Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91504 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91504 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
When I walk into the office, Sarah’s face falls.
“Oh, Mer. You don’t look good.”
“I haven’t slept so well.”
“Or at all…” She shakes her head and comes around her desk. “Are you sure this is a good idea? Maybe you should wait until you hear from the detective before trying to come back to work.”
I force a smile. “I’m fine. Really. It’ll be good to be busy today.”
Sarah doesn’t even get a chance to call me out on the lie. She doesn’t have to. I prove I’m full of crap when the office door opens and I jump.
My heart is in my throat, and it’s only Mrs. Radcliff. My first patient. I nod good morning and slink into my office, where I find a large cup of chamomile tea and a bagel waiting on my desk. Thank the Lord for Sarah. She also stalls my first appointment a few minutes, which I’m certain is to give me a chance to collect myself, which I badly need.
My first session starts off rocky. I have a hard time focusing at first, but eventually I ease into it and start to settle. By the afternoon, I’m feeling a bit like myself again. A healthy lunch helped. I stop jumping every time my phone buzzes. When my last session of the day is finished, I close the door behind the patient and Sarah smiles.
“You did it.”
“Thanks to you. I wouldn’t have been able to muddle through this last week without you, Sarah.”
She waves me off. “Eh. That’s not true. You’re tough as nails, lady.”
I motion to the door. “Why don’t you get out of here? I think I’m going to stay for a while and write up my patient notes.”
“No, it’s fine. I can stay until you’re ready to go.”
Today has given me courage, and I’ve already leaned on my assistant enough. “No, I insist. Go home. I’m good on my own.”
She hesitates. “Are you sure?”
I smile. “Yeah, I am. I need to do this.”
Sarah studies my face for a moment before nodding. “Okay. But lock up behind me.”
“I will.”
And I do. I lock both doors—the outer and the interior one to my office. I throw myself into typing up my notes for the day, and before I know it, more than an hour and a half has gone by, and I only have one more patient to write up.
But then I hear a knock.
And not the outer door to my office suite, which I locked.
My interior one.
Someone is inside.
It’s so faint I’m talking myself into believing I’ve imagined it.
Until it happens a second time.
“I know you’re in there, Dr. McCall.”
Rebecca.
Oh God!
I stop breathing and don’t move a muscle.
How did she get in? Did Sarah lock the outer office when she left and I unlocked it, thinking I was doing the opposite? Or did Rebecca break in? And oh God. That time my door was open at my apartment—was that her, too?
The room is so quiet it makes me wish the angry clock was back.
Maybe she’ll go away.
If I stay quiet, maybe she’ll go away.
The door handle jiggles.
“I just want to talk, Dr. McCall.”
I reach for my cell phone and dial a nine and a one, but my hand is shaking so badly I drop the damn thing on my desk before I can hit the last number. It bangs loudly. I can’t pretend I’m not here anymore.
“Go away!” I yell. “I’m calling the police.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to tell you the whole story, fill in all the missing pieces. About Gabriel.” She pauses. “And Ellen. And little Rose. You’re still my doctor, and I trust you.”
Those names—Gabriel. Ellen. Rose. They hang in the air, floating like the apple on the tree in front of Eve. I know it’s calculated. Rebecca’s trying to lure me in, just like she’s done since the beginning with her stories that would feel so relatable to me—because I was treating the man she was talking about, and she knew it.
Yet I find myself walking toward the door. But I don’t open it. “Say whatever you want to say and leave.”
There’s a long stretch of silence before she speaks again. I push my ear against the door so I won’t miss a word.
“That night—the night his wife died—she was going to leave him. After I told Ellen about Gabriel and me, how in love we were, she left. His wife left with their daughter. I followed them for blocks. She had a bag with her. She called someone and told them that she was really leaving him this time. That he’d had another affair and she was done. She was angry, so, so angry. But then he called. Gabriel. And she started to cry. I could hear him on speakerphone apologizing and feeding Ellen all of these lies about how much he loved her and how sorry he was and how the affair meant nothing. He was going to do everything in his power to get her back. And I couldn’t have that. Gabriel loves me. He just felt obligated to her.”