I nod at him, savoring the salt of my sarcasm. “Thanks, Trey. I appreciate your stopping by. It’s always a pleasure to see you.” He snaps his head back like I slapped him. Blinks those empty eyes and smiles so wide I wonder if his jaw has come unhinged. If he’ll swallow me yet.
I feel Butch behind me, the presence of him. I wish he would touch me. I need someone to tether me to the present. Because I don’t want to remember anymore. But I do.
I’m floating through Willow Court, small and unseen—Cheesy’s ghost. I must be dead. Cassie’s dead too. And Trey is here. He’s a hungry cat, biding his time. Nipping at my tail as I go. Through 136 and past the swing set to 201. “There.” I point. And Trey’s whiskers start twitching. He makes paw prints on the counter, stretches his long body up to the hole in the ceiling. Grins. “Atta-girl.”
The Buick whines and grumbles to a start. Once he’s made it to the edge of the lot, Trey rolls down the window and sticks his hand out, middle finger raised. I hear Butch’s laugh, lemon-bitter. And when I turn to look at him, the weight of it all—my mother and Trey and Cassie and my own bag of secrets, strapped to my back—pushes me forward and into his chest.
It’s like I’ve split into two Evies.
One is twelve, going on thirteen—I’m freaking hugging Butch Calder!
The other, thirty-six and widowed. He’ll never be Jared. No one will. And he’s an ex-con. Who killed Gwen.
Butch stiffens, his own arms straight-jacketed to his sides, freezing the way Sammy does when I pick him up. Embarrassed, I start to pull away. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t even think. I—”
He takes a big breath, like he’s preparing for something life changing. War. Surgery. A pilgrimage across the desert. Then, his arms move. Cranking to life like a tin man, he pulls me closer.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his chin moving against the top of my head.
“Trey’s lying.” I don’t say the other. That Trey’s also telling the truth. About me and the ring and the money. Or the other thing I’m thinking. That it’s been two years since I’ve felt a man’s arms around me.
He lets go first, avoiding my eyes, but my skin keeps buzzing. “Well, yeah. Obviously. That’s what he does, right? Classic Trey.”
“No. I mean, he’s definitely lying about Cassie. He didn’t forget her name. He’s got it tattooed on his arm.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Butch
January 18, 2017
Wednesday
For the first time in years, I’ve got a goddamned KISS song in my head. My insulation’s gone, girl you make me overload…shock me. And that’s how I feel. Stripped bare, right down to the nerve endings. Shocked.
Act normal, Butchy. So I put my eyes anywhere but on Evie. Because I want more. I’m desperate to touch her again. And I know why. Skin hunger. It’s what happens when they lock you in a box with other men. When nobody touches you and you touch nobody, you turn into one of Harlow’s rhesus monkeys. That, and it’s Evie, and she’s beautiful.
“What happened to Cassie?” It’s the only logical question, even though I’m scared of the answer. Because I had a hand in it. I know I did.
Evie frowns, as if she’s measuring the words, snipping them down to something bearable. Just the way I’ve done—I killed a girl—and I want to take back the question. “You don’t have to talk about it if you—”
“Cassie’s…dead. She died.” Like she’s testing it out. Like she’s never said it before. “Cassie was a real person, right? You remember her?”
It’s one hell of a strange question, but I can tell she means it. That she needs an answer. “Of course. I saw her a few times. With Trey.” And guilt burns through me like a fever. “How did she die?”
Evie looks up at her office and starts to speak, but the staccato honk of a car horn silences us both. 23A, Melanie’s Massage wiggles her fingers through her open window and pulls alongside us. “Good morning, you two.” Then, to me. “I don’t think we’ve officially met. Though you did do a bang-up job on my clogged sink.”
She’s about as subtle as a hammer, clocking me over the head with a coy smile and the most come-hither rendition of “Melanie” I’ve ever heard. Flattering, I guess. But I’m still not used to flirting. Or hugging. Obviously. I keep waiting for somebody to tell me I’m breaking the rules. Being overfamiliar. A fancy prison word for crossing the line. So, I keep it simple, professional.
