Gates leaned back again, twirling that d.a.m.n key ring.

"I told you that you would resist the facts. Your sister went through a period of denial too."

Kara's revulsion was now turning to anger.

"I will not have my father defamed! He was a good man who's been dead a dozen years and can't defend himself! Besides, Kelly would have told me!"

"Kelly didn't know."

That brought Kara up short. She stared at Dr. Gates without speaking.

"Listen," he said, "and perhaps you will understand why I asked you here. The regularly repeated trauma of such magnitude can cause a child's mind to create a second personality as a defense mechanism. The second personality takes over during the times of recurrent trauma. There is no communication between the personalities. The secondary personality shields the primary personality, forming a barrier between it and an intolerable reality, thus allowing the child to go about her everyday life as if nothing happened. And in a sense, nothing does happen to the primary personality-the second personality absorbs all the trauma."

"it never happened!" Kara said.

"When the trauma stops, the second personality is no longer needed. But it doesn't dissolve, it doesn't go away, it merely becomes dormant, ready to leap to the surface should the first personality be traumatized again. I believe that the traumatic break-up of Kelly's last relationship-the lies she had believed, the betrayal she felt-awakened Ingrid. Kelly managed to handle the emotional trauma in a mature manner, but Ingrid was awake. And Ingrid wanted out. It was that tug of war going on in her subconscious, and the unexplained lapses in memory when Ingrid managed to take over, that eventually brought Kelly to me."

Kara sank back into the chair and closed her eyes.

Kelly... Ingrid... it had to be true. It explained so much. But the rest of it... sickening...

"All right," she said slowly. "I'll grant the existence of this Ingrid personality. But she's a liar. You said she was s.e.xually promiscuous-"

"Many s.e.xually abused children grow up to be promiscuous, a reflection of how they were taught to relate to a male during their formative years. Just as physically abused children grow to be violent adults."

"Kelly was not abused, dammit! I was there! I grew up with her! The Ingrid part of her is lying!"

"Perhaps. I have no way of knowing. Ingrid often spoke of how her twin sib was also regularly abused by their father."

Kara was out of her seat again. She wanted to hurl herself at Gates and throttle that bland, matter-of-fact expression off his face.

"Are you deaf? It. Never. Happened!"

It couldn't have happened! Not Dad. Never. She saw his weathered face, his easy smile, his gentle blue eyes. He never even raised his voice. Dad was a... a prude! a prude! She remembered how embarra.s.sed he'd be whenever she and Kelly as teenagers would pa.s.s him in the upstairs hall in their underwear. He'd shout at them to get their robes on. He couldn't have- She remembered how embarra.s.sed he'd be whenever she and Kelly as teenagers would pa.s.s him in the upstairs hall in their underwear. He'd shout at them to get their robes on. He couldn't have- "She said her twin sister was named 'Janine,' " Dr. Gates said softly.

"There! What did I tell you! This Ingrid is all screwed up! If she can't even get my name right, how can she have any credibility about the rest of her story?"

Kara turned and headed for the door. She had tolerated as much as she could of this nonsense.

"Thank you for your time, Dr. Gates. I've heard all I want to hear."

He did not raise his voice but, as her hand reached the door k.n.o.b, Kara heard him with numbing clarity.

"What if the Janine she speaks of belongs to you, Miss Wade?"

Kara froze. Her anger vanished as if it had never been, replaced by a cold, sick fear crawling through her chest. She turned and leaned against the door, facing him.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"I am not doing anything to you. I am giving you the information you demanded yesterday, information that might be of vital importance to you."

She hung there, weak-kneed, trying to comprehend the unthinkable, but the thoughts would not take form. Her mind fought them off, drove them away.

"Please sit down," Dr. Gates said. For the first time there seemed to be real concern in his voice.

Kara shook her head. "No. Just finish this and let me go."

"All right. I'll put it all in a nutsh.e.l.l. Your twin sister developed a separate personality to shield her from a ma.s.sive childhood trauma. I dealt with that personality. I know it existed. Therefore, since you and your twin grew up so closely together, and since you have no memory of your sister's trauma, I thought it fair and prudent to warn you that it is entirely possible that you, too, may have developed a second personality to shield you from that same trauma."

"Okay," she said slowly. "You've warned me. Maybe there was a trauma. Maybe we've both repressed it. But that doesn't mean it absolutely had to have been... incest."

"Judging from Ingrid's promiscuity, I'd say there's a high probability that-"

"But you can't be absolutely sure sure can you?" can you?"

Grant me that! Please grant me that!

"No," he said after a pause. "It's hard to be absolutely sure of anything in this case. Especially with Kelly gone."

Thank you.

Now. There was one more thing she had to know before she fled this place, this man, this city.

"How could I tell if I had another personality?"

"If you have black-outs, memory lapses, new items around the house that you don't remember purchasing, you might suspect, but short of a chance encounter with a friend or relative when the other personality was in charge, you couldn't actually know know. Except perhaps..." His voice trailed off.

"What? Tell me!"

"Hypnotism can sometimes bring the other personalities to the surface, but it's not foolproof. And it can be risky."

