The Way We Burn_A Standalone Romance...With A Twist

by M. Leighton

“Okay, so Carly’s been operating a dark web business behind a blog. It’s set up to lure in guys like Finch, guys like the ones we spend our lives trying to find. She sets it up to look like she’s giving them what they want—everything from captives to BDSM to…disposable hookers—and when they meet, they get one helluva a surprise. She was running a second operation that sells…well, homicide. Killing. She was setting up these rapists and killers to be the victims for some other sick bastards who just want to kill.”

  Gregory’s jaw has slackened progressively as I’ve talked until now he’s just staring at me. “Holy mother of hell.”

  “Exactly. She wasn’t just looking for Finch, waiting for him to take the bait; she was cleaning up a lot of the guys we can’t get because of procedure.”

  “And the law,” he adds.

  A stab of guilt lances through my gut. “Yeah. That’s where things get sticky.”

  My partner’s voice is as dry as his expression. “Sticky. Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”

  “Look, man, I’m totally willing to come forward. I think Carly will be, too, but I couldn’t put her through that right now. She’s…fragile. I couldn’t risk what the shitstorm that’s coming might to do her. I need to talk to Dr. Cane, get some professional advice, figure out the best way to go forward.”

  “Even if they try, you know they’ll never get a conviction to stick. She’s mentally ill, man. There’s no way she goes down for this.”

  “I don’t think so either, but that’s not my only concern. I just got her back. I can’t afford to see what might happen if she’s arrested and put on trial. I have to go about this the right way, but I don’t know what that is just yet.”

  “I get it, I get it.” Gregory looks beyond me, his eyes focused on the cabinet behind my head, but not seeing it. He rubs his chin with the fingers of one hand, a gesture I know means he’s deep in thought. “Let’s do this. You get a hold of your doctor, see what he has to say. I’ll go by the hospital and then write this up as something you and I stumbled on as we worked the Jeffries/Callum case. Obviously, there’s a connection. We just weren’t smart enough to find it.”

  “I told you my wife was good at her job.”

  “Thank God she works for us and not the other side. Most of the time, anyway.”

  We both laugh.

  “Just stall. Give me a day or two and then I’ll come in. Make this right. That good?”

  Gregory nods slowly. “I can do that, brother. I can do that.”

  I stick out my hand and he clasps it in his. I pull him in for a man hug, thumping him on the back before I release him. I figured this would be how he’d handle it. James Gregory is good people.

  “Let me know how it goes. Keep me in the loop.”

  “You do the same,” he says, turning back toward the living room and the door beyond. “Give my love to Carly when she wakes up.”

  “Will do, man.”

  I walk him to the door, holding it open as he exits.

  “It’ll work out. Keep it in perspective. Be patient. They’ll do right by both of you. I feel it.”

  “I sure as hell hope so.”

  He nods. I nod. He turns to walk away. I close the door and lean back against it.

  Now comes the hard part.

  The after.

  31

  CARLY

  My mouth goes dry as I stand in the doorway, Dr. Cane by my side, Noah watching me from the small vestibule outside the therapy room. “I thought he’d be able to come in with me,” I tell Dr. Cane, my palms sweating at the thought of going the rest of the way alone.

  “This is a court appointed evaluation. We wouldn’t want to risk it being invalidated for any reason. And since your husband was involved, too…”

  He doesn’t have to explain further. I get it. I get it, but I don’t like it.

  I don’t want to do this without him, but I don’t have a choice. If I don’t get the evaluation, I could be charged. I could go to prison.

  Noah smiles at me from across the room. “I’ll be right here if you need me. Mine will be the first face you see when you come out.” He means to comfort, to encourage, but his efforts just make me feel homesick. For three weeks, since I walked with my husband into the Chicago field office of the FBI to talk to them about Carter Finch, I’ve been having panic attacks when I’m separated from him. He’s become my lifeline, the only thing that tethers me to what feels safe and sane. The thought of sitting inside Dr. Cane’s office for three hours without him…without seeing him or hearing his voice, without feeling his touch or the warmth of his shoulder a few inches from mine…it’s nearly unthinkable.

  “If you become distressed, I promise to bring him in and let you see him,” Dr. Cane offers, his kind face showing nothing but sincerity.

  Noah crosses the room, takes my hands in his, bends to brush his lips over my temple. “You can do this, baby. You’re stronger than you know,” he whispers in my ear.

  His words, even just the low rumble of his voice, soothe me. Everything about him soothes me. That’s why it’s so hard to be away from him. He’s calm in the midst of the storm. He’s an island in the vast sea of my confusing existence. He’s my whole world, wrapped up in wide shoulders, a stunning smile, and the prettiest blue eyes I’ve ever seen.

  Even when I didn’t really know who I was, I loved Noah. He’s the one constant in my life. My focal point in the swirl of chaos.

  I nod, hiking my chin up a notch and giving him what I hope is a resolute smile. If it’s not, then he’ll be able to see how weak I am, how close to crumbling I am. And I don’t want him to see that. He’s been strong for me. I want to be the same for him.

