Sweet Revenge thriller

Chapter Nineteen

RYAN THOMPSON'S NAME JUMPS off the screen. It's telling me to have another go at getting information from him and the next time I visit Ryan's office at night I'm going to be a damned sight more careful. I wonder if I should contact The Fixer and get myself a body guard. My mind goes to Kevin Costner but the image of him naked in my arms disappears with reality kicking in...most bodyguards, I am sure, look very much like The Hulk. And, if I approach The Fixer, I'm sure that is who he would get to guard me. Sod it all!

I have been wondering if Ryan and Carol had been talking about something else entirely, like maybe there is something I should know about one of my parents shares for instance. Nothing to do with the murders. But, I have to keep my mind open, the girl in the dark room definitely said 'the Carless Whisperer.' A bleak shiver runs down my spine thinking of the mess I had made of Steve the Sleaze's face and I vow that this time, when I start digging, I will not make the same mistake. It is paramount I remain cool, calm and collected. You can tell your head one thing, but today my body takes not one fuck bit of notice and I feel the tension mounting again deep down in the pit of my belly. Friday night is looming.

There is one thing I can completely rely on to ease my tension but as it's not Thursday night, I grab my sports gear and head for the gym. Today, I complete the circuit slowly. Billy asks if I'm OK. I tell him I'm getting over the flue. But the anger inside me is mounting and I ignore my pounding headache and my hip screaming for me to sit down. It is while I am belting hell out of the punch bags I realise Ryan can wait. The next person to study should be Patrick because maybe he had spoken to someone about the Russian ring? It wouldn't have been a privacy breach. My mother wasn't a client. And, quite frankly at the time, it would have just been a random comment...if indeed he'd said anything at all. I wonder how I'm going to broach the subject with him. I realise I cannot. I need to somehow get hold of his diary, find out who his friends are and see if there is a Russian connection.

Mind made up and a plan somewhat cobbled together, I finish my two hour circuit training and arrive back at home in the early hours of the evening. I had grabbed a hamburger on the way home so by the time I finish in the shower I am all set to put my mission into operation. I shut the balls-up of my recent 'breaking and entering' stunt at Ryan's offices out of my head and prepare myself mentally, but the nagging suspicion I'd been followed that night won't leave me. Someone must have followed me from Red's apartment to Ryan's offices. There is no other explanation.

This time, when I leave Red's apartment wearing a skirt and white blouse, I walk several blocks while keeping a look out for any tell-tales signs I have a stalker. Nothing appears out of the ordinary. I enter a restaurant and take a seat. When the waiter asks for my order I tell him, 'I'm waiting for a friend.' After a few minutes I slink into the ladies toilets, slip out of my skirt and blouse, get my dark gear out of my bag and change. Then, I don my blond wig and slip into the kitchen. Amid steam rising from pots, an array of mouth-watering aromas I am yelled at by a middle aged man in a white apron and chef's hat—you don't need to know every language—I am not allowed in their kitchen and to piss off! I apologise profusely and head out the back door. They don't seem to care. They are happy I am gone! I keep to the shadows walking two more blocks and the rental car I had hired earlier is parked exactly where we had arranged.

I swear I could get to Patricks office blindfolded. And although it's on the other side of the city to Red's apartment, I am outside his office block within the hour. I wait under the cover of darkness. Well, not quite darkness, I'm actually sitting at the window of a bar sipping a beer, staring across the road at the concrete slab high-rise and in particular I have my eyes trained on the window to Patricks office. Most of the lights in the office block are out, but not his and I have to wait one more hour before I see them click off. My Psychiatrist is one hell of a worker, I concede. I wait for another 10 minutes and then I ring his number. It goes to answer phone. I do not leave a message.

I have used the back entrance to this building several times, mainly because the Janitor on-site has often refused my entry on account of the state I was in. So, tonight, I slink down the dark alleyway next to the office block and jimmy open the window I have used on several occasions. I use the emergency fire stairwell, climb the ten levels and as predicted I am alone. Puffing, I reach his office. I pick the lock, simple as and I walk into the office of my Psychiatrist. Guilt appears in waves and I stand shaking for a long moment. Patrick is a man of honour, keeping our secrets safe. And I am violating his sacred trust.

But needs must!

I'm careful. I don't put on the light, instead I use my head lamp...a very thin beam but it'll do the trick. I put on plastic gloves and I start with his diary which is open on his desk hoping for a name that looks foreign, Russian. I flick back to eight months ago. It soon becomes clear that this is a work diary only. Every week is filled with names I assume are clients and the pattern soon emerges that he sees some clients on a weekly basis, others fortnightly and some are monthly. Over the past few months some names and appointment times are underlined and a note next to them says 'exited.'

My name leaps off the diary and I experience a weird sensation. Athena Morisot several times is crossed out and I know it is sessions I have cancelled. I flick the pages to one of the dates I arrived at his apartment and note he has written it down, Athena Morisot crashed in at home. I smile, he's obviously not going to let the unscheduled session go without being paid.

I don't know what I expected, but the disappointment rankles. Nothing. I consider my next move. Client files. Shame is my next emotion as I realise any reservations I may have for reading someone's personal file only flit into my head for a second before I walk the three steps to the far wall and start to sift through a bundle of files in a metal cabinet.

I select my own file and as predicted it is at least three times bulkier than anyone else's. I carry it to his desk and start to read. It's not exactly like a trip down memory lane. It's more like a fantasy read. Honest to God, you couldn't make this shit up. I can hardly recognise that the woman he is writing about is me. But with every page there is another part of my life, my horrors, my depression described exactly how it happened...apart from, of course, the reason I first came to him. But there is a heap of questions he has written. One is recurring, 'Why is she not honest? I cannot treat her properly if she doesn't tell me the catalyst to her mental state.' The summary he has written is that I am improving and he is hopeful that soon, I will confide in him and then he will be able to treat me effectively.

I feel such a heel. He's trying his best. And, there is no mention of any suspicions that he'd found out my parents were Russian. The only mention of his visit was just that. I visited Athena's parents, very nice and devoted parents. I replace my folder back in the cabinet.

I start to scan-read Patrick's other client files. With each manila folder I open a shiver rattles down my spine. I don't want to read the summary he has written about these vulnerable strangers and I feel even worse when I read what some of his clients have had to endure. Most are U.K. citizens except for one male American who has nightmares and a young Spanish woman who has been a sex slave. Some have had childhood abuse, some have been raped. One man is a survivor of a car crash which was his fault and claimed the life of a baby. After reading the summary of each file, I skim the rest which details appointment times and a summary of where they are currently with their progress. In all cases, my Psychiatrist appears to be making inroads. In his opinion, they are getting better. Their mental state is starting to get back to what it was before their tragedy happened. I want to be an optimist, but I fear that in some cases, his patients are outsmarting him in 'the getting better stakes,' like I am.

It's nearly an hour and I haven't found anything. But then, I remind myself, what was I looking for in the first place? He would hardly have written in a file, 'Bad man wants information on Athena's family!'

Out of the blue an idea loops through my mind like madness—I need to meet his clients. I grab my cell phone from my jacket pocket and take shots of the summaries of several of his patients.

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