Confidential(61)

“Are you ever disgusted by me?” I asked quietly. I could get the words out only because I didn’t have to look at his face; I stared, up close, at the tufted buttons of the pillow.

“Never. What made you say that?”

“Sometimes when I think back to what I’ve done, I disgust myself.”

“After all our sessions, you still feel that way?”

I rolled back toward him. “Don’t take it personally, okay? You’re a great therapist. It’s just me.”

“‘It’s not you, it’s me’?” He was trying to smile, but I could tell he was a little hurt.

“I don’t think it so often anymore. Mostly, I feel good about myself. Like with all the writing you encouraged me to do. Haven’t you seen the change in me lately? Don’t you feel it?”

It was strange to see that I could bring out his insecurity. He’d told me that I was starting to own my power, and he was right, I was. I had some of what I craved: mutuality. I didn’t only depend on him to feel better; he also depended on me.

He smiled and kissed me. We didn’t normally kiss much, and he’d never initiated it before. He must have been feeling truly close to me. Or he was grateful for the ego stroke I’d just given him. They could be one and the same.

“I love you,” I said. I didn’t mean to; it just slipped out.

He brushed my hair back from my face, his gaze steady. He couldn’t say he loved me, too, but he must.

Then again, if he could make me come five times a night, why couldn’t he say what he really felt?

“Are you still with her?” I asked. “That woman I heard you arguing with in the waiting room?” I should have asked sooner (I’d wondered, of course), but I’d been too afraid. I thought that mentioning his real life would give him pause, that he’d reconsider our unorthodox treatment. Or had he done this “treatment” with other women, too? It would devastate me to think so.

But if that other woman was the impediment to his telling me how he really felt, then I needed to know that.

“That’s over,” he told me.

Then am I the only one? I was dying to know, but I wasn’t strong enough to handle the answer, not yet.





PRESENT DAY





CHAPTER 48

DETECTIVE GREGORY PLATH

“You’re saying that Flora’s cooperating?” Greer asks.

“Yes.”

“Don’t you mean deflecting?”

She probably was, but so was Greer. So was Lucinda. It would be refreshing to sit in a room with a woman who was being straight with me. In a very strange way, it made me miss my ex-wife. She’s a good woman. I screwed that up, because back then, I was screwed up myself. That divorce was all on me.

But I need to pay attention to the woman in front of me.

“The subpoenas have been quashed,” I say. “The judge decided to uphold patients’ rights.” That fucker. He doesn’t care about justice; he cares about letting me know he’s the one with the power and the long memory. “That means I’m stuck getting all my information from you. You and others. I need to ask you, have you told me everything you know about Flora?”

“I’m pretty sure she stalked him.”

“You forgot to mention that last time?”

“I wasn’t sure if that was her I saw outside his building one time. There was this woman wearing a scarf on her head, like a disguise, and she was staring right at me. She had daggers in her eyes. It took me a while to piece it together and realize that the first time she approached me and introduced herself, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen her. She’d been stalking him for a while.”

“Or she was stalking you.”

Greer stares at me, and her whole cool-as-a-cucumber routine falls away. She looks genuinely scared. “What I know is, Flora has a lot of fury.”

“I don’t think she’s the only one.”

“You think I do?”

“Still waters run deep.”

“What did Flora tell you about me?” Greer asks, trying to put that fear back under wraps. “Because she doesn’t know anything. I didn’t tell her anything, because I didn’t trust her.”

“But what did Michael Baylor tell her?”

Her mouth falls open, like it never occurred to her that the doctor could have betrayed her. He was fucking two other women, one current patient and one former, and it never occurred to her?

“I thought you were smarter than that, Greer,” I say.

She stands up. “If you want to question me again, it’ll be with an attorney present.”

“If that’s how you want to play this, that’s fine by me.”

I’m pretty sure I’ve got my murderer. But I can’t charge her based on intuition. I don’t have records, and I don’t have physical evidence. Speaking of the latter, my gut tells me that Greer is the only one of these three who could cover up a crime so completely. Lucinda’s an obvious mess, but Flora’s a mess, too, just better disguised. They would have left hair fibers and fingerprints all over that body. They’re shedding little bits of themselves all the time; they can’t be contained. But Greer—she’s hiding something, for sure. Whatever the motivation, it’s got to be big. He crossed her.