The Perfect Wife(77)
You make a decision. “Does this counselor have a name?”
“Piers Boyd. Works out of his home near Half Moon Bay. I guess that’s why she chose him—he was close to their beach house.” Tanner shoots you a look. “You thinking of speaking to him?”
“It can’t hurt.”
“Well, if he says anything, be sure to share it with me. You bring me something about Abbie, I might be able to talk to Lisa Cullen. Get her to reconsider those proceedings.”
“I don’t need your protection,” you say loftily. “I’ve got Tim and his lawyer.”
But despite your defiant words, you know it isn’t true. As far as Tim’s concerned, you’re just an algorithm to find his wife. To his lawyer, you’re a bargaining chip in the settlement deal he’s probably hammering out right now. Having Detective Tanner on your side might turn out to be a lifesaver.
61
Piers Boyd’s address is on his website, an amateur-looking affair that reveals he’s a life coach and qualified Reiki healer as well as a licensed drug counselor. But not, it seems, a particularly busy one. You call ahead to make an appointment, and there doesn’t seem to be any difficulty fixing a time to see him today.
“What name?” he wants to know.
“Gail,” you say, after the briefest pause.
“How nice.” His voice is obscured briefly as he pulls the top off a pen with his teeth. “Short for Abigail, presumably?”
“Kind of.” That’s to say, Abbie is already taken, so you get the only bit of Abigail left over. Story of your life, you think ruefully.
Boyd lives on Balboa Boulevard, just across the street from the ocean. A wind chime tinkles gently by the gate, and down the side of the house you glimpse a couple of surfboards and a wet suit, still dripping onto the concrete. The man who opens the door is in his late forties, his hair tied up in a man-bun. His feet are bare and he’s wearing baggy Indian trousers—dhoti pants, an inner voice identifies.
“Gail?” he says, and then, “Oh. It’s you.” He seems both startled and a little uneasy, which is exactly what you intended.
“Yes. The cobot of the woman you counseled. Can I come in?”
“I guess.” He opens the door a little reluctantly.
“I read about you,” he says when you’re both seated in a small consultation room that was clearly once a garage. “I never thought I’d see you in my house, though.”
“That makes two of us.”
He regards you curiously. “Tell me…Do you think you have a soul?”
Now it’s your turn to be surprised. “Do you know, you’re the first person who’s asked me that.” You consider. “Yes, I think I probably do. At least, for now. Because after all, the whole point about a soul is that it’s something separate from the body. So not having a flesh-and-blood body can’t be a reason for not having one.”
“Why for now?”
“A court may order me destroyed.”
You explain about the legal proceedings, careful to frame them not as something Lisa requested to spare her family pain, but rather as the machinations of a big corporation eager to control and monetize Tim’s breakthrough.
“So that’s why I’m here,” you conclude. “If I can understand what prompted you to file that child protection report, I may be able to use it to stop myself getting wiped.”
Boyd fiddles nervously with his necklace. “I guess the question is, are you Abbie? If you’re not, I can’t tell you. But if you are, confidentiality isn’t an issue.”
“The lawyers would say I’m not,” you admit. “But then, the lawyers would say I don’t have a soul.”
“Yes.” He’s clearly torn. “It’s a tricky one.”
“I feel like I’m Abbie, though,” you lie. “I have Abbie’s thoughts, Abbie’s consciousness, Abbie’s memories. What is identity, if not that?”
He hesitates. “Why don’t you tell me what you need to know? And then I’ll tell you whether I can share it.”
* * *
—
Within ten minutes, you’ve got him talking. Boyd would never have felt comfortable speaking to the police—he’s way too alternative for that—but you’re a different matter.
“I’d been her counselor for a long time,” he explains. “It was a condition of her prenup that she have one. But gradually, we stopped talking about her so-called addiction and focused more on her other issues.”
“Why so-called?”
“Abbie was only ever a recreational abuser. Of course, there are plenty of people who do graduate from recreational use to full-blown addiction. So you can believe either that Tim did her a favor by nipping it in the bud…or that he massively overreacted in the first place.”
Interesting. “And what were these other issues you discussed?”
“Danny,” he answers quietly. “We talked about Danny a lot. Abbie was…Well, I’d say she was traumatized by what had happened to him. The outside world saw the beautiful, positive woman who just got on with it. The amazing mother who took everything in her stride. In this room, I saw a woman struggling to come to terms with heartbreak.”