After choosing a few magazines from the stack of publications in the brass magazine tray in Laura’s study, Earl moved a chair close to one of the front windows in the living room, from which he could see the walk and street beyond. ‘Might look like I’m just lazing away, but don’t worry. Nothing in these magazines will distract me.’
‘I’m not worried.’
‘Most of this job is just sitting and waiting. A guy would go nuts if he didn’t have a magazine or a newspaper.’
‘I understand,’ she assured him.
Pepper, the calico, was more interested in Earl than in Melanie. She circled him warily for some time, studying him, sniffing at his feet. Finally she clambered onto him and demanded to be petted.
‘Nice kitty,’ he said, scratching Pepper behind the ears.
She settled on his lap with a blissful look of contentment.
‘She doesn’t take to many people that fast,’ Laura told him.
Earl grinned. ‘Always have had a way with animals.’
It was silly, but Pepper’s acceptance of Earl Benton reassured Laura and made her feel even better about him. She trusted him completely now.
And what does that mean? she asked herself. Didn’t I trust him completely already? Subconsciously, did I have doubts about him?
He had been hired to protect her and Melanie, and that’s what he would do. She had no reason to suspect that he was connected with either the people who wanted Melanie dead — or the ones who seemed to want her alive and back in another gray room.
Yet that was exactly what Laura had suspected, just a little, deep down, on a purely subconscious level.
She would have to guard against paranoia. She didn’t know who her enemies were: They remained faceless. There was a tendency, therefore, to suspect everyone, to spin grandiose conspiracy theories that could wind up encompassing everyone in the world but she herself and Melanie.
After brewing coffee for Earl and for herself, she made hot chocolate for Melanie and carried it into the den, where the girl waited. Laura had made arrangements to take an indefinite leave of absence from St. Mark’s and to have her private patients covered by an associate for at least the upcoming week. She intended to begin therapy with Melanie right away, this afternoon, but she didn’t want to conduct the session in the same room with Earl, for he would be a distraction.
The study was small but comfortable. Two walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that were filled with an eclectic collection of hardcover titles ranging from exotic volumes on highly specialized areas of psychology to popular fiction. The other walls were covered with beige grasscloth. There were two Delacroix prints, a dark pine desk with an upholstered chair, a rocking chair, and an emerald-green sofa with lots of pillows. Soft amber light came from a pair of brass Stiffel lamps on matching end tables; Earl had closed the emerald-green drapes at both windows.
Melanie was sitting on the sofa, her upturned hands in her lap, staring at her palms.
‘Melanie.’
The girl gave no indication that she was aware of her mother’s presence.
‘Honey, I brought you some hot chocolate.’
When the girl still did not respond, Laura sat beside her. Holding the mug of cocoa in one hand, she put her other hand under Melanie’s chin, tilted the girl’s head up, and looked into her eyes. They were still disturbingly empty eyes, and Laura could make no connection with them, elicit no awareness.
She said, ‘I want you to drink this, Melanie. It’s good, tasty. You’ll like it. I know you’ll like it.’
She put the rim of the mug to the girl’s lips, and with a lot of coaxing, she managed to get her daughter to sip the cocoa. Some of it dribbled down Melanie’s chin, and Laura wiped it away with a paper napkin before it could drip onto the sofa. With more encouragement, the girl began to drink less sloppily. At last her small frail hands came up, and she held the mug firmly enough that Laura was able to let go. Once she had hold of the mug, Melanie drank the remainder of the hot chocolate quickly, greedily. When it was all gone, she licked her lips. In her eyes there was for the briefest moment a flicker of life, an indication of consciousness; and for a second, but no longer than a second, her eyes met her mother’s eyes, didn’t stare through Laura as before, but at her. That precious instant of contact was electrifying. Unhappily, Melanie at once sank back into her secret inner world, and her eyes glazed over again. But now Laura knew the child was capable of returning from her self-imposed exile; therefore, there was a chance, however small, that she could be brought back not just for a second but permanently.