I glance at unconscious Don, wondering what I ever saw in the man. Then I look over at Joe. His back is to me, but I can also see the side of his face. In just a few short days, perhaps based on years that I don’t remember, I’ve fallen deeply in love with that man, and it’s killing me that I can’t trust him. I want to believe him, want to trust that he’s been completely honest with me, but there are too many red flags.
And I don’t know why I’m even worried about that right now. Probably because we’re in a lull time and there’s not a damn thing I can do until the psychiatrist gets here. I can’t think about the future, can’t think about what will happen if we can’t convince the authorities.
When the exterior garage door opens, I get closer to Joe. It’s a black truck with big tires and we see through the windshield that it’s driven by a burly looking guy with facial hair.
Not Dr. Wilson.
Five minutes pass before a tiny silver car with an equally tiny blonde woman passes through. Just minutes later comes a burgundy sedan—and through the windshield I see the person we’re looking for.
Without hesitation, Joe jumps out and Dr. Wilson slams on the brakes, making a squealing sound on the concrete. She gets out of the car and says, “What are you doing down here?”
“We have Donald Clawson over here in the van.”
Dr. Wilson’s already pale face turns even pastier. “What do you mean you have him?”
“I mean you’ll have to come over here to talk to him. He’s tied up at the moment.”
“Jesus.” She leaves her car running, the door open, and Joe brings her over—but she’s smart. She doesn’t allow herself to be completely trapped between us and the two vans. It’s also possible that her girth makes her uncomfortable in snug spaces, but I’m guessing it’s that she’s thinking. When she sees Don’s legs, she asks, “Why isn’t he moving?” If she got closer, she’d see his bloody head.
“He was being an asshole, so I knocked him out.”
“What’s going on here?”
Joe’s done all the talking up to this point, but now it’s my turn. “Dr. Wilson,” I say, and she finally looks at me. The expression on her face tells me so much. She despises me, resents me, and I don’t understand why. Perhaps because I became her burden instead of Don’s. But I’m not going to ask her about any of that. “I need you to connect some dots for us, help us puzzle out some things we don’t understand. We know that, approximately two years ago, my husband had a teenage girl restrained in my basement. When I found out, he poisoned me.” I don’t know if the word poisoned is exactly accurate, but I don’t care. He incapacitated me somehow by putting an unknown substance in my drink. The word poisoned works.
“Later that night, he brought me and the girl to you and somehow you managed to erase all my memories. I don’t know what happened to the girl, but I know you also have a file on her and lots of other young girls.”
Dr. Wilson has a sneer on her face, but her lips are clamped shut. The garage door opens and a blue hatchback pauses inside the doorway and starts honking. Joe says, “I got this.” Dr. Wilson doesn’t even respond as he runs over to her car and pulls it to the side, shutting off the engine and closing the door while the other car moves around.
Dr. Wilson says, “I don’t know what you think I have to do with any of this.”
This woman holds the key to all my missing memories, and I’m ready to do to her what Joe did to Don—torture her until she talks. But I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going to try to appeal to her reason. “We have evidence against you, so you might as well spit it out. One, we know you and Don were working together. Two, we know you were taking in girls he brought to you. Three, we know you erased my memory because of what I knew about it.”
“Just what evidence do you have?” she asks as Joe rejoins us.
I consider not telling her, just in case she doesn’t think it’s enough—but I suspect she’s not going to say anything if I don’t put the pressure on. I know, if it comes to it, that Joe would rough her up on my behalf, but I really don’t want to go there.
I’m going to take the chance. “We have text messages between you and Don. We have the files in your office.” Well…we don’t actually have them yet but we will.
“Let me see them.”
I hold up the cell phone. “Would you like me to read your conversations?” Opening up the texts, I start reading. “The package is arriving tonight,” I say, reading the first text. “We’ll be ready. That kind of thing is repeated over and over at various dates and times.” She seems unmoved, so I just read each one rapidly, starting with the exchange between her and Don when he basically ordered her to take me and the other girl in. After reading, I look up. While the snarl on her lip makes her appear defiant, the fear in her eyes tells me she’s closer to thinking about talking.
I continue, “I have another long-term package for you. Needs placement with you ASAP. Long-term?” I glance at Joe, as if to let Dr. Wilson know that we know the next text refers to him. “Eyes for me.” I take a chance, changing the next text to include my name—and I hope she doesn’t remember that he only referred to me by my first initial. “Someone to watch Anna when you can’t be around. To report to you if treatment fails to work.” Again, I look up at her. “Need more? How about this one? You need to visit your wife. Looks suspicious if you don’t.” If this doesn’t make her crack, nothing will—so I say, “You can either tell us or tell the cops. Up to you.”
I can see a bead of perspiration forming on her forehead where the hair parts, and the way she’s breathing, I’m afraid she’s going to give herself a heart attack. “Look, all I ever wanted to do was retire somewhere down south—like Cabo or Belize or Ecuador.” Like I give a shit what she wanted. How many lives has this woman helped ruin because she wants to retire somewhere warm? I hope she can read that on my face before she continues. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know if you let me go. You’ll never hear from me again. I’ll retire like I planned and that will be that.”
I’m not willing to do that. At this point, I hope we have enough evidence and information to convince the authorities that we can nail this woman and Don to the wall—but Joe, my street smart friend, speaks up. “I think that’s a perfect exchange.”
I’m not about to correct him.
And she starts spilling. “Your husband was my attorney back in the day. I had a few malpractice lawsuits that he took care of. Before he became a representative, he connected with some rich and powerful men who were willing to make sure he got elected in exchange for some favors. First, introduce and help pass laws that benefit them in all sorts of ways but, more importantly, help them organize a scheme.” The cars are starting to come through the garage doors regularly and Dr. Wilson pauses to glance at them. Maybe she’s hoping someone will rescue her or realize that we’re escaped patients that she needs their help with.
So far, they keep driving. After all, they’re not on the clock yet.
And Dr. Wilson’s not a very nice person.