The Stars Shine Bright Read online

  “But if you had a phone, I could call you from upstairs. Let you know what he says about the visit.”

  “Why can’t you walk back here and tell me in person?”

  “I can’t.” That wasn’t really true—I just didn’t want to walk back. Which meant I told another lie. Wonderful.

  “Call her.” He nodded at the receptionist. “She can give me the message.”

  “I guess you didn’t catch her drift. The desk closes at three. What if I’m not done by three?”

  “Which brings us to my original point. The old-fashioned method still works. Come tell me in person.”

  Less than two hours together and already the bickering had started. It felt sadly familiar, known and uncomfortable, like a river current that started miles back and continually forced us to swim against it. Once upon a time, his manor life at Weyanoke charmed me. It seemed romantic, especially compared to the FBI’s barking acronyms, triplicate legal files, and electronic databanks. But eight months after our engagement, I was learning something crucial about relationships: the same quality that charmed in the beginning became annoying later.

  Reaching into my purse, I handed him my cell phone and car keys. “If you don’t hear from me by three, take Madame for a walk. The grounds are actually nice. For an insane asylum.”

  “You shouldn’t call it that.”

  “DeMott, I’m so far beyond euphemisms.” I turned to the receptionist, waiting for her to unlock the stairwell. When the door buzzed, I swung it open.

  A woman sprang out.

  She must’ve been crouched below the small window in the door, planning her escape, because she pushed me away and headed straight for the main exit. The receptionist immediately slapped her hand on the wall, and I heard locks snapping in the front door.

  The woman shook the door handle. “Let me go! Do you hear me? I’m getting out of here.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.” The receptionist picked up the phone. “You don’t have a pass.”

  “But I want to leave.” The woman waddled over to the desk. She was short and fat and her hair looked like oiled gray strings. “You can’t keep me here.”

  I was still wondering what to do, holding the stairwell door, when she turned and smiled at DeMott. Her yellow teeth looked like torn celery stalks.

  She said, “What’re you doing here?”

  “I’m waiting,” DeMott said.

  “Well, I’m going to town. Come with me. We can drink three beers.”

  “Three?”

  “Yes. Three.”

  The receptionist hung up the phone. “Margaret, you’re not going anywhere. You don’t have a pass.”

  “I’m riding the bus.”

  “You need money to ride a bus.”

  “No, I don’t.” She turned to DeMott. “My boyfriend is the bus driver.”

  Too polite to stare at this creature, and too gentlemanly for sudden action, DeMott was glancing around the foyer, looking shaken. But another door suddenly opened, beside the receptionist’s desk, and two men stepped out. One was a stocky man with red hair. The other was a large black man wearing a gold cross necklace. Both wore white uniforms. And both smiled at Margaret.

  “You are not taking me,” Margaret said.

  I looked at DeMott. “I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

  “That seems long,” he said.

  “You have no idea,” I said.

  The long, narrow hallway on the second floor felt like a tunnel, with Dr. Norbert’s office waiting at the end. In the small room full of books, he had drawn the slatted blinds against the afternoon sunlight. One small lamp illuminated the space and made the furniture fall into ambient grays and blacks, so that every object looked both vague and significant, like he was expanding the Rorschach tests.

  “I’m curious about why you wanted to cancel our appointment,” he said, closing the door behind me. “And then eager to move it up to three o’clock.”

  He pointed at the brown couch, anxious for me to sit. Maybe because when I was standing I towered over him.

  But I didn’t sit, and I stayed by the door. “My mom’s dog is in my car.” I searched for the exact term he’d used during our last visit. “You said a visit might be therapeutic.”

  He stroked the clipped beard. “Does this dog bite?”

  “If you kick her.”

  His smile came thin and strained, an expression I might diagnose as passive-aggressive. He walked over to his desk and picked up the phone, dialing a three-digit number and asking if a meeting room was available on ward three. “I’ll need it in about thirty minutes,” he said. “Bring the patient Nadine Harmon. And the orderly she likes. Is she available?”

