The Devil You Know

by Freida McFadden

  Unfortunately, Alyssa doesn’t look any more impressed when she opens the passenger side door. She plucks a French fry off the seat and holds it up accusingly.

  “This was on your seat,” she says as she shakes it in my face.

  So? I’ve got a four-year-old child. French fries happen—you can’t stop them. To be honest, I’m astonished she only found one of them. If she looked in the back, there are probably enough French fries to feed us for a week if we somehow got trapped in the car.

  I take the French fry out of Alyssa’s hand and toss it out the window when she isn’t looking. Then I start up the car, intending to speed the entire way to the VA.

  The lights are not on my side. Almost immediately, we miss a light that I know will result in us having to wait for a good minute. I glance at Alyssa, who is staring out the window miserably. I feel somehow compelled to make conversation. This is a time when I wish I were more like Ben, who never feels any obligation to talk in order to fill awkward silences.

  “So,” I say brightly. “How are things?”

  Alyssa sighs. “Fine.”

  “And how is…” Crap, I can’t remember whether Alyssa had a son or a daughter. “How is your… child?”

  Nice save, Jane.

  “Fine,” she says, without offering any gender-specific cues.

  “They must be getting older,” I comment. Since all human beings are getting older, it’s probably a safe assumption.

  “Yes, it goes fast,” she says vaguely.

  The light changes and I jam my foot into the gas pedal. Alyssa grabs onto the dashboard and flashes me a dirty look. I don’t care at this point. She’s given me so many dirty looks over the years, I can’t even distinguish them from her regular looks. I’m not even certain she has regular looks.

  When we get to the VA, I lead Alyssa to the lecture hall where she’ll be teaching us all about hospice care. She hands over the flash drive containing her PowerPoint presentation, and naturally, everything goes wrong. I can’t seem to lower the screen onto which we project the computer image. Then when I sort that out, the image won’t appear on the screen. It would be so much more helpful if they got someone with actual AV knowledge to do this.

  Alyssa watches me in silence interjected with tiny sighs. As people start to filter into the auditorium, she says, “I thought they were sending someone who knew how to use this equipment.”

  “I do know,” I say through clenched teeth, despite the fact that I clearly don’t.

  “Haven’t you been doing this for a year?” she says. “Why are you having so much difficulty?”

  You know what I’d really like to do? I’d like to surreptitiously insert “I’m a bitch” into one of Alyssa’s slides. That would be awesome. But I feel like all the evidence would point to me as the culprit.

  Alyssa sighs extra loudly, and I lift my eyes to glare at her. Honestly, I’ve had enough. She’s not the boss of me anymore. We don’t even work together. I don’t have to take her bullshit anymore. I finally spoke up to Barbara, and now she’s become… well, not a good employee, but much less awful. I’m going to stand up to Dr. Alyssa Morgan once and for all!

  “You know what, Alyssa?” I say.

  She raises her eyebrows at me. That’s when I notice that there are purple circles under her ice-blue eyes. I notice the multiple strands of gray threaded into her brown hair that she hasn’t bothered to dye. I wonder what Alyssa’s life is like right now. Maybe she spent her morning consoling a kid who face-planted in the garage. Maybe worse. I have no idea.

  “You need to give me another minute,” I finally mumble. “I’ll figure it out.”

  Somehow I say the right magic spell and the image from the computer suddenly appears on the overhead screen. I’m so relieved, I nearly cry.

  “That’s fine,” Alyssa says to me, because saying “thank you” would be far too challenging for her.

  The last thing I want to do right now is listen to Alyssa lecture for an hour, but I grab a bagel from the back of the auditorium and sit down in the last row. I don’t have any patients scheduled for this morning and I’m already here. Might as well listen to Alyssa’s talk.

  “Hello, everyone,” Alyssa says. “Today I’ll be speaking to you about Overcoming the Risk of Suicide in the Hospice Population.”

  Well, this is sure to be depressing.

