Читать книгу One Last Scream - Kevin O'Brien - Страница 13

No one said anything in the car while Karen drove across the West Seattle Bridge toward Amelia’s uncle’s house. Amelia sat on the passenger side, pensively gazing out her window. Jessie was in back with a grocery bag full of food from Karen’s fridge. She’d insisted on fixing dinner for Amelia’s uncle and his family.

A bit taken aback by the idea, Karen had wondered out loud if they’d be intruding on the family’s grief.

“Nonsense, they gotta eat, don’t they?” Jessie had replied while loading up the grocery bag. “You have all the fixings here for chicken tetrazzini—chicken, noodles, Parmesan cheese, sour cream. I’ll whip up the casserole, stick it in the oven, and then you and I can beat a path out of there if it looks like we’re wearing out our welcome.”

Amelia had been inconsolable, sobbing hysterically for twenty minutes until the diazepam had kicked in. She finally slumped back on Karen’s sofa. “I should go see Uncle George,” she murmured, wiping her eyes. “Poor Jody and Steph…”

Sitting beside her on the couch, Karen handed her another Kleenex. “Your uncle asked me to drive you over. I said I’d be glad to.”

Amelia nodded. “Thanks.”

Biting her lip, Karen studied her for a moment. “You—you still haven’t asked how it happened.”

Silent, Amelia stared down at the wadded-up Kleenex in her hand.

“Your Uncle George said you had some kind of premonition.”

Amelia shrugged helplessly. “It was just a feeling—an awful, awful feeling that something was wrong.”

Karen’s heart was breaking for her. “Honey, there’s no easy way to tell you this. They haven’t confirmed it. But it’s possible your dad shot your mom and your aunt, and then he killed himself. They don’t know for sure yet.”

Amelia said nothing. She merely gave out an exhausted sigh, and closed her eyes.

Karen stroked her arm. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

While they’d gotten ready to leave, Amelia had just sat quietly on the sofa. Her voice hadn’t even cracked when she’d left Shane a phone message, explaining she was spending the night at her uncle’s house. She’d told him he could pick up his car at Karen’s. She’d said nothing about her parents’ deaths. “I’ll call you later tonight,” she’d finished up listlessly.

Once they’d climbed inside Karen’s Jetta, Amelia had suggested they take Highway 99 to the West Seattle Bridge. But after that, she hadn’t said anything else.

Karen took her eyes off the road for a moment to look at her now. She was still staring out at the Seattle waterfront and skyline. There was a tiny, sad smile on her face.

“How are you doing, Amelia?” she asked.

She kept gazing out the window at the view from the bridge. “I was thinking about all the trips we took here to Aunt Ina and Uncle George’s house—the Christmases, Thanks-givings, and birthdays. It’s a long drive down from Bellingham, almost two hours.” She traced a horizontal line on the window with her finger. “This bridge was always the landmark, the sign we were almost there. I remember when we were kids, Collin and I used to get so excited crossing this bridge. We loved going to Ina and George’s.” She let out a little laugh. “Last Thanksgiving on our way here, I noticed Collin had way too much product in his hair. He had his window open, but his hair didn’t budge an inch. I could have broken off a piece of it. I remember teasing him, and Mom and Dad were laughing. Collin’s face got red and he started cracking up too. He had the funniest laugh. You should have heard it….”

Still staring out the window, she said nothing for a moment. Then the smile ran away from her face. “That was the last time I drove here with my family. I can’t believe they’re all gone now. I can’t believe I actually could have…” She trailed off and shook her head.

From the backseat, Jessie leaned forward and patted Amelia on the shoulder.

Karen glanced at her on the passenger side. Amelia had her head down. She absently twirled a strand of her hair around her finger—the same nervous tic Haley had had.

Karen remembered Amelia doing that during their very first session.

Someone from Student Health Services at the University of Washington had referred the 19-year-old to Karen. Karen didn’t have much information on her potential new client, except that her track record with therapists hadn’t been too marvelous. She’d been having problems with alcohol and joined this campus group, Booze Busters. That had worked for a while, but she’d fallen off the wagon when her kid brother had drowned three weeks before.

When Karen answered her door for their first session that warm Friday afternoon, she was surprised at how beautiful Amelia was. The soft-spoken, polite girl had wavy black hair and blue eyes. She wore a pink oxford-cloth shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals. She said, “Yes, thank you,” to a bottle of water, and sat at one end of the sofa in Karen’s study. “So—what do you know about me?” she asked.

