The Survivors (14 page)

“Can I have some coffee?” Cass said.

On the way in earlier, I'd gotten some from the shop in front of the building. She'd spotted the cup. “I don't have a machine here in the office. Maybe later.”

I sat down behind the desk. I wasn't going to make this feel like a session. “Cass, do your parents know you're here?”

“Are you kidding? My dad's gone to work. When I left, my mom was sleeping—
as usual
.”

Meaning her mother was sleeping off a hangover.

“How did you get here?”

“A cab.” She started twisting her hair around her finger.

“You think maybe you should call home, tell your mother where you are?”

“Why? She won't even realize I'm gone.”

“This is a long way from your house. You could have called me to say thanks about the bracelet. What else is on your mind?”

“I dunno.” Her eyes flicked up at me a couple of times. “I heard them talking about you.”

“Your parents?”

“No, they never talk about anything. I mean my dad and Griffin.” She pulled her feet down and leaned forward. “I listen sometimes. They were arguing about you. It was really interesting.” She tilted her head coyly.

She wanted me to ask what they'd said, and I wasn't going to go along. “I'm sure it was a private conversation—like the one I had with them.”

That made her angry. “It's not private if they leave the door wide open for anybody to hear.”

She looked away then primly crossed her legs, trying to act all grown up. “Anyway, my dad said he thought they could trust you. Griffin kept talking about some other man. I forget the name.”

A few moments earlier, I'd heard Tori come in the outer office. She peeked in. “Hi, Cal. I'm sorry—” She saw Cass, gave me a surprised look, and closed the door.

Cass rolled right past the interruption. “They never argue, but this time they were really mad at each other. Griffin said my dad was being stupid.
Stupid
—can you believe it? Griffin said they—”

“Cass, why are you telling me this?”

“I . . . Well, people need to know stuff that's said about them, don't they? I mean it could be like lies or something and they wouldn't even know.”

“I'll tell you what I think. I think you wanted to return the favor about your dad calling you ‘Cass.' You thought telling me what he said about me would be a trade, sort of. That's nice of you, but it doesn't make it right—listening to other people's conversations.” I touched the button on the phone to buzz Tori. She stuck her head back in. “Tori, this is Cass Russo. I'd like you to take her to the coffee shop downstairs and get her something.” I held out a five-dollar bill. “I'm going to call her mother to have her come pick her up.”

Tori came to collect the money. Cass gave me a look as if I had just stabbed her in the heart. Pure hurt. She shuffled out with her head bowed like a sad little girl.

The phone call to Charlene Russo was even worse than I expected. She answered with something like a groan, as if the sound of her own voice hurt her head. It took two minutes of explaining before she understood why I was calling. Then it clicked.
Psychologist. Cassie.
“I don't want you talking to my little girl,” she said.

“That's why I'm calling. She's with my secretary now. She needs to get home, and I don't want to just put her in a cab. Could you pick her up?”

She sighed as if that would be a huge imposition. “Who are you again?”

“I was at your home last night with your husband and Mr. O'Shea.”

I heard the grinding sound of a refrigerator ice dispenser and then water running. “I remember.” She paused to take a drink. “Why did Cassie go to see you?”

“I think she'll give you a better answer than I could.”

She gave a sarcastic laugh. “She'd rather talk to a wall than to me.”

I thought,
at least the wall would stand up straight
. “Just ask her why she came here, like it's no big deal. Make her feel comfortable, and she'll tell you.”

“Thank you for the advice,” she snapped. “And remember what I said. You're not to talk to her. Saba will be there in half an hour to pick her up.”

I realized she was about to hang up. “Wait!” Saba would need my address, whoever Saba was. I gave it to her and banged the phone down.

THIRTEEN

T
wenty minutes later, Tori and Cass returned. They seemed to be getting along fine, so I left my door closed and went on with my work, following her mother's orders not to talk to her. Soon I heard another voice, a man with an East Indian accent—Saba, I assumed. “Cass, your mother is downstairs. You come to the car now.”

I went to the door to say good-bye. She waved, apparently in better spirits. As she went out, her shoulders drooped. She wasn't looking forward to the confrontation that awaited her in the car.

Tori followed me into my office. “Cass wanted me to give you this.” It was a sheet of paper folded to make a perfect imitation of a letter envelope. “She worked on that the whole time we were in the coffee shop.”

“How did she act?”

“Fine. We talked girl stuff. I gave her some makeup tips.”

“No more Blue Raccoon?”

“I mentioned the eyeliner. Told her a darker shade might go better with her brown eyes.”

“And?”

“She said she'd try to talk her mother into letting her get blue contact lenses.”

“That figures. Oppositional child.”

“Or maybe she just likes blue.”

I smiled at that. “Did she say anything about why she came here?”

“Nothing specific, except the note.” She pointed at the makeshift envelope.

