Room 553: A Psychological Thriller Read online

  It’s important to look at the decision to lie.

  Then take another step back.

  What were his choices? What analysis led to that decision? What was going through his mind?

  Then, take one more step back.

  What information did he analyze to make the decision that led to that action? Then you go back to the action and take a step forward. What result did he expect from lying?

  After that you look at intent. Like the courts do. They dole out a variety of punishments depending on reason. When someone gets killed, the court wants to know why. They seek to understand intent. Accidental? Negligent? If so, third-degree. A crime of passion? Second-degree. Maybe third. Malice aforethought? Cold-blooded and premeditated? That’ll net you first-degree. The worst kind.

  It doesn’t even matter if the initial crime was third-degree, if a worse one followed. You’re judged on the worst one. If a first-degree crime took place to cover up a third-degree crime, you’re judged on the first-degree crime.

  That he was guilty of. It didn’t matter how his lies started out; they had become first-degree. They were told on purpose. Which showed intent. His intent mattered for a practical reason: it was a clue as to how he would proceed.

  I needed to know how he would approach things once we were on equal footing.

  What would he do next? How would he play his hand? What was his next move?

  These were strategic questions on my part, because the answer affected what I would do next. Whether you’re trying to make a sale, or win a war, you have to be strategic. You have to ask pointed questions. Loaded questions. Leading questions. This is how you beat them at their own game. You use their answers to predict what they’ll do if you do X. If you do Y, you gauge how they might respond. You add it all up and choose the best route forward. You build a strategy. Which is easy, if there’s a predictable route for your opponent.

  With him, there wasn’t. There was a hitch with this particular liar—a hitch that took away the predictable route. A hitch that made it difficult to build a strategy. The hitch was that the liar knew that I knew he had lied. He knew he had been caught. He knew that I knew.

  This could only mean one thing: He was already thinking about what I was going to do about it. He was thinking about how bad it could get. He was contemplating worst-case scenarios.

  He was thinking strategically. This meant he could deviate from any predictable route I’d considered, and probably would. This made it risky—dangerous.

  He’s a smart man. Professionally. In all ways that count, really. He’d been in conflict. Conflicts he’d won. Conflicts he’d lost. He understood what all well-trained fighters know: whoever is the first to strike usually wins. If he thought a fight was on the horizon, he’d make the first move. He’d throw the first punch. Which meant I had two choices: wait for him to strike or strike before he did.

  He was aware of this, of course. If he anticipated me choosing option two, he’d hit sooner. He would hit before I could. That’s the logic of first strikes. If we both thought that going to battle was inevitable, one of us would strike as soon as there was a chance.

  A dangerous game.

  For both of us.

  Which is why I needed a good strategy.

  For that, I had to understand his strategy—which was proving to be a real problem. I’d missed it so completely the first time.

  Chapter Three

  Dr. Max Hastings

  AFTER

  “Did she draw blood often?”

  Rubbing my sweaty palms against my scrubs, a different kind than I’m used to wearing and yet still kind of the same, I study a sliver of tile that’s visible between the table and the chair. When I look up from the floor, I stare unblinkingly at her as she repeats the question. Her voice is monotone, drab and uninspiring, not unlike our surroundings. She utters the words calmly, speaking slowly, as though I simply missed them the first time. As though maybe I really am, as they claim, crazy.

  Placing my hands on the table, palms flat, I roll my shoulders and stretch my neck. After, I make sure to sit up a little straighter. She stares at my hands. I follow suit, the both of us wondering what they’re capable of. “You wouldn’t happen to have any nail clippers, would you?” I ask.

  My nails have grown longer than I’d like.

  A steely glare is offered but not an answer. We are both aware clippers are not allowed in a place like this.

  “Didn’t think so,” I say before sticking one finger between my teeth, slowly chewing the nail to the quick. Nearly the entire thing comes off. Not as clean as I would like it to, but it will do. I look up at Dr. Jones and smile. “Problem solved.”

