The Secret Hour (31 page)

 
“Were you just at our house?” he asked.

 
Her jaw dropped open, and he could see in her eyes the shock of being found out by her father.

 
“You were, weren’t you?”

 
She nodded, gazing at him. “Not exactly our house,” she said. “But the dirt roads in the Nature Sanctuary—”

 
“Maggie,” he exploded. “What did I tell you? Did you cross Lambert Road on your bike?”

 
“Yes, Dad, but—”

“There’s no but about it! A truck could kill you, crossing that road—you know how fast they drive there? And it goes straight under I-95…” He bit his tongue, turning away from her.

 
The interstate was a corridor for all sorts of criminals. Drug dealers up from Florida, corporate smugglers transporting goods in eighteen-wheelers, pedophiles trolling for unsuspecting kids…Client after client had named I-95 in their stories; the highway itself might as well have been an accomplice, an accessory before and after the fact.

 
“I’m sorry, Dad!”

 
“Sorry isn’t good enough, Maggie,” he said. “You’re grounded.”

 
“Daddy!”

 
“Hey, Dad—she didn’t mean anything,” Teddy interjected. “We both miss the house, the beach…I’ve gone back there a few times, too.”

 
“You want to be grounded, too?” John asked. “Keep it up.” His head ached. The kids were being pulled—another compulsion, this one not too mysterious—to their home. The employment agency hadn’t called, so John had gotten complacent about not having a baby-sitter. It was so much easier, safer, to stay here with his father and Maeve—a built-in family. He thought of Theresa and felt twin waves of rage and grief wash over him.

 
“Daddy,” Maggie said, starting to cry. He thought she was upset because he’d grounded her, but that wasn’t it. “I don’t want you to be mad…I don’t want to disappoint you…please give me another chance. I’m sorry!”

 
“I can be mad and still love you,” John said, clutching his daughter. “I love you, Mags. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you!”

 
“It won’t,” she sobbed, touching the fringe on the white scarf Kate had given her. “I’m brave—I can take care of myself.”

 
“I know,” John said, his fingers brushing the scarf. “But you’re still grounded anyway.”

 
Maggie seemed about to say something more, but then she just turned and ran up the stairs, into her room. It was dark out now; when she turned on the lamp, John hoped she’d remember to pull her curtains.

 
He stood very still, his heart pounding. A memory of standing in that back parking lot with Kate surfaced. Kissing her had felt so right. As if they needed each other somehow, had been brought together for more than just that moment in time. He stood in a house that didn’t belong to him, with two kids who wanted only to go home, and he closed his eyes and thought of Kate.

 
Kate had returned to her office to pick up some things; after what had happened to Willa’s postcard, she had become hyperconscientious about checking her mail. Although her assistant had promised to forward everything, promising-looking or not, Kate occasionally had to stop in and see for herself. Her office was empty, waiting for her to return to work. Although she’d taken an open-ended leave, being back whetted her appetite to return for good.

 
She sat in her office, staring at all the reports and queries that had come in during her absence. Quota reports from various shellfish commissions up and down the Eastern Seaboard, requests for the Academy’s pollution studies from two towns in Maryland. Her work had always been vital to her, but she hadn’t been able to concentrate in months.

 
She knew she couldn’t still; not yet. Looking through the stack of mail, satisfying herself there was nothing from Willa, her attention was immediately caught by a postmark: SILVER BAY CT. Feeling excited, she decided to wait to get home to read it. Saying good-bye to the other staff members, she took the elevator down.

 
The National Academy of Sciences was located in a large, modern building at the corner of Twenty-first Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Walking outside, Kate pulled her green coat tighter. Some nights she loved to walk all the way home: past the White House, down to Constitution and the bare-branched cherry trees, along the Mall with the huge, friendly Smithsonian buildings—tourists strolling along in any weather, the Capitol dome lit up, glowing, lighting her way home.

 
But tonight, feeling the need for immediate shelter and wanting to read the letter, Kate walked to the taxi stand and got into a cab.

 
Her town house was located on Capitol Hill, just off Massachusetts Avenue. Since her trip to Fairhaven, the street name itself was a thorn—it caused her pain just to look at the sign. The cab driver dropped her in front, and she ran up the tall steps, unlocked her heavy black door, and walked into the cozy brick building.

 
Bonnie was overjoyed to see her. Kate dropped her satchel, then walked around turning on lights. After moving out of the house she had shared with Andrew, she had refused to take anything from their days together and had furnished her new place with her own taste: furniture from secondhand shops on the Eastern Shore, her grandmother’s braided rug from Chincoteague, beautiful watercolors of dunes and bays.

 
Sinking into her chair, she pulled the small blue envelope from her satchel. Her name was printed in large, childish letters, the rest of the address filled out in sharp adult handwriting.

 
Just looking at the postmark, SILVER BAY CT, her shoulders relaxed. Energy seemed to flow from the paper into her fingertips, as she opened the letter and began to read.

 
It was a thank-you note from Maggie, for the white scarf. Teddy had added some words of his own. Kate read the letter through twice. Although John hadn’t included a message, she found herself staring at his handwriting on the envelope. Maggie must have asked him to address it for her.

 
Holding the letter in one hand, the envelope in the other, Kate closed her eyes. She thought of her sister’s secret escape to New England, of her brother, alone in his oyster shack in the pines woods of Chincoteague. Family could be so elusive. Her own family seemed lost, but this strange, strong sense of connection was coming from a place she never would have expected…

 
“Brainer says hello,” she said out loud, to Bonnie.

