Chapter 14
Calvano made the most of taking the list of license plate numbers from Maggie, emphasizing that Gonzales had asked him to handle it personally. She couldn’t have cared less. The specialist trained in the forensic application of hypnosis had arrived to conduct her session with Martin, and that was what Maggie was most interested in—not just because she wanted to find the little boy, but because she hoped Martin might have seen something that would help solve Fiona Harker’s murder.
The specialist was also a certified therapist, a fortunate skill considering Martin’s mental state. She did not look at all like what I had expected. She was in her forties, small and blonde, with the lithe body and turned-out feet of a dancer. She also had kind eyes, a reassuring smile, and such a sweet voice that Martin was relaxed enough to start the session within moments. Although she had a PhD, she insisted Martin call her Miranda and asked if she might call him Robert. The poor guy was so unused to female attention, I suspect he would have consented to anything she asked, but then again, I would have, too.
When the therapist began to make small talk in preparation for relaxing Martin and putting him under, Maggie returned to the observation room. She nodded politely to Noni, who was still there as a condition of Robert Michael Martin’s cooperation, then sat beside Gonzales. “You sure you want to stay for this?” she asked him.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” he said grimly. We both knew he was more likely ducking the press, but he was the commander, and who was I to second-guess his judgment?
While the specialist made small talk with Martin, I amused myself by fantasizing about combining polygraph and hypnosis techniques into one awesome witness-screening process, conducted exclusively by me. I would guide people through all they had seen surrounding a crime—but buzz them to a halt whenever they tried to embellish the truth. Oh, to be alive again.
Robert Michael Martin was ready.
“Robert, I want you to hold both hands out, as if you were playing the piano,” the therapist told Martin. Okay, Miranda, I thought, you can’t see me, but today you’re going to do a doubleheader and I will be glad to play along.
With a goofy grin half caused by the fact that he was already a bit besotted with her, Martin complied, and I copied him, holding both palms open toward the floor.
“Good.” Miranda smiled. “Now move each finger in turn as if you were pressing down on piano keys, one by one. Go all the way through both hands and reverse directions, again pressing each finger down in turn.” She demonstrated the rapid finger movement technique and Martin and I imitated her, making it look like we were running up and down imaginary scales on a piano keyboard.
“Keep moving your fingers like that while I take you back three days to Monday morning. Just keep doing that and listen to my voice.”
I had no idea why she was asking Martin to do it, but the effect was quite literally mesmerizing. As Martin continued to move his fingers and listened to her soothing voice take him back in time, I could feel his mind move further and further away from the present. Barriers between the conscious and unconscious areas of his brain began to fade as Miranda’s hushed voice led us into the twilight of his thoughts. Part of him knew he was still in the interrogation room, but his consciousness was elsewhere, brought back to the days just passed.
“I want you to imagine a clock turning backward, backward, still backward,” Miranda intoned. “Taking you back beyond breakfast this morning and the night before and another day and another night’s sleep and yet another day and night to Monday morning.”
I was right there with Martin. These were not my memories, but, as his mind opened, I entered and took a step closer to being one with him.
“You are standing at the front door to a very big house,” Miranda told him. “I want you to go inside, where you will see a long hallway lined with many doors.” She waited, and I saw the hallway come alive in his mind. “What do you see?” she asked Martin.
“Red carpet on the floors. Wallpaper. It looks like a hotel my mom and I once stayed in when we visited Denver.”
“Very good,” Miranda said. “Now behind each door, you will find a day. I want you to go to the door for this past Monday. It will be the second door on the right side of the hallway. Do you remember what happened leading up to Monday morning?”
Martin nodded. “Someone left the door to the walk-in open and my tiramisu was ruined. I had to make a new pan because Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler order it every Monday and they are very disappointed when we run out.”
“Okay,” Miranda said. “Let’s keep that memory behind the door for Sunday. I want you to walk to the next door, the one for Monday. Open that door and go inside.”
I could feel Martin reaching a hand out in his mind; it was a sensation as physical as if it were really happening. I saw the flash of a brass doorknob, a heavy oak door pushing open, and then, there it was: the sidewalk outside the restaurant where he worked, as he emerged from the solitude of his night shift into the early morning.
“Tell me where you are now,” Miranda said.