  I don’t mean to make her cringe. I don’t mean not to, either. It’s just, well, our meetings are the least favorite part of my day, and considering my predicament, that is saying a lot.

  She doesn’t care much for me either. Nor does she bother to hide it. Her face is fixed in a permanent scowl. Although, it is worth taking into consideration that she might be doing that mirroring thing they no doubt ingrained into her during her years of training. Patterns are hard to break, I know, and muscles have memory.

  While considering her next question and how I plan to respond, I get the chance to really take her in. She’s the kind of woman who could have possibly been attractive once, but has clearly let life harden her through and through. I can’t really blame her, seeing where she’s ended up.

  “Did she draw blood often?” Dr. Jones repeats a third time.

  “A couple of times,” I say, offering a consolatory breadcrumb. She did show up. I have to give her that. She’s reliable—which is more than I can say for the others. If you want to know who your friends are, this is one way to go about it.

  “How many?” she asks, and I am careful not to let my eyes wander too far. This is not hard, given the size of the room. Concrete walls, save for the one with the interior window, a flimsy, card-like table, stained with God knows what. Three chairs. Fluorescent lighting. It could have been any room. In any jail. In any city. There is nothing distinguishing about it. Not even the people seated in the chairs.

  “Dr. Hastings,” she says. Her words hit me in the gut. It’s nice, I’ll admit, being addressed by my professional name. These days, I go by Inmate 812. “Is the diazepam I prescribed making you feel drowsy? Anxious?”

  I shrug. I almost ask what the literature says about how is one supposed to feel when they’re caged like an animal. How would she classify the psychology of a person who is fighting for both their freedom and their life simultaneously? What does she expect? Should I stand on the table and dance a jig?

  Dr. Jones, with her short brown bob, uninviting scowl, and pencil-thin eyebrows, digs her heels in. “How many times did Mrs. Dunaway draw blood, Dr. Hastings?”

  I sigh. While I appreciate the mental stimulation—there’s so little of it these days—I hate discussing the intimacies of my life. How could a stranger understand? A psychiatrist, nonetheless.

  According to my attorney, I must. I am in deep shit, he likes to remind me. Funny, coming from him. He’s not the one spending his days locked in a six by eight foot cell. Things aren’t looking good, he said, at our last visit. As though it somehow slipped my mind. For what he’s charging per hour, you’d think at least a touch of confidence would come as part of the deal. Apparently, it doesn’t. You’d better start remembering, he’d warned. Or, on second thought, maybe not. Your lack of recall could work in our favor. Either way, that’s what the shrink is for. We need a proper diagnosis. She’ll help.

  So far, she isn’t helping in any way that I can discern. And I know a thing or two about diagnosis.

  “Dr. Hastings.” She repeats my name for the third time. “It’s imperative that you answer the questions. You’re going to have to give me something to go on…and I presume you’d like to see your daughter again?”

  I visibly stiffen before I remember I have to relax. This is what they do. Women. They take the things you love, and they use them against you. They’re experts. They know how to hit precisely the right pain point. Dr. Jones is proving to be aces at it, which makes me want to tell her everything. Almost. “We only met fourteen times.”

  “In total? Or in Room 553?”

  “In Room 553,” I answer, knowing this is a fact she can check.

  “Fourteen times in eight months,” she remarks, making it clear it’s a statement, not a question. I am not surprised by her candidness, the same way I was not surprised to see her when I was called from my cell. I am aware this is her job. I am also aware that she will not give up. She’ll keep after me, studying my reactions, coming at me in new and different ways. Maybe she shouldn’t care, since she’ll get paid regardless. But something about her tells me she isn’t that kind of woman. It goes against the core of who she is to cut corners. I know—or rather, I used to know—someone exactly like that. This is what brings me to the conclusion that there is nowhere to go. Nowhere except death row.

