Intrusion (4 page)

My mind plucks at that one concept—no other person—as it might the one thread that will almost definitely unravel the rest of a sweater. Just me, no one else, only me, only me in his inner sanctum, I think, and then end up in a tangled mess on the floor.

It's a wonder I can answer at all.

“It's Beth,” I tell him, but it takes an effort—so much so that I almost mispronounce my own name. Somewhere in that one syllable there is definitely an extra letter. It almost sounds like I said
Beath
, though he hardly seems to notice.

His busy curiosity is already working on something else.

“Is that with an
a-n-y
on the end or an
e-l-i-z
at the beginning?”

“Neither—just Beth without anything extra. My parents were weird, I guess.”

“No more than mine. They called me Noah Gideon Grant.”

“I don't think there's anything wrong with that.”

“Your lips say it's okay, but your eyes say
weird
.”

“Maybe I like weird. Maybe I like it a lot.”

“I guess you wouldn't be here if you didn't.”

I see the way he's holding the fork I gave him, like a spear primed for the battle of casual conversation. I watch him eat all the crumbs around the slice, ever-neatening it until that triangle is perfect enough to put in a math test.

And I love it, I love it all.

“That seems like a fair assumption.”

“Are you not going to eat your piece?”

“I'm too busy concentrating on you eating yours.”

“I could stop straightening the corners if that would help.”

“Who says I want to be helped?”

“You do—with your eyes,” he says, and I know immediately that he means something other than what we were just talking about. Suddenly, it isn't about whether I need him not to be so odd. It's about the other matter I need help with. My legs kick in the darkness behind my eyes, and the memory makes me flinch.

And of course he catches it.

“Sorry, I know that was. . .not the right thing to say. I have some trouble turning off my compulsive need to assess and analyze,” he says, and I'm grateful.

Now I have a way out.

“Are you psychiatrist?” I ask with as much nonchalance as I can manage. I want to seem like I'm not changing the subject, even though I definitely fucking am.

And now it's his turn to look uncomfortable. He looks much the same as I think I did a second ago—as though he revealed something he didn't quite mean to, or knows he now has to talk about something he'd rather avoid.

“In a roundabout sort of way. I taught subjects like that.”

“Where did you teach?”

“Are we getting into those kinds of questions already?”

He sounds restless, agitated somehow—but hey, he opened the door.

“You just raised the subject of my mental state. I think we probably passed being coy about our jobs around then.”

“I didn't mean to. It was a mistake, and I can see that it was awkward of me. As you might have guessed, I don't have the ability to engage in casual chitchat. Somehow, I always end up talking about something so terrible everyone just wants to throw themselves off a cliff,” he says, and I see him roll his eyes at himself. I swear, some of his expressions are so big and so open I hardly know how no one guessed what he is really like.

One look should have done the trick—and he's giving me a lot more than one look.

“You're much too hard on yourself. Cliff diving was the last thing on my mind.”

“But you've started eating your pie in pretty huge bites. And that thing you do—rubbing one thumb over your forefinger, back and forth. Obviously a nervous habit.”

“Thank you, Dr. Grant. Do you take checks?”

“I told you I couldn't turn it off. That was actually me reducing the urge down to the smallest possible thing, too.”

“What would be the biggest possible thing?”

“Are you sure you want me to say? I won't hold back to be polite. I have trouble with artificial concepts like that, in all honesty.”

“That doesn't sound like such a bad thing.”

“It is when you hate the thought of hurting somebody. I tend to go three feet deep into analysis, not realizing that I'm burying someone as I go. Then I come back out and feel so terrible I don't know how to talk to the person again.”

“Trust me, we'll be talking again after you're done.”

He still hesitates after I speak. Though I can see the effect the word
trust
has on him. His shoulders straighten and go back the moment I say it, and that almost jittery look to his eyes and his mouth fades down into almost nothing. By the time he finally talks, he sounds near normal. More than near normal.

His voice is like a hypnotist's, dragging me down to the core of myself.

“I would say you've suffered some kind of trauma—one that has made you both very and justifiably wary, and resentful of that wariness. You had to carry the Mace out into the garden, yet hated yourself for doing it at the same time. The thought of hurting me most likely caused you more pain than the idea of me hurting you. And it hurts you now to think that I was affected in any way by your assumptions about me—which were probably negative. Although, unlike most people in this neighborhood, you have a good reason to doubt me. I likely remind you of the person who injured you in some way, because every time I go against that grain I can see the relief all over your face. I can see the catharsis swelling through you.”

To say that I'm speechless when he's done would be more than an understatement. I don't think I could make words if I had a string on my back and someone yanked on it. And though I try to hide this fact, I know he can tell. He straightens in this very odd manner—like someone suddenly becoming aware of an unwelcome presence in the room.

Only the unwelcome presence is
him
.

“I've frightened you,” he says in this slowly realizing sort of tone.

And he has, in a way. But in another way he holds my attention so tightly I don't know if I'm ever going to escape. His ability to be both completely clever about human behavior and insanely unable to understand is giving me the shakes. When I finally speak I sound like a gushing teenager.

“I think this is mostly awe. Are you sure psychiatry is your profession, or is it more like telepathy?” I say, though I'm glad I do. He looks immediately relieved. He looks like he stands on firmer ground again, instead of the rolling ship of this crazy conversation.

“At a certain point, the disciplines I have PhDs in probably become indistinguishable from what people think of as being psychic.”

“You have more than one PhD?” I ask, even as I'm thinking
of course he does
. The note of incredulity in my voice is completely not necessary. Intelligence practically rolls off him in waves—but not in a bad way. In a fragile, secretive sort of way.

