A Desperate Silence (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 3) (6 page)

     
Bobby bit his tongue and let silence fill the next few spaces. He was afraid Vargas would cut him loose. Then the shaking would spread from his hands to his teeth—he wouldn't be able to stop the monkey chatter.

     
Help me
. For a bad moment, Bobby thought he'd spoken his plea aloud, but the words echoed safely in his head. He knew he'd fallen too far into the abyss known as deep cover. He'd done one too many lines, taken one too many needles in the name of narco cop turned bad.

     
He'd never intended for it to go this way. When he'd started out, the boundaries had been clear. Still wet behind the ears, fresh from the academy, a training project with the feds, he'd taken to undercover work.
I can do this. I can stand on the line and never cross it. I can straddle the border between the good guys and the bad guys and never lose my balance
. What the hell had he been thinking?

     
Bobby spat on the sidewalk, then hunched low into his ribs as a Juárez city patrol unit cruised slowly past. When had he gone from being a straight-ahead cop to being a cop with a habit? A junkie. A freak. But still a cop who desperately needed to pass on information.

     
He played his card. "I heard something—about Snow White."

     
Somewhere, at the other end of this electromagnetic encounter, Vargas expelled smoke with a shudder.

     
Bobby pressed. "Snow White and a little dwarf in danger."

     
Vargas was silent a moment, absorbing information that carried heavy weight. Finally, he said, "I'll find you—two, maybe three hours."

     
Dowd tried to quell the panic that danced a tango in his stomach. He spoke softly, "TNT-time, Roadrunner. Don't forget your ole pal Wile E." He dropped the phone, letting it swing on its coiled wire cord. He glanced at the street, then he started down the alley. He had ten blocks to cover to his usual spot for a meeting with Vargas—but he had hours to kill. He moved with a casualness that belied his truly miserable state.

     
Unfamiliar fingers of self-pity stroked his skin. He needed a shot of tequila to loosen him up so he could function. One or two shots and he could truly refocus. His feet began to move faster, each step taking him closer to a bottle and that zone of higher consciousness.

     
He could still turn it all around. Bobby Dowd clung to that hope, he fanned it like a spark. It wasn't too late. He just had to talk to Victor Vargas. The funny thing was, of all the cops Dowd had known—on either side of the border—Vargas was the one he trusted most. When they'd first met, Vargas had mocked the rookie's black-and-white world. The Mexican lived in a realm that was solid gray, where you never knew if you were crossing the line because the line shifted every second.

     
No . . . Victor Vargas was no saint, but he had a kind of wild honor. And he had something pumping in his chest, something that closely resembled a heart.

     
It wasn't too late to save the life of Paco's little dwarf . . .

     
A hazy picture wavered in front of Bobby's eyes like a desert mirage: Paco sitting with another man at a back table at Rosa's place . . . they were three quarters of the way through a bottle of rough tequila and the bookkeeper was telling crazy stories that made the other man laugh. Stories about treasure hidden in a straw house—that made the other man joke about the three little pigs. Stories about books with magic powers, and a little girl—or was the little girl the one who was magic?

     
Paco had told wild stories to a lost man, to a narco cop named Bobby Dowd.

     
And now Bobby had the horrible knowledge that he'd failed Paco and his little girl. Failed them badly.

     
He stumbled as he crossed the street behind a low-slung sedan. He heard the mellow tones of Conjunto Bernal flowing from someone's radio. He glanced at a sign as he turned the next corner. Five more blocks to a safe haven. He was off the hard stuff for good. No more crack, no more black.

     
Two hookers called to him in Spanish as he crossed their territory; he knew by their voices they were stoned—black tar,
chiva
, Mexican white, whatever their pimp supplied. When Bobby didn't respond the hookers laughed and lazily peppered him with insults.

     
Three more blocks and a place to disappear.

     
He felt the tail before he recognized the low throb of a Mercedes engine. Without looking back, he automatically picked up pace, scanning for an escape route. From the corner of his eye he caught sight of a narrow opening between buildings. He had no idea if it was a dead end or a way out, but he cut sideways, out of options. Running flat out, he heard footsteps behind him. He ducked past a pile of trash, past a pair of street cats tangling. Their agonized yowls should have made his hair stand up, but all he heard was the sound of footsteps at his heels.

     
As he ran, Bobby Dowd braced himself for a bullet or a blade between his shoulders. But the end of the tunnel came first—the dead end. Nobody shot him. Instead, they slammed him into the filthy cinder-block wall. Pain electrified every nerve in his body—he flashed on Wile E. Coyote ramrod stiff and dynamite-charred but still breathing—and then darkness kissed him on both eyes.

CHAPTER SIX

A
T TWO O'CLOCK
, Sylvia finished a turkey sandwich in her office and thought about closing up for the day. She had fulfilled her obligations—the court custody hearing and the session with Serena. Nothing else was on her schedule, the open page in her appointment book was blank. It would stay that way. Albert Kove might have lured her prematurely from her sabbatical—she had allowed that to happen for the child's sake, but she still had a book to finish, a contract to fulfill.

     
In the hour since Serena's departure, Sylvia had organized files and made one phone call to her editor in New York for a long-distance discussion of a deadline extension.
Broken Bonds: The Search for the Lost Father
—the book was nonfiction like her first, but less academic, more personal. It was based on a series of case studies; the individuals included inmates, a teacher, a doctor, a few high-profile faces. Sylvia's personal story opened and closed the book—or would if the private investigator she'd hired to track down her long-missing father would get on the stick. It was difficult to write a last chapter when you didn't know how the story ended.

     
When it came to extending the book's deadline, Sylvia's editor had been sympathetic but uncooperative, offering only a ribald riddle in parting: "What did Little Red Riding Hood say to the Big Bad Wolf? Hurry up and eat me before Grandma gets home."