  “It may seem counter-intuitive to treat suicidal behavior in a patient who is already terminal,” Alyssa begins. “But part of the goal of good hospice and palliative care is to make those final days more comfortable for your patient. You might wonder why patients who are going to die soon anyway would try to kill themselves, but you’ll soon see that there are a plethora of reasons why a hospice patient might become suicidal.”

  For example, if Dr. Alyssa Morgan became their hospice physician.

  “For example,” Alyssa says. “They may worry about becoming a burden on their family and friends. Or they may see their strength and abilities deteriorating.”

  Somehow, something that Alyssa is saying tugs at the back of my head. The bagel I managed to take one bite of churns in my belly.

  “Let’s start with some statistics,” says Alyssa. “Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in this country. By age, there is a bimodal distribution, with a peak over age seventy-five, but the largest peak in the forties. Women are more likely to attempt suicide, but males are far more likely to be successful.”

  A man in his forties who is deteriorating.

  “The most common means of committing suicide is by firearms,” she says. “Of course, pills are most commonly used in attempts, but firearms are the most successful by far.”

  A man in his forties who is deteriorating and owns a gun.

  “So let’s talk about risk factors,” Alyssa continues as she flips to the next slide. “The emotions that contribute to suicidal behavior are hopelessness and helplessness. The patient feels hopeless because he’s in a situation, such as terminal illness, where there is quite literally no hope. And he feels helpless because there’s nothing he can do about this situation. Suicide gives the patient what they feel is an escape from a hopeless situation. And it gives them control in a situation in which they feel helpless.”

  Control. What every surgeon is obsessed with.

  “It’s a common myth that most people commit suicide without warning,” she says. “Most people who are suicidal communicate many warning signs to the people around them, even if these signs aren’t always picked up. They may even communicate having a plan…”

  I’ve got a gun locked away in my desk drawer at home.

  “Although after they make the decision,” she continues, “interestingly, their mood can lighten because they feel that they are finally escaping from their problems.”

  I close my eyes and remember the way Ryan smiled and winked at me when he had just been stripped of his surgical privileges.

  Oh my God.

  I sit up straight in my seat, knocking over the cup of coffee that I took but haven’t been drinking. A few people turn to stare at me, but I don’t care. Something has just occurred to me. Something horrible. Something I probably should have realized last week, but I ignored all the warning signs.

  Ryan is going to try to kill himself.

  And I’m the only person who knows it.

  Chapter 34

  Everyone is shooting me dirty looks as I slip out of the auditorium. Partially because I end up leaving behind a huge puddle of coffee under my seat. But what am I supposed to do? Crouch down in the middle of the lecture hall, wiping up coffee with the little tiny napkins provided with the food? It would take like a thousand of those napkins to clean up all that coffee.

  I’ve got to see Ryan now. I’ve got to convince him not to do what I know he’s thinking about doing. Before it’s too late.

  I race over to the elevators, and just my luck, the doors open and there’s George. I hesitate, knowing that I don’t have the stamina to make it up all those stai
rs.

  “What floor?” he asks me.

  “Ten,” I say. “And… it’s kind of… an emergency.”

  Our eyes meet for a split second, and George nods. Someone else starts to board the elevator, but George holds out his arm to block them. “Sorry,” he tells the frustrated would-be passenger. “We’ve got an emergency and we’re going straight to the tenth floor.”

  Seriously? Wow. George rocks.

  The doors slide shut and we begin our express journey to the tenth floor. George shoots me the tiniest of smiles, which I return.

  When we get to the tenth floor, I shoot out of the elevator like a bullet. (Okay, bad analogy.) I sprint down the hall to Ryan’s office, practicing the speech I’m planning to recite to convince him that life is worth living. I nearly slam into a startled young guy in scrubs during my race to the end of the hall.

  Except when I get to the office, the sign with Ryan’s name on it is gone.

  “Hey!” I bark at the guy in scrubs. “What happened to Dr. Reilly?”

  The guy hesitates, as if he’s not sure he should say anything. “He resigned.”

