Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver

'What'm I going to do, Jack?' Weller said, feeling the blade of the Buck with his thumb and looking me in the eye. 'Well, I'll tell you. I spent a good deal of time tonight proving to you that you shouldn't kill me. And now…'

'What, man? What?'

'Now I'm going to spend a good deal of time proving to you that you should've.'

Then, real slow, Weller finished his scotch and stood up. And he walked toward me, that weird little smile on his face.

For Services Rendered

'At first I thought it was me… but now I know for sure: My husband's trying to drive me crazy.'

Dr. Harry Bernstein nodded and, after a moment's pause, dutifully noted his patient's words on the steno pad resting on his lap.

'I don't mean he's irritating me, driving me crazy that way — I mean he's making me question my sanity. And he's doing it on purpose.'

Patsy Randolph, facing away from Harry on his leather couch, turned to look at her psychiatrist. Even though he kept his Park Avenue office quite dark during his sessions he could see that there were tears in her eyes.

'You're very upset,' he said in a kind tone.

'Sure, I'm upset,' she said. 'And I'm scared.'

This woman, in her late forties, had been his patient for two months. She'd been close to tears several times during their sessions but had never actually cried. Tears are important barometers of emotional weather. Some patients go for years without crying in front of their doctors and when the eyes begin to water any competent therapist sits up and takes notice.

Harry studied Patsy closely as she turned away again and picked at a button on the cushion beside her thigh.

'Go on,' he encouraged. 'Tell me about it.'

She snagged a Kleenex from the box beside the couch.

Dabbed at her eyes but she did so carefully; as always, she wore impeccable makeup.

'Please,' Harry said in a soft voice.

'It's happened a couple of times now,' she began reluctantly. 'Last night was the worst. I was lying in bed and I heard this voice. I couldn't really hear it clearly at first. Then it said…' She hesitated. 'It said it was my father's ghost.'

Motifs in therapy didn't get any better than this, and Harry paid close attention.

'You weren't dreaming?'

'No, I was awake. I couldn't sleep and I'd gotten up for a glass of water. Then I started walking around the apartment. Just pacing. I felt frantic. I lay back in bed. And the voice — I mean, Pete's voice — said that it was my fathers ghost.'

'What did he say?'

'He just rambled on and on. Telling me about all kinds of things from my past. Incidents from when I was a girl. I'm not sure. It was hard to hear.'

'And these were things your husband knew?'

'Not all of them.' Her voice cracked. 'But he could've found them out. Looking through my letters and my yearbooks.' Things like that.

'You're sure he was the one talking?'

'The voice sounded sort of like Peters. Anyway, who else would it be?' She laughed, her voice nearly a cackle. 'I mean, it could hardly be my fathers ghost, now, could it?'

'Maybe he was just talking in his sleep.'

She didn't respond for a minute. 'See, that's the thing… He wasn't in bed. He was in the den, playing some video game.'

Harry continued to take his notes.

'And you heard him from the den?'

'He must have been at the door… Oh, Doctor, it sounds ridiculous. I know it does. But I think he was kneeling at the door — it's right next to the bedroom — and was whispering.'

'Did you go into the den? Ask him about it?'

'I walked to the door real fast but by the time I opened it he was back at the desk.' She looked at her hands and found she'd shredded the Kleenex. She glanced at Harry to see if he'd noticed the compulsive behavior, which of course he had, and then stuffed the tissue into the pocket of her expensive beige slacks.

'And then?'

'I asked him if he'd heard anything, any voices. And he looked at me like I was nuts and went back to his game.'

'And that night you didn't hear any more voices?'

'No.'

Harry studied his patient. She'd been a pretty girl in her youth, he supposed, because she was a pretty woman now (therapists always saw the child within the adult). Her face was sleek and she had the slightly upturned nose of a Connecticut socialite who debates long and hard about having rhinoplasty but never does. He recalled that Patsy'd told him her weight was never a problem: she'd hire a personal trainer whenever she gained five pounds. She'd said — with irritation masking secret pride — that men often tried to pick her up in bars and coffee shops.

He asked, 'You say this's happened before? Hearing the voice?'

Another hesitation. 'Maybe two or three times. All within the past couple of weeks.'

'But why would Peter want to drive you crazy?'

Patsy, who'd come to Harry presenting with the classic symptoms of a routine midlife crisis, hadn't discussed her husband much yet. Harry knew he was good-looking, a few years younger than Patsy, not particularly ambitious. They'd been married for three years — second marriages for both of them — and they didn't seem to have many interests in common. But of course that was just Patsy's version. The 'facts' that are revealed in a therapist's office can be very fishy. Harry Bernstein worked hard to become a human lie detector and his impression of the marriage was that there was much unspoken conflict between husband and wife.

Patsy considered his question. 'I don't know. I was talking to Sally…' Harry remembered her mentioning Sally, her best friend. She was another Upper East Side matron — one of the ladies who lunch — and was married to the president of one of the biggest banks in New York. 'She said that maybe Peter's jealous of me. I mean, look at us — I'm the one with the social life, I have the friends, I have the money…' He noticed a manic edge to her voice. She did too and controlled it. 'I just don't know why he's doing it. But he is.'

'Have you talked to him about this?'

'I tried. But naturally he denies everything.' She shook her head and tears swelled in her eyes again. 'And then… the birds.'

'Birds?'

Another Kleenex was snagged, used and shredded. She didn't hide the evidence this time. 'I have this collection of ceramic birds. Made by Boehm. Do you know about the company?'

'No.'

'They're very expensive. They're German. Beautifully made. They were my parents'. When our father died Steve and I split the inheritance but he got most of the personal family heirlooms. That really hurt me. But I did get the birds.'

Harry knew that her mother had died ten years ago and her father about three years ago. The man had been very stern and had favored Patsy's older brother, Stephen. He had been patronizing to her all her life.

'I have four of them. There used to be five but when I was twelve I broke one. I ran inside — I was very excited about something and I wanted to tell my father about it — and I bumped into the table and knocked one off. The sparrow. It broke. My father spanked me with a willow switch and sent me to bed without dinner.'

Ah, an Important Event. Harry made a note but decided not to pursue the incident any further at that