The shrink seemed to have suffered something close to a nervous breakdown as a result of the discovery that her "best patient" had in fact not been cured at all but had, even while in intensive therapy, committed a series of horrible murders against these past players in her life. Beverly's suffering over her therapeutic catastrophe was demonstrated to Janek on the videotape of her interview with Aaron.
While still in the hospital, Janek viewed this tape several times. In it the psychologist seemed truly shattered. The tight, withdrawn quality she'd displayed in her interviews with him were replaced in Aaron's interview by tearful eruptions of agony and remorse. Her cool half-smile was supplanted by haggard, tormented eyes, making for a portrait of a woman in despair. But after rerunning and studying the tape, Janek decided her performance was feigned. No matter her broken appearance and the apparent sincerity of her grief, he did not believe a word of it.
The result was that no matter how many times Aaron and Kit told him their story and no matter how much evidence they carted into his hospital room to prove it, Janek insisted it was not complete. If, as all the evidence showed, Diana Proctor had physically committed the murders, then, Janek maintained, by some method he could not describe, Beverly Archer had put Diana up to it.
"You're usually right about these things," Kit said. "But how can you be so sure?"
"I feel it," Janek replied. "I don't care how many times Diana described herself as a wallflower or signed her name that way. For me Beverly Archer is the only wallflower in the case. The flowers left beside the walls at the murder scenes were her signatures, not Diana's."
On their first day in Yucatdn, Janek and Monika settled into their rented caseta, then lay out on their terrace in the sun. When it grew dark, they drove into Cozumel, looking for a place to eat. they explored for a while, finally settling on a quiet thatch-roofed restaurant on the beach where the wine was good and the fish was fresh and well prepared.
Afterward they took another walk through the town, passing various bars and clubs, pausing occasionally to listen to laughter or music playing within. Then Monika drove them back to their little blue and white house, where the garden was filled with orchids and hibiscus and the terrace overlooked the sea. Here they sat out as they had in the afternoon, staring across the water at a magnificent tropical moon, which reminded them of the moon that had lit their way not two months before in Venice.
"It happens every night around this time," Janek said. "I start feeling chilled and then afraid."
"Of the dream?" He nodded. "I can give you a pill," Monika said. "It will help you sleep and probably stop you from dreaming.
But I don't recommend it." "Why not?"
"I think it's good for you to dream, Frank. Even if the dream is bad. If you can dream it through, the power of the dream will weaken, and then you'll be released."
Janek thought about that awhile. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed and steady.
"I can't see all the details. I see the redness over everything.
The glow like a kind of rust. And I see the picture, so big, looming there: the handsome face; the glossy red curls; the sparkling eyes; the cruel, sensual mouth. And then I see this slim, little, bald woman charging at me like a fiend. She sticks me. I feel the pain. The room begins to spin. And then I see other things, objects, but I'm whirling so fast I can't tell you what they are. I want to see them clearly, Monika. I think that's why I dream about them. to see them again, hoping this time they'll register. Because they're important. I know they are. " He sat back, shrugged. "
I have no idea why That night, when the nightmare came and he began to shake, he felt her arms wrap his chest. The nightmare passed. He got up, shuffled to the bathroom, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it off. Back in bed, in her arms again, her breasts warm points against his back, he felt better, less haunted, not so cold.
"I've got an idea," he whispered to her in the morning.
"What?"
"It's nice here. I like it. But I want us to go back to New York."
"We just arrived, Frank."
"I know. But there's something I want to do. The photos Aaron showed me weren't enough. I should have insisted on seeing the room again for myself. What do you say we fly up there this morning, spend twenty-four hours, then fly back? I know it'll be expensive, but I'll pay for the tickets. I think seeing the room in daylight will help."
She shook her head. "I don't think so, Frank. I don't think that will help you at all."
"Look, I'm not a child. Whate'ver's there-I can take it. "
She smiled. "Of course, you can. But there isn't anything there. You'll be wasting your time."
"But-"
"Please, listen to me. Right now you're recovering from two major physical wounds and a great deal of psychic stress. In a few brief seconds, perhaps the most intense of your life, many things converged on yousound, sights, revelations. You saw things. You were attacked. You defended yourself, hit back at your attacker. Your mind suffered overload. Time and space were foreshortened and condensed. Some memories were etched, and others, perhaps the most important, were lost in the trauma of shooting that woman and being stabbed. No wonder you keep reliving those moments. The key to your nightmare, to your chills and tears, lies someplace within. Not in the actual room, as you might see it in daylight if we flew back to New York today, but in the room as you experienced it that night, the room as it seemed to you then. I told you that if you can re-create the vision that haunts you, it won't disturb you anymore. I believe that's true. It will become just another memory. The bad dream will… disappear."
He rolled onto his back. "Fine," he said. "Now how am I going to do all that?" "After breakfast I'll drive down to the village. I'm going to buy you paper and a set of crayons." "Oh, Monika, please… m serious, Frank. I want you to draw." "Draw what?"
"The sea. The house. The garden. Whatever you like. Draw me if you want, or I'll bring a mirror out to the terrace and you can try to draw yourself And if other images happen to come to you, then you'll draw them, too. You see, to draw a thing is to master it. I believe soon you'll be able to see those objects you cannot remember now. When you see them, you must try to are only partial. Draw them draw them even if the images and you'll control them. And then the dream will lose its power."
Aaron had brought photographs of Beverly's bedroom to the hospital. they had pored over them together. Everything was as he remembered it… almost. Leo Titus lay dead on the floor at the foot of the bed.
Diana Proctor lay dead where she'd fallen after Janek's bullets had blasted her back. The light in the room was dim and red, and the painting was in the niche. But the portrait seemed smaller in the photos, less intense, the manner of its display less compelling to the eye. Everything looked the same, yet the cumulative effect was different. It was as if Janek's mind had played a trick on him, distorting the actual scene, which in the police photos appeared relatively normal, into something threatening and gro tesque.
And still, there were things missing from the photos, those strange and inappropriate objects which haunted his dreams. Where were they?
The room had been searched, and nothing out of the ordinary had been found. When Aaron asked,Janek to describe the objects, he shook his head, for he could not.
"I just know they were there," he said.
The dream was always the same: a cavernous bedroom; reddish light; a huge oil 'painting of a woman; strange, not clearly seen objects arranged symmetrically before the portrait. He looked to his left: