The Sacrificial Daughter (32 page)

This sobered her father up quick. "No. If you ever come across the killer, you run and you don't look back. Consider that a command. But as for the rest...yes you may defend yourself if attacked. When I suggest that you turn the other cheek, I'm not suggesting that you allow yourself to be beaten. I'm saying that forgiving once may not be enough to turn an enemy into a friend. You may have to endure more."

Jesse pictured the faces of her enemies, John, Amanda, Ronny, Tina. She was tired of enduring more. "I don't know if I can forgive my enemies. It's one thing to say it in the abstract, but when there are real people doing real things...real evil things, I don't know if I can do it."

"It's not easy for any of us, myself included," James said. "I heard you got into a fight with John Osterman. A boy fighting a girl," he broke off shaking his head over the very idea.

Jesse kept her face neutral. The truth about what happened the night before was too embarrassing. All of it, from the Oreos right down to her rescue by Ky and the way he had pushed her away was simply too much.

"We never had boys fighting girls in my day," James said. "So that makes attempting to forgive him doubly hard, but there are things about John you probably don't know. John has been on the killer's list for seven years now."

"The killer has a list?" Jesse asked in shock. "Have you seen it?"

"That was figurative," James said with a smile. "There's no list...there is only that characteristic I had mentioned before, the one the killer fixates on. John has it and has been the ideal victim of the killer's for a long time. I don't know what kind of stress that's like to live under, but it's got to be horrible. Couple that stress with the fact that his dad lost his job two weeks after I show up and voila...you have someone ready to hate."

"I still don't think I can forgive him," Jesse said with a slow shake of her head. "He hasn't even asked for forgiveness. Am I supposed to forgive someone who hasn't even asked?"

"That's up to you," he replied. "You have to make that decision yourself. I only bring up John's situation to show there are things going on in his life that have definitely affected his judgment. We may not even know the real John Osterman at all. He might be a sweet kid if all the rest of this wasn't weighing him down."

Images of  John came to her: him swinging his wild haymaker at her face, him in the library hunting her, him in the dark talking to Jerry Mendel...his hands had been shaking as he smoked his cigarette...John had been alone and afraid, just as she had been.

"That's...I...I still don't know," she said.

"I just want you to open yourself up to the idea of forgiveness. That's the first step you need to take. You can't love your enemies without it."

"Oh, God!" Jesse looked around for something to throw at her father. "You are just killing me! Now you want me to love my enemies? I can barely love you and mom."

"That's not how it used to be when you were younger," her father said. "You were full of love. For everything and everyone."

"That was different," Jesse shot back. "I was a kid...everything was so much easier."

"Love, whether easy or hard, is always worth it. After all what is the alternative?" he asked. "More hate? Apathy? Loneliness? Look, I'm saying this to you because I'm worried for you. It's like you've turned your heart off completely and it hurts me to see this."

"I've haven't. I've been trying." Jesse went to her cot and put her head in her hands

"You haven't," he replied. "You say you have, but the truth is you never really tried. You dressed all pretty for one day, passed out smiles to everyone you saw and that was it. You knew it wouldn't work from the get go, because deep down you knew that it would take much more than that. You gave a town of six thousand souls one day to love you and then you turned your back on them. That's not trying."

Her father was speaking to her in a soft voice but still the words stung. He was right. She hadn't tried because she was afraid of being hurt.

But you were hurt anyways.

Yes, she had been, but would she have suffered less if she had opened her heart more? The answer made her hang her head: probably.

"I know what I'm asking of you sounds extremely difficult," James said. "It seems counter-intuitive to love when you're hated, but it does work. Remember Richard Buck from Denton? The city council member who threw his coffee in my face that one time?"

She'd always hated Richard Buck. He had been so mean to her father...yet she knew that they had become close friends. "I remember."

"If you recall he hated me for almost a year, but I never hated back. And now we're practically best friends and if I have a problem, he's right there with a solution."

Jesse mulled over her father's words. He made it seem all so simple, and right there in the jail cell where no one could get at her it seemed simple to her as well. Yet the real world had so many twists and turns.

