The Girls He Adored: A Novel Read Online Free

relationship. On the other hand, by asking for her trust he was, in effect, offering her his. And his trust was something she was going to need if she hoped to make an accurate evaluation.
    Or so she told herself as she leaned across the desk. Gingerly she brushed the comma of hair back from his brow, then quickly drew her hand back as his eyes rolled up and to the right, and his eyelids began to flutter. By the time Irene had settled back in her chair, the prisoner's cockiness, his certainty, the gleam in his eye and the set of his jaw, had all disappeared, leaving behind a small pathetic figure slumped over and sobbing like a child, knees drawn up, shoulders heaving, chains rattling.
    Here it comes, thought Irene. He is going to change his symptomology. But not to schizophrenia. She composed her features to hide her suspicion, and waited patiently for the weeping to end.
    And sure enough, when the prisoner looked up, he was a differentman. His heart-shaped face had grown more oval as the set of his jaw relaxed. His eyes were wider, rounder, lighter. And his voice, when he apologized, was tremulous, and pitched an octave higher.
    “I'm sowwy.”
    So it was to be DID after all. Dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder. And she had to admit, if he was faking it, he was good. Better than good, certainly better than the monstrous David Douglas Winslow.
    But perhaps that was to be expected, with the prisoner's apparent background in psychology and his obvious talent for impersonation. He knew that eye movement was a classical marker for a switch between personalities, commonly referred to as “alters,” hence the roll and flutter. He knew that extreme facial and vocal changes between alters were to be expected, and that many alters were juveniles, so he'd raised the pitch of his voice, let his cheeks go slack, widened his eyes to take in more light.
    If, on the other hand, he wasn't faking it, Irene understood that this might prove to be the most important case of her career. For the moment, she decided to proceed as if the DID was genuine. If he were faking, she might not get to the truth quite as quickly, but if he were not, this approach would do the least harm.
    “Hello,” she said softly. “What's your name?”
    Panic, confusion. The eyes rolled, the lids fluttered—and the child was gone.
    “Excuse me?” The first alter again. A quick, wary glance around the room; the prisoner's manacled hands nervously patted his thighs. Both the glance and the self-touching Irene recognized as grounding behavior, orienting gestures commonly seen after a switch of personalities.
    And indeed, the prisoner appeared to be unaware that his face was ashen beneath its olive complexion, and tear-streaked, with a bubble of snot in one nostril—he seemed surprised when Irene handed him a tissue from her purse.
    He grasped the situation quickly, though. “Guess I kinda wimped out on you.”
    He drew his knees up, hunched his shoulders under the orange jumpsuit, and ducked his head in order to blow his nose. When he came up his voice had changed yet again—this appeared to be yet a third alter, roughly the same age and appearance as the first, but more vulnerable, with less of an edge. “It's just so hard keeping up that front all the time.”
    Irene waited, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
    “You can't let them see any weakness, you know. If they sense weakness, they'll tear you apart. Even the guards.” He let the tissue fall to his lap. “Especially the guards. Now what was it you asked?”
    “I asked what your name was.”
    This time the eye roll and flutter was so quick and short-lived only a therapist with extensive experience treating DID patients would have noticed it.
    “How quickly they forget,” said the prisoner, in the voice he'd used originally. “You wouldn't happen to have a cigarette on you, would you?”
    Irene knew better than to ask him his name again—this was clearly