  “We’ll get pizza tonight. Watch Casablanca and drink an entire bottle of wine. I might even consider giving you a foot rub.”

  I grin. A genuine grin. He knows me so well.

  “Deal!”

  He gives me a fleeting kiss and releases me, nodding as if to say it’s okay for me to go. I just wish I felt like it was.

  * * *

  NOAH

  I watch my wife walk, shoulders squared and chin held high, into Dr. Cane’s office and turn to close the door behind her. She doesn’t take her eyes off mine until it’s shut.

  I wanted to tell her that she knows Dr. Cane, that they’ve met before, but I didn’t want to distress her by bringing up yet another time she has no memory of.

  The morning after she stabbed Carter Finch in the crotch, I called him and he came to my place. We talked until Carly woke, only she wasn’t Carly. She had a severe episode, switching back and forth between Poppy and Simone eight times in fairly rapid succession.

  Dr. Cane, having worked for years with the feds, came prepared and gave her a sedative. He said she needed rest as much as anything.

  He stayed for a while longer. I told him everything, right down to what Simone was doing and why. He wasn’t judgmental, didn’t tell my superiors, which he legally had every right to do since he was appointed to clear me for the field in the first place and is required to report on anything that might affect my ability to be rational in the course of doing my duty. Instead, he gave me sound advice, which turned out to be the right advice, too.

  “Have her turn herself in and request an immediate psychological evaluation. They’ll contact me and I’ll release her to your care, recommending therapy until she’s arraigned. It’s a long process, so the judge, after reading your partner’s report, will likely ask for a formal psych eval to determine whether she’s fit to stand trial. I can see that she is not. That much is clear. Since that will be my finding, I’ll recommend intensive cognitive therapy as well as EMDR therapy, which will help with her PTSD. I think it’s a reasonable course of action and something the judge will feel comfortable complying with.”

  He was correct on every detail so far.

  And today is the formal evaluation.

  Dr. Cane and I have talked on the phone several times since he released Carly to my care three weeks ago. In th
e beginning, she was still having frequent episodes, so he prescribed some anxiety medication to help in the interim, which it has. I’ve only seen Simone twice since then, and neither time was exactly…unpleasant. My wife’s sexual nature is channeled and amplified when she’s Simone. I wasn’t upset at all when she wanted to make love.

  And now here we are.

  The next step.

  This evaluation will be what the court takes under advisement when deciding her fate—whether she’s competent to stand trial and what to do with her if she’s not. Obviously, we’re hoping they won’t make her stand trial, but will find her mental state to be such that she wasn’t responsible for her actions and subsequently determine that treatment should commence immediately. Outpatient treatment, God willing.

  But it all hinges on two things: Compelling evidence from this evaluation and the judge.

  I pray that both go in our favor.

  32

  CARLY

  Dr. Cane is one of the leading psychotherapists in the country. He’s polite, intelligent, and he thinks he can help me.

  He’s watching me now, his glasses starting to slip down the bridge of this thin nose. He’s watching me, waiting, his hazel eyes kind. He just asked me a question, but I have to work to remember what it was.

  I concentrate hard, reminding myself that I’m Carly Williamson and I’m here to see a specialist about my dissociative identity disorder. I have to force myself to pay attention, to be in this moment and not allow myself to slip off to another place or time, or person.

  I shake my head. “I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?”

  “Of course. Why are you confused, Carly?”

  I inhale, sucking in one deep, calming breath. “Aside from the fact that it’s incredibly difficult to wrap my head around what’s happened to me, to me it feels as though my daughter just died four months ago. The last two years don’t feel real to me. I have no memory of them. I have no memory of those other women. I have no memory of another life. I feel like Carly Williamson who just lost her daughter.”

  “I see,” he says, nodding.

  “It’s still so…so…fresh to me. That pain, that wound is still so raw it takes my breath away. A thousand times a day, I see those images—Carter Finch hovering over her; fear glistening in my little girl’s eyes. The color of her skin. The blood in her hair.” My voice drops low. Even to my ears it sounds far away. “I can’t forget them. I can’t escape them. They haunt me, asleep or awake. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t…I couldn’t…”

  I feel hysteria creeping up in me. Like an ink stain spreading across white paper, it seeps from the cold knot in my stomach, up into my chest, along my arms, across my face, exploding in my head.

  “Tell me about Noah,” the doctor asks, his voice enough to break the spell of madness the memories so easily weave over me.

  Noah.

  I sigh, calm chasing away the madness.

  “Noah’s wonderful. I don’t know what I’d have done without him.”

  “Just after the incident, did you tell him about your difficulties?”

  I frown. “No. Why would I? He was suffering, too. There was no need to burden him with my pain, too. My…issues.”

  “You don’t think he’d have been happy to help you bear that burden?”

  “Oh I know he would’ve. That’s the kind of man he is. But I wouldn’t ask it. I couldn’t ask it.”

  “And why is that? He’s your mate, the person you yourself said you trust above all others. Why couldn’t you ask it of him? Did you feel he wasn’t strong enough to carry your pain as well?”

