Every Fifteen Minutes (40 page)

Eric tried to suppress the fear he felt. He was going to jail. It didn't seem possible, or real. He was going to be charged with a crime; he'd have a criminal record. He looked at Captain Newmire. “Captain, I'm entitled to a phone call, aren't I?”

Captain Newmire blinked. “For what? You already have counsel, Dr. Parrish.”

“I want my phone call,” Eric answered, without elaboration.

 

Chapter Forty-four

The interview room emptied, leaving Eric to make his phone call, so he pulled the landline phone over and pressed in the number, suppressing his worries. He didn't want to let another night pass without talking to Hannah. He didn't have her new cell-phone number, so he called Caitlin at the house, wondering if she would pick up. The caller ID would show up as Upper Merion police station, and she would know exactly who it was. He prayed she would pick up anyway, and in the next moment, the ringing stopped.

“Caitlin, thanks for taking the call,” Eric said, with relief.

“Who is this?” asked a male voice, which took Eric aback. He thought he'd dialed the wrong number, then he realized that he was talking to Caitlin's boyfriend, Brian. It was one thing to know that she was sleeping with another man, but quite another to hear his voice, which was deep, strong, and undeniably hostile. Eric felt a stab of sexual jealousy, as well as anger. He couldn't ignore the irony that Brian would spend the night sleeping next to Caitlin, while he would be sitting in a jail cell.

“This is Eric Parrish, Hannah's father and—”

“You're not allowed to be calling here. You're not allowed to communicate with Caitlin directly. Have your lawyer call her lawyer.”

Eric wanted to punch him through the phone. He was tired of defusing situations, or maybe he was just at the end of his rope. “I want to speak to Hannah.”

“Then you should have called her phone number.”

“You know full well that Caitlin disconnected Hannah's cell.”

“She's asleep.”

“I don't want to wake her up, but Caitlin could check and see if she's really asleep. Is Caitlin there?”

“Hannah's asleep.”

“You don't know that. The phone is downstairs, and she's upstairs. I know the house, I was there before you.” Eric heard the words come out of his mouth, realizing they weren't talking about the house anymore.

“Take my word for it.”

“I'm not taking your word for anything. I don't have to talk to you to speak to my own daughter.” Eric raised his voice, feeling himself lose control. “And by the way, if you ever call my daughter another name, much less a
whiner,
I'm going to beat the living crap out of you.”

Brian snorted. “You're a trip, you know that, buddy? Where do you get off filing for custody? You act like it's about Hannah, but it's about you. You want Caitlin back but she's done. You're jealous she's with me. You're trying to hurt her and you know the way to hurt her is through Hannah, so that's what you're doing.”

“That's not true, and I don't have to discuss it with you.”

“Caller ID says you're at Upper Merion police station. You're under arrest. That's going to look great to the court, don't you think? Good luck trying to get custody. You'll be lucky if you get unsupervised visits.”

“Put my daughter on the phone.” Eric would have to call Susan as soon as he got out.

“You really want to talk to your daughter now? You want to tell her where you are? You know what it does to a kid to be ashamed of her own father?”

Eric knew exactly what it was like to be ashamed of his father, but he didn't need this jerk to psychoanalyze him. “I'm not going to fight with you. Go see if my daughter is asleep—”

“Dude, you make me laugh. Do you have any idea what your daughter's going to go through at school? How the kids are gonna bully her?”

Eric had thought the same thing, which was the reason he wanted to speak with Hannah. “If anything, I got those hostages freed.”

“Bully for you. Thing is, kids don't know the difference. All they know is her dad's in jail. That's what they're going to say. We don't want her to have to face those bullies.”

“
We?
” Eric shot back, angry. “Listen,
dude,
don't parent my child. Ask Caitlin to check if Hannah's sleeping, and if she's not, put her on the damn phone.”

“I don't take orders from you.”

“Put my daughter on the phone! She needs to hear the truth from me so she can hold her head up high at school tomorrow.”

“We're not sending her to school tomorrow.”

We, again.
“Why not? She has to go to school. You can't keep her out of school forever. That's not the way to deal with this situation.”

“Sorry, we're not as smart as you. That's why you're calling from jail. Because you're so smart.”

“Let me talk to her!” Suddenly Eric heard Hannah's voice in the background, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. The phone went silent, but it didn't sound as if Brian had hung up but was covering the receiver with his hand. Eric could hear some muffled noise and Hannah talking, and in the next moment there was a shuffling on the line.

“Eric?” Caitlin came on, her voice clipped. “I hope you're happy. You woke her up and she's here. You can speak to her for a few minutes, then that's it.”

“You don't have any right to limit how long I talk to her.”

“Discuss that with your friend Susan. I'll put Hannah on the phone now. Hold on.”

“Daddy?” Hannah asked. “Is that you?”

“Hannah!” Eric felt his heart leap at the sound of her voice, in its charming little-girl register. “Honey, it's so good to hear you!”

“Are you okay, Daddy? I'm worried. What's going on? Where are you?”

“I'm fine, everything's fine.” Eric hated the thought that he had caused her any anxiety.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. I'm so sorry I woke you up.”

“I wasn't asleep, I was waiting for you to call. I heard Brian and Mommy, and I knew it was you on the phone. I wanted to talk to you.”

“I wanted to talk to you too—”

“Daddy, they showed you on TV. They said that bad guys had guns at the mall and there was a bomb! It's
our
mall, where I got my cleats. You didn't get hurt, did you?”

“Not at all, I'm fine, sweetheart. It wasn't really a bomb, it was a fake bomb. Nobody tried to hurt me or anybody else. It's all over now and it's fine.”

“Who's the bad guy? Was the bad guy your patient? Was that him on the TV? He had on a hoodie, he looked kinda scary. What's wrong with him?”

