Cole straightened in his seat when he saw him open a second file and sift through it. It was Cole's. He knew it. How dare he keep a file on him? When Cole realized that his fists were clenched with knuckle-whitening intensity, he tucked them between the chair arms and his legs. "It took a while to reach me. I've been on the road."
"I want to continue seeing you, Cole."
"Continue? There is nothing to continue. The funding ran out, remember? My father is gone."
"I am very concerned about you."
Concerned. There it was, the key word. Cole knew he would let it slip. They charged by the hour for concern. Setting his mouth in a grim smile, Cole nodded and rose. "Has the loss of my father hit you in the wallet?" he asked scornfully. "What an ambulance chaser you have become, Doctor."
"An ambulance responds to an emergency. Do you feel your situation is an emergency?"
"Do you?"
"There may be danger in it."
"To myself or others?"
"To yourself, I believe."
"Then the danger is as minimal as the victim is meaningless. I was saved once already by the wonders of modern medicine. I can show you the scars to prove it." With deliberate ease, Cole slipped the pencil from Fitapaldi's scribbling fingers and closed the file on his hands. "One miracle to a customer."
"I do not have to see the scars," said the doctor, watching him without blinking. "But they are not only physical."
"Scars are evidence of healing, Doctor. I must therefore be healed, correct?"
"How much do you remember of your father's attack?"
"To which attack do you refer? They were numerous and varied. My father had a talent for torture."
"The last one."
"Ah, yes, the last one. I should invite you into my nightmares sometime. Mere words could not do justice. But, this sounds an awful lot like analysis, Dr. Fitapaldi. You must save your probing for your patients. I have a life to live, restored to me for some momentous purpose which so far has eluded me." Cole raised his hands. "But fear not, I shall continue to seek it. As a survivor, I owe the other victims as much. I suppose this is goodbye then. With my father gone, there is no reason for my return, is there?"
"You know I believe there is."
"You're probably right. But I don't care enough to find out."
"If you don't, perhaps there is someone else in your life who might."
Cole shook his head. Fitapaldi was snatching at dust motes, yet seemed surprised to find his hands come up empty. He should know there was no one. There could never be anyone. He strode the few steps to the door.
"Don't worry. No one ever gets close enough for that. I make sure of it. The victims of Duncan Brewer have ended with me. It is just that I haven't reached the convenience of being buried and forgotten like the rest." Cole paused with his hand on the doorknob. "But that will come. Eventually."
Chapter Two
Cole
The Thanksgiving craziness attacked Cole with a vengeance as November ebbed away. He devised list after list of menus and supplies, ripping each of them to shreds when he would find them later, destroying the physical evidence of his compulsion. But it did not help. The lists were etched on his soul.
"That will be fifty-one dollars and ninety-six cents."
"What?" The figure shocked him to consciousness. It was more than he made last week.
"Fifty-one, ninety-six. You must be expecting a crowd for the holiday. Big family?"
"Uh... oh yes," he shrugged, fighting the rising panic as he realized his wallet did not have enough to cover the bill. Only the crumpled dollars and loose change in his jacket pocket allowed him to escape the humiliation of disavowing the paper sacks filling his cart.
When he had carried them home and stowed them away, his tiny refrigerator and pantry bulged with his lunacy, making him shudder each time he looked for an egg to boil for breakfast or a can of baked beans to open for dinner. He knew he should throw it all out but he didn't. He couldn't.
On Thanksgiving morning, he rose at five from the bed where he had tossed and turned and sweated through the night and began working. He cubed a loaf of white bread, crumbled a pan of dry cornbread and mixed them in the sink -- he had no bowl big enough -- with a half dozen eggs, melted butter, chopped onions and celery, salt, pepper, sage, mushrooms, a pound of cooked