  I glanced around the room. Books were usually a good sign. But something about the tightly aligned spines in the darkened room told me otherwise. This was a neat and narrow library, the kind that contained only the books that agreed with Freud’s perspective, a library that had relinquished its true purpose of opening hearts and minds. Even in the dim light I could see the word clinical on several dozen covers.

  “That sounds acceptable. One moment.” He placed his small hand over the receiver. “How do you propose to get the dog onto the ward without her seeing you?”

  “I have somebody bringing her.”

  He hesitated, then finished speaking to the person on the phone. When he hung up, he pointed to the couch again. “Have a seat, Raleigh.”

  “May I use your phone first?”

  “My phone?”

  I nodded.

  “You don’t have a cell phone?”

  “Not with me, at the moment.” I smiled but felt the chill of his question. This little tidbit of information would probably join his notes for OPR. Didn’t have cell phone with her. “I need to make a call. About Madame.”

  “The dog.”

  “Yes.”

  He lifted the receiver and offered it to me. “Press nine to leave the system.”

  If only, I thought. If only I could press a number and leave this entire system. As I called my own phone, I read the letters placed under his desk’s protective glass. Several looked official, marked with the state seal of George Washington’s image. I wanted to read the contents, but Freud stood by my shoulder, and my phone was ringing too many times. I started counting. Five, six rings. And still DeMott didn’t answer. I ground my teeth. He probably didn’t know how to slide his finger over the screen. When the seventh ring started, I began composing a voice-mail message, something for Freud to overhear. But DeMott suddenly picked up.

  And I couldn’t resist. “You have to slide your finger over the screen.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I figured that out when your friend called.”

  “My friend?”

  “Jack.”

  Which was worse, I didn’t know: DeMott talking to Jack, on my cell phone, or little Sigmund Freud carefully watching me right now.

  Before I could decide, DeMott said, “That’s him, isn’t it?” His voice came fast and heated. “Your colleague? The guy who just happened to show up on the cruise to Alaska.”

  I wanted to vomit, right there on Freud’s official letters. But if there was ever a time not to show fear, this was it.

  “Great news,” I said cheerfully. “Dr. Norbert says Madame can come in. But since I can’t be seen, you’ll need to—”

  He hung up.

  No problem figuring that out, I thought bitterly. I wanted to slam the phone down. Instead I continued talking, refusing to give the shrink any more rope. “—bring her in. I’ll meet you after the visit.”

  And, because my life was a total fraud, I pretended to listen.

  “Pardon?” I said. “Right. Sounds good. About thirty minutes.”

  When I hung up, my hands felt detached from my arms. Woodenly, I walked over to the brown couch and sat down.

  Dr. Norbert sank deep into his padded chair and took out his notebook, tilting it just so. “Who was that?”

  “My fiancé. He f
lew out here with Madame. Today.”

  The doctor gave a long, slow nod, savoring the moment.

  Our four visits had taught me to wait out his silences. But my nerves got the best of me. “I told you he was coming.”

  “Yes. You did. But you only mentioned the dog was here. Not your fiancé.”

  “Just because the front desk closes”—I lifted my arm, making an extravagant gesture with my wristwatch—“in about two minutes. I wanted to make sure the dog could get in.”

  “Your fiancé is downstairs waiting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why doesn’t he join our session?”

  “That seems dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “Risky. Since I’m undercover.”

  “You picked him up at the airport?”

  I nodded.

  “And drove him here. And you are requesting a visitor’s pass. All of which poses much more risk to your undercover status than a visit to my office.” He tilted his head, feigning curiosity. It was the gesture of a man who enjoyed setting traps but didn’t have the courage to admit it. “Why wouldn’t you want DeMott to join us?”

  I stared at him. This little man. Surrounded by a sea of certifiable lunatics. And who chose to pick apart his only patient who wasn’t locked up. Right there, every nerve inside of me turned to steel.

