promised to read Finn MacCoul and the Fenians of Erin, remember?"
"Trissa, I can't stay here tonight."
"Oh."
"You do understand, don't you?"
"No."
"I can't let myself get too attached."
"Oh."
Her clipped, hurt words were like pricks to the heart with a tiny dagger. His will seeped away through the wounds. "But, I guess, there's no harm in reading. This room's the same as any other for reading."
She put one hand over the folktale book and the other at shoulder height, palm forward. "I solemnly swear to read and only read."
She did not keep her pledge. She never had any intention to keep it. And in the end, he had to admit, even to himself, he was very glad of that.
Chapter Nineteen
There had been no difficulty engaging the treatment room. As a staff psychiatrist with an affiliated hospital in Michigan, Fitapaldi had been accorded all courtesies and facilities to treat his patient here in St. Louis. Every step had been smoothly and efficiently handled, and he had let the ease and convenience of the arrangements lull him into burying his initial doubts.
It had only been when he drove around the circle drive to the front of this St. Vincent's, an almost identical twin to his hospital up north, that the misgivings overwhelmed him. The same black and white tiles paved the floor, the same green walls and over-waxed wood trim lined their path, the same marble statues with the same insipid smiles served as markers along the way. If Cole had not been so adamant and unyielding in his decision, he might have sensed Fitapaldi's foreboding or felt the same himself. How Fitapaldi regretted he hadn't followed his instincts and canceled the session.
It should have been so simple. He had used narcotherapy with dozens of patients, victims of traumatic neuroses, whose anxieties were lifted and who had experienced an almost immediate abatement of their symptoms. A slow injection of two to five tenths gram of sodium pentathol in a five to ten percent solution should have induced in Cole, as it had in those others he'd treated, the state of relaxation and serenity needed to bring to the surface his repressed memories and conflicts.
In this session, he had planned only to question Cole about his meeting with Bob Kirk, and he was so sure that Cole was not at fault in Kirk's subsequent death that he knew the facts uncovered would ease his anxieties about the matter. With that out of the way, there would be nothing to stop Trissa's effective, loving therapy from proceeding. He believed Trissa alone had the power to lead Cole out of the darkness and back into life. Fitapaldi had only to clear the path.
"I want to love her, Doctor. For the first time in my life, I want someone to love," Cole had said when he came to him with his plea for help. "When I'm with her, it is like I'm someone else. Not Cole. Not Nicholas either. But someone who's only whole when she's there to complete me. Is that love, do you think? I know so little about it."
"Yes. I think that is love."
"But you know how hopeless it is. I'm more than a little insane, and I remember only half a life, and I probably killed her father. A promising start for a young couple in love."
"You are no murderer, Cole. I am sure of that," he'd promised him.
And Fitapaldi had believed that so deeply that when the first jolt of the session struck him, he panicked and pulled back from his questions instead of pursuing them to resolution. As a doctor, he had broken the primary tenet of therapy and become too involved with his patient to be able to accept the revelation neutrally as he should have. Thus, he had failed Cole as dismally as all the others of his profession had ever failed him. How could he have been so wrong?
The tape spun to its end and Fitapaldi rewound and played it again, hoping he had somehow missed a key phrase that would make the nightmare stop. Cole's voice in flat, slowing cadence recited the numbers once more.
"Ninety-four, ninety-three, ninety, nine..."
"Are you feeling all right, Cole? Do you hear me?"
"I'm cold. See the goose bumps? I hear you."
"Will you answer my questions?"
"Fire away, Doc."
"What is your name?"
"Nicholas. Andrew. Brewer."
"Good. And when were you born?"
"July 28, 1937. A Depression baby. Another mouth to feed. Save a place in the soup line."
"Do you know where you were born?"
"Dayton, Ohio. Ohh-hii-ooo. It's very cold. My