“First of all, let’s stop with the ‘Detective’ and ‘Doctor’ business, okay?”
“Okay. ‘Samantha’ will be fine.”
“I guess you’ve called the police?” Wil asked.
He noted the sudden look of anxiety in his new client’s eyes.
“No, I can’t call the police,” Samantha said. She began to twist her fingers together nervously. “Something bad will happen if I do.”
“Like what?”
“I. . . I don’t know,” Samantha said. “But every time I try to call them, I become so terrified it’s like falling off a ledge!”
Wil heard that the calm, strong voice she’d used when she first came in had been reduced to a tremulous, mouselike gasp.
“Hey, take it easy,” he said.
Samantha shook her head, swallowing. “I’m fine, really.”
“No, you’re not fine,” Wil said. “You won’t be fine until we figure out what’s happening here. So, why don’t you start from the beginning?”
Samantha thought for a few moments, trying to find a starting point. Suddenly Wil got up.
“Wait a second,” he said. “I want to put this on tape, if you don’t mind.”
“It’s fine with me.”
“Good, it’ll make my job easier,” Wil said. “Hang on a second.”
He went to a door at the back of the room and opened it.
“The tape recorder’s right here in the closet,” Wil said, mostly to himself. “At least, I think it is.”
Samantha watched him as he reached up and pulled a light cord.
When she saw the old police uniform hanging neatly by itself on the rack, she began to scream.
“Get it away! Get it away!”
Wil grabbed his tape recorder, turned off the light, and closed the door. He hurried to Samantha.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
Now that the closet was secured again, Samantha opened her tear-filled eyes and gasped for breath.
“What the hell was that all about?”
“The . . . the uniform,” she said. “You’re a cop?”
She gazed at him with wide eyes that begged him to say it wasn’t true.
“Not these days,” he said. He scratched his head, looking at the closet. “Someone’s really done a number on you, Samantha. I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m intrigued. Are you ready to talk to me? Or do you need a few minutes?”
Samantha shook her head. She wiped the tears from her eyes and straightened her shoulders.
“I’m ready,” she said in a husky voice. “I’m ready to put an end to this craziness, once and for all. Make yourself comfortable. This is a long and crazy story. . . .”
For the next forty-five minutes Samantha told the detective all she could about her strange situation. The tape recorder hummed in the background, while various critters busied themselves in their small homes. When at last she finished, Wil reached over and pressed the Stop button. Then he glanced down at the pad where he’d also been taking notes.
“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said.
Samantha watched his full lips move silently as he read to himself. She felt uncomfortable that she’d had one of her “attacks” in front of a virtual stranger. He probably thought she was some kind of hysteric.
One of the animals began to fuss noisily. Samantha stood up and looked inside a cage to find a butterscotch-colored mop skimming around the cedar-chipped floor. Wil looked up at her, one arm resting on the oak top of his desk.
“That’s a Peruvian guinea pig,” he said. “Her name is Brandy.”
“She’s cute,” Samantha said.
“Cuter than the python, anyway,” Wil agreed.
Samantha returned to her seat and gazed hopefully at the detective.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think,” Wil said, “that the very first thing we must do is locate the orphanage Julie came from. You said you looked it up in both Millersville and Ashleigh?”
Samantha nodded, her Dutch-boy hair bobbing.
“There wasn’t any such place listed.”
“Well, it may not even be in Colorado,” Wil said. “I’ll check with Social Services. Finding Henley is another matter entirely. I’d bet it was a pseudonym. Did the kid remember anything about him?”
“Not a thing,” Samantha said. “But those dreams I told you about—maybe the man forcing her into a box is Mr. Henley?”
She became pensive. “I wonder if she was also brainwashed? I wonder if we’ve been ‘programmed’ to like each other?”