The Babysitter Murders - By Janet Ruth Young Page 0,59

and announces Shelley’s gayness over a loudspeaker.

She imagines calling her mother a dried-up twat, but this time she says it in front of Sean. Dani feels even more anxious than when she started therapy.

“What will we work on tomorrow?” Dani asks.

“The same thing,” Dr. Mandel replies.

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By the fifth day Dani has become accustomed to the anxiety the words dyke and twat create. She’s anxious, but a little bored at the same time.

“Can we move on to something else?” she asks.

“Let’s give it one more day,” Dr. Mandel insists.

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Meghan tells Shelley about the boyfriend she had back in Pennsylvania, where she lived until two years ago. “Sam and I met in a coffeehouse,” she says. “He’s a really great singer/songwriter and he wrote some songs for me. He sent me one recently, as a matter of fact.”

“Cool. How come you guys broke up?” Shelley asks.

“Because I moved here.”

Maybe Meghan is using the old boyfriend as a cover, as a beard. Shelley has referred to bugs as boyfriends too, but those boys never meant anything. Shelley wishes Dani were here to hear, study, and analyze every word Meghan says. It’s tough going through something like this alone.

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“How is your anxiety today, Dani?” Dr. Mandel asks.

“Not bad.”

“Can you assign it a number from one to ten?”

“Somewhere between four and six.”

Dani is tired of being cooped up in the hotel so much of the time. Yesterday she went to a bookstore with Beth’s credit card.

She bought a Jane Austen novel, two movies, and some workout DVDs they could do together in the room. Yesterday Beth let her jog around the neighborhood wearing large sunglasses and a hat.

No one seemed to have been following her. She hopes that in a day or two Beth will loosen up enough that the two of them can go to some concerts and museums.

“Let’s try to raise your anxiety a bit. Tell me more about the knives in Alex’s house that bothered you. The ones you moved to the garage. What did they look like? How large were they?”

“The one that weirded me out was pretty large, the kind you would use to carve roast beef.” Dani rubs her hands together.

“How is your anxiety level now?” Dr. Mandel removes her glasses to wipe them.

“Climbing. Maybe a seven?”

Dr. Mandel reaches into her desk and takes out a carving knife.

T H E B A B Y S I T T E R M U R D E R S

“Was the largest knife something like this?” she says, holding it with the point up.

“Very much like that,” Dani says. Oh my God, she thinks.

“How is your anxiety now?”

“At least a nine. You surprised me.” She did not expect to see a knife in Dr. Mandel’s office, and she doesn’t know where the doctor got it from. For a second she believes that this is the actual knife from Alex’s house, that it has been brought here as evidence to prove something about her. She’s afraid of what she might do.

“Remember,” the doctor says, “I don’t want you to fight the thoughts. I want you acknowledge them and grow accustomed to the anxiety.”

“Is that knife from Alex’s house?”

“No, it’s from the gourmet shop down the street.”

“How did you get it? Why is it here?”

“Try not to rub your hands. How is your anxiety?”

“Through the roof,” Dani says. “Ten.”

“Come stand by my desk.” Dr. Mandel sounds like a teacher on the first day of school.

Dr. Mandel unties her checked silk scarf.

“Hold the knife to my throat,” she says.

“I don’t want to,” she says.

“I want you to,” Dr. Mandel says firmly.

Dani folds her hands behind her back.

“Unclasp your hands. Take the knife. It’s the only way you’ll get better.”

“But how can you be sure I won’t kill you?” Dani asks, hold-267

JANET RUTH YOUNG

ing the heavy knife. She feels sick. For months she’s thought how a knife like this would feel. That doesn’t mean she wants to feel it.

“I can’t be sure,” Dr. Mandel says, unbuttoning the top button of her white blouse.

“Do you know where the arteries are?”

“There’s one on either side.”

“Maybe that would be a good spot.”

“How do you know I won’t kill you?” Dani asks again.

Dr. Mandel sets her eyeglasses on the desk. She leans back like she’s about to take a nap. As her head falls back, Dani sees and smells her neck: plump, white, unwrinkled, with a trace of fragrant body powder. “Maybe you will and maybe you won’t,”

Dr. Mandel says.

Dani stands over the therapist. “You must trust me then,” Dani