Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set

by Ellery A Kane

  Maggie puts an arm around my shoulders—like me or not, her mothering comes hardwired—and I don’t have the energy to resist. I lean into her, suddenly tearful.

  “I made up one of the spare rooms for you, dear. You and Sammy.” She remembers his name.

  ****

  I let the shower run until it goes cold and the steam drips from the mirror in long streaks, distorting my reflection. It’s better that way. The bruises I can see are bad enough. Barefoot, I pad down the hallway, barely breathing, past the room Maggie made up for me, the room where I left Sammy curled like a snail at the foot of the bed. I carry my journal with me.

  The knob is ice, but it turns easily in my hand, as if it’s been anticipating my return. I open the door, and my knees buckle a little. I can almost smell nineteen-year-old Jared. Hints of the fancy Tom Ford cologne I teased him about and his soccer cleats, clogged by fresh-cut grass. I want to call out to him, as the moon makes strange shadows on the wall. A unicorn. A wolf. A witch’s hat. Shapes that change as I move, blocking the light.

  Unlike the rest of the house, Jared’s room is preserved exactly the way I recall it. A shrine to him, erected the day he matriculated to Stanford. I pull back the sheets and slip beneath them, cocooned in the past. We had sex in this room once—fast and sweaty and desperate—while his parents cooked dinner downstairs. I’d laid here, naked and content, giggling with my boyfriend about his stodgy mother, his trophies, his perfect life. And by default, my perfect life. I’d almost started to believe that kind of perfection could belong to me. The curse of Evil Evie is real. I’d said those words in this room, partly joking, in this bed, a lifetime ago. I touch my lips, half-expecting them to be wet with Jared’s kiss.

  But my mouth feels sore, raw. Danny. His shadowed face, angry and wanting, thrusts its way in, poisoning everything. Like mother, like daughter.

  I squirm under the covers, unable to escape myself, the thought that all this—me, nearly raped and murdered for God’s sake—means nothing. I still can’t remember that night. The faceless man is as faceless as ever.

  The sheets twist and ball in my hands, and I squeeze instead of screaming. It’s not like I misplaced my keys or forgot the lyrics to my favorite song. It’s an entire episode, the most important thing, and it’s a blank. Just like most of my journal. The one I’d bought years ago to record snippets of memory from that night, hoping someday the parts might form a whole. Even now, everything I know fills just one lined page. At the bottom, I add a few sentences.

  He touched my hand. I didn’t like it. He asked me a question—“Are you down with that?” And I wasn’t.

  Whatever it was, I definitely wasn’t down with it. The word makes me feel hollowed out, scooped clean like the inside of a melon.

  I don’t intend to, but I fall asleep right there, imagining Jared’s arms around me, him whispering in my ear. I don’t believe in curses. Then, even softer, and for the first time. Plus, I love you.

  How can one memory stay so close to the surface, shimmering as if I could touch it and another float away, away, away, like a birthday balloon lost in space?

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  Butch

  January 13, 2017

  Friday

  Old habits die hard, and I’m beginning to think some of mine are immortal. Like this one, for starters. I shower in three and a half minutes flat. Any longer than that in the big house, and one of three things could happen. Some prick CO shuts the water off midstream, leaving you sudsy and mad as a hornet. Or, the biggest, baddest SOB you slugged plots an ambush and pummels you back. And let me tell ya, getting hit in the face is even less fun when you’re stark naked and the guy’s got a shiv in his fist. Or, you drop the soap, so to speak, and become somebody’s girlfriend. Yep, three and a half minutes and I’m out, dripping water on the freezing-cold floor, and wondering how this day got so turned upside down.

  I’d booked it back to the halfway house thirty minutes ago—practically running—knowing I’d already missed my 1 a.m. curfew. Let’s just get this over with, I thought. Explain myself to Mr. Richert, the counselor on duty, shut my door, and get my bearings. But the spare bed in my room wasn’t empty anymore, and Richert was disappointed in me.

  “I’m telling you, sir, my PO will be here in the morning. He’ll verify the whole story.”

