by E. G. Scott
Naturally, the more I fell for Peter, the more I wanted to know about him. But my curiosity seemed to be pushing him away, and I always feared coming off as needy. So I reserved my musings about who he was for Rachel, who was just as fascinated and excited about him as I was. She was so happy to see how happy I was, considering the depressed, adrift woman I was when she and I met, who swore she’d never be in a relationship again. It had taken a lot of healing, but I was ready.
After a few minor Peter disappointments—broken plans, unpredictable moodiness, and short disappearances—Rachel’s fascination morphed into suspicion, which stoked my own. I continued monitoring how much I told her. I wanted to keep my feelings about him separate from hers. The more serious Peter and I got in between his assignments, the less I shared with Rachel. I was so enamored with him that I kind of glossed over the fact that I was placing an ever-growing wedge between Rachel and me by holding back. If pressed, I’d feed her curated information and details that weren’t always completely truthful, or lean toward painting him in a positive light. Or I optimistically painted him as the man I knew he could be if he wasn’t so stressed and overworked. But Rachel’s no slouch, and she knew something was amiss. You can’t mind meld with someone regularly like she and I do and not have them pick up on a shift in energy like the one that was happening with me.
Now that things felt so unsure with him, I wish I had been up-front all along. If I tell her everything now, I know she’ll assume the worst and tell me as much.
“Are you going to have a real talk with him when he’s back on the grid?” Rachel’s tone is tentative. She’s sensed my defensiveness about this particular topic the past few times she and I have mulled it over and has been careful about bringing it up.
“I need to find the right time to do it. But, yes.”
“What will you say?” She’s twisting and untwisting a length of curl between her fingers, examining the hairs for any split ends. There are none.
“I’m going to tell him that I need him to show up in this relationship. That the long-distance thing isn’t working anymore.”
“Good.” She nods approvingly while I break for a sip of chai.
I hesitate. “I’ll tell him that I want all of the normal relationship milestones.”
“Great. Love it. What else?”
I feel my throat constricting slightly. “Um. That I want him to meet my friends, and I need to meet some of his, before we go any further.” I know my growing defensiveness stems from my frustration with myself. For letting my relationship with him get as serious as it has without knowing very much about him, for allowing things to get as far as they have with the obvious red flags apparent.
“Are you going to ask him for some proof about his job?” She’s edging into territory that I don’t like. I’m started to feel strangled by all of the repressed feelings snaking up my esophagus.
I put my hand lightly on her upper arm, to reinforce my love for her, and mete out each word carefully. “Honey, I told you this. He texted me pictures of his work ID, and plane tickets and his passport, last month.” And he had, after some uncomfortable exchanges between him and me and a few days of not hearing from him. But I was glad I’d pushed. Seeing these objects reassured me that he wasn’t a figment of my imagination or a con artist. He’d gotten in the habit of sending me links to national news stories to give me vague hints of what was taking him away from me.
“Right. Right. You never showed them to me. I forgot he had.” We both know that she hasn’t forgotten anything, and I know she’s angling to see the proof herself, but I’d decided I needed to keep some parts of him to myself. Now I’m getting frustrated, and kind of pissed. I wouldn’t show her the images, even if I had saved them, on principle.
“Can we change the subject? I’ve got too much noise in my head from yesterday.” I rub my temples with some of the essential oil remnants on my wrist.
“Of course.” She squeezes my hand supportively and releases it to pull a carrot and pumpkin seed muffin from the wax paper bag. She tears it in two and hands me one of the halves. I accept.
She chews her muffin slowly, and I can tell that she isn’t going to change the subject. “You know, honey. I wonder if Peter came into your life to help you finally get over everything with Henry and what happened?”
“How do you mean?”
“Sometimes we meet people who hold a mirror up to us, right? They force us to see the things we don’t want to about ourselves. Make us confront who we really are. And if you are frustrated with Peter—”
“I didn’t say I was frustrated,” I say, annoyed.
She effortlessly detaches from my tension and stays sunny. “What’s Peter’s sign again?”
“Gemini,” I say through an aggressive bite of muffin.
“Hmm. Right. It’s a tricky sign, especially with Sagittarius.” She considers.
I’ve never fully embraced Rachel’s tendency toward the esoteric. This skepticism has kept me feeling like something of an outsider in our world of alternative healers. It isn’t that I’m close-minded or completely nonbelieving—switching from Western to Eastern medicine prompted a major adjustment in my attitude about the mystical, unseen side of life. But it’s a lot to embrace, and my roots in science and analytic thinking often hold me back from viewing the world at the same cosmic level as Rachel. And this is one of the many reasons she has been so important in my healing. After everything happened, I wanted to believe in something bigger than myself. I wanted to see the mystical power of things outside conventional wisdom and thinking, to internalize the self-compassion and forgiveness so badly. But that is no easy feat coming out of twelve years of hardwired “God complex” training. Ironically, I think my relationship with Peter has helped me open my mind much more to the power of the unseen. Being with him has required a major leap of faith into the unknown, for sure.