I could have explained that we were standing outside the Italian restaurant, a night’s worth of cooking and baking behind and a sunny day stretching out before us. It was a little cool, not like the fine day that would dawn later in the week. This was a still-crisp, slightly wintry day that teased of spring, just enough to ensure that Robert Michael Martin would want to take the long way home. As he walked, I walked beside him, inhaling the odors of baking bread followed by the starch and steam smells of the corner Laundromat.
Miranda talked Martin farther down the sidewalk, asking him questions about how he felt, what he smelled, if there was a wind, why he had decided to walk toward the park. Martin gave his answers dutifully and honestly, that much I could tell, as he had somehow gone back to that day in his mind completely, as if there were two Robert Michael Martins: the one sitting in a chair in the interrogation room and the one who had left work three days before and decided to check on the children in the park.
“It’s really nice,” Martin said to no one in particular. “I think maybe spring is not far away. I want to see what the park looks like.”
Somewhere in that last block between restaurant and park, I ceased walking beside Martin and became a part of him, as if our beings had merged. I now saw the world through his eyes. There was no pain, no disharmony—he had invited me inside when he opened his mind through hypnotism. I felt as he felt leaving work: heavy, weary, my lungs choked with flour dust. I breathed deeply of the fresh air and was grateful for it.
We grew nearer to the playground and began to pass cars parked along the street that led to it. Martin slowed to note the license plate of each, jotting the numbers down in a small notebook he kept in his pocket. I memorized each one as he wrote, filing it away for future reference. Then he turned into the park and followed the brick path to the sandbox area, rimmed by benches. We sat and he tilted his head back to feel the sun; I could feel the warmth spreading through me as he did so. Children laughed and shrieked in the background while mothers chatted about their lives nearby.
Martin stiffened. He’d felt something, so I felt it, too. Someone was staring at us. He opened his eyes and scanned the playground area, noting the regulars: two stout Dutch nannies on a bench, chatting away in their language while their wards played nearby. An old man feeding pigeons from the crumbs of toast he had saved from his breakfast. A sanitation worker resting his feet before he headed back for a second shift. An old lady sitting alone, hands folded in her lap, watching the children and wondering how it was that her own had grown up so quickly and disappeared. And then, at the very end of one long row of benches, a man reading a newspaper—or pretending to. He held it at eye level, and every now and then would raise his head slightly and peer at the children playing, his eyes lingering on each as if he were hungry and intended to choose the plumpest to take home and eat. He wore sunglasses and a baseball hat pulled low over his face. All you could really see of him were his ears sticking out below the hat. He was the one who had been staring at Martin. I was sure of it.
I felt such danger—and longing—coming from the man that I lost my place for the briefest of moments. Martin and I parted, and I had to will my way back to him. I could not afford to lose the connection. I needed to see and feel everything he was feeling, yet find a way to tap into my own abilities at the same time.
“What does this man look like?” Miranda asked Martin.
“He is about my height but very thin,” Martin answered, confirming what I was seeing in his mind’s eye. “He looks awkward, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with his arms and legs. His hands are long and elegant, like a girl’s.”
“What else?” the hypnotist prodded gently. “Look at his face. Tell me what you see.”
“I can’t,” Martin explained, his voice distant. “The newspaper is in the way, and he’s wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses. That’s creepy. But his hair is brown and cut a little crazy. You can see wisps of it sticking out below the hat. He’s wearing jeans that are too short for him. And sandals, even though the day is cool.”
“Sandals?” Miranda asked. “Can you describe them?”
“The thick, ugly kind that are good for your feet,” Martin said. “With socks. He wears white socks with them. I would never in a million years do that.”
I could have told her even more. The newspaper did not disguise the fact that the man was, indeed, only pretending to read while he watched the children. I could feel him cataloging them in turn: a girl, a girl, a boy, then another girl. Yellow-haired, red-haired, that one’s too dark. Too old. I need a boy, a brown-haired boy, maybe four or five. Skinny, with big eyes. There must be one here somewhere.
“Is this the man you told the police about?” Miranda asked.
“Yes,” Martin said. “But maybe his kid is playing somewhere nearby, or maybe he’s just lonely and likes the sound of the children at play. I think he lives alone in a big house with no one to talk to. Maybe that was what it was like even when he was a child. I think maybe he needs the company of sitting here in the park.”
Whoa, buddy, I thought to myself as feelings of loneliness and despair overwhelmed Robert Michael Martin, leaking from him as if a dam had just burst and years of isolation had come pouring forth.
