Terror on the Beach (13 page)

“I’ll call you back later, Freddy.
You did a good job.” I disconnected. I wanted to bring Dr. Anna up to date and see if she thought I should stay around here any longer.

Sarah
was playing in the waves like a child and I wondered if Beth had come out. Dr. Anna was watching her and laughing every time a wave knocked her down.

As soon as Dr. Anna
saw my face she became serious. “What is it, Robert? What’s happened?”

“Two more murders, the worst
yet.” I told her all about it and she sat shaking her head.

“So, he’s become even more personal
in his attacks and his rage is escalating. I think he buried them alive because he ran out of time, don’t you, Robert?”

“Yeah I do.
I think he would have wanted to see them suffer some more. I feel guilty for saying this, Dr. Anna. But my first thought was that now we know for sure it’s not Sarah. Do you think that makes me a terrible person, Dr. Anna?”

“No, I think that makes you human, Robert.”

Sarah came running up from the beach, “What is it? What’s happened?”

“Sit down here by me, Sarah,” Dr. Anna said.
“They found two more bodies on the beach.”

Sarah started crying.
“Is that tears of relief, Sarah?”

“Yes, Dr. Anna, it is.
Ever since I found out I had MPD I have been wondering if I could have killed all those people. I was dressed like the killer when they picked me up, wasn’t I Robert?”

“You were, Sarah.
I think the killer dressed you like that after he killed Tory.” As soon as the words left my mouth I knew I had made a mistake.

It was like time had stood still.
No one said anything and then Sarah said, “He killed Tory, my only friend in town besides you, Robert? Dr. Anna, you want to see some rage?”

She jumped up and ran down the beach screaming to the top of her lungs.
I started after her but Dr. Anna held me back. I sat next to Dr. Anna and for the next forty five minutes we watched Sarah rage.

She ran and screamed,
she stopped and sat and pounded her fist into the sand. She got up and ran some more stopping every now and then to pick up shells and throw them as hard as she could. At one point she found a sharp piece of driftwood and sat down and stabbed it into the sand.

Just as I was getting concerned Dr. Anna said, “I’m so proud of her, Robert.
This is a breakthrough, believe it or not. She should progress pretty fast now.”

“In the meantime, there’s still Twoon out there
,” Robert said, “and I need her to remember that night she was arrested. My friend Simon told me about a hypnotist in New Orleans with the FBI named John Shepherd.”

“I’m sorry, Robert,” she interrupted me. “I don’t like hypnosis except in some rare cases.
I think it’s better for Sarah to remember things at her own pace.”

Before I knew it I had gotten into an argument with the good doc and she was winning, partly because I cared so much about Sarah but also she was making good sense.

Sarah came back to where we were sitting covered in sand. She was smiling. “How is that for rage, Dr. Anna?”

Sarah looked worn out and she curled up in Dr. Anna’s lap.
She became Beth and started sucking her thumb and fell asleep.

“I’ve noticed that Beth sometimes comes out when Sarah gets tired, especially if it’s an emotional tiredness,” Dr. Anna said while rubbing Sarah’s back.

“By the way, Robert, what are you going to do? Are you going to stay around here awhile or are you going on back now that they’ve found more victims?”

“What do you think I should do, Dr. Anna?”

She shook her head, “I don’t give advice, Robert, you have to make your own decisions and take responsibility for them.”

I was confused.
I guess I didn’t have a clue about what psychotherapy was about, “Which would be best for Sarah?”

“I think you’re still trying to get me t
o make this decision for you. I’ll let you off the hook this time. This is more what I would like for Sarah than anything else. I’d like to do at least one session with both of you. Would you feel threatened by that, Robert?”

“I do feel a little uncomfortable b
ut I want to do it for Sarah and also I’m curious about how this psychotherapy works.

CHAPTER 27

Dr. Anna took Sarah and me
to her office. It was a little bigger than the individual therapy room. Sarah had woken up as Sarah. Dr. Anna had explained to her that she wanted to do a session with both of us at least once before I had to go back.

I had found Dr. Anna easy to talk to but now that I was actually in a session I couldn’t think of anything to say.
I expected Dr. Anna to sort of lead us but she just sat there. Sarah appeared to be used to this.

Finally Sarah broke the silence, “I think I know what I want to talk about, Dr. Anna.”
She then turned to me. “I want to talk about what we were talking about in the courtyard, Robert.”

When D
r. Anna nodded Sarah turned to Dr. Anna and said, “What we were talking about…”

Here Dr. Anna interrupted her, “Talk to Robert as if I’m not here.”

“Oh, okay, like we do in group, right?” She turned to me, “I think I’ve loved you for a long time but I only recently realized it. I think that’s why I was unable to, you know, until lately.

“But even when I realized it I was afraid to tell you.
I was afraid you would hurt me.”

“Why would you believe loving someone would hurt you, Sarah?”
Dr. Anna asked. “Could it be because of the abuse from your mother you were telling me about? Or was it more the abuse from your daddy?”

As soon as the words daddy came out of Dr. Anna’s mouth, Sarah became Beth.
She stuck her thumb in her mouth but when she saw me she pulled it back out, “Hey, Sherith. I remember you. You’re Sarah’s boyfriend. I like you a lot.”

“I love you, Beth.”

She started screaming, “No, I don’t want you to love me.” She curled up in her seat and stuck her thumb back in her mouth and started crying.