  I shift in my seat. I can’t help myself. Having that kind of weight on your shoulders forces one to do things they shouldn’t. Believe me, I know this better than anyone.

  “Since it started last November?”

  “Correct.”

  “And how many times did she bite you?”

  With a slight shrug, I answer honestly. “Six or seven.”

  “During intercourse?”

  “I think so.”

  Dr. Jones considers me carefully, fully aware of my hesitation. I had not, would not, perjure myself, and we both know it. It isn’t actually a lie. Sometimes it was during intercourse, the biting. Only once after. The day in question, it had been after.

  I’d withdrawn from her, rolled over onto my stomach, and inched toward the othe
r side of the bed to check my phone. I had a patient who wasn’t doing well, and I sensed I might be summoned at any moment.

  Laurel curled at my side like a house cat settling in for a long nap. Eventually, she propped herself on one elbow and peered down at me through half-closed eyelashes. Feeling the weight of them, I turned my back to her. That way I couldn’t see her eyes burning holes through me. I could feel them.

  Dr. Jones shifts her position. She decides to take a detour, to question me on the days leading up to that afternoon in Room 553.

  I had been good, I tell her. This is true. I’d ignored Laurel’s texts for two days. Two long and arduous days. What I don’t say is that those days were the worst days, up until that point, that I’ve ever experienced. Minus my current situation. At the time, I hadn’t known it was possible to feel anything worse. Turns out, it is.

  Back then, I had been a prisoner of another kind. Leaving those texts unanswered took a lot. I could feel the clock, ticking down, like a bomb waiting to explode. Minutes seemed like ages. I could feel the seconds slipping past. Her absence was felt in the marrow of my bones. With each passing minute came the destruction of my willpower. My resolve was wearing thin, even as I tried to hold on.

  I made it a point to keep busy. The hours passed, each one eating at me, eroding my conscience, chewing slowly at my core. Thankfully, work was hectic. Work was always hectic. The dying do not stop for the living.

  Over the weekend, I made sure my schedule stayed jam-packed. I met Jonathan twice for racquetball, even though he is a far better and far less distracted player than I am, and I hate to lose. Especially to my little brother.

  I volunteered to do the grocery shopping, picked up the dry cleaning, and took Ellie to the park. I smiled and swallowed my unease as I watched her on the slide. I pushed her on the swings. I helped her build a dirt castle. A damn fine dirt castle. I had the sense that I was being watched. That I needed to be careful. It just never occurred to me how careful.

  Mostly because my mind was somewhere else. All the while, the inevitable was barreling down on me like a freight train.

  It had not helped that I’d dreamed of Laurel the night before. A barren dream, endless and desolate, it entered me like an angry spirit, taking hold, refusing to let go until I gave in and fed it what it wanted.

  By the time Monday rolled around, no matter what I did, I couldn’t exorcise the thought of her skin on my skin, her wry grin, the noises she made when I finally had her where I wanted her. I could think of nothing else. The price for my thoughts: I hated myself on a sliding scale, more and more every single second.

  Still, that morning I carried on with it, as you do. I saw my daughter off to school, kissed my wife goodbye, assessed three patients. Patients who were not so much unlike me, dying from something that could not be seen, only felt.

  The first half of my day had been, for the most part, uneventful. I held an Ensure to Mrs. Martin’s lips and pled on her son’s behalf for her to take a few sips. I went through the motions. I wrote scripts for morphine, ordered feeding tubes, monitored dosages, spoke with family members, played God.

  As morning gave way to afternoon, as the minutes bled into hours, Laurel was always there, like a nagging memory, in the back of my mind, in the space between breaths. The only bright spot in a sea of monotony. I was careful. Careful to stay focused on work, on dosages, knowing that if I so much as blinked it would be her face I saw in the darkness. Her sighing. Her teeth biting down on her bottom lip, her eyes squeezed shut, her head thrown back in ecstasy. Her coming.

