Mrs. Dubour shook her head. “Maybe you should have,” she said in a hard voice.
Craig kept his gaze fixed on her. She looked like a typical aging housewife, but she obviously had spent a lot of time thinking about what happened to her son. And she’d come to some interesting conclusions.
“Something similar happened with my David.”
They both stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“David was living at home and working at the hardware store in Houma when he got an e-mail from a woman who said she’d gotten his name from a lawyer who was investigating inequalities in fees charged at the Solomon Clinic. She said her mother had paid thousands to be treated there, and his mother had gotten her treatment for free. The woman was all hot under the collar, and she came charging down here to see David. She was a weird, kind of flighty girl. I took a dislike to her right away, but as soon as she and David locked eyes on each other, something changed with him. With both of them, I guess. I mean, you could see sparks flying between him and that girl.”
“What was her name?” Craig asked.
“Penny Whitman.”
“What happened?”
“I saw them outside under the willow tree, holding hands and looking like they’d been hit by a meteor or something, like they were having some kind of secret communication nobody else could tune in on.”
Craig nodded, understanding perfectly.
“David was so happy. I’d never seen him like that before. They took off, and I never saw David alive again. He and the girl were found in a motel room in bed together—both dead.”
Stephanie sucked in a sharp breath. “What happened to them?”
“The coroner said it was like both of them had had a cerebral hemorrhage.”
“My God,” Stephanie whispered.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Craig said.
Mrs. Dubour nodded. “Losing him would have been more of a shock if I hadn’t felt that I’d lost him years ago. Or that he never really belonged to us.”
“What do you mean?” Stephanie asked.
“I was so excited to have a child,” she said, her voice low and wistful. “But he never was, you know, normal. He always kept to himself. He wasn’t affectionate with me or my husband. He never did date much when he was a teenager.” She gave both of them a sharp look. “Am I telling you things you understand about yourselves?”
“Yes,” Stephanie whispered.
Craig also nodded in agreement.
She kept looking at them. “But you met each other, and something changed for you?”
“Yes.”
“You went off together, like my David and that girl, only it turned out different for you.”
“Yes,” Craig said.
“You’re alive, and he’s dead.”
“I’m sorry he died.”
“Because he hooked up with that woman. Why did it kill them?”
Craig wasn’t going to tell her that it had to do with forming a telepathic bond—that might overwhelm the two people involved.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Mrs. Dubour kept her gaze on them. “I guess you two should be careful.”
