When she looked back, Cullen lay on the ground. For a moment, as silly as it was, Clare thought he’d been struck by lightning. He curled in on himself like a snail. All the men scattered. But one.
And time did its trick. The one where seconds unfolded at warp speed like a runaway film projector, yet somehow Clare plodded in slow motion. It was familiar to her, this trick. Mr. Taylor paper-weighted on top of her, pressing her lungs flat like airless balloons. He fumbled with the button of his jeans. His labored breaths ticked by for an eternity. And then, it was over. Or was it? Whatever part of her was still blameless, he destroyed in thirty seconds max. She’d crossed over some invisible line, though she didn’t know it then.
Clare fumbled for her alarm. The one she forgot. The one she refused. The hood fell back from her face, and she tasted rain and the rusty nail of her own fear. Her hands were wet and useless. When she looked at them, they were red.
november 8, 1996
I told you not to come in today.” Fitzpatrick loomed in the doorway, shaking his finger at her. Clare was surprised when he noticed her sitting in her office, staring out the window. She felt like a ghost. Invisible, but tethered. To this place. To her memories. The cord to the past, forged in fire, unseverable.
“It wouldn’t do me any good to stay home. I’d just keep thinking about it anyway. How is he?”
“Cutthroat? That guy’s got nine lives. Lucky for him, it was raining. The shiv slipped out of Rivas’ hand before he could do any real damage. The question is, how are you, Clare? Briggs said you were pretty shaken up.”
She hadn’t slept. Not even a catnap. She spent the night on a frantic search for the missing five minutes. The time she lost between Cullen’s bank shot and a seat in the Lieutenant’s office, looking at her hands. Her thin fingers, waterlogged and wrinkled. She even thought of calling Neal, but she knew what he’d say. You disassociated? I’m coming over. And then he’d hold her, which would lead to sex. Not because she wanted him, but because Neal was sturdy and reliable. The carnal equivalent of an oak tree. Which would only lead to Neal more in love with her than ever, a punishment he didn’t deserve.
“It’s not every day you see your client get stabbed.” Her canned laughter was unconvincing even to Fitzpatrick, as obtuse as he was.
“Do you mind if I ask a personal question?” It’s never stopped you before. “Are you in therapy?” Clare blinked back tears. “This job can do a number on you if you let it.”
“Are you in therapy?” A spark of rage warmed her. She felt only half-dead now.
Fitzpatrick returned her glare with a sympathetic smile. “You sound like my ex-wife.”
“I’ve had therapy, okay. I know my issues. I’m fine.” She was desperate for him to leave. Instead, he came toward her, leaning on the desk next to her.
“I’m not the enemy here. Whatever it is, you can tell me. You can trust me. I’m your supervisor, remember?”
“What do you think I’m hiding from you?”
He shrugged. “Do you know where I worked before San Quentin? CCWF. Central California Women’s Prison.”
“You think I’m a criminal?” She gripped tight to the arms of her chair and waited for him to tell her he knew. It was written all over her. Red hands, as red as any guilty man in this joint.
“Just the opposite, Clare. I think you’re a victim. You’ve been a victim. Of something. Am I right?”
Victim. She despised that word. “You’re wrong.”
****
It was nearly 5 o’clock. She’d waited all day to take this walk, not wanting to seem too eager. But she was eager. Her skin buzzed with a current of anticipation. Though she knew better, yesterday’s events seemed to line up like stars in the night sky. An undeniable constellation of synchronicity. Carl Jung called them meaningful coincidences. Drawn to those words, she’d folded down the corner of that page in her Theory of Psychology book the first time she read it. Clare felt she was being punished and saved all at once.
The officer pointed her down the infirmary hallway. The last cell on the left. Through the large windows, she saw him first, propped in a nondescript hospital bed, flipping through a travel magazine. Here, Cullen looked less like Cutthroat and more like Clive. Especially when he noticed her, smiled, and gave a boyish wave. She slipped inside and pulled up a chair alongside him.
