is he doing this, really? I don’t know. I will be frank with you, Dr.
Burnett. I’m not crazy, I’m terrified. If that’s his aim, he’s certainly
succeeded. I simply don’t understand why the police think I’m the
bad guy here, that I’m making all of this up for some crazy reason.
Perhaps you could believe me now?”
He was a shrink; he hedged well. “Tell me why you believe this
man is stalking you and making these phone calls to you, why you
don’t believe that he wants to be your boyfriend, that it really all
just boils down to an obsession and his possession of you?”
She closed her eyes. She’d thought and thought about why, but
there wasn’t anything. Nothing at all. He’d targeted her, but why?
She shook her head. “At first he said he wanted to know me. What
does that mean? If he wanted that, why wouldn’t he just come over
and introduce himself? If the cops wanted a nutcase to send to you,
they should find him. What does he really want? I just don’t know.
If I even had a supposition about it, I’d throw it out there, believe
me. But the boyfriend thing? No, I don’t believe that.”
He sat forward, his fingertips pressed together, studying her.
What did he see? What was he thinking? Did she sound insane?
Evidently so, because when he said very quietly, gently even, “You
and I need to talk about you, Ms. Matlock,” she knew he didn’t believe
her, probably hadn’t believed her for a minute. He continued
in that same gentle voice, “There’s a big problem here. Without intervention, it will continue to get bigger and that worries me. Perhaps
you’re already seeing a psychiatrist?”
She had a big problem? She rose slowly and placed her hands on
his desktop. “You’re right about that, doctor. I do have a big problem.
You just don’t know where the problem really is. That, or you
refuse to recognize it. That makes it easier, I guess.”
She grabbed up her purse and walked toward the door. He
called after her, “You need me, Ms. Matlock. You need my help. I
don’t like the direction you’re going. Come back and let me talk to
you.”
She said over her shoulder, “You’re a fool, sir,” and kept walking.
“As for your objectivity, perhaps you should consult your ethics
about that, Doctor.”
She heard him coming after her. She slammed the door and
took off running down the long dingy hallway.
Chapter 3
Becca kept walking, her head down, out the front doors, staring at
her Bally flats. From the corner of her eye, she saw a man turn away
from her, quickly, too quickly. She was at One Police Plaza. There
were a million people, all of them hurrying, like all New Yorkers, focused
on where they were going, wasting not an instant. But this
man, he was watching her, she knew it. It was him, it had to be. If
only she could get close enough, she could describe him. Where was
he now?
Over there, by a city trash can. He was wearing sunglasses, the
same opaque aviator glasses, and a red Braves baseball cap, this time
backward. He was the bad guy in all of this, not her. Something
hit her hard at that moment, and she felt pure rage pump through
her. She yelled,”Wait! Don’t you run away from me, you coward!”
Then she started pushing her way through the crowds of people to
where she’d last seen him. Over there, by that building, wearing a
sweatshirt, dark blue, long-sleeved, no windbreaker this time. She
headed that way. She was cursed, someone elbowed her, but she
didn’t care. She would become an instant New Yorker–utterly focused,
rude if anyone dared to get in her way. She made it to the
corner of the building, but she didn’t see any dark blue sweatshirt.
No baseball cap. She stood there panting.
Why didn’t the cops believe her? What had she ever done to
make them believe she was a liar? What had made the Albany cops
believe she’d lied? And now, he’d murdered that poor old woman
by the museum. She wasn’t some crazy figment in her mind, she