The therapist felt him veer from what she needed him to do. “Let’s leave the park on Monday morning now,” she suggested gently. “Let’s go back into the hallway and close the door on Monday. Are you there? Good. Take a step down to the next door. Let’s open it and take you to Tuesday morning. Work is over. You are leaving the restaurant again. Tell me what you see.”
Martin complied, and she led him through Tuesday morning. It was very much like the day before, except that Martin was in the mood to admire cars and stopped to examine a red Lamborghini parked on a side street near the park. When he finally got to the park, the man was not there, at least not that Martin saw, nor did he see Tyler Matthews. Miranda quickly led him forward twenty-four more hours to Wednesday, the next door down in her hallway of memories.
This time, when Martin stepped through the door, the morning was cloudy and the day smelled of rain. Rain and urine. Martin sounded indignant when he spoke. “A bum slept inside the back stoop again,” he complained. “I don’t know why the cops can’t keep him away. He stinks the whole place up.”
And you, buddy, don’t smell too good yourself after a night sweating in the kitchen, I thought as we once again left the restaurant and walked down the sidewalk. I was still wholly in his mind, seeing the world exactly as he saw it.
“It’s very overcast,” he told Miranda. “I think it might rain. That would be good. I’m too tired to water the flowers, but if they die it’ll be because I’m lazy and I promised my mother I’d take care of them. She would like this day. She loved rainy days.”
Sadness welled in him, and I felt sorry for the man. His mother had been all he had.
“Where are you now?” the therapist asked. “Are you taking the same route to the park as yesterday?”
“No,” he confessed. “I want to go home. I’m really very tired and kind of hungry.” He hesitated and I felt an inner voice rise inside him, as if someone were chiding him. “I better not, though,” he said out loud. “I heard on the news last night that a man took a little girl out in California, right from her front yard. But her friend across the street got a partial license plate number. They caught the guy and now she’s a hero. I better take down some license plate numbers before I go home. The colonel says I am very thorough, the best volunteer he has. He says he depends on me and I must keep bringing him information and I must be his eyes, as he cannot get around the way I can.” I saw it all as he took the notebook from his pocket and began jotting down numbers, just as he had the day before.
“What do they look like?” the hypnotist asked him. “Can you tell me the color and make of the cars as well? You did a good job of that yesterday.”
As he recited a litany of minivans and sedans, along with their colors and approximate years and makes, I knew Maggie was taking notes, ready to test the accuracy of Martin’s memory against whatever information the Department of Motor Vehicles would provide. Not only would it give her an idea of how valuable the hypnotism session had been, if the DMV records helped identify a car whose make and model did not match the official data, it might indicate stolen plates—and lead her to the abductor.
As Martin spoke, I realized for the first time that I could see far more than just what he was describing for Miranda. I was there every bit as much as he was. He was describing the cars to the hypnotist, but I was actually seeing the cars, along with the park or yard behind each car, the housewife walking her dog on the sidewalk, the mailman pushing his cart full of mail past them all. The details Martin was leaving out were visible to me, and I looked hungrily around, seeking clues only I could be privy to. I checked out the cottage across the street, where the nurse had lived, and saw a woman dressed in a raincoat leaving the house and getting into a car and driving away. I realized with a start that it had been Fiona Harker, that she was still alive, but that within hours death would visit her and, a day after that, she would be found murdered on the floor.
“That’s about it,” Martin declared, talking to himself as he relived stowing his notebook and pen back in a pocket. “Let’s see what the kids are up to today. There’s this one kid in the sandbox who bullies the little ones. I’m going to keep an eye on him. I don’t like the way he pushes other kids around. I may have to say something to his nanny.”
“Do you know the children by name?” Miranda asked, to remind him she was there. I knew she was hoping to find information on Tyler Matthews, including whether he had followed any patterns that might help the police.
“I have names for them,” Martin explained. “I make them up. And sometimes if they get called enough by their mothers I even know their real names.”
“What about Tyler Matthews?” Miranda asked. “You know him by name, right?”
“Oh, sure,” Martin said promptly. “His mom is a worrywart. My mom was like that. I couldn’t go five feet away without her calling me back. His mother is even worse. It makes it hard for him. He wants to run, he wants to join the other children, he wants to cut loose and be himself for a while.”