“Rach, I want you to be happy for me. I’m really in love.”
“I’m happy you are in love, honey. I get it. Just because I haven’t had a serious boyfriend since the Clinton administration doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten the thrill of it. If you are happy, then I am. I just wish he’d walk through the door already. I know his absence has been tough on you.”
Strangely, the image of Peter walking through the door plays out vividly in my mind as Jack walking through the office door yesterday. There’s that excited tickle of a feeling again that I want to squash. I feel guilty and ashamed to be thinking about this other man.
“Oh, that reminds me, did a guy come into the office yesterday afternoon to make an appointment?” I see her look down at her pocket, where her phone is. She takes it out of her jacket and looks at it quickly before replacing it. “Rach?” I push gently.
“Nope.” She’s elsewhere. “No one came into the office when I was there. I walked out with Lucy and locked up, assuming you wouldn’t be coming back. Were you expecting someone?”
“No. Well, I thought maybe Peter was going to surprise me yesterday. Anyway, this guy came in when I was in the middle of Lucy’s session and he was kind of pushy and wanted to schedule an appointment. I asked him to schedule online, but he was insistent that he was going to come back in person.”
“Huh. That’s the first walk-in we’ve had in a while. Maybe your luck is changing.” Appropriately, the wind has picked up and Rachel’s curls are dancing around her face. She looks like a Greek goddess.
“Yeah. I mean I should be happy about any potential patients, but something about this one got under my skin.” I’m not sure how much I want to reveal to her, but I find myself wanting to talk about him.
“Under your skin in a good or bad way?”
“A little bit of both, I guess.” I’m honest.
“What in particular?” she cues.
“He was really confident, annoyingly so. But also really magnetic. And he was doing this thing—he ke
pt stroking his chin like he had a beard—that I found kind of creepy until he said he’d just shaved his beard.”
She stops nodding and looks alarmed momentarily.
“And he has these ridiculously bright green eyes. Piercing.”
Rachel’s expression changes, but I can’t decipher into what.
“What?” I ask.
“Oh, nothing. My mind is wandering. Sorry. I’m a bit scattered today.”
“Everything okay?” I ask, concerned and hopeful that she is going to fill me in on whatever she’s been hiding from me.
“Oh, totally. I haven’t been sleeping well. That’s all.” She shivers. “I’m getting chilly. How about you?”
I nod slowly, unsatisfied with her evasiveness. “Let’s head back inside,” I say, and she follows me back into the house.
“I’ve got to pee. Be back in a flash,” she says.
I feel frustrated but attempt to shake it off and make my way to my laptop and open it to see what my schedule is shaping up like for the next few days, fully expecting that it will be more of the same. One client a day, if I’m lucky. I open the tab with an ad for my treatment-room space for rent and work on the wording. I need to try to get in a practitioner who actually has clients and make up the money I haven’t been able to get together to pay rent.
Then I see that there is a new appointment notification. Tomorrow at nine thirty A.M., for Dr. Jack Doyle. He’s a doctor. Of course he is.
EIGHT
SILVESTRI
“You a regular around these parts?” We’re back in the park where our Jane Doe was found, and my partner’s calling out to a young woman dressed in a pair of shorts and a Windbreaker as he flashes his badge.
“Sure am. I run the tennis program here,” she answers as she approaches.
“You must be wrapping up the season pretty soon,” I say, rubbing my hands together.
“Yes,” she says. “We’re at the tail end.” She looks to Wolcott, then back to me. “Is everything okay, Detectives?”
I pull the phone out of my pocket and turn it toward her. “Does this woman look familiar?”
She considers it for a moment before her eyes widen. “Oh goodness,” she laments.
“You recognize her?” I ask.
“I’m pretty sure, yes. I think she volunteered at the community garden down the way there.” She points in the direction of the garden, shaking her head. “I would see her here on her lunch break now and again. What happened?”
Wolcott shakes his head. “That’s the question.”
* * *
“Okay, folks. We’re on root-vegetable duty today. Give a holler if you need anything.”
As we near the garden, the director is setting her team up for the afternoon. She stands in front of a greenhouse abutting a planting bed. She sees us approaching and eyes our outfits.
“You’re a little overdressed for digging around in the dirt, fellas.” She gives Wolcott the old up and down. “Especially you, Dapper Don.”
Wolcott responds by flashing his shield. “Afraid we’re here on a different sort of chore.”
She studies it, then smirks. “This place isn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity.” Then, looking around: “Forgive the pun.”
“Not half bad,” I say, before pulling up the shot of our Jane Doe. “I need to ask if this woman looks familiar.”
She studies the image for a moment before her face drops. “Oh no.” She sighs. Her chin falls to her chest as she lets out a deep exhale. “I had a bad feeling.”
“Would you like to sit down?” asks Wolcott, indicating a wooden stool next to the greenhouse.
“I think I ought to,” she says, as we help her to her seat.