“Yes,” he says, and that's it.

No other information offered.

“Do I have to press for what they're in?”

“Yes.”

Man, he invests a lot in that one word. There is a firmness to it, a steely sort of privacy. But I can also see a flicker of humor in his eyes and on his lips—like he knows how he's being. He gets that he's supposed to say more. Maybe he even wants to say more.

“Am I going to have to press for everything?”

“Yes.”

“Come on.”

“Come on what?”

Now he's really letting that amusement out. He might be a private person, but I can see he takes pleasure in doing this to me. Or is the pleasure in the fact that I want to know? I see a little jolt of surprise every time I push him for something, as though he can hardly believe I'm interested. No one else has ever been interested before, quite clearly.

Five seconds of questioning would have cleared up the whole animal-mutilator thing.

“This hardly seems fair. You see right to the heart of me in one glance, and all I get is three monosyllables and those unfathomable eyes.”

“You think my eyes are unfathomable?”

“I should probably refrain from saying what I think they are.”

In truth, I didn't even want to say
unfathomable
. It just kind of slipped out, along with my dignity and my quickly growing feelings for him. Feelings that only get worse when he adds: “There's nothing you can say that would bother me. I already know what I look like—that my eyes are too big for my face and look sort of. . .flat.”

“Did someone once tell you that?”

“People rarely want to meet my gaze.”

“I think that's because your gaze is intense. Not because it seems flat. Plus the color is so completely beyond my ability to describe. I want to say like the evening sky at the height of summer, but that makes me sound so ridiculous.”

I wish it did make me sound ridiculous. I expect it to, yet somehow that isn't the result. Instead, he does that odd little straightening thing again—only this time it has a hint of something else. And then I see his rising blush, and I know what it is. I can feel it myself, surging just beneath my skin. My arms are a sudden mass of raised hairs, and all of this heat just floods my face.

He likes me saying that.

He likes it a
lot
.

So why do I change the subject?

“You still haven't told me what your degrees are for,” I say, and then I know why I did. I get it before he gives his grisly answer.

“Criminology and forensic psychology,” he says, and just like that the moment is gone, killed stone dead by the sudden specter of horrible things. Now we're back in safer territory—if assessing the psyches of violent murderers can be called safe.

“Should I be worried that you totally nailed me?”

“The person who
hurt
you should probably be worried,” he says, and suddenly that intense intelligence is like a laser sight on the top of a high-caliber weapon. I see it trained on the shadow just over my shoulder, burning hot and brilliant, and I won't lie.

That kind of makes me go weak at the knees for him, too.

“Do you know stuff about him, just from talking to me?”

“Yes. Is that a suggestion for me to elaborate?”

I consider, briefly. On the one hand, I would like nothing more than to forget. Most of my goals are about forgetting. I shape my life around never thinking about it, right down to the tiniest mundane detail.

And yet, and yet, and yet.

By God, I want to see Noah gun him down.

“Yeah, that was me wanting you to elaborate.”

“I would say that he was a white male, twenty-five to forty, probably had a menial and possibly reviled occupation, very little family and no friends. Any friendships he attempted to form would have quickly deteriorated, as he realized his projected desires for people he sought out as potential companions did not match the reality. He most likely had a history of mental illness—paranoid schizophrenia or episodes that bordered on this. He had delusions at the very least, largely centered on perceived romantic relationships with women who had no idea about them or him. Am I close?”

“I think you know you're more than close.”

“He must have been close to you in some way. . .but not in a manner you were aware of. He might have been your mailman, or someone you called frequently to perform a service,” he says, and now I'm just answering him on autopilot.

I can't do anything else. This is too spooky and awe-inspiring all at the same time.

“He was my mailman.”

“And you did something for him—some small gesture that you hadn't done before.”

“I baked him cookies one Christmas when it was really cold out.”

“Then shortly after some of your things started to go missing.”

“I. . .yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.”

“You would go outside and find your trash cans in the wrong place. Or possibly some of your mail didn't get delivered or it would come but seem opened, and the front door. . .you were sure you had locked it when you came in but then. . .”

“Sometimes it wasn't the front door.”

“An internal door—a bathroom door. This boy was brave, huh? He got bold really fast. He learned your habits and knew what you would do at any given time.”

“How do you know all this?”

My voice is shaky now, and maybe a little clogged with unshed tears. But oddly, it doesn't feel that bad. I think about what he said, about catharsis. I think about how good it feels to just have someone understand, and not have to say.

He could be speaking with my voice, I think.

He looks as though he's speaking with my voice. His eyes have gone vague and he seems to be far away—far away at the bottom of my feelings.

“By the way you react to my knowing things. Something about my knowledge fascinates you, but it also makes you involuntarily attempt to hide yourself. You stiffen a little every time I reveal a new detail, as though maybe you're thinking I might have gone through your trash or watched you through binoculars.”

“I don't believe those things.”

“I know. You just feel them. In truth, you suspect that
you're
the one intruding on
my
space. That you are the one pushing into a place you're not welcome in.”

It stings when he says this, but not because I really think it's true.

It stings because of the idea that I might have to leave now.

Does he want me to leave?

“I. . .I don't mean to. . .I can go if you—”

“No, you misunderstand. I'm not saying that assessment is correct—I'm saying that's what you think,” he says, and suddenly that faraway sheen over his eyes is gone. He stops looking down and meets my gaze directly, and I swear it takes me apart when he does. I barely know how I manage to get a question out.

It's not a surprise that I sound like the wind dying, when I do.