“You probably would.”
Forcing a smile, Ava opened the door. And for a moment, she forgot to breathe. Mrs. McCorkle, however, kept right on puffing.
“Oh my goodness—a celebrity! I loved your show, Doctor Culpepper. A real shame they canceled it.”
Ian nodded but said nothing. He stared at Ava, fixing her to the spot. His eyes, the same impossible blue. The color of sea glass and just as sharp. She’d forgotten how it felt to be held in his gaze.
Mrs. McCorkle disappeared. At least that’s how it seemed. Ava never saw her leave. But suddenly, they were alone.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He smiled faintly. “Here, as in this office? Or here, as in Carmel?”
“Uh, both, I guess.”
“In Carmel, house hunting. Kate and I stayed at Casa Palmero in the fall, and she fell in love with this place. I don’t need to tell you how enchanting it is. We’re looking at a few spots near Pebble Beach. One spot, actually. On Cortez Road. We put in an offer.”
Ava reeled, her legs heavy as tree trunks, her head light as a cloud. “You’re moving to Carmel?”
She heard herself speak, as if from a great height. Like her head really had floated away, bobbing around in the sky like that heart-shaped balloon she’d freed years ago.
“You seem upset, Aves. I thought you’d be—”
“You thought I’d be what? Happy for you? This is my town. My home. How dare you. And don’t call me Aves.” He flinched at every word she spit at him. Then he sighed.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. But Kate’s got her heart set on it. And it’s a great place to raise a family. I promise we’ll stay out of your way.”
“Is that why you came to my office? To warn me? To ask my permission?”
He shrugged, tugging at a loose thread on the hem of his Polo. And it reminded her of another Valentine’s Day, their very first. When she’d still needed evidence of his imperfections. “I’m not exactly sure. I just wanted to see you. It’s been a rough year.”
“And you needed to come on Valentine’s Day?”
“I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, remember? I guess you could say I’m anti-Valentine’s.” Though he said it with a straight face, the word practically winked at her.
“Yeah, well, I thought maybe Kate turned you into a believer.”
He threw his head back and laughed, cheeks flushing. And God, the sound of it still made her shiver. “You look beautiful, Doctor Lawson. You’ve gained weight.”
“You really know how to sell a compliment.”
“You know what I mean. You got too skinny in LA.” And before she could say it—I was stressed, Ian—he closed the distance between them and touched her hip. “You lost these.”
That touch, those three fingers, maybe four, released her. She looked over her shoulder at the clock in her office. 11:13. Because she needed to remember the exact time the flipping coin—love to hate to love to hate to love to hate—landed, and the remnants of Ian slipped from her soul like a demon spirit, leaving her absolutely unpossessed.
“So, is Kate here with you?” she asked, lobbing the question, easy peasy. She stepped away from him, immune, and his hand fell to his side. It had been a while, but she still knew how to play. How to draw him to the net. Some things you never forget.
“Not this trip,” he volleyed back.
“When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
He left the ball bouncing on her side of the court. And she returned it with one swift stroke down the line.
“Want to meet up for a drink tonight at the worst bar in town?”
“As long as it’s the worst.”
“It’s as anti-Valentine’s as it gets,” she said.
“Then count me in.”
Ava beamed at him, victorious. Game, set, match.
****
Ava sat on a bar stool at The Mongoose Tavern, legs crossed. A black stiletto dangling from her tapping foot. She’d taken up her position hours ago, sipping club soda, popping peanuts, and fending off the occasional drunken grope. The time had nearly come. And she could barely stand the buildup. The wait. This is better than sex, she thought.
“Ava Lawson?”
Heart racing, she spun toward the voice and nailed the man in the knee with the point of her shoe. He stepped back, beer sloshing over the side of his glass.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” Breathe, Ava. It’s not Ian. “Luke, right?”
He grimaced. Or smiled. She wasn’t sure which. But either way, she liked it more than she would’ve guessed.
“I will not be defeated by a mere high heel,” he said. “But it was a good first effort.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Luke snagged the stool next to hers without asking, and she liked that too. “So, how long has it been?”
“High school, I think. I mean, I was in high school, and you were—” Ava chuckled as she held her hand out. Palm down, at the height of a small boy.
“I grew up.”
She tried not to look at his arm—a man’s arm—planted on the bar. The fingers that drummed against the counter. The muscled thigh a mere fingertip from her own.
“But actually, I think I saw you once a couple of years ago. Picking up your mom after work at The Seventeenth Mile. I waved at you.”
Ava shrugged, noncommittal. Though she remembered it well.
“And I haven’t seen you since. Which is crazy because Mom told me your office is right down the street from the shop. And I know your mom used to stop in sometimes before . . . I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Was there a question there, Luke?” She eyed her father’s watch, her stomach in knots. Ian would be arriving soon. Perhaps he’d even be early. Anxious to see her, to touch her again.
“Are you meeting someone?”
“Is that your question?” And right then, when he laughed—warm and goofy—she wished she’d been meeting him tonight.
“Do I only get one?”
