Sally told herself to be orderly, to be organized. Get control, she insisted.

Her car was where it always was, in the parking garage. She buttoned her coat and slowed her breathing to normal, feeling the pressure in her chest and in the pit of her stomach diminish. But as she regained control over all the sensations that had threatened to overcome her, she felt suddenly as if she were no longer alone. She spun about, but the sidewalk was empty, save for the few students crawling in and out of a nearby coffee shop. The traffic on the main street of town was moving along normally. A bus whooshed its air brakes as it settled into the stop across the street in front of an old theater. Everything she could see was as it should be. Everything was in place, settled and normal.

Only nothing was.

She took another deep breath and moved off steadily toward the garage. A part of her wanted to run, and it was all she could do to keep from breaking into a trot, as the evening darkness slid over her and wan light from streetlights and storefronts carved out small sanctuaries against the growing night.

“You know, even with this so-called release, and a signed one at that, I’m a little uncomfortable speaking of things told to me in confidence.”

“That’s your prerogative,” I said, filled with false generosity. “I completely understand your position.” In my words, I was trying to install the exact opposite suggestion.

“Do you?” he asked.

The psychologist was a small, impish sort, with curly hair streaked with gray that swirled haphazardly around his collar as if attached to odd and conflicted ideas hidden inside his scalp. He wore glasses that gave him a slightly buglike appearance, and he had a curious mannerism. He would finish speaking an idea, then wave his hand in the air to punctuate the words.

“After all,” he continued, “I’m not sure that the impact that Michael O’Connell had on these people has yet been fully realized.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

He sighed. “I think one way you can consider this is to think of him entering their lives in much the same way as an auto accident, perhaps one caused by a drunk driver. A moment of loss, a moment of fear, a moment of conflict, however you want to see it. But the residue lasts for years, perhaps even forever. Lives changed. Ashes and agony for a very long time. That’s what you’re looking at, in this case.”

“But-”

“I just don’t know if I can speak about it,” he said abruptly. “Some things said in this office need to be sacrosanct, even if I support your telling the story. Although I’m not sure that I do. Haven’t really thought it through. And I sure as hell would hate to say one thing or another and then suddenly get a subpoena from some authorities, or have to open my door to a couple of Columbo-type detectives in ill-fitting suits, and playing a whole helluva lot dumber than they really are. Sorry.”

I sighed, not really knowing whether to be frustrated or respectful. He gave a wide smile and shrugged.

“Well,” I said, “so that my trip here isn’t an entire waste, can you at least explain to me some of the ins and outs of O’Connell’s obsessive love with Ashley?”

The psychologist snorted, suddenly angry. “Love. Love! My God, what had it to do with that word? There is one thing you need to know about the psychological makeup of a Michael O’Connell. It is about possession. ”

“Yes,” I said, “I suppose I can see that. But what did he get? It wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about desire. It wasn’t passion. And yet, in a way, it seems, from what I know so far, that it was about all those things.”

He leaned back in his chair, then rocked forward abruptly.

“You’re being far too literal,” he said. “A bank robbery says something concrete. Perhaps even the drug deal, or shooting the late-night clerk at the convenience store. Serial killing and repetitive rapes. Those sorts of crimes are far more easily defined. This was not. Michael O’Connell’s proclaimed love was a crime about identity. And thus, became something far greater, far more profound. Far more devastating.”

I nodded. I was about to say something else, but he waved his hand in that way that I’d already seen, quieting me.

“Actually, another thing you need to always keep in mind,” he said hesitantly. “You must also understand that Michael O’Connell was…” he took a second to breathe in deeply “…relentless.”

17

For the first time in her relatively short life, Ashley felt as if her world were not only incredibly small, but now defined by so few things that it lacked anywhere that she could hide, anywhere she could escape to take a small breath of air and gather herself.

The minor irritations and small signs that she was being trailed and observed kept up steadily. Her telephone had become a weapon, filled with silences or heavy breathing. She no longer trusted her computer. She refused to check her e-mail because she could no longer tell who was sending it.

She told her landlord that she had lost her apartment keys, and he sent a locksmith around to replace the locks on the front door, although she doubted it did much good. The locksmith told her that the new locks would keep out most people, but not anyone who actually knew what he was doing. It wasn’t hard for her to imagine that O’Connell would be in the category of people who knew what they were doing.

At her job at the museum some of her coworkers complained that they were getting odd anonymous phone calls and unsettling e-mails suggesting that Ashley was acting behind their backs on some project or bad-mouthing them to management. When Ashley tried to explain that this was all untrue, she thought she wasn’t believed.

Completely out of the blue, one morning a gay coworker angrily accused her of being a closet homophobe. The charge was so ridiculous that Ashley was completely nonplussed. She was incapable of responding. Then a day or so later, a black coworker eyed her suspiciously and refused to have lunch with her that day. When Ashley followed her, trying to see what was wrong, she haughtily announced, “We have absolutely nothing to talk about. Leave me alone.”

After her evening graduate course, Modern European Impressionist Artists, her professor called her into her office and told her that she was in danger of failing if she did not start attending classes.

Ashley was taken aback. Her mouth opened and she stared at the woman, who barely lifted her head from the stacks of papers, slides, and large, glossy art books that littered her desktop. Ashley tried to look around, find something to focus on, and stop the dizzy sensation that threatened to overtake her.

“But that’s impossible,” Ashley said. “I’ve been at every class. The sign-up sheets should have my signature right in the middle.”

“Please don’t lie to me,” the professor said stiffly.

“But I’m not.”

“One of the graduate assistants goes over these, then puts them into the department system,” the professor said coldly. “Of the weekly lectures and additional slide presentations, which we’ve had more than twenty of so far, we can only find your name on two separate occasions. And one of those would be tonight.”

“But I’ve been there every time,” Ashley pleaded. “I don’t understand. Let me show you my notes.”

“Anyone can get someone to take notes for them. Or get someone to let them copy theirs.”

“But I’ve been there. Really. I promise. Someone has made a mistake.”

“Sure. Someone. A mistake. Right. It’s all our fault,” the professor spoke sarcastically.

“Professor, I think someone is deliberately sabotaging my attendance record.”

The professor hesitated, then shook her head. “I’ve never heard of that. What purpose would anyone have…”