“Have you ever been to Muir Woods, Dr. Keely?” The world started spinning, and for the second time since they’d met, she felt convinced he knew. Impossible, illogical, and completely insane, but somehow, he knew. Then she saw it—the page in the magazine with the redwoods stretching to the sky. “If I ever get out of here, this is where I’m going. I spent some time up there as a kid. I always wanted a cabin in the woods.”
“Sounds lovely,” she said, feeling herself smile a little too wide. Relief made her giddy.
“Yeah, it is. Too bad the only way I’ll ever see the outside of these walls is in a body bag.” He tossed the magazine aside, assessing her instead.
Giddiness made her flirty. And bold. “There’s always … what do they call it? Jackrabbit parole?” She’d learned the term from Dumas, and it stuck with her. Did you know jackrabbits can run up to thirty miles per hour and jump twenty feet? he’d asked when she gave him a quizzical look. I reckon if you’re trying to break out of this joint, it’d be good to be a jackrabbit.
Clare was grateful when Cullen smiled. He knew she was kidding. “How are you?” she asked.
“I’ve been better.” He pointed to his side, where Clare caught the outline of a thick bandage. “Doc said I’m lucky. His best shot went right through the muscle. I’ll be good as new in a few weeks. But one of the officers told me you saw the whole thing go down. Is that true?”
Clare nodded, and he sighed. It wasn’t a usual sound he made, and it surprised her. “Sergeant Briggs told you?”
“Yeah. I think he’s got a little thing for you.” Cullen winced as he laughed, clutching at his midsection, and she felt a surge of emotion that nearly bowled her over.
“This is my fault. You did this for me, snitching on Ramirez. And now, you’re … ” This time Clare touched him first because she wanted to. Her fingers grazed his just under the stiff white sheet, in case someone was watching, and her body thrummed. His hand closed around hers for the briefest moment—a heartbeat—before he let go.
“It was worth it. And anyway, I can’t help but feel like it’s karma. Me being on the wrong end of a knife.” His mouth turned grim. “I know I didn’t say it at our last session—you probably think I’m a monster—but I do have remorse for what happened to Emily.” Later on, when she’d come back to her senses, she would analyze that sentence. What happened to Emily, not what I did to her. The minimization it implied.
But something else consumed her now. Set free from a vile place inside her, it left no room for thought. It demanded a life of its own. A shadow life that could only be understood by an equal darkness. She didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t need to. His earnest eyes plumbed the deepest parts of her and witnessed her silent confession. I killed my baby.
****
Clare sat at the bar, Lizzie twirling on the stool next to her. A stranger winked at her from across the room, and she giggled. She hadn’t been this drunk since Neal had proposed on that wine-tasting trip to Napa. Slow down, Clare. You’re a lightweight. He was right, but every glass of red had made the whole marriage thing easier to stomach, until Dr. Clare Barrington seemed like a person she could be.
But loose-lipped, she got reckless. Secrets fell from their nests and broke open. Luckily, she’d passed out on the sofa before she could confess everything to Neal. Not tonight. She delivered her story to Lizzie effortlessly even after two shots of Patrón: I ran into Rodney Taylor. Yes, that Mr. Taylor. I told him to go fuck himself. It felt good. Really good. Cullen? He’s in the infirmary. He has the flu.
“TGIF,” Lizzie said, clinking shot number three. “You’ve earned it.”
“You have no idea.” Pain before pleasure, it burned on the way down.
chapter
thirteen
done
Snip positioned himself alongside the window, widening the edge of the mini blinds with his finger. Since I hung up on my mom minutes ago, he stayed stuck in that spot. But he managed plenty of glaring at Levi. “You better hope the cops don’t show up here.”
“They won’t.”
“Well, if they do, you better hope they arrest you. Or shoot you. Or something.”
“And why is that?” Levi asked, poking his head out from behind the bedroom partition. In one hand, he gripped an open duffel bag.
“Because you’re gonna have to deal with me if they don’t.”