Karen settled in her easy chair with a notebook and pen. “Not very much, just what they told me at the U’s Student Health Services. Do you know anything about me?”

“Not very much,” Amelia echoed her, a tiny smile flickering on her face. “But I Googled you. Under ‘Karen Carlisle, Counselor, Seattle,’ there were a few links. I found out that you’re thirty-six years old. You graduated with honors from UCLA. You have a master’s in Social Work from the U, and you were a counselor at Group Health for five years before you started counseling on your own. Your name kept coming up in articles about that girl who got killed last month, Haley Something. Was she a client of yours?”

“She was a friend,” Karen answered carefully. “But we’re not here to talk about her.”

“I guess you’re right. This is my hour.” Amelia sipped her water. “Well, I suppose you know I’ve been through a lot of therapists. I’m like a one-session wonder with them.”

Karen shifted a bit in her chair. “Why is that?”

Amelia shrugged. “They were all dorks.”

“Dorks,” Karen repeated.

Amelia nodded. “For example, my Aunt Ina recommended this Dr. Racine, absolutely raved about her. And she turned out to be awful. The whole time I was talking to her, she sat there and stroked this ugly cat in her lap. I don’t think she was even listening. Every once in a while, she just said something like, ‘You own that,’ or ‘That’s valid.’ I mean, spare me.”

“Okay, so that’s one crummy therapist,” Karen said. “What about the others?”

Amelia rolled her eyes. “Well, there was this hippie, who seemed very promising until the end of our first session, when he gave me a homework assignment. He wanted me to go home, get some magazines, and clip out pictures and words that made me feel happy—and pictures and words that made me sad. And then I was supposed to make two posters: a happy collage and a sad collage. So I went home, got some magazines, and found this picture of a little girl waving at someone from a car window. I think it was an auto insurance ad or something. I clipped that out, and cut out the word Good-bye. Then I made a little poster of that and mailed it to him.”

Karen nodded. She was trying to figure out this young woman, who had come across as so vulnerable and sweet when they’d met just ten minutes ago. But she had a smartass streak, too. Karen wondered just how much of what Amelia said was true.

“Then there was this Arab guy—not that it makes any difference. I just couldn’t understand him half the time because his English was terrible. He tried to hypnotize me, and kept screaming at me in his thick accent that I was reseesting. And I wasn’t, I swear. Honest to God, I was trying to be a good subject.”

“Why was he hypnotizing you?”

Amelia sipped her water. She brushed a piece of lint off the sofa arm. Her focus seemed intent on that. “He was trying to get me to remember stuff about my childhood, before the Faradays adopted me. Didn’t Student Health Services tell you that I was adopted when I was four?”

Karen shook her head. She made a quick note: Adopted @ 4 yrs old. “Do you know what happened to your biological parents?” she asked.

“Nope. One of my first therapists was all hot on finding out about them. So my dad tried to get in touch with the adoption agency in Spokane. Turned out the place burned down after the Faradays adopted me. All their records went up in smoke. My folks thought about hiring a private detective to look into it further. I’m sure it couldn’t be too tough tracking down state or county records. I mean, the information’s there, somewhere. Am I right?”

“I suppose,” Karen allowed. “So did they hire a private detective?”

“Nope. They dropped the idea when I dropped the therapist.” She cocked her head to one side and squinted at Karen. “I have a feeling my folks would rather I not know about my biological parents.”

“If that’s true, it’s certainly understandable,” Karen said. “How do you feel? Do you want to know more about your birth parents?”

Amelia started to fiddle with her hair, and wrapped a strand around her finger. “I guess I’m curious.”

Karen stared at her, and remembered Haley. She felt a little pang in her heart. “Well, that’s normal enough,” she said, smiling. “So, Amelia, what do you hope to get out of these sessions with me?”

“Well, I’d like to have more control in my life. I’m tired of being so screwed up.”

“In what way do you feel screwed up?”

“I drink. I have blackouts. I don’t remember doing certain things.”

“What kind of things?” Karen asked.

