Sibs F Paul Wilson Read online

  Karl turned the gold and jewels into cash and brought the family to the United States. He settled them in West Virginia where he invested their money in the familiar business of mining. He did very well, moving from comfortably well-off to extremely wealthy. Lazlo was accepted at NYU premed and moved to New York, taking the sickly Gabor with him. They all felt Gabor could get the best care in the various New York medical centers when the need arose, but apparently he died anyway. Marta was proud of her younger brother, Lazlo—she never referred to him by his American name—who was now a respected new York psychiatrist. And now that Karl was dead, Marta was all alone in the big house he had built for her, but she was not afraid. She had a loyal staff to take care of the place for her.

  Rob shook his head as he folded the glossy fax sheets and slipped them back into the folder. Some loyal staff! The place burned to the ground a few years later, taking her with it.

  He had one more slip of paper on the Gati family: a copy of Gabor Gati's death certificate, dated eight years ago.

  Immediate cause of death: cardiopulmonary collapse;

  secondary to: overwhelming infection;

  secondary to: multiple congenital defects.

  So, Dr. Lawrence Gates' older sister and both his brothers had all died suddenly a few years apart, leaving Gates as the only heir to a considerable fortune. How convenient.

  This was all a sidebar, though. There might or might not be something fishy there, but it had no bearing on the Kelly Wade case, at least none that Rob could see.

  He had the file cover half closed when the signature of the attending physician on the death certificate caught his eye. He looked closer, blinking. No, he was wasn't mistaken. The signature read:

  Lawrence Gates, M.D.

  Now that might not have been illegal, but it sure as hell was irregular to have one brother sign the other's death certificate.

  Rob decided he'd better have another talk with Doc Winters about his former resident.

  February 15

  5:33 A.M.

  She was awake.

  And as soon as she realized it, Kara threw down the quilt and top sheet and felt the soles of her feet. She couldn't see in the predawn gray, but they seemed okay. She snapped on the bedside lamp and looked.

  Clean. Thank God, they were clean!

  The sense of relief brought her close to tears.

  She'd never paid much attention to washing her feet, it was just part of her shower routine. But last night she'd washed them carefully, inspecting them again before she turned out the light. They'd been clean.

  Sleep had been a long time coming, kept at bay by the nightmare possibility that sleep might release another someone within her, might allow that someone to use her body. No matter how often Kara dismissed the idea, it crept back. Exhaustion finally overpowered apprehension and she drifted off.

  But it was okay, now. Her feet were clean. They had been spotless last night, and they were spotless now.

  She hopped out of bed. Her muscles ached from the aerobic and Nautilus work-out she'd put herself through at the gym yesterday. But it was good pain. Constructive pain.

  She took a deep breath. Sunday. This was going to be a good day. She'd been too tense to do much writing yesterday. But with the early start she was getting now, she'd make up for that today.

  She padded to the bathroom to brush her teeth and throw some water on her face. The medicine cabinet over the sink was open. Jill must have been up during the night and not pushed it closed firmly enough. She grabbed the toothpaste tube and slammed the door shut.

  And stared.

  Someone had written in lipstick on the door's mirrored surface.

  Kara felt the toothpaste slip from her fingers as she stood there and trembled. It took all her strength of will to keep from screaming. She leaned on the sink and steadied herself. She had to be calm. She had to control this situation. Most of all she had to protect Jill from it. She couldn't let Jill see the writing, and she couldn't let Jill see her mother like this.

  Forcing her hands to be steady, Kara took a handful of tissues and began to rub at the letters. First they smeared and merged, and then with increased effort they began to fade. When they were gone and only her own ashen, frightened face showed in the glass, she carried the wad downstairs to the kitchen garbage.

  As she stood in the kitchen, she felt off-balance, physically as well as mentally, as if she were tottering on the brink of some sort of breakdown. It would be so easy to give in to the impulse to run screaming from the house, to lose herself in panic, to exhaust herself in blind flight. But there was Jill to think of. And there was the overriding realization that she could not run from this.

  She went through her purse and found Dr. Gates's card. It was early and it was Sunday, but she had to call him now. She had to do something, make an attempt to speak to someone who knew about these things, even if it was only to leave a message on his answering machine, tell him that she was falling apart and ask him what she could do about it.

  "Dr. Gates' service," said a woman's voice after three rings.

  A real person! An answering service! They'll know where he is!

  "Hello, my name is Kara Wade, I'm a patient of Dr. Gates' and I need to reach him immediately. Can you connect me?"

  "I'm sorry. Dr. Gates is not available for the weekend. He'll be picking up his messages tomorrow morning. Dr. Fleischer is covering any emergencies. Can I have him call you back?"

  No, that wouldn't do. Only Dr. Gates would understand the situation and know she wasn't hallucinating. She thanked the operator and hung up. She'd have to wait until tomorrow.

  Delusions… hallucinations… she walked over to the kitchen garbage pail and stared at the clump of red smeared tissues. Still there. She touched it. Still very real.