I hadn't realized there was a note. It really was a work of art, like origami. She'd written inside the folded paper—in blue pen. Her handwriting was so precise it looked machine made.

Cassie. And here I thought I had her all figured out.

Tori was reading over my shoulder. “She told me she'd been in therapy when she was younger—four years with a psychiatrist named Buchholtz. Cass said every session they got into an argument, usually because she wouldn't sit up straight. She called him Dr. Anal.”

“Four years of that and even I might start drawing blue lines around my eyes.”

“How do you know her?” she asked.

“I was at her house last night to see her father—something to do with Scott Glass. I sat through round one of a fight between Cass and her mother. Maybe she came here just to have someone to talk to.”

Tori rubbed her fingers together. “Too bad she didn't bring some cash for the session.” She headed for the door. “Anyway—ain't family great?”

Speak for yourself
, I thought.

I spent the next two hours in sessions, both teenagers with parents who worked for the government. I'd noticed my patients were skewing younger these days. How many referrals did I get by text message? If it kept up, I might need to grow a ponytail, a trick used by some psychologists to relate better to adolescents. Kids figured a man with hair like that must have “been there, done that” when it came to drugs or stealing or underage sex or punching out mom or dad.

At one o'clock, I ran across the street to the deli and got a corned beef sandwich. I only had half an hour before my next appointment, so I took it back to my office. Scottie's backpack was under my desk. While I ate, I decided to have a look at those papers again.

I started at the back of the stack, some pages I hadn't gone over yet. They were real-estate tax bills for half a dozen office buildings in and around Damascus, where we used to live. The owners were all corporations, the buildings various sizes. I didn't see how it had anything to do with my family.

Then I thought of something. The dates. Not on the tax bills: they were normal enough. It was another date, one I'd seen several times but it hadn't registered.

I shuffled through the top of the pile and found it—the receipt for the gun. The date was September 21. I had to check the phone bills to be sure.

The Smith & Wesson was bought on the same day my mother made her first two phone calls to Eric Russo's home. I cross-checked the bank account statements, and there it was again. A check written to Lori Tran to pay for the gun. Five hundred dollars, same date.

I laid the pages out and stared at them.

What had been going on that day?
I clicked on my computer and found a universal calendar. Scottie had said it was a Saturday, and he was right. What was our routine on Saturdays? My parents got up before the rest of us. My mother ran errands Saturday mornings. My father got our breakfast ready, and we all had chores to do. In the afternoon there was soccer practice for Alan and me. My father took us to that, and Ron tagged along. According to the phone log, she made her first call to Russo at 2:12 p.m. She probably left to pick up the gun after that.

I realized this was the same road Scottie had gone down—trying to piece it all together and make a connection with Russo.

“Dr. Henderson?”

I looked up.

“I think . . . isn't it time for our appointment?”

It took me at least ten seconds to place him—Neal Canaris, my next session. He had social anxiety disorder, and my blank stare was making him edge toward the door. “Sorry, I didn't hear you knock.” I whisked the papers off the desk. “I was caught up in something. Have a seat. Let's get started.”

My last patient left at five thirty. Tori came in with a stack of phone messages. “Busy day,” she sighed, setting them in front of me. “Do you want me to stay late?” That would be to make up for coming in late in the morning.

“Not unless there's something you need to finish tonight.”

“I've got a pile of bills to get out. I'll go when they're done.” She left me alone to make my calls.

It took over an hour to reach the last one in the stack, a message from Tim Regis. We'd crossed calls a couple of times during the afternoon. He answered himself, which meant his assistant had gone home for the day. We'd been very close in college—and since. He was one of the few people I'd told the whole story about my family. That meant I didn't have to do as much dancing around the facts with him.

Tim was a terrific lawyer; he could cut to the heart of any problem. “It must be weird having a guy like that drop out of the blue sky. Do you know where Glass is now?”

“Yes.”

“But you told the FBI you didn't know?”

“I didn't have any choice, not the way—”

“That's not good, Cal. They could have you for obstruction of justice or maybe even harboring a fugitive. They could certainly make trouble for you with your licensing board.”

“But they just want to talk with him. He hasn't been charged with anything.”

“So they want you to think,” Tim said. He paused, and I imagined him staring at the ceiling in his office as his mind worked. “Has he got a record?”

“I believe so, yes. Assault.”

“That figures. They wouldn't be looking for him so hard if all he'd done was send a few creepy e-mails. My read is this. Even if Eric Russo tells the FBI to stand down, they'll need to talk to Glass. If they've gone this far, they'll need to tie up the file with a formal interview.”

Tori knocked and came in. She set a piece of paper in front of me. “
Charlene Russo on the other line. Wants to make an appointment tomorrow.
”

“Tim, can you hold on?” I said. I covered the receiver. “Did she say what she wants?”

“Just a session with you, and she's going to bring Cass.”