A handmade puzzle constructed from woodchips was found at the scene in one of the large greenhouses. Images and words scrawled on the jigsaw pieces garnered no resolution for authorities to the murderer. The duo having many unsavory connections, the local police concluded it was a trade gone wrong. The case was closed with no further investigation.
What were you trying to puzzle out, Grayson?
“Thank you, Calvin. This is good information. Oh, one more thing. Does it say how his mother died? I don’t see a death cert in the docs.”
“That’s because there isn’t one,” he says. “She’s still alive.”
A cold dread whispers over my skin. “Okay. Thank you,” I manage, then hang up the receiver.
Before I lose my nerve, I cross my office and unlock the filing cabinet where I keep confidential patient folders not stored on my computer. I pull out Grayson’s file and bring it to the desk.
Having a computer do the search would be easier, but not wise. Technically, the transcribed sessions in the folder are off the record. I had shut the camera off—but I left the audio recording. I’m unethical. I’ve established that. I scroll down the dates, seeking one session in particular.
My mother liked to watch. But we’re not talking about that. You’re not ready.
A statement Grayson made when I questioned him about his mother. But which mother was he referencing? His birth mother, or the woman who held him prisoner?
As I read through the report, making comparisons to Grayson’s sessions, I come away with a terrible conclusion. All the children were sold to the couple by relatives.
Grayson was not kidnapped by his abductors. Someone sold him to them.
The only likely suspect would be his own mother.
A sinking feeling pulls at my stomach.
He murdered his blood relatives to escape a hell that no child should suffer. And yet, he didn’t return to his mother once he was free. He fled Ireland, leaving her alive. She didn’t undergo his vengeance.
Why?
I print out the report, highlighting and sectioning off the areas of interest for further research, and then tack the new material to my private corkboard embedded beneath my Dali painting. Grayson studied me for nearly a year before our official introduction. It’s only fair that I gather insight into his past, as well.
There’s a reason why he refuses to give me answers.
I want it.
For more than just my own curiosity. It’s keeping the status quo.
Grayson set me free, and liberated me of my past at the same time. I’m unsure if he believes I’m able to do the same for him…or whether or not he’s decided I already have.
His compulsions haven’t changed. How he channels them has changed. His disorder has progressed into one of a team dynamic, and that takes trust. Something that was stripped away from him at an early age. By the person who he should’ve been able to trust the most in his world.
His own mother sold him into hell.
I replace the painting along the wall, then unlock the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. Tapes of my patient sessions are organized by name, year/date, and diagnosis.
When I first arrived home after the excavation of my father’s victims, my office was my immediate destination. To this drawer. To where the videos of my deceased patients awaited confirmation of my malpractice.
I plugged in the video of my last session with Thom Mercer and waited, breath bated, for what I knew was about to unfold. The alternate memories I created had been eradicated while I was caged in Grayson’s cell. But that wasn’t enough. I had to see it with my own eyes. Hear it with my ears. Experience the sessions—this time—with no hindrance of a deluded state.
Some kind of morbid awakening, I suppose.
Only the evidence—the only tangible proof of my misconduct—had been erased.
The tapes were blank.
At the time, I reasoned I did so myself, a form of counter forensics—a measure taken to protect myself. I still had holes in my memory. Gaps. Not everything recovered. It made sense that I would hide the evidence of my crime even from myself.
I check the tapes once a week. Just to be sure. It’s a frightening thing not to trust your own mind.