  It was a scene that often played on repeat, breaking me down until my mind wandered forward and backward, into the inevitable. The momentum of it carried me until I had no choice but to give myself over to her and her stupid, intrusive, impulsive texts. Until the only thing left to do was to respond—to let what would be, be—to devour her, to swallow her whole, just as she was doing to me.

  Chapter Four

  Laurel Dunaway

  Journal Entry

  The first thoughts to properly stick were about the timing. Specifically, how very bad it was. The second was the taste of bile rising in my throat. I could feel it. This is it. My life as I knew it was over. He’s going to die, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. This is where it ends, I thought. This is where I don’t get him back. I plead into the darkness. Not now. Especially not now.

  James would brush it off, if I were to tell him how bad it really got. How far down the rabbit hole I went. If I were to tell him, which I wouldn’t—I won’t—he would tell me I was overacting. But then, how could he know that? It’s hard to say until you get to the end, and we weren’t there yet.

  In my mind, it wasn’t an exaggeration. It was real. It’s always real. I pictured a double funeral. I imagined caskets shoved together, placed side by side. Monuments to every man I’ve ever loved. God, please don’t let this happen now, I said, my fists balled tight.

  The mind works in mysterious ways under extreme duress. In the haze of being woken from sleep, the pieces of the puzzle rarely fit. It’s always the same, and yet, it never is. My heart races. I pray it will all be over quick. Sometimes I trick myself into believing that it might all just be a dream. I have them sometimes—nightmares about losing him.

  This time, though, it wasn’t that. I can usually tell by the sickly feeling deep down in the pit of my stomach, where if I just heave a bit, the contents of my stomach, even empty as it was, would all come out. This wasn’t a fire drill. All of it, all of the thoughts swirling, and I hadn’t even opened my eyes.

  The alarm chimed persistently, growing louder and louder by the second, reminding me this is reality. This is life and death. Even in the thick of sleep, I was keenly aware it wasn’t the normal alarm. It was the alarm.

  Rubbing my eyes, I checked his Dexcom monitor first. My heart sunk further. Three characters told me everything I needed to know. The situation was dire. There wasn’t even a numerical reading. It just read: low.

  I lurched out of bed, picking up the pace as I half-stumbled down the hall, slowing only when I got to the stairs, then power-walking as I rounded the corner into the kitchen. I opened the fridge, grabbed one of the two-dozen bottles of orange juice we keep on hand, precisely for this kind of situation.

  I wiped my sweaty, shaky hands on a dishrag, took a deep breath, and then deftly twisted the cap off the juice. I grabbed a straw from the drawer, flung it in, and made a beeline for the stairs. My bladder clenched and released, making it known my body had needs, too. Although there wasn’t time to think about that. I would live. He, on the other hand…

  It helped, surely, that my mind had already lurched into the future, ticking off the list of things on my to-do list. It’s Thursday. Laundry day. A medical appointment. Dinner with investors. Or rather, as my husband would remind me, should he live, potential investors.

  No. Wait. That’s wrong. It’s not Thursday. As usual, I’m ahead of myself. Today is Wednesday…A dentist appointment. A meeting at Caring Hands. An all-team meeting at the office.

  Fuck. It didn’t matter, actually. No matter what was on the agenda, I’d be exhausted. Another thought flittered in and then out. If he makes it. I could very well be spending the afternoon making funeral arrangements. I shook my head, as though I could push those thoughts away. I’m careful to maintain a vise-like grip on the cold juice as I climbed the stairs, taking two at a time through the dark.

  In life, it’s important to keep perspective. In a medical emergency, it’s not an option. Thoughts about failure like these are inconvenient and pointless when you’re neck-deep saving a person’s life. The mind, however, begs to differ. It does what it does, drifts where it will. I gritted my teeth, catching myself on the sharp edge of my thoughts. I reeled them in. My husband needs me. I know how to do this.