Levi emerged with the duffel, now closed, his eyes hidden beneath the brim of an Oakland A’s baseball cap. “You do remember I’ve got five inches, thirty pounds, and a lot of years on you, right?”
“That don’t scare me. I beat up your daddy one time, and he was a giant.” Snip winked at me, and I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. Levi waved me toward the door, half-amused, half-hurried.
“I highly doubt that,” he said.
“Alright, you got me. But I was faster than him. God rest his soul.” My gaze darted from Levi to Snip and back again.
“Your dad is … dead?” That word made my chest ache. On top of feeling like an absolute jerk for how snotty I’d been earlier about my own father. Levi knew what it was like to lose someone. Still, his withholding was deliberate. Deliberate and infuriating.
“That’s why he’s here. Right, Levi?” Snip indicted with his scathing tone, but there was pity in his eyes. “Even the Lord can’t help a man with a vendetta. He’s got two one-way tickets to hell.”
“C’mon, Sam. We have to go.” With a quick wave to Snip over my shoulder, I pushed past Levi without a word. I was so over being lied to.
****
Levi followed me out the door and down the stairs. His silence tromped the whole way too, wedged between us like a stranger in a crowd. At the entrance to the street, he stopped. “This is where I leave you.”
“What? You’re not going with me?” The duffel bag made sense now. I felt stupid. Levi had been wrong. I was naïve.
“I can’t. They’ll arrest me.”
“No, they won’t. We’ll tell them what happened. You didn’t hurt anybody.” That was debatable. Skinny was probably still wriggling out of those zip ties. I hoped so anyway. But I couldn’t face my mother alone. And even though I felt tempted to pummel him, the thought of walking away from Levi made my stomach knot. “Well, you didn’t hurt anybody who didn’t deserve it. Whatever you did was for a good reason.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Sam. I left with my service weapon without telling anybody. And we both know the cops aren’t going to trust me to bring you in. They’ll probably be here any minute.”
“Then what?” I pointed at the bag slung over his shoulder. “Where are you going? To settle your vendetta? Whatever that means.”
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
“Better for who?” I didn’t even bother to wait for him to dodge the question. “You came looking for me, remember? I didn’t ask for your help.”
He nodded. “That was a mistake. Like Snip said, I shouldn’t have involved you in my … ” I raised my eyebrows, anticipating another vague explanation. “ … mess.” Bingo. He turned away and took one step up the stairs before I pulled him back, my hand cuffed around his wrist. He didn’t resist, and I didn’t want to let go because the parts of me touching him felt strangely alive.
“Yesterday, I was just a normal girl on a normal trip with her normal best friend. Ever since I met you on that plane, my life has been completely abnormal. Coincidence?”
“You weren’t a normal girl. You just didn’t know it. I’m not the only one who lied to you. You should ask your mom why your life flipped upside down.”
“Clare Keely?”
“Yes, Clare effing Keely. At least you believe me now.” He peeled my fingers back from his wrist one by one and dropped my hand by my side.
“Maybe if you started with the truth, people would believe you more. Didn’t you take an oath or something?”
“Or something.” His sheepish grin charmed a smile from me. “I like you, Sam.”
“I like you too.” And then his brow furrowed. Grim Levi returned.
“That’s why the best thing for you is to forget you ever met me.”
The sting of those words and his indifferent delivery forced me toward the door. Through it, I saw Chinatown the way Ginny intended. Teeming with tourists, red lanterns, and dim sum. Eyes trained on the street, like a steely defender, I entered the dead zone. That’s what Coach Crowley called the place where you stopped being a girl and started being a baller. I answered Levi from there.
“Forget you? Done.”
****
I pushed to the edge of the crowd and headed for Dragon Gate. There was no sign of the cops, and I was grateful Snip insisted I take some money from his cookie jar. Even he knew Levi wasn’t coming—of course he did—and I would need cab fare. Yep, I was the only sucker here. But in the dead zone, there’s no whining. And certainly no wallowing.
