I woke up the next morning to a photo I’d received from Cade of him sitting on a plane. There was no need to reply. I knew what it meant. I glanced at the time he’d sent it, which was about five hours ago. Depending on layover times, he could arrive in Australia as soon as tonight, and that would change everything.
Aside from the photo, I’d also had a missed call about an hour earlier from an Australian number. I called it back.
“This is Dean,” the man said.
“This is Sloane,” I said. “I called you yesterday about Caroline.”
The phone connection wasn’t great. There were cracks in the line, making it hard to hear him.
“I’ve been off the grid, traveling through a national park in my camper van for the last month. I had no idea she’d died until I went to town last night, turned my phone on like I do when I come into service, and got your call. I’m heading back to the city today and will be talking with the police. I only wished I could have done it sooner.”
“I’ve been trying to locate the man responsible for her murder.”
“I can’t say for sure, but I have my suspicions.”
“I believe her death is related to a project she was working on, a weekend retreat with a group of people who were in hypnotic regression therapy with her.”
“I fear you may be right. It was a risky group test to begin with, but Caroline was determined to make a name for herself, and she was sure she was onto something that would change the way we treat specific patients in the future. She’d even started writing her own book based on the research she’d performed.”
“What was she doing with the patients she treated during those weekends?”
“It was similar to the treatment already being used, except Caroline believed bringing patients with similar traumatic experiences together would prove to be a more supportive way for them to cope after recovering the lost memories they had been repressing.”
“What did you think about what she was doing?”
“I was skeptical.”
“Why?”
“When you put a group of people together who have deeply buried trauma, you’re rolling the dice on how they’ll handle it once it comes out. To tell a therapist is one thing—to tell an entire group is another. I was concerned some might feel vulnerable and ashamed, especially if those in the group didn’t respond well to what they heard.”
“What was Caroline hoping to achieve by these sessions?”
“Her goal was to prove a support system was a positive method of therapy for patients suffering from blocked memories. She believed those in the group would come together for each other, and the overwhelming support would assist them in healing faster.”
“Sounds honorable enough, but you’re right—it was risky.”
“I wasn’t against her finding new avenues to explore. It was the way she went about it that I disliked.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“Each session focused on a single patient while the others offered support and empathy. The patient was given tea before they began, which contained a drug taken from the ayahuasca vine. It’s a natural plant found in the Amazon. But natural doesn’t mean safe, and while it’s grown in Australia and isn’t illegal, the extracts taken from acacia plants and mixed with the vine are.”
“Did you tell Caroline how you felt about her using it?”
“A few times. I wanted her to cut that part out of her experiment. She didn’t listen.”
“What does the drug do?” I asked.
“It alters a person’s state of consciousness. For some, it has only a little effect. For others, it’s far more severe. The user hallucinates, which can last up to six hours. The main problem I had with it is there’s no way to predict how a person will respond to it. In my opinion, she could have tested her research without the use of it.”
“You gave her your opinions, but you didn’t do anything to stop her.”
There was a long pause.
“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I regret it now, just as she regretted the tragic death of one of her patients.”
“Do you know what happened to Evan Hall in his session?”
“I don’t have all the details. Caroline was so distraught over how it went, she wouldn’t really talk about it.”
“Was his session the first one she did?”
“It was the second. A woman was the first, and from what Caroline told me, it went very well.”
“I believe the other man in the group ended Caroline’s life. He blamed her for Evan’s death.”
There was another pause.
“Mr. Palmer,” I said, “are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m still here. Caroline did mention something about him, the patient she didn’t get to. She said he was far worse off than the other two.”
“In what way?”
“Normally, we wouldn’t break the patient’s trust by talking about their sessions. We only did it because of my expertise in the area she was researching.”
“And what did she say about him?”
“She told me he could be delusional at times, blending past with present, reality with fiction. Other times, he was highly functional and intelligent. Because of this, I warned her to exclude him from the first test group and to use individuals who would accept the treatment more easily, but Caroline felt confident she could help him.”
“Do you know anything more about him? Did she ever give you his name, or say anything that would help me locate him?”
“She said his name once. It was an accident. She was talking too fast, and it just slipped out. It’s John.”
John.
A common name that could take a lifetime for me to figure out the rest, and I still wouldn’t have it. They’d used fake names, according to Evan’s mother.
“I was told the patient’s real names weren’t used during their sessions.”
“That’s right, but I helped her select the candidates for the first round, and as far as I know, the names I was given were their actual given names.”
“You don’t remember John’s surname?” I asked.
“It sounded familiar like something I’d heard before: Falston or Falster, maybe.”
It only took a second for my brain to kick in. “Could it have been Falstaff?”
“Yeah, you know something? I think that’s right.”