“I’m Butch. Nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine.” Her eyes flit between me and Evie, playful and daring. “Oh. Am I interrupting something?”
Yes? No? A total oaf, I watch Evie’s face for clues. She glowers, then offers a tight-lipped smile. “Don’t you open at 8:30 today, Mel?”
Melanie sticks out her tongue at Evie. But there’s something serious and surly in her pretend pout.
“Hmph. I guess Dr. Maddox wants you all to herself.” She winks at me, her car inching forward. “Can’t say I blame her. Everybody’s got a thing for bad boys.”
I stare straight ahead and pretend not to hear that part. I should’ve known there would be talk. But it’s not real anyway, the bad-boy thing. It’s just a thin coat of varnish. A throwaway line for us screw-ups to make our sins sound good. She doesn’t know me—I killed a girl—and if she did, she wouldn’t be batting her goddamned eyelashes.
When she stops again, I plan to level her with the truth. But, then, she leans her head out the window and calls to Evie. “Hey, did you ever track down your hooker friend?”
****
I trail Evie up the stairs to her office. She hasn’t uttered a single word since the parking lot. Since she’d silenced Melanie with a clipped no and shot me a look that urged me to follow her.
For all the ways I’d been left in the dust, prison had earned me a PhD in body language. I knew when shit was about to hit the fan in the chow hall by the way the Mexican Mafia closed ranks, circling up like dogs in a pack. Knew which COs were cowboys and which were old-timers by the width of their swagger. Knew the Tier 1 porter was getting it on with the free staff librarian by the way he hummed Marvin Gaye while he shined the floors.
And right now, I know Evie is about to lose it. Completely. She’s advancing up the steps two at a time, a slight tremor in her hands. I get it—maybe better than anybody—and I want to protect her. But I can’t. What protection is there from the past? It’s not a scar like you think it is. Like the one on my neck, smooth and raised and white—a wound in negative. Not for people like me and Evie. For us, the past is a scab. Ugly, tender, and brittle. Easily picked away. And it still bleeds. Boy, does it ever.
At the door, Evie pauses and looks at me. “You don’t have to get involved in this…” But I’m already in up to my neck. Not just involved. Complicit. “…in my mess.”
I shrug at her. “I know that. But I want to.” I have to.
She unlocks the door and lets us both into the waiting room. Shutting it behind her, she drops into the first chair like a sack of sand. Her face is pinched, pained. But she doesn’t cry. Not yet.
I sit too, nearest the small window, leaving one chair between us. My fists clench in my lap, so I won’t be tempted to think with the wrong head again. “You were a good friend to me, Evie. Way back when. Besides, your mess can’t be any messier than mine.”
She winds a finger through her hair, the black strands coiling like a snake. She pulls the thick strand tighter and tighter until I’m sure she’s about to yank it right out. But then, she lets go, and it falls to her shoulder, slightly curled. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
Her eyes settle on the window. It frames the edge of the park across the street. And I know if I moved closer to it, pressed my nose to the pane, I could see the tree. That tree.
“I haven’t talked about this. Ever. With anybody.”
She’s not looking at me, but I nod anyway, showing her I’m not afraid. Showing myself too. Even though I am. Terrified.
“That night…May 13, 1994. I can’t remember a lot of it. Some parts not at all. But Cassie and I were supposed to find Trey. That’s why I called you. We needed a ride. But, you…I guess you were…”
Too damn busy choking the life from somebody. But not just somebody. Gwen. “I’m sorry.” I’ve said it so many times to so many people. But it always feels the same on my tongue. Heavy, bitter, insufficient.
“So we hitchhiked. Somehow, we ended up at that tree. And I climbed up in it.”
I can picture her, crouched in the crook of the branches, lost as a fledgling. Dread owns me then. It cuffs me. Tosses me in a cage. Shuts off the lights. And all I can do is sit, a prisoner to the dark, and listen as my own past comes for me. Ready to slit my throat.
