to him and not tried that hypnotism, none of this would be happening."
"Don't blame yourself, Kara. You had to know if—"
"And now I do! Rob, I'm frightened! To think that I was standing over Jill's bed with my father's old carving knife, cutting words into the wall! It makes me sick!"
"You'll be all right. They don't come any tougher than you, Kara. If anyone's going to lick this thing, it's you."
Rob desperately wanted to raise her spirits and would have said anything to buck her up, but he believed what he'd said. Kara was strong. He had real faith in her mental toughness.
"I hope so," she said, sniffing and wiping her eyes with a napkin. She finished her wine. "Can we get out of here?"
"Sure."
▼
"Staying at your aunt's?" he said as he drove toward the East Side on Twenty-fourth. With all the little businesses closed and no trucks double parked to load and unload, it was an easy trip.
"For now. I don't know what I'm going to do long term. This could be a lengthy siege. I may have to move here."
Rob was ashamed of the tiny surge of delight those words elicited. He knew how she hated the city.
She said, "During the day I'll be at Ellen's with Jill.
She'll sleep there, too. But for the time being I'm going to sleep over at Kelly's."
"Alone? Why on earth would you want to do that?"
"I don't. But Dr. Gates suggested it. He said I should spend my nights there until we see how things go. Otherwise I run the risk of Jill seeing me as Janine. I don't want that. What if she had awakened when I was carving those words over her bed? What if she'd tried to talk to me then, someone who looked like her mother but wasn't? I can't risk frightening her like that. Or worse, run the risk of hurting her when I'm Janine."
"How long can that go on?"
"I don't know. Until we're sure the sleeping pills Dr. Gates gave me will keep Janine asleep, too. Then I'll feel safe being in the same house with Jill."
Rob shook his head. This sounded almost like one of those corny old Psycho-type movies. All that was needed now was a walk-on by Betty Davis or Joan Crawford.
But this was no movie.
"I'll stay with you," he said.
Rob surprised himself. Where did that come from? He could feel the small hairs at the back of his neck rise at the thought of meeting the Janine side of Kara.
Kara looked at him, a slight, skeptical smile playing on her lips.
"Thanks, Rob. That's kind of you, but it won't be necessary."
"You can't always do everything on your own, Kara," he said, hiding his hurt at being rejected, and annoyed at his big mouth for setting himself up for it. "Sometimes you have to admit that you need help."
"I know that." Her smiled broadened. "And when I do, you'll be the first one I call."
They said little during the rest of the drive back to her Aunt Ellen's. Rob hoped all along the way that Kara would ask him in for dinner. She didn't.
▼
9:30 P.M.
After dinner, after tucking Jill in and repeating for what seemed like the hundredth time the not-quite-true explanation of why her mother had to sleep at Aunt Kelly's for a few nights, Kara returned to the apartment house on East Sixty-third. Her stomach twisted slowly into a knot as she climbed the front steps. What would tonight bring?
In the vestibule, a business card protruding from the slot in the 2-C mailbox—Kelly's—caught her eye. It was from Ed Bannion.
Kara Wade—
Call me re: Kelly's estate.
E.B.
He'd written his home number on the front.
Kelly's estate? Kelly didn't have an estate. Kara decided to call him tomorrow.
In the apartment, she tried to shed the dread and apprehension that clung to her as she wandered through the empty rooms.
This was where Kelly had tried to fight the same problem. And Kelly had lost.
But Kelly hadn't been taking her sleeping pills—at least that was what Dr. Gates had said. Kara would. She'd take one every night if it proved helpful.
But that wasn't all she'd do.
She marched into Kelly's bedroom and pulled all the sleazy underwear, blouses, sweaters, skirts, and other paraphernalia from under the night tables and dresser and stuffed them into two of the Dagostino bags Kelly had stored between the fridge and the wall. When everything was packed, she took the bags out to the corner of Sixty-third and First and left them under the street light. She was reasonably sure they'd be gone by the time she made it back to the front door of the apartment house. Absolutely sure they'd be gone within the hour.