The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(60)

Townsend extended a hand and flashed a smile so bright it almost caused Tracy to put her sunglasses back on. “You must be the detective from Seattle. Come on in.” He turned his back and went into his office. “I don’t usually work Fridays so I’m operating without a receptionist. You’ll have to excuse me if I look a little disorganized.”

“I’m sorry to bother you on your day off.”

“Not a bother,” he said. “I understand the circumstances. Besides, I’ve already had a full day. Friday mornings I surf and do a little meditating. I thought I’d get some work done in an air-conditioned office while waiting out the heat. I play tennis in the evenings.”

“Surfing around here?”

“The ocean is an hour and a half. That’s why I only do it once a week and I go early. It’s exhilarating.”

“Sounds like a good day.”

“Every day we’re alive is a good day,” he said.

This guy made actors on Sesame Street seem depressed.

The back wall was a window facing east toward the San Bernardino hills. The wall to Tracy’s left was the ego wall, with framed diplomas and citations, some partially obscured by the leaves of a collection of potted ferns, cacti, palms, and a peace lily. Townsend had a modest desk beneath the diplomas. He took a seat in a leather chair, leaving Tracy to sit on a two-seat couch. On the wall beside the window was a framed quote.



WHO LOOKS OUTSIDE, DREAMS; WHO LOOKS INSIDE, AWAKES.

CARL JUNG



The room smelled of incense.

Tracy handed Townsend the signed authorization from Patricia Orr for the release of Andrea’s records, which was valid because Andrea had been a minor when she received counseling.

“I was hoping to get your impressions.”

“Well, first off I can tell you I was not surprised to hear Andrea had died in an accident on Mount Rainier.”

Apparently, Townsend did not know Andrea had not died on Rainier. Tracy decided to explore his thinking. “No? Why not.”

“Because I was not convinced it was an ‘accident.’”

“You thought the husband killed her?”

“No. I would maintain that Andrea took her own life.”

“Why would you come to that conclusion?”

“Because of three years of therapy. This would be the kind of grandiose gesture I’d expect Andrea would choose to leave the world—something to let the world know she’d been here.”

“Grandiose? I understood from Mrs. Orr that Andrea was an introvert who hid from the world.”

“That was her coping mechanism,” Townsend said. “That was how Andrea chose to hide from her problems, to shut them away in a closet, so to speak. But that wasn’t who she really was.”

Tracy knew that trick very well. She’d become obsessed with finding Sarah’s killer, so much so that when she’d finally had to walk away, she’d had to literally shut Sarah’s files in her bedroom closet so that she could function. “How would you describe her?”

“Before the car accident that took her parents’ lives, and before the abuse at the hands of her uncle, she was described by her schoolteachers and counselors as a bright, well-adjusted, mischievous young woman.”

“Mischievous?”

“She liked to play pranks on her classmates and friends.”

“What kind of pranks?”

“Oh, she’d hide someone’s lunch, short-sheet their beds at slumber parties, put pin holes in the milk cartons so when classmates drank, the milk would dribble down their chins.”

Tracy’s sister had been similarly mischievous. Sarah had liked to hide and jump out at Tracy and her unsuspecting friends. “Harmless pranks,” she said.

“For the most part.”

“Were there occasions when the pranks were not harmless?”

Townsend nodded. “A few, apparently.”

“Such as?”

“She cut the stem of a bike tire on a classmate who she believed had been mean to a friend of hers.”

Tracy considered this. “Could her pranks have increased in their vindictiveness?”

“Yes,” Townsend said, “I believe they could have.”

“What was your diagnosis for Andrea?”

“Well, Andrea left when she was eighteen, so I can’t say for certain.”

“You don’t know.”

“I believe Andrea was susceptible to a dissociative disorder brought on by the trauma and abuse.”

“What do you mean by a dissociative disorder?”

“It can be a number of different things. In Andrea’s case it could have manifested in an involuntary and unhealthy escape from reality.”

“Her excessive reading?”

“Certainly. It’s a mechanism used to keep traumatic memories at bay. The person either has memory loss—you can’t recall what you did or who certain people are in your life—or she can take on alternate identities.”

“Split personalities?”

“In a sense. The person switches to an alternate identity. Someone suffering from a dissociative identity disorder will say they feel the presence of people talking or living inside their head, and they can’t control what those people are doing or saying.”