Is Martin talking about himself or Tyler Matthews?
“Is Tyler there now?” the therapist asked.
“No,” Martin said. “Because of the weather, there aren’t a lot of kids here today. Just a small crowd that—” He stopped abruptly, and I could feel him hesitate as a flicker of fear licked upward. It was a physical fear.
“What is it, Robert?” Miranda asked. “Tell me what you see.”
“The man from Monday is back,” Martin whispered. “The man who was pretending to read the newspaper. He’s hiding behind the paper again. But I can see him all right. I can see his sandals and socks. I can feel him, too. I don’t like him.”
I could feel Martin’s dislike. It flooded through him like water rising. It was dislike, suspicion, and a hefty dose of fear, too, as if somehow he, Martin, were in personal danger from the man.
“What is the man doing?” Miranda asked sharply.
“He’s sitting next to the old man who feeds the pigeons, but he hasn’t even bothered to say hello. You’re supposed to say hello when you sit next to old people on park benches. That’s why old people sit there. To talk to other people. He’s hiding behind his newspaper, watching the children again . . .” His breath began to come in heavy gusts. “He’s waiting for the right one. He’s—” Martin stopped abruptly. His mind went blank.
“What is it?” Miranda asked.
“I don’t want to go any further into his head,” Martin said.
“You can tell what he’s thinking?” she asked, a note of worry creeping into her otherwise relentlessly calm voice. Something about Martin’s comment concerned her.
“No, but I can feel what he’s thinking, and what he wants, and I don’t like it. I don’t want to go any closer.”
“Okay,” Miranda agreed crisply. “Let’s take a look elsewhere. I want you to look up and tell me what you see. Look across the street.”
“A really cute little cottage,” Martin said, relaxing a little. “It has a great garden. Maybe the owner could tell me what I need to do to keep my mother’s flowers alive. And the hedges are trimmed so neatly. I wish I lived there. It’s like something out of a fairy tale. It’s funny how I never noticed it before.”
“Is anyone home?” Miranda asked, approaching the territory Maggie asked her to cover.
Martin was silent and I could see the scene through his eyes: an empty cottage, an empty curb in front, a sense of abandonment about the place.
“No,” Martin said firmly. “The lights are off and it’s quite shut up. I don’t think the owner is there very often. The cottage looks lonely.”
“Okay. Let’s go back to the playground. Can you tell me anything else about the playground or the man on the bench?” Miranda said.
“It’s going to rain. That means the man behind the newspaper will be leaving soon. The children will be safe for today. But I’m going to tell the colonel about him. I do not think that man can be trusted.” Something welled up in Martin. When he spoke again, he sounded much younger than he was. “I have a bad feeling about him. I think he’s a bad man. He likes hurting people.”
“Are you tired?” Miranda said gently, understanding something about him that the rest of us did not. I tried to search his memories so I could understand, but I failed—the park was all he allowed me to share. “Do you need a rest?” Miranda asked.
“No,” Martin said firmly, his voice growing in strength. “I want to go further. I’m ready to go through the next door.” As he spoke, I got that same odd sense of being in two places at one time: in the brightly lit interrogation room in front of witnesses, but also back in time, on a bench in a park with the wind picking up and the smell of rain even stronger in the air.
“Okay,” Miranda agreed. “Shall we leave this room and continue on to the next door in the hallway, the one for this morning?”
“Yes,” Martin said clearly, and I could feel the resolve building in him. He was determined to help.
“Let’s go to just before you left work this morning,” Miranda suggested in her most soothing voice. “You are a grown man. You are a strong man. You have worked a full night and are just finishing up.”
Martin nodded, agreeing with her. “I baked all night long because we got an order in from a new deli for whole wheat loaves and Mrs. Rotanni says if she can make some money selling my bread to other places, she’ll give me a nice raise.”
“You must be feeling very proud of yourself,” Miranda suggested, as if she knew he would need extra strength for what he was about to go through.
“Yes,” Martin said. “But I’m not feeling so good this morning. I need coffee before I go to the park. I want a grande latte with a shot of hazelnut syrup. It costs three times what it ought to, but I’m not feeling too good. I think a latte will help.”
“You’re not feeling well?” the therapist asked, still concerned about something only she could pick up on.