“That’s where Cassie died. At the tree. He was on top of her. He killed her. I saw it happen.”
“Who? Who did?” My voice sounds strange. Young. Like I’m seven again. Like I’m seven and guilty with that stolen Matchbox Corvette in my pocket.
“I…it’s crazy, but I…I can’t picture his face. No matter how hard I try.”
“And then what?” I spew it out, hot and insistent. “Did you see anybody else?” I have to know. What does she remember?
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I can’t be certain. The whole night is a blank. Trey was telling the truth about one thing though. I remember it. I took him to Willow Court and showed him where the money was. And my dad’s ring. Why would I do that? Next thing I know, I woke up on a bus to LA.”
“Are you sure she’s dead?” Please, God, don’t let her be dead. That night had played again and again and again like a horror film I couldn’t turn off, couldn’t look away from. But in twenty-three years, I’d never considered that. That Cassie had died. Now, it seemed so obvious. So possible. So likely.
“Yes. I’m sure.” But she’s asking, not telling.
“How do you know?”
“I just do, okay? The guy—whoever he was—was choking her, and she stopped moving. And…I just know. I’ve been living with this for twenty-three years. Don’t you think I’ve looked for her? Tried to figure it out? She’s nowhere. It’s like she never existed at all.”
“Well, she existed alright. You said it yourself—Trey has her goddamned name tattooed on his arm.” She flinches at the curse word, and I mutter an apology. “When do you think he got it?”
She shrugs, shakes her head, hopeless. Like the answer is unknowable. Or she doesn’t want to know. I can’t tell which.
“What about the cops?” I ask.
Evie walls herself off from me, turns her whole body toward the door. Still, I can hear in her voice that she’s crying. “What about them?” That she’s ashamed.
“You didn’t tell them?” I already know she didn’t. And I already know why. Because there are two reasons people keep quiet. Why I’d kept quiet. Fear and shame. And I’m guessing Evie’s two for two.
She looks at me over her shoulder, sweeps her wet cheeks with the back of her hand. “I didn’t tell anybody, Butch. Not even my own husband.”
What she doesn’t say, that’s she’s telling me now—me, of all the people in this world—scares the hell out of me. “Well, you should tell them about today. About Trey.”
The doorknob turns—the real world intruding—and I want to shut it. Lock it. Shelter us both. But Evie stands up, straightens herself. Dabs her eyes and forces a smile. She’s good at it too. Practiced. So am I.
“Come in, guys,” she says. “Group starts in five minutes.”
The men file into the waiting room past Evie, and I slip out. Her arm brushes mine as I go, and the past throbs in my chest, gaping like an open wound.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
Evie
January 18, 2017
Wednesday
There’s one empty seat in the ring of folding chairs, and the rest of the men regard it with watchful eyes. The same way I look at the tree. Vigilant and wary, like it’s a rabid animal that could lunge at any minute, sink teeth into flesh and infect us all.
I clear my throat, and they look at me, deferent. To them, I’m still Dr. Evelyn Maddox. I’m still in control. But inside, I’m wriggly as a snake that’s shed its skin. Cassie’s dead. She died. I’d said the words out loud, cast them off of me, set them free into a vast universe where they’d tumble and float with all the other confessions and secrets and black-hearted prayers. I’d shed a skin—brand-new Evie—but this one feels just as rotten. Because I didn’t tell anybody until now. Because it was my fault we’d been there in the first place, hitching a ride. Because I’d wanted revenge—not for Cassie, but for myself. I’d wanted Trey dead.
“So where’s New Guy?” Vince asks, pointing to the chair. “I figured he wouldn’t last long. What’d he do? Get caught at Victoria’s Secret with panties in his pocket?”
Tony chuckles. “I heard they snatched him up last night for a curfew violation.”
“I knew it, man. I figured that guy had a jammer with his hoity-toity Not everybody breaks the rules like you, Vince.”
George sighs and shakes his head. “It’s really none of our business.” I can always count on him to restore order. “But…he didn’t have anything to do with that girl’s murder did he, Doc?” Or not.
