The Mak Collection (58 page)

She went for the first cabinet on the left—“A to B”—and pulled a drawer open. Her fingers moved with nimble efficiency to find her target.

BLAKE.

When Makedde Vanderwall had said the name during their appointment, it had rung a bell, but it had taken until today for Ann to place it. As the link surfaced in her mind, Ann found herself wishing she had not heard that man’s name coming from the lips of Les Vanderwall’s troubled daughter.

Blake…

She had to be sure.

Roy Blake’s mobile phone rang when he was only twenty minutes from the cabin.

“Blake,” he said.

“Hi, Roy, this is Georgina.” She was one of the UBC security staff. She usually worked the phones.

“How’s it going, Georgie?”

“Good, thanks.” The line crackled a bit. He was starting to get out of range. “Sorry to bother you when you’re off-duty like this, but someone was calling for you just now. She wanted you to get back to her as soon as possible.”

She?
“Oh yeah?”

Makedde
…

“She said her name was Dr Ann Morgan. She said it was important.”

It took him a moment to register the name, and when he did, he felt a wave of panic.

“Sure, Georgie,” he managed. “Hang on just a sec while I pull over.” There wasn’t a lot of traffic
around, so he pulled over to the side of the road easily, and grabbed a pen out of the glove box and a piece of wrinkled newspaper off the floor of the cab.

“Okay, what’s the number?”

She gave him the digits and he scrawled them on the front of yesterday’s newspaper.

“NAHATLATCH MURDERS

Female students found dead. UBC panic as RCMP clueless…”

Now Dr Ann Morgan had a dilemma.

Roy Blake.

What she knew complicated everything.

When she had seen the newspaper article about the Nahatlatch Murders, it got her thinking. The hunter aspect Makedde had mentioned…the Nahatlatch. She knew someone who liked it out there…or used to. Someone who had a place not too far away.

The Blake brothers.

Roy and Daniel Blake were an interesting pair. Ann had met them when she hired Daniel to do some basic yard work. He had left one of those photocopied pamphlets at the door. The rates were good, and with Ann’s hectic schedule, there was so much that wasn’t getting done. But the young man had only worked for her a few times before he showed a great deal of interest in the fact that she was a psychiatrist. He started asking questions about certain conditions…things she suspected he was going through. Ann
doubted that he had ever talked with anyone about his concerns before. He was confused and he wanted help.

For years Daniel Blake had been told that he had done things he couldn’t remember doing. People would say hello to him on the street—people who he couldn’t remember meeting. He found things in his room that he thought were not his.

Daniel Blake was a multiple.

Multiple Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder—Ann had encountered it before. Like so many psychological disorders, the official name had changed a couple of times in an attempt at a more accurate and less stigmatised term. The essential feature of the disorder involves the presence of several distinct personalities that recurrently take control of the patient’s behaviour. There is an inability to recall important personal information when the patient is in another one of their personality states, hence Daniel’s confusion. The different identities tend to involve complete character transformation, mannerisms and inflection of speech. Even different abilities and languages in some cases.

One of Daniel’s personalities was a fanatical hunter.

Ann remembered him clearly. He had not been happy about Daniel being there to see her. At all. He had come out in the third appointment.

Daniel Blake had wanted to be psychologically integrated, but ironically, it wasn’t the hunter who got in the way. It was his well-meaning brother, Roy.

The relationship between them was complicated. Their mother had abandoned them and their father at a young age. By the time she met them, their father was senile and in a home—all but absent from their lives as well. Roy had pledged to protect his brother’s welfare and the very suggestion that Daniel’s condition might require a stay in a hospital had caused Roy to pull his brother out of therapy.

And that was it. After only six sessions, the Blake brothers disappeared from her life.

Until now.

So Mak had met one of them. What could she tell Makedde about the brothers? She could not violate the confidentiality of a patient. What could Mak tell her about them? How much did she know? Did Mak even know that Roy had a brother?