 
As if that had just made her the happiest dog in Washington, the Scottie jumped up into the chair beside Kate and began to lick her paws. The two of them sat together, dreaming of the north, listening to the wood snap and burn. Kate felt the warmth of her little dog and remembered John holding her.

 
She wondered what he’d thought, addressing the envelope.

 
Did he remember their kiss? Did he wish they could do it again?

 
Kate closed her eyes, holding the envelope to her chest. She had never felt quite this way, and it upset her. She hardly knew John O’Rourke. He was on the “other side,” the lawyer for the person she suspected of viciously taking her sister away.

 
But he was more than that. He was a single father who had lost his wife in the worst way possible. She had died suddenly, on a lonely road, possibly on her way home from being with someone else. Kate understood the strong emotional twist that must have caused John. Love, betrayal, and then disappearance altogether: It seemed impossible to bear. At least, Kate couldn’t begin to.

 
Because Dr. Beckwith hadn’t called John at home—one of his patients had had a crisis—the two men met in Providence the next day. John, curious to see the latest in the doctor’s expanding operation, drove up to his clinic.

 
“Surprised you find time to testify,” John said. Looking around the office, he had Willa Harris on his mind. Where had she gone? Did their mutual client have something to do with her disappearance? How was Kate surviving, back in Washington, still not knowing the fate of her sister?

 
“I know,” Beckwith replied ruefully. “So many people, so much need. As you know, I work primarily with sex offenders. Society would like to just lock them in a dungeon, but they’re people, too. Call me crazy, but I think I can help.”

 
John nodded, and the doctor laughed.

 
“Clearly I’m preaching to the converted; we’re on the same team. I know you’re very busy, so let’s start out with a tour of the latest. Funding has been up lately, so there are additions since your last visit. When was that, anyway?”

 
John frowned, thinking.

 
“Must have been three years ago now. When you worked on the Caleb Jenkins case.”

 
“Rudimentary, compared to what you’ll see today. How is Caleb, by the way?”

 
“His mother says he’s doing well, working for his father.”

 
The doctor nodded with satisfaction. “That’s great. Makes me feel good about my testimony, to know we helped a boy avoid jail time for, essentially, pulling a prank. Now he can get on with his life. If only it was that simple for some of my other patients…”

 
John nodded.

 
“Let me show you the basics of what I do here now. And, from the start, let me say that I believe our client to be beyond the help I offer other men less ‘entrenched’ in their obsessions…over the months, I’ve gotten to know him quite well.”

 
“I know. I appreciate your involvement.”

 
“My pleasure,” Beckwith said. “It’s not every day I get to work with someone like him.”

 
For some reason, John couldn’t reply. The words wouldn’t come, and he felt slightly sick.

 
The Beckwith Study’s offices were located in the university’s only high-rise building. The foundation, federally and privately funded, occupied the entire twentieth floor, overlooking the colonial brick buildings of College Hill, the candy-colored houses of fishing families on Fox Point, and Narragansett Bay shimmering down to the Atlantic.

 
In contrast to the glorious views outside, the study’s offices looked inward at unimaginable worlds of violence, fantasy, and paraphilia. The doctor showed John video rooms, role-playing rooms, a machine designed to measure sexual arousal, and a lab filled with the stench of rotting fish.

 
“What’s that?” John asked.

 
“Oh, one of my negative feedback methods.” The doctor grimaced. “I teach my patients to associate vile smells with their violent fantasies. Hook them up to a monitor, start them talking about their rapes…measure their arousal. When it peaks, I bring out the dead fish, and the smell breaks the erotic feelings.”

 
“That works?”

 
“Takes years, but yes—sometimes. The patient no longer gets an erection from the fantasies.”

 
“Really…”

 
“These people—mostly men—are sent to me as a last chance. They’ve served prison time; most of them are court-ordered for treatment, and none of them believe it will help. Teachers who molested students, dentists who touched patients, men convicted of rape…”

 
“My clients,” John said dryly as they toured the floor. “And this is how you ‘help.’”

 
“Yes, by reworking their fantasies. I try to deprogram them, then start over. See, sex is a mysterious thing. People spend very little time actually
having
it. Their thoughts, their fantasies, are where the trouble begins. Each of us—every human being on the planet—is born with a powerful sex drive. If we weren’t, the species would have died out long ago.”

 
“I don’t think our clients are overly concerned with propagation of the species,” John said. Another wave of queasiness passed over him. He knew the feeling was emotional; it had been building for some time now, ambivalence for the work he did, the people he represented. He wanted to turn and run, take the elevator downstairs, get out of here. But he forced himself to stay.

 
“No. And when their desire gets linked to inappropriate people or behaviors, it still needs to be satisfied. And they hurt others, hurt themselves, get arrested, wind up here. I’m a behaviorist. I try to link their bad desires with unpleasant consequences—like the smell of dead, putrid, rotting fish.”

 
“Hmmm…” John said, remembering Psychology 101, how Ivan Pavlov had rung bells at feeding time, training his dogs to salivate and grow hungry at the sound—training them to expect pleasure. Concentrating on scholastic memories pushed his own conflicts from his mind.

 
“Exactly,” Dr. Beckwith said. “Society wants retribution. They want these sexual offenders to serve long prison terms, and then, since Megan’s Law, they want to keep track of them. All fine, but not solving the problem. Locked up in prison, they spend years refining the same deviant fantasy that got them locked up in the first place. Your client is a prime example.”