Confidential(87)

“Someone’s feisty today.” Christine’s lip curled in displeasure. “Have you forgotten what was said in the conversation where I spared your job?”

“I’m trying to forget.”

“Why’s that?”

Everyone has his or her boiling point, and I was fast approaching mine. “Because I’m not going to be blackmailed. I don’t need any job that badly.”

Her mouth actually fell open. She was speechless. I refused to drop my gaze in submission. It was another of those moments, the ones Dr. Baylor encouraged, when I acutely felt my power. Like when I’d confronted Flora that time. But this one had nothing to do with him.

Or did it? The fury he engendered was coursing through my veins. It was like a second heartbeat.

“You’re fired,” she finally said.

I stood up so we were nose to nose. Something skittered across her face. She was afraid of me.

I grabbed my bag off the floor, put it over my shoulder, and pushed past her. Better to say nothing. Not because I’d regret it but because anything I came up with wouldn’t be nearly as strong as the power of my silence. She wasn’t going to get any more apologies out of me, or a goodbye, and whatever came next for me wouldn’t require her recommendation.

I was sure everyone was staring from their desks, but I was looking ahead, at the straight shot to the door. The fresh air was a chilled and welcome blast. It smelled like brunch. It also smelled like freedom.

Was this the first time I’d literally had nothing left to lose?

I was almost smiling. Then I walked up the street to the vegan breakfast joint and chowed down on faux eggs and what their menu termed fakon (fake bacon), and it might have been the best meat I’d ever eaten. I felt inside my bag, to the very bottom, where my fingers closed around a business card. I placed it on the table beside my plate.

Somebody needed to pay. Not Christine—she’d be paid back just by having to exist inside her own body. Being her was its own punishment. But Michael had his alter ego, Dr. Baylor. He got to walk around pretending that he was helping people. He got to feel good about himself. He’d painted Adam as a villain, and then he took advantage of me himself, calling it an alternative treatment. He literally got off on my pain. Adam never did that.

I looked down at Flora’s card. A fellow victim. A fellow vigilante. There was strength in numbers. It would be harder to ignore multiple women coming forward.

But not impossible. He was the one who’d written about all my sessions. Who knew how his records made me sound? I didn’t know what was wrong with Flora, what her diagnosis was. I wasn’t even sure what mine was, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t play well in front of a board or a tribunal or whatever. Even with Flora beside me, I’d still have to testify. I’d probably have to talk about Adam and relive everything in front of an audience that may be more sympathetic to their colleague than they would be to me. Poor Dr. Baylor, with his stable of the unstable. They might think that we’d formed a mob and turned on him, when all he’d wanted was to help us.

He could make me look crazy. It wouldn’t be that hard to do.

And after all that, what would be the worst that would happen to him? He’d lose his license. Or more likely, he wouldn’t. It would all have been for nothing.

I’d need something more fail-safe. Since I didn’t have a job anymore, I could devote all my time and energy to figuring out just what that should be.

I polished off my almond milk horchata (also delicious). Was this place really that on point, or was it just me? I never knew that having nothing to lose could feel so exquisite.





CHAPTER 72





FLORA


“I just wish you’d been here, zvezda moya.” Mama’s voice was a sigh. I’d never heard her sound so small before. And she hadn’t called me by that Russian diminutive in years. My star, she was saying. When had I stopped being her star? Was it gradual or all at once? But I knew that her saying it then had particular meaning. She was lost; she needed a light to guide her. “You and Katya, you always had such a special bond.”

Mama thought that I had the power to save Kate; she didn’t know that I was the one who’d pushed her over the edge, with a huge assist from Michael.

Kate still hadn’t woken up. The doctors held out little hope that she ever would.

She was lying there because of me. Because I believed Michael instead of my own flesh and blood. And now my family was devastated, and my frail mother was having to take care of her broken sister, and why? Because of what I’d done to Kate, all for that monster. Because of that monster.

I hadn’t slept or showered in two days; I was still in the same hoodie and yoga pants that were now food encrusted, though I couldn’t even remember having eaten. I’d called out of work—wait, had I called out of work, or had I just failed to show up? I was ignoring Jeanie’s repeated texts saying she was worried about me, including the pointed one about whether I’d had another “accident.” She’d put the quotation marks around it, even.

I replayed my confrontation with Michael over and over again, his asking me to leave him and his precious clients alone. Saying that he’d made mistakes. Mistakes! As if I’d cease and desist because of all the clients he was supposedly helping. Helping himself to them was more like it. The good-looking ones, the weak ones, like Lucy. I used to be weak for him, too. Greer said she hadn’t slept with him when we spoke on the street, but she called me yesterday and we were going to meet up soon. Then I’d find out what he’d really done and what she was really made of.