No, Pierce had probably not wanted to mix caffeine with her drug regimen, Eve thought bitterly. “I guess you were too young to develop an addiction to coffee. I keep forgetting that you were only a teenager when you had your accident.” She paused. “What were you studying here?”
“Everything. Billy told me to catch up and learn how the world works these days.” She made a face. “I don’t like it very much. Maybe I didn’t notice all the corruption and bad stuff that was going on when I was growing up, but it seems as if it must be worse now.”
“Or maybe just more publicized. Media is all around us.”
“And computers. I was surprised how easy it was to work the one in the library.” She added, “Facebook. It’s very … intimate.”
“Only if you want it that way. Your choice. It can get in your way. It interferes with my work, so I usually ignore it.”
“What is your work?”
“I’m a forensic sculptor.”
“What’s that?”
“I reconstruct skulls. You’re not really interested in what I do, are you?”
“I suppose not.” She took the coffee and poured it back into the carafe. “Or if I am, it’s not because it has anything to do with you. I’m just curious. I’m curious about everything. At first, I was only doing what Billy told me to do, but the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. It was like being … drunk.”
“If you know how that feels, you must have been drinking more than water and Gatorade when you were a teenager.”
“I went to parties.” She frowned. “I had a friend … She laughed a lot…” She was silent, then shook her head. “I can’t remember her name.”
“I’m sure it will come back to you,” Eve said gently.
“No, you’re not sure. How could you be sure when I’m not? But I think it will. I hope it will.” She took down cups from the cabinet. “It makes me angry that I can’t remember everything. I feel cheated.” She glanced at Eve. “You believe that this Dr. Gelber was responsible for making me forget things?”
Eve nodded.
“Drugs?”
“Maybe partially, but I’m leaning toward hypnosis.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know if I believe in hypnosis. Do you?”
“I don’t know everything that it can accomplish, but I do believe that hypnosis can work. Gelber is evidently a very skilled practitioner, and he spent many sessions with you.”
“Then wouldn’t I remember him?” She shook her head. “Not if he didn’t want me to, right? But why wouldn’t he? And why would he want me to forget everything before I came to the hospital?”
“The reason on the chart was removal of psychological trauma.”
“Billy says that I was injured in a ski accident. What kind of psychological trauma would I get from that? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I agree.”
She gave Eve a disgusted look. “Is that all you’re going to say? What help are you?”
“You said you didn’t want my help.”
“I don’t. But you might as well be useful if you’re going to stick around for a while.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She added quietly, “But you have to come to terms with the fact that we’ve been thrown in this brouhaha together, and we have to cooperate. You appear to have some lingering resentment toward our mother because she abandoned you. Maybe you include me under that same umbrella. I should point out that since I had no idea you even existed, that’s totally unreasonable.”
“I don’t have to be reasonable.” Her lips tightened. “I’m mentally incompetent. Ask Pierce.”
“Don’t give me that excuse. You can’t have it both ways, Beth.”
“I can do whatever I want to do.” She didn’t speak for a moment as she screwed the top back on the carafe. “Okay, maybe you’re right. I’ve just realized since I’ve been out of the hospital and free how alone I’ve been all these years. I could have used a friend to help me. What do they call it? To watch my back? But no one was there. I was alone. You may not be to blame, but it’s hard for me to accept that there was no one there for me. Someone should have been there.” She impatiently shook her head. “Listen to me. I’m whining. I’ve always hated whiners.”
Eve smiled faintly. “I believe you have cause to complain. But suppose we strike a truce. We both have a motive to get you out of this mess. Let’s work our way through it, then I’ll go away and won’t bother you again.”
“I guess that would be okay.” She picked up the carafe and turned toward the door. Then she turned back and gazed at Eve. “But what if I don’t want you to go away then?”
Eve blinked. “What?”
“Never mind. That just came out. I don’t know why.” Her lips twisted. “It’s probably my lack of ‘reason’ again. Sometimes my mind is just a jumble, and I wonder if Pierce was right about my being crazy.”
“You’re not crazy. And we all have moments of confusion and ‘jumble.’ Don’t you remember that from the time before your accident?”
“I don’t remember much about my thought processes. I don’t remember much of anything except that I was happy most of the time. And that I always wanted to be first at everything.”
“Competitiveness isn’t bad. It can be very healthy. And, evidently, you were pretty good at everything you did.”
“You bet I was.” She started for the door. “But that’s in the past. I mustn’t think of that now.”
“Why not? Why turn your back?”
“Because it’s not healthy to—” She broke off. “It seems as if I’ve heard that before.”
“You might have heard it. Posthypnotic suggestion?”
“Maybe. Or just something else that doesn’t make sense.” She added fiercely, “But it doesn’t make sense for anyone to try to kill me either. Or to try to kill Billy. It shouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t right. And if you want to help me, I’ll let you do it.” She strode down the hall toward the library. “Why not?”
Eve heard her talking to Newell as she followed her down the hall. Beth was such a combination of passion, bewilderment, and suppressed anger that it was like being next to a lightning rod during a thunderstorm. You never knew which strike was going to hit, but you were sure that one of them would. In that short conversation, Eve had learned a great deal about Beth. She had expected her to be vulnerable and weak, and she was neither. There was a fragility that was balanced by strength and intelligence. Though a few of her impulsive remarks might have been spoken by the teenager she had been before her normal life was cut short, that was to be expected. She’d had no mature experiences to hone away the rough edges and teach her discretion and diplomacy.
Not a bad thing, Eve thought ruefully. Discretion and diplomacy were only armor, and she’d be able to get to know Beth much faster if she didn’t have them to hide behind.
And why did she want to get to know her? A truce would surely not require it.
It didn’t matter. No matter what resentments and complexities made up their fledgling relationship, Eve knew that she was going to be driven to explore the person that Beth had been before and after Pierce had gotten his hands on her.
Her phone rang.
Joe.
“I’m parking the car down the street, so it won’t be noticed. It will take me a few minutes to get to the front door.”
“I’ll be waiting there to unlock the door and turn off the alarm.” She hung up and turned to see Beth standing in the library doorway. “It’s only Joe. He’s on his way here.”
Beth followed her down the hall toward the front door. “Billy called him your significant other. That means you’re not married, right?”
“That’s right.”
“But you sleep together and have sex?”
“That’s right, too, but it’s considered rude to describe exactly the nature of an intimate relationship.”
“I didn’t describe it exactly. If I had, it would have been pornographic, wouldn’t it?” She stopped at the door and punched in the security code on the panel beside it. “And I didn’t mean to be rude, I was just curious.”