Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night

"Like what, Lucy?"

"Like rape."

"But that doesn't mean you haven't buried the bare facts."

"The bare facts." Moisture was evident in Lucy's eyes and her voice came hot with anger, although she, too, modulated her volume. "Frank Millay did not rape me."

"All right."

"Please don't 'all right' me, Doctor. I would remember that. I promise you."

I nodded, drew in a breath. I couldn't hold her here. "You're searching for something that you've lost, and whatever that is has had a profound effect on your ability to feel things. If you can find that something in the real world, rather than in my office, or with some other psychoanalyst, yes, Lucy, yes, it might start the healing."

"Law offices of Bascom, Owen, Millay." "Oh. Could I speak to Frank Millay, please?" "Certainly," the cultured female voice said. "Can I tell him who's calling?"

"An old friend. I'm not sure if he'd remember me. My name is Lucy Delrey." "Just a moment."

On the one hand, it had been too easy; and on the other hand, impossible. Before Dr. Snow's suggestion that she try to physically locate Frank Millay, Lucy had looked in a haphazard fashion through gallery openings in the newspapers, or stopped in at galleries when the art struck her in some way that seemed vaguely familiar. She never consciously considered the fact that the street artist had given up on his first love and entered another field. Similarly, she had never before considered Googling the name Frank Millay.

Where the name came up in two seconds.

An attorney in San Francisco.

It couldn't possibly be the same man. But she had to call and find out. She had to be sure. "This is Frank Millay."

For an instant, she found herself tongue-tied. But then, afraid that he'd hang up if she didn't speak, she found her voice. "Is this the Frank Millay who used to be an artist in New York?"

Now the pause came from the other end. "Who used to paint anyway. Yes." Another hesitation. "I'm sorry. My secretary gave me your name, but."

"Lucy," she said. "Lucy Delrey. I was a little girl."

"Oh my God," he said under his breath. "Little Lucy, of course. How little were you then?"

"Seven. I'm thirty now."

"Thirty? God. Thirty is impossible."

"Not if you're about fifty. That would be about right." She couldn't hold back a small, nervous laugh. It was his voice. She'd have recognized it anywhere. Although it had an unaccustomed seriousness to it, an adultness that she thought befit his new profession. "You're a lawyer now?"

"Only for the past twenty years," he said. "Wow, Lucy." Words seemed to fail him. "You looked me up?"

"Googled you actually, yes."

"But.what are you doing? Where are you?"

"I'm home, still in New York. I'm a." But her business didn't lend itself to easy explanation. "I'm a photographer," she said.

"So somebody's still doing art," he said. Then, in an awkward tone, filling in the space, "That's good to hear."

"Yeah, well." A silence settled for a minute, until Lucy surprised herself. "Listen, Mr. Millay," she began.

"Frank, please."

"Okay, Frank. It just happens that I'm coming out to San Francisco next week on some business. Would it be too weird if I came to see you? If we had lunch or something?" Sensing his reluctance over the line, she pressed on. "I wouldn't blame you if you said no, but in spite of this call, I promise I'm not a flake or a stalker or anything. I just still remember what an incredible impact your paintings had on me. Still do, as I remember them. It.it would mean a lot. I just feel like I need to see you."

Silence for a long beat. "I'm married now," he said. "I've got three children. I don't know if my wife…" He let the sentence hang.

"Please," she said. "She doesn't have to know. It's so important. We need to talk, that's all."

"You know I don't paint anymore, Lucy. I haven't touched a brush in twenty years."

"No, it's more than that. It's you, who you were." Then, unsure of exactly what she meant, she added, "It's not just that, either."

"No," he said. "No, I suppose not." Finally, when he did speak, his voice was nearly unrecognizable, constricted with that adult quality. "I'll find some time," he said. "What day next week?"

She didn't sleep well over the next five days.

Frank Millay's colors, particularly that muddy blue, seeped into her dreams and woke her over and over again. It was a cold blue under a cold sky and she woke up, paradoxically, dripping with sweat. And sexually aroused.

All the dreams had the same setting. Millay's whole room was a womb enclosed in that dark, muddy blue-the river as he'd painted it endlessly flowing along the windowless walls over the bed.

Which made no sense.

She had no memory that she had ever been to his bedroom. She had never seen his bed.

But something was stirring things up.

The last dream was different. It started with the smells of must or animal or mold, and there was a bright light at the end of a dark green tu

She woke up, sobbing, in the middle of an orgasm.

And finally it all came back.

She knew now that in a fundamental way, she had at last begun to heal. The recurring waves of what had been repressed memory now throbbed with the persistence of a bone bruise, painful enough on two more occasions to bring her to tears, but at least she was no longer numb. She almost called Dr. Snow to tell her that she'd begun to feel things again. If much of it was negative and painful, that was okay. It was the price to get back to normal. But she knew that she wasn't quite finished yet. To complete the recovery, she would have to assassinate one last man. The one who'd all but destroyed her so many years ago.

Frank Millay clearly didn't want her to come to his office. He'd e-mailed her to say they should meet at the Slanted Door, a terrific and easy-to-find Vietnamese restaurant located in San Francisco's newly renovated Ferry Building, at the foot of Market Street. He had one o'clock reservations there under the name York. He'd explained that it wasn't a place where they were likely to run into too many of his colleagues on a weekday afternoon. She realized with a bit of a thrill that he was already afraid of exposure, even of being seen with her. And this led to the understanding that he only could have agreed to the meeting with her for one of three very different reasons-to somehow try to explain what he'd done, to beg her to forgive him, or to get the details of her blackmail.

But Lucy knew fifty-year-old men. Once she started coming on to him, in spite of what he'd done to her, he would never suspect her true motive. He would believe that, sick as it might be, she was still, after all, attracted to him. She had her story down, her cameras and microphones hidden and primed in her hotel room at the Four Seasons a couple of blocks away.