  “Well, Doctor, my first concern is for my mother. She needs to see her dog. I wasn’t thinking about myself. Or my fiancé. Or you, frankly. I was thinking about her and the dog.”

  “The dog, yes. I know more about her than I do about you.” He tilted his head again. The round spectacles glinted like quartz in the lamplight. “Tell me how you felt seeing DeMott.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “You were happy to see him?”

  “Of course.”

  “Not anxious, nervous?”

  “No.”

  “Not even undercover?”

  “I told you, Raleigh David is engaged. DeMott only makes my cover look more real.”

  “But Raleigh David isn’t engaged. Raleigh David doesn’t exist. The woman engaged to DeMott is Raleigh Harmon.”

  I pressed my palms together. “I thought you were referring to the case. How it would appear. To anyone watching.”

  “Do you think you’re being watched, Raleigh?”

  My mother was a schizophrenic. Paranoid schizophrenic. If I told Freud that a black Cadillac was following me, how would he react? I suddenly saw those men from the lobby, coming through the door in their white uniforms. What a giddy note Freud could write to OPR.

  “Nobody’s watching me.”

  “Does DeMott support your work?”

  “Yes.”

  “He doesn’t mind you working undercover?”

  “No.” I decided to stop counting my lies. “He doesn’t mind.”

  “And how does he feel about you living here, in Washington?”

  “He wants to know when I’m coming home. Naturally.”

  “Naturally. And by home, you mean Virginia?”

  I nodded.

  “What did you tell him about going home?”

  “I said it depended on my mom. I told him she can’t travel until she’s well.” I closed my lips and deployed my official FBI smile. “I think she’ll be very happy to see Madame.”

  “What about DeMott—would she enjoy seeing him?”

  I kept smiling. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  Ward Three was one floor above his dimmed office. Dr. Norbert stood at the two-way tinted mirror that was embedded with chicken wire. He kept glancing between the view inside the meeting room and me.

  “Your mother’s agreed to attend group therapy,” he said. “They meet in there.” He rocked back on his heels, checking my expression. “She even contributed to some artwork.”

  The artwork was finger paintings. Paintbrushes were probably too dangerous, potential weapons. Taped to the gray walls, the pictures exploded with primary colors, saturated and disturbing. Plastic chairs with no sharp edges had been placed in a circle, but DeMott pulled two out and sat directly across from my mother. She held Madame in her arms like a baby and the dog wagged its tail. My eyes felt hot, stinging. That durable burn from damming up tears. I didn’t want to take my eyes off my mother, but there was a third person in the room. The orderly. The one she liked.

  Felicia Kunkel.

  “The orderly,” I said to Freud, keeping my voice casual, “she works on the ward?”

  “She’s something of an aide. Minimally trained in medical matters.”

  I placed a hand on the wall, swallowing to control my voice. “How long has she worked here?”

  “Not very long. But the staff say your mother immediately took to her.”

  Little wonder. My mother already knew Felicia. But my brain was struggling to make sense of her presence here. Last year I’d spent a memorable night babysitting Felicia for Jack, before she testified in federal court. When she later met my mother, they became fast friends. But watching these three people and the dog, I felt scared. Out of control. Something was going on and I couldn’t quantify it and Freud’s gaze was on me. I felt like I’d stepped into a bad dream at the halfway point.

  “Feeling all right?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  He turned back to the mirror. “It’s interesting. Your mother’s paranoia almost disappears with the girl. She’ll even take her medicine.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Good, yes,” he echoed. “But odd.”

  I didn’t want to ask. But I needed to know. “How is that odd?”

  “This young woman doesn’t resemble you. Not in the least.”

  Felicia had the figure of an overripe pear, and her white skin was pocked from sores acquired through her former drug addictions. Leaning against the wall, she looked bored and bit her nails in a nonchalant manner, spitting the pieces to the floor.

  “Perhaps there’s some connection to your sister,” he said.

