The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (ebook reader online txt) 📗

polite but official. His voice held a slight accent. She noticed a neat mustache over his small, bow-shaped mouth. He stroked it lightly from time to time. Old acne scars covered his cheeks like moon craters seen from the earth. His eyes were the deepest blue. She felt she might fall into those eyes and disappear. Was this part of his technique, to throw his suspects off guard? She shook herself clear of any notions he might be kind or caring.

‘No, but I would like for Jet, uh, Dr Taylor to stay.’

‘I’m going to record this,’ he said, and it wasn’t a question.

He pulled a small camcorder out of his satchel, sitting it on the edge of the windowsill. Clair felt naked and cold. Jet noticed her shiver and offered her a blanket from the couch on the other side of the room. Clair had been in sessions with Jet many times over the past several days. It had always felt safe. It didn’t feel safe today, not with Santiago here.

Clair sat, her hands folded neatly in her lap, and waited. Jet and the detective sat either side of the table Jet used as a desk. Bare except for a computer and a photo of Jet and a young woman who looked just like her. A graduation shot, black gowns and caps with purple tassels tilted to the left. Both smiling broadly, their arms around each other, free arms waving at someone in the distance.

It was time now. The story was advancing, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. Each remembering, each telling, invoked memories, or were they imaginings? She didn’t know. This man, this detective, Santiago, the way he looked at her, with such empathy. Where did he get that? And yet, he had the power to stop all of this and just send her to prison. They were giving her a chance. But a chance for what? Life, she didn’t want. Freedom, that terrified her. Absolution, impossible.

A click sounded from the small camcorder set up on the windowsill.

‘Detective James Santiago, Harbor Police Department. Dr Juliette Taylor is also present. It is Thursday, September 27, 2018. We are at Harbor Hospital in the office of Dr Juliette Taylor. I am interviewing Clair Mercer on the events of September 20, 2018.’

‘I know now I was psychotic. I must have known it then, but I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop myself.’ Clair spoke directly into the camera, as though it was a person. Her hands busied themselves rolling up her scrub top into a tight knot at her waist, then letting go, again and again as she spoke.

‘After I, you know, mixed his drink, dumped the powder from the pills into the drink and mixed the rest into the cheese mixture. I made him the cheese toast, gave them to him. He didn’t even say thank you. He just kept talking on the phone. I watched him take that first sip, afraid he would taste something strange. But it was his good Scotch. He didn’t notice. He took a big bite of his toast. I remember some of the cheese stuck to his bottom lip. It made him look sad, old. Well, after, and I thought he was dying, dead, I got my bag, made sure I had what I needed, and walked out to my car. I remember how bright the sun was. The late summer haze from the cooling ocean drifted across the coastal range scattering rainbows across the horizon. I saw them as a sign, like a bridge, you know, from here to there.’

She looked up at Jet, hoping that somehow, magically, through this telling, this moment of joyful recognition of beauty, somehow the terrible events of that day could be erased. Like the tsunami tide, a surge so powerful that it could take it all away. Seeing only assent in Jet’s gaze, she dropped her own, staring at the silvery threads woven into the deep indigo carpet at her feet. Then at her feet, wearing the blue booties the hospital provided for the psych patients. This jolted her back to the reality that was now. The tide was surging back in.

‘I got in my car. Began the drive to the coast, to the beach where, you know, where I lost him, my boy. It was about a thirty-minute drive, maybe more, depending on traffic. This was a Friday afternoon so yeah, lots of people heading to the coast, slowing down the 101. Escaping the valley heat. But it was OK. I wasn’t in a hurry. I was just on my way. I had finished my business at the house. Adam was done. And I was going to join Devon. To become part of that watery sanctuary that had enfolded him. To immerse my atoms and molecules with his.’

Clair was shaking her head, pleading with her eyes, spreading her hands towards Jet and Santiago, beseeching them to understand.

‘I was on the river road, just before the turn off, when I saw his car for the first time. That damn new black Mercedes he insisted on, saying he had to maintain a certain image for his students, his public. How could it be him? I disbelieved my eyes, but at the same time I questioned why I hadn’t taken his keys with me. Is this his ghost, coming to haunt me already? I just drove on, faster.’

‘Take a breath, Clair,’ Jet coached. ‘Take a minute, we have time.’ Jet reached across the table, touched Clair’s forearm. ‘Are you OK? We can stop and do this later.’

‘No, I want to get it over with,’ she said, shuddering. ‘Please.’

Santiago nodded.

‘I turned onto the coast road. It was still so bright. The western sun was shining in my eyes, blinding me. But he was there. In my rearview mirror. He would gain on me, then withdraw, like a shadow. Even the wind, the trees colluded in his stalking, throwing leaves and debris in my path. I drove so fast, but my