     
Sylvia sat back in her chair. The office was quiet. Kove was in a session with a client. Marjorie, the Forensic Evaluation Unit's secretary, had walked two blocks to the downtown post office to mail letters. Sylvia rested her feet on the desk, aiming scraps of wadded paper at the wastebasket. Absently, she studied the view of the Diego Building's courtyard. The apricot trees had lost most of their leaves, while the foliage of the Russian olive shimmered in the watery sunlight. But her mind wasn't on the shifting light or the fall colors. Her thoughts centered on Serena.

     
For the past hour, the child's drawing had lain on Sylvia's desk. Repeatedly, the grim, moody image had caught her eye and her imagination. Now she let her fingers play over the crayon colors, twisting the page, turning the world upside down . . . her focus softened—and the cross, the house, the letters disappeared. Sylvia sat forward. The reversed image swam in her vision. Positive. Negative.

     
When she let the white background surge forward in her view, the
X
's resembled eyes, the house became a snout, the cross jutted out like the forked tongue of a beast. Consciously or not, the child had drawn the face of a demon.

     
Sylvia flipped through her Rolodex and reached for the telephone. She dialed an international exchange and listened to the short, quick rings. A sleepy-sounding woman answered, indignantly spouting French. Sylvia didn't understand one word of the tirade. She simply repeated, "Dr. Tompkins,
merci
," until her peer was summoned to the telephone.

     
Margaret Tompkins was a child psychiatrist who taught at the university in Albuquerque when she wasn't living in Paris.

     
After a quick greeting, Sylvia went straight to the point: "I'm working with a child—court-ordered. I may not have much time with her." She filled Margaret in on Serena's background—as much as they knew. The psychiatrist came back with a dozen questions. During a pause that seemed longer because of the miles between them, Sylvia said, "Margaret, last winter, when you presented your paper to the A.P.A. . . . two of the case studies were selectively mute children."

     
Margaret Tompkins sneezed and said something incomprehensible. It took Sylvia a moment to realize the psychiatrist was talking to someone in French. She waited and finally heard words she understood.

     
"You think this is selective mutism?" Another sneeze. "That will be interesting for you. I wish I was a bit closer so I could look at her myself." She sniffled. "You described abnormality in her physical movements—"

     
"She seems . . . stiff."

     
"A frozen gait? And she's not communicating verbally—we don't know if she was verbal in her home situation—and we don't have a
normal
situation for comparison. At the moment, no family background, no reports from school, no medical history." Dr. Tompkins blew her nose. "Well, my dear, you've got your work cut out for you."

     
"What about field research?"

     
"A few papers have been published, but there really aren't reams floating around out there. I am glad they stopped calling it
elective
mutism—everyone thinks these kids won't talk because they're just plain stubborn. Not true." She sniffled again. "Try the Internet. Chess and Thomas published something; it's more than ten years old, but it still holds water."

     
Selective mutism described children who were physically capable of speech and who might even be socially dominant
inside
the family setting—but they became "frozen" out in the world. If Sylvia remembered correctly, the rare childhood disorder had several basic parameters: a close-knit and often culturally alienated family situation; an overprotective mother figure and an overly attached child; identity and personality issues for a child who tended to be shy, withdrawn, and oversensitive from birth.

     
Dr. Tompkins gave an audible sigh. "If she's suffered abuse, or if she's witnessed traumatic events—"

     
"Then the normal response would be obsessive oral repetition—a verbal reliving of the trauma."

     
"Exactly." Margaret Tompkins continued: "Eventually she'll expel what she can't stand to keep inside." Pause. "The interesting question will be
how
she expels the experience . . . because it probably won't be verbal."

     
"Through her drawings?"

     
"You say she drew a demon . . . . Beware the interpretation of some demonic abuser; the demon may well be
inside
the child." She suppressed a sneeze. "Damn this cold. Let her know that silence is acceptable. Are you still doing that meditation of yours?"

     
"I try to sit every day, if that's what you mean."

     
"It will come in handy." Margaret Tompkins's smile was clear in her voice. "But don't be too patient, Sylvia. I don't want to be a doomsayer, but you know how intractable this disorder can be. Especially for children older than ten. It's crucial that the effects of additional trauma be identified and dealt with as quickly as possible—that is, if you want this child to have a fighting chance."

     
"If you're trying to alarm me, you're succeeding."

     
"Oh, dear." Dr. Tompkins lightened her tone. "What you need is a detective who can get to the bottom of the facts."

     
"I've got a detective. I sleep with him on a regular basis."

     
Sylvia was startled by an intrusive electronic beep that signaled a call on her other line. She gave a frustrated groan. "I'm sorry, Margaret, can you hold?"

     
A few seconds later, she was back. "I'm going to have to say good-bye; I've got an emergency—"

     
"Then go." Margaret Tompkins's voice grew faint. "Sylvia? Don't forget how infatuating wounded children can be."

     
Sylvia started to thank the psychiatrist, but Margaret had already hung up.

     
Nellie Trujillo, Serena's foster mother, was waiting on the second line. She spoke rapidly, her voice full of worry and frustration. "You need to get over here right away. She's driving me crazy—"

     
"Slow down." Sylvia heard the sound of keening in the background. "Is that Serena? What's happening?"

     
"She's throwing things around, dragging them outside, acting crazy. Crying and screaming—"

     
"Is there anything around that can hurt her—broken glass, scissors?"

     
"I don't think so. I can see her from here—" Nellie yelled suddenly, "Put that down!"

     
"What set her off?"

     
"Nothing. She was watching TV. Then she just went nuts. I thought she was a nice kid, but she's a little monster!"

     
"What was on the television?"