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“This is right outside my house,” Lila said. The photo noted the date and time. Three days ago at 5:47 P.M. Lila clicked a button on the side to show him yet another photo of the vehicle, dated the following day, around the same time. She hit the button again—same Escalade, the next day, from a different angle. This one provided a rear view. There appeared to be a bright red decal on the back window, setting it apart from the no-doubt many black Escalades roaming the state of Maryland. The windows were darkly tinted. The license plate was a standard black-on-white type—not a “Save the Bay” or colorful “Farm Preservation” plate. He tried, without success, to read the tag number. The characters were too blurred to make out, but they didn’t appear to be vanity plates.
“And you know for a fact this vehicle is connected to the people you ... did business with?” Dr. Fein said.
Lila looked at the floor and shook her head. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“Well,” Dr. Fein said. “There could be other explanations.”
“I do something that’s probably illegal. Then this car turns up the next week—follows me home and sits outside my house for three days in a row. And you think there’s no connection?” Lila looked incredulous. “I think they’re watching me. Making sure I don’t tell anybody, I guess.”
The whole thing sounded absurd to Dr. Fein. Who had done this to Lila? Why would they do it? Why would they assume she’d tell anyone else? Surely it would only hurt her to do so. He wanted to ask all these questions, but time was running out.
“Are you sure this vehicle was following you? Maybe someone in the building where you work happens to know one of your neighbors.”
She shook her head. “No. I just know it’s them. I think ... I think my life may be in danger.”
Dr. Fein shifted slightly in his seat, tensed and ready to rise and show Lila to the door. His next client would be waiting. “If you feel that way, m
aybe you should contact the police?”
“After what I’ve done?” Lila gave him a look that expressed a low opinion of Dr. Fein’s IQ. He could feel himself flush, realizing his gaffe.
“They’ve paid me way too much to make what I’ve done legal. Now I’m supposed to go to the cops for protection? And say what? That a bunch of criminals I did a job for are watching me? I mean, isn’t that why they’re watching me? Because they think maybe I’ll tell the cops?!”
Dr. Fein had no idea why the people who’d paid Lila would want to watch her and found her reasoning about the matter to be confused and twisted. Even so, as her voice rose with each derisive comment, he could feel his embarrassment and discomfort rise with it. He felt as if she was scolding him, the way his ex-wife did toward the end of their marriage.
“I can see your dilemma,” he said. “I confess, I’m not sure what to suggest. You live alone, don’t you?”
“Yes.” The word came out as a sob. “Now I do.”
Dr. Fein nodded. Mickey had left Lila several months ago. She hadn’t dwelled on the topic, but he could tell it still tugged at her consciousness.
“Perhaps you should consider staying with a friend or relative if you feel scared,” he said, trying hard to stay seated. The minute hand had inched past the appointment’s ending time.
“I have no relatives. There’s no place I can stay.” Lila raked her hair back, and it fell like a dark curtain framing her perfect oval face.
“I’m afraid our time is up.” Dr. Fein rose—giving Lila her cue to stand, also—and he placed a reassuring hand on her arm as he escorted her to the door. Lila paused and gave him a damp-eyed, beseeching look. Her eyes were an incredibly dark blue—indigo, really. Dr. Fein resisted the urge to touch Lila’s cheek.
“Try not to worry,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll be all right.”
*****
After twenty years as a therapist, Dr. Fein had observed that female patients often jumped to conclusions, read too much into situations, and were swayed more by wayward and unpredictable emotions than by reason. Dr. Fein had learned to tolerate these traits in female patients, as he’d learned to tolerate them in his wife. That is to say, his ex-wife.
Despite the somewhat bizarre, even ludicrous, nature of Lila’s tale, Dr. Fein couldn’t help but worry. Whether Lila had bungled her way into becoming a runner for a drug cartel or was simply nuts, she believed herself to be in danger. That was a fact. And if she felt scared, she might do any number of crazy things.
Dr. Fein knew this all too well. He had ignored similar warning signs in another female patient, Jenny Mahoney. One who, in retrospect, he realized he should have monitored more closely.
He had tried with Jenny. Tried to explain that she needed to curb her irrational impulses and focus on how to make the best of a bad situation with her parents. Tried to explain that homosexuality was a difficult concept for them to accept. In point of fact, it was a difficult concept for Dr. Fein to accept, too. Jenny was a beautiful, young woman, with wavy blonde locks that flowed gracefully down her back. She had light-green eyes and a peaches-and-cream complexion. Dr. Fein knew that the field of psychiatry no longer considered homosexuality an aberration, but he found it (secretly, for he would never say so outright) a shame that such loveliness was being wasted in another woman’s arms.
Jenny was dead now, exactly three months ago to the day. Suicide by pills and carbon monoxide poisoning. Dr. Fein didn’t like to dwell on his mistakes—it made no sense to dwell on things you couldn’t change—but that mistake ... well, it insisted on dwelling with him. The memories crept into his consciousness, like roaches creeping through a tenement wall. Each time Dr. Fein tried to squash one thought, more thoughts would appear to take its place.
The following week, Lila failed to appear for her scheduled appointment. Dr. Fein had warned her she would be charged for not showing up, but this was not the first thing to cross his mind when he didn’t see her in the waiting area at the appointed hour.
His first thought was, what if she had been right?
Dr. Fein tried to reach Lila at her daytime phone, only to get voice mail. He tried her home number, too. The phone just rang. Dr. Fein listened to it ring on and on. He’d counted twenty-five rings when he hung up.
Not good, he thought.