  Richert had nodded, as if he’d heard it all before. He had a war story too. He’d been drunk as a skunk when he stabbed a man in a bar fight. “Listen, son, I’ve been there. I’ve been exactly where you are. Keep that in mind. Imagine you fifteen years ago and black at that. The cops had me on my toes every day, watchin’ like hawks, just waiting for that one mess-up. That one reason. That’s all they need.”

  “But, sir, I was trying to—”

  “I know. I know. But now you’ve given them a reason to look closer, and that’s the last thing you want. Cause ain’t nobody perfect. And for the love of God, please call me Frank. Sir makes me feel like a goddamned correctional officer.” I’d nodded at him, chuckling. “Now, I’m gonna let you slide tonight on the curfew, but I need you to pee in the cup for me.”

  He’d handed over a small plastic container, pointed to the bathroom near the front door, and followed me inside. This is what it’s come to. I couldn’t even be trusted to pee on my own. But I supposed it was one rung up the dignity ladder from a daily strip search.

  Then, he’d said the worst part. “We assigned you a new roommate. He’s a lifer like you, fresh off the boat.”

  I look in the mirror, wipe the toothpaste from the corner of my mouth, still bristling at the thought of those words. I’m just one of the friggin’ club, the Lifers’ Club, bonded together by the sheer despair of all the years we wasted. I throw on the KISS T-shirt and sweats I bought at the secondhand store around the corner—where I bought most of my wardrobe—and slog back to the room I now share with Sebastian Delacourt. His fancy-schmancy name makes him sound like a real punk. He probably got busted for conspiracy or some other hands-off, thinking-man type crime. But who am I to judge? A Butch Calder should be beer-bellied with a mullet and a Confederate flag hanging from the back of his pickup. I know my mom had a thing for Paul Newman, but I still wonder what came over her, giving me the name of an outlaw. Good one, Mom. Good one.

  Sebastian is asleep. Or playing possum. And I’m grateful. I give him a quick once-over. Hair, black as a crow’s feather, sticks out haphazard from beneath the covers. A pair of glasses rests on the nightstand, alongside a worn copy of Lord of the Flies. Seriously? It’s not the sort of book I’d want my PO to catch me reading, even if it is a classic.

  I grab the jacket I’d shrugged off earlier, lie down, and turn away from him. Even if he wakes up, he won’t be able to see over the broad wall of my back. I reach into the inner pocket and pull out the one thing the officers missed when they patted me down within an inch of my life. Like I was the bad guy. But maybe I am. Because I don’t know why I took it. And doing something without knowing why is a very bad thing. Years upon years of psych evals for the parole board—“But why did you do it, Mr. Calder? Why did you kill her? Why? Why? Why?”—drilled that into my thick skull.

  The license feels like a hot coal in my hands, and I toss it on the bed before it burns me, brands me a liar and a criminal. It tells me nothing really. Less than nothing, but it seems essential. I know her. Knew her. Evelyn Allcott—Maddox now, apparently—but they called her Evie. Evil Evie. Kids sucked, even back then, before the invention of the internet. Information highway, my ass. More like Pandora’s box, if you ask me. Which nobody did, of course, because I was busy rotting away in a six-by-eight box of my own.

  I scour her details like there’s a test at the end of this. DOB 5/13/81. HGT 5’6.” WGT 130 lb. She’s a donor. Hair, black. Eyes, green. Green like the first patch of grass I walked on barefoot. That green. She looks younger in her picture, different than she di
d today, and way different than the last time I saw her. What did you expect, Butchy? A twelve-year-old girl? She’s a woman. A beautiful woman. A damaged woman, more than likely. And seeing her tonight—I still can hardly believe it—it’s like I paid some kind of debt to the universe. A whopping cosmic IOU. Of course, it doesn’t work like that, and I know it. I owe more than I can ever repay and not just to Evie. I feel sick again, so I slip the license under my mattress before I upchuck.