  My sister, Helen, looked nothing like Felicia either. Lithe and intellectual, Helen was beautiful in a contrived Bohemian way. But the doctor’s probe had hit something. On the inside, Felicia and Helen were nearly twins. Both insecure and self-loathing, they each fell for controlling men who were themselves weak. Women without any center or foundation. The lost types that often gravitated toward my mother. Hurt people. Who needed to know love, and that such things as redemption and salvation existed. Those people were drawn to her, because she was acquainted with pain.

  “There’s some resemblance to my sister,” I said.

  “I thought so.” He turned, fully facing me. “How does it feel, seeing your mother after all this time?”

  Her porcelain skin was shiny and bloated, like rising bread dough. Every time she looked down at the dog curled in her lap, I saw the wide stripe of gray hair, stretching down her scalp, dividing her black curls that hung on either side, tangled and loose as abandoned nests. She wore a pink calico shirt, nothing like her normal wardrobe of extravagant clothing, but I wondered if she even saw the thing. Her eyes had a dull glaze.

  “She looks good,” I lied.

  “Good,” he repeated. “But something bothers you?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  I gritted my teeth. Yes, something bothered me—his incessant tactic of repeating my last word. But I kept my eyes on the dog. Madame’s tail swished drowsily. Her small black face lay on my mother’s arm, gazing up at the still-lovely neck of Nadine Shaw Harmon. Whenever my mother looked down, the wagging accelerated.

  I turned to Freud, fastening the official smile to my face. “I’m just glad she’s improving.”

  “Improving, yes. And enjoying your fiancé. Perhaps he could come again.”

  DeMott sat with his back to the mirror. I could see the solid shoulders, the hair on his forearms where he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves, as though work needed to be done. He was telling her a story, some elaborate tale w
ith gestures. I watched the lean tensile muscles in his arms, the honest strength of a good man. When she smiled at him, it felt like a punch to my gut.

  “DeMott leaves tomorrow,” I said.

  “Tomorrow? Rather a quick visit, considering you’re engaged.”

  “His family needs him. But Madame will be staying. She could come back.”

  “The dog. Perhaps. But notice how your mother is listening to him.”

  Her jasper eyes already seemed clearer, more focused, and a light pink color was brushing her cheeks. From where we stood, DeMott’s voice was just a soft rumble. But it sent tingles down my back, reminding me of all those times I laid my head on his chest, listening to the low thunder of his voice, the beat of his heart steady as a clock.

  I didn’t dare look at Freud. “Can the dog stay?”

  “Stay—here? Absolutely not. But perhaps it can come for another visit.”

  “She.”

  “She?”

  “Madame is not an it,” I said.

  He turned to the glass, watching them again. And I was grateful. The war inside my heart felt close to spilling out, a mess of raging emotions that would bloody this sterile hallway and provide Freud with years of material. I hadn’t seen my mother in months, but it was even longer since I’d seen her smile like this. She stopped looking at me that way long ago. Because of my lies. Because deep inside she knew what I was telling her didn’t make sense.

  A good daughter would now be happy to see the joy on her face. But self-pity was a wicked little snake and it came slithering forward on the realization that DeMott had cruised in here so easily. And Felicia, half-bored Felicia, picking at her hangnails. And here I was hidden on the other side of a fake mirror with a fake identity and a little doctor who faked his concern.

  “Are you sure nothing’s bothering you, Raleigh?”

  “I’m just glad to see her.”

  Not a complete lie. I was glad. And some thing didn’t bother me; many things bothered me. DeMott’s visit was already bubbling over with our simmering conflicts and resentments, and yet here was my beloved, my fiancé, visiting an asylum—asking to come—and talking to my drugged-up mother behind security doors and safety glass, chatting away as if nothing was wrong. DeMott Fielding. He knew chivalry. Profound thoughtfulness. Respect for my mother, even amid these horrid circumstances. He was wonderful, heroic, and I couldn’t figure out why that made me feel so sad.