Hide (Detective Harriet Foster #1)(73)

“Then all I would be able to offer would be general ideas.”

“I’ll take those,” Li said, sneaking a look at her watch, hoping Silva took her time.

“He’d want to conceal what he’d done, distance himself from the act of killing. There normally aren’t feelings of remorse or guilt attached to people like him. That’s part of the malfunction, but perhaps he’s still struggling with what he is, still battling his impulses. There will come a point when he won’t be able to. To give you more, I’d need more to go on.”

“The person we’re looking for is meticulous, selective, smart,” Li said. “After reading Morgan’s arrest report, he comes off as being kind of a mess. He doesn’t seem to fit the profile you’re giving me. I’m no psychiatrist, Doctor, but I would expect more Hannibal Lecter, less Walter Mitty.”

“That’s just it—you can’t expect anyone to be what they appear to be, can you? Those like him are accomplished actors, talented mimics. They learn to simulate emotion; they learn to blend in. It’s only when you begin to pull back the layers that you can clearly see they’re not like any of us.”

“So they walk among us, and we have no way of knowing,” Li said. “That’s a little frightening.”

“Yes, it can be. Did you know that fifteen percent of our population has a personality disorder?” Silva’s eyes bore into Li’s. “To varying degrees.”

Li stared over at the woman, creeped out by her intensity. “So . . . the missing year. You were working on your book. Where?”

“A tiny place. In the woods. There were few distractions. What more can you tell me?”

Li was calling it. She’d given Foster as much time as she was going to. Silva was giving her the willies. She got up from the table, walked over to the door, and opened it, the noise of the cops moving around outside a welcome reassurance. “Thank you for your time, Doctor.”

Silva was upset. “Wasting it, you mean.” She gathered her things and met Li at the door. “He’s hiding them now,” she said, “but soon he won’t bother.”

“We’ll stop this long before that happens,” Li said.

Silva lingered for a moment. “You sound confident.” The insult in her tone was impossible to miss. Li opened the door wider and stepped back for Silva to walk through it. “One more thing,” Li said. “Did Morgan ever mention lipstick?”

It was information, another detail that seemed to feed Silva, as expected. “Lipstick,” Silva repeated. “I need context.”

“On the bodies,” Li said. “Sorry, I can’t get any more specific.”

“You’re being deliberately vague, Detective. You think you have time for games, but I assure you, you don’t. This very minute, he’s out there choosing his next victim. This is time you’ve wasted, time you’ve forced me to waste. How can I possibly help you if you won’t trust me?”

“You’ve helped us already, Dr. Silva. You’ve given us a lead we didn’t have before. We appreciate that.” Li nodded to a uniform to walk her out and watched as Silva left. Then she went to get her phone to call Foster and let her know Silva was on the move.





CHAPTER 51


Foster’s cell phone buzzed in her pocket, and she slid it out to see who was calling. A text from Li. Silva had just left her. Time was short. She slipped the phone back and smiled at Dr. Emil Gershon, Westhaven’s director, who stared at her with ferret eyes, his thin fingers laced together and resting on his executive desk. He seemed a little stuffy, rigid, not someone prone to flights of fancy. The herringbone suit with a vest and a stiff brown bow tie hinted as much. It was as though he’d stepped out of another era and staunchly refused to update himself to this one.

Coming in, she’d noticed that Westhaven was a lot smaller than she’d envisioned, though it stood resolute, cold, and imposing from the street, like a gray stone fortress, minus moat, keep, and turrets, a place no doubt easier to get into than out of. It was only as she drove through the gate and parked in the side lot that she noticed the cracks in the facade, the chipped front steps. The serene grounds, though, looked inviting enough, well suited to self-reflection. It had been the bars at the ground-floor windows that pulled her up short. The locked gate with the guard stationed in his small guard box didn’t help assuage fears of being confined, even voluntarily.

“Sorry about that,” she said to Gershon. Foster did the math in her head. From the station to the hospital’s front gate, if Silva was on her way back, she had maybe forty-five minutes, no more, to get what she needed.

His dark, beady eyes scanned the room as if looking for a safe place to land. “The police. I don’t understand. What has Dr. Silva done to come to your attention? Westhaven has an unblemished reputation; our staff and clinicians are . . .”

She stopped the sales pitch with a raised hand. “I’d just appreciate a little background, Dr. Gershon. As much as you can tell me. Please.”

“You said homicide. What could Dr. Silva possibly have to do with a homicide?”

“Actually, we were hoping to enlist Dr. Silva’s help. We have a very difficult situation at the moment. You’ve watched the news. We’re dealing with a disturbed individual. Dr. Silva has the experience, and Westhaven has an excellent reputation.”