“What do you want?” Jude snapped.
Another moment of silence.
“I’d rather say it face to face. You don’t owe me anything, I get it. And if you won’t open the door, then I’ll talk through it, but….” He paused, and Jude heard another door open in the hallway.
“Everything okay out here?” Jude heard the voice of Mrs. Lyon - the woman who lived across the hall with her two small children.
“Everything’s fine, Katie,” Jude called out. She opened the door reluctantly and offered Mrs. Lyon a tight smile. “This guy’s something of a snake oil salesman. I was just telling him to get lost.”
Katie Lyon gave Damien a dirty look and backed into her apartment. One of her toddlers tried to stick his head out the door, but his mother pushed him back inside.
“Well don’t let him in your apartment, Jude,” Katie said, keeping the door open a crack. “Do you want me to call the police?”
Jude watched Damien’s eyes open wide, but he didn’t try to defend himself.
“No,” Jude sighed, shaking her head. “He’s the cowardly type, not a threat.”
Mrs. Lyon closed her door, and Jude opened hers wider.
“Fine, come in, you’ve got exactly five minutes and then I want you out.”
Damien stepped into her apartment.
“I’m sorry, Jude,” he started, holding out his hands, soft smooth hands that she remembered traveling her body.
“You‘re here to ask my forgiveness?”
“Not exactly,” he admitted, stepping further into the apartment. “I’m here because I think I’ve made a horrible mistake and….”
“And what?” Jude snapped, feeling her throat pulse from the place Dale had squeezed. Jude frowned, letting her hair fall over the side of her face, perhaps masking some bruises.
“I lied when I first met you,” Damien went on. “And it was unforgivable.”
“Damien,” she huffed, glancing towards the closed door of her bedroom. “Get to the point.”
“I screwed up that night, Jude. I had too much to drink and…”
Jude laughed and planted a hand on her hip, infuriated at Damien’s words. The night had meant absolutely nothing to him. He’d had too much to drink.
“Get out, Damien.”
She walked over and shoved him hard. He stood his ground, barely shifting beneath her push.
“I’m worried about Hattie.”
Jude narrowed her eyes, the sound of her sister’s name on his lips igniting a new bubble of rage within her.
“What about Hattie?” she demanded.
“I told Kaiser that Hattie sees spirits.”
“You what?” Jude spit the words more than said them.
“He cornered me and I panicked. I was babbling, not thinking and-”
Jude glared at him, her mind reeling.
“He can’t touch Hattie. She’s not in the hospital and he can’t have her committed for that.” Jude wasn’t really talking to Damien, but more to herself wondering if her mother could hear their conversation.
“I’m worried about Hattie, Jude,” Damien said softly. “I don’t know where she lives. I dropped her off at the church this morning. I tried to call her this evening, but-”
“You think I’m going to lead you to my baby sister? You‘re nuts. Forget your doctorate Damien, you need to join your patients.”
He looked wounded by her words, but she played on his guilt. He could not talk back to her; his shame wouldn’t allow it.
“Dr. Kaiser doesn’t play by the rules,” Damien continued. “I didn’t know him when I started working with him. I had read some of his publications. He has a brilliant mind. One of my professors spoke very highly of him. I had no idea that he was…”
“What?”
“Twisted, obsessed maybe.”
“Obsessed with what? My mother?”
“Yes, but not only your mother. He’s obsessed with patients who claim supernatural connections. It’s taken me months to realize it. I thought it was simply a focus for his treatment, but I started digging a bit. He requests those patients, the ones that claim to see things. Three have died in his care in the last decade. Three patients, Jude.”
Jude opened her eyes wide, studying Damien who looked ready to cry. He was not a man at all, just playing at being one.
“And you gave him Hattie? You really are a coward, Damien.”
Damien looked away, at her ceiling, down at the floor. He made a weak attempt at petting Gram, but the dog shifted away.
Jude’s bedroom door opened and her mother stepped out.
Chapter 37
September 20, 1965
Jude
Mrs. Bowers, a widow for well over two decades, owned the house beneath Hattie’s apartment. When Jude knocked on her door, a cacophony of cats greeted her.
“Go on now Fuzz, Beatrix, Marigold - you’re going to trip this old lady up,” Mrs. Bowers said through the door, and Jude imagined her wading through a sea of cats using a wooden oar to push them aside. She opened the door and two cats raced on to the porch. Despite their urgent escape they immediately dropped into positions of lazy, rolling in patches of sun on the wooden deck.
“Don’t mind them,” Mrs. Bowers said waving them away and casting her green eyes, tinged with yellow, on Jude. Despite the warm day, she wore a heavy knit sweater, thick corduroy pants and men’s slippers.
“Hi, Mrs. Bowers, sorry to intrude. I knocked on Hattie’s door and didn’t find her. I was wondering if you’ve talked to her today?”
Mrs. Bowers grinned and held up a length of orange scarf.
“Darning this for little Hattie right now. That slender neck is bound to get a chill. I saw her late this morning. Seemed a bit upset to tell you the truth. Said she was going to Traverse City.” Mrs. Bowers cocked an eyebrow that implied scandal and winked. “She’s been gone a lot lately, thought maybe she had a beau up that way.”
Jude frowned. The only connection Hattie had to Traverse City was the Northern Michigan Asylum.
“What happened to your face, doll?” Mrs. Bowers asked, frowning.
“Clumsy,” Jude told her. “Fell down my apartment stairs after a few glasses of wine.”
“You independent girls, my goodness,” she shook her head and laughed. “I would have been right terrified livin’ on my own at your age. Course guess now I do, but after twenty years with Barny I realized I’d have to fend for myself. Snored like a freight train, somebody could’a broke in and murdered me and he never would cracked an eye.”
“I’ve gotta go, Mrs. Bowers. If Hattie comes back can you ask her to give me a call?”
Mrs. Bowers nodded and peeked past Jude to her car where her mother stared out from the front seat, quickly turning her head away. Damien sat in the back, his face grim.
Hattie
Hattie swam in a universe of black. No - not swam - floated. She didn’t have control of her body, it drifted, soared, fell as if a dozen currents pushed and pulled her first there, now here, but she saw nothing.
She opened her eyes but felt removed from her body as if thinking of opening her eyes involved telling her brain, then racing from her brain to her eyelids to tell them and then back up to her brain to relay they’d heard, but they were so heavy. One lid came up and then the other and the room swam in the same currents of black, occasionally broken by streaks of orange light. Hattie let her head flop to the right and saw a torch lit against a curving brick wall. It reminded her of a pool. Was she sitting in the bottom of a pool?