“We understand that this woman—”
“Brooke,” she interrupts, dazed. “Brooke Harmon is her name.”
“I see,” continues Wolcott as he slips out a notebook and jots down the information. “We understand that Miss Harmon was a volunteer here?”
“She certainly was. Big part of this organization. I mean, not just the garden, but the whole community of volunteers. She’d only been with us for about six months, but it felt like she was here from the start. She’d really turned a corner.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, Brooke originally came to us as part of her community service requirement, but quickly fell in love with gardening. It became a therapeutic practice for her. She’d recently finished her required hours but had decided to stay on with us.”
“Community service?” I say. “Can you tell us what Miss Harmon was in for?”
“Aggravated harassment. I will say, when Brooke was first assigned here, she was quite angry. But I watched her really grow, in an emotional sense, over the course of her time here.” Her shock appears to be morphing into anger. She looks me in the eye intently. “Detective, what happened?”
“We’re working on piecing that together now, ma’am. Can you tell me the last time you saw Miss Harmon?”
“Day before yesterday,” she answers. “Brooke left a little early, said she wasn’t feeling so hot. Seemed agitated.”
My partner looks at me, then to the garden director. “And what time would that have been?”
She thinks for a moment. “She normally gets off at five. I guess it would have been around four or so. I remember looking at my watch and thinking it was unusual. She never left early.”
Wolcott writes in his notebook before addressing her again. “Had she been feeling unwell lately, or just that day?”
“She had some respiratory issues but was in good health otherwise, as far as I knew. Great energy, very active.”
“I see,” says Wolcott. “And do you know what Miss Harmon did for work, outside of here?”
“She had some sort of administrative assistant position,” she says vaguely.
“And she lived here in town?”
“Just over in Port Jeff.”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “Now, when I showed you her photo a moment ago, you mentioned having had a bad feeling. Can you elaborate?”
She looks off into the distance, then back to us. “The last couple of days she seemed rattled and on edge, which I noticed because it was so unlike her. It reminded me of the Brooke who first came to us.”
“Any idea if she was having trouble in her personal life?” my partner asks.
“I’m afraid I don’t really keep tabs on that sort of thing with the volunteers.” She shakes her head before her eyebrows perk up. “Although she and Julie were pretty close. I think they may have started socializing outside of their hours here. Excuse me for a moment. I’ll grab you her contact info.”
As she dips into the greenhouse, Wolcott leans toward me casually, speaking just above a whisper. “With the timeline she’s giving us, sounds like our friend here could have been one of the last people to see our victim alive.”
The garden director returns with a slip of paper. “I wrote down the address and phone number on file for Julie Merrill,” she says, handing the paper to my partner. “She may be able to answer some of your questions better than I can. And I put my info down as well. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any more questions. I’m happy to help. Brooke was a real doll.”
“Much appreciated.” He nods. “And thank you for your time.”
“Think nothing of it.”
As she turns back toward the greenhouse, I stop her with a thought. “Just out of curiosity,” I ask, “do you grow deadly nightshade here in the garden?”
She looks at me as if I’ve just stepped on a rake and smacked myself in the face with the handle. “No, we avoid that stuff. It can kill you, you know.”
NINE
Trauma Survivors Private Chat Room: 10/3/19
11:30 a.m
Woundedhealer: Hi, ladies.
Maxin
eKD: How are you?
Woundedhealer: Things are still feeling out of sorts. I’m trying not to spiral.
Makeupyourmindcontrol: Something is in the air. I keep thinking about that Disney movie from the eighties, “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” They used to put it on at school assemblies when Flag Day was rained out.
Miserylovescompany: Well, that is completely weird and random.
Makeupyourmindcontrol: I never claimed to be anything other than.
Biggirlsdontcry54: Things are always weird by me. But, I’m a weirdo. And I was homeschooled, so I have no idea what “Flag Day” is.
MaxineKD: I preferred the book. Bradbury is everything.
Woundedhealer: I’ll have to add it to my list. So, is Harmnoone82 ok? I haven’t seen her on here in a few days.
Makeupyourmindcontrol: She was having a rough one the other night. But the proverbial wagons were circled and all is okay.
Woundedhealer: ????
Makeupyourmindcontrol: Well, I was half in the bag, so no help, but MaxineKD and Biggirlsdontcry54 came to her rescue.
MaxineKD: It was no big deal. We had an impromptu “ladies’ night out.”
Woundedhealer: Really? Wow. Sorry I missed it. Although, meeting up in person sounds kind of strange.
Miserylovescompany: Strange, huh? Thanks a lot!
Woundedhealer: No offense! It’s just that we’ve all been confiding in each other for a while now without ever meeting, and you all know more about me than anyone else. The veil of the computer being lifted feels . . . intimidating . . . exposing?
Makeupyourmindcontrol: I know what you mean, Woundedhealer. And I don’t want any of you to find out that I’m actually a creepy middle-aged man pretending to be a single mom with a taste for boxed merlot and Lifetime movies.