I walked out of Dr. Carson Gates’s Junction Boulevard office with my brain reduced to mush. I’d gone in expecting to be picked apart, but I was still disheartened when, after listening attentively to my story and promising not to give up on me, Dr. Gates said I was in for a lifetime of pain. I remember thinking, Great, this pretty police psychologist’s going to turn the ordeal I barely survived into a case study. Before I even got back to the subway I was convinced he’d already decided which psychology journal was most likely to give him the cover.
I was all set to call it quits and fight through that pain on my own—go through the motions, my ass—when Carson did something surprising. After our first meeting he called me to apologize. It was too much too fast, he conceded. Of course I felt overwhelmed.
As we talked, I realized it wasn’t his diagnosis that left me feeling beaten down, but the implication that it wouldn’t go away. I needed to work, couldn’t imagine a life without the force once my leave of absence came to an end. Dr. Gates said the damage was done. My trauma was too great. I could no longer separate good from evil, not even when evil stared me in the face. He recommended a desk job, and tasks that were “professionally gratifying, but far removed from violence.” It was the last thing I wanted to hear. So I refused to hear it.
But I didn’t quit. Week after week I begrudgingly continued those mandatory visits, and every time I argued my case. I could get over the ordeal, I told him. I’d find a way to move on. When he saw how determined I was, he made me a promise. He’d work with me until I was ready to go back, no matter how long it took.
I showed up for our sessions with new energy and resolve. For his part, Carson went out of his way to schedule extra meetings and check in with me via phone calls and texts in between. Before long we were seeing each other outside of the office—a coffee on a Saturday morning, a drink when he finished work. In all the ways I felt weak, Carson was strong. He insisted the horrible things I’d done for Bram were forgivable.
It felt like ages before our relationship progressed beyond a friendship. The more time I spent with Carson, the more convinced I became that only a psychologist trained in trauma therapy for police officers would ever be able to understand the person I’d become. The day he told me he could no longer be my therapist because our connection felt too personal, I knew there was no going back. It didn’t seem to matter that dating him was unethical and unwise, not to mention a criminal offense. When I stumbled out of that basement with blood on my hands, I was utterly alone. Until I found Carson.
“Detective Merchant?”
“Jesus.” I brought my bandaged hand to my heart. Norton had a way of sneaking up on me that made me want to jump out of my skin. He was standing in the hall. Over his shoulder I saw Ned crouched next to Abella, murmuring gently in her ear. Watching them together yanked at my gut. Three friends with a lifetime ahead of them, now down to two.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Norton said, “but I was wondering if you noticed the time.”
Putting away my phone, I said, “Got someplace you need to be?”
He flushed, all the way from his neck to the tips of his ears. “’Course not, I just meant it’s almost cocktail hour. After that there’ll be dinner and dessert—”
“I’m familiar with how meals work.” I was tetchy. Carson’s messages had gotten to me.
“I have to get cooking, yeah?” Norton said. “We’re a lot of people. It’s gonna take time.”
Once again this man was asking if he could disappear into the kitchen. Out of sight. At that point I’d questioned nearly everyone, and all had their share of problems. Abella was unemployed, weeks away from being deported. Flynn’s lover was cheating on him. Bebe and Ned were engaged in an affair that, when exposed, would wreak havoc on their lives. Jade was losing Jasper to a fiancée. What about Philip Norton? He’d been working for these people for twenty years. It seemed unlikely their profound dysfunction hadn’t worn off on him.
“Hang back a minute,” I said.
“Is there something you need?” His gaze fell to the spilled coffee on the library rug and he set his jaw. “I should clean that up before—”
“Sure, sure. I’ve just got a couple more questions first.”
“Oh?”
I motioned for him to sit down. “You said you only work here during the summer?”
“During the season,” he corrected. “April through October. I’ll be shuttering the house for the winter next week.”
“And you come whether Mrs. Sinclair visits or not?”
“There’s a lot to be done on an island.”
“Where do you spend the rest of the year?”
“A-Bay.” He smiled. “Same as you.”
“Getting some well-earned rest, I imagine. You went to a lot of trouble this weekend. Must be exhausting,” I said.
“It’s a special occasion. Jasper never brought a lady out here to meet Cam—Mrs. Sinclair—before.”
It was the second time I’d caught him calling Camilla by her first name. I remembered Abella watching them in the parlor. I needed to talk to her again, not just to hear what she wanted to tell me but to ask what she knew about Norton and Camilla’s friendship. “I guess that means it’s serious,” I said. “Can’t see him bringing a girl all the way out here otherwise.”
“Mrs. Sinclair hopes so. She’d like to see him married soon.”
“Because she’s ill.”
Norton’s eyes widened. “Who told you?”
“Bebe. Cancer, huh?”
He dropped his gaze and nodded.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “She talks about you like you’re family. Got any family of your own around here?”
“Not locally.”
“Never been married?”
“Nope.”
“No kids?”
Norton shifted his weight around in his seat. “I didn’t say that.”
“I saw a picture in your bedroom. You and a little boy.”
He nodded. “That’s my son. His mama and I were real young when he was born. He doesn’t live around here. Never did.”
“Ah.” It was a tale of woe I’d heard a million times before, and it instantly changed the way I felt about Philip Norton. I pictured him in his teens, telling his baby mama he couldn’t raise a kid because he was still a kid himself. “This place must feel like home to you, then.”
“Two decades is a long time.” The whites of his eyes were alarmingly bright surrounded by all that pink skin. “I’ve seen some things over these years, you know?”