  “He resigned?” That sick feeling in my stomach intensifies. “When?”

  “Two days ago.”

  Two days ago.

  Ryan hasn’t been to work in two days.

  He lives alone. He has no wife or girlfriend. If he were lying dead in his house, would anyone know?

  Oh God…

  My knees go weak. I have to hang onto the wall to keep from falling to the floor. The guy in scrubs gives me a concerned look. “Are… are you okay, ma’am?”

  “Do you know where he lives?” I manage.

  He blinks at me. “What?”

  “Do you know where Dr. Reilly lives?” I say more loudly this time.

  I see the hesitation on his face. He knows. He just isn’t sure if he should tell the crazy lady who is practically having a nervous breakdown in the hallway.

  “Please tell me,” I say. “Please. Please.”

  Chapter 35

  Ryan is dead.

  I’m so sure of it. I’m like ninety-nine percent sure. He quit, went home, and then blew his brains out.

  Yet for some reason, I’m speeding to his house as fast as I dare. I’m not entirely sure why. It’s almost certainly too late to stop him. So why am I rushing?

  As I stall at a stoplight, my stomach turns again. What am I going to find when I get there? If Ryan really shot himself two days ago, his body is probably already rotting. I’m going to find a room covered in blood and brains and a rotting corpse.

  And then the police will come and I’ll have to answer endless questions. And his family might show up. His mother and his sister. I’ll have to deal with them discovering that their son/brother is dead.

  Maybe I shouldn’t go over there. Maybe I should just call the police now.

  But it’s too late. I’m already rounding the final corner on my drive to the house that Ryan is renting. I find it at the end of the block, the lush green lawn and pleasant white-shuttered house belying the horror that may wait for me inside.

  Before I can change my mind, I throw the car into park and get out. I see Ryan’s car in the driveway, so he’s definitely inside. There don’t appear to be any lights on in the house, but that doesn’t mean much considering it’s the middle of the morning. I walk up to the front door and stand there a full sixty seconds, gathering my nerve.

  And then I knock.

  I wait. I wait ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty…

  He’s dead. I know it. He’s dead.

  Forty seconds. Fifty…

  Maybe this isn’t really his house. After all, this cozy little cottage is a far cry from the bachelor pad he kept back in Manhattan. It’s hard to reconcile that swanky apartment with this place. I can’t actually imagine Ryan living here. But he must—that’s definitely his red Porsche in the driveway. This is his place and he’s home. He just isn’t answering the door.

  How long before I call the police? Should I just call now?

  I start to reach into my purse for my phone when the door suddenly opens up. Relief floods through me for a split second before I realize that the person standing before me is definitely not Ryan Reilly. First of all, it’s a woman. She’s about five feet tall, middle-aged and sturdy, dressed in ratty clothing, and holding a mop.

  “Hello,” she says in heavily accented English. “You look for somebody?”

  I cling to the relief I felt a minute ago. If there’s somebody else in Ryan’s house, surely they’d notice if he were lying dead somewhere. Even the worst cleaning lady would notice something like that.

  “I’m looking for Dr. Reilly,” I say softly.

  “Reilly,” she repeats. She smiles pleasantly. “Sí. Reilly is… he in here. I show you.”

  My heart is pounding as I follow the woman into Ryan’s home. It’s spacious but sparsely decorated, as expected from somebody who didn’t expect to be here for very long because he assumed he’d be blowing his brains out before too long. He’s got a sofa, a dining table, and a television, but there are no photos anywhere and his one bookcase is almost completely empty. I wonder what happened to Ryan’s old apartment and all the stuff in it.

  The woman leads me down a short hallway and gestures at a room. “Reilly,” she says triumphantly, pointing out the man in the room before she leaves us.

  This man is not Ryan.

  But I do know who he is. His name is Nick Reilly. He’s Ryan’s brother.

  I met Nick Reilly several times back when Ryan and I were together. We went out for drinks and each time, Nick had too many, which Ryan said was basically what he always did. Nick reminded me a lot of Ryan—he was funny, charismatic, and too handsome for his own good.

