An Anonymous Girl(106)

Now that the opening tone has been set, it is time for the evening to truly begin.

And just as in the survey that brought us together, it starts with a morality query.

“Let’s backtrack. I have a question for the two of you.”

Your head jerks up, as does Thomas’s. You are both on high alert, wary of what might come next.

“Imagine you are a security guard stationed at a podium in the lobby of a small professional building. A woman you recognize because her husband has leased an office there asks you to hail a cab because she is feeling ill. Would you leave your post in violation of your duties to help her?”

You look utterly bewildered, Jessica. As you should; what could this possibly have to do with you? But the faintest hint of frown appears on Thomas’s brow.

“I guess so,” you finally say.

“Well?” Thomas is prompted.

“I suppose . . . I would also leave and help her,” he says.

“How interesting! That’s exactly what the security guard in your building did.”

He inches closer to the armrest. Farther away from me.

He wipes his palms on his khakis as he follows my gaze to the piece of paper tucked partially beneath the laptop.

Two days after April’s death, this particular sheet of paper was removed from the visitor’s log in the lobby of Thomas’s office, the one the security guard maintains.

This was done, of course, without Thomas’s knowledge.

Thomas’s professional reputation would be destroyed if news got out that he had slept with a young woman who had come to him for a psychological consult. He might lose his license.

It was expected that after Thomas’s one-night stand with April, he would swiftly expunge evidence revealing the origin of their connection. Any electronic records, such as the appointment in his iCalendar and notes on his computer from the session, would be deleted.

But attending to every last detail is not one of Thomas’s strengths.

He is so accustomed to passing by the security guard’s station that he might have forgotten all guests must sign in to gain admittance to the building. April’s full name and the time of her visit would be recorded in the thick, leather-bound log.

The general time frame of April’s consult could be pinpointed: She met Thomas shortly before she joined my study.

The sheet containing her neat, rounded signature was torn out and tucked into my purse long before a cab could be hailed by the guard— but then, 5:30 P.M. on a rainy weekday is always a tricky time to find a taxi.

Now that piece of paper is retrieved from beneath the laptop and passed to Thomas.

“Here’s the page from the visitor’s log on the day Katherine April Voss had her consult with you, Thomas is told. “A few weeks before you slept together at her apartment.”

He stares at it for a long moment. It’s as though he can’t quite process what he is seeing.

Then he bends over and dry heaves into his napkin.

Thomas is not always effective at managing his stress.

His eyes shoot up to find mine. “Oh my God, Lydia, no, it’s not what you think—”

“I know exactly what it is, Thomas.”

When Thomas raises a shaking hand to lift his glass of Scotch, the gauntlet is laid down.

“I have something each of you desperately needs,” you and Thomas are told. “The digital tape and the visitor’s log. If those items fell into the hands of authorities, well, it would be difficult to explain. But there’s no reason for that to happen. You can both have what you desire. All you have to do is tell me the truth. Shall we begin?”





CHAPTER


SIXTY-EIGHT


Tuesday, December 25

The instant I see Thomas in Dr. Shields’s library, I know my plan won’t work.

She is a step ahead of me, again.

After she called, I thought about going to the police, but I worried the information I could give them wouldn’t be enough. She’d probably concoct some compelling story about me being a disturbed girl who’d stolen her jewelry; she’d find a way to flip things so that I was the one who got arrested. So in the hours before I responded to her summons, I found an electronics store that was open on Christmas Day and bought a slim black watch that could record conversations.

“Last-minute present?” the clerk asked.

“Sort of,” I answered as I hurried out the door.

I was bringing Dr. Shields a gift, but not this one. The present I was assembling was far more personal and consequential.

The watch was intended to record her words when she opened her gift. I had Dr. Shields to thank for the idea: She was the one who illustrated the strategy of having a secret witness to a conversation when she had me visit Reyna and Tiffani.

I envisioned her staring down at her present, stunned, as I hit her with the second part of my one-two punch: I know you gave April the Vicodin she overdosed on.

She would be dangerously mad. But she wouldn’t be able to touch me, because I’d also tell her about how I’d set up e-mails on my computer addressed to Thomas, Mrs. Voss, Ben Quick—and the private investigator—with the evidence I’ve compiled, including a photograph of the pill Dr. Shields gave me. I wrote that I was on my way to see you. The e-mails are scheduled to be automatically sent tonight unless I get home and delete them, I’d planned to say. But if don’t hand what have me, then I won’t hand over what I have on you.