When She Was Bad: A Thriller (19 page)

The girl watched from the bedroom doorway, fascinated, as Lyssy worked the pistol’s mechanism; now she held out her hand, making that mewing noise again, and stamping her bare foot on the doorstep.

“Sorry, Charlie,” he told her—one of Dr. Al’s corny sayings. “These things are dangerous if you don’t know how to…holy cow.” He looked down at the gun in his hand—it had finally dawned on him that for all his demonstrated expertise, before this evening he himself had never fired a gun, never even held a pistol. And yet handling one seemed to be second nature to him. Which meant…what?

His mind working at warp speed, he came up with three possibilities. The first was that he’d picked up his knowledge of firearms unconsciously, maybe from all the videos and TV shows he’d watched, and had proved to be a natural.

Another possibility was that since he and his alters shared one brain, perhaps as the original personality he was able to draw upon the knowledge and experience of the alters without even being aware of it—which was a little scary.

But there was a third possibility, even more frightening: that
he
was the one being used. By Max. Or guided, or controlled, or whatever you wanted to call it. A jolt of terror coursed through him at the thought. It was like that bad dream he used to have when he first came to the Institute, a nightmare where he’s running from a monster, and finally reaches a safe place. Only there’s a mirror there, and when he looks into it, he sees the monster’s face looking back at him and realizes he hasn’t escaped at all. And never would, because he was the monster and the monster was him.

Then he heard that faint mewing sound again. He looked up, saw Lilith standing in the doorway wearing that ridiculous orange muumuu, looking for all the world like a little girl playing dress-up in Mommy’s clothes, and suddenly all that mattered to him was taking care of her.

Earlier that evening, he’d found himself unable to carry through on his threat to torture Mama Rose until she told him where the money was. After running out of verbal threats, he’d settled for tying her up, covering the still-naked Lilith with a muumuu from the closet, and leaving the girl to entertain herself with the endlessly fascinating toilet while he disposed of the troll’s body, dumping it into the hot tub and dragging the plywood cover over the tub. Then he began his search of the house and grounds.

He’d been going through the living room for the second time when he heard the two men out on the patio. He’d ducked behind the sofa, followed them into the bedroom, caught them by surprise.

And now it was time to try playing the Spanish Inquisition game again. It occurred to Lyssy that he might be less inhibited if Lilith weren’t within earshot.

“C’mon, let’s go find your own clothes,” he told her, dropping the second gun into the pillowcase sack, then holding it over his head and shaking it alluringly as he brushed by her on his way out of the room. Zombie-like, she turned and followed him down the short hallway, through the living room, and out onto the patio.

The moon had risen since he’d last been out here, illuminating the overturned table, the scattered furniture, and the dark pool of blood. He righted the table, then dumped the scale and weights out for Lilith to play with while he snatched her sweater and jeans off the trellis where she’d draped them earlier.

She neither resisted nor assisted him as he took off the muumuu. His breath caught in his throat to see her naked in the moonlight. He wrestled the sweater over her head, somehow pulled her arms through the sleeves, then knelt at her feet and lifted her legs one at a time, as if he were shoeing a horse, to get her jeans on. As he tugged them up past her knees, the back pocket turned inside out and a small white card fluttered to the ground.

Lyssy picked it up, turned it over, shined his flashlight on it, and whistled under his breath. There, spelled out for his convenience, were the name, address, and phone numbers of Lily’s original psychiatrist, Dr. Irene Cogan, the woman he remembered from their stroll through the arboretum Monday afternoon.

“You know what, I’m starting to think things might be turning our way,” he told Lilith, slipping the card into his own pocket. “You stay here, have fun with your new toys. I have to go talk to Mama Rose—I’ll be back soon.”