I felt something in Martin cringe as he confessed, “I asked that new waitress out last night, the pretty one with the long black hair, and she just laughed at me. I saw one of the cooks laughing at me, too, and the busboy. She could have just said, ‘No, thanks.’ She didn’t have to laugh in my face.”
“No, she didn’t,” Miranda agreed gently. “Aren’t you glad it is a new day?”
“Yes,” said Martin, talking to himself. “She’s a thief anyway. I saw her take money from the till when she thought no one was looking. I may even tell Mrs. Rotanni about it. If she does it again, I will.” He paused and Miranda began to lead him through the morning. I could feel his thoughts shift as she led him down the block to a new coffee chain store, where he bought a large latte and a chocolate chip scone. For a fleeting second, I could almost taste that scone, and it filled me with lost delight. He wolfed it down and then described taking his time walking to the park, enjoying the weather and the knowledge that, at long last, spring had arrived without equivocation. His routine was much like the other three days, until he got nearer to the park.
“I better take down the license plate numbers again,” he muttered to himself. “I promised the colonel last night that I would. He is anxious to know if the brown-haired man is there again today. I can tell he is interested in what I think. He must really trust my judgment.” Martin sounded proud of himself, as if marveling that anyone would care about his opinion. “Damnit,” he said, sounding frustrated. “I should have thought ahead. I’ll have to balance my notebook with my latte or put it down on the sidewalk each time I write down a license plate number. I’m really tired. And I don’t see any new cars, these all look pretty familiar. I’ll write the numbers down later. I just want to rest for a while and soak up the sun and finish my latte first.” He leaned his head back as if he were sitting on the park bench and closed his eyes.
“Where are you now?” Miranda asked, reminding him that others were listening. “Can you describe what you are seeing?”
Martin smiled. “The playground is packed today. It’s such a nice day and every kid in town is here.” He laughed. “Some little kid not more than two years old just threw sand in the bully’s face and told him to go away. Way to go, little buddy!” He was silent for a moment. “Poor Tyler. His mother is always calling him. He wants to play with the little girl with red hair, but his mother won’t let him go in the sandbox. She says it’s too dirty.” Martin’s face was suddenly very sad. “She makes him different from the other boys. Doesn’t she know what that is going to do to him?”
“Where is Tyler now?” Miranda asked sharply, trying to keep him from turning inward into his own memories.
“He is waiting his turn at the monkey bars. He’s a cute little fellow, all elbows and knees, and his hair is brown and curly. I bet he hates his hair and thinks it looks like a girl’s, but I think he looks like an angel.”
Suddenly he gasped, and I could feel the darkness spread in him. I could feel the tension in the room grow at the same time: his lawyer, Miranda, the people on the other side of the one-way glass—they all knew an important moment had come.
“He’s back,” Martin whispered. “He’s back, and this time he’s tried to change the way he looks. That’s not good. That’s not good at all. Why would he need to do that?”
“Change the way he looks how?” Miranda prompted.
“He’s wearing a white windbreaker and black slacks and a different kind of hat pulled low over his face. It’s one of those English caps that are flat on top. He’s pretending to sleep, but I can tell he’s watching the children, like he’s counting them off. He’s . . .” Martin’s voice trailed off and I could feel the fear growing in him, filling him, the kind of panic that raises its head and then grows and grows. “He has something in his pocket. It sticks out a little. It’s a rag. Oh, no, it’s the tip of a rag and . . .” Martin paused, struggling to understand.
“What is it?” Miranda said sharply. “Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.”
“It’s a leash,” Martin said firmly. “He has a leash, but he doesn’t have a dog. He’s going to take someone. I know he is.” Martin’s voice rose and became more urgent. “I’ve got to tell someone before he does. I’ve got to let the police know.” He hesitated. “They won’t believe me. He hasn’t done anything. Who is going to believe me?” He paused again, thinking out loud. “Could the colonel do something? Maybe the police would listen to him. But he says we have to have proof first, that feeling as if something is bad isn’t enough. And what if I am wrong? What if it’s just some guy who has nowhere else to go? I have nowhere else to go, either. Someone could easily say the same thing about me.” He was talking faster now, trying to find his way to a solution. I could feel the panic in him give way as he stared at the man in his memory. I had a view of the stranger as well. And even though Martin did not say it, I noted that the man had a sharp chin and gangly arms and legs, ears that protruded and sunglasses that he once again slid down over his eyes to conceal his features. Between the sunglasses and the cap masking his face, it was difficult to tell his age. I tried to get a read on his thoughts, but it was hard leaving Martin’s presence. It was not the same as if I were experiencing the scene in real time. I could read a little off the man, maybe a little bit more than Martin, but not as much as I could have if I were really there.
