Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

front of Snead. Julia didn't want to go back to that dark, bad place anymore. She was tired of the pain, anger, and the sick feeling in her belly, that emptiness that only grew with each visit to the past.
    She wasn't getting better. She wasn't moving forward. If anything, she was getting closer to becoming the helpless four-year-old again. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore Dr. Forrest's soft, lulling voice. She sought a connection with something larger, a Higher Power she’d always denied. But the woman was too much a part of Julia, had opened the doors to the house of her head, stood always in the halls, calling.
    "You know who did it, don't you? You know who the bad man really is. What did he do, Julia? Tell us what he did."
    Julia shook her head and moaned, trying to shove away the memories that threatened to surface. Her eyes were pressed so tightly closed that small tears seeped from the corners.
    "Julia, you can trust us. We understand, more than anybody in the world. We know what it's like, how hard it is to accept the truth. How hard it is to accept the master."
    Master?
    Dr. Forrest continued, in that soft, mesmerizing cadence. "We don't want you to fight it any longer, Julia. He doesn't want you to fight. He's been very patient with you because he cares for you so very much."
    " Who cares?" Julia wasn't sure if she'd said the words aloud or not.
    "Why does he bother, when he has so much power that he can take easily what is his?"
    Julia sensed that Snead had moved from the window, but she couldn't force her eyes open to see. She tried to burrow into the chair to escape the horrors of the past, to keep from sliding into that black, yawning gulf.
    Daddy can take what is his. He has always owned you, in life, death, or absence. Daddy can hurt you no matter where you try to hide.
    "I'll tell you why, Julia," continued Dr. Forrest. "Because he loves you."
    Love?
    That was the first time Dr. Forrest had ever uttered that word. In all the months of treatment, in these accelerated sessions of the last week, the doctor had talked of sharing, healing, hope, and all the other abstract things that meant nothing. In the religion of the brain, even God was off limits. Now she had to bring out this last hollow word, the one that deserved a special place on the altar of useless words.
    Snead's voice came to her as if he was on the foot of the stairs and she were hiding in the attic. "He owns you, Jooolia."
    Her eyes snapped open, her abdomen clenched in a knot, her hands curled into fists as she sat forward. She blinked, her vision blurred. Snead still stood by the window.
    Dr. Forrest wore her usual look of kind concern. "What's the matter, Julia?"
    "What's he doing here?" Julia said, this time staring into Snead's small, dark eyes.
    "You asked for him to be here, remember? When I talked to you on the phone last night."
    Wait. Didn't Dr. Forrest just say I imagined the phone conversation?
    Maybe she shouldn't have tried to resist Dr. Forrest. Because she was confused, her thoughts screwed up. How could she trust her memory when she had long ago lost the ability to tell what had been real? How could she even trust what she thought now , much less 23 years ago?
    But since a policeman was here, she decided that there was one thing she hadn't imagined, a solid piece of evidence that might prove once and for all that The Creep had been in her house, and that Walter was innocent of breaking and entering. It was something she'd held in her own hands. Even though she didn't trust Snead, at least Dr. Forrest was present as a witness.
    "There's something I found the other night," Julia blurted to Snead. "It was in my closet."
    Snead's eyebrows arched, and that bug-eating smile slid across his face again. "What's that, Miss Stone?"
    "The drawing."
    "Drawing?"
    She talked rapidly, glad to be relieved of at least one secret. "A picture of a pentagram. With 'Hello Julia' underneath, only 'Julia' was spelled 'Jooolia' with three O ’s in the middle, just like Daddy used to spell it when he was teasing me."
    "Where is this picture now?"
    "I gave it to Dr. Forrest."
    Dr. Forrest looked sadly at Julia, and then at Snead. The therapist shook her head.
    "What?" Julia asked.
    Dr. Forrest held her hands apart. "There's no picture, Julia."
    She stood. "What do you mean, there's no picture? I gave it to you yesterday, right in this office."
    "Please sit down," the therapist said.
    " What did you do with it? "
    "Sit down," the therapist