by A. m Madden
“David, look at me.” At the sound of my voice his fingers gripped the fabric of my shirt, but he wouldn’t lift his head to look at me. “David,” I tried again. Using all my strength, I peeled his arms away from my body. The man who stared back was nothing like the man I’d just spent hours laughing with and enjoying immensely. This was a hollowed-out version of that David.
My mind raced with all the possible scenarios his episode would lead to.
I tried to hide my fear. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I couldn’t handle this raw truth he lived with every day. It wasn’t what he did that scared me, but instead how this would affect him and us. I regretted not being forthcoming with my feelings for him. Earlier, when he’d completely opened himself to me, I felt it wasn’t the time to share what I wanted to…not yet. And saying it now would most definitely make matters worse.
With time, and lots of patience, hopefully we’d both find a way to make this work.
When I moved my hands to hold his face, he closed his eyes, attempting to escape me. “David, please look at me.”
He slowly opened them and immediately shook his head. “Maygen, I’ve never done that to anyone in my life, and the fact I did it to you terrifies me. I fucked up, again. I keep fucking up.” Reaching for my wrists, he pried my hands from his face. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice choked with emotion and his eyes focused on my throat.
“David.” I waited until he stared back. “We’ll figure this out. I’ll go with you to therapy. Whatever we need to do, we’ll do it. People live with this every day, and we’ll find a way for you to as well.” The minute I stopped speaking he once again avoided eye contact. I waited until his eyes came back to mine.
Without an invitation, I crawled into his lap. His body stiffened, but I refused to give up trying to comfort him. “I’m here for you, David. I know I said I was worried that you misconstrued your feelings for me with your PTSD. I don’t feel that way anymore. You changed that tonight.” His forehead crumpled as if he was in pain. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“It may help you understand it better.”
My words were met with silence, so I kept reassuring him that I was okay. It was all I could do. I had no idea where we’d end up from here, or if what happened a few minutes earlier undid all the progress we made tonight. What I did know was I couldn’t walk away from him, especially now.
—
David refused to sleep the rest of the night. It took a very long time for him to return to a guarded version of himself. Eventually I dozed off again and woke to find him sitting in a chair watching me.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“It’s past eight. I’m sorry. I know you’ll be late but I didn’t have the heart to wake you.” His eyes met mine in a distant, empty stare.
“It’s okay. I’ll call Betha to let her know I’ll be late.”
Strained conversation, awkward pauses, and a shitload of doubt effectively tainted our time together. After making us coffee, he said he’d take me home and to call Arnold and ask him to meet us at my apartment.
Predictably, he had little to say during the cab ride uptown. We found Arnold waiting in my lobby, chatting with Felix. Once they saw us, Arnold moved toward the elevator to accompany me upstairs.
“Arnold, can you give us a few minutes, please?”
Without expression he nodded and moved aside so David and I could enter the elevator alone. I waited for the doors to shut before speaking. “Please talk to me.”
The scowl he wore softened. Turning toward me he pulled me into his arms. “I’m sorry, baby. I just need time to process what happened.” I felt his lips on my hair as he held me tightly against his body. The elevator doors opening forced him to release me.
Desperate, I asked, “Will I see you tonight?”
“Yes. Call me later.”
A tiny seed of optimism sprouted when he reached for my hand and led me to my door. He waited beside me as I unlocked it. Once it was opened, I turned toward him expectantly. His eyes searched mine, and a small smile played on his lips. “Maygen, I love you.”
“I know, and, David…I…”
He placed a finger over my lips. “No. Don’t.” Predicting what I was going to blurt out, he gently reached out and skimmed my face with his large palm. “Not now. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Bending, he placed a sweet, soft kiss on my lips. “Go. You’re really late for work.”
I nodded and stepped backward into my apartment, watching him as I did. Our eyes connected, each trying to say so much with that one last, desperate look.
“I’ll send Goliath up,” he said with his half smirk. He then winked and walked away. Before he turned the corner in my hallway, I waited for him to throw me one more smile or another wink…but he never did.
I moved through the process of showering and getting dressed in slow motion. I was clearly stalling. In my current frame of mind I’d be useless at work. Besides, it was already almost eleven, so the day was half over. I had no desire to pretend that my thoughts were filled with anyone else other than David. I decided to make another call and let them know I was taking the rest of the day off. Dax would understand. So would Betha once she found out all that had happened since yesterday.
I would call Dax on the way to my dad’s office. It was time to speak to Dad and Reed to get to the bottom of all they were hiding and why. Once that was done, I’d find David. What I wouldn’t do to kidnap him and run away to the beach to escape everything. I wasn’t above begging. I needed him, needed to work things out, and most important, I needed to tell him how I felt.
It was my turn to be brave. When I opened my apartment door, there was Arnold standing in his annoying way. “Ready to go, Miss Whitney?”
“Do me a favor,” I said, practically biting his head off. “I’m having a bad day. Please don’t speak. Okay?” He clenched his jaw and nodded. “I’m sorry,” I said, quickly backpedaling. “Forget I said that.”
“No worries, Miss Whitney.”