"I could've had friends," she said after a minute. "If I had been the poster-child against your reforms. There's a protest scheduled for Saturday and they want me to show up and denounce you."

"I know," James said with a long sigh. "And if you do, the town will implode. Things haven't been going as well as I had hoped they would. The town council has been going back and forth about implementing my ideas." He went to the bars of the cell door and leaned his head against the cold metal. "The bureaucracy here is just too dug in, too powerful. You saw Ms Weldon in my office. I've never had a teacher make demands the way she did. She acted like I worked for her not the other way around."

Jesse understood. "She has been leading the fight against you at the school and putting me under a lot of pressure."

He gave a rueful laugh. "I bet she has, but you can't give in. The town council is looking for any excuse to back out of our deal and if they see you protesting me...your own father, it might just tip the scales against me."

"Oh," Jesse said and then smiled. As she did, she felt the last of her tears slip from her eyes. "This town is in real trouble if its fate hinges on me. They all might as well pack up and move right now." Her father smiled at this as well, but there was more sadness in it than gaiety.

"Have you thought about giving in to them a little?" she asked.

"There's no room for giving in. Financially speaking, Ashton is on the edge of a cliff," he said. "This town is too top heavy. There are too few private sector workers to pay the salaries of the government workers. The council thought the answer to their budget shortfalls lay in taxing businesses, but it only drove companies out of town."

How odd it felt to Jesse, sitting in jail and wincing with every movement, to be the one trying to look on the bright side of things. With more cheer than she felt, she asked, "What about those companies you spoke to the other night? I bet you were able to talk at least one of them into moving their operations here." She could tell right away that she had guessed wrong.

"No. Not with the killer running around loose," he said. "They all assured me that once he was apprehended that they would jump at the opportunity. Unfortunately, those assurances don't do us much good in the mean time."

Everything came back to the Shadow-man. He was the center of Ashton and haunted it even without killing. Jesse sat back on the hard cot, ran her hands through her hair, and thought briefly about the special characteristic that Harold was so keen over. It only gave her a headache to do so.

"May I ask about Harold, and that thing which some kids have that draws him to kill?" she asked, hoping that since her and her father were having such a close chat that he would finally spill.

"Are you going to attempt to open your heart?" James replied, looking for a promise. She nodded and he smiled warmly in return and said, "Then definitely not. I know you better than you do. You're the girl who can't help bringing home a stray. Telling you would only open up a can of worms that I can't deal with at the moment, especially with everything else going on."

Jesse dropped her head, but she wasn't going to be defeated. "This is a little embarrassing...I think I need to see a therapist."

"A therapist?" James asked with more than a hint of suspicion. "You hate therapists."

That was very true, however since no one would tell her what Harold looked for in a victim, she was bound and determined to find out herself. And who knew more about the killer than his therapist?

"Yes," she replied, avoiding her father's eyes. "You and mom are always pushing me to open up. I think it might do me some good."

James shrugged. "I guess I could set something up. Maybe next week..."

"This morning," she said with some urgency. "As soon as possible."

"Are you ok?" he asked this time without the distrust in his eyes. "Is there something else going on that I should know about?"

It was her turn to shrug. "Just teenage girl things...things I don't want to discuss with my dad." That ended his line of inquiry quick.

"We'll go right over," James said, looking more than a bit uncomfortable in his thousand-dollar suit. "Are you ready to leave?" he asked and then opened the cell door.

"That's been open the whole time?" she asked as she slowly climbed to her feet. "That doesn't say much for the police force around here. No wonder they can't catch Harold."

"You aren't being charged with anything," James answered. "I spoke to the DA and I convinced him that it would be in everyone's best interest not to file criminal charges."

Her mouth came open. How did he do these things? Her father held the door open for her, but as she passed, he took her gently but firmly by the arm and held her for a moment.

