Kane shook off his shock. He couldn’t lose himself now.
“You need my help figuring out the murderer?” he asked.
“Ah, so you are smart! Yes, I have a proposition. A bit of homework for you.” From their bag Dr. Poesy pulled a notebook and handed it to Kane. It was thin and had a supple red leather cover so bright Kane thought the color would stain his hands. It came with its own golden pen in a leather loop, and the pages were blank except for the first, which read My Dream Journal.
“You want me to keep a dream journal?”
“Of course not.” Dr. Poesy laughed. “I may not be your real psychologist, but you are still under my evaluation, and as long as that’s the case, the police cannot touch you. Keeping this journal, along with weekly check-ins with me, should give you the time and inspiration you need to give me the information I want about Maxine Osman and your incendiary evening together. Do this for me, and I will handle the rest.”
Kane’s voice was a pale-blue whisper. “But I told the police everything I know.”
Dr. Poesy smiled. “You and I both know there is more to your story. Perhaps you’ve lied. Perhaps you haven’t. Perhaps your dreams will reveal what your waking mind cannot bear. It does not matter, so long as it makes it onto those pages. No detail should be considered irrelevant. Withhold nothing, or I will know. You have three weeks.”
“But…”
Kane stopped himself. What was he doing, revealing how little he knew? Dr. Poesy had just said Kane was untouchable so long as he was being evaluated. If Dr. Poesy lost faith in his ability to be useful, the evaluation ended, and Kane’s freedom winked out like a light.
Dr. Poesy crossed his legs at the ankle. He draped his hands, one over the other, at the knee, and a flare of gold chain on his wrist caught the lamplight. Kane stared at it, helpless beneath the fear and panic surging through him.
“Look at me.”
Kane looked. Dr. Poesy leaned over the table, daring Kane to join him in a new, hushed closeness.
“There is a dangerous truth within you, Mr. Montgomery, that not even the most competent artifice will conceal for long. And, as with all dangerous truths, the trick to surviving it is letting it out in a way you can control.” Dr. Poesy leaned even closer. “People like us? We must tell our stories ourselves, you know, or else they will destroy us in their own violent making. And I assure you this truth will destroy you, too, if you’re not careful. It’ll crack you apart from the inside out”—Kane lurched back, Dr. Poesy’s fingers snapping an inch from his face—“like an egg.”
Kane’s throat was raw as he sucked in a deep breath. The Soft Room pulsed. He could not believe this person was accusing him of lying and blackmailing him into keeping a journal. A fake dream journal. Absurdly, he was overcome with the urge to tell Sophia she’d been right. He was being told to figure out his testimony through arts and crafts, after all.
“I understand,” Kane whispered.
“Grand,” Dr. Poesy said, softening. “I thought you might. Now, when we leave this room, I want the blood back in your face. A pep in your step. We’ve only just been getting to know each other, haven’t we?”
Kane got the hint. “Of course.”
Together they left the Soft Room, walking through the station and the doors that buzzed when they were unlocked. In the lobby, Kane and Dr. Poesy exchanged goodbyes, and Kane rushed to the double doors.
“Kane.”
Dr. Poesy stood back in the lobby, fiddling with the cuff of his right wrist.
“Be careful. The things we cannot outrun are the things we must fight, and you are no fighter. You will need help. You will need me, and I do not provide for liars.”
Kane saw the shadowy monster in the clouds of dust and light. He saw it turning, slowly, its eyeless head stopping to consider him. And of course he had run. And Dr. Poesy knew.
A pair of officers walked by. Dr. Poesy smiled vacantly, handing Kane something. The postcard. “I want you to have this. A bookmark, so you will always know your place.”
His face burned as he took it. He held it close as he shoved through the double doors of the police station, fleeing back into the embrace of summer and the singing of cicadas.
• Three •
BEWARE OF DOG
As soon as Kane was outside, his phone erupted in a million messages, all of them from Sophia. They were coming in too quickly to read, so he just called her as he hurried away from the station.
“Kane? Where have you been?”
“At the police station. I’m fine. Where are Mom and Dad?”
“They’re at the house. Didn’t you see my texts?”
Kane walked faster. He had the urge to run, but people were still out and about in the town center. The sun was still setting.
“I haven’t read them yet. What happened?”
“You tell me. I don’t get it. I got home and Mom and Dad pulled in twenty minutes later, saying the meeting was canceled and that you were meeting a counselor for your evaluation, or something. I told them I’d pick you up, but that was two hours ago! So then I told them we were grabbing Froyo. I think I bought us some time to talk.”
Kane was not comforted by this. He suspected his meeting with Dr. Poesy was unofficial, somehow. No paperwork. Nothing to document what they’d talked about. A blank yawn in his life. Just like the accident.
“What happened, Kane? Where are you?”
Kane bit into the flesh of his cheek, trying to decide if he should lie or not. Sophia was already overinvolved in this.
“Nothing bad happened. I just met with a counselor, like they said. I had to write out some answers for a report and talk about my feelings. It was dumb.” The lie left him feeling more alone than ever.
“Where are you? I’ve just been reading at Roost. I’ll come get you.”
“I want to walk home.”
“You’re not supposed to be alone. Mom said I should—”
“Lie for me again, will you?”
Kane hung up and turned off the phone. He had the urge to throw it into the rhododendron that bordered St. Agnes, the university at the heart of East Amity. He cut through the campus, speeding toward Harrow Creek.
East Amity was an ill-conceived town, a concrete canvas thrown over the sodden greenery of the Housatonic’s flood lands. For that reason the fabric of the suburban grid was eaten through in places, sunken by ravines that filled with rainwater and grew fuzzy with forests. Harrow Creek ribboned through these small forests, hemmed to the land by a running path. It was the least direct route home. But it was safe. No cars could drive alongside it looking for him. No little sisters out searching for their brothers.