  I’d never recognize him now if we weren’t in Ryan’s house. For starters, Nick is a good twenty or thirty pounds thinner than he was back then—maybe more. And he wasn’t overweight to begin with. He’s got hollows in his cheeks and his eyes are sunken in their sockets. He’s sitting in a hospital-grade wheelchair, but he isn’t sitting still. Every part of his body seems to be moving at once. His arms are going everywhere, his legs keep shifting in the leg rests of his chair, and even his head is moving. Just watching him is exhausting.

  “Jane McGill,” Nick Reilly says in a voice that’s so slurred I might not have been able to tell what he was saying if it wasn’t my own name. He tries to get up as if to greet me, but the seatbelt on his lap stops him.

  I honestly want to cry when I look at Nick. He used to be so young and healthy. I can’t believe this is what his disease did to him. And so quickly. I can understand why Ryan wouldn’t want this. I get why he’d rather be dead.

  “I can’t believe you remember me,” I murmur.

  Nick manages a smile. He looks so old. I know he’s only six or seven years older than Ryan, but he looks like an old man. He could easily be seventy. His hair is completely gray, save for a few darker strands here and there. “Of course I remember you. Ryan… he used to talk about you all the time.”

  I squeeze my hands together. “He… he did?”

  “Yeah.” Nick nods. “All the time. Jane this. Jane that. Always.”

  I just stare at him, unsure how to respond.

  He practically forces the words out of his disobedient tongue: “He loved you a lot.”

  That dizzy sensation comes over me again. He loved you a lot. I don’t know what unsettles me more. The sentence or Nick’s use of the past tense. Where is Ryan? Is he here somewhere? Or is he lying dead, God knows where? For Christ’s sake, where has he gone?

  “Jane?”

  I whirl around and there he is. Ryan Reilly. Tall, adorable, and solid. Totally, one-hundred percent alive. And looking at me like he thinks I’ve entirely lost my mind.

  All the anxiety I’ve felt in the last hour rushes to the surface. My stomach turns again, and this time I know with absolute certainty that I’m going to throw up. I clamp my hand over my mouth and run out o
f the bedroom, to Ryan’s kitchen, where I release the contents of my stomach into his sink.

  After I’ve done it, I raise my head and discover that Ryan is standing over me, gawking.

  “Jesus Christ, Jane,” he says. “Are you okay?”

  “I thought you were dead!” I nearly shout at him.

  He blinks at me. “You did?”

  “Is that so surprising?” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Man, I need a mint. “You quit all of a sudden without saying anything to me, and I know you’ve got that gun…”

  Tears spring up in my eyes. I don’t know whether I’m crying because I’m relieved not to find Ryan dead with a gun in his hand or because I know that eventually, somebody will.

  His blue eyes widen. “You thought I killed myself?”

  “Well… yes.”

  “Jesus…” Ryan tugs at the collar of his T-shirt. It’s still odd to see him wearing something besides scrubs. “I’m sorry, Jane. I didn’t realize…” He shakes his head. “I’m not going to try to kill myself. Okay? So don’t worry.”

  “But you quit,” I point out. “I thought you said you were going to work until you couldn’t anymore. And you said that once you couldn’t…”

  “Yeah, well.” He shrugs. “That’s before I found out how goddamn tedious paperwork at the VA could be. I figure if I’ve only got one or two more good years left, I’m sure as hell not going to spend it doing that.”

  My shoulders sag in relief. I can’t believe I found him here, still okay. And not just okay, but looking… well, not unhappy. “So what are you going to do?”

  He smiles distantly. “I’m going to see the world. I’ve always wanted to travel, but I could never make time for it because of my career. Well, the career’s gone. So I’m going to see everything I’ve ever wanted to see.” He looks around the house. “I just needed a few days to wrap up some loose ends, like making sure my brother is taken care of. Then I’m flying out to Paris tomorrow.”