Lyssy limped back inside to the bedroom where Pender and Mama Rose were tied up, pulled a chair over to Mama Rose’s side of the bed, leaned over, and tugged the gag from her mouth. Her face and hair were still spattered with gobbets of blood and brain matter, none of it her own. “I’m trying to be polite about this, ma’am. Dr. Al always said you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And I’m sorry about what happened to your husband. I wish I could bring him back, I really do. But I have responsibilities now. I have Lilith to think of. And we’re going to need that money to have even a chance of surviving out there. So either you tell me where it is, or I have to…to…”

His glance had fallen upon the mother-of-pearl-handled jackknife lying open on the bed.

Sudden flash: a knife in a hand scarred and crippled like his own hand rises and falls, rises and falls against a backdrop of bright bunting and bobbing birthday balloons. Confusion—he is neither here nor there, neither himself nor someone else. The bed is an island, floating in a sea of darkness. There is only the knife in his hand and the redhead laid out before him, mummified like some kind of ritual sacrifice.

Mama Rose, upon seeing him pick up the knife, shut her eyes. Her body tensed, waiting for the first blow to fall. And waiting. And waiting.

“No!” Lyssy’s shout broke the silence, broke the spell. He flung the knife away.
You can go to hell,
he told them—Kinch, Max, whoever was listening.
You can all go straight to hell.

“The attic,” said Mama Rose weakly, without opening her eyes.

Lyssy slumped back in his chair. “What?”

“The money—it’s in the air conditioner in the attic.”

“Oh.” Lyssy was so drained, it took a few seconds for the victory to soak in.

Who’s nothing now, Mister Max?
he thought, popping the gag back into Mama Rose’s mouth before leaving the bedroom; seconds later he was back, removing it again. “The lock on the trapdoor—what’s the combination?”

She told him; back went the gag. It took Lyssy several tries—he’d never used a padlock of any sort—but eventually it popped open. He pushed the trapdoor up and over, boosted himself up into the attic. A cool night breeze wafted through the now-empty dormer window. Lyssy’s flashlight beam illuminated the dark hulk of the air conditioner on the floor.

The fall had cracked the case and sprung the frame. Lyssy’s fingers pried loose the plastic panel in the back, which was held in place by four recessed screws. One last yank snapped off the corner of the panel, and a quick inspection with the flashlight ended the search: the air conditioner was indeed hollow, and stuffed with rubber-band-bound stacks of currency, as well as a hand-cranked clear plastic coin sorter and a sack of loose change.

Half an hour later, with the cash in the trunk of the Cadillac at the bottom of the driveway (the keys had been in the ignition), Lyssy returned to the patio, where Lilith was still happily engrossed with her scale and weights, and lured her down to the car and into the backseat with the even more fascinating coin sorter.

So far, so good, he thought as he fastened Lilith’s seat belt for her, slammed the back door, and limped around to the driver’s side of the car. But there was something nagging at the back of his mind—something undone or forgotten, some vague, inchoate misgiving. He tried to focus, tried to close his mind around it as he slid behind the wheel and turned the key, but nothing came to him.

The engine roared to life. Lyssy experimented for a few seconds and discovered that he could work the accelerator by planting the heel of his prosthetic right foot on the textured rubber floor mat and the toe on the gas pedal, then pushing down with his thigh to rock the foot forward, using the ankle spring as a fulcrum. He turned on the headlights, planted his left foot on the brake pedal, and shifted the Cadillac into gear.

Lurch,
screech,
lurch,
screech
—it took a few minutes of trial and error, but eventually he got the hang of driving two-footed, and from then on, it was smooth sailing. And not only that, but by the time he figured out what had been nagging at him subconsciously—a minor detail: he’d never driven an automobile before—the point was utterly moot.

I guess it just proves that whatever happens, I can handle it, Lyssy told himself. I can handle whatever happens.

1

After struggling against his bonds for hours, the only tangible progress Pender had made was in loosening his gag in order to breathe around it. But that was a not-unimportant achievement: it meant he could allow himself to fall asleep without having to worry about suffocating.

Or not so much fall asleep as doze off for a few minutes before being jolted awake by the apnea that had prevented him from sleeping on his back for the last five years or so. It was an uncomfortable, even frightening feeling, awakening with the sound of your own snort still echoing in your ears, and realizing that the back of your throat had swollen shut, blocking both airways—but then, being awake was no goddamn picnic either.