“Change of plans. We’re going to my dad’s office.”
“No problem, Miss Whitney.”
I followed him to the elevator feeling like a bitch.
My testiness quickly turned to terror when we turned the corner in my hall and came face-to-face with a woman holding a gun.
Arnold immediately pushed me behind him and reached for his gun. Before I could register what was happening, a gunshot rang out in the hall and Arnold fell to the ground holding his leg.
“It’s about fucking time,” she barked. “I’ve been waiting for an hour.”
Chapter 33
David
“Let’s focus on the dream. Barry never appeared to you alive before. Why do you think he did this time?” Dr. Mathews leaned back in his chair to assess my response.
“You’re asking me?” My patience was wearing thin.
“Okay, I’ll rephrase. Typical dreams are rarely repetitious. It’s most common to have the same recurring dream related to a traumatic event often resulting from PTSD. David, your dreams have always been exactly the same. From start to finish you relive the day Barry was shot beside you. Nothing changed or strayed from the actual event that occurred that day. Correct?”
“Yeah.”
“But last night not only did Barry speak and interact with you, but Maygen was also brought into your subconscious. We can deduce that last night other influences caused this particular episode. Tell me about your day.”
“Normal. Met with my brother-in-law. Maygen came by for dinner. We fell asleep while watching TV.”
“Nothing else happened?”
“Nothing important.” He gauged my body language for a few moments. I waited for him to ask; he always did when I wasn’t forthcoming with information. Not to mention when he knew I was lying.
But he was the professional, so I let him poke through this train wreck. “Earlier in the day you said you met with Nick.
What about?”
“It was a social visit.”
“Anything to do with Maygen’s stalker?” He obviously knew how we met and why her father hired me. The rest I’d tried to keep to myself. I was the one in therapy, but that didn’t mean we needed to drag Maygen’s issues in. Most of the time my silence didn’t work with Dr. Mathews.
“No,” I said, lying.
I watched him scribble on his pad. A lie detector machine had nothing on him. “We’ll come back to that.” When he glanced up again my eyes were still focused on his face. “Okay, then Maygen came by. What did you guys talk about? Did you tell her what we discussed?”
I shifted, crossing my ankle over my knee. Why did I find it so hard to tell him what I had confessed to Maygen? Maybe I felt that by saying it out loud, bringing it into the room that held all my darkest secrets, it would taint my feelings for her.
“David,” he prompted.
“I told her about my episode after we broke up, the meds, seeing you. She knows it all now.”
His approving nod felt condescending, thus irking me. Obviously I was looking to pick a fight. That wouldn’t help me, or Maygen. I knew going in that this session would be fucking hard as hell. Like it or not, I had to bring her into that room. It was necessary to keep her safe. I needed him to keep her safe from me. That dream last night fucked with my head. I had my hands on her, could have seriously hurt her. My options were to fix this or stay away from her, and the latter was no longer a choice for me.
“And? What about your feelings for her?”
The silence stretched while he waited.
Fucking open up and tell him…for Maygen.
I tried to swallow the sourness that had settled in the back of my throat. It didn’t work. Next I pinched the bridge of my nose, dragging in a deep breath. “Yes, I told her last night how I feel about her.”
“How did she respond?”
“She said she needed time.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“She deserves to take as much time as she wants. It wasn’t about getting her to say it back. Like you said, I needed to be honest with her. Then this morning as I was leaving her she was about to say something, and I had a feeling what it would be…but I stopped her. Like you said, it needed to be about my feelings for her.”
“You keep saying, ‘like you said.’ Was that the only reason you told her, because I told you to?”
“No. I told her because I wanted her to know. She deserves to know.”
“I’m proud of you.”
Whatever, I thought. His approval had nothing to do with what I was seeking by telling her everything. I did it because I had to.
“Can you agree that you think you have more to lose now? Now that you admitted to your feelings, revealed them to Maygen, it drastically changes things?”
“I guess.”
“It absolutely does,” he said. “You had said you weren’t good enough for her. You thought she should stay away from you. You still feel that?”
“More than ever.”
“David, with those negative thoughts in your mind in addition to revealing your feelings, it’s safe to say your insecurities resulted in your nightmare.”
“So, I guess I just won’t sleep near her….Piece of cake,” I said sarcastically.
He released a humorless laugh. “I know you’re adamant about not taking meds, but after last night’s episode I think you need to truly consider changing your mind. Prazosin has proven to reduce nightmares in two separate case studies. It can effectively block the adrenaline that your PTSD releases that causes nightmares.”
“What are the side effects?”
“It lowers your blood pressure and allows your body to relax going into the REM stage. Headaches, drowsiness, tiredness, weakness can occur. Pretty much all symptoms you’d already suffer from lack of sleep.”
He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out his prescription pad. “I’ll write you a script. Let’s start you off with one milligram. Try it and see how you feel by our next session.”
I stared at the script he held suspended between us. I hated, fucking despised having to depend on drugs of any kind.
