In fact he was dead serious.
“You know you have to help me,” he said, making it sound personal. As if this was not about the police or the women at risk, but just about him.
“Why?”
“Because Cleo Thane is still missing and you can’t tell me anything about her, and the only way you can involve the police is if you consult with me. That way you could really be helping her. All without you compromising your ethics. Can you take the chance that you don’t need me with you on this?”
“Clever. The one thing-the only thing-that would influence me and you got it.”
He smiled, that same smile I’d seen in my office. His eyes squinted and the laugh lines around them deepened and his mouth went up at the corners. It was an off-center smile that was almost a smirk. It wasn’t arrogance, exactly, or selfassuredness that showed in that smile, but an audacity I responded to.
And there were other things I responded to. The way his fingers picked up his cup with a grace that a cop doesn’t usually have. The way he looked at things as if he was seeing past them. Even me. I couldn’t help it. His intensity was interesting. Atypical. And the analyst in me was intrigued by his contradictions.
“If I decided to do this I would have some rules.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he joked.
“No questions about Cleo Thane. Not one. Not one single question.”
He nodded and a lock of his thick hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it away and looked right into my eyes. “No questions. I promise.”
I didn’t know if I was right to or if I’d regret it later or if I was making a mistake, but I believed him.
28
She was scared by the darkness. By the idea that she might not be alive this time tomorrow. She was frightened because she had no idea what was expected of her or when she would escape from the nightmare she was shackled to.
But nothing terrorized her more than the silence. For hours at a time there was simply no noise, no sound. Nothing but her own heartbeat.
She had never been anywhere in her life that was this silent. Had never known how important noise was until she had been deprived of it for days.
How many?
How many days had she been here? Again she tried to figure it out. But when she thought back, she couldn’t count. There were not enough markers to tell her what time it was. She could not even tell sometimes if it was night or morning.
It was always dark in the cell. Even when he came to see her, he often kept it dark. But when she was alone, as she was now, the blackness was dense and thick. As if it had dimension. As if it had weight. The weight of time passing without her knowing it.
In the darkness, Cleo could never see more than the ghostly glow of her bound hands and feet. They were so pale and thin she didn’t recognize them. She had always been thin, but now she was thinner. He did not give her much food. Sustenance. But that was all.
Other than craving sound, Cleo wanted to be able to use her hands. She wanted this desperately. She couldn’t touch her face or her hair. These are things you take for granted, she thought. Brushing a lock of hair off your cheek, rubbing your eye, resting your chin on your hand. Scratching an itch. And her arms and legs and her torso and breasts and back and neck itched. Everywhere the robe touched, her skin prickled. Her robe was abrasive against her skin. Where had it come from? This was not her clothing. She never would have bought anything so coarse. Or so heavy. Or so somber.
No client had ever asked her to wear a uniform like this.
Until now.
And until now, she had never minded doing what the men she’d been with asked of her.
But this had not been asked of her. This had been forced on her. He had stripped off her own clothes-the gray skirt and white silk blouse, the pale pink silk-and-lace bra and thong-and he had bathed her and then dressed her in this outfit.
When the blackness had first enveloped her head, when she felt the heaviness of the robe, in that one claustrophobic moment she had acknowledged what she had been afraid to accept until then. This was not a game. There was not going to be an easy end to this endless night.
She was not with a man who craved a simple sexual release or comfort or kindness.
If only she could hear a car horn. A bird chirping. A child calling out. If only there was some music playing nearby, wafting in through an open window. If only there was a dog barking. Or a leaf falling. Or the sound of a kettle boiling.
If only she could whisper her own name out loud and hear her own voice. If only she could touch her own face with her fingertips. If only she could lick her own lips.
Instead she felt the pull of the tape across her mouth and the taste of it-a fresh strip put on her twice a day-chemical and metallic.
She waited.
She waited longer.
She heard nothing.
She wanted to hear anything.
Anything except the one thing that was inevitable: the tapping of his shoes on the floor, coming toward her. The tread of the madman who wanted something from her that was not hers to give. That one sound was the only thing worse than this silence because it meant that she would have to endure his bizarre requests and pleas for an hour. Or sometimes two or three hours. But he had just left. She had time before he returned. But how much time?
If only she could hear a radio. Or the chiming of a clock. Or the ticking of a wristwatch. Any sound. To distract her from the confines of her dark prison where she sat and waited for the man who prayed at her feet for a deliverance she didn’t think would ever be hers to give.
29
My last appointment on Monday before lunch was with Gil Howard, Cleo’s business partner and the man she had put down on her chart as her emergency contact.
“Do you mind?” he asked, holding up his pack of cigarettes.
I did, but he was so distressed I told him it was all right. As he lit the extra-long, slim brown cigarette with a silverand-lacquer lighter, his hand shook and the sun bounced off the glass of his paper-thin Piaget watch.
Gil was older than I’d guessed he would be from his voice on the phone. About sixty, but rugged and in shape. He was wearing an exquisitely tailored suit, but with a white shirt open at the neck. It was a mix of the relaxed and the elegant usually reserved for those who are used to wealth. But I knew from Cleo’s book that he had only come into money in his late forties as a day trader on Wall Street. He had cashed out early, retired, gotten bored and then started the Diablo. He and Cleo had met, she’d written in her book, when he’d hired her for the night.
“I’m at a total loss,” he said, tapping the nonexistent ash off the just-lit cigarette into the ashtray I’d put on the table in front of him. “She didn’t say she was leaving town.”
“Has she ever done anything like this before?”
“No. Occasionally one of her regular clients has asked her to go away with him. And usually, if the location is enticing enough, she’ll go. The money is usually too good to turn down. But we’ve known each other for years, and she’s never just disappeared before.”
He tapped the ash again. This time a quarter inch fell.
“You can imagine how upset I am. I even thought about going to the police, for Christ’s sake.” He laughed, and for a second I glimpsed the man he must be when he wasn’t stressed out and worried-friendly and easygoing.
“She likes you. A lot,” he said.
“I like her, too.”
“She told me you donate your time to the girls in prison. She does things like that. There’s no one like her.”
I nodded. I still wasn’t sure why Gil Howard had wanted to come see me, but I was glad he had. He’d saved me a trip.
“So,” he went on, “I know you were talking to her. But I don’t know how much she was telling you about what was going on with her. And I’m not asking.” Another drag of the cigarette, another tap on the ashtray. “But she was different the last few months. And I’m wondering if that has something to do with her being missing.”