“For example, I started seeing this really sweet guy, Shane, about two months ago. Well, one afternoon last week, he saw me at a stoplight in the University District in a beat-up Cadillac with some goony-looking urban-grunge type. He said I was all over this guy.” Amelia shook her head. “I swear to God, I didn’t remember any of it. But after Shane described the guy and his car to me, I had this vague impression that it really happened. I can’t help thinking I might have had sex with this other guy. I went and got tested just to make sure I didn’t pick up any STDs from this—this stranger.”

“So how did the tests turn out?” Karen asked with concern.

“Negative—all around. I begged Shane to forgive me, and he did, thank God. He knows I didn’t do it consciously.” She gave a pitiful shrug. “Anyway, see what I mean about being screwed-up and not having any control?”

With a sigh, Karen leaned back in her chair. “Well, you know, Amelia, I don’t mean to preach at you. But blackouts, memory loss, and erratic behavior generally come with the territory when people drink excessively.”

“I wasn’t drinking that afternoon. I was napping all day at a friend’s house—at least I thought I was napping.”

“Were you sick?”

“No. Hungover,” she murmured. Her eyes wrestled with Karen’s for a moment. “Listen, I was having blackouts when I was in Booze Busters and totally off the sauce. So it’s not just connected to the drinking. I’ve always had this problem with—with lost time, ever since I was a kid. I was pretty screwed up back then, too, having nightmares all the time, along with these pains. My mom used to call them phantom pains. But they were real to me, they hurt like hell. I remember one in particular when I was six. I was playing in the backyard, by our dock, and out of nowhere, I suddenly got this terrible burning sensation on the back of my wrist. I let out such a shriek. I swear to God, it felt like someone was putting out a lit cigar on me. Mom thought a wasp might have stung me or something. But there was no sign of anything wrong. Still, it hurt like hell for days afterward.

“That’s why I started drinking on the sly in early high school. It numbed these weird pains. And after a few drinks, I’d drag myself to bed and pass out. And I didn’t have to lie there for an eternity with my usual tossing, turning, and worrying about the nightmares. Hell, for a long time, drinking was my salvation.”

“So—do you think you’re better off with an alcohol dependency?” Karen asked.

Amelia shook her head. “I’m not defending my drinking. I’m just saying that I was having these problems a long time before I tipped back my first shot of Jack Daniel’s.”

“Do you still get these pains?” Karen asked.

“No, thank God. They stopped around the time I was sixteen.” Amelia sighed. “Anyway, that’s why some of the other therapists wanted to explore my early childhood. I mean, something must have happened to me early on to make me this screwed up, right?”

Karen smiled. “Do us both a favor and stop referring to yourself as screwed up, okay?”

Amelia smiled back at her. “Okay.”

“Can you remember anything from that time before the Faradays adopted you?”

She started to peel at the label on the water bottle. “Just fragments. I remember one night, sitting alone in a car, in the front seat. I was cold—and tired. The car was parked by this forest. It was dark all around me, and I could hear screams. I remember thinking, ‘When the screaming stops, then we can go home.’”

Karen stared at her. She didn’t write anything down. “Do you know who was screaming? By any chance, did you recognize the voice?”

Amelia shrugged. “Some woman, I don’t know.”

“Were you frightened?”

“No, I just remember wanting to go home. That’s it. There’s nothing else to it. Like I said, it’s just fragments of memory.”

“Do you recall who took you home?” Karen asked.

Amelia shook her head.

“I’m just trying to piece this together, Amelia,” Karen explained. “Earlier you said, ‘When the screaming stops, then we can go home.’ Who’s ‘we’?”

“I told you, I don’t remember,” she replied, a bit edgy.

“Okay,” Karen nodded, reading her discomfort. “Let’s move on. Is there anything else from your early childhood you’d like to tell me about? Did you have any friends or playmates?”

Amelia took a moment to answer, and Karen quickly jotted in her notes: “Young A in car alone @ nite—screams outside—go home when screaming stops.”

“I remember there was a little playhouse in a neighbor’s yard. I think it was a toolshed, but he’d fixed it up like a playhouse with a small, red, plastic table and chair inside. I have this vague recollection of eating cookies at that little table.”

“Tell me about this neighbor. He sounds nice.”

She nodded. “He was Native American. I liked him, but I don’t think I was supposed to be around him. He had beautiful, long black hair almost down to his shoulders. I couldn’t tell you how old he was. Everyone over twelve at that time seemed like an adult to me. He wore a denim jacket. I wish I could remember his name, but I can’t.” She sighed. “When that one therapist tried to hypnotize me, that’s what I was hoping for most of all—to remember the name of that nice neighbor man.”

