Page 89 of Kill For Me Kill For You
The house sale gave her a lot of ready cash. She needed it. New York was an expensive place to live and it wasn’t like she could work.
Not with everything else going on.
She showered and then got into bed, the fresh cotton sheets cool and welcoming. It was Thanksgiving tomorrow. She’d decided she would go to the parade. It would be safe.
Ruth closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind. Thoughts tended to cloud her peace. The certain knowledge of Quinn’s incapacity allowed a sense of calm to flow through her entire body. She didn’t need to think – she just felt it.
Thinking didn’t help. It was all about feeling.Thatfeeling.
Sometimes, in the dark, she would hear chains rattling. She knew it wasn’t real. It was imagined. A box in Ruth’s mind. A result of her EMDR therapy with Dr. Marin. He had told her it was the best way to deal with trauma – Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center.
Dr. Marin was in his late fifties when they first met. He wore a beard and a ribbon of fluffy white hair surrounded his head, never encroaching on the shiny dome on top. They met in a sterile treatment room. Table and chairs bolted to the floor, and Marin in his white coat, a little yellowed with age at the cuffs, sat opposite her with his fingers clasped together over his belly. He had a kind voice. Soothing.
‘Give me your hand,’ he said.
Ruth held out her hand, over the table. Gently, Marin took it, and began to tap on the back of her wrist.
‘I want you to imagine a box. A box you can open and close,’ he said as he tapped softly on her wrist with his forefinger.
‘It is strong, this box. Very strong. If you put something in there, and locked it, no one could open it but you. It is your box. See it now, clearly, in your mind.’
She closed her eyes.
Tap, tap.
He asked her to describe the box, and she did.
‘We are going to put things in this box, Ruth. It is your box. For your things. We will talk about the things we put in the box. We can put anything in there. A person, a place, a dream . . .’ He tailed off, tapped again and said, ‘Even a face.’
Ruth saw him then. Reflected in the broken glass. The man who’d hurt her. His voice sounded in her head . . .
Hello, sweetheart . . .
She flinched, and Marin’s grip on her hand tightened.
‘Can we put a voice in the box?’ asked Ruth.
‘Yes. Anything you like. First, we make the box strong. Stronger than anything. Then, when you’re ready, we will look at the things that frighten us the most. We will make them smaller. Shrink them. And we will put them all in your box. And then you will be safe from them. They won’t be able to hurt you. And they will never be able to leave that box again.’
Tap, tap.
Ruth lay in bed, in her new apartment, Marin’s voice in her head as she tapped her own wrist now and thought about the box.
Heavy chains were wrapped around the old oak chest in Ruth’s mind. She could see the brass edging on the chest’s corners, and the thick lock keeping its contents secure. The lock and the heavy anchor chains were not for keeping people out. They had a different purpose – they were in place to make sure what was in the chest did not escape. Now and again, in the dark, or the nightmare place between waking and sleep, she heard the chains groaning, rattling, as the things inside the box strained to get out.
She could hear them now. The noise was growing louder.
Ruth sat up in bed, tapped on her right wrist with her left forefinger. Rhythmically. Slowly. Every two seconds.
While she tapped, she looked at the metronome on the side table. Allowing her eyes to follow the ticking needle. Back and forth.
Tick, tock.
She tapped her wrist to that beat. She knew what was in the box, struggling to get out.
The blue-eyed man was in there.
Allthe blue-eyed men were in there.