"I'm sorry. I know that you've been through a lot but I still can't let you go to the ball," he said and paused just long enough for Jesse's heart to sink into the pit of her stomach. "Your mom is right about some things. Appearances do count. It would look bad for you to be arrested one day and be at a ball the next. Do you understand?"

A part of her did. Another part, however, wanted to stomp her feet and tell him how unfair he was being. A final part, a very sly part, began devising schemes...it was a masquerade ball after all.

"I understand."

They met Cynthia Clarke outside in her Lexus. She had refused to step one foot into the police station and instead sat slumped down in her car wearing dark glasses.

"Jesse wants to see a therapist," James said getting into the passenger side.

This announcement went over a little too well with Cynthia, in Jesse's opinion. "Oh, thank goodness," she gushed. "I've been saying for years that she's in need of serious help."

James shot an uncomfortable look at his daughter, who sat in the back seat grinding her teeth. It was decided, by her father, that Cynthia would take Jesse to the appointment and then home. It was decided as well that Jesse would be grounded until further notice.

"Does until further notices mean until Harold kills again?" she asked.

"Or until he's caught," he answered. "Let's give the police some credit. I just don't want you tramping through the forests at night anymore." Jesse was right there with him, she was sick of the forest.

Without an appointment or even an advanced phone call, James led his family into Dr Becker's office and in his usual way of getting what he wanted, he convinced the man to see Jesse immediately. It was such an immediate appointment that the therapist was still working on a file when they arrived. At the top it read: H Brownly.

The answers to all of her questions lay only feet away, tantalizingly close. It was all she could do not to stare at the manila file; nevertheless it drew her eyes until Dr Becker noticed her looking at it and stuck it in his top drawer.

"I've been expecting you, Jesse," he said, once they were alone. This was a shocking opening statement.

Guardedly, she asked, "You have? Why? What have you heard?" What sort of rumors had been zipping around town concerning her? The therapist, pale faced, thinning hair, a body pudging into fat, looked to be the softest person Jesse had ever seen. When they shook hands, his had been so delicate she had been afraid to squeezed too hard.

He gave her a simpering little smile. "It's nothing that I've heard, it's just what I know. You're the only daughter of the town manager...a person with the stress of thousands depending on him. With all that pressure to be perfect, to balance out the needs of so many, someone has to be over-looked. Is that someone you?"

What the man said was so close to the truth that Jesse blinked after an owl-like fashion a few times and then began stammering. "Well, yes...but, I...it's complicated..."

"Take your time," Dr Becker said in a soothing voice. "I want you to feel completely comfortable here. Nothing you say will leave these walls, ok?"

"I'm not here because of my father," Jesse said, after she was able to pull herself together. "I'm here because of the Shadow-man."

Now it was the therapists turn to blink. "The Shadow-man? Could you describe him for me?"

Jesse went on to describe Harold Brownly as she had seen him on her first night in the woods. She dappled her words with enough fear to get his eyes widening and as she spoke, she got the chills and goose bumps jumped up in agreement.

When she finished the therapist steepled his fingers beneath his chin and considered for a time. Finally he asked, "Are you talking about a real person?"

"Yes...Harold Brownly. I have nightmares about him. He comes searching for me in the woods and I run but he's always coming closer and closer. Finally I trip on a rock and I'm lying in the snow and I'm so afraid that I can't move. All I can do is pray he doesn't see me." This was technically a lie, she hadn't dreamt this. However, as she spoke she pictured it so vividly she worried it wouldn't be a lie after that night.

"I see," Dr Becker said after a few seconds to digest her story. "That dream is pretty scary. You feel alone in that dream don't you?" She nodded. "Abandoned?" She nodded again and he went on, "Sometimes dreams can be complicate puzzles to unravel and others, like this one aren't. You feel deserted by your father, who should be there to protect you..."

Exasperated, Jesse held up a hand to stop him. "No that's not it. I'm afraid of Harold! The real Harold, not some dream. That's the issue I want to deal with. He lives so close to me but no one will tell me anything at all about him. Why does he do the things he does? How does he choose his victims...how come he can't be caught?"