  I shake my head again in frustration. He’s getting this all wrong. “No, it’s not that at all. Noah is the strongest person I know. And he loves me. He’d walk through fire for me. It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  My heart begins to pound, hard, as though I’ve been running for miles and miles. My lungs throb, like they do in the winter when the air is too cold to breathe. My hands tremble, so I lace my fingers together in my lap.

  “Carly?” he prompts.

  “I c-can’t. I…” I can’t catch my breath. “I could never put more on him, not when it’s my fault that our daughter was killed. He had to know that she might be alive if it weren’t for me. He has to hate me. He must. If I’d been stronger, I could’ve helped her. Other mothers do extraordinary things to help their children. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”

  Winding up, winding up, winding up, I feel a tempest of emotion swell in me, an uncontrollable tidal wave of guilt and anguish. A wall I can’t see past, water I can’t see through. Rising up to swallow me whole, then drag me down into oblivion.

  “You were bound , Carly. There was nothing you could do to help her. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “But if I’d been stronger. If I’d been stronger.”

  I close my eyes against the pain thumping through my head. I just want it to go away. All of it. The guilt, the memories, the pain—I just want it to end.

  So I go with the darkness.

  33

  CARLY

  Six months later

  I thought agreeing to hypnosis was the wise thing to do. I thought remembering everything would be helpful and restorative. Healing.

  Part of it is.

  Part of it’s not.

  At first I wanted Noah to be present, but Dr. Cane insisted that individual therapy was the most effective modality. Now I’m glad he insisted. Uncovering these things I’ve done, coming to terms with who I am as a whole, it’s terrifying.

  I am aware of the psychology of it all. I have a very good grasp of what happens to me and why. I also understand how it’s to be treated. It’s the knowledge, the guilt of what I’ve done to my family, to my friends, to others that’s proving to be the most difficult to deal with.

  I never argue about the treatment, never refuse to participate no matter how uncomfortable it is. The court ruled in my favor, citing Dr. Cane’s assessment of my dissociative identity disorder as reason for not pursuing charges. Together, they determined that I wasn’t responsible for or aware of my behavior at the time. Thankfully, blame was shifted to where it belongs.

  To Carter Finch.

  Legally, I’m absolved.

  Legally, I’m free.

  But I don’t feel absolved.

  And I don’t feel free.

  “You’re still having the nightmares directly following our sessions?” Dr. Cane asks.

  I nod, bringing myself back to the present and out of the warzone that is my own mind.

  “The hypnosis is working. That’s good.”

  I nod again.

  It doesn’t feel good.

  It feels like something is ripping me apart from the inside.

  Dr. Cane unfolds his long, willowy limbs from his chair and walks toward me, squatting in front of me until we are eye to eye.

  “They were criminals, Carly. If you’d been you, you’d have brought them to justice in a different way. But you weren’t.”

  He does that a lot—addresses things I’m thinking, like he can read my mind. It’s disconcerting.

  “I know. It just…”

  “It doesn’t help to make you feel better.”

  “No,” I agree sadly.

  The doctor reaches out and sets his hand on mine where they’re folded in my lap. “You’ll get through this. You’re stronger than you think.”

  I wish I could believe him.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  He smiles. “I am. I’ve been doing this for a long time. You’ll heal, Carly Williamson. You’ll heal and you’ll get your life back. It just takes time. Promise to give me that.”

  I nod a third time, adding a smile.

  I’ll give him time.

  I don’t have much choice. There’s only one real way out.

  And that’s through.

  * * *

  NOAH

  Dr. Cane warned me that things would li
kely get worse before they get better.

  He wasn’t exaggerating.

  Carly suffered after Savannah was killed. She mourned. Blamed herself. Got mad then got depressed. Did all the normal things one would expect a grieving mother to do.

  But she went a step further.

  Quite a few steps further, actually.

  Her personality split so that she could handle what she was feeling. And so that she could bring her daughter justice.

  Now she’s back. My wife is back. My Carly. And she’s suffering now more than ever. She has twice the guilt and still no justice. Or at least not what feels like justice to her. She’s trying to be okay with Carter Finch rotting in prison, but I don’t think she really is.

  But she’s trying.

  Maybe she’ll come around.

  * * *

  CARLY

  I can’t sleep. I understand that it’s an unfortunate side effect of what I’ve been through, but that doesn’t make it any easier to tolerate.

  I’m taking enough pills—of every variety—to fell a race horse, but nothing can quiet my mind. That’s why I’m up, silently pacing the hall, when I hear Noah talking on the phone.

  It’s nearly five a.m. I can’t help wondering who would call so early. But when I hear his end of the conversation, I stop wondering.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  A pause. Some rustling.

  I can imagine, just from his tone, that Noah is probably dragging his fingers through his hair. He does that when he’s upset or frustrated.

  “Have you talked to the director about this?”

  He must be speaking with his partner, Gregory.

  Another pause.

  “She can’t go see him. That could break her. She’s not ready. It’s too soon.”