Just three days after he and Abby had spent that wonderful afternoon exploring the old hospital grounds, he had discovered what he was capable of.
And he didn’t like it.
He and the young woman dined in the hotel restaurant, Tolan refusing to let her pay for it. They had a nightcap at the bar, then finally parted ways just past midnight, Tolan claiming he had to get some sleep. Truth was, he didn’t want to be around her anymore. The temptation was too strong. And he was feeling weak right now. Very weak.
But when he got back to his room, he couldn’t sleep. Not a wink.
Instead, he sustained his alcohol buzz by attacking the minibar, knowing full well that he’d pay for this tomorrow, would likely show up at Paramount hungover and smelling of booze.
But he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything at that moment. He just sat there, watching lame comedians make lamer jokes on late-night television, feeling more and more sorry for himself with each new bottle he consumed.
Despite her denials, he was almost certain that Abby had cheated on him. With whom, he wasn’t sure, but he had found the proof in her purse. Proof that was pretty hard to deny.
So Tolan sat there, drinking his umpteenth bottle from the minibar, the numbers on the clock above the TV swimming before him: 2:48 A.M.
Then there was a knock at the door.
It took him a moment to navigate his way over. He opened it to find his new number-one fan standing there in a hotel bathrobe. A very short hotel bathrobe.
And the legs below it were smooth and tan and finely muscled.
“My shower’s broken,” she said. “Mind if I use yours?”
Sitting in his office now, Tolan remembered the white noise of that shower, remembered standing near the bed, listening to his cell phone ring not ten minutes after the woman had come to his door. He had finally picked it up, guilt washing over him in sustained, repeated waves, and he had felt like a child caught masturbating in the tub.
Not one of his finer moments.
The caller, a homicide detective named Rossbach, had broken the bad news.
Now, plagued by his memories and the growing sense that he might be losing it, Tolan took a key from his pants pocket, reached down to the bottom desk drawer, and unlocked it. Sliding it open, he pulled out a manila envelope, unfastened it, and poured its contents out onto the desktop.
Abby had been the photographer in the family, had made a living at it, but he had taken a few snapshots of his own, most of them lying in front of him now, waiting to be mounted in a photo album he knew he’d never buy.
After Lisa got into the habit of sleeping over at his house several nights a week, he had brought the photos here to the office. Didn’t see any point in contributing to the pain he knew she carried, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. She had been patient with him, suffering in silence as he grieved, but he could see it behind her eyes sometimes, that fear that she was playing second fiddle to a phantom. A memory. The wondering if it would ever change.
He obviously couldn’t yet make that promise. But he didn’t need to rub her nose in it, either.
Carefully spreading the snapshots out, he stared down at the face of his dead wife and felt his chest tighten.
This was the real Abby, not a hallucination.
And she had been so beautiful.
So fucking beautiful.
The coffee-and-cream skin. The dark, curly hair. The spark in those hazel eyes. That sardonic, half-smile she’d use on Tolan whenever he pointed a camera in her direction. The soft, compact body that she gave to him so completely, so willingly, so free of inhibition.
Had she given it to someone else? It was a question that would never be answered.
She’d had a faint Southern lilt to her voice and a goofy humor that had always made him laugh and amplified her beauty tenfold.
Why had he allowed himself to get so angry with her that night? Why hadn’t he believed her?
And why couldn’t he let her go?
That, he knew, was what the encounter with Jane Doe had been about. He had allowed his guilt over Abby to get so bad that now — on this anniversary of her death — he was seeing her in the face of his own patient. Instead of getting better, as Lisa had promised, he was worse. Much worse.
In the back of his mind he could hear Abby’s voice:
Sleep, Michael.
Sleep will make it all go away.
Staring at the photos a moment longer, he sighed, then gathered them up and put them back in the envelope, returning it to the drawer.
Leaning back, he closed his eyes. Twenty minutes was all he needed. Twenty blissful minutes.
Just as Tolan was starting to drift off, the memory of Abby’s smile imprinted on his brain, his cell phone rang.
Shit.
Groaning, he groped for it, put it to his ear. “Yes?”
There was a pause, then:
“Dr. Tolan?”
He opened his eyes, something small and nasty fluttering in his stomach. “Who is this?”
A soft laugh. “You’ve forgotten me so soon?”
The caller from this morning. The whisperer.
Tolan sat up, keeping his tone low and even. “Look, I know you’re trying to frighten me, but I’ve heard it all before. So why don’t we move beyond the theatrics and talk about—”
“Oh, please, Doctor. Fear is such a mundane emotion, don’t you think? I really have no desire to scare you or anyone else.”
“Then what do you want?”
“It isn’t a matter of what I want, but what I intend to do. And I believe I’ve already told you that. But before you get into a game of twenty questions, let me ask you one: Do you have a computer nearby?”
The question threw Tolan. “What?”
“You do know what a computer is, don’t you? A pornographer like yourself should be well-versed in the ways of the Internet.”
Tolan wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but he’d had enough. He wasn’t in the mood to play understanding shrink right now.
“Do yourself a favor and get some help,” he said.
Then he hung up.
13
Tolan sat there, feeling anger rise.
Even if the caller hadn’t been trying to frighten him — which was bullshit, of course — he felt frightened nonetheless, and he wasn’t sure why. This kind of thing was nothing new.
But despite the low whisper, there was something about the man’s voice that rattled him. Something invasive. Primal.
Had he heard it before?
He thought about Bobby Fremont again and wondered if he had somehow smuggled a phone into the hospital. Reaching for the land line, he started dialing the security desk—
— then his cell phone rang again.
Hanging up, he grabbed it and checked caller ID. Nothing.
Feeling a renewed flutter, he paused a moment, then clicked it on.
“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that much. What do you want?”
“To apologize, Doctor. Calling you a pornographer was out of line, no matter how accurate the term might be.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of an apology.”
“The best I can do, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Tolan said, softening his voice now, controlling his anger. He could see there was no way out of this. “Why don’t you come in here to the hospital and we’ll talk.”
Another laugh. “I’m not a big fan of psychotherapy.”
“Few people are. But something’s obviously bothering you and acting out is never the solution.”