Call it intuition, but those reports about the Nahatlatch Murders were making her think of Daniel…or rather his alter ego, the Hunter. Roy had told her straight up that he felt the best thing for his brother was to get out of the city, to stay out there where he could get “his head together”. What was he getting up to out there on his own?

If Ann was wrong, if Daniel
was
in an institution by now and she had not been told, if he had left town, even if he was in jail, it would be a great relief.

But what if her concerns proved correct?

After six solid hours of sleep, Makedde Vanderwall woke up drowsy but not distraught. The half dose of sleeping pill had offered her a smooth, dreamless nap. She had bought them for long flights, but had never tried one until now.

Relax. Everything will be fine.

Mak hoped Roy would respect her request for space. Surely he would leave her alone. She just had to stick to her guns, right? And soon Andy would be leaving too. She should just forgive herself for her momentary lapse of reason in the Renaissance Hotel, and get over it. Ann was right, she hadn’t done anything wrong. She was human after all and under a lot of stress, and besides, Jaqui would probably be proud of her for giving in to the moment, if she only had the nerve to tell her. Her heart might have fared better without the experience, or any reminders
of it, but no matter. That was the final goodbye. Soon Andy would be gone and she would have peace.

And then she could sleep. Without drugs.

And then she could get her thesis done, and she would be fine.

Then the phone rang.

Wearily, Mak made her way to the side table and the buzzing telephone. If it was Roy, she would just tell him off.

She raised the receiver to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Makedde?” An unfamiliar voice.

“Yes.”

“Makedde, this is Ann calling.”

“Hello. How are you?” she answered, a little surprised by the unscheduled call. “I didn’t recognise your voice.”

“Did you just get in?” Ann asked.

Automatically, Makedde stole a look at her answering machine in the kitchen. She could see that the message light was flashing.

“I, um…actually I was sleeping. You were trying to reach me?”

“Sleeping?” A pause. “Yes, I was trying to reach you earlier.”

Makedde had not even heard the phone ring.

“There is something I’d like to ask you about, in person. Would it be possible for you to come over…as soon as you can? To my home?”

“Is there something going on?” Mak asked.

“Nothing, going on, per se, but I’d like to talk to you. Don’t be alarmed or anything.”

“Okay. I’ll freshen up and come right over. What’s the address?”

She took down the directions. It seemed pretty straight forward, and not too far away.

What was all that?
Her head had begun a slow throb. Her instincts told her something was wrong.

The traffic was light and before long Makedde was approaching Dr Morgan’s house. She checked the address again as she pulled up. The place was quaint, with a border of green shrubs and a set of steps leading up to a welcoming front porch that was lit for visitors. A wreath of dried flowers was on the front door. The house was dark, save for some warm light glowing from within the living room.

Mak parked Zhora easily on the quiet street, pulling into a space right in front of Ann’s house, a concept that was quite unlike trying to park near her own place in “cool Kitsilano” as Ann had called it. She cut the engine and sat for a moment in the darkness.

She wants to speak with me about something. That’s almost exactly what Andy said.

Mak got out of the car, carrying only her purse, and made her way up to the porch. She rang the doorbell. Within seconds she heard approaching
footsteps, and Ann was at the door. She quickly ushered her inside.

“I’m so glad you could come,” Ann said. The sight of pinched concern on the doctor’s face was unsettling. “Please, make yourself at home.”

Ann asked her to sit down then disappeared to the kitchen, presumably to fetch some refreshments. Makedde took a seat on the couch, on the edge nearest to the side table. She noted that Ann was reading
People of Heaven
. Her bookmark—some kind of pressed flower laminated on a piece of pretty mauve paper—was placed right near the back.

“What can I get you to drink? Soda? Wine?” Ann called from the kitchen.

“Just water, thanks,” Makedde called back.

Ann walked back into the lounge a couple of minutes later with two tall glasses of mineral water. The glasses were frosty and the ice cubes clinked and fizzled as they moved. She placed Makedde’s drink on a coaster on the side table and sat down in the adjacent easychair.

