Next Door

“Yet your father was arrested for it,” Skinner pointed out. “So to me, as someone not familiar with the case, I don’t lean towards accident. It makes me curious how you can see it so clearly as such. So let’s go over it. What happened that day? What do you remember?”

“Well, it was an accident caused by my father. That’s why he was arrested. He didn’t even lie about it. He was drunk, Mom made him mad, and he pushed her.”

“I’ve given you the chance to go into greater detail and that’s all I’m getting?” Skinner asked in a friendly tone.

“Well, some of it is blurry,” Chloe admitted. “You know how past memories are sort of fogged over with rose-colored glasses?”

“Indeed. So…I want to try something with you. Because this is the first time we’ve met, I’m not going to try hypnosis. I am going to try a proven form of therapy, though. It’s what some refer to as timeline therapy. For today, I hope it might help to dig further details from that day—details that are right there in your mind but have sort of been tucked away because you’re afraid to see them. If you continue to see me, this sort of therapy will eventually help us to pluck the fear and anxiety that arise in you whenever you’re faced with that day. Does that sound like something you’d be willing to undergo today?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

“Okay. Good. So…let’s begin with where you were sitting. I want you to close your eyes and relax. Take a moment or two to clear your head and get comfortable. Give me a tiny nod when you are ready.”

Chloe did as she was asked. She allowed herself to sink back into the chair. It was a very comfortable faux leather armchair. She felt that she was still tensing her shoulders, uncomfortable with being so vulnerable in front of someone she had never met. She sighed deeply and felt her shoulders go limp. She nestled into the chair and listened for the hum of the air conditioner. She found it, listened to its droning, and then gave a nod. She was ready.

“Okay,” Skinner said. “Out on that stoop with your sister. Now, even if you can’t remember the sort of shoes you were wearing that day, I want you to imagine that you are looking at your feet. Look down at your shoes. I want you to focus on them and nothing else—just the shoes you were wearing that day when you were ten years old. You and your sister out on the stoop. But keep your eyes only on those shoes. Describe them to me.”

“Chuck Taylors,” Chloe said. “Red. Scuffed up. Big floppy laces.”

“Perfect. Now study the laces. Really zone in on them. Then I want your ten-year-old self to stand up without looking away from those laces. I want you to stand up and walk back to where you were before discovering the blood on the carpet at the bottom of the stairs. I need you to go back a few hours. But don’t look away from those laces. Can you do that?”

Chloe knew she was not hypnotized but the instructions seemed so simple. So basic and easy. She stood up inside her mind and walked back into the apartment. When she did, she saw the blood, saw her mother.

“Mom is right there at the bottom of the stairs,” she said. “Lots of blood. Danielle is somewhere, crying. Dad is pacing.”

“Okay. But just look at your shoelaces,” Skinner instructed. “And then see if you can go back farther. Can you do that?”

“Yeah. Easy. I’m with Beth…a friend of mine. We just got back from a movie. Her mom took us. She dropped me off and stayed there on the curb until I got inside. She always did that, not pulling away until she saw me go inside.”

“Okay. So watch those shoelaces as you get out of the car and walk up the stairs. Then take me through the rest of the afternoon.”

“I went inside the building and then up to the second floor, where our apartment was. When I walked to the door and pulled out the keys to unlock it, I hear Dad inside. So I just walked in. I closed the door and headed for the living room but saw Mom’s body. It was at the bottom of the stairs. Her right arm was pinned beneath her. Her nose looked all smashed up and there was blood everywhere. Most of her face was covered with it. It was all over the carpet, right there at the bottom of the stairs. I think Dad might have tried to move the body…”

Chloe trailed off here. She was finding it hard to focus on those ratty old shoelaces. She knew the scene she was relaying far too well to ignore it.

“Danielle is standing right there, right over her. She has some blood on her hands and her clothes. Dad is talking really loudly into the phone, telling someone to come quickly, there’s been an accident. When he gets off, he looks at me and starts crying. He threw the phone across the room and it shattered against the wall. He came over to us and hunkered down. He said he was sorry…he said there was an ambulance on the way. He then looked at Danielle and we could barely understand him through the tears. He said Danielle needed to go upstairs. She needed to change her clothes.

“She did, and I followed her. I asked her what had happened but she wouldn’t talk to me. She wouldn’t even cry. Eventually, we started to hear sirens. We sat there with Dad, waiting for him to tell us what would happen next. But he never did. The ambulance arrived, then the police. A friendly policeman took us outside on the stoop and stayed there with us until Dad was brought out in handcuffs. Until they brought Mom’s body out…”

Suddenly, the vision of the busted up shoelaces was gone. She was back on the stoop, waiting for her grandmother to pick them up. The overweight cop was with her and although she didn’t know him, he made her feel safe.

“You okay?” Skinner asked.

“Yeah,” she said with a nervous smile. “The part about Dad throwing the phone…I had totally forgotten about that.”

