A creaking sound startles me next. When I spin around, I realize it was Dr. Erling opening her office door.
“Ally, what’s happening?” she asks, clearly registering the expression on my face. I see her eyes go to my bruise, too.
“I—I thought I saw something out there. Something black in the side yard.”
She crosses to one of the bare windows and studies the surroundings.
“Do you think it was a person?” Her expression is wary, and I can tell I’ve alarmed her a little, especially since she knows about Mulroney’s murder.
“I don’t know.”
“It might have been a crow,” she says. “They tend to congregate at this time of day. But come inside, and I’ll lock the door behind us.”
I follow her into the large, comfortable office. Erling quickly locks the door, and I watch her push aside the cream-colored curtain above the door, taking a last look at the yard with a furrowed brow. My stomach is in knots now, as if someone is wringing it like a sponge.
“No need to worry now,” she assures me.
She gestures for me to sit, and I choose the middle of the couch, the same spot I took during my first visit here. Erling relaxes into the armchair across from me. She’s dressed more casually than usual—black pants and a knee-length gray cardigan buttoned over a paler gray blouse—but it’s the weekend, after all. Her hair’s pulled back into a loose French twist, instead of down around her shoulders.
“Your face,” she says as I slip out of my coat.
“So much has happened since we spoke.”
“How are you feeling right now?”
“Incredibly tense. Partly, I guess, from thinking I saw something. But at least I haven’t had that out-of-body sensation again—not since I left the city for here.”
“Good. You came by Uber?”
“Yes, it was easy enough.”
“Since you’ll need a car for the return, I suggest you schedule it now rather than trying to summon one when we’re finished. They’re sometimes hard to order here on short notice.”
I feel a little frustrated by the delay—I need to tell her about Wargo trying to kill me and Hugh’s deceit—but I fish out my phone first and program in the information for the trip home. My hand trembles as I tap in the details. I was so sure I’d be more at ease once I arrived here, but I’m still engulfed in a swirl of dread and anxiety.
“Sorry to make you take the time to do that,” Erling says when I’ve completed the task. “But this way you’re guaranteed a car, rather than having to take a train and then get home from Grand Central.”
I nod dully. I take a deep breath to calm myself, which, for a second at least, seems to work. And then I find myself staring off in the middle distance, thinking. An answer slides into my brain, like a note on a slip of paper.
“Ally?”
“Sorry—I . . .”
“What is it?”
“Mulroney, the private detective who was murdered? His partner, Jay, went through the file on me and found notations Mulroney had made about the Tuesday I disappeared. There was a set of initials—G.C. Do you think it could mean Grand Central?”
“Hmmm.”
“Jay assumed it was a person’s initials, but maybe . . . maybe Mulroney thought I went to Grand Central that day. I could have gone by cab—or taken the number 1 train to Forty-Second Street and then the shuttle over.”
“Does that make any sense to you?”
“Uh, not really. I don’t often have reason to be in that area. And the only time I’ve been to Grand Central lately is to take the train here for the appointment I had with you. Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
“Unless I was . . . confused.” I touch my fingers to my temple. In my mind’s eye I see myself walking up the side path to the conservatory in my trench coat, my heart thrumming in my ears.
“How do you mean?”
“Maybe . . . You said you wanted me to do my session here that week. Could I have misunderstood and come here on Tuesday instead? Or convinced myself it was Wednesday? Is that why I called Sasha—to try to figure out what I did wrong?”
“Is that what you think, Ally?”
“I—I don’t know.” I drop my hand and run my gaze around the room, hoping it will offer an answer. My eyes settle on the dark wood coffee table. There’s a slim pewter tray with a glass and a pitcher of water, and next to the tray, a box of tissues.
As I stare at the tissues, my whole body begins to vibrate, as if someone is shaking me lightly from behind. An image begins to form in my mind—vague, blurred around the edges.
“I see myself,” I blurt out. “I’m standing here. Here in this room. I . . . grabbed some of the tissues because . . . there was blood. And . . .”
I scrunch my face, trying to keep the memory from escaping.
“And what, Ally?”
“I was here. It was the wrong day. I—” A small wave of panic crests in my core and begins to ripple through my arms and legs. I struggle for air.
“Breathe, Ally,” Erling says, but there’s a weird edge to her voice. “Breathe.”
The image in my mind expands, amoeba-like. Now I see a woman lying faceup on the rug, eyes opened and glazed, blood pooled around her head. I’m dabbing at the wound with the tissues.
“There was a body on the floor!” I exclaim.
“That’s right,” Erling says, her voice eerily calm. “The body of a woman. I’d murdered her that day.”
32
My heart slams again my chest, and I feel my mouth slacken in astonishment.
“I didn’t plan to tell you, actually,” Erling says, not letting go of my eyes. “Oh, I was going to have to deal with this awkward situation you and I have found ourselves in, but there was no reason for you to know the gory details. But now you’ve gone and remembered.”
I stare, frozen in place.
“Who was she?”
“If you must know—and I suppose there’s no harm in telling you at this point—she was a woman I knew years ago. Someone I’d . . . I’d had a fling with. Someone I was actually besotted with to be perfectly honest. Stupidly so.”
“But wh—?”
“Why kill her? Our affair had been a dreadful mistake. She was a patient of mine, and after a while, I came to my senses. I met a man after that, married him, moved away. Got divorced. But she tracked me down. I teach a class on Tuesday mornings, and she was waiting outside the house when I returned around eleven. I knew right away that this was going to be about me paying the piper. She wanted money, lots of it, or she was going to expose me—and she had the paper trail to prove things. I would have lost my license. My teaching job.
“As I hope you’ve seen, Ally, I love what I do and I’m good at it. I couldn’t let her destroy it so I stepped out of the room to get us coffee and returned with a gun I keep. And then I shot her.”
I’m speechless, words stuck in my head, but I sense the muscles of my face contorting.
“I can see you’re horrified,” Erling says. “But there’s no reason to be. She was a dreadful human being—narcissistic, borderline personality. In lay terms, she’d be called a grifter.”