Over Luke’s shoulder, Ava peered through the panoramic window to the bar across the street. Under the neon glow of the Mickey’s sign, she spotted Ian. A crisp, light-blue button-down, dark denim. Hair she could run her fingers through again. And lips that could be hers. He paused in front of the door and disappeared inside.
“I think one is generous. You are a cop, so you should be good at questions. Or at getting answers, anyway.”
“You’re absolutely right,” he said. He sipped his beer, and Ava smiled, enjoying the banter between them. A lifetime had passed since she’d flirted—way back in the Age of Ian—and on any other night, it would’ve felt awkward. Or sad. But her plan had blown the dust off, cut the cord that tethered her to the past. And there she was, shiny and buoyant.
Ava’s phone buzzed in her lap, and she tapped out a quick text in reply, shrugging at Luke apologetically.
He shook his head at her, with a chiding tsk, tsk. “Well, I could ask who you’re texting but that would be too obvious. Or if you’re single, but that sounds like a line. Plus, Mom already told me you are. Or if I can buy you a drink, but you’re clearly not drinking. Or why you’re here all alone on Valentine’s Day. But I think I’ll go with simple and straightforward.”
“Simple and straightforward. I like it.” Because what could be more unlike Ian?
“Do you want to go out on a date with me?”
Across the street, Ian pushed through Mickey’s double doors, his face red with anger. He spun around on the sidewalk, searching in the dark. Until he stopped, stock still. Like he’d seen the ghost of Valentine’s past.
Ava stood up. “Will you ask me again tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Anything that starts today is doomed.”
&n
bsp; Luke started to laugh until he saw it in her eyes. That she meant it. “Tomorrow it is then.”
“Forget you ever saw me.”
“I will,” he said, with a squeeze of his hand on her arm that promised otherwise.
Ava slunk out the back of The Mongoose and into the alley, where she’d left her car. She sat inside, letting the windows steam. And trying to imagine it. The moment Ian had walked into Mickey’s and scanned the room for her long, dark hair. For the smile she’d always saved for him. The moment he’d texted Where are you, Aves? And later, when he’d realized she didn’t want him anymore. She wondered if he’d ever felt anything like it before, the searing burn of unrequited desire. The cold sweat of a gotcha gut punch. The moment he’d read her reply:
I’m with Wally’s ghost. Julie’s too. We’re watching you. And laughing.
****
Ava lay in bed, studying a picture of Luke on the tiny screen of her cell phone—grinning, sitting on a small metal platform at the center of a dunking booth, a hand-painted sign above his head. DUNK A COP FOR A GOOD CAUSE.
My favorite picture, she’d decided, the moment she’d seen it on the Carmel Police Department (CPD) Facebook page. Until she’d found the after. Luke half-submerged in the tank, face dripping. The CPD T-shirt he wore clinging to his chest in a way that made Ava blush. Her new favorite.
The phone vibrated in her hand, and she jolted up, rigid and wide-eyed. Her heartbeat thudding like a hammer in her ears.
She’d expected a response, of course. Ian always had to have the last word. Even if it wasn’t a word at all but a long scratch etched in the flesh of a Prius, a wicked swerve off the highway that left a track of black rubber, a fire that burned as bright as the LA sun.
Or a text with a link to her own website: www.askdoctorava.com.
She clicked it, and watched helplessly as the icon swirled. A wheel of fortune, rigged to land on bad luck.
When the page loaded, Ava gaped at it, numb with shock. At her defiled tagline, inviting prospective patients to bang Dr. Ava. At the girl posed seductively in the mirror, one hand covering her bare breasts, the other below her waist.
She’d sucked in a breath or two before she’d realized that girl was her. From eight years ago. The first night she’d spent in Ian’s house.
“Give me something to dream about later,” Ian had said, both of them fresh out of the shower and so in love it hurt.
She’d struck the sexiest pose she could manage, laughing as he snapped her photo in the mirror on his cell phone. Then he’d come up behind her and started kissing her neck—and they’d ended up back in bed where they’d began.
“Delete it,” she’d told him later.
“Already taken care of,” he’d said.
****
Rage could be useful. More than anything, it gave Ava purpose. It made her act.
And in the span of ten minutes, she’d created a strategy of war.
Opened a new email account: [email protected].
Located Ricky Sherman’s contact information.
Composed a message and sent it.
To: Ricky Sherman
From: Avenging Angel
Date: February 14, 2017 11:58 PM PST
Subject: Love Doctored
Dear Ricky,
You don’t know me, and I prefer it that way. Consider me your avenging angel. An angel who’s been sent to make things right, to even the score. Ian Culpepper is a fraud, a sham. A trickster. And I want the world to know it. If you’re interested in revenge, I’ll be here.
Ready and waiting,
AA
But rage could fool you too. It could make you think you weren’t afraid. That your wounds had scabbed over. It could make you feel alive, all the while killing you from within.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Saturday Afternoon
February 25, 2018
The Pearl Casino and Hotel rises up from the shore of Monterey Bay near Moss Landing. It’s completely out of place there. A shimmering mirage. A gaudy jewel against the dark backdrop of the sea.
And inside, the illusion deepens. A world outside of time where the seasons never change. Glaringly bright, windowless, and teeming with the clamor of false hope. The jubilant ringing of bells. The hollow clink of coins against metal. The spin of the roulette wheel like the revolving chamber of a gun.