  What was I thinking taking it anyway? That’s the point, man. You weren’t thinking. I’d seen it there half-submerged in a puddle near that lowlife’s grubby paw, and I’d snatched it up lickety-split like Young Butch would’ve done. The same kind of act-first-think-later nonsense that landed me in prison. I stare at the ceiling, listening to the steady patter of the rain, and wait for my stomach to settle. But I know it’s going to be a while, because I’ve got the answer to the why and I don’t like it. It’s spinning and spinning in my head like a hamster on a wheel. I want to see her again. I need to. And this license is my ticket to the show.

  ****

  I’m eighteen again. I know it by the way she looks at me—part confusion, part fear, part jealousy—like I’m a hot rod racing down the freeway, blue lights in the rearview. She wishes she could be so alive. I know it, too, by my hands. They’re strong and smooth and unsullied, not yet marked by sun or scar. Her neck is lovely, delicate as a stem under my fingers. And right now, it’s a stem I want to snap. To pulverize. I’m not angry. No. I’m pure heat. Rage personified. And it builds and builds and builds. My thumbs root into the small hollow above her clavicle, and I squeeze. It always ends the same. Like sex. What little I know of it anyway. The mindless rush gives way to sweet release. And it’s just the two of us forever and ever.

  I sit up straight, gasping for air. Sweet Jesus. It’s back. The dream I’d had every night for three years straight. The dream that followed me like a beggar until I banished it by doing the one thing I swore I’d never do. Admit guilt. The dream that’s not a dream. I wipe the sweat from my face, but it does no good. My T-shirt is soaked all the way through, and my throat feels raw like I was screaming bloody murder. Great.

  “I’m sorry, man,” I say, searching in the dark for my new roomie. But his bed is empty. Like he was never there to begin with.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  Evie

  January 14, 2017

  Saturday

  I open my eyes to a thin stream of sunlight. Where am I? I blink against the bright ray piercing through a space in the blinds. I feel raw and exposed—a peeled grape plopped in a vat of acid. I’ve never been a drinker, but I imagine this feels a lot like a hangover. One pure moment of white noise and nothingness before last night comes spewing back. All of it. And with it, literal pain. Fingertip bruises on my upper arms. The bandaged gash. A dull ache in my lower back. And shame corroding in the back of my throat. Shame is a soul-eater. That’s what Carl Jung said, sort of. And that’s what I told George in group when he said the world would be better off without a sick perv like him.

  I know where I am now. Who I am. Jared’s perfect smile mocks me from his senior photo, and I toss off the covers, anxious to get out before Maggie catches me in here. She’d never told me his room was off-limits, but the shut door always felt like a warning. I crack it open and peer into the hallway, checking before I scamper back to the guest room where Sammy is—big surprise—still sleeping. I don’t bother with a shower or breakfast. Just run my hands through my hair and throw on jeans and a sweater. It’s still early, and I want to get back there before the rest of the world wakes up. I tell myself I need to find my license, that it’s probably hidden under someone else’s trash in the alley, but really I want to see it in the light of day. That place where karma wrapped itself around my throat and almost ended me. I feel drawn to it, almost harried, as I fish around in my purse in search of my keys and come up empty-handed.

  “Looking for something?” Maggie stands in the kitchen doorway. She’s effortlessly casual. Or casually effortless. Either way, her high-end workout gear costs more than the lone suit hanging in my closet at home. I know, because she’d left the tags on the leggings she gave me two Christmases ago. “For that price, they should do the workout for me,” I’d told Jared, wanting to see him laugh. We were days from the end then.

  “My keys. I swore I dropped them in here.” I’m scavenging again, tossing my purse one item at a time. “But I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. Have you seen—”

  “Evelyn.” I stop and look up at her. “I took the keys. For safekeeping. I thought it was best.”

  “Safekeeping? What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I don’t think it’s wise for you to be driving around on your own right now in your state of mind.”

  “And what state is that exactly?” My voice trembles a little, confirming her diagnosis, but I keep my eyes on hers.

  Maggie clears her throat with purpose. As if the answer is obvious. “Whatever state is required for one to accept a ride from a complete stranger. As a mental health professional, you would probably know better than I do.”

  It’s none of your business, Maggie. I’m not your daughter, Maggie. Bite me, Maggie. “I understand your concern, but really, I’m fine. Okay?”