Dr. Anna
got up and went and sat in the chair with Sarah and pulled her against her. While Sarah was crying, Dr. Anna leaned over and whispered to me, “Robert, I think we’re on the verge of another breakthrough here. Just play along and follow my lead.”

That reassured me.
I thought I had said something wrong.

Dr. Anna stroked Sarah’s hair and said, “Beth, if I let you sit in my lap will you talk to your daddy over there?”

When Sarah nodded, Dr. Anna pulled her away from her shoulder and turned her toward me. She even looked more like a little girl. Dr. Anna reached into her pocket and pulled out a tissue and began mopping up Sarah’s face.

“Now, Beth, I want you to tell him
anything you want to. He can’t hurt you anymore. I’m right here to protect you.”

She put her thumb back into her mouth and Dr. Anna pulled it back out
.

Sarah then
spoke in a little girl’s voice but the voice was suddenly strong. “Daddy, I don’t want to twoon anymore. It hurts. And I want you to make Bucky quit coming to see me.”

She looked at Dr. Anna and Dr. Anna nodded.
Then she turned back to me, “I like cuddling with you but you won’t stay cuddled. You always turn me the other way and say you want to twoon.

“I don’t like to twoon.
I don’t like to twoon with you and I don’t like to twoon with Bucky. It don’t hurt as much with Bucky but you keep telling him he’s doing a good job. I don’t like you saying that.

“Mommy thinks I twoon because I like it and then she tells me I’m bad and she wish
es I never was bornded.”

She looked up at Dr. Anna, “Am I a bad girl?”

She looked so pitiful it broke my heart. To think of how much she had accomplished while having to go through something so awful! It made me love her even more.

Dr. Anna hugged her close, “You are most certainly not a bad girl.
Now I want you to look over here at the sheriff. He cares about you.”

When Sarah looked at me I said, “I will protect you, Beth.
No one will ever hurt you again. I promise you that. And I will protect Sarah because I know you love her.”

She smiled, “Well, can I sit in your lap, then?”

She crawled into my lap and went to sleep. I held her while Dr. Anna and I continued to talk.

“I think she is making excellent progress, Robert.
But she is at a crucial point right now. If she continues to move this fast for long she will become overwhelmed and her anxiety and depression level will become unbearable to her. She could become suicidal.

“So, i
f you need to go back, this would be a good time to do so. I plan on lightening up on her now. She will be pampered for awhile with messages and long walks and then gradually eased back into more intense therapy after about another week.”

“I have to admit, Dr. Anna, I wish I could stay here for the whole thing but I do need to get back.
Thanks for letting me sit in on the session.”

Dr. Anna got that twinkle in her eye I had seen before, “You didn’t just sit in, Robert.
You were working too. I’d be willing to bet that at one point you’re going to be asking yourself why you were attracted to a woman who needs so much help.”

I opened m
y mouth to protest but closed it again and decided I would ask myself that question later.

“Before you go, Robert, I will be open with you about how I plan to proceed.
I plan to gradually introduce Sarah to her other personalities and will eventually begin to integrate them. It will, of course, be up to Sarah how this will go. I wish I could give you a time frame but each patient goes at her own pace. Do you have any questions?”

I had plenty but I knew if I asked them all I would never leave so I said no.

Sarah and I met later that evening and ate at the gourmet restaurant in the same building. I was surprised at how good the food was. We said good bye after dinner and I went back to the cabin and called the airlines. I made reservations for early the following morning.

CHAPTER 28

I was having coffee on the plane the next morning and thinking about all that had happened over the last few months.
I was so tired I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew the stewardess was tapping me on the arm, “Sir, you need to put your seat up. We’re making our approach to land in Savannah.”

I deplaned with a sense of unreality.
It lasted all the way through getting my luggage and riding the bus to long term parking. I didn’t know if it was because I had so little sleep over the last few days or because of the emotional session I had with Sarah and Dr. Anna the day before.

Half-way to Monroe Beach I had to pull over and take a nap.
I had never been through anything like this before. But after only a half hour nap I was fine. I felt totally relaxed and refreshed.

I didn’t even bother to go home but went directly to my office.
Brenda came in and handed me a whole fistful of messages. Most of them I could handle right away and were no more than some of the town’s people wanting assurances.

Freddy cam
e in while I was talking to Mrs. Krindle who lives alone and is in her eighties. “If you stay off the beach you should be all right, ma’am.”

“I don’t go on the beach.
Thanks a lot sheriff. I feel a lot better now that you’re back in town.”

When I hung up the phone, Freddy said, “Sheriff, I might have a lead.
I spent the night hiding on the beach and watching people walk by. It’s amazing how many people still go down on the beach after dark. I guess they all think it won’t happen to them.”

“Before you get into that, Freddy, I need to ask you something.
You told me that when you brought Sarah down she started talking like a man and telling you her name was Twoon.

“How did you hear that when we now know she doesn’t
have a personality named Twoon? I want you tell me again step by step about all the events leading up to her arrest, because I’ll tell you right now something is wrong and I can’t figure out what it is.”

Freddy went over it again and this time I stopped him when he said she was face down when she identified herself as Twoon.

“Wait a minute, Freddy. You didn’t tell before that her face was hidden when she said that. Kevin was there, could he have said it and thrown his voice. Some people can do that you know.”

“After what I saw last night I think it’s possible, sheriff.
I was under the pier standing behind one of the posts watching people go by just to see what I could see. Kevin Payne came by dressed all in black. He kept looking over his shoulder and every now and then he would get down between the sand dunes.