the floor beneath. On the window I can see a high ghastly arc of blood against the sunset.
“Doctor,” I say as I move toward him. My voice sounds like it’s coming from the end of a long tunnel. “Paul?”
I approach the body, battling the urge to run in the other direction. I put my hand on his neck. But there’s no pulse. His skin is still warm, but he is dead.
I try to draw a breath into my lungs, but panic is constricting my airways. My flight response is in high gear; it’s all I can do not to break into a sprint. Then I notice that the door to the bathroom is ajar; the light is on inside. I think I see a flicker of movement, but I’m not certain.
My brain has stopped working; adrenaline kicking, my body takes over. I move toward the exit, keeping my eyes on the thin rectangle of light shining through the opening in the bathroom door. I am not thinking about the poor doctor and the awful way he has died or about who might still be hiding in the bathroom. I am just thinking about getting out of here as fast as possible. I can’t help the doctor, and I can’t afford another run-in with the police.
I start moving backward, my eyes still on the bathroom door. As I do, it starts to open. I find myself paralyzed; I can’t move. I stand and watch it swing wide. She is pale and grim, the young woman I have seen at Ella’s party and standing outside the Internet café. She is soaked in blood. There’s a knife in her hand. Her chest is heaving with the deep, shuttering breaths she is drawing and releasing. We stare at each other for a moment. And then I recognize her. It’s Ophelia.
23
It’s nearly dark when I wake up in my car in the parking lot of my doctor’s office. The sun has disappeared below the horizon line, and the sky is glowing a deep blue-black. My peripheral vision is almost gone from the migraine I have coming on. I am struggling to orient myself, to separate reality from fantasy. I see her face again, her blood-drenched clothes. I see my doctor slumped over his desk, blood draining from him onto the floor.
I don’t feel the appropriate level of terror, I’m just stunned, numb. I look at my watch; it has been only forty minutes since my session with the doctor ended, which seems impossible given what’s happened. There’s a large bloodstain, still wet but drying quickly, on my jacket. I shrug out of it, crumble it into a ball. I don’t want to look at the blood. Then my cell phone, balancing on the dash, starts ringing. I answer.
“Hi, Annie.”
I already recognize the voice—it’s Detective Harrison. I don’t say anything.
“Just wondering if you’ve had any time to think things over.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask him. My voice sounds hysterical, even to my own ears. I am shaking as I put the key in the ignition and start the car. “Did you do this?”
There’s a pause on the other end, as if he’s registering the pitch and tone of my words.
“Annie, what’s wrong?” he asks me. He sounds legitimately concerned. “Where are you?”
“Why are you doing this?” I say again. It must be Harrison. He has done this somehow. He knows about me and is trying to drive me insane. “For money? You can have whatever you want.”
“Take it easy,” he says. His tone is calm and soothing; he must be used to talking to hysterical people. “What’s going on?”
There’s something in his voice that reminds me why I liked him that first night. Even though he’s trying to destroy my life, it’s almost as though he would put that on hold to be a cop for me in this moment. I’m half considering telling him about the doctor, but since I’m not a hundred percent sure that he’s dead and that it wasn’t me who killed him, I decide against it. I’d be admitting that I’m either mentally ill or a murderer, probably both.
“What happened, Annie?” he says, more firmly this time.
But his voice sounds tinny and distant. I end the call and throw the phone on the seat beside me. I drive out of the parking lot, heading for home.
The small causeway that leads to our island is not heavily trafficked in the evening. I pull over and grab the jacket