When he wasn’t thinking about the possibility of never being rescued, of dying here either of thirst or suffocation—which was
not
all that likely when you considered the situation rationally, he had to keep reminding himself—Pender had time to wrestle with his own shame and grief. He’d come to like Mick MacAlister in those last few hours—his mind-projector kept screening the clip of the two of them sitting on that old automobile seat on the hill behind the barn, harmonizing on a medley of pot songs—“One Toke Over the Line,” “The Joker,” and of course “Puff the Magic Dragon”—before the gnats and mosquitos chased them back inside the car.

But oh what a fiasco (Fucked In All Seven Common Orifices, as the folk etymology had it) the two of them had perpetrated. They couldn’t have blown it any worse if they’d been on Maxwell’s payroll—and Pender didn’t even have the excuse of being stoned. Yes, it had been Mick who’d put the gun down so he could free Mama Rose, but surely Pender should have been watching for Maxwell instead of hurrying to Lily’s side.

Then when the firing began, Pender remembered with deep shame, his response had been to hit the floor. If only he’d done
something, anything:
charged Maxwell, thrown the flashlight at him, run for the door, dived for the bedroom window. Mick might still be dead, but Pender wouldn’t be tied up here like a Christmas goose—and Maxwell wouldn’t have a six-hour lead. Or twelve, or twenty-four, or however long it took before
somebody
dropped by the pink ranch house.

Lying next to Pender with eighteen inches or so of space between them, Mama Rose lost the battle with her bladder in the first few hours, which meant that in addition to the dire thirst, the muscle cramps, the headache from rebreathing stale air, and a rapidly worsening case of claustrophobia—a disorder that had never troubled her before—she now had a new problem to worry about.
Diaper rash,
she told herself, with a harsh mental laugh. Okay, Rosie, what’s next?

But although she had, like Pender, managed to loosen her gag far enough to be able to breathe through her mouth, unlike Pender Mama Rose never stopped struggling with it, worrying at the fabric, until eventually—around two or three in the morning, at a guess—the linen strips had gone damp and slack enough to enable her to shove the gag out of her mouth with her tongue.

“Hey,” she said.

“Mmmf,” replied Pender.

“I got an idea.”

“Mmmf?”

“Can you get any closer?”

Wriggling, writhing, he humped sideways as far as the cuffs securing his hands to the headboard would permit. Mama Rose did the same; they met in the middle of the bed. “Try to turn onto your side,” she told him.

He couldn’t, not without dislocating his shoulders. “Okay, just your head, turn your head toward me.”

He did, and discovered that she had succeeded where he’d failed, and was lying on her side. They looked into each other’s eyes for a few seconds—her eyes were a darker blue than his, puffy and red-rimmed from crying for Carson; she had a tiny white scar on the bridge of her nose. She strained toward him. Her face came closer, closer, her mouth open, her teeth bared, her breath foul. For a few seconds he thought she’d gone bonkers and was going to start kissing or biting him; he flinched away.

“Hold still,” she told him, then seized his gag in her teeth and started chewing.

2

Irene Cogan rarely dreamed about her late husband. When Frank did make an appearance, it was as a nebulous figure on a busy sidewalk, or across the room at a crowded party, his face in deep shadow. Sometimes she’d realize he was there and try to fight her way across the room, or catch up with him as the current of the crowd swept him along, but always in vain.

Until tonight, that is. The party scenario again. Just as she recognizes Frank, he turns away and starts for the door. Frantically, she calls his name, struggles to catch up to him. He turns back just as she reaches him. His face is blue with cold, his beard rimed with frost.

“Frank! I thought you were—”

“Zip it,” he whispers harshly, touching his skeletal forefinger to his lips.

She turns to scream; the hand clamps over her mouth.

“Don’t be scared, I’m not going to hurt you.”