I fiddle with the binder on my lap. Today’s lesson—Responsible Sexual Behavior—tucked inside under the fax I’d pulled off the machine. It had come through at exactly 8:59 a.m. After the men had barged in and Calder had left and I’d fished Macaroni’s card out of my pocket, looking hard at the numbers, as if I’d expected them to dial themselves. The fax had arrived with a beep and whir, the paper warm to the touch but cold somehow, like the unrelenting glare of a spotlight. Because sex offenders aren’t allowed to keep secrets. Not in here. Not from me. And it strikes me as more than a little ironic. Turning over the stones of everyone else’s secrets while my own had stayed hidden under the biggest rock I could find. Until today. Until Calder.
FROM: DIVISION OF ADULT PAROLE OPERATIONS, HIGH-RISK SEX OFFENDER UNIT
TO: EVELYN MADDOX, PHD
FYI: Sebastian Delacourt was arrested last night at New Hope Halfway House for curfew violation, suspicion of tampering with a GPS device, and possession of a victim-related photograph. He may be a late arrival to group. Call me to discuss.
“Sebastian might not be coming to group today. The rest of you’ll have to ask him yourself when—”
Vince’s guffaw cuts me off. He makes a show of slipping out a silver money clip and peeling off a crisp bill. “I’ve got a hundo that says he’s already on the bus back to the big house on a murder beef.”
“I’ll take that bet.” First comes the voice from behind the cracked door. And the rest of Sebastian follows—scarecrow-thin frame, hunched shoulders, tired eyes, a shock of black hair that hasn’t been combed. And most noticeable, his hands. They dangle awkwardly at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them. The book he’d carried Monday is gone.
He aims a weak smile at me and fills the empty seat. The men won’t say it—Tony and George twitter uncomfortably—but his arrival is a relief. Too often they don’t come back. I’m relieved too, more than I’d care to admit, and selfishly so. Because as strange as he was, Sebastian had known about the hanging tree, and I’d been hoping our individual session might trigger another memory. Maybe the memory. The faceless man, faceless no longer.
“Where were you?” George is pure grandpa again. More concerned than angry. But Sebastian stares at Vince. And Vince stares back, cocking his head in expectation.
“Well? George asked you a question, didn’t he?” He’s used to getting what he wants. Even the courts had given him a break. Three hundred and twenty-two images of nake
d teen girls, and he’d wriggled away with probation and house arrest.
“Well, what? I’m here, aren’t I? Fork it over, Moneybags.”
I frown at both of them. “Put the money away, guys.”
With a satisfied smile, Vince slides the bill back under the clip and returns it to his pocket. “Sorry. Doctor’s orders,” he says.
“Sebastian, would you like to start our check in?”
All eyes on him now, he shrugs. “I’m guessing I don’t really have a choice. So here goes. I’m um…” He consults the oversized feelings chart on the wall. “That one. Disappointed. Disappointed in myself. I’m late to group because I left the house after curfew last night with one of my housemates, and we got caught.”
I don’t push him further. I just wait. And the sharks begin to circle.
“What were you doing out that late?” Tony asks.
“Nothing really. Just clearing our heads after the police showed up at the house asking us to snitch about that murder.”
“I told you so,” Vince said. “Where do they look first?” He spins his finger round and round. “Right here. We’re goddamned pariahs. I’m surprised they haven’t started tattooing our foreheads or some shit. That way everybody can see us coming.”
“And they passed out fliers with her picture too. Anyway, after that Butch and I—” Sebastian lifts his eyes right to mine, and I nearly gasp. “We took off.” He sits back in his chair, arms folded, looking…smug?
Yes.
No.
Maybe.
Before I can decide, he gestures to Tony. “Your turn.”
****
It’s just us now, one-on-one. And I still can’t tell if Sebastian’s half smile is tired or mocking. I notice the twist at the corner of his mouth, the way his head dips slightly, but I don’t trust my instincts anymore. “Tell me about the picture,” I say to him. And Butch. I need to know about Butch. “The one they found in your book.” And Butch.
Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set Page 57