  Leaving me unanswered, she steps into the kitchen, opens the fridge, and pours herself a small glass of green liquid. “Wheatgrass,” she says. “Would you like some?” I shake my head as she drinks it in one gulp. I watch the hollow of her throat expand and contract, the skin there sagging and spotted. Her neck is the only part of her that shows her age.

  “What would Jared say?” she asks. His name, spoken aloud again, pins my lungs shut. “Would he agree you’re just fine?”

  “Jared trusted me. He would believe me if I told him so.”

  “Like the time you told him your mother was a roadie for a rock band and that was the reason she was never around to meet him?”

  “I can’t even believe you remember that. I was nineteen, Maggie. I was just a kid. And I was desperately trying not to scare your son away. Or you and Bill, for that matter. Besides, it all came out eventually.” Meaning Maggie and Bill had dug and dug until they’d unearthed my mother’s bones. And mine by association. Most of them anyway. Some bones were buried so deep even I couldn’t find them.

  There’s pity in Maggie’s sigh, but not just that. Frustration. Resignation too. “Where are you driving off to, anyway? Let me come with you.”

  “Actually, I need to go to the police station. So…I guess you’re tagging along? To downtown Oakland? I can show you the spot of the drive-by where that kid got shot last week.”

  With that, I know I’ve won, but I try not to gloat. She drops the keys on the counter and flees the kitchen. Then, only then, I smile.

  ****

  After descending the narrow, snaking roads of the Hills, the drive is mindless, and I don’t let myself think. I blast the radio to deaden the sound of my own voice in my head. Still, I can hear it nagging. What were you thinking hitchhiking? You almost got yourself killed, moron. And for what? You’re exactly where you started. Worse actually. What would Jared say to that? Funny, the voice in my head sounds a lot like Maggie.

  I take the exit and plot the same route as Danny, even matching his hairpin turn into the alley. A split second later and I would’ve driven right past. I park alongside one of the buildings and trudge toward the dumpster. The infamous, yellowed mattress, disemboweled and bleeding foam. A discarded bicycle tire. A child’s ball, deflated and cracked. A half-eaten hamburger. A book, splayed open and waterlogged. In the stark daylight, there’s something forlorn and unceremonious about it all. These things had been brought here to die. Like me.

  I find the spot—as best I can tell anyway—where Danny yanked me down by my hair. It hurts back there, I realize, rubbing the aching place at the base of my head. Kneeling
down, I run my hands over the concrete. It’s cool and damp and grimy, and it smells sickeningly sweet like gasoline and rot and wild cherry Slurpee. When I look down, my hands aren’t my own. They belong to thirteen-year-old Evie. A friendship bracelet loops the wrist, chipped pink polish colors the little nails, but I take a breath and they’re gone again, sunk back into the past, that murky swamp from which they came.

  “Dr. Maddox?” I look up at him, Sebastian squinting into the sun. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were following me.” He purses his lips and laughs from his throat.

  I jump to my feet, brushing my hands off on my jeans. “Sebastian. Hi.” Hi? I sound like I’m still thirteen. And I’m fidgeting too, shifting my weight onto one leg, then the other.

  “What are you doing here? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  What am I doing here? I’m a complete blank. My neck feels hot, feverish, and it must be scarlet red, because he’s staring. “Um…” License. License, Evie. That’s what you’re doing here. “I…” But don’t tell him that. “I’m…” I used to be better at this.

  “Is it to do with the police?”

  My chest tightens. There’s no air getting through. How could he possibly know about Danny? About last night? “What?” I manage. “Police?”

  “Are you alright, Doc? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He reaches out to me, but I step back. And his eyes meet the ground, a smirk passing across his face as fast and fleeting as a shadow. So fast, I wonder if I’d imagined it. Maybe I’m seeing things.

  “I’m fine. Just stood up too quickly is all. Now what were you saying?”

  “The police. I thought you knew. They’re outside your office building. There’s yellow tape everywhere.” The sky starts spinning again. A blue-and-white kaleidoscope. I try to keep up with it, but I can’t, so I look away at the flat gray of the nearest building instead. “I think somebody got…hurt.”