The Unquiet-CP-6 Read Online Free PDF

dismissed them, but after that my father wasn’t asked to conduct any further evaluations in abuse cases. It shook his confidence, I think.”
    “When was this?”
    “About six years ago, maybe a little more. It got worse after that.” She shook her head in apparent disbelief at the memory. “Even talking about it, I realize how crazy it all sounds. It was just a mess.” She looked around to reassure herself that nobody was listening, then lowered her voice a little. “It emerged that some of my father’s patients were sexually abused by a group of men, and there were questions asked again about my father’s methods and his reliability. My father blamed himself for what happened. Other people did too. The Board of Licensure summoned him to appear for an initial informal meeting to discuss what had happened, but he never made it. He drove out to the edge of the North Woods, abandoned his car, and that was the last anyone ever saw or heard of him. The police looked for him, but they never found any trace. That was in late September 1999.”
    Clay. Rebecca Clay.
    “You’re Daniel Clay’s daughter?”
    She nodded. Something flashed across her face. It was an involuntary spasm, a kind of wince. I knew a little about Daniel Clay. Portland is a small place, a city in name only. Stories like Daniel Clay’s tended to linger in the collective memory. I didn’t know too many of the details, but like everyone else I’d heard the rumors. Rebecca Clay had summarized the circumstances of her father’s disappearance in the most general terms, and I didn’t blame her for leaving out the rest: the whispers that Dr. Daniel Clay might have known about what was happening to some of the children with whom he was dealing, the possibility that he might have colluded in it, might even have engaged in abuse himself. There had been an investigation of sorts, but there were records missing from his office, and the confidential nature of his vocation made it difficult to follow up leads. There was also the absence of any solid evidence against him, but that didn’t stop people from talking and drawing their own conclusions.
    I looked closer at Rebecca Clay. Her father’s identity made her appearance a little easier to understand. I imagined that she kept herself to herself. There would be friends, but not many. Daniel Clay had cast a shadow upon his daughter’s life, and she had wilted under its influence.
    “So you told this man, the one who’s been stalking you, that you hadn’t seen your father for a long time. How did he react?”
    “He tapped the side of his nose and winked.” She replicated the gesture for me. “Then he said,
    ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire.’ He told me that he’d give me some time to think about what I was saying. After that, he just walked away.”
    “Why would he call you a liar? Did he give any indication that he might know something more about your father’s disappearance?”
    “No.”
    “And the police haven’t been able to trace him?”
    “He melts away. I think they believe I’m making up stories to get attention, but I’m not. I wouldn’t do that. I—”
    I waited.
    “You know about my father. There are those who believe that he did something wrong. I think the police believe it too, and sometimes I wonder if they think I know more than I do about what happened, and that I’ve been protecting my father for all this time. When they came to the house, I knew what was on their minds: that I did know where he was, and somehow I’ve been in contact with him over the years.”
    “And have you?”
    She blinked hard, but she held my gaze.
    “No.”
    “But now it seems like the police aren’t the only ones who doubt your story. What does this man look like?”
    “He’s in his sixties, I think. His hair is black. It looks dyed, and it’s in kind of a quiff, the way those ’fifties rock stars used to wear their hair. He has brown eyes, and there’s scarring here.”
    She pointed to her