“So, how are you?”

“Fine. Thanks again for agreeing to see me. I think it really helped to get some of that stuff off my chest.”

“It’s my pleasure, it really is. Thanks for coming over.” Her face turned serious. “Makedde, I am aware that this is an unconventional situation, but I wanted to ask you about something, and I felt it couldn’t wait.”

The unmistakable taste of dread settled on Makedde’s tongue. She crossed her arms and felt a lump form in her throat.

“In our last session you mentioned that the man you’ve been going out with is named Roy Blake,” Ann said.

Makedde’s stomach tightened. “Yes.”

Ann nodded. “Can you describe him for me? Physically?”

Makedde shifted on the couch. She didn’t like where this was headed at all.

“Okay. He is, um…very tall. Six foot four or something like that.” She reminded herself to breathe. For some reason it wasn’t coming naturally. “He’s a fairly good-looking guy. You know the actor, Vince Vaughn? Sort of like that.” She stared off into space as she spoke, picturing him. Reluctantly. “He has slightly curly brown hair and his eyes are brown,” Makedde went on. “Clean-shaven. Maybe a few years older than I am—somewhere in his late twenties to early thirties I’d say. He works as a security guard at the university…”

Ann nodded to herself again and Makedde stopped her rambling description.

“Yes,” Ann said softly, in a tone of both recognition and regret. “The name rang a bell with me when you mentioned him. You see, I worked with a patient by the name of Blake a few years back. I checked my files today to be absolutely sure that I had
the name right.” She paused. “Has Roy said anything to you about his brother?”

Then the phone rang, breaking the tension of the conversation.

Ann got up immediately.

“Please excuse me. I’m waiting for an important call.”

She still looked pretty nervous. Mak found it odd to see her that way.

Ann went to the phone in her bedroom and closed the door behind her. She prayed that it was Roy.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hello, could I speak to Dr Morgan, please?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Roy Blake—”

Thank God.

“Roy. Hello. Thanks for calling me back…”

Roy sat in the trophy den, listening to Dr Morgan on the cabin’s old rotary-dial telephone.

“I haven’t heard your name for a while. The message said it was urgent.”

“Well, I have been going through some old files and checking up on past patients, and I just wanted to know how Daniel is doing.”

Roy looked at his watch. Odd that she should make such calls after-hours. “He’s fine,” Roy said bluntly, a little annoyed to be bothered this way. He’d had a rough day, and this wasn’t helping.

“Where is he, exactly?”

Roy frowned. “Well, like I told you when I last saw you, Daniel has been staying out here in Squamish at the cabin. It all worked out even better than I had hoped, really. He’s doing very well and he seems to really love it.”

Roy looked around him at the animals Daniel had caught and stuffed. He’d become a pretty good hunter, and by far excelled Roy’s own abilities now that he had the time to get out regularly.

“He’s been very productive. Taken up taxidermy. I’m at the cabin right now, in fact. Daniel loves it here, I assure you. He’s in the other room, doing just fine.”

“He’s not listening in, is he?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Roy felt increasingly uncomfortable. Just then, he heard a noise and Daniel walked in. He smiled at his brother and sat on the couch across from him.

“So, like I said, we have no need for your help at all. Thanks for calling anyway.”

Roy didn’t want his brother knowing that he was talking to a shrink about him. That’d only upset him. In fact, any memory of Ann Morgan would upset him. He had wanted to stay in therapy at first, until Roy told him what the doctors had planned for him. Drugs and institutions, Roy was sure. He couldn’t let that happen to his own brother.

He had to get her off the phone now.

Roy noticed that Daniel was looking intensely at the newspaper in Roy’s hand—the one that had Ann’s number scrawled on it.

“I have to go now,” Roy said to Ann.

Daniel abruptly got up and walked out of the room. The moment he left, Roy resumed the conversation.
“He’s fine, honestly. He is very happy. He is very productive out here, and he’s not causing anybody any trouble. I said he would be fine, and he is.”