  She glanced up at the clock over the sink. Ten to six. It was a long, long time until tomorrow morning. But she could do it. She could make it. She could handle this until then.

  ▼

  11:35 P.M.

  Kara sat staring at the TV. A repeat of one of the old black and white Avengers episodes was on channel 12, but she wasn't paying attention. It had been a long day. She was emotionally drained and exhausted. Her body cried out for sleep but the prospect terrified her.

  No sleep.

  Sleep was a luxury she couldn't afford. Sleep was when you lost control. So the answer was to stay awake all night. She had coffee, she had the television. Jill was peacefully asleep upstairs. Kara would stay down here, and stay awake.

  Janine. The name had plagued her all through the hellishly long day. Writing had been impossible because she couldn't stop thinking about Janine. If indeed there truly was a Janine inside her, where had she got the name? Since her unconscious had presumably created Janine during Kara's childhood, where had it dug up a name Kara had never heard as a child? Or at least did not remember hearing. Maybe the source of the name was locked away with the personality that bore it.

  But another question haunted her: Did Janine really exist? Or was what had happened here these past two days a part of her own reaction to Kelly's death? She clung to that explanation. She had to.

  She could probably clear it up with a simple phone call to her mother. Or could she? What could she say? Mom? Did Dad rape Kelly and me on a regular basis when we were kids?

  No way.

  Shuddering with revulsion, she got up and poured herself another cup of coffee, then settled herself on the straight-back wooden chair and tried to lose herself in the irrelevance of a three-decades old British television show.

  It beat thinking.

  February 16

  5:45 A.M.

  Kara realized she had been asleep.

  She jumped up from the chair and stared frantically around the living room. Good God, it was morning already! Body by Jake was on the TV. How long had she been out? Was anything different? Had she done anything while she was out? She checked her feet—clean. But that hadn't meant anything yesterday. She scann
ed the kitchen. Everything seemed the same there except for—

  —the carving knife on the counter.

  Feeling weak and sick, Kara stumbled toward the kitchen.

  Please, God, no blood. Don't let there be blood on that blade.

  There wasn't. The blade was clean. It was Dad's ancient carving knife. It had been new when it was a wedding gift thirty-five years ago. He'd honed it so many times over the years, standing before Thanksgiving turkeys, Christmas hams, and summer steaks, that the blade was now half its original width. Kara had never thrown it away. It had always been special. Now she didn't want to touch it. But she did.

  As she lifted it gingerly and carried it to the sink, she saw that the point was broken. She didn't remember ever noticing that before. What could—?

  "Mom?"

  It was Jill's voice from upstairs. She sounded a little frightened. Probably looking for her. Kara hurried to the foot of the stairs.

  "I'm down here, hon. Everything okay?"

  She held her breath. Please say yes.

  "Sure," Jill said, smiling from the top of the stairs.

  Kara exhaled.

  Jill said, "But who's Janine?"

  Biting back a scream, Kara fought off the blackness that crowded the edges of her vision and forced herself up the stairs.

  "Wh-where did you heard that name?"

  "You okay, Mom?'

  "Just tell me!"

  "I read it. Mom, what's wrong?"

  "Where? In the bathroom?"

  "No. In my bedroom."

  Kara brushed past her alarmed daughter and hurried to the bedroom at the far end of the hall. She burst through the door and didn't notice anything at first. Then she saw the thin letters sliced into the wall above Jill's bed.

  Kara couldn't hold it in any longer. She stood in the doorway and screamed.

  ▼

  6:50 A.M.

  They made it to the New Jersey Turnpike in record time.

  After Kara had calmed herself and soothed a very frightened and mystified Jill, she called Dr. Gates. He wasn't available yet, according to the answering service. Kara couldn't wait. She had to get away from the farm, away from those words carved in the wall above Jill's bed. She threw some clothes in a couple of suitcases, loaded the car, and fled for New York.

  As she drove, she could not escape the vague, ominous feeling that she was heading toward even worse trouble. She laid that off to her long-time aversion to New York, and the cruel irony of having to run for help to the city she loathed.

  Along the way, Kara pulled into every rest stop she saw and called Dr. Gates' number. It wasn't until the Adm. Wm. Halsey Plaza near Newark Airport that she reached him.

  "Strange things are happening," she told him. "Frightening things."

  Dr. Gates' voice conveyed all the concern of a man inquiring about a train schedule.

  "What, for instance?"

  She didn't want to talk about them now, and she didn't want him to put off seeing her.

  "I'm only half an hour from the city. I'll tell you when I get there. When can you see me?"

  "Well… my schedule is already filled, perhaps I can—"

  "It's got to be today. If you can't squeeze me in, perhaps you can recommend someone."

  Kara didn't want to see anyone else, but she sensed Dr. Gates would never send her to a rival.

  "Well, since you seem to think this is an emergency, perhaps I can add you on at the end of the schedule. Please be at my office at five."

  "I'll be there."