“Excuse me.” A small voice beckoned from a nearby doorway. A boy with short black hair was calling to me, pointing at me. An older version, matching black hair, summoned me with his finger. I spun around, taking inventory. No EME. No badges. No Levi. Just four chestnut-colored eyes watching as I approached. They seemed harmless.
“Are you Samantha?” the older boy asked. My skin went cold, a clammy reminder. Even in the dead zone, I was very much alive. I managed a soft mmhmm. He extended his hand to pass me a folding fan like the ones on the rack in the China Bazaar.
“What is this?”
“For you.”
“For me?”
“For you, Samantha.” I studied the fan for a moment. It was the color of paper left too long in the sun. “Open,” the small boy instructed. The fan unfurled in my fingers, revealing its design. Two white birds walking in the water. And a message, scrawled in crude handwriting.
Careful, Clare. I know where all your secrets are buried.
“Put your hands up! Get down on the ground!” The fan fell to the sidewalk, trampled by running feet, but I hardly noticed in the commotion. The two boys were pinned like beetles beneath the thick knees of men in FBI vests.
“Samantha, are you okay? Have you been hurt?” A woman I’d never met comforted me. Or tried to. The badge affixed to her lapel read Gretchen McKinnon. I wasn’t sure how to answer so I shook my head. “Where is Officer Beckett?” she asked me.
“I don’t know.” But that was a lie. Because over her shoulder, striding long and tall and away from me, was an Oakland A’s baseball cap.
chapter
fourteen
the color of innocence
Tell me again what happened yesterday at the airport. Start at the beginning, when you and Ginny got off the plane.” Though she looked nothing like him, of course, with her delicate nose and cinnamon hair sprinkled with gray, Special Agent McKinnon reminded me of Mr. Willett in Calculus. I always knew when I had the wrong answer because he kept asking the same flipping question. Just like her. This was round three of the what-happened-yesterday game.
I groaned.
“I think Samantha needs a break.” I was grateful for my mother’s suggestion, even though the only fate worse than Agent McKinnon’s relentless inquisition was facing Clare Keely alone.
“Five minutes. And stay close. Time is of the essence here. We’ve got a girl missing and a predator roaming our streets, as you well know, Ms. Bronwyn. Any small detail could be critical to determining Cutthroat’s
whereabouts.”
I guess she’s still going by Bronwyn. I side-eyed my mother looking for a sign, but she kept her face of stone. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Fine. But I wouldn’t recommend—” My mother’s chair scraped the floor as she stood interrupting Agent McKinnon mid-sentence, the screeee an intentional affront. I’d never seen her like this. Brazen.
“Five minutes. No longer.” McKinnon barked her conditions without lifting her eyes. They were buried in the thick file on her lap. The one I wanted to snatch from her hands. In it, I imagined were all the things I didn’t know but desperately wanted to—about my mother, Levi. And the way she guarded it, probably even myself.
I followed my mother to the elevator, an army of questions in position for a full assault. But she shushed me. “Not here.” We rode in silence to the first floor, fast walked through the tomb-like lobby, and pushed through the glass doors into the white-hot pavement of summer.
“Samantha! Can you tell us anything about Clive Cullen? Did you see him? Did he speak to you?”
“Ms. Bronwyn, what does it feel like to have your little girl safe?”
“Have you had any communication from Ginny Dalton?”
“Samantha, did Levi Beckett kidnap you? Is he working with Cullen? Has he been arrested?”
Dodging the barrage of questions—sharp and pointed as spears—I backpedaled right into Agent McKinnon, nearly knocking us both to the ground. Stronger than she looked, she steadied me with her hands and glared at my mother with something worse than disapproval. “As I was saying, I wouldn’t recommend leaving the building, Ms. Bronwyn. It doesn’t appear your listening skills have improved in the last twenty years.” She straightened her jacket, then addressed the hungry cavemen outfitted with their words as weapons. “No questions at this time.” She opened the door for us, a gesture more demanding than polite. “You can take your break right here in the lobby. I’ll come and get you and your daughter when it’s time.”
Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set Page 12