I understand how David was drawn here again and again, a moth to the flame. There’s a rhythm to the place, a pulse pounding beneath it like a heartbeat. Make the bet, roll the dice, win or lose, and do it again.
A relentless throbbing pushes me forward toward the maze of tables and slots and into the Saturday afternoon crowd, until I’m immersed. Until the way out seems to disappear, like a magic door from a fairytale, swallowed by the wall as soon as I’d passed through it. And I imagine David under the spell of this place, tricked into believing what he had to gain added up to more than what he’d already lost. What he still had to lose.
I stand near a row of slots, watching for Cleo. And trying to quell my unease by counting the quarters Big Marge feeds into the machine. That’s the name embroidered on the back of her silk jacket. She pulls the lever and leans in each time waiting to discern her luck, but so far her wooden face gives nothing away. She just moves to the rhythm. Insert quarter, pull lever, stare at screen. Repeat.
“Are you winning?” I ask, suddenly eager for a distraction.
She scowls at me, pulls the handle, and scrutinizes her fate. Three more times. Before she stands and faces me. “Not anymore. Now that you’ve gone and jinxed me.”
I’d like to lecture Marge about probability and random-number generation. But on her feet, she is big, thick, and towering as redwood. So I stay quiet and make way for her as she stalks away toward the bar, muttering under her breath. I take the seat she left vacant and warm, checking the time on my father’s watch.
Cleo is late. She may not show at all. But she’d sent a text to the burner a while ago, telling me to meet her here, Room 222, at 5 p.m. And I’d done what she’d asked, replied with a few desperate lines. Things only her therapist would know. So she could be certain it came from me. That I mean her no harm. Other than the harm I’d already done, of course.
I won’t allow myself to consider the alternative. That Cleo is unable to get here. Or anywhere at all. That’s she lying like Kate’s twin on a dingy carpet somewhere, blood pooling beneath her from a gash on her neck. Draining from her until she’s empty, soulless. Just skin and muscle and bone. Hair the color of fire. With my knife discarded at her side.
“Hey, lady, are you playing? You can’t just sit here. People are waiting.” Big Marge is back, and she’s brought a friend. His bald head rises to her shoulder, shining under the bright lights. He stands slightly behind, puffing his chest, as she speaks for the both of them.
“Oh, sorry.” I’m halfway up when I reconsider. “I’ll play a round.”
Marge scoffs. Like I’m a total pretender. And I’m glad I said it though I don’t know why I did. Maybe I like the way it feels to nettle her, the way Ian would’ve done. Or maybe I’m not so different than David, succumbing to the lure, the titillating sorcery of easy money. But when I drop the quarter through the slot and wrap my hand around the level, I realize. I’m looking for a sign. Random-number generator or not.
One hard pull, and we’re all captive, as the machine decides. Lucky or unlucky?
A bright electronic trill emits from the machine, the lights around its face flashing. And I sit, rapt, as the payout total climbs to $1,000.
“Are you kidding me?” Marge says, her legs, wide, like fence posts on either side of me. “I’ve been warming it up all night. And you stole my seat.”
“Yeah. Technically, that money belongs to Marge.”
>
Near the entrance, the magical doors appear again, offering a passing glimpse at the world beyond. The sky, a fading watercolor blue. And I watch as Cleo walks through them, her dark glasses fixed on the ground in front of her. As if every step must be carefully measured.
“Keep it,” I say, tracking Cleo with my eyes. She approaches the front desk, speaks to the clerk, and retrieves the key. “Consider it your lucky day.”
Marge’s exaggerated whooping, like the cry of an exotic bird, carries over the din of the casino. I can still hear it, even as the elevator doors close behind me.
****
The door to 222 looms at the end of a long hallway, with its gilded numbers and its tiny peephole regarding me with suspicion. I conjure Cleo on tiptoe behind it, peering through with one amber eye. Fear bubbling in her gut, just like in mine.
Before I raise my hand to knock, it opens slightly, confirming my premonition. And then a bit wider, enough to see half of her, the other half concealed behind the solid wood. I step into the room, a suite with a sitting area and a separate bedroom. The curtains are pulled back revealing a large window. And through it, the ocean, the waves near the shore catching the last of the afternoon sunlight.
On the table, a bottle of champagne chills on ice. And two tall glasses stand empty, guarding a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries. Though one has already been pilfered.
“It’s my usual room,” Cleo explains, sinking her teeth into its red flesh. “They always set it up the same. And I haven’t told them yet.”
“Told them?”
She sits on the edge of the bed, cross-legged like we’re back in session, looking up at me. And I see what men must like about her. The way she appears innocent and guilty at the same time. “I got the axe. Pathetic, I know. Who gets fired from a job as an escort?”
She points a finger at herself, the beginnings of a sad smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “This girl, apparently. I suppose it’s for the best though.”
“Why were you fired? The whole tabloid scandal?” Because of me and the pictures I took. Sister to my fear, the Hydra writhes in my stomach, in hearty approval of my self-reproach.
Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set Page 94
