“I called my father, woke him up, told him a lie, that the hospital had called me. That Mom had passed away. I told him I was on my way.” She sniffed. “I couldn’t tell him the truth.”
“No,” Paul said, understanding.
“How could I explain that I was there? How could I tell him that she’d gotten in touch with me, and not him? Why didn’t she somehow contact my father, too?”
“Maybe she tried,” Paul said. “He just didn’t hear her.”
Anna hit the blinker and steered the car over to the shoulder. Once it had stopped, she put it in park.
“I need a second,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She allowed the tears to come. She pointed to the glove compartment. Paul opened it, spotted a shallow box of tissues. He pulled out half a dozen and handed them to Anna.
“God, this is so embarrassing,” she said as she dabbed her eyes, then blew her nose. She dropped her hands into her lap. “Not to mention unprofessional. I’m the one who’s supposed to be keeping it together.”
“It’s okay.”
I can touch her. It’s okay.
Paul reached over and placed a hand on hers. Gently, he said, “By not telling your father, that tells me you believe what happened was real.”
She looked at him. “Even if I didn’t believe it, even if it really was only a dream, and a complete coincidence that I got to the hospital just in time, I couldn’t tell my father because he might believe it. And think how hurt he would feel. So I could never tell him.”
She took her hand out from under Paul’s, placed it on top of his, and squeezed. “It’s haunted me all these years. It truly has. It was good to finally tell someone.”
Paul fought the urge to put an arm around her. He wanted to do it more than anything.
“So,” she said, freeing his hand, putting the car back in drive, and checking her mirror to see whether it was safe to pull back onto the road, “I guess the bottom line is, yes, the jury is still out, but I can’t tell you that what’s been happening to you isn’t really happening. I just don’t know.”
“I understand,” he said.
God, I just want to hold her.
But they were back on the road now, Anna pushing down hard on the accelerator. A few miles later, she said, “I think this trip did you some good. If your only takeaway is that Kenneth Hoffman is no longer the boogeyman you’d built him up in your dreams to be, then it was worth it.”
“I suppose. And I got to show him those notes. Maybe... maybe I was hoping he’d think they were real. If he had, I’d be able to think, okay, I’m not the only one who’s starting to believe in the unbelievable.”
“I think they rattled him,” Anna said. “Although I’m not sure which troubled him more. The notes, or the fact you’d come into possession of what might be his typewriter.”
Paul’s phone rang. He dug it out of his jacket, saw the caller’s name, and frowned.
“What does she want?” he said, more to himself than Anna.
“Who is it?” Anna asked.
Paul put the phone to his ear. “Hailey, is everything okay? Is Josh — what... Charlotte came to your office and what... yes, I have had a hard time, but... I know Josh has a key. Why would she... okay, okay... okay. Thanks for telling me... okay... good-bye.”
He held the phone, made no effort to put it back into his jacket.
“That was weird,” he said, staring straight ahead.
“What’s happened?”
“Charlotte said she was going to see her mother but she went to see Hailey, supposedly because she was worried about me, and wanted to get Hailey’s take. But then there was something about Josh’s key, and...”
“What is it, Paul?”
He shook his head, as if that might make things come clear. “Something I’ll have to talk to Charlotte about when I get home.”
Anna decided not to push it. “Okay.”
Anna pulled into her driveway next to Paul’s car and turned off the engine. She glanced up at her father’s bedroom window, noticed that the light was on.
“Thanks again for everything,” Paul said, pulling on the handle of the passenger door.
“You’re welcome. Thank you. It was quite a day.”
Paul held his position. He looked at Anna and knew, at that moment, what he wanted to do. Something he couldn’t. Something he wouldn’t.
“Time to go, Paul.” She smiled. “See you at our next session.”
“Right, of course,” he said.
He got out, closed the door, found his keys, and unlocked his car. Anna waited until he was out of the driveway and heading up the street before she got out and went into her house.
Driving home, Paul felt awash in guilt.
He’d done nothing wrong, he hadn’t acted on his feelings, but the fact he’d had them made him remorseful. Just when Charlotte was being so supportive, sticking by him, helping him through the worst crisis of his life, he finds himself attracted to another woman.
He’d spent so much time lately with Anna. He could tell her things he could tell no one else. She listened.
Of course, you idiot. It’s her job.
At an intellectual level, Paul knew that. Her concern for him was rooted in professionalism. He’d be a fool to think she felt anything for him that went beyond that.
Except it didn’t change how he felt.
He had to push her out of his mind. Any other kind of relationship with Anna White was a nonstarter.
If there was anything Paul needed to work on, to reward and nourish, it was his life with Charlotte.
Don’t make a complicated life even more complicated.
So he struggled to replace thoughts of Anna with a review of his meeting with Kenneth Hoffman.
Had the encounter been helpful? Was Anna right, that if nothing else, seeing Kenneth face-to-face had diminished his stature? He was, indeed, a broken man. Paul thought the days and weeks ahead would be the test of whether seeing Kenneth was a good thing. Would the nightmares fade? Would he stop hearing Kenneth in his head?
He hit the turn signal indicator, turned down his street, then pulled into the driveway behind Charlotte’s car.
Well, there was some good news. He actually remembered driving here.
As he wearily got out of his car, it occurred to him he’d had nothing to eat in hours. On the way up, he and Anna had joked about dining on prison food, but once they were inside, they pretty much lost their appetites. He figured Charlotte was home from New York by now. Maybe she’d made dinner and set aside a plate for—
Oh God.
The front door was wide open.
Forty-One
Paul charged into the house, shouting, “Charlotte!”
He threw the door closed behind him and took the stairs up to the kitchen two steps at a time. As he reached the top, Charlotte came around the kitchen island, her face full of alarm.
“What?” she asked.
He put on the brakes. “The door was open. I was worried. I didn’t know—”
“I left it open,” she said, cutting him off. “You know how you were asking about a surveillance system, getting the locks changed? Well, I found a guy and took the first step today. I’d set up an appointment for late in the day, after I was back from the city. We’ve got new locks. I’d left the door open a crack so you’d be able to get in. I guess the wind blew it all the way open. God, you’re a nervous wreck.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, glancing back down to the front door to be sure it was closed. “I’ll close it now.” He scurried down the flight, turned the dead bolt, and returned. Charlotte was standing by the island.