“David. This won’t make you depressed, I promise.” He once again read my mind. “Your relationship with Maygen is progressing. The stress of your PTSD is enough to cause you trauma whenever she is near, but add in REM sleep behavior disorder and your prognosis will worsen. REM is the sleep stage when dreams can be acted out.”
“I know what REM is, Doc.”
He offered the script again and I reluctantly took it this time. “It’s a trial. We keep trying until we find what fixes you. You are fixable, David. Trust me.”
“That’s why I’m here, Doc. So you can fix me.”
—
One step out of his office and the suffocating feeling I often felt during therapy instantly lifted.
My next stop was FBI headquarters to meet with Reed and Garrett. Today was the day Nick and I threw all the lies out on the table. Then I planned to see my girl.
I called Nick’s cell to let him know I was on my way. “Hey.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m just leaving Mathews’s office. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Garrett and Reed are on their way over.”
I couldn’t wait to hear Reed’s side of the story. The fact that I didn’t unintentionally kill someone on my way down to FBI headquarters was nothing short of a miracle. I promised I’d be there in twenty minutes, and actually made it in twelve.
George, Garrett, and Reed all looked up when I barreled through the door of Nick’s office. My heart pounded in my chest so fiercely, my torso trembled from the onslaught.
“You were with her last night? Where is she?” Garrett said accusingly, stepping closer to come toe-to-toe with me. Fury swirled in his pale blue eyes, which looked just like my girl’s.
Conflicted between wanting to punch his handsome face and how much that would hurt Maygen forced me to take a step back from him. It was then that his words hit me. “What are you talking about?”
“She isn’t answering her phone.”
My blood ran cold, and the adrenaline I had felt from running to headquarters did little to heat me from within. Through gritted teeth I said, “I got her home this morning and handed her off to the asshole you have protecting her.”
George put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and pulled him slightly away from my body. “What time was that, David?”
“Just after nine. She fell asleep at my place last night. She called her friend Betha and told her she’d be late, but she should be there by now.”
“I just tried calling her again a few minutes ago,” Reed said. “She never made it in. Arnold isn’t answering his phone, either.”
Alarms went off in my head. It was now 11 A.M. “How long ago did you try calling her the first time?”
Reed stopped pacing and said, “I got into the office at ten. Garrett said we were asked to come downtown. When I called her it went right to voicemail. It’s not unusual for her to be busy while at work. We thought nothing of it, figured she was in a meeting and couldn’t answer. Once we got here Garrett tried again and spoke to her boss. We literally just called Arnold again without luck.”
“Do you always saunter in at ten?” Suspicion immediately rose within, causing me to focus my ire on him. “Where were you all morning, Mr. Michaels?”
Anger altered his features when he realized what I was getting at. The fact that this fucker kept secrets fueled my motives. Nick and I didn’t have a chance to speak to George about Mr. Conlon’s real identity, but fuck, with Maygen now missing that trumped his pathetic life.
“David.” Nick stood behind his desk and shook his head.
“What? Now is as good a time as any for him to tell us what he’s hiding.” Reed’s eyes moved between Nick and mine. “Your real name is Michaels, not Conlon. Care to share?”
The room went still, wit
h all eyes focused on Reed.
“I legally changed it, wanted a clean start.”
Garrett’s gaze still focused on Reed. “What are they talking about?”
Nick took a deep breath. “Gentlemen, can you all take a seat please.” Once they all did, Nick met my glare before saying, “After Maygen received that doll at her office, I took it upon myself to do some research.” Nick’s little white lie didn’t go unnoticed by me. His eyes cut to mine briefly before he continued. “What I found out has us both concerned and confused.”
Rage pounded between my ears, causing my head to throb with a migraine. I watched their facial expressions go from confusion to shock as Nick explained all we had discovered about Reed’s true identity.
“Reed was taken from his mother when he was a year old. She was a heroin addict. While serving time for selling the stuff she discovered she was pregnant.”
“I never knew her. All I knew was her name and that she was a drug addict. Once I turned eighteen I wanted to cut all ties to her,” Reed rambled.
“What’s her name?” Garrett asked, his voice just above a whisper.
“Gloria Michaels.”
The man went pale, his hand shaking uncontrollably as he covered his gaping mouth. “Oh my God. That was my ex-girlfriend’s name.”
Reed’s shocked reaction was real. I knew enough about human behavior to know he wasn’t faking. “My mother is your ex?”
“If it’s the same woman. We were together for two years, started dating senior year in high school.” Garrett met Reed’s eyes, emotion welling in his own. “She was very angry I chose UCLA over staying in New York. She didn’t take it well, and…” Garrett scrubbed a hand over his face. “She tried to kill herself.”
“What?” Reed’s question was barely audible.
“She took some pills, ended up in the psych ward for two weeks. I decided to stay and help her. Turned out I stayed for the wrong reasons. The longer we were together, the more desperate she became at trying to hold on to me. Once she got out, she started acting irrationally, doing crazy shit. One night she was pulled over for driving under the influence. Turns out, it wasn’t just alcohol in her system, but they also found heroin. In her car was a loaded handgun. It scared the fuck out of me. I finally ended it once and for all and transferred to UCLA. I never saw her again.”
