You Don't Want To Know - By Lisa Jackson Page 0,26

the truth.

“Here.” Cheryl offered her a cup of steaming herbal tea that smelled like ginger. “Want to try again?”

Sipping the tea, she shook her head. “Another time.” Another swallow. “You have any other clients who have this same problem?”

Cheryl smiled as the door to her room slid open and a skinny tortoiseshell cat slithered inside. “There was a guy a few years ago who had a major mental block, but we got through it. I think we can with you, too . . . You get right to the edge and pull back.”

“How is that possible? I thought with hypnosis”—she shivered inside—“that, you know, you could delve past everything.”

“Everyone’s different, Ava. Even the most willing participants sometimes are difficult to reach. We’ll try again, if that’s what you want.”

“Okay.” She sipped her tea, then, pulling herself together, paid Cheryl and made an appointment for the next week.

Even though she half suspected the whole hypnosis thing wasn’t working, she couldn’t give up. At least not yet. As she made her way back to the dock, she wondered if anything could help or if she would forever be trapped in this state of unknowing, a hellish purgatory that had no end.

Her recent hospital stay hadn’t done more than calm her, and her regular therapy sessions with Dr. McPherson hadn’t provided any major breakthroughs. Hypnosis had been a last grasp on her part, a desperate measure, and it, too, hadn’t succeeded in opening repressed memories or shrouded truths.

Maybe there are none. Maybe the answers you’re searching for will never be found.

That thought was chilling, and it chased her through the narrow streets and down the barnacled steps to the dock where she found Butch, seated at the helm of the Holy Terror as he flipped through the pages of a worn paperback and smoked a cigarette.

“I thought I told you I’d catch a ride with Wyatt,” she said as he glanced up to peer at her over the tops of his sunglasses.

“You did.” He set the book down and started the engine.

“So?”

“You’re a liar, Ava. We both know it.” He flashed her a smile that made him look ten years younger, then waved her into the boat. “Climb aboard.”

“You didn’t have to come back for me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Now who’s the liar?”

He snorted, adjusting the brim of his hat. “Wasn’t doin’ anything anyway. Fishin’s lousy.”

“So bad that you had to hang around here and wait for me.”

“Nothin’ better goin’ on.”

She didn’t believe him for a second, but she took the ride.

As she settled into her seat, Butch tossed the ropes holding the boat to its mooring inside the hull, then stood behind the helm. Threading the Holy Terror through the other docked fishing and pleasure vessels, he didn’t notice as she sank deeper into the plastic cushions and told herself the vision she’d had during hypnosis was nothing, just her active imagination. Again.

She heard the engine begin to race as Butch let out the throttle, and when she opened her eyes again, the marina and Anchorville were behind them and the gray expanse of water between the island and mainland was narrowing.

She told herself she wasn’t going back to prison, that she was a free woman, but as the Holy Terror bucked a little as the prow hit the wake of a speed boat cruising the opposite direction, she knew she was lying to herself.

Ava wrapped her arms around her middle and felt a cold spreading through her body as Neptune’s Gate came clearly into view. It had once been the one place in the world she’d felt safe and secure. She’d worked hard to own all of it . . . well, almost all of it. There still was Jewel-Anne’s portion. Jewel-Anne was the only holdout, the one cousin who hadn’t been swayed by money.

“Why would I sell it? I love it here, Ava,” she’d said, looking up at her with her pretty, little girl face and seemingly innocent eyes. They’d been in the back hallway, near the elevator shaft, Jewel, for once, without one of her dolls. “It’s more important than any amount of money.”

“You could live with friends, be in the city—Seattle or San Francisco, even L.A.—instead of being cooped up here on the island.” Ava had already offered her cousin nearly twice what Jewel’s share of the estate was worth.

Jewel’s perfect little mouth had twisted into a wry smile and her eyes had seemed to shine with superiority. “I said I love it here.” She’d flipped her hair over her shoulder,