A boyish voice. The dream hand was still clamped over her mouth. Irene opened her eyes, saw Ulysses Maxwell’s face floating above her, filling her field of vision.

“Promise me you won’t scream?”

She nodded. He removed his hand from her mouth; she took in a great gulp of air. The bedside lamp was on, the bedroom curtains closed. Next to the clock-radio on her bedside table, the cradle for the cordless phone lay empty.

“Remember me, Dr. Cogan?”

Panic rose like a swelling tide; part of her yearned to lose herself in it, to make a clean psychotic break. But something in his pleading tone, in the earnestness with which his gold-flecked brown eyes searched her own, encouraged her to hold on just a little longer. “Yes, of course, Lyssy. How did you get in?”

“I squeezed through that little sliding window in the downstairs bathroom. You’re Lily’s doctor, right?”

“Ohmigod, Lily!” Irene sat up, fully awake. “Is she all right? Where is she?”

“In the next room. But there’s something wrong with—”

Irene, still wearing Frank’s pajamas, scrambled out of bed and hurried into the spare bedroom with Lyssy close behind.

Lily was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back to the door, busily cranking the handle of a plastic coin sorter. Irene knelt at her side. “Lily? Lily, it’s Dr. Irene.”

When there was no response, she passed her hand across Lily’s line of vision. The girl’s dark eyes failed to track. “How long has she been like this?”

“Since last night.”

Irene kept her eyes trained on Lily—it was easier to fight off the panic if she didn’t look at Maxwell. “Was there something in particular that set her off?”

“A shock—she got an electric shock. Can you help her?”

Irene saw a glimmer of hope. “Y-yes—but we have to get her to a hospital right away,” she lied, after a short hesitation.

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah, why? Why a hospital? What are they going to do for her?”

“A brain scan, for one thing.”

“You know the police are after us, right?”

“I—yes, I know.”

“Both of us.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what they’ll do if they catch us?”

“Send you back to Reed-Chase, I imagine,” replied Irene, after another telltale hesitation.

“You’re not a very good liar, are you?” said Lyssy.

“I suppose not.”

“Me neither. Can you help her?”

“I think so, but…” Her voice trailed off.

“But what?”

Irene forced herself to look directly into his eyes. “I’m not sure I’d be doing her much of a favor.”

3

Talk about your Odd Couple: compared to Pender and Mama Rose, Oscar Madison and Felix Unger were practically clones. But lying next to each other during the course of that endless night, the former G-man and the biker mama discovered they had something in common after all.

“I lost my wife a little over six months ago,” confided Pender, after learning about Carson’s death.

“How long were you together?”

“Not even a year—she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer not long after we were married.”

“Over twenty years for me and Carson,” said Mama Rose. “I don’t even remember what it felt like to be single.”

“I know it sounds stupid, but I sort of envy you,” Pender mused.

“What do you mean?”

“I’d have sold my soul for twenty more years with Dawson—no matter how it had to end.”

“Did she…?” Her voice trailed off.

“Did she what, suffer?”

“Skip it—I guess it was my turn to say something stupid.”

“A hideous couple of months—but the end was peaceful.”

“What’s his name, Lyssy, promised me Carson never even knew what hit him.”

“Thoughtful little bastard, ain’t he?”

“That’s the weirdest part,” said Mama Rose. “How careful and gentle he tied us up, like he was a fucking nurse or something.”

“Makes sense when you think about it,” Pender told her. “The hospital is all he knows—who else does he have as role models?”

Time ticked by slowly—but not as slowly as it had before they were able to converse. “How long do you think it’ll be before somebody finds us?” Pender asked eventually.

“Depends. Normally nobody would bother me and Car until late afternoon—they know we usually sleep in. But he would have missed an important meeting last night, so somebody might be by to check about that. Then there’s L’il T., the guy who got shot on the patio? His wife Dennie is like twelve months pregnant; this’d probably be the first place she’d come looking for him.”

While Pender was thinking that over, his stomach gave out with a long, loud grumble. “Quiet down there,” he said.