“Honey, yes, that's my patient, but he's not a bad guy.”

“Then who's the bad guy? The police were there, so many, I saw, all over the mall.”

“There were no bad guys tonight.” Eric wanted to say,
except for Brian
, but held his tongue. “Everything is fine. I went to the mall to help my patient and now he's fine too.”

“I miss you. When can I see you? I heard Brian say you were in jail. You're not really in jail, are you?”

Eric never lied to her, but he was tempted to tonight. He decided against it, because he couldn't control what Caitlin and Brian would tell her. “I am at the jail because I'm helping them figure out some things.”

“Why are you at jail? You didn't do anything wrong. Did they make a mistake? Only people who break the law go to jail.”

“I didn't do anything wrong.”

“I know, but on TV you came out of the mall and there were police all around and you were holding your hands up, like
you
were the bad guy, like on
Cops
.” Hannah sounded mixed-up, her voice thin and shaky. “Did you tell them you didn't do anything wrong? Do they think you did? Why did they think you did?”

“They were confused because I was at the mall, too.”

“But why did you have your hands up? Were the police going to
shoot
you? Mommy said no, but I saw them, they took you and put you in the police car, then Mommy turned the TV off. They weren't going to shoot you, were they? I started crying but Mommy said you were okay.”

Eric's heart broke for her. “Honey, you don't have to worry about me. I'm fine. I was helping, not doing anything wrong. I'll be home tomorrow—”

“Aren't you going to work, tomorrow? You didn't get fired, did you? From the hospital?”

“What makes you say that?” Eric didn't understand how Hannah could have known about what had happened at work.

“Mommy said you don't have your job anymore, I heard her tell Brian. She told him that her friend Daniel called the hospital and the hospital said you got fired.”

Eric rubbed his forehead, frustrated. Hannah heard everything that went on in that house. So Caitlin and Brian knew about his suspension. He prayed the hospital hadn't said why.

“You didn't get fired, did you? You're good at your job, aren't you?”

Eric punted. “I don't want you to worry about any of this, please. It's not your problem—”

“Daddy, wait a minute. Mommy says I have to go to bed. I better go. Good night. I love you.”

“I love you too, hon—” Eric said, feeling a pang, but the phone went dead.

He hung up after a moment, eyeing his reflection in the observation window. He looked lost, he felt lost, and he was losing everything that mattered to him: his child, his job, his freedom, even his reputation.

He could only bear his own reflection for a minute.

Then he looked away.

 

Chapter Forty-five

Eric leaned back against the wall of his holding cell, having changed into a prison uniform, which was like hospital scrubs except for the orange color. His cell was hot and humid, the size of a large closet, with grimy white cinderblock on all sides except for the front, which had a locked door of thick Plexiglas, so that he could look out onto an empty hallway, also of cinderblock. The cell contained only an undersized stainless-steel toilet that reeked of urine, because it had no lid, and a stainless-steel wedge built into the wall, which made a seat for him. He had no handcuffs on, though there was a large metal ring welded onto his seat for leg shackles.

The lights were dim, and the entire area quiet, and Eric felt a wave of fatigue wash over him. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his head, but couldn't. He thought about Hannah, the hospital, and the questions they'd asked him in his interviews. Always in the back of his mind was Max and what was going to happen to him. Eric knew that Paul was right; he'd have to separate himself from Max from now on, given that there was a criminal proceeding. If the police were casting Eric as a Svengali in Max's life, then any controlling role he took would only fuel their suspicions, even as his questions had.

He flashed on Max in the video store, saying that he couldn't remember if he killed Ren
é
e, but nevertheless blaming himself. Max took responsibility for Ren
é
e's murder because he knew that he had feared harming her, but Eric knew that was only part of the OCD complex of symptoms. Even Arthur had agreed with him. Eric still couldn't bring himself to believe that Max had killed Ren
é
e, nor could he be totally sure Max was guiltless.

Eric raked back his hair, praying that he was doing the right thing in standing on principle. If he ended up going to prison, he would lose custody of Hannah, so he was trading off one child for another. He couldn't do that, but he couldn't make the opposite choice, either. It was no-win, wherever he turned.

There was only one way to make things right.

Eric had to find out who killed Ren
é
e Bevilacqua.

And he had to do it before he went to prison for good.

 

Chapter Forty-six

6.I am cunning.

Circle one: Doesn't apply to me. Partially applies to me. Fully applies to me.

Well.

Remember how I said that not all sociopaths are killers?

That was true.

I was right about that.

For once, I wasn't lying.

By the way, I've never killed anybody before.

But now, it looks as if I'm going to have to kill somebody.

Because I refuse to be thwarted.

Because I have to get what I want.

I know how to get what I want, and I'm not going to stop until I get what I want.

I have to win, and I fully intend to win.

By the time this is all over, there are going to be a lot of dead people, but the last body on the ground will be his.

Eric Parrish's.

He's proven that he's an adversary worthy of me, and he's fought back with a single-mindedness that I suppose I could admire, if I knew what admiration felt like.

But mostly, it's time for him to go down, and it looks like I'm going to have to do it myself.

I feel supremely confident.

I know I can do it.

I don't have a doubt.

He's actually perfectly positioned, he just doesn't realize it. He thinks he's making progress, but he's only getting himself in deeper. He thinks he's succeeding, but he's failing.

He's trying to win, but he'll lose to me.

I'm already setting a new plan in motion, shifting in response to his moves, and developing new moves of my own.

I will win in the end.

I will crush him.

I will destroy him.

I will be the worthier adversary.

I have set so many schemes in motion, pulled so many scams, tricked so many people that I couldn't begin to detail them all.

My life so far has been a series of lies, or maybe one big long continuous lie, it doesn't matter.