Page 27 of Pretty Nightmare

I grab the recorder off the couch and stop it.

Indie sits up and looks at me. “Why’d you do that?”

“Nick? As in… Nick who?”

She laughs at me. “Come on, now. There’s only one Nick. Nick Tate.”

“How do you know it was him?”

She shrugs. “I’ve seen him. I mean, I didn’t know him then. Well, that can’t be right. If he and I were the only ones on the boat, then I did know him. At least a little.”

I lean back in the chair and breathe, taking time to think this through.

I didn’t plan this session and she’s right. She’s not under at all. I think I was just going through the motions, not expecting much. I let her slip in and out of her relaxed state when I should’ve been making her concentrate on being there. In the moment. Trying to get her to turn her past into the present.

Even that’s a little weird. I’m not careless with people’s minds. Not anymore. I learned my lesson. So this lapse in judgment pisses me off. Even more so because it’s her. I know better. I really fucking know better. And I let that happen anyway.

Again.

And then Nick Tate? That was totally unexpected.

“What’s going on?” Indie says. “Why are you so freaked out?”

“I don’t know. Something about that is wrong, Indie.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense.” I leave out the part about my lackadaisical attitude about this session, because I need to think about that alone before I admit to it out loud. “Nick was after you. Remember? Adam had that meeting with him the day the Company fell.”

“The day I tried to kill him, you mean?”

“Whatever. Nick threatened him. Nick wanted to kill you, Indie.”

“Yeah, I know. He got Angelica. Not Wendy, though. Or me.”

“So why the fuck would he be dropping you off on the island for the auction when you were ten? Why didn’t he just kill you then?”

“I dunno.” She laughs and swings her feet over the side of the couch. “Maybe he wanted me to be bought by someone. Or maybe he was just tired of me? I really was a brat back then.”

“OK, hold on. Hold on.” I close my eyes and think for a moment, trying to recall what exactly I told Adam that night of the auction. “I thought you got dropped off because your house mother was tired of you.”

“What’s a house mother?”

“You know, those… those fucking ladies who run the little girls before they sell them.”

She shakes her head at me. “I don’t remember a house mother.”

I scrub both hands down my face. This isn’t right. “Just…” I hold up a hand. “Don’t say anything for a minute. I need to think.”

She flops back into the couch cushions and blows out some air.

House mothers. I get it. Indie was only ten when she showed up on the island. But I remember plenty of things from when I was ten. And so should she. She would’ve lived with the house mother her entire life. There would’ve been other girls there too. Maybe half a dozen from what I remember of that part of the program. So it’s just not possible that she doesn’t remember a house mother.

“OK, I think we’re done for today, Indie.”

“Why?”

“Because this could be something we call a transformative moment.”