I picked up on enough to think that Martin was right. The man was hunting. He was scanning the crowd of children for prey. His fingers drummed nervously on the bench as he abruptly crossed one leg over the other, leaning forward to conceal his lap. His head moved slightly to the left and then to the right—he was following Tyler Matthews as the little boy swung across the monkey bars.
Tyler’s mother called out to her son and the man slumped back, disappointed, as the boy ran across the grass toward his mother.
“I wish my mother were still alive,” Martin said suddenly. “She would know what to do.” He sounded breathless, the panic returning. “I don’t know who will believe me, I just don’t . . .” He began to describe his neighbors in turn, searching for an ally. “Mr. Novak thinks I’m a bum; he’ll call the police on me. The Johnsons are never home. There’s that new lady, but she doesn’t know me from Adam, and she probably won’t even answer the door. Oh.” He stopped abruptly and sat upright. I felt relief flowing through him. “There is that nice lady who lives on the corner, the one with hydrangeas and the water garden. Mom always said she was very kind, very smart. She used to tell me to run to her when I was little if ever something bad happened and she wasn’t around. She said if anyone knew what to do, that lady would know. What was her name?” He frowned, not remembering, but I knew: her name was Noni Bates.
“I’m going to go ask her what to do,” he decided, talking to himself. “I think her name is Mrs. Bates.”
He led us through walking to Noni’s house. He described the scene in Noni’s garden and her kindness, how her voice calmed him and made him feel as if he was not imagining things. He talked of how he decided it would be better to enter the park from the back so she could observe the man without him knowing.
“I take her the back way,” he told the therapist, Miranda. “Even though it is longer. She does not mind. She wants to get to know me. She is asking me questions. I like her. I think she will be my friend.”
And yet I’d been right behind the two of them, convinced Martin was about to strangle her and leave her for dead. So much for my intuition.
I concentrated on being one with Martin as he spoke, anxious to know if he had felt my presence on any level. As I merged more fully with him, I could feel the sun on my skin, smell the fragrance of flowers as we walked past. I could hear Noni’s gentle voice as she asked about his mother and Martin’s droning monotone as she let him prattle on about sauces and bread and basil-flavored ice cream. And then we were there, at the rear entrance to the park, just before the bushes where Noni had spotted the rabbits.
And I saw it.
A blue station wagon was parked exactly in the spot where my search earlier in the day had led me after I discovered the plastic dinosaur in the grass. I had followed Tyler Matthews’s essence to the space where the car was parked, only to find bare asphalt. But this was earlier, hours earlier, before the boy had been taken, and I could see quite clearly through Martin’s eyes that the abductor had driven a blue Toyota Matrix station wagon, license plate number RPK6992.
I was back in business.
I wanted to leave that very moment and find the car, but I was afraid to sever my connection with Martin abruptly. I had begun to wonder about my role in Martin’s ability to delve so deeply. How much did my being there have to do with the clarity of his memories? I forced myself to stay while Miranda led him through the rest of the morning, to the arrival of the police cars at the cottage across the street, to Calvano’s mistreatment of him and the shame he felt at being suspected, to his horror when he heard he had been right and a child had been taken.
By the time he was done and Miranda had brought him back to the present, Martin was exhausted. But Calvano and Maggie now had a lot more to go on—and so did I. I had a car. Cars could be found.
“You were very brave,” Miranda told Martin at the end of the session. “They may find the little boy because of you.”
Martin swelled with pride and something shifted in him, as if, in undergoing the experience, he had become someone new.
“Here.” Miranda slid her business card across the table toward him. “I want you to take my card. I’m a therapist, too, you know.” Her voice was kind. She was quite good at being kind. “If you ever want to talk, just about things, I want you to call me. Something like this can be traumatic. I have a sliding fee scale, so you’ll be able to afford it. Or maybe you’d like to go get a coffee one day? I’d love to talk with you again.”
“Talk about things?” Martin asked. “What kind of things?”
“Oh,” she said casually, “what you want out of life. How you feel about your life. We can maybe even talk about the past, if you want.”
Their eyes met and something private passed between them.
It was time for me to go.