"Jesse, all my patients have a right to privacy," he said this with such a sad face that Jesse thought he might just cry. "It's what allows them the chance to open up and the chance to heal. I hope you understand."

Inside Jesse groaned. Was this guy for real? What he said hadn't bothered her, it was how he said it. Dr Becker was like a slightly wimpier version of Mr. Rogers. He even wore a cardigan sweater like the TV personality. How on earth did he go about conducting therapy with a monster like Harold Brownly?

"Dr Becker, I'm not asking for anything private," Jesse said, trying again. "There's information on this man that
everyone
knows. Everyone but me. It could save my life."

The therapist shook his head at her.

The remainder of their hour-long session was a battle of wills...that Jesse lost. The therapist kept up his attempt at trying to tie all of Jesse's problems down to an absentee father. While she kept turning the conversation back to the town's resident killer. She got nowhere. To his credit Dr Becker was an impenetrable vault.

It wasn't an altogether wasted hour. Jesse learned a lot about herself and foremost was that despite everything that had happened to her, she was a strong person. Emotionally and mentally. Yes, she held anger in her heart for the way she was treated, but it felt as though her eyes had been opened by her father. What he had said was true—they hated and she hated. Jesse had to wonder how many of her problems could have been avoided by not feeding into that anger.

Theoretically,
her voice of reason said
.

Yes, how would it work in practice? How was she going to react the first time someone was a snot to her? Was she going to fly off the handle? Was she going to rip them apart verbally? Only time would tell.

"So how do you think we did today," Dr Becker asked.

"Pretty good, I guess," Jesse replied.

"Isn't that funny?" he asked. "I'm usually the upbeat one. I didn't think it went so well. You've admitted to holding much anger in you, but I don't think you're going to get anywhere dealing with it until you stop denying the true cause of it."

"My father?" she asked, already knowing the answer. This wasn't Dr Beckers fault. Jesse had fed into his suggestions that her father was the root of her problems just enough to keep the session going. Just so she could make her own attempts at getting information on Harold.

The truth was her session had solidified what she had long denied: her father, though a busy man had always been there for her. She seemed always to come to him with anger and hate burning at her insides, yet he was always the same. She would unload her harsh emotions on him, blame him for her problems, try to make him into some narrow minded jerk and still he would be James Clarke. Yes, he wasn't perfect, he worked too hard and carried other people's burdens on his shoulders, but he was a good man.

"Yes, your father," Dr Becker said, his face lingering somewhere between his sad look and his simpering one. She gave him a half-hearted shrug that said nothing, but he took to mean everything. "I think we're going to need some more time together to work this out. What do you think?"

Jesse rubbed her head as if it ached...actually it did ache, but she rubbed it for show. "You're probably right. Can I wait here, while you set up another appointment with my mom? I have a wicked headache."

The soft man nodded, wiggling his soft jowls, and left the room with his day planner in hand. Jesse barely waited for the door to close before she was up.

This is a really dumb idea.

"Since when are my ideas dumb?" she whispered as she slipped around the therapist's desk.

Remember last night?

Right. That had been very stupid. However, this was a matter of life or death. Jesse had the desk drawer open in a flash and there was the file, clearly marked: Confidential. She ignored the word and flipped open the two-inch thick record.

"Oh man!" Jesse exclaimed as she looked at the first page. Every word on it seemed as long as her arm and she had no idea what any of them meant. She began flipping pages and scanning the documents, but knew right away she wasn't going to find what she was looking for. At least not without an in depth search, and thirty seconds was all she had.

Kyle Mendel

The two words leapt out at her from a page. Her eyes darted to the heading: Transcript:
Session H. Brownly 12/18/10

In a blink, she understood: Dr Becker taped his sessions and then had them typed up. Feeling as though the seconds were flying by, Jesse undid the steel clips and slipped out a small section of the typed notes and crammed them in her pocket. She then re-bent the clips with shaking hands and stuffed the file back in the drawer.

When she looked up, her heart banged once in her chest and then felt to stop. Dr Becker's office door was fully open and he stood squarely in doorway.