Kara turned and opened the door.

"Good-bye, Dr. Gates. And thank you for your time."

She forced her feet to carry her from the office, to the elevator, and out to the street. Everything around her seemed blurred, as if she were moving through a fog.

I'm sleepwalking, she thought. This is a nightmare, and any minute I'm going to wake up This is a nightmare, and any minute I'm going to wake up.

She took a cab back to Kelly's apartment. She couldn't face Jill and Ellen now, not feeling as sick and... defiled as she did. She had to pull herself together, put things in perspective.

But how?

As soon as Kara stepped through Kelly's front door she realized she had made a mistake. She didn't want to be here. Not now. Not alone. She needed someone to talk to, she needed to bounce all this off someone. But who? Certainly not her aunt. Ellen was practically a basket case as it was.

Only one person in this lousy city was fit to hear it. She didn't want to call him, but there was no one else.

1:51 P.M.

When they'd told him he had a personal call from a woman, Rob had a.s.sumed it was Connie. She'd been bugging him since Sunday, wanting to forget their falling out and get back to their old arrangement. Rob wasn't interested. So he was surprised to hear Kara's voice on the line. He had expected she might possibly call for a progress report in a few days, but not this soon, especially after the way she had all but run from him yesterday, literally dragging her cute little girl after her.

"Are you very busy today?" she said. Her voice had a strange, dull sound to it. Almost as if she'd been sedated.

"Yeah. It's a zoo. You back at the farm?"

"No. I'm still in the city. Um..." Her voice trailed off...

Rob waited, then said, "Kara, what is it?"

The words came out in a rush: "Rob, could you come over?"

"Come over where?"

"I'm at Kelly's."

"What's wrong? Did you find something?"

"No. But I've learned something about her you should know. I need to talk to you about it. When can you come over?"

"I won't be able to get free for at least two hours. Maybe more. How about five?"

"Okay. You know where?"

"West Sixty-third."

"Right. Don't be late, okay? And come earlier if you can."

"Sure. See you then."

Rob hung up slowly. What was going on? This did not sound like the Kara Wade he had dealt with during the past week. So tentative. As if someone had knocked the pins out from under her.

Rob did a rush job on the report he had turned in on the double homicide on West 48th, but still it was a little after five before he got over to Kelly's apartment.

Standing in the building's vestibule, Rob realized that he actually was looking forward to seeing Kara. Why? He was still attracted to her, but obviously she hadn't the slightest interest in him. In fact, she seemed to be trying to avoid him. Why should he be looking for another dose of frustration?

Well, for one thing, this time she had made the first move.

Don't get your hopes up, turkey, he told himself as he reached for the bell.

Kara buzzed the inner door open immediately. She was waiting at the apartment door when he reached the second floor.

"I'm glad you're here," she said. "Come in."

She looked awful. Drained. Small, almost frail within her oversized cable knit sweater. Her features were tight, her mouth grim, her eyes red and... haunted looking.

"Are you okay?" he said as he stepped inside and shucked off his coat.

"Yes. Sure. Of course. I'm fine."

Her a.s.surances had all the depth of feeling of someone being held hostage. Instinctively, he glanced around the front room of the apartment.

"Anybody else here?"

"No. You want a drink?"

"Sure."

"Still scotch?"

"Uh-huh." Rob was disproportionately pleased she remembered.

"Good. Because that's all she's got."

"With a couple of rocks."

As Kara went to the kitchen counter, Rob stepped across the room for a quick look into the bedroom-a mess, like it had been pulled apart. How long had she been here? He followed her into the kitchen. He noticed a half-empty gla.s.s on the counter beside the Dewar's bottle.

"I see you've got a head start on me."

She poured some into a fresh gla.s.s for him and then a little more into her own.

"I've got a couple of laps laps on you," she said as she handed him his drink. on you," she said as she handed him his drink.

He looked at her eyes more closely.

"Yeah. I guess you do."

"But it doesn't help." She raised her gla.s.s. "Here's to the psychiatric profession." despite the dubious sincerity of the toast, Rob clinked his gla.s.s against hers and took a long pull on the drink. It felt good going down. Then they settled back and stood there in the kitchen under the fluorescent light, each leaning against different sections of the counter that ran at a right angles along two walls.

A vision flashed through Rob's mind-the two of them, married, standing here like this every night discussing the events of the day while dinner cooked- then was gone. But it left in its wake a bittersweet trace of a warmth that could have been.

He shook it off and looked at her.

"Don't let that Dr. Gates get you down too much, Kara. We'll get a subpoena for Kelly's records. It may take some time, but eventually-"

"He called me last night," she said. "Said he'd changed his mind. I went over there this morning and he told me the whole story-Kelly's complete case history."

"That's a real turn-around."

"I almost wish he hadn't."

Rob saw the misery in her eyes and realized she wasn't exaggerating.

"Want to talk about it?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. I just think maybe you should know what was going on in Kelly's head-what Dr. Gates says says was going on in her head-in the months before she, uh, fell." was going on in her head-in the months before she, uh, fell."