Beth:

“I told you that Rick was never angry with me. He loves me. He only said he wished I hadn’t gone to the chalet. His mother had called and told him that the girl was going to be fine and that she saw us up there. I asked what had happened to the girl and who she was. He said it was complicated, and he’d explain when he saw me tomorrow. He was going to come over in the afternoon and take me to town for dinner.”

Gelber:

“But he didn’t explain because you went skiing that morning and had an accident. You didn’t see him again. You’ve never seen him since.”

Beth:

“Not yet. But he’ll still come to see me. I know he will.”

Gelber:

“And what do you remember about the accident?”

Beth:

“It … wasn’t an accident. Some dumb kid played a trick and stretched a wire over the trail and tied it to two trees. I went flying face forward into the snow. Then something … the back of my head got hurt.”

Gelber:

“There was no wire, Beth.”

Beth:

“There was a wire. I saw it shining in the sunlight, but it was too late to stop.”

Gelber:

“No wire. You ran into a tree. You mustn’t lie. It will hurt.”

Beth:

“No, I saw the— Oh, God, it’s happening. I can’t breathe. Make it stop. Make it stop.”

Gelber:

“I can’t make it stop. You’re the only one who can do that. You have to reject the lies and accept the truth. You never saw Rick that weekend, you never went to his chalet, you never talked to him on the phone. You made it all up because you’re lonely and want his attention. Is your heart pounding hard?”

Beth:

“Yes … hurts.”

Gelber:

“Soon you won’t be able to breathe. The lies did it to you, but I can save you. We’re going to go back over your story again and take lie by lie and turn it into truth.”

Beth:

“Can’t breathe … dying.”

Gelber:

“No, you’re not. But you could die, the lies could kill you. But I’ll work with you and try to save you. Now start again, tell me about that night.”

Beth:

“Can’t talk—hurt.”

Gelber:

“Nonsense. Start again. It’s only going to get worse until you’re healed. We’ll take it sentence by sentence and purge the lies. Then you’ll be able to breathe again. See, it’s getting very painful already. I can tell.”

Beth:

“Can’t—think—can’t remember—scared.”

Gelber:

“Start again, Beth.”

Eve had to wait a moment to speak after she’d flipped the pages closed, and even then, her voice was shaking. “He was a monster, and so is Pierce if he was responsible for those sessions. Torturing a helpless girl who was guilty of nothing but being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“And then imprisoning her for over a decade.” Joe flipped his copy shut. “Gelber, Pierce, Drogan. Very ugly. But they were only the tools. You have to look beyond them to find the real monsters.”

“Nelda Avery,” Newell said. “And perhaps Rick Avery. He was at least an accomplice.”

“You won’t convince Beth of that,” Eve said. “He’s the only person in the world she cares about.”

“Then we may have to convince her,” Joe said. “Because Rick Avery may have been responsible for everything that happened to Beth. Hell, that Asian girl may have been murdered at the chalet.”

“But Nelda went to a great deal of trouble to keep Beth alive all these years, when it would have been easier just to kill her. There had to be a reason why she did that. Maybe she knew Rick wouldn’t go along with it, and it might damage her influence with him.”

“Possibly.”

“And from the conversation between Nelda and Rick, it would indicate Nelda was primarily guilty of whatever happened to that kid.” She shrugged. “But it may not be murder. We’ll have to run a check of the local hospitals and see if there are any records.”

“You won’t find anything,” Newell said. “Nothing near that lodge. It was a small hospital in Toronto, Canada.”

“What?”

“Gelber was evidently curious about whether the girl died, too. There were records attached to the Avery file about an investigation he did after he was brought into Beth’s case. Su Kim, a twelve-year-old Chinese girl, was taken into the emergency room at St. John’s Hospital in Toronto a day after the incident at the chalet. Nelda clearly didn’t want any local scrutiny about what happened at the chalet. However, she eventually permitted the girl to be taken to the Canadian hospital by her father. The emergency-room hospital bill was paid through one of the Avery corporations.”

“What was the diagnosis?” Eve asked.

“Concussion. Serious stuff. She’d been struck by a sharp, heavy object.”

“But she survived?”

“I doubt it. No one but her father or Nelda Avery knows for certain. The girl’s father insisted on taking her away from the hospital after the doctors told him she’d either die or end up as a vegetable. The doctors said he appeared very angry with her.”

Eve stared at him in disbelief. “For being a victim?”

Newell shrugged. “Put it together. Rick Avery likes very young girls. Not easy to satisfy an appetite like that when you’re being groomed for high office in this country. The girl had Chinese documents, and so did her father. In China, it’s possible to obtain anything for a price, and it’s far enough away to be able to avoid media attention. Maybe that’s how he managed to get what he wanted and still be safe. But it wasn’t safe to bring the girl back to the U.S. My guess is that Su Kim was a prostitute and her father her pimp. Nelda turned the kid over to her father and sent them both out of the country.”

“Rick told Beth that the girl was all right.”

“That may be what Nelda told him,” Joe said. “Or it may be that he was just lying to protect himself and his mother. Evidently, she was the one who struck the blow.”

“Why would she do that?” Eve shook her head in bewilderment. “A child he was using. I can see her being angry with him, but the girl…”

“Unless Su Kim got scared and tried to fight her when Nelda was trying to jerk her out of there,” Newell said. “Nelda could have picked up some object and struck out at her. Who knows?”

“There are too many things we don’t know,” Eve said wearily. “What about Cara Sandler? She left the lodge the morning of Beth’s supposed accident. She knew what happened at Rick Avery’s chalet.”

“And she was on the phone when she and Beth got back to the lodge. Who was she calling? Nelda?” He turned to Joe. “You were checking on what happened to her. Did you find out anything?”

“Only that she went back to Canada and took a job at a newspaper. She apparently did very well. She got lucky with a lot of tips and managed to uncover some fairly hot stories.” He paused. “And she was equally lucky on the stock market. She acquired quite a fortune over the years.”

“Blackmail?” Eve murmured.

“A giant payoff to get her to leave the country, then a constant flow of favors and cash to keep her happy. Her father was a very prominent politician, so it would have been dangerous to try to get rid of her any other way. It’s possible.”

“Where is she now?”