“How long since you ate last?”

“Lunch yesterday—I had a chili dog,” said Pender—then he chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

He told her Mick’s story about the Jersey shore diner:
EAT HERE AND GET GAS
. “How about you?”

“I had dinner in town with Dennie, and a piece of mud pie at the coffee shop before you guys showed up.” Then, after another minute or so: “Shit.”

“What?”

“I wasn’t hungry until we started talking about food—now it’s all I can think about.”

“Let’s change the subject—what’s your favorite song?”

“It’s kind of obscure—you probably never heard of it,” said Mama Rose.

Pender grinned. “Care to make a little wager about that?”

4

After driving hundreds of miles, when as far as he could remember he’d never driven a car before, navigating via the onboard GPS, and solving a zillion other quotidian mysteries along the way—the self-serve gas pump, the coin-operated vending machine, the hot-air restroom hand-dryer—Lyssy was not about to be deterred by the misgivings of one stubborn psychiatrist.

“Just fix her.”

“And if I refuse?” she asked stiffly.

She was all but daring him to frighten her into cooperating. Same as Mama Rose. He remembered the knife on the bed, the terrifying flashback—and suddenly he realized something he must have known all along, deep down: to frighten somebody else, you first have to frighten yourself. You have to plumb the depth of your own fear and haul up the worst horror lurking down there. “Then you get what everybody gets when they cross me,” he said, as harshly as he could manage.

“And what would that be, Lyssy?”

“Kinched. You get Kinched.”

Lyssy was half-right, anyway. In the end, it wasn’t his threat, but rather the fear she read in his eyes that persuaded Irene. He looked like a little kid who’d just dropped the F-bomb on his parents—proud and apprehensive in equal measure. Look what a big boy I am; please don’t punish me.

Irene also knew enough about Maxwell et al., however much the system had evolved (or was it devolved?) over the last few years, to understand that it was to her advantage, and Lily’s as well, to do all she could to reinforce Maxwell’s relatively benign original personality.

Besides, the psychiatrist didn’t really believe what she’d said about not doing Lily a favor by bringing her back to consciousness. Irene had seen this unnamed autistic alter only once before, when Lily was first brought to her for a consult by a pediatric psychiatrist who was sharp enough to recognize that autism didn’t just pop up full-blown at the age of four, however textbook the symptoms.

It hadn’t taken Irene long to diagnose dissociative identity disorder, especially as Lily’s parents had recently been convicted of child abuse in its ugliest form—
the
standard marker for this particular dissociative disorder. And happily, the symptoms of autism had disappeared, along with the unnamed alter, as soon as Irene put the girl under hypnosis.

But now Lily was once again in her own little world. True, it was a world without fear or pain, but also without joy or understanding or volition, and Irene could no more have left her there than she could have lobotomized her.

Still, hypnotizing an autie was a tricky proposition. Irene turned to Lyssy. “Help me bring her downstairs to my office.”

Gone like magic was the pasted-on scowl. “Great, great, thanks. C’mon there, honey, let’s take another little walk.” He wrested the coin sorter from the girl’s grasp and lured her out of the bedroom as though she were a donkey, and the toy a carrot.

Irene preceded them into the office and quickly cleared her desktop, on which she placed a small wooden metronome from her drawer. “Pull that chair over to the desk,” she told Lyssy. “Now sit her down…good, good.”

“I just want to tell you, I’m sorry about, you know, threatening you before, I just—”

Irene cut him off. “Never mind that now—let’s focus on the job at hand, shall we? I want you to take the coin sorter away from her now…. It’s okay, dear, it’s okay, look here, look what Dr. Irene has for you.” She turned on the metronome, set it to the highest speed—
tick tick tick tick.
The girl ceased her squirming and mewling and leaned forward, focusing her attention, her very
being,
on this new and fascinating object. She wasn’t just watching it, she was becoming it. Breathing rapidly, eyeballs following the rapid motion, pulse racing,
tick tick tick tick.