  She hung up, feeling a little better. The foreboding still clung to her like a shroud, but at least she was doing something about whatever was happening to her. She had taken the first step toward beating this. And she would beat it. Kara had structured her life so as to maximize her autonomy. No one controlled her. No one ever would.

  Especially not something or someone who called herself "Janine."

  ▼

  10:29 A.M.

  Rob recognized her voice immediately. It gave an instant lift to an otherwise dreary Monday.

  "Kara! What's up? How's the farm?"

  "It's fine," she said. She sounded subdued. "Rob, there's something I've got to ask you."

  Rob glanced around the squad room. His desk was situated near its center, surrounded by everybody else's. He wished he had more privacy, but the enclosed office went to the lieutenant. It didn't matter much at the moment. Karpinsky and Reddington were in the corner, arguing animatedly with Rob's partner, Augustino Manetti; Madsen and Carter were at their own desks, banging out reports on their typewriters. There was enough racket to cover his end of the conversation.

  "Sure. Go ahead."

  "You were with me on Thursday in Dr. Gates office when he hypnotized me, right?"

  "Right."

  "Were you with me all the time? I mean, did you ever leave the room?"

  "Not for a second. Gates did. He left to get some files. But I never budged from my chair."

  "So he didn't plant any post-hypnotic suggestions in me then, right?"

  Rob was becoming concerned now. And he could tell Kara was upset.

  "Kara, what's this all about?"

  "A couple of weird things happened over the weekend."

  A wavelet of nausea rolled through Rob's stomach.

  "What sort of things?"

  "I don't want to talk about it now. But you're sure nothing happened while I was hypnotized? No one named 'Janine' spoke from me?"

  "Gates kept calling for 'Janine' to speak, but she never did. Only when he called you 'Kara' did you answer him. You just looked like you were asleep the whole time, except when…"

  "When what?"

  The sight of Kara turning her head and looking at him with that awful grin flashed before his eyes.

  "When you looked at me and smiled."

  "I didn't say anything?"

  "No. It was when Gates was out of the room. You just… smiled."

  Calling that grimace a smile was like calling a rabid wolf a puppy, but he didn't want to upset her more than she already was, not if it wasn't going to change anything.

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I didn't think anything of it." I didn't want to think anything of it. "How bad is this, Kara?"

  There was a long pause, then a tremulous sigh, then:

  "I may have the same thing as Kelly."

  Rob gripped the phone with muscle-cramping intensity.

  "Where are you? I'm coming to get you."

  "I'm okay, Rob. I'm handling it. I've got an appointment with Dr. Gates at five. I'm going to start treatment with him right away."

  "I'll meet you there and sit in like before."

  "No. Thanks, but that won't be necessary this time."

  "I don't trust him, Kara."

  "I've got to start trusting him now. I don't have any choice."

  "There are plenty of shrinks in the city."

  "But he's already familiar with this case. I'll have to start from scratch with anybody else."

  She made sense, but Rob still didn't like it.

  "Okay. Call me when you're through. Let me know what he says."

  "Rob—"

  "I care, Kara. Dammit, I still care. I don't want anything bad happening to you."

  "Thanks, Rob," she said in a smaller voice. "That helps. I'll call."

  After hanging up, Rob checked his watch. He wondered if he could get to talk to Doc Winters today. He wanted to clear up a couple of questions about Lazlo Gati.

  ▼

  5:06 P.M.

  "You can go in now," the receptionist said.

  It was a replay of last Thursday, only this time Kara was alone. She had left Jill at Aunt Ellen's for the afternoon. The poor kid wasn't sure what was happening, she just knew it wasn't good. Kara would have loved to have been able to explain everything to her, but how? She had told her that she wasn't feeling well and had come to New York to see a doctor who could help her. Jill wanted details but Kara had managed to avoid them. Fo
r now.

  Kara had called Marge, her supervisor at the hospital, to explain her absence. She still had some time off coming to her and was going to have to use up what was left. Marge didn't sound too happy. She told Kara that if she couldn't do the job, they'd have to find somebody else. Kara had hung up with the feeling that the world was closing in on her. She didn't need this extra pressure, not with her mind playing tricks on her and her book falling farther and farther behind schedule.

  Dr. Gates was behind his desk as usual. His blue oxford shirt picked up the blue of his eyes. His light brown tie was almost the same sandy shade of his wavy hair and mustache. His expression was as neutral as ever.

  He motioned her toward a chair.

  "Have a seat, Miss Wade, and tell me all about the 'strange things' that have been happening to you."

  Kara gave him a brief description of the weekend's unsettling incidents, from her soiled feet on Saturday morning to the message carved over Jill's bed. Dr. Gates listened in silence, twirling that key ring on his finger. When she finished, he rose from the desk and walked to the window. His expression was troubled when he turned back to her.

  "I was afraid of this."

  "Of what? Tell me what's happening. That's why I'm here."

  "Isn't it obvious? Janine—your second personality. She's no longer dormant."

  "That's just it: It's too obvious, and too bizarre. I can't buy that. I can't buy Janine's existence."