“Have any names from that time stuck with you?” Karen asked.

Amelia frowned. “Unca-dween. I’m not sure if it was a person or a place. It could have been a nickname. I know it wasn’t my Native American friend, because when I think about Unca-dween, it doesn’t make me happy.”

Karen scribbled down the name, not quite sure of the spelling. “Any other fragments you might remember?”

Amelia took a swig from the water bottle. “Well, I have a feeling I might have been attacked or molested somewhere along the line. The other therapists all said I was repressing something. But I have this memory of being in my underpants and standing by a tub—I think it was in the bathroom at home. My mother was shaking me and asking me over and over again, ‘Did he touch you down there?’ I sort of knew what she meant. But she seemed so angry and upset that I pretended not to know. I just cried and said I was sorry. I don’t know why I was apologizing. I guess I was just scared.”

“But the incident she was questioning you about—”

“I don’t remember it at all,” Amelia said, shaking her head. “And I have only this vague impression of what my biological mother looked like. She had long, wavy black hair. I remember this one blouse of hers—white with a pattern of gold pocket watches and chains. I thought it was just gorgeous.”

“Do you have any memories of your father?” Karen asked.

“None,” Amelia answered quickly.

“You mentioned your mother talking to you in the bathroom. Do you remember any other room in the house?”

“I think there was a bomb shelter in the basement.” Amelia fiddled with her hair for a moment. “It could have been someone else’s house, maybe when I was older. But I remember standing in the basement just outside this big, thick door. I was talking to someone inside the little room. It could have been part of a dream for all I know. But the memory’s there.

“The only other thing that stands out about that time was I used to talk to myself in the mirror a lot. I don’t think I had many playmates my age, because all I remember is being alone and talking in the mirror.” She let out a little laugh. “So what do you make of that? Early signs of a split personality?”

Karen laughed. “Boy, you have been to a lot of therapists, haven’t you? But let me do the analysis, okay?”

Amelia had started them down memory lane, so Karen let her continue. She asked if she recalled spending time in any foster homes before the Faradays adopted her. In so many cases with adopted children, there were horror stories involving foster parents. But Amelia had no such memories. “I think they were all pretty nice. I didn’t stay with anyone for very long. I have a feeling I was on the market for only a short while before the Faradays picked me up. My poor parents, they probably thought they were getting this great deal, because I was a pretty little girl. What a letdown it must have been to find out I was damaged goods.”

“Why do you feel that way, Amelia?” Karen asked.

Amelia shrugged.

“Have your folks ever said or done anything to make you feel that way?”

Amelia smiled and shook her head. “No, from the very start, they made me feel loved….” She described going for a walk with her potential new mother on her first day with the Faradays; her first impressions of a playground and a Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors ice cream parlor not far from their house. She remembered some time later, after the adoption was official, when she learned she would soon have a baby brother or sister to play with. She had her first sleep-over—at her Aunt Ina’s apartment—the night Collin was born.

“Is this—the brother who died recently?” Karen asked hesitantly.

Amelia nodded.

“Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”

“No,” she muttered. Then she cleared her throat. “It was just Collin and me.”

“I’m sorry,” Karen said. “Were you…very close to him?”

She nodded again. Amelia had tears brimming in her eyes, yet she was stone-faced. There was a box of Kleenex right beside her on the end table, but she didn’t reach for one.

“I was told he died in a drowning accident. Is that right?”

“No, that’s not right,” she whispered, staring at Karen.

She was almost expressionless, yet a single tear slid down her cheek. “My brother’s death wasn’t an accident. I know it wasn’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Amelia quickly wiped away that one tear. “Because I killed him.”

Karen remembered the silence in her study after Amelia had made that statement. It had lasted only a few seconds, but seemed longer, like the silence in the car now, as they reached the West Seattle side of the bridge.

“Stay on this road for a while,” Amelia said tonelessly. “The turnoff for my uncle’s house is after we pass California Avenue. I’ll tell you when it’s coming up.”

Karen took her eyes off the road for a moment, and looked at her.

Her head tipped against the window, Amelia stared straight ahead with the same stone-faced expression she’d had after telling Karen that she’d killed her brother. And once again, there were tears locked in her eyes.