“How’s the remembered sight of it make you feel?”

It was a hard question to answer. Her father had always been quick to temper but seeing him do it in the wake of what had happened to her mother almost made him seem weak and vulnerable.

“It makes me feel sad for him.”

“Have you blamed him for your mother’s death ever since it happened?” Skinner asked.

“It honestly just depends on the day. Depends on my mood.”

Skinner nodded and broke his statue-like posture. He got to his feet and looked down at her with a reassuring smile.

“I think we’re good for today. Please call me if you experience this sort of reaction to a crime scene again. And I would like to see you again soon. Can we set up an appointment?”

Chloe thought about it and nodded. “We can, but I have a wedding coming up soon and we have all these meetings with florists and bakers…it’s a nightmare. Can I call you with a date?”

“Of course. And until then…stick closely to Agent Greene. He’s a good man. And he was right to direct you to me. Please know that this early in your career, having to come to someone like me to deal with your issues means nothing. It is not a reflection of your talents.”

Chloe nodded. She knew this but it was still nice to hear Skinner say it. She got up and thanked him for his time. As she walked out the door and into the waiting room, she saw her father throwing the phone. But then there was a comment he’d made—one she had not forgotten but had become muddied until today.

He had looked at Danielle and, with something far too close to urgency in his voice, had said: “Danielle, honey…go change your clothes. There’s not much time before they get here.”

That comment rolled through Chloe’s head for most of the remainder of the afternoon, chilling her while also poking at a locked door she had managed to ignore for the last seventeen years.

Chapter Seven

Danielle woke up at eight o’clock, feeling as if she had not slept well at all. She’d gotten in from work at 2:45 and collapsed into bed at 3:10. She usually had no problem sleeping until well after eleven—sometimes even later—but when her eyes opened at 8:01 that morning, she could not go back to sleep. Truth be told, she really hadn’t slept very well ever since she’d known that Chloe was coming back into town. It had felt like her past was slowly following her and it would not stop until it swallowed her whole.

Cranky and tired, Danielle showered and then ate breakfast. She did it all with Skinny Puppy’s Too Dark Park album playing in the background. As she placed her breakfast dishes in the sink, she realized she’d have to go grocery shopping today. Most days, this did not bother her. But there was the occasional day where she felt like going out into public was a mistake…that people were watching her, waiting for her to fuck something up and point fingers.

She also feared that any time she went out allowed the letter writer a chance to follow her. One of these days, she figured the writer would stop playing around with her and just kill her.

Maybe today would be that day.

She drove to the grocery store, already knowing full well that this was going to be one of those days…one of those days where she was going to be afraid of everything. One of those days where she would constantly be looking over her shoulder. She drove quickly, even running a red light along the way, wanting to get the trip over.

Ever since Danielle started receiving the disturbing notes under her door, she found it anxiety-inducing to be in a public place for very long. It was far too easy to imagine the person who had been writing those letters to be following her. Even at work, she wondered if the writer was sitting at the bar, having just received a drink from her. When she picked up her Chinese food, was he following her, waiting to finally jump her as she walked back to her car?

Even after she had arrived safely at her destination, hurrying into the grocery store and practically racing a cart with a squeaky wheel down the aisle, the worry was there. The letter writer could be there with her, mirroring her steps on the next aisle over, maybe getting a good look at her across the produce section or across the cereal aisle.

It was a very real fear that flashed through her head the day following the surprising turn of events with Martin. The paranoia sank into her, causing her to lower her head and push up her shoulders. If someone wanted to see her face, they’d need to be very purposeful about it, to the point of stopping her and hunching down.

She hated that she was like this. She’d always faced these kinds of issues, which was why most of her dating relationships rarely lasted more than a month. She knew she’d developed a reputation for being a bit of a slut during her first tenure here in Pinecrest, but it hadn’t been because she enjoyed sleeping around. It was just that by the time she was comfortable enough with a guy to sleep with him, she’d start to assume the worst about him. She’d end the relationship, take some time to recover, and then start again.

She’d gotten a bit better when she’d moved back to Pinecrest a few years ago. She’d left Boston and felt like she was retreating…but that was okay. She was at least retreating to somewhere familiar. The hardest thing to get used to was the stagnant dating scene. It had been okay at first, although she’d managed to ruin every single relationship she’d started. That’s why the fight with Martin had struck her so hard.

Of course, there was the downside to Pinecrest. Far too many people remembered her and Chloe. They remembered how the poor little Fine girls had ended up living with their grandparents after their mother had died and their father had been taken to prison.

“Danielle, is that you?”

She turned toward the voice, startled. She’d been so lost in her thoughts that she’d managed to fully expose her face while reaching up for a box of Froot Loops. She found herself looking at a face from her past—a woman who looked terribly familiar but whom she couldn’t quite place.

“Do you not remember me?” the woman asked, on the verge of entertained and offended. She was probably forty-five, maybe fifty. And no, Danielle did not remember this woman.