When I wake the next morning, a little after eight, I’m in the master bedroom, not on the screened porch. I’m alone. It takes a moment to recall being led here by Guy after he heard me cry out during the nightmare.
“It’s just a dream,” he kept saying. After I was tucked into bed, I lay awake, achy from fatigue but unable to fall back to sleep. Finally, close to three, I drifted off. I’m sure that Guy has left for work by now and I’ll find a note from him in the kitchen.
And I do. “Have a good day, sweetheart,” it reads. “I’ll be home by 7. Call me when you have a chance.”
Normal-sounding Guy, nothing distant or detached-seeming. And yet I still feel unsettled by Corcoran’s visit. My weekly Skype appointment with Dr. G is just an hour away, and I’m hoping that talking with her will help burn off my unease.
I fire up my laptop a few minutes early, just to be sure there’s no glitch with Skype. Dr. G signs in right on time, and it’s good to see her warm, friendly face. She’s about sixty, with expressive dark eyes and long black hair that she usually wears in a French twist, and she has an elegance that I wasn’t expecting when I first went to her. I’d only been to a therapist once before, a grief counselor who helped me after my parents died, and she was more of the classic therapist stereotype, right down to the flowy knit tops and makeup-less face.
“Good morning, Bryn,” Dr. G says. “How are things?”
Usually I start kind of slow with her, groping for words to explain my state of mind at the time, even though I’ve always tried in advance to gather my thoughts. But today I start by blurting out details—first about the murder, then back to the dinner party and the burnt matches in my drawer, and then to the delightful pop-up interview with the police last night. Dr. G doesn’t try to disguise her concern as she listens.
“Bryn, this must be so troubling for you,” she says.
“I have this awful sense of dread these days. Maybe from knowing the murderer’s still out there.”
“Is this stirring up feelings about your accident?”
“A little. When I first thought that one of the waiters might be the murderer, I felt so guilty, like I may have set the whole thing into motion by going to see the chef. It’s like the guilt I still have about the accident at times.”
I mention the dream last night, how it seems significant that I would have it in the thick of this, and how there’s now this mysterious man calling out to me.
“The first time you had this new version of the dream, the one with the man, was it before or after the murder?” she asks.
“Um, before.”
“All right. Though your anxiety about the murder may have triggered the dream again last night, it still seems related to your car accident. Are there any clues to who the man might be?”
“No, I never see him. And I don’t recognize the voice. But there’s this sense that I know him, that he’s familiar to me.”
“It sounds like, regardless of his identity or what he may represent, he has something important to say to you. I suspect you’ll eventually discover who he is because the dream becomes more revealing each time you have it. Keep jotting down notes, okay?”
“Okay. But if the dream is really about the accident, why does it take place in a hotel room?
“Dreams patch weird elements together. You were in a hotel room the night before.”
When I look at the clock on my computer screen, I realize we’ve been speaking for almost thirty minutes. I have only fifteen left.
“Let’s go back to what happened the night of the dinner party,” Dr. G says. “The box of burnt matches. You think someone was trying to rattle you?”
“That’s what it seemed like. One of the waiters or even this woman Eve herself. Or perhaps one of the dinner guests.”
“Could there be another explanation for the box being there?”
“I was thinking lately that the person who took the money might have placed it there as a diversion, so that I’d be confused about whether I’d actually left cash in the drawer. But why burn all the matches down first? It seems like a message.”
“So that must be adding to your dread—wondering why someone would try to send a message like that.”
“Yes, though I haven’t thought as much about it in the past day or so. Now I’m more preoccupied with the murder, and all these crazy interviews with the cops. It feels so oppressive.”
“Why oppressive, do you think?”
I relate some of the questions they asked, as well as the fact that Corcoran hasn’t been able to locate the woman who called me.
Dr. Greene straightens in her chair, and from her eyes I can see she’s trying to make sense of Corcoran’s approach.
“It’s hardly your fault that they can’t find the woman.”
“I know, but the way she pressed me made it seem like I’d done something wrong. That I wasn’t being totally forthcoming.”
“Could it be that she’s just frustrated with the investigation? She may think this woman has valuable information or may even be a suspect.”
She has a point.